Posted on 30 September 2022

I wrote about Orange Shirt Day and local government and reconciliation, and whose voices we listen to when making meaningful decisions.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the last year, and especially as we head into municipal elections.

It’s about my city but probably yours, too.

A reminder that support is available for survivors and those impacted by residential schools by calling 1-866-925-4419. Support is also available at 1-855-242-3310 or by online chat at www.hopeforwellness.ca.

On August 30, 2021 the city of Prince Geoge did two very local government things: Passed a new bylaw, and voted in favour of renaming a street.

Bylaws and street namings are the sort of things that don’t matter to people until they do. Both happen all the time without catching much attention. But this street naming, and this bylaw, were both flashpoints in broader cultural conversations happening not just in Prince George, but across the country.

the unmarked graves

Three months earlier, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced that they had used ground-penetrating radar to identify up to 200 potential burial sites for children who attended the Kamloops Indian Residential School, which was in operation from 1890 to 1969. Though the stories of children dying at these schools had long been public, this particular announcement prompted public reflection and mourning, with flags lowered on federal and other public buildings and memorials popping up across the country — including the steps of Prince George city hall.

_{A memorial to residential school victims outside Prince George city hall in summer 2021}

Prince George is built on the land of the Lheidli T’enneh, the land taken after forcing the Nation out of their village and onto reserves in the early 20th century. In 2015, Prince George city council voted to change the name of the city’s main civic park to Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park in recognition of that history. The reflection brought on by the findings at Kamloops Indian Residential School would provide an opportunity for another name change.

the residential school principal

Shortly after the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc shared their findings, a post began circulating on social media regarding a letter written by the principal of the Kamoops Indian Residential School’s principal, Reverend J. Fergus O’Grady, in 1948. In it, O’Grady informed parents of children at the school that they were to be returned promptly at the end of Christmas vacation, or else they would not be able to see them the following year: “This is a privilege which is being granted,” he said of parents seeing their children over the holidays.

_{Left: Bishop J. Fergus O’Grady in the Prince George Citizen, 1986, displaying his honourary law degree from UBC honouring him for his religoius work with Indigenous people in northern B.C. Right: A letter from O’Grady in 1946 to parents of students at the Kamloops Residential School informating them that seeing their children is a “privilege” that can be revoked.}

O’Grady’s connection to Prince George is a long and complex one, and you can read more about it here. The short version is that after Kamloops he moved furthern north where he served as the first-ever bishop of the Prince George Diocese, opened Prince George College (a Catholic high school that also boarded Indigenous students) and developing land that would come to be known as College Heights, today a residential and commercial neighbourhood marked by big box stores on the edge of town. He was honoured in many ways including having a street named after him: O’Grady Road.

In the aftermath of the Kamloops findings, and the circulation of O’Grady’s letter, Lheidli T’enneh chief Dolleen Logan formally asked the city to rename O’Grady Road to something else: “Our members and other Indigenous citizens of Prince George are forced to relieve residential school trauma every time we shop at stores in College Heights where O’Grady road is located,” she wrote in a letter to council. “If we are ever to begin a journey toward true reconciliation in Prince George, the name O’Grady Road must be changed.”

the homeless camps

The other major news story of that summer, in Prince George, at least, was the growth of two homeless camps in the city’s downtown. While the city had long had people sleeping rough, the size and scope of these encampments had not been seen before: Dozens of people building semi-permanent structures on two empty lots: one near the courthouse, and another at the bottom of an embankment leading up to a residential neighbourhood.

_{An encampment that came to be know as Mocassin Flats built in Prince George over the summer of 2021}

In response, the city attempted to take actions to shut down the camps, serving trespass notices and applying for a court injunction allowing them to forcibly remove residents.

This approach also earned rebukes from advocates who said the city was unfairly targeting vulnerable people. Among the groups to criticize these actions were the members of the First Nations Leadership Council, consisting of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs and the First Nations Summit.

“The homelessness crisis in Canada is complex, multifaceted, and cannot be addressed with these kinds of blunt and short-sighted approaches,” wrote B.C. AFN chief Terry Teegee, who lives in Prince George. “City Hall’s approach continually re-traumatizes these vulnerable people, many of whom are suffering from the intergenerational impacts of residential schools.” 

A poster urges people to camp outside city hall to demonstrate unhappiness with policies targeting homeless encampments.

But the city moved forward with their attempts which, ultimately, earned them two losses in court: In October, a judge ruled the city had not been able to demonstrate there was adequate and appropriate shelter space to house everyone living on the streets, and so the larger camp should be allowed to stand. The city later demolished several structures in the camp anyway, earning them an admonishment from a second judge for violating the previous order and forcing an apology and possible future legal action.

the safer streets bylaw

In repeated surveys of the homeless population in Prince George, an overwhelming number identify as Indigenous. A 2021 point in time count placed the number at 82 per cent and other reports consistently place the number at 70 per cent or higher. The Indigenous population for the city as a whole is about 15 per cent.

Scholars and people with lived experience continuously link the disproportionate number of Indigenous people who are homeless to the legacy and ongoing action of colonization: Trauma, abuse, broken family ties, a loss of culture and sense of place. In my own interviews with people living in homeless camps, the majority either had parents who attended residential school, or attended themselves. For many people homelessness is, in the words of Teegee, an intergenerational impact of residential schools like the one run by Bishop O’Grady.

