The Shock of Residential Schools

Katherine Sorbey
December 13, 2010
Listuguj

"We didn't count as a people, as human beings."

Katherine Sorbey, Mi'qmaq

It was shocking and it was also a shock… When the Canadian government unilaterally imposed residential schools on the First Peoples, they saw it an act of inconceivable domination, a form of human and cultural trauma that led to the destruction of the family unit and deep despair. The moral values of respect, sharing and caring for others, naturally transmitted through language and experience, could no longer be passed on. Parents were cut off from their children and were deprived of their ability to teach, only to be replaced by foreigners who did not share their culture. While the foundations of nations were under attack, spirits fled. "We could have never understood," agrees Katherine Sorbey. “I couldn't, and still today, I can’t."