CANADA
Calgary Herald
BY MICHAEL WRIGHT, CALGARY HERALD NOVEMBER 4, 2013
As a boy, Nelson Mayer couldn’t understand why his mother would not speak her native tongue.
Mayer, the president of the National Association of Friendship Centres, addressed the opening of the Calgary hearing of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee for Indian residential schools, and spoke of the effects the government-enforced education system had on his mother.
“I can remember my mother being ashamed to speak her own language – Cree,” he said.
He asked his mother why.
“She said she had witnessed her cousin being beaten because he was speaking Cree to her (at residential school). I could begin to understand why my mother would walk with her head down.” …
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up as part of a 2007 agreement to allow people to share their stories of the school, collect records and establish a national research centre. The agreement included a $1.9 billion settlement between the Canadian government, the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian and United churches and the Assembly of First Nations, and came with an apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper to former residential school students.
The commission has heard from more than 75 communities across Canada in the last five years. The Calgary hearing is the last of six community hearings in Alberta. It concludes Tuesday.
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