How teachers at Quebec's Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board are learning about truth and reconciliation

Quebec's third-largest English school board, whose vast territory includes the Mohawk community at the centre of the 1990 Oka Crisis, wants its teachers to have a better understanding of Indigenous issues and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action.

On Tuesday, a group of educators from across the Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board gathered at Laval Junior High School to learn about the Oka Crisis and the importance of teaching about the conflict from a Mohawk perspective.

The group screened filmmaker Tracey Deer's movie Beans, which is inspired by her experience as a 12-year-old during the turbulent 78-day standoff in Kanesatake and in Deer's home community of Kahnawake. The teachers participated in a panel discussion with the director afterward.

The event was part of a push by the school board over the past five years to incorporate more teaching about Indigenous issues, history and culture into its schools.

"It means so much to me because when I went to high school … I was surrounded by white kids, and the very little that we spoke about Indigenous people, it was like two pages in a history book," Deer told the 40-or-so teachers, designated as liaisons for truth and reconciliation at the schools where they work.

"So even within my own school, I felt invisible and not important," Deer said.

The teachers were invited to ask questions. They'll be expected to share what they have learned with their students and colleagues.

The Laurier board's efforts come as the Quebec government is working to implement recommendations made by retired Superior Court justice Jacques Viens in his damning 2019 report on how Indigenous people are treated by the province. 

Viens found "systemic discrimination" against Indigenous peoples across the spectrum of public services in Quebec, and he recommended the school curriculum be overhauled to properly reflect the history and contributions of First Nations and Inuit.

The Laurier board's initiatives, including Tuesday's workshop, are funded by a $51,000 grant from Quebec's Education Ministry to raise awareness and training for educators about "Indigenous realities" in the province's schools.

One scene in Beans is depicted exactly as Deer lived it in 1990, when she and her sister were being driven onto Montreal island in a convoy of women, children and elders evacuating Kahnawake, on Montreal's South Shore. 

As they drove into the city, an angry mob pelted their vehicles with rocks, as police stood idly by.

In the scene in the movie, Beans hides on the floor of her mother's car as the vehicle's back window shatters.

Deer has described that moment, along with others from that summer, as the most traumatic of her life.