Through healing and poetry, Kamloops survivor denied residential school 'the satisfaction that it killed me'

Guest: Dennis Saddleman

MATT GALLOWAY: Remember that the joys of being in a room full of strangers, the band playing on stage, like so many industries, the live music sector has been clobbered in this pandemic. As Canada gets set to celebrate musicians at the Juno Awards this weekend. We'll talk about what awaits them on the other side of covid. Also this morning, it has been a difficult week for First Nations people across this country. And while the great songwriter William Prince should be celebrating his Juno nomination, his mind right now is firmly on his role as an indigenous father.

SOUNDCLIP

I thought of my own son. I think of the time that he's not with me when I'm when I'm on the road. That time is hard enough and I can't think well, I can't really comprehend the pain and panic behind parents losing their children against their will.

MG: In an hour, William Prince is here to talk about being a storyteller and what he wants his non-indigenous fans to understand about this moment. We begin, though, in that residential school in Kamloops with a survivor who found strength in poetry. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Deep generational wounds have been opened yet again in this country, survivors, those who love them and many more Canadians are grieving. This week after the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc first Nation announced, a preliminary report shows the remains of 215 children unmarked on the site of the former Kamloops Indian residential school. Dennis Saddleman attended that same school for 11 years beginning in 1957. And the news wasn't easy for him to process. But he has been reaching out, connecting with friends and continuing the work he started as a child to heal and stay, in his words, in balance. Part of that is through his poetry. You might have heard his voice on this show earlier this week, reading his powerful poem, Monster, about his experience at residential school. Dennis's mother was Nlka'pamux and his father was Syilx and Dennis Saddeman is with me from Merrett, British Columbia. And please note that some of what we are about to talk about may be distressing for some listeners. Dennis, good morning.

DENNIS SADDLEMAN: Good morning.

MG: How are you doing?

DENNIS SADDLEMAN: Oh, I feel a little bit rested up now. It was pretty tiring and pretty shook up there. I had to remind myself to look after myself here. You know, we all had that the power and energy have been used. And so I make sure I eat and I drink water. And I smudged and I washed myself, ask the water spirits to help me. So that's what I've been doing.

MG: When you heard this news that came out of Kamloops, why was it important for you to go there to gather with other survivors there?

DENNIS SADDLEMAN: That school there was like it was part of my life. I felt so, so sad and everything there. And I wanted to hug everyone and those children. And I was thankful to the ancestors, you know, thankful to myself, sir, that I survived, you know, and. There's a time in there that I came pretty close to to death one time. They had a swimming pool there in front of the old building there and the supervisor says everybody are getting ready, they are going to get to go swimming. This is like my first few weeks at the residence school, so I didn't know how to swim. So I laid on the grass near the swimming pool. I was enjoying the sun and next thing the supervisor came along and he grabbed me and he lifted me up. He had my swim instructor and he brought me to the swimming pool and he threw me in, in the deepest part. And I just remember kicking and I remember the whitewater's and the bubbles and the water making that swirling and twirling sound in my ear and and I was sinking and I blacked out and they come to someone was pushing on my chest and I opened my eyes and there's a older boy, and he says, Are you OK? I said, Yeah, I'm OK. And then he got up and he walked away. And it seemed like I never seen him again. And I was thinking to myself after, I wonder if that was my angel that came from the ancestors. And I'm sure glad that I made it through that incident of drowning. You know, my grandfather, he always taught me how to speak our language. He spoke to me every single day there in our language that the [unintelliglbe] language. So when I went to that school I still had that language in my head, and then we were going down by the pond and I seen a snake crawling on the ground and I got excited. I started running out to that snake. And there are some boys near me and I was speaking in our language and [ indistict speech], which means look at the snake. And next thing I knew, somebody grabbed back of my collar and I looked, it was the supervisor. He was he was angry and really angry. And he slapped me in the head. And then he told me, go back to the dormitory. That's our sleeping place. You know, so he told me to stand beside his door. And this was 10 o'clock in the morning. So I went back to the dormitory and stood by his door. Lunch time, went by no lunch. I didn't have no supper and then run about eight o'clock at night or was bedtime. So all the kids come in to the dormitory. He saw me stand by the door. He says, Oh, yeah, I gotta deal with you, too. He said, one of the boys, go to washroom to go get a bar of soap. He told everybody else to stand around and watch my punishment. And then the supervisor, he grabbed the back of my head with my hair pulled. And so my face would be facing up in the air. And then he put that bar of soap in my mouth and he just rubbed it, you know, he just rubbed it right into my teeth and into my tongue and I was gagging for air. And to this day and every time I see a bar of soap and I can remember the taste and I can remember the flashback.

MG: I'm so sorry for what you have been through. I mean, it's awful.

DENNIS SADDLEMAN: Yeah.

MG: But you also, you speak out about this and now that you speak with students and you talk to others about what you went through and it's incredibly difficult and obviously only say what you're comfortable in saying. But why is it important for you to speak out about this and tell those stories?

DENNIS SADDLEMAN: You know, I found out there's a lot of people that have never heard of, the residential school before, especially from different nations or the non natives and our young people. I was thinking of our young people, there are a lot of them there, maybe they're their parents or grandparents were in silence or they will not share their stories. I got to reach out to them there and tell them what the residential school is all about and show them the real picture of what happened to us or the physical abuse and even our spiritual abuse. And, you know, it took me a long, long time to really say that I was sexually abused. And when that happened, my abuser told me to don't tell anybody about this. If you do, I know where your family lives. I'm going to go over there and I'm going to hurt them. So for two or three days later, you know, I was really, really feeling dirty, really feeling ashamed. And I wanted to go and disappear. So I went down to the river and I stood beside the river and the river was swift. The river was deep and and the river was dark. And I was standing there and I say, River, river, if I jumped in would you swallow me? River never said anything to. All it did was just flow and flow and flow. I went back to the school there and just continued to suffer and more and more. And then after my sexual abuse, sir, I thought, gee, maybe I'll try and tell somebody. So I went to the principal and I knocked on his door. He says, come in, I went. He told me to sit down. So I sat down. And I told the school principal there about my supervisor, he sexually abused me. It happened in the dormitory. And the principal there, he just looked at me there and he says that I was telling lies about a good man. So that made me feel real betrayed and abandoned. So I walked away there. I believe my sexual abuse there, about nobody believe in me. So I went into silence and I was just going to strugglesand shame and anger and rage. And I went home and right away I drank and I did drugs and I was really bad. And I was going out in the streets, staggering down the street, and I sleep in the back alley. Slept beside the dumpster. And when I wake up, I eat my breakfast at the dumpster to eat my food. I want save all my money for a bottle. You know, people there look at me with disgust and looking at a drunken Indian on the sidewalk. And I was so, so far down in the bottom of the bottle, and that I was at the bottom of a junk pile and took a knife and I stabbed myself on my right cage, my rib cage. And I even took a rifle and I put it under my chin.

