But the efforts of the past twenty years— the work of healing and reconciliation which is the subject of this book—has ensured that we will never go back to the silence and shame of the past. [...] Over the Summer of 1990, the events at Oka exposed to the eyes of Canada and to the world the poisoned and potentially deadly character of the relationship between the Government of Canada and indigenous people. [...] In no way a mere coincidence, the emergence of the Indian Residential School System was historically concurrent 11 creation of the aboriginal healing foundation with the elimination, in the Prairies, of the food supply and with the introduction of the Indian Act and the effort to create a sovereign Canada from sea to sea to sea, on what only a generation ago had been Indian land. [...] In the mornings, the team would discuss and debate amongst themselves the language of the incorporation papers and the letters patent and the by-laws, sending away the lawyers to do the work of drafting. [...] In every major development of the past 40 years— from the emergence of “Indian radicalism” in the 1960s and 70s to the constitutional discussions of the 1980s and the Indian residential schools lawsuits of the 1990s and 2000s—Georges Erasmus happened to be the leader of the organizations to which the media and public turned for solutions and comment and insight.
- Pages
- 382
- Published in
- Canada
