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Where's the money for healing?
In 1928, a government official predicted Canada would end its "Indian problem" within two generations. Church-run, government-funded residential schools for native children were supposed to prepare them for life in white society. But the aims of assimilation meant devastation for those who were subjected to physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Decades later, aboriginal people began to share their stories and demand acknowledgement of — and compensation for — their stolen childhoods.
. Contracts were awarded in every province and territory, with the majority in Western Canada and Ontario.
. Projects paid for by the AHF cover a wide range of healing initiatives and programs for aboriginal people -- not just residential-school survivors. Among them are counselling for survivors and their families, summer camps for youth, parenting programs, interviewing elders on their life stories, mentorship for young people, and many more.
. In 2000, Gilbert Oskaboose, a newspaper commentator from the Serpent River First Nation in Northern Ontario, wrote an article criticizing the AHF. He compared the grant-application process to "Jesuits flinging out candy into the yard, then laughing at us kids fighting over it." But Oskaboose's main complaint was that money from the AHF was going not to residential school survivors, but to "native people who have learned to play the juicy government funding game."
Program: CBC Television News
Broadcast Date: July 19, 1999
Guest(s): Elaine Herbert, Deanne Redhawk House, Wendy John, Robert Joseph
Reporter: Stephanie Wood
Duration: 7:19
Last updated: March 28, 2012
Page consulted on April 2, 2013
All Clips from this Topic
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Students at a residential school near James Bay get a chance to equal ...
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Christmastime at a residential school in British Columbia.
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Sweeping changes are on the way as church authorities relinquish contr...
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Two residential school veterans remember the system that made them ash...
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Students in Sechelt, B.C. fight to improve their residential school.
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The host of CBC Radio's Our Native Land talks about school days with t...
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Phil Fontaine publicly accuses the Catholic Church of physical and sex...
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A priest agrees that action by the church may be in order to address a...
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As accusations against the churches pile up, three former residential ...
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A Vancouver conference gives former students a chance to discuss what ...
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A suicide crisis on northern Ontario reserves is blamed on a generatio...
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The Royal Commission on Aboriginal People hears from the four churches...
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Former residential school students use workshops and performance to he...
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A P.E.I. man attempts to extract an apology for what happened to his p...
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Residents at a Nova Scotia reserve gather to hear the news as Ottawa m...
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A lawsuit tries to right the wrongs visited on a Saskatchewan native b...
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Well into the second year of its mandate, the Aboriginal Healing Found...
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An Anglican diocese can no longer pay for the sins of the past.
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Native leaders say it's a positive step that Ottawa and the Anglican C...
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The federal government introduces a new system to process residential ...