MG: And what was it that saved you? What was it that I mean, you say you were at the bottom of the junk pile. What was it that pulled you out of that?

DENNIS SADDLEMAN: I see myself sort of like crawling towards an open grave and whatnot, in a [unintelligible]. And I said to where I'm going to have to turn my life around, change my direction, change my path. And so it seemed like I was grabbing a steering wheels and I was trying to turn my life and I was growing up. Come on. You can change. You can change. You know, I didn't want to give the resident school the satisfaction that it killed me. I didn't want to give the satisfaction to my sexual abuser that he killed me. So I just put my foot down and said OK. So I was really, really, really hard and funny funny. When I got up on my feet where I had to learn who I was, then I realised all this hate, this rage and the violence, it didn't belong to me. So when I went in my healing journey there, my supporters, my healers, they helped me to give that hate, that rage and that violence, my sexual abuse, all what I was carrying, give it back to the residential school. It didn't belong to me.

MG: Can I ask you about poetry and what poetry has helped you do? I mean, I want to play a little bit of a poem that you wrote that we played the other day on the radio. But what when you started writing poetry in that healing journey, what did it give you?

DENNIS SADDLEMAN: It was like a healing tool, you know, I was able to reach into myself to reach my inner child. And then I learnt how to get connected with it. And then I learnt how to how to use words or because words they can hurt or they can heal, depends how you use it.

MG: You read a poem for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2013, and the poem is called Monster. And it's ncredibly powerful. We played the poem earlier this week on the programme, but I want to play a little bit of it now and just ask you a bit about it. This is your poem, Monster.

SOUNDCLIP

I hate you, residential school. I hate you.

You're a monster. A huge hungry monster built with steel bones, built with cement flesh.

You're a monster built to devour innocent native children.

You're a cold hearted monster cold. That's the cement floors. You have no love, no gentle atmosphere. Your ugly face grooved with red bricks, your monster eyes glare from grimy windows. Monster I saw evil. Monster eyes watching terrified children covered with shame.

I hate you, residential school. I hate you.

You're a slimy monster oozing is in the shadows of my past. Go away. Leave me alone. You're following me. Follow me wherever I go. You're in my dreams. In my memories. Go away monster. Go away. I hate you following me.

I hate you, residential school I hate you.

MG: That's your poem, Monster, which as I mentioned, was read at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2013. When we played this this week on the programme, we had so many people who commented about how powerful it was. I just want to read one of the emails that we got. This comes from Rebecca Horn, who wrote from Charlottetown: "As I turned on my car after dropping my children off. At their day-care Monster by Dennis Saddleman was playing on The Current, tears welled as Dennis Saddleman's voice painted a dark, ugly picture of a tortured child. The stark contrast of the happy, loving scene I had just experienced to that of a young child within the residential schools made the mother in me ache for those innocent children broken and destroyed by those atrocities". How do you know when you have made a difference with the poetry that you write?

DENNIS SADDLEMAN: I remember I wrote that poem about the year 2000. You know, I'm talking about that huge red brick building when I was standing in front of her with my parents or when I first arrived at the residence school when I was six years old. And I guess the reason why I thought it was a monster, we're standing there and all of a sudden these double doors opened and these black creatures came out. You know, there's about five of them, there were all wearing black robes and they looked like black creatures and the face was pale and [unintelligible] and I got really scared and they came out of those double doors and, you know, that's when that word monster came into my head. And those black creatures are they dragged me and dragged me through the double doors and soon as I walked through those doors I felt like I was that was it. The monster was eating me up. That's why I wrote that poem there. So it still wakes me up. Shake me up when I go back there, you know, because it's like, there's the presence of the spiritual children around there when you're walking by the building or you're walking on the lawn, there seem like there's a presence somewhere that the children would be watching or, you know, so it was like of playing and a lot of singing and and I just wanted to be there for those beautiful children there. Pray, sing. And sometimes I see some people even dance.

MG: I know that you wrote a poem for us that this is something that you wrote this week after everything unfolded in the wake of that discovery there. Can you tell me a little bit about the poem before you read it?

DENNIS SADDLEMAN: I just I wrote this and I was thinking, you know, like what our people is going through right now. What happens to all the hurt and the pain and the anger and the rage? And I was kind of hoping that I could reach out and no matter who you are, if you know me or don't know me, I wanna be there to, you know, hug everybody and to say to everybody, everybody's in my thoughts. You're in my prayers. And I just want to say that you're not alone. We're all together in this and we will rise and we will stand together. So I wrote this one here. It's called The Drum Goes Bang:.

The drum goes bang.

The bang goes everywhere. It's time to sing. It's time to pray.

That drum goes bang, bang, bang, bang. Join the circle, sacred circle. Bring your medicine. Bring your spirit.

The drum goes bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Dance for me. Dance for everyone. Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance. Ruffle your feathers. Move your moccasins and keep the beat. Beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

MG: It's Dennis Saddleman and the Drum Goes Bang. This has been a really a really hard week for so many people and for you. I know and you talked about the hurt and the anger and the pain and the rage that people feel. How are you taking care of yourself?

