Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Warning: This story contains disturbing details.
A new book explores how intergenerational trauma is passed on in families from the perspective of an Indigenous author trying to heal.
"If there were no residential schools, my mom could have hugged me and told me she loved me."
That's a line from Darlene Isaac's poem, 'One Wish,' which tells a story of healing and forgiveness from the abuse that she suffered from her mother, who was sent to a residential school as a child. The poem is a part of her new book, 'Dear Journal, It's Me, Little Darlenie.'
"I believe that the Creator puts us all here for a reason. and my reason for going through years of physical abuse was so that I could write my story and share it to help others. And it's the final healing tool that I need for myself," Isaac told CTV News.
Until she left home, Isaac said she suffered horrific abuse at the hands of her own mother, Celina. In one incident that took place when she was just five years old, she said mother grabbed her by her hair and shoved a diaper in her mouth. In another incident, she said her mother also once stabbed her with a fork after she forgot to boil water to make spaghetti.
"I never told anybody about any of the abuse," Isaac said. "It was an embarrassment. I was ashamed. I was so ashamed of where I lived."
But as a child, Isaac’s mother had been sent to Lejac Residential School nearby Fraser Lake, B.C. Isaac didn't know that about her mother until 20 years after she had died from alcohol use. Until then, Isaac was never taught the history of residential schools and the widespread stories of emotional, physical and sexual abuse at these institutions.
"I hated her for the first 20 years that she was gone. I hated her. I couldn't talk about or swear it about her," she said. "Once I got involved in my culture, I started learning about all of this stuff and this thing called residential school."
She believes the abuse that her mother endured at the residential school was the reason why she, in turn, abused her own daughter. She spoke to an Elder online who had met her mother while attending Lejac Residential School.
"The lady said, 'I remember your mom.' And she said, 'What was done to her should not be done to any child.' That's when I realized it wasn't her fault," Isaac said, fighting back tears.
Isaac's pen became her medicine, detailing her experiences in a journal that would become the basis of her new book.
Part of her healing journey was also through her volunteering work. She won a Global Citizen award from her work and was awarded a trip to Kenya to help build schools. That's where she met James Tajeu, a Maasai tribal warrior. Without his support, she said, she wouldn't have completed her book.
"I just encouraged her and told her not to give up. She needs to help many people," Tajeu told CTV News.
Years after she passed, Isaac said she's learned to forgive her mother and hopes her writing can help others going through similar healing journeys.
"If I could have it all over again and she didn't go to residential school, she would have been a great mom," she said.
If you are a former residential school student in distress, or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419
Additional mental-health support and resources for Indigenous people are available here.
This story has been updated to correct the location of Lejac Residential School from Fort Saint James, B.C., to outside Fraser Lake, B.C.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.