CALGARY — A new project from the University of Calgary is creating 3D digital records of some Alberta residential schools.
The Taylor Family Digital Library, in consultation with Indigenous communities in Alberta, has created accurate virtual and physical models of three former residential schools with plans for more in the future.
Prof. Peter Dawson, the project’s leader, said it is important to preserve a dark part of Canada’s history.
“Why preserve these buildings that are associated with so much tragedy and human trauma? It’s for precisely that reason that we are working with (three groups) to preserve these schools. Because these schools really are witnesses to history and sites of conscience,” said Dawson, head of the university’s Department of Anthropology and Archaeology.
“They’re the physical manifestation of an education system, in name only, that caused great harm and suffering to generations of Indigenous children.”
An estimated 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools in Canada over a century. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has detailed mistreatment at the schools, including emotional, physical and sexual abuse of children.
With the use of lidar technology and original building plans, three dimensional images of the Old Sun Indian Residential School at Siksika Nation, east of Calgary, Blue Quills school in St. Paul, Alta., and Poundmaker’s Lodge Carriage House, which once formed part of the Edmonton Indian Residential School in St. Albert, Alta., have been created.
Stories from residential school survivors are to be embedded into each virtual replica.
“The sad reality is that many, many people don’t know about this history. I thought it was important to preserve it digitally because the young people, as they heard more and more about the residential schools, were angry,” said Vivian Ayoungman, 75, who spent nine years the at Old Sun school.
“I thought we’ve really got to do some work. We can’t be part of erasing our own history. We have to have the evidence. We want to preserve that building so that people know that it wasn’t a figment of our imagination. That it really happened to us.”
Ayoungman eventually became a teacher and now works at a community college located in the old residential school building where she attended as a child.
“We have really painful memories of those times when it was a residential school,” she said.
“I got strapped for speaking my language at a very young age. I entered that school not speaking a word of English.”
Ayoungman said those who survived residential schools are getting older, and having a digital record will ensure their history survives.
“There’s no danger of it being forgotten. It’s preserved how forever long digitization lasts,” she said.
Her nephew Kent Ayoungman, 42, said both his parents and grandparents attended residential schools and he had no idea what they went through.
“Growing up, they never talked about their experiences, what they went through. So we didn’t really know,” he said.
“Who wants to hear about what they went through when they were in those places? It just changed the life of our people. We need to talk about it. Our people need to hear these stories of what they went through.”
The project is entering a second phase, which is to digitally document the original grounds surrounding the three residential schools — a landscape that included hockey rinks, athletic grounds, gardens, and barns — to provide a more complete account of daily life at the schools.
The scans are eventually to be archived at each former school and the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 24, 2022.
Demands for government intervention in Air Canada labour talks could negatively affect airline competition in Canada, the CEO of travel company Transat AT Inc. said.
“The extension of such an extraordinary intervention to Air Canada would be an undeniable competitive advantage to the detriment of other Canadian airlines,” Annick Guérard told analysts on an earnings conference call on Thursday.
“The time and urgency is now. It is time to restore healthy competition in Canada,” she added.
Air Canada has asked the federal government to be ready to intervene and request arbitration as early as this weekend to avoid disruptions.
Comments on the potential Air Canada pilot strike or lock out came as Transat reported third-quarter financial results.
Guérard recalled Transat’s labour negotiations with its flight attendants earlier this year, which the company said it handled without asking for government intervention.
The airline’s 2,100 flight attendants voted 99 per cent in favour of a strike mandate and twice rejected tentative deals before approving a new collective agreement in late February.
As the collective agreement for Air Transat pilots ends in June next year, Guérard anticipates similar pressure to increase overall wages as seen in Air Canada’s negotiations, but reckons it will come out “as a win, win, win deal.”
“The pilots are preparing on their side, we are preparing on our side and we’re confident that we’re going to come up with a reasonable deal,” she told analysts when asked about the upcoming negotiations.
The parent company of Air Transat reported it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31. The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
It attributed reduced revenues to lower airline unit revenues, competition, industry-wide overcapacity and economic uncertainty.
Air Transat is also among the airlines facing challenges related to the recall of Pratt & Whitney turbofan jet engines for inspection and repair.
The recall has so far grounded six aircraft, Guérard said on the call.
“We have agreed to financial compensation for grounded aircraft during the 2023-2024 period,” she said. “Alongside this financial compensation, Pratt & Whitney will provide us with two additional spare engines, which we intend to monetize through a sell and lease back transaction.”
Looking ahead, the CEO said she expects consumer demand to remain somewhat uncertain amid high interest rates.
“We are currently seeing ongoing pricing pressure extending into the winter season,” she added. Air Transat is not planning on adding additional aircraft next year but anticipates stability.
“(2025) for us will be much more stable than 2024 in terms of fleet movements and operation, and this will definitely have a positive effect on cost and customer satisfaction as well,” the CEO told analysts.
“We are more and more moving away from all the disruption that we had to go through early in 2024,” she added.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
