This wasn't even an attempt to teach the children how to get ahead in society. Half their days were spent learning unskilled trades preparing them for a life of service to their "betters". The boys were taught janitorial skills and yard work, while the young girls were taught how to be either scullery maids or other forms of household drudges.
It was bad enough that they were ripped away from their families and emotionally, mentally, and physically abused by the staff of these institutions during the day. What went on at night in the dormitories is the stuff of nightmares. Many of the students, male and female, were sexually abused on a continual basis for their entire stay in these prisons.
The end result of these schools was the creation of a generation of people who were almost completely cut off from their own culture and not capable of existing in the one they were supposedly "trained" to take part in: A lost generation of scared, hurt, and, lonely people, damaged far beyond anything most of us can understand.
By the year 2005 the federal government of Canada under the Liberal party had agreed to certain measures to redress the issue. Various financial packages were offered, and it was promised as part of the deal that the government would offer an official apology for the policy.
But now the current administration, the Conservative Party of Canada has reneged on that promise. In fact from comments made by the Indian Affairs Minister, Jim Prentice, lead one to believe that the government is trying to whitewash what exactly the schools did.
The most he will say is that the residential schools involved a difficult time in our history, but - and this is the real killer - "the underlying objective had been to provide aboriginal children with an education". Which means that Jim Prentice is either a professional liar or an ignorant fool who doesn't even read history books.
But then again the Conservative Party already knows that Native Canadians aren't going to vote for them, and neither are people who are sympathetic to their plight. They're playing to their constituents, the people who believe that Native people are welfare drunks who lost the war and are lucky we give them anything.
Article comments
1 - RJ
Well-written post. And I generally agree with you. One point, however.
You say: "They live out in the middle of nowhere with no running water or electricity much of the time"
That's true. But that would also be true if they had been completely "left alone" to their own devices.
I mean, you can't have it both ways. You cannot decry the intervention of the Canadian government in the lives of indigenous peoples, while at the same time tacitly demanding that they interfere by providing modern infrastructure like electricity and chlorinated water and sewers. Either the indigenous people live their lives as "noble savages" or they live their lives as regular Canadians. They should pick one, and then live with it. If they choose the former, then the run the risk of freezing to death in the Winter, or drinking water from a bucket, or dying of a preventable disease. If they choose the latter, then they run the risk of becoming partially-assimilated into Western culture.
The choice is theirs...
2 - AJ
how can they drink water from a bucket when all the waters have been polluted? the earth is not what it once was... which is really sad!
3 - saga
Good article. Thanks.
I agree with the second comment.
They wouldn't need water systems and government money for food if corporations hadn't been allowed by governments to pollute their water, clearcut the forests, etc.
They would not be living in poverty if they were paid properly for the resources stolen from their land either, and for the land that was also stolen.
One comment re the article - it was not "a" lost generation, it was 6-7 generations of residential school horror. And what is not talked about ... The government's own data indicated that 50% of the students died in the schools.
The deaths are not talked about.
Here is a first sample of a video being made about the Mohawk Institute residential school in Brantford, ON where Six Nations kids went.