RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS;BLOG # 2036; JUNE 10,2016

THE MESSAGE:

"I think I'll paddle on over to the House and see what my Cabinet thinks of Tony's blog this week."

Residential schools were introduced as a measure to bring all Canadians together in a society where people had the same mores and values. While the concept appears to be an acceptable one, for the aboriginal children exposed to the evils of what actually occurred,  it most certainly was not.

Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, stated in 1883, “When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages. Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence.”

CONCEPT AND HISTORY OF RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS

European settlers in Canada brought with them the assumption that their own civilization was the pinnacle of human achievement. They interpreted the socio-cultural differences between themselves and the Aboriginal peoples as proof that Canada’s first inhabitants were ignorant, savage, and in need of guidance. 

Macdonald commissioned journalist and politician Nicholas Flood Davin to study industrial schools for Aboriginal children in the United States. Davin’s recommendation to follow the U.S. example of “aggressive civilization” led to public funding for a residential school system. In 1879  stated, “If anything is to be done with the Indian, we must catch him very young. The children must be kept constantly within the circle of civilized conditions,”

The wisdom of the time believed the  best course of action would be  to ensure that aboriginal children learn English, adopt Christianity and identify with Canadian customs. Ideally, they would pass this new lifestyle on to their children. Native traditions would thus diminish, or be completely abolished over a few generations. 

Accordingly the Canadian government,  under the auspices of the Department of Indian Affairs   , developed  a policy called "aggressive assimilation". This policy led to the reality and the development of  Residential Schools.  Attendance was mandatory and was to be taught at church-run, government-funded industrial schools. The thinking was that children were easier to develop than adults, and the concept of a boarding school was the best way to prepare these children for a life in mainstream society.  Federal agents were put in place to ensure that all native children attended. 

THE REALITIES OF RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS AND THE STUDENTS WHO LIVED  THERE

Initially, approximately 1100 students attended 69 Residential Schools within Canada.  In total about 150,000 First Nation, Intuit and Metis children were forced to attend the schools.

Throughout the years, students lived in substandard conditions and endured physical and emotional abuse. There have also been convictions of sexual abuse. Students at residential schools rarely had opportunities to see examples of normal family life. Most were in school 10 months a year, away from their parents; some stayed all year round. All correspondence from the children was written in English, which many parents couldn't read. Brothers and sisters at the same school rarely saw each other, as all activities were segregated by gender. When students returned to their reserves they were often alienated. They did not posses the skills to help their parents assimilate or to function in an urban setting. Some became ashamed of their native heritage and their brown faces. 

Residential school students did not receive the same education as the general population in the public school system. The schools were sorely underfunded. Teachings focused primarily on practical skills. Girls were primed for domestic service and taught to do laundry, sew, cook, and clean. Boys were taught carpentry, tinsmithing, and farming. Many students attended class part-time and worked for the school the rest of the time: girls did the housekeeping; boys, general maintenance and agriculture. This work, which was involuntary and unpaid, was presented as practical training for the students, but many of the residential schools could not run without it. With so little time spent in class, most students had only reached grade five by the time they were 18. At this point, students were sent away. Many were discouraged from pursuing further education.

Abuse at the schools was widespread: emotional and psychological abuse was constant, physical abuse was meted out as punishment, and sexual abuse was also common. Survivors recall being beaten and strapped; some students were shackled to their beds; some had needles shoved in their tongues for speaking their native languages.

These abuses, along with overcrowding, poor sanitation, and severely inadequate food and health care, resulted in a shockingly high death toll. In 1907, government medical inspector P.H. Bryce reported that 24 percent of previously healthy Aboriginal children across Canada were dying in residential schools.  This figure does not include children who died at home, where they were frequently sent when critically ill. 

In addition to unhealthy conditions and corporal punishment, children were frequently assaulted, raped, or threatened by staff or other students. 

During the 2005 sentencing of Arthur Plint, a dorm supervisor at the Port Alberni Indian Residential School convicted of 16 counts of indecent assault, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Douglas Hogarth called Plint a “sexual terrorist.” Hogarth stated, “As far as the victims were concerned, the Indian residential school system was nothing more than institutionalized pedophilia.

”Chuck August described the abuse he suffered at the hands of AIRS supervisor Arthur Henry Plint, a man convicted of abuse who has since died. August talked about being made to fellate Plint each morning.

“I used to get paid a candy from this prick, sending me back to the kitchen to go to work and to keep quiet.”

August talked about the drugs and alcohol abuse that resulted from his experience in AIRS, the sexual confusion that he struggles with still today, the damage to the relationships with his family.

“When that guy died, that Plint, I was in jail when he died. When they told me, I didn’t jump up and down or anything like that. I told people ‘OK, that’s fine. He isn’t going to hurt anybody else… He’s gone. Our little ones are safe from him now.’”

