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But Joseph doesn’t believe it’s wise to silence someone for just stating her position, whatever he thinks of it. “I think (Beyak) has a voice we need to reach out to. It might give us ideas about developing relationships with people no matter what camps they’re in.”

After recovering 20 years ago from being a “town drunk,” Joseph began in 2012 to head Reconciliation Canada, an organization (funded in part by Vancity credit union) for educating about residential schools. He’s been awarded the Order of B.C. and an honorary degree from UBC.

Joseph emphasizes the federally funded, church-run residential schools were the product of a racist policy of “forced assimilation” that has contributed – however well-intentioned some school staff may have been — to high rates of aboriginal addiction, poverty andsuicide.

Ottawa has paid out $1.6 billion in the past decade to almost 80,000 living survivors, with large sums going to the minority who were sexually abused and smaller amounts to those who proved they simply attended.

Nearly every one of the more than 120 schools were closed by the early ‘70s.

But, judging from the media and polls, it seems the further the reality of the schools fades into the past the more over-simplified the national narrative becomes.

Partisanship, positioning and rhetoric seems to be taking precedence over “truth” or even “reconciliation.”