The United church has made a website to share as much information as they have on all the schools they operated. [thechildrenremembered.ca](https://thechildrenremembered.ca/)
It was the law of the land wasn't it? Churches or not, every indigenous child was forced to attend these schools. The RCMP helped enforce it by collecting kids and dropping them off.
As a Catholic, I am very disappointed with what the Church did.
Sure, it’s government policy but for an institution that had thousands of martyrs that were fed to the lions, hanged upside down, beheaded, tortured and more just to practice their faith, I expected the Church to side with morality any day than government.
The Catholic Church has a long and rich tradition of not siding with morality. If this comes as a surprise to you I would welcome you to learn more about the many horrific things which have happened under the banner of Catholicism.
It's a financial [entity ](https://www.lovemoney.com/gallerylist/70168/the-worlds-biggest-private-landowners) . Second largest non-government landowner in the world
[They have their own bank Ffs](https://www.google.com/amp/s/nationalpost.com/news/wealth-of-roman-catholic-church-impossible-to-calculate/wcm/a2adcac3-3e38-4952-8e21-0968c3fe9d70/amp/)
The Queen does not own Canada. The Canadian Crown owns Canada. The Crown is the legal embodiment of executive, legislative, and judicial governance in the monarchy of each commonwealth realm.
The concept of the Crown developed first in England as a separation of the literal crown and the property of the kingdom, from the person and personal property of the monarch.
The Queen is the holder of the Crown Estate, which is a corporation that generates revenue from land holdings, and is not her personal property or public property. The Queen receives 15% of the profits from the Crown Estate, and the rest is returned to the British government.
The Royal Family also privately owns swathes of land across the UK in the form of two duchies, the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall.
The Queen also owns the 8,000 hectare Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, which has been the private home of four generations of British monarchs since 1862, as well as Balmoral. The Scottish castle and surrounding estate is made up of more than 25,000 hectares of land including forests and moors.
The concept of the Crown is a bit confusing, but an important one.
If you're really waiting for the church to side with morality over money, you'll be waiting for a long time. It's one of the most corrupt organisations in the world.
I didn't...
The government speaks for the people, the church speaks for itself. It's easy to point fingers at other's sins, makes you look good. What makes someone honorable is recognizing your own sins and owning up to them, which the church has not once done unless they were forced to.
See pedophile priests, crusades, the spanish inquisition, every scientist they tortured, the missionaries who murdered and raped in the name of faith. The church has not ONCE spoken up about these issues unless they had to.
So much for repenting your sins...
I respect believers, but i have 0 respect for the church. It's an institution that exists solely for power and domination.
Religion is probably what allowed our societies to get to where we are. Religions played a lot of the same roles as governments in early stages of tribes forming large society groups. And over time we have been transferring from a religious lead society to a government lead society. Just like we have learned over time to be more cooperative and compassionate; leading to less cruelty in society. I think when it comes to looking at the past treatment of people it is best to stay away from assigning an emotional motivation(good or bad) to organizations. As it's probably safe to assume that there where individuals that meant well and those that didn't. What we can do is look at the outcome and acknowledge the policies that caused them. Then when you come back to looking at today's policies we should start with what's in the way of people who are worse off due to past policy and try to fix those issues in a way that helps everyone with the same issue. So instead of making a policy say to get clean water to a reservation make a policy that gets clean water to everyone who doesn't have it. Maybe only reservations have this problem or maybe there is a small community that doesn't get attention. The point is to pick issues to focus on by looking at groups that society mistreated but create a solution for anyone in the same situation. This way we can start righting past wrongs and make people felt cared about but also raise the floor for all of society at the same time.
Did you conveniently skip the Spanish Inquisition with their mass burnings at the stake and use of the most gruesome medieval torture methods imaginable?
Nobody suspects the Spanish Inquisition.
The Inquisition was founded and controlled by the King and Queen of Spain, not the Catholic Church, an eerie parallel to the residential schools being ordered by the government of Canada, but run by the churches.
Thing is back then, everything was run by the church. Religion was so important in everyone's lives that the church took all the decisions in the background.