DENNIS SADDLEMAN: I learnt from my healing journey and I learnt from the elders and and when you're drinking water that you just, you know, prayed to the water, to the water spiritl, that they when they enter you, they help cleanse you and help to give you the energy. And then if I had a choice, I can go up to a tree and hug a tree. The tree, can take all my emotions, my hurts and whatever. The tree will bring it back, go down to the roots there and give it back to the earth. And then some people, they would even they can stand in the wind when it's really windy. They ask the wind there to take away your hurt and emotions are so call it my church. So I can go out in the forest and pray at my church out there. And our ancestors are out there, always watching us and they're always inside of me. So that's what I do.

MG: There are a lot of people who have turned to your poetry for comfort and I think for some strength over the course, certainly, of this week and long before as well. I'm really grateful that you were generous enough to share some of that with us. And I'm grateful to have the chance to talk to you, Dennis, thank you very much.

DENNIS SADDLEMAN: Everybody out there, take care of yourself and remember all those beautiful children. Thank you. [Indigenous speech].

MG: Dennis Saddleman is a survivor of the Kamloops Indian Residential School. You can find the audio of his poem, Monster, at cbc.ca/thecurrent and on Twitter @TheCurrentCB. And if you are struggling with this news or what we have talked about here, the Indian residential school crisis line is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 1 866 925 4419. The CBC News is next. And then there are a lot of musicians in Canada right now wondering how they will pay their rent. Lockdowns are lifting, but slowly getting a beer spilt down your back at a live show, for a lot of people still seems like a long way off. In six minutes, some industry veterans are here to talk about how Canada's music industry is coping and what awaits them on the other side of this pandemic. I'm Matt Galloway you're listening to The Current at CBC Radio One.

Canada’s music industry after COVID-19

Guests: Chris Frayer, Amy Millan, Darren Metz, Quenton Nyce

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, William Prince is a Juno Award winning musician, a member of the Peguis First Nation in Manitoba and a father. And in 30 minutes, he'll speak to me from all of those perspectives about residential schools, reconciliation and hope. First, you missing live music. Me too. But probably not as much as my next guests.

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

[Song]

MG: Kind of takes you back, doesn't it? Crowded venue, shoulder to shoulder with strangers singing along to your favourite songs. That's the band Wilco performing Passenger Side in Winnipeg on the 11th of March 2020. That's the same day the World Health Organisation declared a global pandemic, the last live concert hosted by the Winnipeg Folk Festival as well. And since then, the festival had to cancel for a second year in a row, and a smaller event planned for August was also in jeopardy. It's yet another blow to the Canadian music industry. In the first six months of the pandemic, musicians, promoters, festivals and venues lost over 200 million dollars in revenue, and it could be years before it fully rebounds. Chris Frayer is the artistic director of the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Amy Millan is a member of the band Stars and Darren 'Young D' Metz and Quenton 'Young Trybezs' Nyce are the First Nations hip hop duo Snotty Nose Rez Kids. Good morning, everyone.

GUESTS: Good morning.

MG: Chris, what do you remember about that last in person concert?

CHRIS FRAYER: Oh boy, I remember a lot. I mean, I remember we felt like there was a black cloud hanging over us already as people were coming into the venue. And it was even weirder backstage with the band because they, you know, Jon Stewart, the bass player for Wilco, his father had already had already got covid, a nursing home in New Orleans. And so he was already isolated from the rest of the crew and everything. And I just I remember how we just got out in one piece on that show. And it's actually it's a nice, you know, lasting memory of a really a trying night, but a nice musical memory of the last show that we did at the Centennial Concert Hall.

MG: Quenton, what's the last musical memory you have about your last live performance before, you know, the floor fell in the pandemic?

QUINTON NYCE: Yeah, we did a show of force song club here in Vancouver, and we did it for a boiler room. It was kind of crazy, too, because I was going back and forth from Vancouver to Toronto because I was in charge of their [unintelligible] in Vancouver. And we knew it was coming to an end when there was a few years until we got back on the road. So we just kind of like took it with a grain of salt. And we were watching I think it was an NBA game. And we got word that someone from the Utah Jazz got infected with covid. And Adam Silver made a statement saying that the NBA is going to be cancelled until further notice and probably indefinitely. So, like, right before we're on stage, we, like looked at each other like, I guess we're done here. This is the last show. And our manager told us we couldn't be like, there was like to be like physical distancing. But then we got to the show and it wasn't really like that. It was like packed, but it wasn't packed to the fullest because of, like, physical distancing and all that. But we knew it to be our last show. And we just like it was like, like you said, it was like it was a dark cloud over the room. But we just like acted like it was going to be a last show.

MG: Amy, what about for you? Stars were in Europe, I guess, on their last round shows, right?

AMY MILLAN: Yeah, we played well. I would say that our biggest last production was in Toronto doing our play at Crow's Theatre. We were doing eight shows a week and it was set to come up this year in January at Siegal Centre in Montreal. They took the whole set and we were supposed to do it. And it got cancelled immediately within weeks of the pandemic hitting. They said, you know, now we'd have to move our entire 2020 season to 2021, which is yet again to be cancelled. So we have no idea when we'll be able to bring that production back to theatres.

MG: What do you remember about being on stage for the last time?

AMY MILLAN: We ended the show by singing No One is Lost and the whole audience would dance with us. And one of the things that was remarkable to me is just the microphones, like we would interview people in the audience and just that idea that we would be sharing a microphone a bunch of people is just like it's the karaoke of no longer. Like it's just such a strange thing to feel like the people have been the vectors of fear. And I'm really looking forward to the vaccines working and us being able to get back together.

MG: I mean, this is your livelihood. I mean, you love the music, but you also this is how you make a living and Stars as a band that tours to make a living. How has the pandemic changed that? And I mean, how are you able to to keep things going without being able to make that income?

