Trudeau will have to face history of residential school abuse

People stand around shoes that honor all the missing indigenous children during the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada,

The residential school system in Canada has impacted multiple generations of indigenous peoples, to whom this land actually belongs to. This has caused long-term detrimental effects.

More than three years ago, unmarked graves containing the remains of 215 children were found in Canada at a former residential school which was set up to assimilate Indigenous Canadians, sending shock waves across the world against the so called civilized white outsider Canadians of European origin.

In late October, Canada’s Office of the Special Interlocutor concluded that the indigenous children who died and were buried at residential schools are not “missing” but were systematically “disappeared,” urging the government to make reparations.

Garry Gottfriedson, a residential school survivor from the Secwepemc Nation, recalled his past bitter experience and his expectation of the present Canadian government under Trudeau.

He talks about life in a residential school and how it affected his later life.Gottfriedson was there from the age of five. He had older brothers and sisters that were already there.

It was very, very scary to him when he first walked in, because the first thing that happened was that he was told he was never to talk to his sisters or any girls.

The first thing they did was split up his family. Then, the children were forced into Christian religion. It was very scary because in Christian religion, they talked about the devil and made the devil sound so terrible to the children.

They frightened them a lot. They were very much afraid of going to hell and burning forever as these terrible demons were going to capture him. When you’re a child, your imagination is very strong.

They were taught how to work in gardens, fields and shops. The actual education was not that good. They didn’t get very much reading, writing, math, science or social studies or anything.

It was mostly religion. The goal of the residential schools was only to get the children to be peasants in the country and even below the peasants. That early experience set the stage for a very difficult future.

The residential schools played a huge role in destroying the indigenous culture of the original Canadians.The most harmful effect of these schools was on Human Rights.

Gottfriedson remembers his grandmother, who died in 1969, telling him that in the 1920s the Canadian government and the Christian church gathered all of their spiritual objects – drums, rattles, prayer pipes, anything to do with indigenous culture and religion – and burnt everything in front of everybody. After that, they forbade them to speak their language, to practice their culture.

Now, when the present generation speak the original language of Canada, they are not as fluent as they possibly could be. Parents wouldn’t let them speak the Canadian language as they were afraid.

White outsider Canadians of European descents had spies within the community of the Original Canadians that would tell the priest and the policeman because it was forbidden for the original Canadians to speak their language.

Everything was done in secret, everything went underground. The residential schools created a division within the family instead of teaching about how to be a family.

Whites took away the Canadian language and culture. All of the people that went through the residential school system did not know how to interact between male and female, so abuse became an issue.

Family structures began to break down. Community structures began to break down. The severity of the treatment of original Canadian people in residential schools resulted in alcoholism, suicides and murders.

Laws in Canada enacted by outsiders, the Indian Act, the Potlatch Ban, the Residential School Act, support a process of genocide in Canada and the complete destruction and violation of a human race. It’s a complete violation of human rights of the original Canadians.

That any culture goes out deliberately to destroy another culture completely is an act against human rights in itself. We not only have human rights in terms of the physical aspect, but the intellectual aspect as well as the spiritual aspect.

Those are all violations against human rights. The Canadian Government of the outsiders failed to address the issue of abuses in these residential schools.

In fact the government of the outsiders did an excellent job of hiding Indigenous policy from the public. It was not taught in schools.

It was never talked about in Canadian history, so Canadians who are descendants of outsiders themselves don’t know what happened to the original Canadians.

What they do know is that original Canadians were “savages” and that we were bad.

The 215 bodies were from the same community. When Gottfriedson was a little kid, they were told never to be alone, because kids disappeared and they were killed and they buried in the school orchard.

The general public in Canada was shocked when that was in the media. But the Canadian government of the outsiders tried to downplay it.

It hid that part of history from the general people in Canada, because Canada doesn’t want the world to think that it is bad. It did this to save its own “ European” image, so the world would not see that is bad in any way. It’s an embarrassment to all the decent people in Canada.

The Government have a lot of explaining to do to their own people here in Canada. And there’s a movement of different people within universities to talk about Outside Canadian’s role in genocide pertaining to original Canadians here.

The public is starting to understand this is a part of history that they didn’t know about. They’re trying to hold the country accountable for it. It has made a huge impact across the country.

Now the issue will be never be forgotten, because there are too many people that are becoming aware of it now. The descendants of outsider Canadians will have to eternally face it within the country.

And then at some point, they’re going to have to face the rest of the world and say this is a dirty part of the European Colonizer’s history, things are going to move forward in some way.

Original Canadians have to fight and have to fight hard. The consequence is that Canada is going to get stuck in a very ugly situation internationally and nationally.

Canada’s image and reputation, especially under the current Prime Minister Trudeau is going to be tarnished on an international level.

People in Canada right now are losing a lot of faith in Trudeau’s government, because he keeps trying to hide things. In an era when Human Rights are highly valued, it will become very tough for Trudeau and his gang to avoid such issues.

Other countries especially China and India must hold Canada accountable. They must tell Trudeau point blank that he has got no place to talk on a world level about human rights unless he cleans up his own house.

The Canadian government should acknowledge it, deal with it, make things correct.

Trudeau must get rid of these oppressive policies that are still alive in Canada along with his support to terrorism today. Trudeau must halt promoting white supremacy in any manner.