My first experience with the Truth & Reconciliation Commission
Well, I’m back and I’m blogging about Indigenous Justice and Residential Schools. As you saw last year, I’ve been called “offensive as a Canadian” for speaking about the situation of Aboriginal peoples in this country today. And in the past.
This weekend, I’m attending Canada’s Truth & Reconciliation Commission. It’s the last national gathering, taking place in Edmonton, Alberta. I’m learning more and more about Canada’s shameful history of residential schools, when we tried “to kill the Indian in the child.”
But Aboriginal peoples are resilient. They are survivors. They are still here. The designers of the residential school system have failed.
I feel so privileged to be spending time with this amazing woman – Leading Elder Lorna Standingready – this weekend. Tomorrow I’m sitting down with her for an hour interview as she tells me her story of spending 10 years in residential schools.
More writings and reflections to come. In the meantime, follow my work tweets and Facebook posts, and check out more of the videos I’m filming on the official United Church of Canada youtube channel.
Will write more tomorrow – there’s so much to say and so much still to learn. I am a non-Aboriginal witness, and that is a role I take very seriously. It’s the least I can do as I grapple with my own responsibility, and that of my ancestors, in the treatment of the First Nations people of Canada.
Posted on March 29, 2014, in Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment.
Kaitlin Geiger-Bardswich 
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