AMY MILLAN: So, you know, honestly, like, the word pivot makes me feel like a clown on a trampoline. I really don't love the word. But we did actually start a [unintelliglbe] page before the pandemic hit, and that's really helped us stay connected and stay afloat a little bit. But honestly, not like before the pandemic hit, the music industry was crumbling. I mean, it's been really tough even before the pandemic. So that's one of the things that's been interesting during this time, is it's kind of shining a light on so many places that are just crumbling and there's so much money that is being made and that can be filtered back into the community and the arts culture and into health care and to so many places. And so, you know, there is money and it just needs to be funded and we need to just go to the government. And, you know, honestly, when CERB came in, that was massive for I think the arts, like for people who are in the arts and are able we're able to get CERB. I was very disappointed that a universal basic income wasn't announced in the federal budget this year.

MG: I want to come back to that. And I mean around the sustainability of being in a band like yours. Darren Sinodinos raised kids. We're on this wild trajectory in the lead up to the pandemic. What did this all do to that trajectory? I mean, do you feel as though things have been completely put on hold for for the group?

DARREN METZ: Yeah, for the most part, you know, we had quite momentum going before covid, you know, came and shut everything down, but. You know, luckily with. Group in the team that we have were able to. Be able to. I have like the blessing and to be fortunate to still have money coming in where, like, we can live comfortably. You know, like we had a lot of deals and, like, licencing deals. I came for my TV shows and movies. And also just like a whole lot of other people, we had to learn how to do like a live show on live stream or...

MG: Which is not the same at all. Right. It's completely not the same.

DARREN METZ: Not at all. Not at all. You know, like it's you're on your stage giving it your all like you used to have the crowd there. But it's just a camera.

MG: How does I mean, personally, how have you coped with this? Because it's been hard on people. I mean, and this is again, it's entertainment, but it's also your livelihood. And when that gets redirected, that can be really difficult and add stress. So how have you coped over the last year?

DARREN METZ: I mean, my biggest focus has been just focussing on my mental health, you know, and. Both of us really just focussed on taking care of ourselves and making sure, you know, we're happy to help you out, right, because this pandemic has taken its toll on everybody and everybody's been dealing with it in their own ways. And yes, just one day at a time, you know, like I know we're all supposed to like everybody's used to going out and experiencing new things, and that's where the inspiration comes. But once the pandemic hit, you can't really, you know, go anywhere like you're on lockdown. You've got to stay home. So, you know, we had to go through growing pains throughout this whole process, but. We got a we got a good feeling at the end of the year.

MG: I hope so. I hope you're right, Chris. You've had to cancel the Winnipeg Folk Festival for a second year. Yes. How much does that tell me what the festival means to the city and to end to the music community?

CHRIS FRAYER: Well, it's I mean, it's one of a handful, you know, heritage festivals in Canada. It's been around for, you know, 47 years, 48 years. So it's you know, it's one of those early days events, you know, and it's such a well, yeah, it's a huge, you know, cultural event for the province and the city. And it's a great way for for artists who don't normally get to come through the city to come to Winnipeg. So we get a lot of really great artists coming here. It's the first time for them. It's the only place that they'll play when they come to Winnipeg is at the festival. So it's also just, it's a it's a big event in terms of like it's a large camping festival, a large art animation festival. There's a bunch of different elements that play into it. You know, we have the workshop model, you know, which is the more collaborative, you know, part of things which is kind of a unique part of Western folk festivals. And so, yeah, it's a huge thing for the for the community. And it's something that's like sorely missed right now.

MG: What do you think we'll miss, Chris, when we don't have live music? Because you can imagine there are some people who are saying in the grand scheme of things, in the context of a global pandemic where lives are lost and livelihoods are lost and there's a mental health crisis, that that might be, you know, a side issue that perhaps we could do without. What do you think we miss with life?

CHRIS FRAYER: Well, for sure. I mean, we miss community for sure. I'm like on several different levels. I think there's, you know, the the idea that a bunch of humans get together and put on an event like that is one thing and then another 20000 humans coming to enjoy it together. I think there's a kinship in music and loving art together. Aas a species, I think there's an idea where, you know, when you're at a show, you're kind of like everyone around you, you know, is into the same thing is you. They're there for the same reason. I think that I think that kind of it's a tie that binds. And I think that it's just, speaking of mental health, I mean , music is it's just good for your mind. And it's so creative on so many different levels. And it's also just visceral and it's just entertaining. It doesn't have to be three academic. It can just be about, you know, having a great time and letting off some steam with friends. And that's what we haven't been able to do for the last year and a half. So I think there's a longing for that again, and not just for music, obviously for theatre and for dance and for all the other genres of arts that have also taken a hit during this as well.

MG: So, Amy, what what do you think, Amy? I mean, what are we missing when we don't have culture that we can, to Chris's point, go and experience with a roomful or a field full of strangers?

AMY MILLAN: I mean, if we look over this past year, what happened in Italy. When Italy was really hit very hard, people went out on their balconies and they started to sing. Apparently, Ken Whitely from Toronto has played a concert every single night on his porch since the beginning of lockdown. Music streaming has gone through the roof since the pandemic, because people need music to get through the hard times in their life. And I played the Winnipeg Folk Festival, had the most wonderful time. There's nothing like festivals. One of the best things about it is not just the people that come, but getting to see your fellow musicians backstage and the camaraderie ship of seeing each other. And I really hope I get to play with those kids one day or guys like you taught them talking about their mental health. Also so important to, you know, music gets us through everything. There's nothing like- you can listen to a song one million times and never get sick of it. There's nothing like that. I mean, it's it's so unique that way.

MG: You talk about hard times. I mean, you know this personally. You and your whole family got covid.

AMY MILLAN: We did, but we were very, very fortunate and we were one of the lucky ones where- because my son had it, got it from his day-care, there was a breakout. He's four years old. The viral load was very low. So he didn't have any symptoms. My daughter had very- she just basically lost her sense of smell and had a headache for one day. And Evan and I got hit a little hard, like two weeks. We went down. We were pretty sick, but we're very, very fortunate that we came out the other side well.

MG: What is that experience done in terms of shaping your perspective on all of this and where this goes from here?