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PORT ALBERNI- 

UNITED CHURCH MINISTER AND FORMER MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT DAVID MACDONALD

“It is shocking to say I knew nothing about Indian residential schools, even as a Member of Parliament, even as those schools began closing down in the late 1960s,” he said. “In 1979-1980, I was a cabinet minister (Communications) in the [Joe] Clark government, responsible for Metis and non-Status Indians. I was also chair of the Cabinet committee that dealt with aboriginal affairs, and the subject of residential schools never came up once. I have absolutely no idea how that is possible.”

In 1990, Phil Fontaine, then-leader of the Association of Manitoba Chiefs, called for the churches involved to acknowledge the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse endured by students at the schools. A year later, the government convened a Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Many people told the commission about their residential school experiences, and the commission's 1996 report recommended a separate public inquiry into residential schools. That recommendation was never followed.

 

COMPENSATION COMMON EXPERIENCE PAYMENTS 

Over the years, the government worked with the Anglican, Catholic, United and Presbyterian churches, which ran residential schools, to design a plan to compensate the former students.

In 2007, two years after it was first announced, the federal government formalized a $1.9-billion compensation package for those who were forced to attend residential schools. Compensation called Common Experience Payments was made available to residential schools students who were alive as of May 30, 2005.  Former residential school students are eligible for $10,000 for the first year or part of a year they attended school, plus $3,000 for each subsequent year.

Any money remaining from the $1.9-billion package will be given to foundations that support the learning needs of aboriginal students. As of Sept. 30, 2013, $1.6 billion had been paid, representing 105,548 cases. Acceptance of the Common Experience Payment releases the government and churches from all further liability relating to the residential school experience, except in cases of sexual abuse and serious incidents of physical abuse. 

Although the Catholic church oversaw three-quarters of Canadian residential schools, it was the last church to have one of its leaders officially address the abuse. 

GESTURES OF RECONCILIATION RESULTS

Ten thousand dollars. That's what 80,000 former students of Canadian residential schools will be compensated for their ordeal. And $10,000 is just a starting point: for every year beyond the first, survivors will get an additional $3,000. For the Canadian government, it was finally time to deal with the backlog of claims and lawsuits filed by former students. 

Phil Fontaine says he's pleased with the $1.9-billion deal. But for some elderly survivors, money can't repair the damage wrought by the residential schools. 

"No amount of money can ever take the place of the pain and the torture," says survivor Inez Dieter, a Plains Cree, originally from the Red Pheasant First Nation. She was born November 13, 1932.   Victims can opt out of the compensation package and proceed with lawsuits for their pain and suffering. 

Residents of some northern Ontario reserves are reeling from a series of suicides by their young people, and they're pointing to their own past as the culprit. With no parental role models, a generation raised in residential schools has passed on the trauma to their kids. 

Dr. Eva Cardinal still cries when she remembers seeing an older girl punished and humiliated at her residential school. Classmates were forced to pin the girl down on a table as a nun beat her. The hurts of the past are coming back to Cardinal and thousands of other residential school survivors as the churches that ran the schools begin to apologize.

George Wright broke down and wept uncontrollably during his statement, choking and vomiting from the emotion of remembering the beatings and rapes.  He described one violent supervisor who couldn’t be named because no charges have been brought against him. A former football player who was over six feet tall grabbed Wright one day by the neck and “beat me like I was a man.”

In the dorms he suffered other abuses nightly, and at one point was told to choose between sexual or physical abuse. Wright also spoke of seeing a six-year-old boy hanging by his neck by a towel secured to the rafters. He wondered how the young boy, whose name was Michael, could have got himself up so high.

In many schools, students were referred to by numbers instead of their names. Boys' hair was cut short, a confusing experience for those who came from cultures where shorn hair was a sign of mourning. Children who tried to run away and were caught were beaten in front of their peers.

The Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement is nearing its end after paying out billions in compensation, but indigenous leaders say there are so many gaps that left so many people uncompensated for their suffering that the deal must be reviewed, then rewritten or replaced.

The First Nations leaders say they hope that the Liberal government, which has already committed billions of new money to address indigenous issues and which has repeatedly expressed interest in striking a new relationship with Canada’s First Peoples, will be receptive to requests to re-opening, amending or replacing the settlement agreement.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett said she does not believe that a new agreement would be in the best interests of anyone, including survivors. There are people who have been improperly denied compensation, Dr. Bennett said, but those issues can be remedied through discussion.“These people were harmed,” she said. “We believe that requires negotiation and some appropriate settlement. And I think most people that I’ve talked to are very reluctant to open up this settlement. We are so close to achieving some sort of justice for those people. To reopen it for all of them would be very disturbing to the people who have already received their settlement.”

THE QUESTION:

Has Canada done enough to compensate for the sins of the past ?





THE LEMON: 

Awarded to United Church minister and former Member of Parliament David MacDonald. He is pictured above. 

THE QUOTES:

“I just absolutely hated my own parents. Not because I thought they abandoned me; I hated their brown faces.” – former residential school student Mary Courchesne.

“I wanted to be white so bad, and the worst thing I ever did was I was ashamed of my mother, that honourable woman, because she couldn’t speak English.” Agnes Mills, a former student at All Saints residential school in Saskatchewan.





THE CLIP: