Sixty-one years later, the determined Millbrook woman has won
what's being called the largest class-action settlement in
Canadian
history - worth somewhere between $4 billion and $5 billion -
for
an estimated 79,000 survivors of the residential school
system.
"I just want to tell the survivors that I am so happy for
them that
this is over," Bernard, 71, said yesterday. "I love every
one of
them."
The first lawsuits over abuse suffered at
residential schools were
filed in 1990. But there was no consolidated
effort until five
years later when Bernard convinced Halifax lawyer John
McKiggan to
represent her and other Shubenacadie survivors in a
class-action
suit.
"I firmly believe that if it wasn't
for Nora's efforts, and other
survivors like her across Canada, this
national settlement never
would have happened," McKiggan
said.
"After we filed our lawsuit, a number of other students from
other
schools filed similar class actions. Those class actions
eventually
merged into the one national class action that has now been
approved by the courts."
Only two left
Judges in 10 provinces and the Yukon endorsed the settlement
yesterday, leaving Nunavut and the Northwest Territories as the
only
jurisdictions left to OK the deal.
In his written decision,
Ontario Superior Court Justice Warren
Winkler described the
residential school system as a "seriously
flawed failure." His verdict
included the Shubenacadie survivors.
"The effects of the
residential school legacy were lasting and
profound," Winkler
wrote.
Bernard, her three sisters and two brothers all went to
the
Shubenacadie school. She spent five years there; her
youngest
sister, nine.
"It was no place for a child,"
she recalled. "Once you entered
those big doors in the front and they
slammed behind you, it was just
like going into a prison."
A
federal Indian agent threatened Bernard's mother into turning the
kids
over to the school, warning that if she didn't sign the
papers, the welfare
system would apprehend the children.
It was a common experience.
Noel Knockwood, now 74, went to the
Shubenacadie school in 1939 after
an Indian agent threatened to
jail his father. McKiggan said he has clients
who were taken away by
Indian agents while Mounties held their parents
at bay at gunpoint.
The Roman Catholic Church operated the
Shubenacadie school for most
of its existence. It opened in 1930 and
finally closed in 1967. It
took in aboriginal children from the
Maritime provinces,
Newfoundland and parts of Quebec.
As
Knockwood describes it, the goal of the residential school
system,
which dated back to the late 1800s, was "cultural genocide."
"They
were trying to get rid of what Parliament referred to as 'the
Indian
problem' by assimilating aboriginal people into Canadian
culture, so
that they would no longer have to spend money on the
Department of
Indian Affairs and on reserves," McKiggan
explained. "It is an
incredibly sad part of Canadian history."
At Shubenacadie, the
kids weren't allowed to speak the Mi'kmaq
language. Disobedience often
resulted in a slap across the mouth by
one of the Sisters of
Charity.
"The goal was to take our culture and our language away
from us,"
Bernard said. "Also, what they were doing was training us
as
domestic help. The boys were trained for farm work."
Effects still felt
She and Knockwood, a Mi'kmaq spiritual leader,
were able to retain
their language. Others were not, and met with
ostracism when they
returned to the reserve.
The
hurt caused by this attack on their culture has rippled down
through
the generations.
Knockwood credits Bernard with making "a
tremendous contribution to
Canada as a whole in standing up for
liberty and justice and
freedom." He says she deserves the Aboriginal
Achievement Award.
Bernard, though, remains humble.
"I
guess, probably, I have a real big heart," she laughs.
But, when
asked what inspired her battle, she's suddenly serious.
"Justice,"
Bernard replies without hesitation. "I wanted justice
for
my First
Nations people that attended the residential schools - not
only down
here - throughout Canada."
submmitted by Luc Majno
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