By the Numbers: a Look at Residential Schools

Global News
May 30, 2015

http://globalnews.ca/news/2024481/by-the-numbers-a-look-at-residential-schools/


The Truth and Reconciliation Commission examining Canada’s Indian residential schools is to release a summary of its final report Tuesday after hearing testimony from 7,000 survivors over five years. Here is a by-the-numbers look at residential schools:

The 1840s — Church-run schools are established for aboriginal children.

1883 — The year the federal government establishes three large residential schools in Western Canada to “kill the Indian in the child.”

1920 — The year the Indian Act is amended to make it compulsory for status Indian children between seven and 15 to attend residential school.

70 — The number of residential schools operating by the 1930s.

130 — The total number of residential schools that received support from the federal government at the program’s peak.

60 per cent — The proportion of residential schools run by the Catholic church.

1996 — The year the last residential school closes outside Regina.

150,000 — The estimated number of children who went through the residential school system.

80,000 — The estimated number of residential school students still alive.

Unknown — The number of children who died in Canada’s residential schools. Provinces are still handing over death certificates for aboriginal children from the residential school era.

60 per cent — The mortality rate reached at some residential schools, according to Truth and Reconciliation chairman Justice Murray Sinclair.

$1.9 billion — The federal government’s compensation package offered to former residential school students.