Northwest Territories Chief tells positive residential school story

This year the residential school system was called “cultural genocide” by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after collecting hundreds and thousands of stories of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse against first nations children. 

But one Chief from the Northwest Territories is telling a completely different story.

“Those were the best years of my life. My family says the same thing, my sister swears by it. We were treated wonderfully.”

Chief Cece Hodgson-McCauley, of the Inuvik Dene Band, spent 10 years at a residential school. That she was taken in as an orphan.

Speaking to Gormley on News Talk Radio, she said they learned many things there.

“They taught us how to sew, make our own clothes, they even showed us some neat arts like sewing quilts and beads and things like that. And we worked in the kitchen, learned how to cook.”

Hodgson-McCauley claims that a lot of the bad stories told about residential schools are a lie.

“They’re only reporting the bad side, and the more you lie, the more you say it’s bad the more money you make, and the lawyers are making money because they’re pushing people to tell their stories.”

She said some people have contacted her, wanting to tell their positive stories about the schools, but are too scared to come forward. 

Hodgson-McCauley wants the truth to come out, and she plans on being the person to start it.

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