Airing Canada's Dirty Little Secret

From 1840 to the 1950's, Canada made its way through a time of covertly vicious treatment of its First Nations people. Those were the main years of the residential schools; the time when the government was to seek eradication of its aboriginal population.
What could possibly seem more benevolent on the surface than a church-run school? A faith-based institution centred on the gentle Jesus of Christianity would have been seen by most whites as a blessing to the children taken away from their parents, people viewed as backward by the euro-centric majority. At least, that's how it looked from the outside to those who weren't really too interested in taking a very close look. From the inside, those government-funded hell holes were meant to be mind-washing correctional institutions. (Follow the link to see a list of the residential schools.) They were set up to correct the perceived "Indian problem" by teaching the children to be so ashamed of their heritage that they would turn their back on it and seek the oblivion of assimilation with the white population. This perceived problem was summed up by Duncan Campbell Scott, Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs between 1913-1932, when he declared in 1920, "I want to get rid of the Indian problem. Our object is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed."
In 1846, P.G. Anderson, Indian Superintendent, declared, "You will not give up your idle, roving habits to enable your children to receive instruction. It has therefore been determined that your children shall be sent to schools where they will forget their Indian habits and be instructed in all the necessary arts of civilized life and become one with your white brethren." Such attention from "brethren" is the kind that passed between Cain and Abel, and we all know how that story ended. If you want more detailed information on those schools and the resultant chaos they fostered, follow this link.
Since those years, countless instances of abuse in church-run institutions have been exposed in all their sordid detail. Anyone with even the least bit of social awareness knows now that "church-run" guarantees nothing. Anyone with the least bit of social awareness here in Canada knows that the residential schools saw atrocity after atrocity committed against the helpless Native children imprisoned there, and all of it with impunity for the perpetrators.
The following is taken from "The Healing Update Has Begun" issued by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation in May 2002: "Then there are testimonies of hundreds of former students whose list of abuses includes kidnapping, sexual abuse, beatings, needles pushed through tongues as punishment for speaking Indigenous languages, forced wearing of soiled underwear on the head or wet bed sheets on the body, faces rubbed in human excrement, forced eating of rotten and/or maggot infested food, being stripped naked and ridiculed in front of other students, forced to stand upright for several hours -- on two feet and sometimes one -- until collapsing, immersion in ice water, hair ripped from heads, use of students in eugenics and medical experiments, bondage and confinement in closets without food or water, application of electric shocks, forced to sleep outside or to walk barefoot in winter, forced labour and on and on."
Thousands of children who were dragged into these horrendous establishments simply "disappeared". The abuse was too much for some, and they suicided. Others succumbed to diseases their bodies were unable to handle for various reason, one being that the nutrition at the schools was so poor they had little strength with which to battle any contagion. Again, the redoubtable Duncan Campbell Scott had something to say about this, as well, declaring: "It is readily acknowledged that Indian children lose their natural resistance to illness by habituating so closely in the residential schools and that they die at a much higher rate than in their villages. But this does not justify a change in the policy of this Department which is geared towards a final solution of our Indian Problem."
By the late 1950's, it was beginning to dawn on the vicious racists who had championed and run the schools that they might perhaps be missing the mark. They began to realize that substance abuse was on the rise on the reservations and among the Native population, much of it directly attributable to the abuse suffered in the schools. Even so, it was not until 1990 that the last residential school, in Yellowknife, was closed. Once into the schools, there was no respite for a child until they were spewed out at the other end of the abysmal tunnel; often emerging with little more than a grade 5 or 6 education. Obviously, these schools were never really meant to truly educate the students. They were only meant to break spirits and fit the students to take menial labour roles in the much-touted white civilization when the school was finished with them. Even during summer break, the children were allowed no breathing space from the relentless eroding of their very souls. At those times, they were forced to billet with white families where one can safely assume the treatment they received would never have reached five-star status. This was done to prevent any renewal of cultural connection with their families. Such birds of ill-omen have got to come home to roost sooner or later. It should be no surprise, therefore, that alcohol and drug abuse among Natives is five times the national average; sexual and family abuse eight times the national average; suicide rate among Native teems five times the national average. It is, however, desperately sad; a wrong that needs to be made right.
Now, here's a news flash for you - the government of Canada is dragging its heels on addressing the issue, as are most of the religious orders and institutions involved. In 1993, Archbishop Michael Peers of the Anglican Church of Canada offered an apology, that was accepted by a Native Elder; and, in 1998, the Right Reverend Bill Phipps, Moderator of the United Church of Canada read an apology to former students, their families and communities. It is interesting to note that the United is named in eight per cent of the claims brought by former students, while the Anglican Church is named in approximately eighteen per cent. The Roman Catholic Church, however, is named in a whooping seventy-two per cent. Shouldn't the Pope be getting off his ass anytime now to offer an official apology on behalf of the church which he is supposed to lead? The individual orders and parishes should all be lining up right behind him to offer unconditional, humble apologies. It hasn't happened yet.
The Native people have launched lawsuits, it is true, more than 4,500 of them seeking monetary recompense on behalf of approximately 9,000 claimants, but it can never be enough. They are, however, seeking more than dollars and cents. They want an official apology to be issued by the government of Canada. It has yet to happen. The Royal Commission Report on Aboriginal People, issued in 1996, contained "sweeping condemnation of the attitudes and behaviour of the federal government". In January, 1998, the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs issued a supposed government apology, which stated among other things, "We must recognize the impact of (our) actions... and state formally that the days of paternalism and disrespect are behind us..." The thing of particular interest about this apology is that it was not offered by the Prime Minister. One has to wonder why. Stephen Harper saw fit to offer the June 22, 2006 apology to the Chinese Canadians for the racist head tax imposed on them. What do you think made the difference between the apology to the Chinese Canadians, and that made to the Native Canadians?
Another mournful note was added to this elegiac litany of woe here in Toronto this past weekend when peaceful Native demonstrators gathered at the Metropolitan United Church to raise awareness of the residential schools' efforts at genocide. They are demanding that the federal government and church leaders reveal the whereabouts of unmarked graves they need to find. These are the graves of the victims of the schools; the children who lost their lives to this campaign of "aggressive civilization". Why should there be any need at all for these demonstrations? How can there be any justification at all to even one more second of silence on the part of the government or the various churches? How can anyone involved pretend to really feel any remorse at all, any desire to ameliorate the situation at all?
Canada needs to step up voluntarily and admit publicly to its dirty little secret. Canada needs to take full responsibility for its attempted eradication of the culture, the traditions and languages, the very souls of its First Nations People. Until we do that, any actions on our part to protest the human rights record of any other country lacks the ring of sincerity.