AMY MILLAN: Well, what was remarkable to me was the amount of anxiety. That people have had this past year, and that's been really interesting, that the world worldwide, we are connected that way through this anxiousness of trying to avoid getting sick and being sick. I got vaccinated for days before getting the getting covid. So that was really getting kicked in the knees at the finish line. But once we were on the other side and were, well, I don't really need to be anxious about getting sick anymore. And that loss of, like, not feeling that anxiety has been so huge. And I'm so looking forward to other people being able to share that and getting to vaccinations into them and being able to open again because it's been just so hard chasing running from this dragon that is covid for 15 months.

MG: Quinton, what have you done with the time that you have had I mean, without a sold out U.S. tour, you've had time at home. And I know you've been working on on some music as well. What have you done in that time?

DARREN METZ: Yeah, like, I guess for me, I just developed like a little tight knit circle here in Vancouver. Some of the people that I can, like, be around and and make music with and just kind of like to interact, I guess. Because for me, like, I'm a very, like, extroverted person. So, like, honestly, this whole time dynamic has really taken a toll on my mental health in that regard, especially after losing out on all that revenue and all that like that momentum that Darren was talking about, early on in the segment. So for me, I actually had to, like, really find my people here in Vancouver to like me help me, get me through this.

MG: And those people helped, too. I mean, those people were sort of like an anchor for you.

DARREN METZ: Oh, big time. Yes. Especially because, like, you know, like I moved back from Toronto here to Vancouver and didn't really have a lot of people, a lot going on here, which is what it felt like. But once I got grounded here in Vancouver and was able to start like fighting my like, get my creative juices flowing again and things kind of like got back into full swing. And now I'm like I feel like we're coming out. And everyone's feeling a lot more positive these days.

MG: Chris, when we come out of this, what worries you the most about what's going to be facing the Canadian music scene? I mean, clubs, venues have been closed, bands haven't been performing. A lot of venues have shut down permanently. What are you worried about?

CHRIS FRAYER: Well, yeah, I mean, I'm worried about like I don't think we've seen, like the the actual damage, you know, after the, you know, half of the tornado, I don't think we've seen it likely we're going to have to do an assessment of what we're really like. Who got through that? It hasn't been equal for everyone. YA lot of people in our industry have suffered far greater than others. And I think we're going to have to do an audit of of just what's happened with everyone. And I think we're going to continue to try to advocate for with government to to to put things in place that help prop it up. I mean, we also the big thing for me as a live music presenter is just not really understanding the societal toll the Psychotrauma told, just how sure and ready people are even right now, even when restrictions are lifted, people are taking advantage of them. People have their own restrictions, public health orders in place themselves, even when they can do more. I'm kind of a little bit, you know, it's another unknown after a whole series of just unknowns. So I think we're going to bounce back. I think that there's a ton of inequity in the industry for artists regarding streaming services that been yelled loud and clear through this whole thing about just not enough money trickling down to the people creating the art which is just pretty much a fact that this at this point. So I think there's some things that- I'm hoping that we don't have to do streams anymore. I mean, we've done so many of them. And I think that is probably, you know, I think the hype, I think in the industry, like the hybrid model, will probably be in place for a while where. Like if we done the festival this year, we would definitely have been doing streaming and we would be doing in life like a diminished capacity festival. Because we're going to have to accommodate people that love music, that just are immunocompromised, are just aren't prepared mentally to come back, to join, to come out of the cave. Yet, you know, we're going to have to do things to to try to make things better for all different people that love live music.

MG: Amy, you were talking about the universal basic income. I mean, what does the sector need? What do you need? What do you need when you come out of this, Amy?

AMY MILLAN: I mean, you know, again, like, I'm very fortunate and I actually did during the pandemic, I did wrote the song and performed it for the Canada Post Christmas campaign. We've been writing for television and commercials and stuff. So we are trying to branch out and try different things, but just across the board, not just for musicians and for I don't understand why there can't be a universal basic income. It just would solve so many problems. And it's just known that if that happens in a society that the people put it back into the economy and the economy is going to get crushed without culture.

MG: And that that would obviously say the cultural sector in particular you think would benefit from something like that.

AMY MILLAN: Absolutely, I mean, we contribute three billion dollars to the GDP and it's been shut down for over a year and a half. I mean, we're not talking about like a recession or depression. We're talking about a catastrophe here. And it was hardly mentioned by the government. The government said small business has been hit the hardest. That isn't true. The arts has been hit the hardest. And I just you know, when they talk about the day care, because we're very lucky here in Quebec, we have a subsidised day-care at seven dollars a day, which has made me be able to have children and a career. And that in itself, if you had a universal basic income, that would help pay for day-care. And so I just don't understand it. It's perplexing to me why that wouldn't be set in place after a year and a half of a pandemic.

MG: When we get out of this. What do you think it's going to be like me to get back on stage in front of a crowd of people?

AMY MILLAN: You know, I mean, I can't tell you like being on tour is difficult. It's hard, it's tiring. But when you muster yourself up to get on stage and then you walk into a room that's filled with these beautiful people that are ready to sing the songs with you, there's just nothing like it. And that's what's been sort of kind of it's been like a dream about this, all the streaming and online stuff is that you don't have that. You know, we're basically and a writer from Toronto and she said we're basically like treading water and a bunch of potatoes. You know, we've all shared this dread of this year. I know. It's so funny. She's a great writer. And I just there's there's just something about the smell of the room and being able to grab one another. One of my favourite things to do when I play it, especially broken social scene and the other band, I play it and it's like when we're singing Almost Crimes, I get to grab somebody in the front row and put their face to mine and sing into the mix together. And we just, you know, ironically, our play was called Together at Crow's Theatre, The Stars and we just need to come together. I miss it so much.

MG: Darren, what are you most looking forward to about getting back on stage?

DARREN METZ: Just being able to have that connection with everybody at the show. You know, I think it's fair to say, like a lot of us took doing live shows for granted, just like she was saying how being on tour could be tiring sometimes and it can really take a toll on your body physically and emotionally. But after a year and some change and having that taken away from you, you know, I really feel like a lot of us are going to take that for granted anymore. And I know for us, that's in our case, like with every show that comes, we're going to do every show like it's our last, because you never know what's going to happen.

