Empty Cradleboard Mandate to Canada

Read on Parliament Hill, July 1st, 2021 by Jonel Beauvias to Indigenous Minister Marc Miller and Bishop of Canada

The threshold of our pain is the entrance to our triumph!

We arrive here today in the tradition of running a message of national importance from our Nation to the Nation of Canada. This matter of grave concern for our people speaks to the discovery of the remains of young Indigenous children who died in the care of your government, the Catholic, Anglican and United Churches for over a century. Though we’ve always known about the practice of cultural genocide perpetrated against us by your institutions, and have sought justice from you, we are now faced with the hard task of explaining the sheer numbers of children who did not escape your residential schools alive either through neglect, disease, or physical abuse, robbed from their place in our next generation. Not only did the poor children not survive but they were not returned home They were not afforded the dignity of a proper burial and their families were not allowed closure.

Today we are struck by the tremendous hardship our people and your people have faced during this pandemic by not being able to mourn their loved ones as they are accustomed to. Imagine how the families of the lost children felt! In order to bring some degree of comfort to our people today and especially our next generation who are just now fully appreciating the depth and breadth of the intentional harm done to our ancestors by yours, we conducted a Condolence Ceremony on behalf of the lost lives and their families whoever they may be.

This empty cradle board represents the empty arms of the mothers who waited, worried, wailed and grieved for their lost children. This empty cradle board represents the culture, language, pride, and identity lost by the survivors of your institutions. This empty cradle board represents the holes in the hearts and spirits of the parents and grandparents left behind.

Mothers of Turtle Island along with all the original people of Turtle Island call forward a national unveiling of the truth that will bring justice and healing to the enormous pain and suffering our people have and continue to endure. All mothers of the earth join Indigenous mothers as we echo this call for total and complete information and justice for the innocent children who died in your hands, all out of disdain and cold-hearted carelessness, and outright violence. We must continue to know and to teach this history, in all its detail. The legacy of the policy makers, and of the main managers of the most offensive institutions must be judged.

This empty cradleboard also represents opportunity.

We deliver a foundational message to all mankind:

We recognize that anger and vengeance never heals. We don’t change anything in our consciousness through hate, we can only do it through lateral acts of kindness. We must ask ourselves; how do we heal a country and the planet from these kind of crimes against humanity. Without peace in our minds, we cannot heal.

Heed the wisdom of our elders and heed our words on this most historical day.

From the beginning of our relationship as people, when the saltwater people came to our shores in search of a more beautiful world, we approached in peace. We already knew that peace is the only solution. If we have peace, we can think, we can solve.

Peace is hard to find at this moment when the tragedy of our lost generation is so newly confirmed, revealed, so raw to our emotions.

I speak to my people now. The moment is of high potential. The pain is only tolerable, the elders’ suffering is only honored, if we use the moment to carve out a better life for our children; if we can clearly think about how to make a better world for them.

Our people and nations spread out in communities across this country called Canada need healing. Our children need a good life, protection from destitution.

This should be our focus. In the place of hatred let’s render one thousand acts of kindness to unsnarl the thinking that put us here. There is no prize to be won in hurting one another; there is only loss as our children are watching us.

Let’s look at the healing already being done.

There is a healing movement that is making its way through our communities. Models such as the work and dedication of healers such as our elder Jan Longboat, who has assisted the healing and strengthening of thousands of Native women. Or the indigenous midwifes of Ontario, who have their fingers on the pulse of our mothers and their infants, and we promise to birth a new world that promotes peace as the protocol to all our relations. Midwives, healers, Native mentors and good models in every community, are a crucial part in recovering our identity. It is in our babies that peace begins again. We can start with the love and affection for each other so we can have life in our cradle boards again.

We have to reconstruct the institutions and include our voices in how they’re made. Canadians whose grandparents crossed the great saltwater look into your own history from where your ancestors came from. There was war and strife there and you came in here for a better life, but you never healed your trauma. You brought your trauma here and unleashed it onto the innocent. White people, black people, Asian people -- all need to heal too. Let’s acknowledge what has happened and allow as much time is needed to grieve and in tandem let’s focus on how to heal. Let’s avoid the impulse to violence and instead let’s motivate our young people on how to take part on the basis of our unity and the love for our children. Our Cultural sovereignty and distinction are based upon how we managed to rid ourselves of a mind that was once vested in war and domination. Through a great message that our Peace Maker brought to us was the building of our generations upon protocols to peace, friendship and unity. Let’s look to the horizon for the basis of our common unity. We have to build our people to co-exist. To rabble rouse the matter or incite revenge is not good. We must override the negative with the beauty of who we are with accountability from your side and healing for our side movement

The greatest rebellion is to have the people wake up to their power! Let’s create systems of joy fueled by the pain we have suffered!

Feel your rage, Indigenous communities, but be responsible for it because no one will feel it more than your grandchildren. To all Onkwehon:we peoples of this great land and to Canadians who believe in the greater good let’s lead humanity toward what the world needs right now. Let Peace be our journey and let love be our fuel for we are the generation those babies were waiting for to bring them home to a world they didn’t get to live. Let their memory live in the cradleboard, one that is filled with truth, understanding and kindness for one another.

The threshold of our pain is the entrance to our triumph!

Written by: Louise Herne. Edited by: Dr. Jose Barreiro with contributions by Beverly Cook. Cradleboard made by Two-House Designs.