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	Ex-Residential School Students Recall Painful Days By Darren Bernhardt Canada.com May 7, 2008 http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=3ffcd4f0-9d28-4622-8768-7295d5c6bf80 The rancid smell of infected wounds and the taste of bread baked with the blood of slaughtered cattle still haunt the senses of former students of a church-run residential school in northern Saskatchewan. "I can never get over it. I've gone for counselling but it's no use, I'm too old and it's been a part of me for so long," said Georgina Iron, who attended the school in Ile-a-la-Crosse from 1949 to 1956. "There's a lot of pain." Former students say there were pencils jammed into ears, skin pinched and heads banged against wooden benches, and students locked in closets. Fed rotting meat, old vegetables and porridge so watered down it was transparent, the students also had their hair doused in kerosene whenever they returned from a home visit in case they had picked up lice. Despite indoor plumbing, they used outhouses in the dead of winter and used pages from catalogues as toilet paper. They were given a single blanket to sleep under while the air froze basins of water. They lived next to a large lake, yet dozens of students bathed one after another in the same water, the students say. "These aren't stories. This is the truth," said Yvonne Lariviere, who attended the school from 1947 to 1955 and remembers being beaten by a nun wielding a metal yardstick. "I didn't know why I was being hit because I didn't speak English. I was seven years old and I had never been hit before in my life." On Wednesday, a group of former students met in Saskatoon to talk about the physical and sexual abuse, the destruction of self-esteem and the fact they may never be compensated. The school, attended mainly by Metis but also Indian and non-aboriginals, has been excluded from the federal residential schools settlement agreement. According to government criteria, Canada must have been "jointly or solely responsible for the operation of the residence and care of the children." Ottawa has absolved itself of responsibility at Ile-a-la-Crosse because the institution was administered by the Catholic church. "If they had nothing to do with it why did they send our family allowances to the school?" Iron said. A class action lawsuit on behalf of 1,500 former Ile-a-la-Crosse students was filed in 2005, shortly after the then-Liberal government announced the resolution agreement that left them outside the historic $2-billion deal. Regina lawyer Tony Merchant, who filed the class action, noted in the statement of claim the school was administered by the Oblates and owned by the bishop of the diocese, but primarily funded by the federal government. Hope was raised during the 2006 federal election campaign when the Conservative party ran a radio ad in northern Saskatchewan. Stephen Harper stated his party, if elected, would see residential school survivors fully compensated, including those of Ile-a-la-Crosse. Two months after winning, the Conservatives backed off. Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice said in light of the full knowledge of facts, the ad was in error and the school didn't qualify under the agreement. Believing their experience may never be fully acknowledged, Iron and Lariviere and several other women decided to tell the stories. They worked in potato fields and churned butter for the nuns and priests who "ate like kings and queens" from a spread of food that included fresh eggs and fish. The students, who cleaned the staff plates and worked in the kitchen, were given a slice of dry bread, perhaps some vegetables and water. The bread was made from cattle blood mixed with flour and water. During the week, the students collected leftover porridge from the priests and nuns and poured it into a big pail. On Friday, they were allowed to eat it. Other times they were given fish that had been sitting out for months. "We worked like slaves and were always starving," said Iron, who would sneak scraps of food from the plates of the nuns and priests and gobble it up or stuff it in her sock and devour it later in her room. "We didn't qualify for milk," said Margaret Hodgson, who was at the school from 1949 to 1957. Injuries were also ignored until they could no longer be. Iron had an infected finger that smelled terribly, while Tina Panteluk had to be transferred to hospital then to a tuberculosis sanitarium. A student from 1945 to 1949 until her transfer, Panteluk's neck was so swollen the skin finally split one night and pus flowed out. She still has the scar. But some of the worst damage was psychological. Iron was kept apart from her siblings - two brothers and two sisters - who attended at the same time. Parents weren't allowed to visit though some would get as close as possible. Lariviere once cried, standing on the shoreline as her father sat in a canoe and they watched each other. Parents didn't dare break any rules. "They were told they would go to hell. They were scared to burn," said Iron. "We were kids and all we wanted was someone to hold us, to give us comfort and love us. We had none of that." There were some nice priests to whom the girls looked as father figures. The girls would hold their hands and skip and sing but later, the nuns would harshly punish them for their indiscretions. One of them dug her nails into the back of Iron's neck and banged her head on a bench, demanding of the girl, "Are you going to have a priest's baby?" "Oh they were mean," Iron said to herself, holding a black and white picture of the school staff. "It's never going to go away."
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