MG: And that's a great way to to think about what could come. And I hope that happens sooner rather than later. It's great to speak with you all. Good luck coming out of this. Thank you very much.

GUESTS: Thank you.

MG: Chris Frayer is artistic director of the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Amy Millan, a member of the band stars Darren Young D, Metz and Quenton Young Trybez Nyce are the hip hop duo Snotty Nose Rez Kids. What do you miss most about live music and being, as Amy was saying, in a room full of strangers hugging each other and singing along to your favourite songs? You can let us know thecurrent@cbc.ca, or tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Hear now those Snotty Nose Rez Kids, Creator Made an Animal

SOUNDCLIP

[Song]

MG: Snotty Nose Rez Kids, Creator Made an Animal. Coming up after your regional update, the musician William Prince is here to talk about what reconciliation looks like for the next generation. He speaks as a musician, a storyteller and a father. That's coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current.

William Prince on reconciliation and hope; and Rosemary Barton on the federal government’s response to remains identified at Kamloops

Guests: William Prince, Rosemary Barton

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current. The preliminary findings of the remains of 215 children on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School this week have brought up a lot of emotions and a lot of questions, questions about parenthood and the vulnerability of children, the responsibility of the church, the government, colonialism, indigenous strength and truthtelling. These are also themes in the music of Peguis First Nation artist William Printce. He performs this weekend at the Juno Awards. His album, Believer, is nominated for Contemporary Roots Album of the Year. William Prince. Good morning.

WILLIAMPRINCE: Hi, Matt, how are you?

MG: I'm well, congratulations on the Juno nomination.

WILLIAMPRINCE: Oh, thank you very much.

MG: I'll talk about that in a moment. That's a big sign of success and well deserved. But I want to talk about this week and what this week has been like. You wrote a piece on Facebook and you said that you were speaking as a First Nations father. You have a four year old boy. And I'm wondering what this week has been like for you as a dad.

WILLIAMPRINCE: It's been like most weeks, we've been remote learning and we've been spending a lot of time together, and I think obviously when children are involved, the heart immediately kind of drops to a new level of empathy and you think of your own. And I immediately started to do that. I thought of my own son. I think of the time that he's not with me, when I'm on the road or when he's with his mom, that time is hard enough. And I can't think well, I can't really comprehend the pain and panic behind parents losing their children against their will and not not being informed of exactly where they're headed or for how long and what the the outcome of that time away will be. It's unfathomable. It's a nightmare, truthfully. And I just felt the need to express not as a musician, not as a performer, just first and foremost as a human being, a First Nations person in this country and then I'm fortunate, blessed to have a son. So I get that added layer of perspective and thinking of all the children lost to the residential schools in Canada over the last number of years,

MG: have you spoken to him this week about about this story and and about what this moment means?

WILLIAMPRINCE: Yes, we've been doing it in layers, I'd say it started off a conversation about how some very special children were removed from their moms and dads. I was trying to put it in to build up to it in a way. And I said that these children, you know, we pray every night. This isn't something new in the sense, you know, when I pray with my son to the universe, to the creator, to the cosmos, to the Lord, whatever you believe in. I say, you know, we always ended with thank you for blessing me and bless those who don't have. And this is a lesson that we've been talking about for years. So it was easier to point out that these children were some of those who weren't as blessed and fortunate as us to have a beautiful home and and good food and people that love and care for them, because that's what my son gets everywhere he goes. He has two families that absolutely love and adore him, make him feel special and are genuinely interested in caring about his development. And these children, unfortunately, were not of that same privilege. And we talk about privilege all the time. We talk about that it's not an everyday thing to have the things that we have, because I grew up that way. We grew up in a very hills and valleys home on the Peguis First Nation Reserve, where my dad had a very small pension and we lived paycheque to paycheque, feast or famine in a way. And he always found a way to provide for us. And I think of it now where I'm lucky and comfortable enough to live in a place where I don't have to stress as much about groceries and how do we get gas in the tank so that we can drive to get the groceries and different things, I think of all the everyday. Oh, humming that my parents used to do and trying to make ends meet. So I tried to tie all that in together about privilege and how we're very fortunate that we get to live the way we do in this country and that we are First Nations people. He knows that he's Anishinaabe and he goes and visits his family at the Peguis First Nation. Not as much right now, but he's been there. And we sit around the fire in the country and he knows what his brown skin is for and what it's the history of it. He's learning. And I tried to explain that these 215 children taken from their moms and dads didn't get to live the life that he's living. And so we went to the Winnipeg Legislative Building. We went there and we saw the shoes on the steps of parliament, and he brought a drawing that he made and laid it down. We placed some tobacco and we said a prayer just like we always do. So he knows what's going on right now. He's a very engaged four year old. And it was so wonderful that after we prayed and through some tobacco on the sacred fire and says, I feel good, dad. It was a genuine feeling.

MG: People have seen this moment in many ways is perhaps the beginning of or along the path of a reckoning. And you made a request in that note on Facebook. You said, I asked my non-indigenous non Canadian followers to see this for what it is. What is this?

