news // no. 4

A hard path

to healing

» Douglas College screening of ‘Indian Horse’

Tania Arora
Staff Reporter

 

Cardin politician Romeo LeBlanc once
said, “We owe the Aboriginal peoples
a debt that is four centuries old. [...] And
the reconciliation required may be less a
matter of legal texts than of attitudes of the
heart.”

To promote this reconciliation, the
Douglas Students’ Union organized a
screening of the film Indian Horse on
March 7. The film is based on the book by
Richard Wagamese, who was an Ojibwe
columnist, author, and journalist. His own
sufferings in life inspired him to share
the story—though he never attended a
residential school himself, many amongst
his own family were residential school
survivors.

“Each of the adults had suffered in an
institution that tried to scrape the Indian
out of their insides, and they came back to
the bush raw, sore, and aching,” Wagamese
wrote in his essay The Path to Healing.

The movie highlights the life of
Canadian First Nations boy Saul Indian
Horse who survived the residential
schooling system in the 1970s. His road
to success is hampered by racism he
faces along the way as well as battles
with alcoholism and systemic barriers.

His passion for the game of hockey
and determination to stand out lead to
stardom.

On June un, 2008, Prime Minister
Stephen Harper released an official

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statement apologizing to all victims of the
residential schooling system.

“Two primary objectives of the
Residential Schools system were to remove
and isolate children from the influence
of their homes, families, traditions and
cultures, and to assimilate them into the
dominant culture,” said Harper. “These
objectives were based on the assumption
that Aboriginal cultures and spiritual
beliefs were inferior and unequal. Indeed,
some sought, as it was infamously said,

‘to kill the Indian in the child’ Today, we
recognize that this policy of assimilation
was wrong, has caused great harm, and has
no place in our country.’

The residential schooling system
began in the 1880s, with the last school
closing in Saskatchewan in 1996.

Funded by the Canadian government's
Department of Indian Affairs, the system
was administered by the churches. Created
with the intention of separating Indigenous
children from their cultures and families

in an act of cultural genocide, the schools
resulted in the physical, emotional, and
sexual abuse of the children under their
care.

“Stories are meant to heal,” Wagamese
wrote in his memoir One Native Life.
“That’s what my people say, and it’s what I
believe. Culling these stories has taken me
a long way down the healing path from the
trauma I carried.”

The screening of Indian Horse was
attended by many and the film well-
received by the audience.

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‘Indian Horse’ film poster

theotherpress.ca

DSU election
results 2019

» Team Action sweeps elections unopposed,
Douglas vote ‘Yes’ on U-Pass referendum

Bex Peterson Editor-in-Chief

 

ith votes counted and results tallied,

the Douglas Students’ Union has
completed their 2019 elections and U-Pass
referendum. Results were announced on
the DSU Facebook page on February 15.

All candidates ran unopposed for their
positions. Douglas students voted “Yes’ to
enter another five-year agreement with
TransLink and the Province to continue
with the U-Pass BC program. There

was no registered ‘No’ campaign for the
referendum.