Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have jotted down a few notes. I will say some more later on to this motion.
From the early ‘60s through the late ‘70s, never have I imagined that a government, let alone people who would one day want to observe a day in the life of a student of a survivor of a residential school, like me who grew up in such an institution. There are many me’s in this situation.
Like I said earlier, when I was sitting home this weekend, we are the ones who made it out. As the saying goes, only the strongest survive, and we also had enough of carrying the whole world on our shoulders and we need to let it go and let’s get on with life. That’s why we are honouring the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. They are providing one of those avenues that allows us, and for this we say thank you to those who are involved with truth and reconciliation. We say thank you for the ones who fought for us. We say thank you for the ones who told us to speak up. We say thank you for the ones who told us to talk publicly and to say what it’s like for them. For that we say thank you for those who encouraged us.
May 26th , Mr. Speaker, should be marked in all of
our government institutions as a day to stop for a moment and to think of families, friends and the ones who aren’t here today with us. We need to honour, and we need to honour knowing those persons, because they went through what we went through. Every time you think back of a residential school, we think of names and we acknowledge the past and you have to move on, Mr. Speaker. Enough is enough.
This government, the federal government especially have been pushed by the former students of residential schools. We pushed them to educate the bureaucracy about what happened. We pushed them to let them know what kind of policies at one time was to believe was right, only to find out later on, as we got more educated, it was to get rid of people like me and get rid of the native people of everything. They even went so far as stealing our children and only to return them to their homes as strangers.
The federal government made the apologies four years ago, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed to hear the truth of what really happened in the schools and to record the experience of these schools. The cloak of darkness has been lifted and we must keep this cloak up as we need to allow the light to shine in these dark places of our souls to begin the path of forgiveness
and reconciliation and to allow our communities to heal.
So, Mr. Speaker, I stand here because of my will to live and my thanks to many people who have helped me and, of course, my mom and my grandparents. There are thousands of survivors in our communities, thousands who need a pat on the back and the recognition for being the ones who have gone to residential schools. We need to say thank you to those students for breaking trail for us. We need to say thank you, thank you, so that we can enjoy what we have today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.