By Cheryl Jahn

CNC hosts Truth and Reconciliation events

Sep 25, 2024 | 3:26 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – It was standing room only in the Gathering Place at the College of New Caledonia, with drummers from the college and a sea of orange. Once again, the College is hosting a Truth and Reconciliation gathering as part of the National Day.

“Like so many organizations throughout our nation, we have a responsibility through Truth and Reconciliation and DRIPA to educate, inform, move our society forward with understanding Canada’s true history and the impacts of residential school as an educational organization,” explains Cindy Heitman, President of CNC.

Darlene McIntosh is an elder with the Lheidli T’enneh as well as the Chancellor of the University of Northern BC. Events like this are significant in building that relationship.

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“I have had so much help from all the departments that this has really become important to them. And as we go into truth and reconciliation on September 30th, it is so overwhelming the support that people are now engaging in, talking about coming into awareness. And it’s just a blessing.”

As a representative of higher education, McIntosh says recognizing education as just the start.

“And it’s not about pointing fingers. It’s about saying this is what happened in the past and what can you do to reconcile it? The past as we move into the future in a very positive way. So it applies to all post-secondary institutions. And and it’s working. We are changing that.”

Indigenous students across the scope of the college’s footprint represent roughly 20 percent of the student population and, as such, has been reflected in the college’s curriculum.

“We still have a lot of work to do in that area and I will speak freely about that,” says Heitman. “We’ve really put some priorities in Indigenous education, understanding Canada’s true history, looking at how do we decolonize a system that is so rooted in colonization.”

National Truth and Reconciliation Day celebrations get underway locally at Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park on Monday with a welcome at 2 p.m.