Roberts Quinn ins na na cha tailor
school mesh Oh c’mere Tanaka cha tailor
new Quaqua Oh Camilla it is a huge honor
for me to be a visitor today on the
ancestral territories of the Kwantlen
the KT and the Matsui First Nations for
thousands and thousands of years our
ancestors sought to walk gently upon
this land to nurture it and to take care
of it in order for us to be here today
and for that I had to I’m so thankful it
was our ancestors that taught the
settlers how to hunt and how to fish and
how to survive upon this land and today
we are seeking a new relationship with
the First Nations people of this
territory one that’s built on honor and
deep respect and in order for that to
happen it is time for us to educate
ourselves about the history of this land
that we call Turtle Island and today I
would like to share some of that history
with you today some culture and some
ways to move forward in reconciliation
it is also a privilege for me to be able
to speak my ancestral language to you of
the Scottish people it is a dying
language we only have four fluent
speakers that are still alive today
it’s our language that connects us to
our community to our people and to our
history and what I said was hello and
welcome honored guests my name is
Carolyn Roberts I’m from the school mesh
nation up in North Vancouver my birth
name is Stacey Baker so anybody who
knows North Vancouver knows that because
I’m a baker that I’m pretty much related
to everybody
Vancouver my birth mother is Janet Baker
and she comes from the new Quaqua nation
so our ancestor our ancestors are just a
past Whistler when I was born I was born
the fourth child of an indigenous single
divorced indigenous woman and her
caseworker at the time was under the
mandate to adopt me out into a non
indigenous home this is part of our
Canadian history that is called the
sixties scoop now it lasted from 1960
all the way up until the 1980s and it
was a governmental practice of adopting
out indigenous children into
non-indigenous homes in order to
assimilate them into the colonial system
now I was one of the luckier few of this
process because I only spent three
months in the foster care system but
there’s some indigenous kids that spent
their entire life in the foster care
system
I grew up up in Prince George I grew up
in white suburbia there was one black
kid at our school and there was a
handful of East Indian students at our
school and all the aboriginal students
were in the alternate IDI program so in
my upbringing I had no history and no
culture none of that was taught to me
and I had no idea what it meant to be a
Coast Salish woman it was stripped of me
when I was adopted out this is not
unlike the residential school system did
to all of my other relatives that went
to residential school this is two out of
my three sisters they all went to the
sea Scheldt residential school not only
were they stripped of their culture
their language and their history and
their connections to the land they were
also taught at residential school that
they didn’t belong because they weren’t
allowed to be in the regular school
system with everybody else
but at the residential school they like
myself are fair-skinned co Salish women
and they got beat up every single day
because they weren’t brown enough to be
at the Indian school so this is my birth
mother Janet Baker her and all of her
siblings went to st. Mary’s out in
Mission there their mother my
grandmother spoke five indigenous
languages from all of the territories
where we’re from my birth mother speaks
none nor does she attend any cultural
events because at school she was taught
that it was wrong to speak her language
and it was wrong to practice her culture
not only did the school teach her that
it also shut her down to other people in
her life and she has never hugged
anybody now their mother all of her
children were taken from her and taken
to Mission residential school this is
about a six or seven hour drive away
from where they lived and it eventually
became too much for her to be far away
from her children and she eventually
moved closer to be with them and as a
mother I can’t even begin to imagine how
this felt I’m pretty lucky I find myself
lucky because these are my children
these are the first children in our line
of family that have not been taken by
the government and placed into a non
indigenous home when you talk about the
residential school system being
something of our past and our history
and it’s time to move on it’s not that
far in our history and it’s not far gone
I’m one of the lucky ones that don’t get
my children taken away but if you look
at statistics in Canada today you will
find the government is still taking
indigenous children from their homes and
placing them into non indigenous homes
today
we call it the foster care system and
there is more indigenous children today
in our foster care system than ever went
to residential school today so if we
look at the population of indigenous
people across Canada we’re about four
percent of this population if we look at
the foster care system
sixty percent of children in the foster
care system are indigenous and most of
them are intergenerational survivors of
the foster of residential school so when
you say it’s time to move on and it’s
time to get over it
I say how is that possible how can we
move on and get over it
when it is still happening today here in
Canada and not only that if we look at
some more statistics fifty percent of
families that live on reservations today
live in poverty and sixty red
reservations across Canada today live in
a boil water advisory in some of them
have been living in that advisory now
for over twenty years how is that
possible in a place that we call so
great as Canada how would that be okay
that you cannot provide clean drinking
water for your family especially in a
cat in a place like Canada that is such
a wonderful place to be
we actually ranked in the top 10
standards of living in the world to be
living here in Canada but that is if you
