Elder Ruth

No Judgement.

The first thing I want to do is sit down with them and say, "Okay, where did you go right when you should have went left?" There's no judgment in that question. They made a mistake.

Ruth

Indigenous Elder

My name is Ruth Cardinal De Ubiera.

The people that come here to be residents, even they don't know all the truth. 

The elder is in the position of reminding people about what happened here, what their parents went through, what their grandparents went through when it comes to intergenerational trauma.

And for some of them, things they thought were normal, you know, addiction in their homes, they thought that was normal. Some kids begin drinking and doing drugs when they're eight and nine years old. That's not normal. And yet for them it was. 

Then they come here and we have to try and take it apart and put it back together again. 

This is a stepping stone back to the community and to help them heal. 

You know that woman? She was born sacred like we all are. And look at her, something happened to her.  Wonder what happened to her. And what does she need to get past that?

To have some compassion to understand why people are the way they are. 

They don't choose to be alcoholics and drug addicts. Who would choose that?

They don't choose to go to jail. Why would anyone choose that?

But you know what? The addictions and the problems with relationships, all of that stuff is related to the intergenerational trauma. When I hear the girls singing the songs that they learn, the traditional songs, I'm proud of them. 

When I see them making a drum or a rattle, beading, they learn how to bead here. 

There's a whole bunch of things like that that they would have learned if they had been living in a proper environment growing up. But now for the first time, they're getting to learn those things. And when they do, and you see the look on their face of victory and triumph and just pride, that makes me proud.

Pride

Changing lives.

Protecting Canadians.