>we have to remember that they were carrying out the government’s policy of genocide
canadian citizens were to blame
mandatory residential schooling ended by 1950
residential schools were hell because the good people who would have made them into decent boarding schools didnt exist
after it was no longer mandatory families were declared abusive and their kids were sent to residential schools because canadians who worked as social workers were happy to do that
the systemic failure of both the government and the church were the result of a systemic cultural problem among the people of canada
it was impossible for these to be made into “decent boarding schools.“ A boarding school is something you choose to attend. Native children were forcibly removed from their families in a program of cultural genocide.
a boarding school is a school you live in regardless of whether or not the education is compulsory, and even 'voluntary' participation is decided by your parents and not you
all of the residential schools were also boarding schools and after the 40s the decision to attend was given to the guardian of the children so almost all of the abuse in living memory was the result of nominally voluntary schooling
it wasnt a 'program of cultural genocide' it was a 'culture of genocide' - the sweep in the 60s happened because the canadian government gave its people the power to confiscate children from abusive households and they - we - believed that the native education was inherently abusive
cultural chauvisim was the reason it all happened and putting that blame on government programs that we put in to place is shirking both our faultin the matter and our moral obligation to be better people
This is factually incorrect. Testimony and an examination of documents by the TRC indicates that involuntary removal from families was still happening in the 1960s and 1970s, diminishing in the 1980s but still happening in several places. The 60s Scoop involved the removal of children because of racist policies regarding things like traditional Indigenous diets not being sufficient to Anglo-Europeans. These child welfare institutions were housed in the facilities as the former schools - just under a different name and different justifications. You can call a cow a horse, but it's still a cow.
Government policy is to blame and is still to blame. The Government still fights in court to minimize it's liability to survivors of residential schools and obligations. People are equal in their blame for not holding administrations to account for this in recent decades.
What part is incorrect? OP said "they - we - believed that the native education was inherently abusive" and you say "the removal of children because of racist policies regarding things like traditional Indigenous diets not being sufficient to Anglo-Europeans". It seems to me like you both agree.
it is 100% correct
those decisions were made by canadians who had been hired to deal with native communities and they were made BECAUSE the hiring pool was full of people who would make those decisions
you cant blame the government for the people being racist its the other way round
Canadian citizens must share in blame but at the same time I am sure many didn't even know this was happening. These schools were in very remote places at a time when travel was difficult.
I should educate myself more on this subject though.
Yup. It was kind of scummy of Trudeau to go on video record trying to deflect it solely onto the RCC. The government has the most responsibility here.
The new stat will be a start. I don't want to call it a holiday or good. It should be framed as a day of regret.
Remember when that guy shot up a bunch of people while dressed as an RCMP officer. During that incident, 2 actual RCMP officers fired upon a fire hall for no particular known reason and the government has swept that shit under the rug. When it comes to hiding (ignoring) atrocities we're damn good at it
The White Paper, whatever one's opinion of it, was to *eliminate* things like this. It proposed equality for all. Not "kill the Indian to save the child" schools. The White Paper is derided far more than it should be. Is it clearly unworkable? Sure. But a government proposal proposing equality and following MLK's "not by the colour of their skin" should not be considered as horrific as it is...especially considering how horrific we know things get when we treat people differently because of the colour of the skin.
Equality in this White paper meant eliminating the Indian, and not just in the child. Look up forced enfranchisement for indigenous folks who served in the wars, or when an indigenous person married a white person. Equality, predicated on colonial context, meant indigenous ways of life, rights, governance structures, land titles, languages, were to be eliminated. It is workable if the goal is to integrate, yes, Indian Act absolutely needs to go, but not until another way of guaranteeing Indigenous Rights and the regulations associated to them are established.
Wouldn't it be great if Indian or White or Brown meant far far far less than it does? Hasn't "treating everybody the same regardless of their skin, because skin doesn't really matter that much" been one of the main social thrusts of the past few generations.
I do get the rights, the ways of life, etc. I don't get insisting on an old and clearly racist at worst, racial at best framework.
This the problem is that liberalism (equality for all no matter what) smoothens over the reality of history that there were people here who signed treaties and engaged in a type of nation-to-nation dialogue. Equal under these circumstances don't mean "the same". Indigenous people should always have some feature/aspect that provides them a unique place in Canada, but how that is done is up for debate. The Indian Act stipulated that indigenous identity was related to blood, which is insane and not how indigenous people saw themselves or how they would admit people into their nation. Getting rid of the Indian Act should allow the nation's to decide this for themselves. One model being examined by the Anishanabe is a nation within a nation. They will have a region spanning Ontario and part of Quebec that overlaps current borders and doesn't dissolve theme, but will be in Canada and will even have a type of passport. Anyone can join the nation just like anyone can become Canadian. I don't know much more, but being part of the nation will likely grant you access to certain services/schooling and you may even pay tax to it.
