Warning: This story contains details that readers may find disturbing.
New Brunswick marked Canada’s first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation across the capital city on Thursday.
At the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, a ceremony was held with several speakers, including residential school survivor and Elder George Paul.
Paul was taken from his community to Shubenacadie in Nova Scotia, the nearest residential school to New Brunswick. He said his parents had separated, and they were living with some neighbours. The sheriff showed up, and he and his two sisters were told they’d be leaving with him.
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“You can’t do nothing,” Paul said speaking to the crowd at UNB. “He was trying to argue with them, I took the opportunity to run out the door. I ran as fast as I could, and I’m just a 7 or 8-year-old kid, and running like a son of a gun through the bushes and the back of the house and went down to the river and I was trying to hide from these people that were trying to take us.”
He was grabbed from behind in the bushes in which he’d found shelter. They placed him in the car along with his sisters, he said.
They would take what was to be the Trans Canada Highway toward Nova Scotia. Paul said he fell asleep until they pulled up to a rest stop area with picnic tables.
Paul said the sheriff told him to eat but he refused. He said the sheriff shoved the sandwich in his face and told him to eat. He describes running off again and nearly being hit by a transport truck.
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In the end, they made it to the residential school.
He said the children were split by gender and had uniform clothes. They were abused and given demerits, then received lashings.
“There was a lot of abuses that took place there,” he said. “Abuses among the children that were there. Abuses from the priests and nuns that were there. Sexual abuses, physical abuses. Violence.
“I can’t go into details, but just to give you an idea of a residential school experience would have been like for just one person from home to go there.”
Paul, who created the Honour Song, was part of a few speakers at the University of New Brunswick for the first day commemorating recognition of the thousands of Indigenous children’s remains discovered at residential schools across Canada, including Kamloops, B.C.
Wolastoqey flag hosted at city hall
Fredericton municipal leaders also marked National Truth and Reconciliation Day.
As part of that, it raised a the Wolastoqey flag, created by Indigenous artist Natalie Sappier. The flag will be a permeant.
St. Mary’s First Nation Chief Allan Polchies spoke to the crowd about why marking the day was so important.
“Just like those little children that were taken to residential schools and were never returned home and we ask why,” he said speaking to the crowd. “We still looking for answers and I know that with the will and the hope that we will get then with your support.”
The Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program has a hotline to help residential school survivors and their relatives suffering trauma invoked by the recall of past abuse. The number is 1-866-925-4419.
