The Survivors Speak

200 • Truth & Reconciliation Commission
and I could see that difference. It was, like, it was so much lighter, and I could see that in
the children. They were so much freer.” 731
Velma Jackson was placed in the Blue Quills school after the death of her grandmother.
She came from a different community than most of the other students at the school, and
felt she was treated as an outsider. By then, many members
of the supervisory staff were Aboriginal. In her
opinion, they tended to favour their relatives. She also
said the supervisors used to bring alcohol into the
school on weekends. “And these were our own Native
people that were running the school. It was, I just felt so
totally lost there.… That’s where I became an alcoholic
was at Blue Quills, ’cause it was brought there all the
time. I bet you, you can go there and check in the bird
sanctuary, and it’ll be filled with beer bottles.” 732
Amber K. K. Pelletier, who was the youngest Survivor
Velma Jackson.
to provide the Commission with a statement, attended
the residence operated by the Marieval Community
Education Centre on the Cowessess First Nation from 1993 to 1997. She said that a number
of the long-disliked policies were still in practice at the residence. For example, the school
had retained the policy of cutting students’ hair when they first arrived, and assigning
them numbers. According to Pelletier, in the 1990s, “We could tell when the keepers were
mad because they would, they would use our number to call us or to talk to us. In breakfast
line or supper, dinner line, if we were acting up they’d say, ‘Number 20.’ And then you just
stopped whatever you were doing.”
She also felt that the behaviour of some staff members was objectionable.
And then the keepers, some of them would come
around and tuck you in and they would give you a
kiss on the cheek and they would say, “I love you.”
I remember the first night I was just lying there and
they were doing that. And I, I was thinking, that
lady’s going to come and, that lady’s going to come
around my bed. So by the third, fourth day I figured
out that if I threw my blankets over my head and
looked tucked in, then you know, all the work was
done. And then I would just have to listen to their
steps, ’cause it would take one, two, three steps to
get to my bed from the next bed. And I could just
peek and say, “I love you, goodnight.” And they
wouldn’t have to, they wouldn’t kiss me. 733
Amber K. K. Pelletier.