Canada’s residential schools a history of ‘institutionalized child neglect

CANADA
Metro

OTTAWA—The residential schools that removed Aboriginal children from their homes, subjecting many of them to substandard education, malnutrition, abuse, illness and even death was a key part of a government-led policy that amounted to cultural genocide, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission concludes.

“These measures were part of a coherent policy to eliminate Aboriginal people as distinct peoples and to assimilate them into the Canadian mainstream against their will,” says the 381-page summary of its final report released Tuesday in Ottawa.

“The Canadian government pursued this policy of cultural genocide because it wished to divest itself of its legal and financial obligations to Aboriginal people and gain control over their land and resources,” says the report.

The heart-wrenching and damning report is the culmination of a six-year examination of the history and legacy of residential schools — largely operated by churches and funded by the Canadian government — that saw 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children come through their doors for more than a century.

Through the testimony of residential school survivors, former staff, church and government officials and archival documents, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission pieced together a horrifying history that, despite its rippling effects, has been repeatedly dismissed or ignored.

It also describes how the legacy of residential schools continues, not only through the direct effect that generations of institutionalization and abuse has had on survivors and their families, but how it is manifested in racism, systemic discrimination and poverty, as well as dying indigenous languages.

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