Sometimes when you come into work you don't know if it will be just a day like any other, or if it will be a historic day for the nation. Tuesday was the latter, a historic day that will be woven into the fabric of our country, hopefully never to be forgotten.
The sad truth about working in media - whether print, TV, radio or online - is that you see so much hurt and suffering; terrible decisions made by people and nations that incur terrible costs against so many people; everyday injustices.
You see so much that eventually you close your heart to it, as much as you can.
This paper has printed awful photos and images and I, personally, have put so much of that on the page, always with the thought in mind that these are truths and even though they might be hard to see and confront, it is important to see and confront what they depict and represent.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission lays bare truths that, for some, are hard to see, hard to confront, but it is of immense importance that all Canadians see those truths and confront what we as a nation have done.
Genocide.
"The survivors need to know before they leave this earth that people understand what happened and what the schools did to them," Justice Murray Sinclair said when releasing the conclusions of the commission.
The federal government and Christian churches committed genocide against the first peoples of our nation.
Generally during the mornings I am unplugged from the news. I take care of my daughters and spend time with my wife before leaving for the evening shift at The Citizen.
On Tuesday, I didn't expect to write CULTURAL GENOCIDE in 1.5 inch-tall letters on the front page. In fact, the plan as done up by managing editor Neil Godbout had a photo from the Seal a Smile dental campaign as the main piece with the TRC report and another story as secondary pieces.
To Neil's credit, he views the plan as a suggestion and was totally onboard with what I ended up putting together.
And, hopefully, with Tuesday's front page I have, in my own small part, helped people in this region "understand what happened."
It's all right there, in black and white.
Tyler Sabourin is an associate news editor at the Prince George Citizen. Most recently, he won the 2014 Canadian Community Newspapers Association award for Best Photo Illustration.
