Indigenous elders, leaders in N.L. urge conversation, action on National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
CBC
Warning: This story contains distressing details.
As the first-ever National Truth and Reconciliation Day gets underway in Newfoundland and Labrador, Indigenous people from across the province are urging everyone to observe, reflect and take action well beyond the new sombre statutory holiday.
Schools and government offices are closed across the province, giving people time to consider the impacts of the Canadian residential school system, which separated Indigenous children for generations from their families and cultures and forced them into institutions where many experienced trauma and abuse.
"This day will mark a beginning of something that's going to be a lot better than the past. The more we talk about it, we'll make sure it's never forgotten," said Mi'sel Joe, the sagamaw of Miawpukek First Nation on Newfoundland's south coast.
Five residential schools operated in Labrador between 1949 and 1979. The schools were outside of the national system of federally-funded institutions, with those in Labrador either run by the Moravian mission or the International Grenfell Association.
Survivors of those schools fought for recognition and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau formally apologized in 2017, nearly a decade after an apology was issued to Indian residential school survivors.
"Former students in Labrador really wanted to make it clear that what they experienced, the neglect, the abuse, perhaps the trauma, social disruption that these schools caused was equivalent," said Andrea Proctor, the author of A Long Journey: Residential Schools in Labrador and Newfoundland.
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