215

“215”

Anyone who is thinking, caring, compassionate – anyone who has a heart – will know exactly what this number represents. Maybe you can ignore the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, maybe you can not notice the findings of the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, but it’s hard not to feel that number, 215.

We are talking about children. Vulnerable children. Children as young as 3 years old. Anyone who is thinking, caring, compassionate – anyone who has a heart – has to feel an immense pain, a national pain, a historical pain, and yet, somehow a profoundly deeply personal pain.

215.

We see images, photos, that remind us for all the world of the Nazi atrocities in Eastern Europe in the 1940s. Look again. This is Canada. This is genocide, no need to travel across the world to see, we have it right here at home. And making it worse, if that was evening possible, we now read reports of forced malnutrition, starvation, torture, hopelessness – honestly, it makes you wonder if death was a sweet release for these children.

215.

Yet we know there are thousands more who suffered the same fate. Not in Eastern Europe. Not in the killing fields of Cambodia. Right here in Canada. Home-grown genocide. Children. Starved. Killed. Problem solved. It’s hard to write about it without weeping.

Helen released an official statement in response to 215 through Stardale. But I write this as a personal reaction. I guess I speak to a question that often goes through my mind, and I’m sure it must goes through Helen’s mind as well, at least from time to time.

Why do we bother? It’s been eight years since Helen first invited me to work with the girls of the Stardale program. She wanted these young girls, some as young as 11, to share their thoughts on the suicide epidemic among First Nations Youth. Tough sledding. Some girls were sullen. Some were almost hostile. I had been breathing pretty rare air for a number of years in the theatre world. I was a big deal! What the hell was I even doing there? I admit, many an evening I looked at the door and thought, “I could just walk out of here!”

But something kept me here at Stardale. Once I started to get to know the girls, and see what Helen and her people were doing to help them, to make their lives better, I remember thinking, “This is important. This is necessary” And so I stayed. We created a piece about suicide and we performed it in Edmonton for over 400 – what are they called in bureaucratic parlance? Stake-holders? People who could make a difference. People who could effect change. We did it. They saw it. Nothing changed.

On and on it goes. Last year, our fourth project together, we created a short film titled The Road. This film received awards at film festivals. It describes the difficulties the girls face in the world today. We know how many people have seen it. Hardly anyone has bothered. You can imagine our frustration.

This year we have a new short film coming out (it will be shot this summer) called Shadows in Time. In it, our girls talk about the discrimination they face in everyday life. Did you know some of them experience racism as early as preschool? They do.

I don’t know how many will bother watching it. I guess the important thing is that we worked together to create something. Helen and her staff and volunteers didn’t turn their backs on the girls during the various lockdowns of the past fourteen months. If anything they worked harder to make sure the girls felt supported. 

So many a time I have asked myself why I keep doing it. Sometimes I look at Helen, constantly fighting to keep this program going, always deeply concerned about the lives of these young girls and I wonder how she keeps on going. What a force she is! Year after year, for 25 years!

Well, I know now why I keep doing it. I know now why Helen keeps doing it. I know where our motivation comes from. I can’t describe it in words, in any logical way, it can only be expressed in a number that reminds us why we do what we do.

215. 

Anyone who is thinking, caring, compassionate – anyone who has a heart – would do exactly the same.