Walter Hughes, Ottawa, ON

I saw this pilgrimage as a dialogue between many people. I am still reeling from all the voices I heard. I found the experience somewhat like walking the Stations of the Cross – something that I have not done so intently for years. I will not belabour the comparison, but I was struck by the people in the crowd.

There were many people at each stop, and so many points of view to consider. What did each person see? What did they know beforehand? How did that colour what they saw?

Among the indigenous, there were the school victims – victims of being dragged from their families, victims of losing their language and their culture, victims of under-nourishment, victims of corporal punishment, victims of separation from sibling even if that sibling was also at that school, victims of physical and sexual abuse, and some suggest victims of forced abortion and of murder. I also heard some school ‘survivors’ say that they had attended the schools and felt guilty as they had not suffered as their classmates had done. It was very confusing to hear that.

There were other indigenous who were first-hand victims in that they had lost a child for a while or completely, as the child never returned. They never learned what happened to their child – was she dead? Or had she become so much a stranger that she did not feel it right to return to the family from whence she came?

It may seem odd and insensitive to point out that these were also the victims of a lack of due process. They likely did not hear the rationale for the forced removal from their families. They could not challenge the decisions that were made. It is unlikely that they understood who had made the decisions. Who could they blame for their sorrow?

Other indigenous – the inter-generational – were secondhand victims – victims because their parents had lost their language and culture and the family experience that would have taught them how to be Indigenous, how to be a parent. This was a group of which I had not been particularly conscious. Are they ‘intergenerational’ because they hope NOT to pass on the suffering to their children?

There were other Indigenous who understood the school’s issue in a broader context – in terms of the 60s scoop, in terms of the broken people in their own communities who were both victims and victimizers, in terms of the Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW), in terms of the decades-long disenfranchisement, in terms of legal battles to regain use and authority over their territories, in terms of daily discrimination. At first, I saw these people as casting a raincloud over the school victims, but these too had a story to tell. Still, it was confusing to hear this crowd more often than the school victims.

Among all these victims, many retained their hurt and their anger, but some spoke of relief. Some said that they had moved on. Some appreciated the attention, said that it had been a teaching moment for many non-Indigenous. Some had been walking this road for decades, so brought a certain wisdom to the discussion.

There were many other people involved. Take the Pope. Many complained that he spoke from a script. That is very likely. A leader may not want to speak off the cuff to millions on a serious subject. Still, that script did not say enough for some people. There are many faces of the victims, and it may not be possible to keep them all in mind. I wondered whether the script was prepared (for approval by the Pope) by persons in Canada or in Rome. Likely both.

What did that mean for what was added and what was scratched? Regardless, it was satisfying to me that the Pope was able to amend the message and strengthen the comments over the course of less than a week. Surely, part of that is a credit to Pope Francis. Some of the credit had to go to his handlers, who had to listen to the commentaries in French, English, Indigenous and possibly other languages and to not to distil this for the Pope. Handlers get a bad name, and their mistakes are picked upon. In this case, they got the job done.

For me, listening and reading, I found many of the commentators to be grossly uninformed and unable to explain very much. Some were OK, but some not. In the case of the Citadelle speech, no one addressed the fact that this was a speech to all Canadians. (It was a beautiful speech, which many times told Canadians how Indigenous peoples have much to offer the rest of Canada.)

In some cases, commentators were chosen as if they had walked into the studio for a completely different reason and were asked to comment on the RC Church and Canadian Indigenous relations.

In one case, I found the commentary hateful beyond the pale. Fortunately, commentators in the print media, including the religious press, boned up over the week and were able to provide some clarity. Still, I would have appreciated legal commentary on legal matters, such as the American court Doctrine of Discovery. I would have liked a legal opinion on its relevance to Canadian law. (Truckers in Ottawa this February were demanding their U.S. constitutional rights. Go figure.)

Much of the commentary was about was it was enough? and what next? There was little recognition of the Pope’s early comment that this was merely one step of many. Commentary suggested that much was owed to the Indigenous because of what they had suffered from evil hands. However, was it only the Pope who caused this suffering. Is the Pope, like Jesus, asked to bear the sins of the world? Are the Indigenous now going to stop pestering Trudeau for what is rightly theirs, and instead turn towards the Pope?

This was a time of Catholic apology. There was much talk of the shame of the Church as an institution, but little mention of the Church as the People of God. There was constant criticism of the apology of acts by individuals but no complaint against those who did not raise up their voices against this abuse, nor recognition of the voices and actions of those who did speak against this abuse as it was happening. Canadians both living and dead. The apportionment of blame was overly simplistic.

So, my head is swirling with the many voices of people in the crowd. I do not think that it is over. There have been successful land claims and more will come. Nunavut. $4 billion from us Canadians to Indigenous children. Fishing rights. Various recognitions. I hope that over time these successes will snowball.