Truth and Reconciliation report: Canadians should be taught about racist past, First Nation

CANADA
Toronto Star

By: Peter Edwards Star Reporter, Published on Tue Jun 02 2015

The massive final report of the inquiry into horrors of church-run, government-funded native residential schools should just be the starting point for improving how we teach our history, First Nations community members say.

“It’s about awareness,” said Andrea Chrisjohn, board designate of the Toronto Council Fire Native Cultural Centre. “Education is really critical.”

“It’s all about education,” said Paula Whitlow, museum director of the Woodland Cultural Centre in Brantford. “Racism still exists. We still deal with it every day in some form.”

Chrisjohn, Whitlow and Gordon Peters, Grand Chief of the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians, all said that the effects of residential schools are still felt widely in First Nations communities.

Education is an essential starting point to making things better, they said.

“You can’t have Canada built on a foundation of lies,” Peters said. “That’s what Canada is right now. They teach these lies to the children.”

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