Hope and Reconciliation
I look out at the crowd of folks who have come to the Star of the North to hear Chief Phil Fontaine speak. He is with us for an hour and a half to talk about hope and reconciliation and to respond to questions and comments. In him, and in the one hundred and forty or so folks gathered, I see hope.
Phil is a tall, lean humble figure as he walks up to the microphone and begins to talk with the crowd. He begins quite softly and gently in a conversational tone, telling of his realization that forgiveness precedes healing of any kind and is key to letting go of the past, so that we might all be together in working towards a reconciled future. He tells his story, of how he has come to recognize his own part in hurting others, and his own need to forgive for healing to happen. When asked how he came to this realization, he says, “I came to a point where I saw I wasn’t any purer than anyone else.” As he goes on to speak about what reconciliation really looks like, he becomes enthused, animated and lit with transforming energy. 
I ponder how some of our programs struggle to get off the ground, with one very clear exception. “Breaking New Ground Together” is an ongoing initiative to bring people of all backgrounds together to untie the knots of misinformation or untruths that form part of our Canadian story and journey together towards truth and reconciliation. For us at the Star, these are stories of how the Oblates began in Canada and the huge role they played in educating, forming, living alongside indigenous peoples, with all the messy mistakes and beautiful, precious gifts shared that shaped the Canadian landscape. Phil eloquently tells some truths we all need to hear. “It started out fairly good,” he says and goes on to tell the long withheld and surprisingly still mostly unheard other side of the story.
Long before the settlers came, aboriginal peoples of many tribes lived and shaped the land that is Canada. They met with French and English settlers and made treaties with them. Along the way, good will gave way to darker forces in the human condition. The treaty promises were broken by government, land was taken away, and culture, identity, children were taken away. Aboriginals were left powerless, without the right to hire lawyers and defend their cause; without the rights of ordinary Canadian citizens. With these shows of force by government and a kind of willful and complicit ignorance of churches and settlers, if not racism, it is not surprising the challenges and struggles we find ourselves in today.
What are the Oblate ancestors of the hill saying to us? I listen eagerly and I hear them rejoicing at our struggles towards healing and reconciliation. I feel their presence among these gatherings and conversations for “Breaking New Ground Together” and I see a great blessing of hope.
There is no cheap reconciliation, anymore than there is cheap grace. Reconciliation with our indigenous brothers and sisters is an arduous struggle to wrest justice for vulnerable communities and to right the harms done in the past. In response to a question about the thirty thousand indigenous children in foster homes today – twice as many as those who attended residential schools – he says we need to work at ridding communities of poverty. Reconciliation is only beginning, Phil Fontaine points out, and there are many challenges ahead. But, he adds, “when I look out at communities and at how far we’ve come I see only hope.”
He challenges us to work together to lobby and petition the government to recognize Indigenous peoples as one of the founding peoples of Canada. “We shouldn’t restrict that notion to the French and the English. That would be simply not true when we consider Canada’s history. It would certainly make our efforts that much easier if we were to correct this distortion of Canadian history, this lie that’s been imposed on Canadians that Canada was founded by the French and English, absent of Indigenous peoples. It’s simply not true.” (quote taken from the St. Albert Gazette, November 29, 2017).
It takes many parts of the human family to hear and discern the truth. Phil Fontaine spoke truth to us with great hope for the path of reconciliation that lies ahead. I can hear our Oblate ancestors rejoice.
By Lucie Leduc, Director of Star of the North Retreat Center