WILLIAMPRINCE: Well, this is something that's been happening for a very long time. This is not news. First Nations people have been talking about this and trying to enlighten people, but it's a testament to how those messages can sometimes fall on deaf ears or our eyes can turn away from it, you know, these First Nations people are blocking traffic again. What's that all about? Man, this is inconvenient. I'm just trying to get to work. And there's a rally of native people in the way and... That's when we're talking about the trauma we face, that's when we're trying to bring attention and it's like I talked about this at the beginning of the pandemic when we were discussing Black Lives Matter and how Canada is quick to say at least we're not as bad as the U.S. And the truth is our our history is just as shameful in this country when we think of the like how the initial efforts to extinguish the First Nations people, to kill the Indian within the person, but save the person in the process in hopes that maybe they would become a different version of themselves that was better suited to a wider Canada without this culture, without these things. And this goes to show when the church and government take the children of First Nations people into their care and allow them to perish from malnutrition and lack of care, all these different issues, not to mention mass graves and all those different things, this is Canada's current history because the effects of those things resonate into our everyday life today. When you see a homeless man on the street who comes to your window and makes you uncomfortable in that moment, and you, what do I do in that? You know, you have empathy. You soften and realise that it's that person's grandfathers that were initially hurt and robbed of their identity and culture, their worth, the dignity, and that trickles down for years and years and years. And that's what we're seeing now is number one, it's a cross. It's an axis where people are tired of the treatment and really that more information is being spread. And I think with my small platform, if I could just say something from the heart that is truly the very least I could do. I think of the work with the Downie Wenjack Foundation, who are doing a lot of great work to basically implement better education around the history of residential schools in everyday, everyday schooling in the education system. Now, how can we advance this if the curriculum is being blocked by those in charge not to shed light on this true history? That's what I'm talking about. These are known intentional efforts by the Canadian government so that the horrific truth of what has happened and continues to happen to First Nations people in this country kind of stays buried just enough so that there's not an uprising. But First Nations people are resilient and have been for thousands of years and are still fighting this fight. We just want to be seen for who we are, our talents, our strengths, rather than the residual effects of all this mistreatment from so long ago and in this current time.

MG: What do you see just finally as your role as a musician, as an artist, as a storyteller in in this moment, but in moments to come, what do you see as your role?

WILLIAMPRINCE: My role is to wake up every day and challenge the stereotypes of being a First Nations person in this country, and I first and foremost can place that around my fatherhood, being a good family man and trying to unlearn some things as much as learn things. And that's the generational trauma that my dad faced from his parents. And my mom is still dealing with today as a survivor of the Sixties Scoop and being removed from her family. And so when I wake up and try to put my best foot forward, I live my life with good intention. That's what I'm trying to do to help the greater cause. And then and right now, it's time to to listen. I don't have all the answers. I'm fortunate to be surrounded by friends who are educated and help move mind learning along, until we rectify these wrongs, there's always going to be a list. There's 94 calls to action in place right now that we need to focus on and that this country needs to gather around and build up the people who are the most hurt, the most vulnerable. I can say I live in great privilege and the more that I work on myself, my health, my mind to be strong, as Wab Kinew said the other day, you know, we we build up our spirit, we be strong and for our children so that they can walk ahead forward in time and undo some of this damage by living healthier lives from the get go, not always suffering from the past. I think that's ultimately what we're trying to get to, is raising a generation of children that aren't haunted by the past and the pain of their ancestors while still being knowledgeable enough to carry this information forward to the next generation so that we can stay in check with the basic means of dignity and and respect in this country for First Nations people.

MG: We're going to play That's all I'll ever become. Can you just quickly tell us a little bit about this song and what it means to you?

WILLIAMPRINCE: That song was easily that songs about my son, and it's about no matter what I do, no matter how many Sunday night Juneau's I perform at my son, learning to ride his bike is going to be great.

MG: And when you talk about him, you have this big smile on your face, which is great.

WILLIAMPRINCE: Oh, it's real. You know, he's the greatest teacher right now and he makes me better every single day. So that's what I mean. Being in his presence and any future children I may have, their well-being in this life will be my greatest accomplishment. How I take care of my nieces and protect them as they walk through life and how I treat others will be seen by him. And one day I won't be here. And I hope that- my dad used to always say, we hope that we can become useless to our children. And he'd laugh, you know that I don't have to carry you the whole way, but I sure wish I could see it all. Makes me emotional thinking about it. I wish I could see every season. But the reality of it is I can't live that long. And maybe I'd like to live to the second last day because no parent should outlive their children, they say. And boy, that's what we're dealing with now. And I think of him and all my accomplishments, they don't even really they, don't even add up to a pinkie nail, I say, the carbon it takes. And so I just I love him so much. And I send it out to to all the families, all the parents out there and all the families affected by this discovery.

MG: I'm really glad to have had the chance to talk to you. I wish you the best of luck at the Junos. And I know this has been a difficult week, so take care of yourself as well. And thank you very much.

WILLIAMPRINCE: Thank you, Matt.

MG: William Prince nominated and we'll be performing at the Juno Awards this Sunday on CBC, starts at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, 5:00 p.m. Pacific. Here's William Prince. And that's all I'll ever become.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song

MG: That's William Prince. He is just fantastic. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway.

SOUNDCLIP

There isn't a single indigenous community that isn't hurting. It's opening up wounds that were not closed, even if people thought they were closing and we get that.

MG: That's Mark Miller, Canada's minister of Indigenous Services, speaking on Wednesday. Politicians have been trying to respond to the news about the remains found in Kamloops. And there have been a lot of emotions and a lot of promises.

SOUNDCLIP

We are walking at the pace of communities. I know people are eager to get answers as to what we will do nationally and what will the feds do. The reality is, is this is something that will be dictated to us by the communities that are affected. So there are many communities that are hurting and grieving. They've asked us specifically to give them space. We know that they have immediate health needs, mental health needs that we will fulfil. But over and above that, they have made a number of specific requests that we will fulfil as quickly as possible.

MG: Rosemary Barton is the CBC's chief political correspondent. Good morning.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Morning, Matt.

MG: As you have watched the political responses to the news, the really difficult news of this week, what has struck you about those responses?

ROSEMARY BARTON: You know, I think this has been a really difficult week for indigenous people. Obviously, the most difficult, a difficult week for the country and a difficult week for the government. I think the government has been perhaps surprised that people were not aware of or conscious enough about the work that they were doing to try and get some of this reconciliation going. And I think I think that that's that's a hard story to explain to Canadians on a daily basis, because let's be quite frank, I don't think Canadians are thinking about this enough. And certainly if one good thing came of this week, it's that now they are. This is the government, the first government that had to deal with the calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. And so it is accepted them and is trying to put them into effect. This is the government that after years of people calling for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Enquiry, decided to do it and yesterday committed to putting in place an action plan to follow through on it. So in many ways, it deserves some credit for taking on these incredibly complex problems. But it also has set itself up for intense scrutiny because these issues are so complicated and so important.

