Langtry: Residential school story must be told – Edmonton Journal

MARCH 24, 2014

Later this week I will be an honourary witness in Edmonton at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) final national gathering of survivors of Indian Residential Schools. It promises to be an emotionally painful, but also healing, experience.

The TRC was set up as part of a class-action settlement, the largest in Canadian history, of a lawsuit brought on behalf of tens of thousands of survivors of the schools. They are called “survivors” because the horrific physical and sexual abuse so many endured didn’t kill them. The TRC’s mandate is to uncover these uncomfortable truths and help us move toward reconciliation with aboriginal peoples in Canada.

Over the past five years, the TRC has heard from thousands of survivors. They have spoken tearfully, angrily, wrenchingly, about being forcibly taken from their families to be crowded into spartan boarding schools plagued by hunger, abuse, disease, and death.

Read more: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Langtry+Residential+school+story+must+told/9653061/story.html