CANADA
CTV
Tamsyn Burgmann, The Canadian Press
Published Monday, April 13, 2015
VANCOUVER — Strappings, beatings with a pointed stick and orders to stand in the classroom corner for speaking her own language were among “horrific” measures that erased Darlene Bulpit’s ability to pass along her First Nations heritage to her two children and three grandchildren.
The 66-year-old from the Shishalh Indian band, on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast, was allowed to go home at night and grins when she recalls learning to hunt with her brothers and bringing home “the prize.”
Each morning she trudged back to school with dread.
As a day scholar for eight years, Bulpit said she suffered similar harms as thousands of aboriginals who survived the residential school system. Yet unlike her peers, she was excluded from the federal government’s historic apology in July 2008 and was never awarded compensation.
The woman is among hundreds of First Nations plaintiffs who attended the notorious schools by day and now want to sue the Canadian government contending they were overlooked in the reconciliation process.
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