We were found, brought back, and beaten... I used to go down to the fence at the waterfront and look through. I was waiting for my father to paddle up to the shore, to take me home. He never came."

"I feel unworthy, being a survivor, knowing that most of my friends died, either at the school, or shortly after, because of addictions. I was molested and raped, like the other boys at the school. It took 15-20 years of work with a therapist to pry this out of me. In the meantime, I was callous. I beat my wife like all the other drunk Indians."

"I was attending public school in my community when I was taken, in the middle of class, and brought to residential school. They targetedRwanda, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Due to the absence of a high-profile genocide or civil war, many Canadians are surprised to discover that Canada is also currently in the middle of a nation-wide Truth and Reconciliation process.

Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission addresses the 130 Indian Residential Schools that operated in this country from the 1840s until the last one closed in 1996 (!). About 150 000 First Nations, Metis and Inuit children attended these government-funded, church-run schools, which intended to "kill the Indian in the child." About half of these former students are still alive today. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls them "survivors," and often refers to their children and grandchildren as "intergenerational survivors," since they, too, experienced the negative impacts of the schools, especially in the