Residential impact on families

[projekktor id=’19335′]

A long-awaited report by the truth and reconciliation commission says the establishment and operation of Canada’s residential schools was nothing short of cultural genocide. The schools operated for more than 120 years, thousands of children died and many who lived through the experience say they endured physical and sexual abuse.

The details in today’s report aren’t new to many Aboriginal people but now that the facts are out for all to see, their communities are reeling with emotion.

Jonathan Garlow’s mother grew up in the Shingwauk residential school in Sioux Ste Marie. At 4 or 5, she was taken from her family on Manitoulin island, along with 10 siblings.

“Her mother died when my mother was 12. My grandmother was Potawatomi, she never spoke a word of English. So there was a geographical separation between my mother and her mother, but there was also a cultural and language barrier created by the Canadian state.”

In Ohsweken, 3 university students are conducting a survey. Even though they’re young, they’re still directly affected by the cultural genocide.

“When the children from residential schools became parents, they didn’t know how to parent, because they weren’t raised in a loving environment, so they got their children taken away. Now we have more children in child welfare than we ever had in residential schools.”