And that’s why Teegee was similarly critical of the city of Prince George’s decision to pass something it called a “safer streets” bylaw. The bylaw offered city workers the power to target and fine people sleeping in doorways and ATM shelters, those using drugs in public and those soliciting people for money or goods. Though city staff insisted they would use it for educational rather than punitive purposes, the bylaw does allow for those who violate its rules to be subject to “a maximum of $50,000 in fines” or six months incarceration.

And as luck would have it, both the decision on whether to pass the safer streets bylaw and the decision on whether to rename O’Grady Road would come on the same night.

reconciliation in action

Council meetings start with presentations from the public before getting down to business. On August 30, people opposed to the safer streets bylaw — many Indigenous, many homeless — gathered outside and drummed. Things got underway inside with a presentation by Teegee and the B.C. AFN, along with an academic from Toronto who provided an evidence-based argumentative that punitive action would not help solve the social problems the city was attempting to address. This was followed by presentations from Together We Stand, a grassroots advocacy group for homeless people and the Millar Addition Connaught Concerned Citizens Committee, which documented the problems people living near the homeless camp were facing and why they wanted more action to be taken. You can watch the meeting in full here and read a recap of it here.

One by one, city councillors hit many of the same talking points: They agreed there were problems, they agreed on a compassionate approach, they advocated for more housing. But they differed as to whether they saw the safer streets bylaw as part of the solution. Three councillors — Cori Ramsay, Murry Krause and Frank Everitt — argued it was simply an attempt to sweep poverty out of public view while failing to address the underlying problems, causing more harm in the process. The rest of those present (Garth Frizzell was away) said they agreed more needed to be done to help those living on the street but in the meantime more tools were needed to target people causing problems for other residents, and they believed this bylaw could help. It passed, 5-3, with mayor Lyn Hall and councillors Brian Skakun, Terri McConnachie, Kyle Sampson and Susan Scott voting in favour.

And then the night moved on to O’Grady Road. And on this, there was full agreement: Residential schools were a terrible thing, we must learn from our past, and even good intentions don’t mean what happened was right. We can’t undo our mistakes but we can learn from them and do better in the future. The road would be renamed. Reconciliation in action. Local government making change.

learning from our past

Today is Orange Shirt Day, the second National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. I woke up this morning and saw corporate accounts, sports teams and pretty much everyone in the public eye posting orange profile pics and talking about the importance of learning from our past and moving forward together. It’s pretty basic stuff at this point.

It’s also something I’m hearing as people campaign for local government elections happening in Prince George and across B.C on October 15. More politicians are being asked how they would commit to reconciliation if they were elected. And the answers are generally similar: Working together, consulting with local First Nations, remembering our history.

But far more attention this election is going to be paid to the issues that people complain about in local Facebook groups and on the news, the same ones that prompted the safer streets bylaw in the first place: Public safety concerns, open drug use, panhandling, people sleeping on sidewalks and setting up camps on public property.

I wrote this a year and a month ago, following that city council meeting:

In a city where 15 percent of the population (Stats Canada) is Indigenous, there are zero Indigenous representatives at the council table. But there were Indigenous people present at the meeting

In a rare step, British Columbia Assembly of First Nations chief Terry Teegee was an intervener in this – opposed to the bylaw. Outside city hall there was drumming and Indigenous people opposed to the bylaw. All of this happened on unceded, stolen, Lheidli T’enneh land

The clear message from Indigenous leadership, as well as grassroots Indigenous people, who made their voices heard on this issue, was to not pass the bylaw.

And, let’s be clear: the people impacted by this bylaw will be predominantly, nearly exclusively, Indigenous. I say this as someone who works downtown, who visits the homeless camps, who talks to people camped on sidewalks (also now illegal)

when you hear about “intergenerational trauma” and the “lasting impacts of residential schools”, this is it. To a person, everyone I talk to is either a survivor or family member of a survivor, of residential schools, of the 60s scoop, of the Millenial scoop, the foster system

none of this is to pretend there aren’t problems. No one sees a tent city as a solution. No one thinks people sleeping on sidewalks is a good thing. And there is violence – of which vulnerable, homeless people are disproportionately victims

But like I said, I’m not looking to relitigate the bylaw itself. It’s about how the decision was made and more importantly – how it was made despite the express wishes and recommendations of Indigenous people who said this will further segment society, target those in poverty..

.. people who are themselves overwhelmingingly Indigenous, with direct and secondary ties to the residential school system.

And then comes the request to rename the street

And did that go quick. Every councillor jumped in the queue to say how terrible residential schools were and renaming this was a no-brainer. Comments about knowing things now we didn’t know then, not being unable to undo the mistakes of the past but being able to do better now

And I can’t help but think about how for generations, political leaders and mainstream/white society ignored the voices of Indigenous people when they were talking about how bad residential schools were. And whose voices were ignored when it came to passing that bylaw

and look, I have no doubt that those in favour of the bylaw have good intentions. That they believe it will help. But we also have a clear illustration of how people with good intentions, wanting to help, have done incredible harm in the past

And that’s something to reflect on

I’m still thinking about it today.

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