Sinclair determined that truth be told

By Brother Thomas Novak, OMI

WINNIPEG — “I was standing on the dock, a little girl, hugging my mom. She pushed me gently into the plane. I cried and cried. It would be 10 months before I would see her again. When the plane landed, it was like I was on another planet, everything was so strange. I couldn’t even understand what the people were saying to me. I missed my mom so much. I think I filled the lake with my tears.”

Stories like this are waiting to be shared when the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) holds its first national event at the Forks in Winnipeg, June 15-19. Storytelling is at the centre of the commission’s work, and dozens of people are now being trained to interview former students so as to preserve their stories.

However, the chair of the commission, Justice Murray Sinclair, is determined to make his work as much about reconciliation as it is about the painful memories of the former students. He is determined that the whole story of the schools be told, including the experiences of former staff. He wants Canadians to hear about the principal who struggled in despair to prepare his annual budget: he had enough government funding to provide the children with good meals or new clothes, but not both.

As important as it is to recognize the past, Sinclair acknowledges that “getting people to talk about their experience is only the starting point.” He is interested in how Aboriginal men and women are healing today, how broken communities are pulling together to heal themselves. Above all, he hopes that the commission will be a catalyst in healing the often painful relationship between the Aboriginal peoples of Canada and other Canadians.

Winnipeg Archbishop James Weisgerber welcomes the commission’s work in Manitoba as an opportunity for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Manitobans to understand each other better, especially by getting to know some of the history that lies behind the pain and brokenness many still live with. It is his hope that the archdiocese will continue to develop a deeper sense of being one family, talking to each other across cultural boundaries and listening to each other’s stories.