Weekend Listen: The kid who confronted his abuser at residential school (via See You in Court)

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[bright music] This is a CBC podcast.

Hey there. This episode includes some strong language and details about sexual abuse, residential schools, and intergenerational trauma. Please take care while listening. [dramatic music] [birds chirping] [church bell ringing] It's early morning, and 13-year-old Willie Blackwater is getting ready for the day. He's a student at the Alberni Indian Residential School. On this day, he tells his dorm supervisor he isn't feeling well. Decades later, he can still remember it clearly.

And he said, "You don't look sick to me." I says, "Well, I'm not. I just wanna be with you." And his eyes lit up.

The supervisor, 50-year-old Arthur Henry Plint, tells Willie he can stay behind, and the other kids head to class. Willie's plan is working perfectly. Plint makes him a special lunch.

That was the best bloody meal I ever had in that damn horrible institute.

And after lunch, Willie plays his part as he's played it before. [tense music] He starts massaging Plint, and when he does, the man closes his eyes and relaxes, and all Willie can think about is the knife tucked in his boot. Willie makes his move. He pulls the knife from his boot and holds it up to Plint's throat.

I says, "I wouldn't move if I were you. I've been working on this bloody knife for six months. If I wanted to, I'd slice your bloody head off, and you won't have time to scream or nothing."

This moment in 1968 is the first time Willie stands up to his abuser, but it's far from the last. [dramatic music] It was a rare and dramatic moment, a man confronting his abuser in a British Columbia courtroom.

We're saying that they ran a school which permitted and, in fact, facilitated the activities of a predator.

They were, like, simmering as they heard this evidence. People were really, really angry.

The humiliation of it, it's like a disease. This man represents to me a scab.

I'm Phalen Johnson, and this is See You in Court, a podcast about the cases that changed Canada. This story is about Willie Blackwater and 27 others who were sexually abused by Arthur Henry Plint and how they fought back against the architects of the Indian residential school system. Jackie McKay has the rest of the story. So Jackie, I'm First Nations, and I know you are Métis, and I'm pretty sure both of us have heard our fair share of stories about residential schools, but Willie's story, it's really remarkable.

Yeah, it's hard to imagine the kind of courage Willie would need to have to do this, and this was only his first act of resistance. And I wanted to know the whole story, so I met him in his home territory. [gentle music] What are we looking at?

That's my