The Survivors Speak

154 • Truth & Reconciliation Commission
While some sexual abusers carefully recruited their victims, providing them with treats
and small favours, others made use of threats and physical force. At the Fort Albany school,
one of the lay brothers cornered Josephine Sutherland in the school garage.
I couldn’t call for help, I couldn’t. And he did awful things to me, and I was just a little
girl, not even thirteen years old yet, and he did something to me that the experience
as having a horrible pain. You know he got me from the back, and he was holding me
down with his, covering my mouth, and, you know, and, and I couldn’t yell out. I was
so stunned, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t. 544
One former student said he was sexually abused by a staff member of the Blue Quills
school when he was five years old. His abuser told him that if he did not submit, “he’s
gonna smack me, you know, he was gonna strap me.” 545
Marie Therese Kistabish said she was sexually abused in the church confessional at the
Amos school. “The priest was there. He told me to kneel down. I knelt, and then he began
to raise up his, his robes, his tunic, it was a long black tunic, and when he started to raise
the tunic, I started shouting and crying, yelling, so he let me go.” 546
As a student at the Fort Frances school in the 1960s, Richard Morrison said, he was
called into a change room by a staff member. Once he was in the room, a bag was put over
his head and his clothes were removed.
I remember that he had struggled with me really, really hard and I fought back and
fought back and I don’t know how long it was, I just fought and pretty soon he just, I
don’t know what he did, he had restrained me somehow. And when that happened,
he had sexually abused me, he penetrated me and I was just, all I remember was just
a pain. A pain was just strong. It was really hurtful and I remember that day after that
I was a very, very angry kid. 547
At the Qu’Appelle school, Raynie Tuckanow said, he witnessed staff committing sadistic
acts of abuse.
But I know what they did. I know what they did to me and I know what they did to
others, too. Looking up here, just like that up here, I watched the young man. They
tied him. And I know him today, I see him today. They tied him by his ankles and they
tied him to the [heat] register and they put him out the window with a broomstick
handle shoved up his ass. And I witnessed that. 548
Leonard Peter Alexcee was abused at the Alberni school. The abuse began one night
when a staff member tapped him on the shoulder and told him it was time for him to take
a shower.
Middle of the night. So, I thought that was one of the things going on there. I’ll go
back a bit. First morning, he woke us up about 6:30. Take us down to the playroom
and this big, big guy. I was a small, very small, but you know and he start pushing me
around, pushing me around, slapping me. “Come on! Let’s fight,” he said. “I’m the
boss here.” There was no kids in the playroom. They’re all looking through the little