On Sunday, Sept. 22, thousands of Vancouverites braved heavy rain to take part in the Walk for Reconciliation, the final event of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee’s (TRC) week-long gathering in the city. The TRC’s mission is to facilitate and provide healing for First Nations peoples affected by the sad history of Canada’s residential school system.
During the TRC’s time in Vancouver, hearings were held where stories from former students of residential schools and their families were shared and recorded as evidence. The week culminated in the Walk for Reconciliation, which featured Dr. Bernice King, daughter of famous activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as the keynote speaker.
King spent the weekend in the province, spending some time on Vancouver Island on Saturday with Chief Robert Joseph of the Gwawaneuk First Nation and his daughter, Karen Joseph, Executive Director of Reconciliation Canada. At the walk, King spoke about the importance of not giving up on the healing process.
“My father said something very powerful about progress. He said, human progress is neither automatic, nor inevitable,” she said from a stage. “Even a superficial look at history reveals that no social advance rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. Every step towards the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering and struggle.”
King’s words, which came only a month after the 50th anniversary of her father’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech, kicked off the four-kilometre walk that saw an estimated 70,000 people walking through downtown Vancouver, including approximately 200-300 SFU community members.
This is no time for apathy or complacency.”
– Dr. Bernice King, Baptist minister
King has, no doubt, inherited the skill of powerful oratory from her father. “This is no time for apathy or complacency,” she said. “This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”
King continued, “This requires leadership action on all fronts in Canada, from political and government, corporate, faith, educational and community leadership, because, as I said, we are all in this together. We are tied in an inescapable network of mutuality, caught in a single garment of destiny and what affects one person here in Canada, no matter their background, directly affects all indirectly.”
The TRC is a fact-finding commission that was set up between the federal government, victims of residential schools, and various churches that operated the schools themselves. Canada’s residential schools were notoriously abusive, forcibly separating many First Nations from their families, native languages, and culture.
Dr. George Nicholas, an SFU professor who taught on a reserve near Kamloops and who spoke at the TRC hearings in 2011, recounts it as a powerful experience.
“It was a very humbling experience when I spoke at the meeting, filled with 400 to 500 people at least. And it was an opportunity for me to at least start giving back so much of what I had learned from [the people], and which have really shaped my feelings of heritage.”
Though he believes the TRC is a valuable resource in the journey for reconciliation, Nicholas does have some reservations about the permanence of the effects elicited by events such as the hearings or the Walk.
“For me, reconciliation is not just saying you’re sorry, it’s doing something about it. And it really bothers me at one level that while the idea of reconciliation is great, and it makes people more aware of and sensitive to these issues, ultimately . . . it seems to be a passing thing,” said Nicholas. “You participate in the walk, you listen to lecture, you visit communities, and you benefit from that, but then a week or a month or a year later, not much has really changed.”
The most important role Nicholas sees the TRC playing in reconciliation is that of a hub of listening, a place for those survivors and their families to come forward and connect with government, forcing government to keep the promises and commitments they have made to the communities and individuals who suffered due to residential schools.
“They’re the thorn in the side,” said Nicholas, “[The TRC] is providing a voice to individuals who are not being heard . . . [who] can turn to the TRC as being their spokesperson. And by continuing to prod and poke at the government and its various organizations, it gets the message across that [they’re] not going away.”
