Honouring the Truth Reconciling for the Future

334 • Truth & Reconciliation Commissionsevere punishment for speaking one’s language, living one’s spirituality, seekingout one’s siblings. We heard about forced feeding, physical and sexual abuse.And we heard about deaths. We heard about forgiving as a way to move on andwe heard from those who felt that they would never be able to forgive. I could notand cannot imagine being taken away to a strange place as a five- or a six-yearold,never knowing why or for how long. Perhaps I remember most poignantlyRuth, who said simply, “I never thought I’d talk about this, and now I don’t thinkI’ll ever stop. But Canada is big. I’ll need some help.”Reconciliation is about Survivors speaking about their experiences, being heardand being believed, but it’s also about a national shared history. As Canadians,we must be part of reconciling what we have done collectively with who webelieve we are. To do that with integrity and to restore our honour, we must allknow the history so we can reunite these different Canadas. 203The Commission also heard from a variety of other Aboriginal and non-Aboriginalwitnesses from many walks of life. Some were there on behalf of their institution ororganization. Some had close personal or professional ties to Aboriginal people, andothers had none. Many said that the experience opened their eyes and was powerfullytransformative. They commented on how much they had learned by listening toSurvivors’ life stories. This was true for both non-Aboriginal witnesses and Aboriginalwitnesses whose own families had been impacted by the schools but who may havehad few opportunities to learn more about the residential schools themselves, especiallyin those many families where no one was yet willing or able to talk about it.At the 2011 Northern National Event in Inuvik, Therese Boullard, then the directorof the Northwest Territories Human Rights Commission, told us,We need to have an accurate record of history.... As long as there are some thatare in denial of what really happened, as long as we don’t have the full picture ofwhat happened, we really can’t move forward in that spirit of reconciliation.... Iwant to acknowledge these stories as gifts, a hand towards reconciliation. I thinkit’s amazing that after all that has passed, after all that you’ve experienced, thatyou would be willing to share your pain with the rest of Canada in this spirit ofopenness and reconciliation and in this faith that the government of Canada andnon-Aboriginal Canadians will receive them in a way that will lead to a betterrelationship in the future. That you have that faith to share your stories in thatspirit is amazing and it’s humbling and it’s inspiring and I just want to thankSurvivors for that. 204At the 2010 Manitoba National Event, Ginelle Giacomin, a high school historyteacher from Winnipeg who served as a private statement gatherer at the event, said,I was talking to a few students before I came this week to do this, and they said,“Well, what do you mean there are Survivors? That was a long time ago. Thatwas hundreds of years ago.” To them, this is a page in a history book.... So, I’m