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Recently, the seven national events held across Canada through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) have helped to map out the vast, impact of the former residential school system in Canada. Through this dialectic process, many non-Aboriginal Canadians are beginning to understand and imagine the depth of horrendous issues related to Canada’s Residential School system, such as the reported and experienced: high mortality rates, alienation from culture and family, harmful medical procedures, intergenerational continuing impact, as well as physical and sexual abuse. While the tragedies for many Aboriginal students and families today seem unfathomable, I believe that Canada as a whole stands on the precipice of another tragedy yet to come, one that depends upon the possibility of non-Aboriginal Canadians choosing not to engage with this part of Canada’s history and it’s legacies.
But before I begin discussing why and how I believe that many non-Aboriginal Canadians should engage with the social and political changes that are happening now, I want to clarify to whom I am writing this. This article does not reflect my beliefs about how Canada should change at an institutional level, nor am I able to say what it is that each individual that has been affected by Canada’s racist legal and social policies thinks will help them in healing. Rather, this article reflects my own experiences and I hope it can act as a suggestion and starting point for non-Aboriginal Canadians, particularly, university students who don’t yet know how they should try to engage with these issues or why their involvement is crucial.
Firstly, the presentation and sharing of experiences through the TRC may promote some degree of healing for members of Aboriginal communities who may feel they need to share, but reconciliation, or rather conciliation, is a process that depends on the contribution of all Canadians. The logic behind the need for all Canadians to participate in this process is just as simple as the way that current Canadian school systems teach children and youth that even those who stand and watch without intervening a bully harm another child are just as responsible for the event, as the instigator. If Canadians measure themselves by the standards we aim to set for the next generations, then it is the responsibility of all Canadians to try to understand Canada’s long discriminatory and abusive history with various Aboriginal peoples, and non-aboriginal Canadians own roles in these issues. This is because of the way that most Canadians have in the past and likely still do engage with systems that privilege non-Aboriginal Canadian above Aboriginal peoples.
A personal example of this is how Canada’s legal system has privileged immigrants – such as my family – in granting us access to Canada’s many resources. This ideology that led to rights being given to groups has its origins in 1971, when Pierre Elliot Trudeau announced the policy of multiculturalism would be implemented in Canada. However, the last residential school in Canada didn’t close until 1996. This means that as immigrants, my sister and I had the legally protected right to be a part of Canada’s public school system, while many Aboriginal children who were my own age, were still likely dealing with the unaddressed intergenerational effects of the Canada’s Residential School system, which may have negatively affected their own educational experiences.
Ultimately, if Canadians including myself want to truly show that we believe in equality and freedom of expression that underlines those legal policies that support multiculturalism, then we must stand up for the application of those ideologies to all Canadians. This cannot be done without addressing the barriers that any Canadians feel prevent them from accessing the power of these ideologies, such as in the various forms of trauma caused by the Residential School system that persist today.
All this talk about non-Aboriginal Canadians living up to what we teach our children today may sound pretty basic. Yet, amid the questioning surrounding the TRC such how is it funded and how is it possible to piece together the vast amount of individual narratives emerging, in my recent experiences on campus, many non-Aboriginal students have been having a hard time knowing how to plug in to these issues.
Perhaps this fearfulness of engaging with the ideas and movements that are arising out of the TRC is due to the way that many scholarly disciplines rely on a critical distance as an essential tool to arrive at understanding. This distance may be accentuated by the indirect mode of learning of some students, (particularly Arts students) who rely much more on readings than direct contact with the subjects of their courses. Subsequently, as students, perhaps we are afraid that if we engage with the complex issues being experienced right here and now, we will lose sight of how to understand them, and will ultimately not know if we are harming or helping others with our intervening actions.
However, the point that I’ve been leading up to is this: that critical distance is already gone, because most Canadians are all already involved, and that a lack of engagement is a choice – one that keeps us in line with that history of being again those sideline bullies. This is the time when action should be taken because a lack of doing so can only really result in a future that, while being more comfortably distant at a books length, will likely be much grimmer for all Canadians, and perhaps unjustly more so for Aboriginal Canadians.
Today, the potential for this is heightened by the possible consequence of the Canadian government and contributing financial sponsors of events who could soon point to the TRC as a reference to their concern for Aboriginal interests in Canada. This, of course, could be regardless of what people have felt by that time that conciliation was actually achieved through the TRC.
Thus, the TRC could become a tool for some of those historical instigating bullies in a future round two, where the TRC masks the continuity of unresolved Aboriginal issues and the insincerity of the intentions of those instigators when they reveal their plans to extract or transport resources across Aboriginal lands. But for now, this is only a single possibility – and luckily, one that is standing side by side with various ways of getting off of those sidelines and facing issues in sensitive and empathetic manners.
So how can empathy and sensitivity be used in bridging the gap between the written and reality?
My advice would be to start with building an emotional connection to the findings of the TRC, and then seeing how this can inspire you to act. Honestly, I have gone to many TRC related events, and there seems to be no consensus on how non-Aboriginal Canadians should act upon the knowledge that they gain from the TRC. In fact, the attitudes of many involved or interested with the TRC seems to be that it is really now up to each individual in finding a way of changing their worlds according to their reactions. But, of course this philosophy is no stranger to UBC students, and its responsibility shouldn’t deter anyone who wants to get involved – Tuum Est!
In my opinion, the best places to go to develop a deeper sense of emotional connection to the TRC are places that house memory and expression. On campus, I would recommend visiting the “Speaking to Memory” exhibit at the Museum of Anthropology or “Witnesses” at the Belkin Art Gallery. These places also often hold events that can provide deeper insights and various personal perspectives into Canada’s Residential School system, and they house objects that have stirred up a profound empathy within me for the individuals that are expressing themselves and are portrayed by these pieces.
Most importantly, my empathy in these spaces seems to not depend upon the history of my family, but rather, reached deeper into my understanding of all human potential to do harm, to be harmed and to try to prevent harm. Often, I find myself to be equally taken by the unique creations, experiences, and perspectives of others, as well as by the piercing reflection I see of myself in of this triad of human potential present. It seems likely due to the two factors: the space created by the interpretive relationship between art and the viewer, and this universality of human potential, that I believe anyone can have these types of powerful and empathetic experiences at the Belkin and MOA.
Even after these experiences, for me, that awkwardness and tension created by not knowing how to feel about the Kinder-Morgan Energy Partner’s contributions to the TRC, or not knowing how to do something impactful and sensitive in response, didn’t go away. For the sake of full disclosure, I should probably mention that it took me over three weeks to bring myself to conceive of and write this article, because I have been struggling with all of these issues so profoundly. However, the more I let myself connect to and feel issues related to the TRC, the more I come to know that I cannot forget, ignore, or pass up an opportunity to listen to more perspectives and experiences about them of enter into a dialogue about them.
I will say that at times when I feel discouraged about not knowing yet how to approach these problems, or what to do at this moment, I am comforted by two ideas. The first are my experiences with people who choose to identify themselves as residential cchool survivors, and who have had to deal with much pain as children and as adults, yet, they have found the strength to build their lives into something that makes them happy, and in some cases have built their lives around helping others. These individuals are truly inspiring in my mind, and I am simply humbled to have met them.
The second are the words of J. R. R. Tolkien, who wrote, “[some believe] it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.” Perhaps, in the context of the TRC being a movement made up of so many voices, in conjunction with the pervasiveness of related issues to all aspects of life, it is the small acts towards each of these directions that can be profoundly powerful – but don’t take my word for it.