The University of British Columbia (UBC) announced it will be suspending classes Sept. 18 in honour of events related to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which seeks to inform Canadians about treatment of aboriginals in residential schools.
The commission’s West Coast National event opens Sept. 18 with events planned at Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum and Agrodome. The program runs until Sept. 21, with various activities planned such as public and private testimonials, workshops, film screenings, and archival displays.
“We hope students, faculty and staff will take advantage of this opportunity to develop a better understanding of the effects of the Indian Residential School System that operated in Canada from 1875 – 1996,” an email sent out by the university to all UBC faculty and staff read.
Marie Wilson, a commissioner of the TRC, said it is an independent commission established as one of the five major elements of the 2007 Indian Residential Schools Agreement, the largest court class action settlement in Canadian history.
The lawsuit was brought forward by 80,000 former students of residential schools against the federal government and four national churches who ran and operated the schools on contract.
“The purpose of TRC is largely one of educating, honouring, remembering, and inspiring reconciliation and change,” Wilson said. “Our job is to pull together and document for posterity as complete a history as possible of 150 years of forced aboriginal schools in Canada.”
She said one of the commission’s goals is to “create high profile public forums for communities to share experiences and how [the schools] affected them.”
Linc Kesler, director of the UBC First Nations House of Learning, and senior advisor to the UBC president on aboriginal affairs said the university has a long-standing commitment to ensuring a wide understanding of aboriginal issues.
“Taking advantage of the historic event of the TRC being here in Vancouver for one of the major events was very important, and a way to encourage people to be a part of that event was to suspend classes,” Kesler said. “When the idea was first proposed, we were not entirely sure the university as a whole would be supportive,” he said.
“Suspending classes is a pretty big deal. When we took it to committees and to the dean and faculty senate, people were very supportive about it. There was no dissention.”
Both Kesler and Wilson encouraged other educational institutions to educate students and faculty about aboriginal issues.
“Universities are supposed to be centres of learning and knowledge,” Wilson said. “As long as we keep it narrowcast as an issue for aboriginal people only, non-aboriginal people will think it has nothing to do with [them]. We need learning to happen in the Indigenous house of learning, but we need to have it broadcast across the spectrum too.”
Naomi Sarazin, aboriginal cultural liaison officer for Carleton University’s Centre for Aboriginal Culture and Education (CACE), said the centre provides a variety of programs and learning initiatives for both aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students.
“We do orientation activities with students,” Sarazin said. “We have a visiting elders program that runs on a weekly basis and we do different public lectures to raise awareness about aboriginal histories, cultures, and world views.”
CACE estimates there are about 500 to 700 students on campus who identify as aboriginal, according to Sarazin. She said following UBC by suspending classes for an entire day would be a huge project.
“It’s definitely something that all educational institutions should encourage students to learn about, professors as well,” she said.”It’s an important issue. It’s a shared history in Canada that hasn’t always been told.”
