What's next for Canada's First People?

First, they took away her name. Then they gave her a number. Bernice Jacks, a young student at a residential school in Kamloops, became Number 39. Wilbur Abrahams was sent to a school in Alert Bay, BC. He was designated number 989. Take away a child's name and replace it with a number and you have effectively effaced that child's identity. It's something of a cliché that in these frenetic times, we are all being reduced to numbers. But in the case of residential schools for aboriginal children, it was literally true.

For the past six years the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Residential Schools travelled the country and listened to former students tell their stories. Many of those stories made the strong and composed weep. The 94 recommendations made by the Commission are important but to my mind, not as important as giving people a chance to tell their stories to a humane and compassionate listener like Justice Murray Sinclair.

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/truth-and-reconciliation-the-comma-queen-i-refuse-to-accept-being-a-cancer-patient-smashing-history-1.3100652/what-s-next-for-canada-s-first-people-michael-s-essay-1.3100734