User Reviews

Richard Cardinal: cry from a diary of a metis child is an amazing video. Although it is a little slow and not very exciting to watch, it is well worth the effort. This film is a compliment to the grueling life of a young and articulate native boy. Richard Cardinal was taken from his family at the age of four. He and his siblings were separated and sent to different homes. He had no contact with most of them and no idea of their well being. Richard had a problem with wetting the bed, likely developed because of the trauma he faced in social care; this was the underlying concern that resulted in him being passed from home to home. By the age of seventeen he had been moved 28 times to various foster homes, group homes and shelters within Alberta. He was given no hope, no options, no acceptance. At this point he decided that the only way to stop the pain was to end his life. This movie is disturbing and aggravating. The abuse and neglect that he not only received from foster parents but also from the professionals is appalling. But, I think one of the things this film tries to portray is that Richard is not alone. There were (and are) countless aboriginal children who suffered the same existence. The joy in this story for me is that he killed himself when he did. Not because I think that ending his life was the best option, but because of the family he was with at the time. Had it not been for the wisdom and the love of the foster parents that he was with at that point, Richards story would never have been told. Just like all the other native kids who had found no other way end their suffering. The picture of Richard's body hanging from a tree is one that I will never forget, and I am sure that it was never washed out of the heads of government that received it in the mail either. The whole concept of which is gross and unnecessary, but a perfect reflection of the care that he had received. I just cannot express enough my respect for the ingenious foresight that his foster parents had. And how difficult that must have been for them at the time, to process his death in their care and the shock of seeing a dead body, and then to think immediately of a response that would change the face of childcare in Alberta. That's impressive. Almost as impressive as the fact that Richard lasted seventeen years being treated like a library book.