Thank you, Mr. Chair. I too would like to thank this government for the apology and, more importantly, hearing it from the Prime Minister of Canada. Again, you cannot replace the lives of the young individuals who have lost their lives, either at these residential schools or by way of problems that originate from a lot of these experiences. We’re still seeing it in today’s society. I think people can’t state, Oh well; we can compensate somebody. You can never replace a language, a culture, a way of life.
Again, we talk about a society in the Northwest Territories, and you look at other nations around the world — Africa or other countries of the world — where indigenous people have basically been able to sustain a traditional lifestyle that’s still unique to those different regions of the world, because they weren’t assimilated. I think you have to look at exactly how unique our aboriginal people are and what has happened to them. There are a lot of strong cultural communities that still retain their culture, their language, their different lifestyles, their ability to sustain themselves on the land and carry
out their traditional pursuits. Yet we have other cultures that have lost a lot of those unique values that every society has. By being able to say that you’re a Gwich’in or you’re an Inuvialuitan, you basically have a cultural background.
I’ll use my own example. The Gwich’in culture in Alaska is very traditional. They still retain their language, they still retain their traditional lifestyle, and a lot of them still depend on retaining their connection to the land and their survival on those lands to sustain themselves. Yet in the Northwest Territories we have almost lost our language, and we have a very poor connection to the values of the Gwich’in people. In Alaska they weren’t touched by residential schools like the people in Canada.
I think it’s important to realize that we, as government, as Northerners, can never lose sight of the effect this has had on aboriginal people. It has affected the mosaic of what the Northwest Territories could have been by way of having seven strong cultural groups, seven strong languages, seven strong unique aspects of how people were able to survive, maintain their lifestyle in the Northwest Territories and be able to celebrate those groups of people. I think, as a government, we still have an obligation and a responsibility to find ways of working with those people who have survived residential schools.
Mr. Menicoche asked why students today are still acting like they’re in residential school. One thing that was paramount in regard to people who are having problems today with alcoholism, drug abuse, violence, physical and emotional anger…. You can trace a lot of these things back to their great-grandparents. A lot of their great-grandparents were the ones who felt the bulk of residential schools by being removed from their home at the age of five. You never got to go back to your home communities to see your parents, see your siblings and see your relatives until you were 12. I think you have to put yourself in the shoes of those young children — to be removed at that age and not have an opportunity to see your parents, your brothers, your sisters, for seven years. That’s the reality of what the residential school has done to our people.
Like I stated, it’s going to take a while for us to really pinpoint the problems that residential schools have caused — but again, the element of being able to put your thumb on the problem is to do a mosaic of your family tree. You can ask: Why is it that there’s violence in my family? Why is it that there’s anger in my family? Why is it that we do not trust people, from the police to the justice system to teachers? I think a lot of this has to do with that experience, which has been with us for some time. It is going to take work to get around that.
As a government, we do have an obligation to do everything we can to deal with these issues that are still practiced today: socially, economically. Look at
the health statistics; look at the social statistics; look at our judicial statistics. Why is it that 85 per cent of people in jails in the Northwest Territories are aboriginal people, yet they make up 50 per cent of the population? Why is it that the health standards for aboriginal people are lower than for other Canadian citizens?
We cannot assume that by simply making an apology everything is made right. We do have a lot of work to do to improve that. More importantly, we have a lot of healing to do by way of governments, the churches, the communities and our families and the next generation of aboriginal children.
If we do not deal with this issue today, it will carry on to the next generation and seven generations forward. It’s something we can’t take lightly. As a government, we have had an apology. The question is: how real is that apology? Is there going to be a difference in attitude? Is there going to be a difference in how we deal with the social issues that still affect aboriginal communities and aboriginal people in the Northwest Territories and also in the rest of Canada?
I, for one, know that a lot of these issues stem from that experience. But again, people are trying to retain their language; people are trying to retain their cultures; people are making an attempt to deal with the social fabric of residential schools on our communities. As government, we have to realize that we have to put more focus, more emphasis…. I know people don’t want to hear about programs, but that’s what it’s going to take. If that means counselling programs, rehabilitation programs…. In light of institutional process, just look at what happened to people in regard to the Second World War, in regard to what is happening in other countries in the world when oppression takes hold of a society. That is nothing different from what we’ve done here in Canada and nothing different from what has happened to the residential school survivors in the Northwest Territories.
Mr. Chairman, I just would like to request that the government not lose sight of this issue. It has to be dealt with, and we in government have to change the attitudes of our society and, more importantly, our bureaucracy and the system of government. We have to take down those barriers that have kept people entrenched in a system that has destroyed the lives and the culture of our First Nations people. With that, thank you very much.