Beyak perpetuates 'astonishingly insulting' narrative about residential schools: Wente

Conservative Senator Lynn Beyak reiterated her defence of residential schools in an interview with CBC News on Monday, saying, "I made my statements, and I stand by them."

Beyak, who had earlier said that residential schools were responsible for "good deeds," has argued there's no reason for her to step down from her position on the Senate's Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, despite suggestions from the chair that she should consider it. 

• Senator Lynn Beyak says she has 'suffered' with residential school survivors
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"I think, if you go across Canada, there are shining examples from sea to sea of people who owe their lives to the schools," she said in her CBC interview, though she did acknowledge that the bad parts of the schools were "horrific."

Jesse Wente, an Indigenous pop culture columnist for CBC Radio's Metro Morning, spoke with host Matt Galloway on Tuesday about his reaction.

Matt Galloway: What were your thoughts when you heard the latest comments by the senator?

Jesse Wente: Sadness. Sadness that while so many work to recover from residential schools and their legacy, that while so many worked to expose this truth, we have someone in a seat of power perpetuating an outlook that undermines that work and has truly dangerous implications, especially as Beyak sits on the Aboriginal Peoples Committee in the Senate.

And of course, I thought of my family, those that went to the schools, those in my community that went, all of the survivors I've met over past years, none of whom spoke of owing their lives to the schools.

Beyak calls for the other side to be told, that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) should have focused on the positives — that's the narrative of residential schools for the vast majority of their existence — was that they were positive, they did focus on the good intentions of the schools.

It is only relatively recently, in the last 25 years or so — and remember residential schools were around from 1840 to 1996 in Ontario — that we've actually started to hear the indigenous experience of those schools.

Honestly, in my experience, people don't know this history even today. I give talks all over this country and people are surprised about what I have to tell them. Beyak is calling for a return to the past depiction of the schools but there is no going back now. The truth is out.

The whole point of the TRC was to get a truth obscured, a truth hidden, a truth buried in pain and shame, and bring it into the light. To try and rewrite it now, to suggest that we forefront a different story, is to maintain a narrative that continues to result in massive inequalities for indigenous people.

If Senator Beyak is genuine in her desire for people to move forward, then perhaps understanding how residential schools have contributed to the current situation for so many of our communities is crucial to that. That's why we have to understand the past, because it informs our present and should guide us for the future.

Matt Galloway: How do you start to unpack her comments?

Jesse Wente: There's so much there, but I'll address a couple of key points. Beyak often refers to the benefit of the schools. In particular in the past, she has mentioned, for example, language skills. This is, of course, laughable in the face of the TRC findings.

One of the things most under attack at the schools was language. The punishments for speaking your native language ran the gamut, including harsh physical abuse. To claim what survivors gained were language skills obscures what they lost — their actual language, their culture.

This is something so many of us struggle with today, my family doesn't have our language precisely because of the schools. Instead, I speak a foreign language to you this morning.

Secondly, yesterday the senator claimed she has suffered with survivors. This is astonishingly insulting. If she truly appreciates their suffering she would understand that empathy starts with acknowledging that you can't actually know someone else's suffering but you care for them anyway.

Centering herself in other's suffering is simply an excuse to say that it's time to move on, which is exactly what the senator did in her next breath. Her statements prove just how little she appreciates the suffering of survivors, of the way trauma is passed down through generations.

To say these things as a senator, who sits in a colonial building built on unceded Algonquin territory, proves just how much the senator still needs to learn, as do so many here on Turtle Island, if we truly do want to move on. How are we supposed to move on if we don't first acknowledge where we've been and where we are now.

Matt Galloway: If you had the opportunity to speak directly to the senator, what would you say?

Jesse Wente: I would say, people should always be learning, every day and every moment of the day. That's life, that's what we do. I would also tell her that my community, the Serpent River First Nation, hasn't had clean water for 13 years, and it is but one of many in that situation. There's a suicide crisis in our communities, and our children still suffer.

The culture that created residential schools, that taught her they were well-intentioned and benefited the students, continues to this day. She doesn't want anyone to point fingers, in the future, when our children look back, there will be many places and many people to point to, such is the history of this country. And such is the history being re-created and sustained right now.