MG: And so coming out of that scrutiny, I mean, one of the things people are learning is that maybe some of the money that has been allocated has yet to arrive in those communities. And the twenty nineteen budget, the government allocated almost thirty four million dollars to honour missing residential school children in response to the calls to action coming out of the Tassy most of that money, twenty seven million dollars, has yet to reach indigenous communities. What's taking so long to get the money to the communities that need it?

ROSEMARY BARTON: So, I mean, if you ask the ministers, they say, much like what you heard Minister Miller say, they're off the top, that these are community led decisions, that they are not going to go in and force communities to deal with the situation, you know, in the way that the federal government would like. And there has been ongoing consultation about how communities want to deal with some of these issues. You know, I think that's true. I think that's the right approach. But I also think that probably there's an issue there. If there's that much money left still on the table and people either weren't aware of it or were not using it, I think that part of this is going to have to come down to the government, perhaps better communicating what it's doing or what it has on offer for some of these communities. But it is right to say that not every community wants to do things in a particular way. Every community is going to approach this issue differently. And and I think that that's part of the struggle here as well. And now because, again, because of this week, there will be renewed pressure on the government to make sure that this money is accessible.

MG: In part because the prime minister has said that no relationship is more important than the nation to nation relationship. And so in many ways, it's an issue of credibility. How is the government's credibility on this, given the promises made in the last election and comments like that?

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah, I mean, I think that's where sort of the rubber hit the road this week. You know, they are making slow progress. And if you talk to any of the commissioners involved in the TRC, Maori, Sinclair and others, they believe that the progress is too slow. Six years later, they are complicated issues sometimes shared by jurisdictions and other organisations. And I would say that the public pressure on these issues is something that matters. The more Canadians speak out and say, we want this change to happen now, the more it will light a fire under this government or any government to to move forward faster. I will say and my colleague Aaron Wherry wrote about it this week in his column, I do think that the bar has changed in some ways around this issue, not unlike what seems to have happened with climate change. I no longer think we can have any government or any political party be unwilling to take on the calls to justice or the calls to action. This is something that is now required. It is not up for debate. And I don't think Canadians are going to be patient with any government on the progress of these issues.

MG: Can you just briefly talk about the other parties? I mean, the opposition leader, Erin O'Toole, called it the Liberals for not acting quickly enough. What is the conservative record on this?

ROSEMARY BARTON: The conservatives have problems on this issue. You know, it was Stephen Harper who made that important apology inside the House of Commons all those years ago. But it was also Stephen Harper who would not immediately commit to those 94 calls to action before going into the election. The conservative leader himself, Erin O'Toole, you know, about six months ago was caught on camera defending some of the original purpose behind the residential schools. It is not a subject matter that comes up particularly often for conservatives. So they, too, have a credibility gap, I think, on this issue. And that's also sort of part of the problem. If this is the issue that drives you to the polls, if you think this is the most important thing that Canada should be doing right now, where does that vote go? And I think that that's something that people are going to have to start thinking long and hard about.

MG: What about the NDP? The NDP has called on the government to drop the court actions on compensation for First Nations children and residential school survivors. That's something that Cindy Blackstock was talking about on this programme this week.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah, he's so Jadmeet Singh has called for this this motion that will be voted on on Monday to speed up the implementation of some of these calls to action. And again, some of this drop some of this legal action. You know, they are obviously trying to build a narrative here that the government has failed on some parts of reconciliation. I think that Jadmeet Singh very often glosses over the complexity of some of these issues, to be quite frank, including dropping legal battles against particular communities. That's a complex issue that I'm not sure, just calling for it to happen is the right approach either. But he I will say, you know, taps into the emotion around the issue. And if there's one thing we saw this week is that I think Canadians are looking to their leaders for empathy and and emotion and and leadership driven by some of that understanding.

MG: Is there going to be that urgency? I mean, Cindy, when she was on the programme this week, said that whenever the next election is called, when people come to her door, this is what she will ask them about. And she was talking specifically about those legal cases. But there's the larger issue as well. Is there now a renewed urgency to to address this in a meaningful way?

ROSEMARY BARTON: I mean, I think I there is, I think that's what this week has has brought us. It was it was strictly a coincidence that this action plan on missing and murdered indigenous women happened this week as well. And to me, it is striking that we started the week wondering where things were out on calls to action. And we have ended the week with a plan on calls to justice. These are hundreds and hundreds of things and hundreds year old problems that this country has to fix. And if the urgency does not continue, if the momentum doesn't keep up on these issues because of this week and other weeks, then it will be a sorely missed opportunity for any government and certainly for this country. I will just say that there are two things to that happen this week, very concrete things. There's a bill that's revising the oath of citizenship. So newcomers will have to swear that they will observe Canada's treaties with indigenous people. It is symbolic but is important, and it is part of the calls to action. And just yesterday, a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation has become a statutory holiday on September 30th. And I know, again, people want more action, less symbolism, but that now is a day where Canadians will have to set aside and think about some of these things.

MG: Rosie, thank you very much.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Thanks, Matt.

MG: Rosemary Barton, CBC's chief political correspondent. Of course, you can watch her programme. Rosemary Barton live Sunday morning, 10 a.m. on CBC News Network. We've been talking about this all week and we have received a lot of feedback from you. Happy to hear your thoughts as well. Do you see a renewed urgency on this issue coming out of this week? You can email us thecurrent@cbc.ca. That's The Current for this Friday. Q is next. Tom Power speaking with the four remaining members of the tragically hip. You'll hear that conversation in just a moment on CBC Radio One, I Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. Have a great weekend and we'll talk to you on Monday.

The Current Transcript for June 4, 2021

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

Through healing and poetry, Kamloops survivor denied residential school 'the satisfaction that it killed me'

Canada’s music industry after COVID-19

William Prince on reconciliation and hope; and Rosemary Barton on the federal government’s response to remains identified at Kamloops

Friday June 4, 2021 Full Transcript

Social Sharing

More from this episode