Ultimately, the experience was frustrating for McKenzie, who survived nine years in a residential school as a child. But she says it reaffirmed something she’s been practicing for years: relying on community and indigenous spirituality to heal, rather than colonial institutions. While the papal visit represented an important milestone for many survivors gathered at Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré, for some like McKenzie, it became less about the Pope and more about the power of the gathering. “I thought I would be moved, emotionally. I thought, with everything we survivors have been through, after all, the Pope’s visit would be big, that it would be historic – but we didn’t hear a single word about residential schools,” McKenzie told Royal , outside. In his homily, Pope Francis said Catholics must “take a new look at many of the events of our own history.” “Brothers and sisters, these are our questions and they are the burning questions that this pilgrim congregation in Canada is asking, with sincere sorrow, in the difficult and demanding journey of healing and reconciliation,” he said in Spanish. Later that evening, the Pope, for the first time on his visit to Canada, acknowledged the sexual abuse of “minor and vulnerable people.” Germaine McKenzie, a social worker and school survivor from Uashat Mak Mani-Utenam, said the papal visit disappointed her. (CBC)
Unfulfilled expectations
McKenzie, who is a social worker in her hometown of Uashat Mak Mani-utenam, was under the impression that the Pope wanted to move on from the apology he made in Lac Ste. Anne, Alta., and repeated Wednesday in Quebec City. “I’m not ready, though. I still have dreams about being in home school,” she said. McKenzie predicts survivors will “stick together. We heal together, with indigenous spirituality. That’s what I prefer. We talk about our wounds, what we’ve been through and where we’re going.” Romeo Saganash, a school survivor from Waswanipi in central Quebec and a former member of parliament, also found the Pope’s apology “hugely disappointing.” “Many of us had seen this as an incredible opportunity for the Pope … to apologize on behalf of the institution, the Roman Catholic Church,” Saganash told CBC Quebec’s Breakaway Thursday night. WATCHES | Survivors’ perspectives on the papal visit to Quebec:
Strong emotions at the Pope’s mass in Quebec
Outside Pope Francis’ service in Quebec City, leaders, survivors and members of the indigenous community talk about their conflicted emotions during the service. Another shortcoming, according to indigenous leaders, is that the pope has not addressed the doctrine of discovery, the centuries-old decree that paved the way for much of the colonization of the New World. For decades, there have been calls to revoke the papal bulls that make up the dogma. That weakness showed, quite literally, on the faces of clerics and officials Thursday, when documentary filmmaker Saren Fox and her cousin Chelsea Brunel unfurled a large white banner at the basilica’s pulpit that read “Repeal the Doctrine” as Francis sat. “I never want to be seen as disrespectful to our survivors, but this is to move the conversation forward and sometimes young people have to stand up and speak up,” Fox later told the CBC.
Take back control
Jimmy Peter Einish, a survivor of the Sixties Scoop, sat under some trees near the basilica among family members wearing bright orange shirts representing the Every Child Matters movement. Einish is from the Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach near Quebec’s border with Newfoundland and Labrador, 950 kilometers north of Quebec City. Being among other survivors was the most important thing to him. “Being comfortable with other survivors and supporters, it’s just something that everyone needs sometimes, even me. The support is there,” she said. “Because I think everyone needs to understand that we Native people have been through a lot.” Raquel Bacon, of the Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach, said the Pope’s morning sermon Thursday in Quebec brought a mix of emotions. (CBC) The systems that created home schools, day schools and the Sixties Scoop — and the resulting trauma — are still in play today, Einish said. Echoing McKenzie, Einish said the way forward is to reassert Indigenous self-government. He recently suggested to one of his community leaders that the Naskapi Nation create its own youth protection board. “They took us from our parents, from our family. Well, we still have this youth welfare system, which continues to take our children, our grandchildren into foster care and put them in a different environment than the one they grew up in. ” he said. Based on 2016 census data, 52.2 per cent of children in foster care in Canada are Indigenous, but they represent only 7.7 per cent of the child population. “To start something, to make choices for ourselves and good services; so that our youth are not taken away from our community,” is what Einish would like to see. Raquel Bacon, who is from the same community as Einish, said the papal apology and homily brought her comfort, but also evoked a range of emotions about her mother’s experience at the school. “I just can’t imagine her being taken away. I think she’s been gone for two years, about five years. And it hurts,” Bacon said, adding that she wondered what the people who were taking her mother said to her grandmother at the time. McKenzie, who traveled alone to Quebec to attend the service in the middle of her summer vacation, says she was looking forward to continuing her healing journey on her own terms. “We are no longer under submission. We are moving forward,” he said. “No more, ‘Do this, do that.’ On Friday, McKenzie will leave Quebec City and continue her vacation with a visit to her son in Gatineau. Pope Francis is scheduled to depart Quebec on Friday at 12:45 p.m. for Iqaluit. The morning before his departure, he met first with members of the Society of Jesus, followed by a delegation of Natives from Eastern Canada. Support is available for anyone affected by their residential school experience or recent reports. A national crisis line for residential schools in India has been set up to provide support to ex-students and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419. Mental health counseling and crisis support is also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the Hope for Wellness hotline at 1-855-242-3310 or online chat at www.hopeforwellness.ca.
