The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has completed three days of community hearings in northern Saskatchewan.
Meetings were held Monday and Tuesday in Patuanak and yesterday in Ile a la Crosse.
Commissioner Willie Littlechild says former students of residential schools in Ile a la Crosse and Beauval had similar stories to share.
“There seems to be some very direct parallels in terms of the experience in Beauval and Ile a la Crosse. I understand it was the same teachers, and priests and nuns that ran those schools the majority of the time — so the experiences have been the same.”
Only former residents of the Beauval institution have been eligible for federal compensation. The former boarding school in Ile a la Crosse is not recognized as a residential school under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.
Littlechild says another meeting is coming up involving officials from churches, the Assembly of First Nations and the federal government to discuss the TRC’s interim report issued last February.
“We called on the churches, the Assembly of First Nations, and the government to respond to us — to those interim recommendations. And, sadly, we haven’t heard enough good responses from them in the sense that they haven’t responded.”
Among other things, the report called for the teaching of residential school history in classrooms, that the government and churches produce all relevant documents still in their possession, and for funding to be restored to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.
There are also calls for support for health and healing of all survivors, the need for culture and language programming, and for parenting supports.