The Saskatchewan Polytechnic unveiling. Photo courtesy SaskPolytech, Twitter.
So far, June in Saskatoon has been full of events to touch on the history of its Aboriginal residents and bring about reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
On Thursday, the Saskatoon campus of Saskatchewan Polytechnic held a ceremony to unveil a set of the Truth and Reconciliation commission reports.
They will be on permanent display at the school, and Sask Polytechnic’s director of Indigenous Strategy calls them a “generous gift” from Eugene Arcand with the Truth and Reconciliation survivor committee.
Arcand is a survivor of St. Michael Indian Residential School, taken from his home in Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, and has been a key voice in highlighting the injustice of residential schools across the country.
He, along with the school’s president Larry Rosia, spoke in a ceremony at the campus Thursday morning.
“The ugliness of the history that’s contained in the report is something that can’t be censored. It can’t be cleansed. That is reality. That is the true history. And the sooner we engage with the people that survived it the better we’ll be, because there’s not very many of us left,” Arcand said.
He acknowledged the young people who attended, and “are bearing witness to what’s going on.”
Other events this week included a reconciliation flag raising at Saskatoon City Hall, which Arcand also attended.
Lorna Arcand, STC Chief Henry Felix, Eugene Arcand. Photo courtesy Cheryl Starr, Facebook.
The city, along with 57 other non-profits, businesses, and partners are part of Reconciliation Saskatoon.
Mayor Charlie Clarke said residential schools play a role in the hurt of Indigenous people today, and said his city has a chance to move forward in a healthy way.
“We are all related together in this community now,” he said, pausing as he became emotional.
“That’s our hope, the fact that we all come from one place and while we may have had this past that we have to work out, as human beings, we have a chance to carve a new future together. But we have to be willing to think differently about what that future’s going to look like and about how we work together.”
Next week, Saskatoon is hosting the Rock Your Roots Walk for Reconciliation on National Aboriginal Day, June 21.