On National Truth and Reconciliation day we reflect on Canada’s history of residential schools. Here at Rainbow Faith and Freedom we are spending today and everyday remembering and learning about the children who were abused or never came home and how this still impacts their families today. From 1831 to 1996 over 150,000 Indigenous children were ripped from their homes by the Canadian government and local Christian institutions and forced to attend residential schools. There, children were forbidden to speak their Indigenous language, were forced to cut their hair and disparage sacred Indigenous hair traditions, force themselves into a colonial hetoeronormative gender binary, forced to eat food they could not properly digest (if fed at all), perform hard labour, and locked in windowless rooms where they were subjected to sexual, physical and emotional abuse. DDT insecticide was used on their scalps; an agricultural insecticide that was banned in the 1970s due to health concerns. Thousands of children never came home from residential schools due to disease, fire, violence, and overall direct neglect. While it is hard to have an accurate number of those who died, we know it is well into the thousands. This does not include those who have died due to the intergenerational trauma caused by these schools.
Today we see the lingering effects of residential schools in the excessively high rates of Indigenous people in the Canadian carceral system, substance abuse, high suicide rates, a reliance on survival sex work*, and the amount of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. While progress has been made in reparations with the Indigenous people of Canada, not enough has been done. Turtle Island (commonly known as North America) was taken by force from the Indigenous people and colonized. For too long we have forgotten to look to our Indigenous communities for their wisdom. The Indigenous people had a dynamic and fluid understanding of gender and sexuality. They have taken care of our planet while colonizers have worked to destroy it.
Today on National Truth and Reconciliation Day and every other day of the year we must remember the strength and tenacity of our Indigenous communities. We must also work continuously to heal the wounds of residential schools and continuous marginalization of Indigenous peoples. If you or your organization are looking for a place to start we recommend visiting the Native Land website to learn more about the traditional land you live on.
We would like to acknowledge that most of the work of RFF takes place on the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.
*While RFF supports all sex workers in their agency we want to acknowledge that the ratio of Indigenous women in street-based sex work (which is incredibly dangerous due to the criminalization of sex work) is astronomically high.
To learn more about the 94 Calls to Action for Reconciling and to track how our government's progress visit: https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform-single/beyond-94?&cta=1
To donato to Indspire visit: https://indspire.ca/ways-to-give/donate/
Indspire is a Indigenous national charity that invests in the education of First Nations, Inuit and Métis people for the long-term benefit of these individuals, their families and communities, and Canada.