Indianz.Com > News > Doug George-Kanentiio: Taking action for survivors of Native residential schools
Four Points of Action from Residential School Survivors
Friday, October 8, 2021
On September 30 I gave a speech as to how Canada might actually realize the evasive truth and reconcilation with regards to the residential school victims.
My words were spoken on Parliament Hill in Ottawa before a crowd of many thousands and a national audience, broadcast live across the country. It was part of the National Truth and Reconciliation Day, now set aside for reflection and to commemorate the thousands of Native children buried in unmarked graves at the former school sites from Nova Scotia to British Columbia.
I began with acknowledging one of the last victims of the school I attended, the notorious Mohawk Institute, the mush hole, in Brantford, Ontario, 100 km west of Toronto. That child was Joey Commanda, 13 years old when he was struck and killed by a commuter train on September 3, 1968 as he fled the Institute for his home on the Pikawanagan Algonquin Territory 450 km away.
Joey’s death led to the closure of the Mohawk Institute in 1971 but the last of those places of confinement was not shuttered until 1996 after 150,000 Native boys and girls had been forcibly removed from their homes in an attempt to eradicate their indigenous heritage and divorce them from their lands.


Doug George-Kanentiio, Akwesasne Mohawk, is a residential school survivor. He was given the number 4-8-2-738. He serves as the
vice-president of the Hiawatha Institute for Indigenous Knowledge. He previously served
as a Trustee for the National Museum of the American Indian, is a former land
claims negotiator for the Mohawk Nation and is the author of numerous books and
articles about the Mohawk people. He may be reached via e-mail at:
Kanentiio@aol.com or by calling 315-415-7288.
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