One of the people we need to learn from is recently retired Senator Murray Sinclair. He appeared a few months ago to speak to the law students at UWO but the address that I found stunning was this one he gave as recipient of the Tom Symons Medal lecture series at Confederation Centre in Prince Edward Island.
Unless you like lengthy introductions, you will want to skip forward to the lecture itself entitled, Confederation - We could have done better. Indeed he is right. We could have - and we must - all of us.
Sinclair knows the power of story and tells his own brilliantly. He notes that in legal training, one of the lessons is to lose your imagination and focus solely on facts. He then moves to facts with the audience. He invites them to take out their cell phones and find their favourite picture of a child. He stops the lecture and suggests that the audience share a story about that child with the person seated next to them - and the audience does so with great enthusiasm. He calls them back.
He then says “Delete that picture - after all it’s only a picture”. The room falls silent. He encourages them to do so even more - “Go ahead -You still have the real child after all”. He then asks to have a picture of his own samll granddaughter mounted on a large screen behind him. “I can’t either” - he admits. But Canada did that to our children.”
The point hits home. In this lecture and in so many others he outlines the damage of cultural genocide. In his book, coauthored with the other tribunal leaders, What We have Learned: Principles of the Truth and Reconciliation. he elaborates on the definition:
“Physical genocide is the mass killing of the members of a targeted group and biological genocide is the destruction of a group’s reproductive capacity. Cultural genocide is the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group. States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group. Land is seized. and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement in restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated or destroyed. And, most significantly to the issue at hand, families are disrupted to prevent the transmissions of cultural values and identity from one generation to the next.
In dealing with Aboriginal people, Canada did all these things”. The stories relating to the schools follow and they tell the stories of the actions of all the schools. There is no excuse. All the religious traditions are implicated in the words of the survivors.
Later in the lecture he made reference to his personal story - which relates well to the announcement yesterday that Cowessess First Nation within the province of Saskatchewan becomes the first to control its child welfare system under Bill C-92; it empowers indigenous communities to reclaim jurisdiction. 83% of children in the province were from first nations as of last fall. The Eagle Woman tribunal there will help settle disputes,
Senator Sinclair’s father was a residential school survivor who suffered trauma from the experience which was increased when his wife died leaving him with four young children. He transferred the responsibility for them - including one year old Murray - to his parents in their sixties. “My grandmother connected every one of us with an auntie, with whom I went everywhere and learned from her. On the basis of long term results my grandmother proved to be an excellent child-welfare administrator.”
He also talked about his own lack of fellunderstanding of indigenous spirituality and the role it must play in his life, until he was counselled by an elder. That part of the video above is also moving and revealing. He told us of the importance of a name - and how his in his own language has prophetically given him direction as to how to live his life. His granddaughter has her own name story and we understand how fearless and true to that spirituality that is forming her. When asked to describe her grandfather’s occupation by a nine year old classmate when he visited her school - Senator Murray was not sure she actually knew - but she still had an answer - “He Sentaizes”
Thank the universe for Senator Sinclair - and even in retirement we hope he continues to Sentatize.