CANADA
Lethbridge Herald
Caroline Zentner
lethbridge herald
czentner@lethbridgeherald.com
As a school student Shelagh Rogers learned the English and the French were the founders of Canada.
Not until she was an adult did she learn the truth about the residential school system. And she’s learned more since she became an honorary witness for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
“Reconciliation is an abstract concept but I think what we’re really talking about is partnership and relationship. We actually had that when Europeans first came to North America,” said Rogers, host of CBC Radio One’s “The Next Chapter” during her keynote speech at the South Western Alberta Teachers’ Convention Thursday morning at the University of Lethbridge.
That initial relationship fell apart and the residential school system affected thousands of aboriginal people directly and indirectly.
“The residential school era changed the shape of this country and not in a good way. I was 46 years old when I first heard the term ‘residential school.’ In my history books it never came up. I knew that there were schools on reserves and sometimes kids had to be moved away because the schools didn’t go all the way to Grade 12. But it was so much more than that,” she said.
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