Dan Green

The release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Final Report, makes over ninety recommendations to provide solutions for what happened in Canada from the 1880’s until 1996 in the Indian Residential School System.

What it doesn’t mention, is that although the system primarily victimized aboriginal children, by it’s dysfunctional nature and the physical isolation of the schools, there were also casualties among the teachers and administrators who served on the front lines. Although these victims have yet to be heard from, the novel Blue Saltwater touches upon this with the predatory, alcoholic and suicidal behavior of Brother Denny Boyle, the antagonist in the story.

As Canada and the United States became populated with a dominant European culture in the nineteenth century, North American aboriginal tribes were seen to be languishing in poverty, shame and cultural disintegration. Well meaning and respected educators, clergy and government officials proposed this system as a way of elevating aboriginal children to a more assimilated and productive existence. It was thought that by removing the children from the primitive ways of their culture, changes would be more rapid and permanent. But as everyone acknowledges now, even though well intentioned, forcibly removing children from their families was a catastrophic failure in social engineering.  

After six years of receiving testimony from 7000 witnesses and survivors of the Indian Residential Schools across Canada, The Truth and Reconciliation Commission under the leadership of Justice Murray Sinclair will deliver its final 300 page report on June 2, 2015.

The commission was established by the federal government and aboriginal leadership in June 2010 with high hopes that it would help repair the relationship between aboriginal people and the rest of Canada. Sadly this hasn’t happened.

The Residential School System which was started in the 1880’s and shut down in 1996, forcibly removed aboriginal children from their families with the mandate to change them into productive assimilated Canadians. The system has been referred to as “cultural genocide” by both Justice Sinclair and Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Over the years 150,000 children attended the schools and it is estimated that over 6000 of them died. Many were buried in unmarked graves and are still unaccounted for.

The story of Blue Saltwater attempts to put a face to those anonymous thousands of innocent children who were torn from their families and abused in the schools.

The dysfunctional effects continue to this day.

I had the pleasure of attending a West Vancouver Library fundraising event last week where Giller Prize winner Joseph Boyden  was the headline speaker. Joseph has recently completed the third novel of a planned quintet entitled, The Orenda, which was preceeded by two others, Three Day Road, which I am currently reading, and Through Black Spruce which I enjoyed several years ago. All three novels deal with the Aboriginal experience in Canada with his latest, The Orenda, taking us back to the time of first contact in sixteenth century Quebec.

Joseph is an engaging speaker and kept the crowd laughing and clapping along as he introduced each of his three novels with a rousing chorus on his Blues Harmonica. He currently lives in New Orleans, where a little of the local culture has rubbed off on him. He sounded really good and I’d love to jam with him on my tenor sax sometime.

I would recommend these three novels to anyone wanting to gain insight into this historical subject matter. 

The proposed First Nations Education Act will allow Band Councils to operate schools directly and to purchase outside services from the government or the private sector with taxpayer’s money. However, the federal government reserves the right to set and enforce standards and take over if there are problems meeting the bar. Kind of makes sense if they’re paying the bills. First Nations leaders don’t agree.

AFN Chief Shawn Atleo has set down non-negotiable conditions: Native control of education; Statutory funding guarantee; Recognition of native languages and Meaningful engagement.

We have a problem Houston!!: Where in this world do you get “control” along with “guaranteed funding” without accepting to meet educational standards that other Canadians are expected to achieve?

We all agree with recognition of native languages but isn’t this really is a cultural issue that should be dealt with in the home and in the community?

Education is about preparing our youth for a future in a globalized economy, where skin color and ethnicity don’t matter. 

Yesterday, I enjoyed a very stimulating time at the Federation of BC Writers annual conference out at Beecher Place on beautiful Crescent Beach. The four speakers who presented all did a sterling job and kept us on our toes throughout the morning and afternoon. David Blinkhorn  got me rethinking some of the scenes in my current project by engaging the reader’s senses of touch, taste, sound, smell and sight. Ben Nuttall-Smith presented on How to Get Published in his usual upbeat manner. Not bad for a guy who is turning eighty any day now.

Lois Peterson kept us chuckling with her infectious humor while engaging us with Ten Ways to Breathe Life Into the Germ of an Idea.  Great suggestions that I’ll use to give my work more depth.

Janie Chang, who has just published her first novel, Three Souls, finished up the day with a well organized and timely presentation on Building and Optimizing a Web Platform.

Kudos also go out to Loreena Lee and her staff from the Federation of BC Writers for organizing this 3rd annual event, aptly called Write on the Beach.