1. make First Nations people abandon their culture
2. Some of them were caring and understanding.
3. The last residential school was closed in the 90s.
4. It will take roughly seven generations to repair it.
5. 20 percent of the prison population is First Nations prisoners.
6. It is common for First Nations students to come from broken families.
7. They are lower.
8. There are signs of First Nations culture reviving.
9. They get many different kinds of support.

TAPESCRIPT:
Interviewer: First Nations’ position in Canada today is largely dependent on what happened historically. So one of the things that happened was residential schools. And those were a huge part of Canada's history. Canada is typically viewed as a peaceful country, but it wasn't all entirely peaceful especially regarding Aboriginal people. So residential schools – basically the goal was to assimilate First Nations into the European cultures when the settlers came and started to colonize Canada. So basically one of the goals was to take the Indian out of the child, and they did this in a number of ways. They would remove the child from their families and they would take them to residential schools where they would learn about European culture, and it wasn't so much of a school as a place where they were basically forced out of their own cultures.

Kerry: Yeah, they weren't allowed to speak their own language at school. Some of them weren't able to visit their families at all. And although a lot of the teachers worked very hard and did care about the students, there are still lots of stories of physical violence, sexual abuse, starvation, neglect and just general violence that the youth who were in the residential schools faced.

Interviewer: Yes, and something important about residential schools is people don't view them as a thing that happened recently, but it is very recent in terms of Canada's past in history. The last residential school closed in Saskatchewan in 1996, so that was not a long time ago, so we need to recognize that that's something that is pretty close to our time.

Kerry: And it's something that we as Canadians still see the effects of very much so within our First Nations, our Métis and our Inuit populations. There is discussion and a lot of research has been done on the effects of the residential schools. People estimate that it will take roughly 7 generations to repair the damage that was done, and there's a lot of different things that we see occurring in Canada because of that.

Interviewer: Yes, there are a lot of cases of intergenerational suffering, and that's something that people need to recognize, because Aboriginal people and First Nations people, they are overrepresented in our prisons. 20% of our federal prison population is First Nations and 27% of our provincial and territorial prison population is First Nations as well. And that’s seven to eight times larger than the overall population of First Nations in Canada.

Kerry: One of the other things that we see a lot of is homelessness and drug and alcohol abuse, because people were traumatized and they don't have the coping skills to be able to deal with their life. And so the poverty, most of - well not most, but a large part of Canadians living in poverty - are of First Nations, Métis, or Inuit heritage. And so we also do see the effects of residential schools in our own school population, even though those students, they didn't personally attend residential schools. Their parents may have, and if their parents didn't, their grandparents probably did. And so we see a lot of our students being raised by grandparents or older siblings, because their family unit has disintegrated. We see a large number of our Aboriginal youth in care and living in poverty, so we definitely do encounter a lot of students in our school. Jasper Place is an example where we have about – I think, about 12% of our student population identifies as First Nations, Métis or Inuit, and across Canada our graduation rates are significantly lower for our First Nations, Métis and Inuit students.

Interviewer: Yeah, one of the effects of residential schools lies in homes of Aboriginal people, because if they were brought up in a place where there was abuse, there was neglect and that was all they knew, they don't have any opportunity to learn how to properly parent their children and that has a lot of effects.

Kerry: There's a lot of positives as well. We see a lot more Aboriginal individuals graduating from post secondary institutes in Canada, and many of those people are going on to work within their community or help to improve the situation for First Nations, Métis and Inuit people in Canada. Many of them go back to their home communities and work to support youth and support mental health and addictions concerns, so we do definitely see a lot of improvement happening and it's coming from within the community. There are many cultural events that happen on our reserves where the majority of people live. Pow wows and different ceremonies being held. We also see that coming into our schools as well, so at Jasper Place high school we have an Aboriginal community liaison who works with our youth and helps them to connect with their communities and their culture a little bit more. We have an Aboriginal success coach who works with students to help improve the graduation rates and also just to make connections with students. We have a leading spirits Aboriginal youth council and we also have different elders coming into the school to help with celebrations and ceremonies. We do smudging on a regular basis, where – that's a ritual that helps to cleanse the mind and the body, and gets our students ready for the day or for tests or exams that are coming up. So there's a lot of positives happening, and we do see improvement. We do see a larger number of students graduating, but it's still definitely something that is a big issue for Canadians as a whole.

Interviewer: Yes, there are a lot of opportunities for Aboriginal people to succeed, which is great, because that wouldn't have happened even in the past decade. At our University of Alberta we have native studies programs as well as there are a lot of scholarships offered for people who are Aboriginal, and there are a lot of success stories which should be celebrated.

Kerry: Yeah, definitely. We have specific television networks that highlight Aboriginal culture and performers. We have music festivals that highlight Aboriginal musicians, and there's more and more visibility for First Nations, Métis and Inuit people in Canada, and I think that the majority of Canadians are recognizing the importance of that, but we still definitely do have a long way to come.