are at a non indigenous person if you
are an indigenous person you rank about
number forty seventh on that list how is
that possible we live in the same place
so you might be asking yourself well why
should that matter that doesn’t affect
me and I don’t understand why we still
have to
have this conversation we need to have
this conversation and we need to educate
ourselves because of the Canada the
place that you live this land that you
live upon and the resources that come
from this land have all been violently
taken from the original custodians of
this land and the exceptional lifestyle
that you live today living in Canada has
been built upon the cultural genocide of
an entire population and you might not
have started this fight but this fight
still continues today with the
government and the governmental
practices that are in place today
continue it so then that makes it your
responsibility as a Canadian citizen to
make it right
now I understand that this isn’t
something that’s going to happen
overnight and change right away but we
need to start changing it and through
time it will but a hundred and fifty
years is way too long to wait for
justice to be done in my culture we like
to teach through story and I’d like to
share a story with you today of our
wonderful friend the coyote he teaches
us a lot I’m a storyteller and I tell
stories to make my ancestors proud and
to quietly teach so our friend the
coyote was frantically looking one day
searching and searching around the fire
because he couldn’t find his bone needle
so out of the sky follows this owl and
he sees that coyote is very distressed
and he says coyote my friend what is
going on what are you looking for
when coyote says all I can’t find my
bone needle anywhere owl said well I’ll
go up into the sky I’ll be able to see
it from the sky and I’ll bring it back
to you so off he goes and he flies
around and around but he can’t see
that bow needle anywhere so he comes
back down and he says coyote my friend I
couldn’t find your bonito I couldn’t see
it from way up there and coyote was so
distressed and so I says well coyote
where was the last time you had your
bonito
coyote said well I was using it over
here by the bushes and how it looks
perplexed at coyote and he says well if
you were using it over there by the
bushes how come you’re looking over here
by the fire bring your bone needle and
coyote says well because I can see over
here totally makes sense I can see by
the fire that’s an easy place to look
and an easy place to be and as Canadians
what we see by the fire are the effects
of our colonial system and the effects
that we see is the alcoholism the drug
abuse and all that what has colonial
system has done to our people we are
starting to see more culture in a little
more language come back but that’s the
easy thing that we can see by the fire
what’s going to take courage and time is
to look over here where the bone needle
is in the bushes because in these bushes
there’s a thousand-piece puzzle that is
made up of all that’s happened in order
to get to where we are today of what we
see the effects of and if I were to go
over to this puzzle and just take one
small piece of the puzzle out that one
small piece would be the residential
school system there is 999 other pieces
to this puzzle over here that we still
need to learn about and that we still
need to educate about in order to be
able to move forward in reconciliation
some of those systems are are some of
those pieces are the 60 scoop the past
system there is so much to learn
over here but all you’re gonna need in
order to learn what’s over there is a
sense of decency and a sense of justice
now I would like to share with you some
ways that you as a Canadian can start to
move this reconciliation forward number
one I think it’s really important for
you and the place where you live where
your house is on to know whose territory
that is oops territory does your house
reside on what languages do they speak
where is that community that’s tied to
that territory and not only the place
where you live but also the place where
you work whose territories at what’s
their languages where’s the community
and what can you do living upon their
territory to give back to them to start
moving reconciliation forward find out
about that number two might be a little
more tricky is the governmental system
that’s in place today and the policies
that are in place today that still hold
back and suppress indigenous people in
moving forward it’s time for us to
educate ourselves about things like land
claims and treaty rights what does it
mean to you what does it mean to them
and I think my biggest wonder my biggest
question that I have about our
governmental system that’s in place
today the largest system in our
government that oversees all indigenous
people across Canada that makes
decisions for all indigenous people
across Canada is led by two
non-indigenous white females that makes
me wonder is it because there’s no
indigenous people within our prime
minister’s cabinet I don’t think so
so just makes me wonder it should make
you wonder too and be curious and ask
those questions number three which is I
think is just as important as the first
two but the Honourable Murray Sinclair
always states too
that it is education that got us into
this mess and it will be education that
gets us out of this mess and it’s time
for us to get educated to find out about
all of the rest of the pieces that are
here in the bushes by the bone needle so
in order for us to move forward in
reconciliation we need to be able to
move forward side by side not summon in
front not someone behind but together
side by side in my culture we talk about
seven generations ahead and what we do
today here and now of will affect those
generations ahead of us so please let’s
not leave them a legacy of pain and
misery let’s leave them with a hope for
a better future one that’s rooted in
honor and deep respect hi Erica thank
you for the time today [Applause]