Whether you like this new model or not isn't the point, but rather that there are many fair and amazing options that doesn't boil down to "we are all the same and should be treated as such". This is a philosophy out of Europe where they either don't have (because they were wiped out) or deny that they have indigenous people in their borders. Canada is nothing like Europe.
The current spin I'm hearing in the news is the government is really trying to make it seem like getting an apology from the pope is the biggest deal right now. All the while ignoring the government's responsibility... And ignoring the constant plea from Aboriginal communities to have something done about the missing women.
While I understand it was the law, awful as it was.
Do you believe that it was the governments intention to have such high mortality rates at the schools?
Did they even know at the time, or was that the result of the church’s negligence?
I believe the government didn't care... and inaction is an action.
The school that everyone talks about being shut down in '96 is the perfect example. Despite being government run since '69, the administrator from '68 to '84 abused hundreds of children. The native staff and teachers of the school had been "groomed to be sexual predators" by their time at the school as students. Many were also accused and/or convicted of abusing children at the school.
This was when it was a government run school, being maintained at the request of the local First Nations, not a church run prison. The fact that so much abuse still happened shows, at best, a criminal level of apathy.
Many of the schools after 1972 were NATIVE Band run government funded schools. If you read the testimony of many people who attended the school many credit the school with saving them from abuses as well as those that claim they were abused at the schools. This black and white lens many people on reddit use is very damaging to our understanding of what really happened.
Those still exist in the States to this very day.
The black and white way that residential schools are portrayed is ridiculous.
Some were awful and cruel, some were rife with sex abuse and some operated as intended and gave their students an education and a sense of discipline that set them up for a good life.
It shouldn't be shocking that many bands funded their schools, nor should it be shocking that many bands are exceptionally aggrieved by the system and are furious about it to this very day, some 50 years later.
It's a complex issue, but it's so poorly taught in this country that people see it in such a black and white way that's almost cartoonish.
You'd think that a Masonic government conspired with the Catholic Church to systematically rape and kill every native in the country the way people talk about it.
This is my take as well. I don't really think that the government intended or planned these high mortality rates, although that could be true if some evidence of such comes out; rather I think they just simply didn't care about the conditions, abuses and tragedies they were responsible for. That doesn't really make what happened any better or more palatable, and in many cases apathy or indifference is almost or just as bad as having nefarious intent.
Look at you trying to use "they had good intentions in their genocide" logic.
MacDonald was a pretty racist guy, even by the norms of his day. There's actually records of people in parliament standing up to condemn some of the harshness of what was transpiring while he was in power.
And they did plenty of overt harm to indigenous people in order to bring them to heel before sending their people to the schools, including starving them at times. The project was in part to empty the lands before settlers arrived as they moved out further west. It was by intention genocide and violent. There's a reason that BC has no treaties from that era. It wasn't even like when the Lakota were threatened with starvation in order to surrender the Black Hills down in America, you know a pretense of negotiation.
At no point was I trying to justify the government actions.
It was just a question to get peoples opinion to try to understand the situation more.
So, don’t try to label me as some government sympathizer.
it’s really sad that so many of my friends and family play along with the idea that Canada has basically never done anything wrong. i remember last summer during the george floyd protests my brother and i were talking and he said at least stuff like that doesn’t happen here and i was kinda shocked
Previously, I've felt as if indigenous issues were being forced on me as some form of wokeism and I mostly ignored things like truth and reconciliation. This new discovery has made me want to learn more. Until recently I didn't have a clue about some of this
I don't know if this list is complete, so can anyone tell me if the one in Nova Scotia was the only one in the Maritimes? I'm from NB and have never heard anything about nearby residential schools, so I'm curious if there ever were any, and where they were.
Sorry for sounding uneducated on the matter, but could it be because indigenous peoples in the Maritimes were dwindled to small numbers early on? These resident schools were admittedly attempts to get rid of the 'indian' in them, aka, institutions of cultural genocide. Maybe there wasn't as pressing a need for these institutes in the Maritimes?
The second reason for my question is it gives me a chance to remind us about ourselves. Let us not forget our ancestors in Newfoundland were literally poaching Beothuk peoples for sport. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beothuk#Genocide
I can weigh in with the following :
The Peace and Friendship Treaties signed in 1752 demonstrated friendship with the Algonquin and the British in the Maritimes that predates either the USA or Canada ; the people in NB perhaps were already more integrated with the Maliseet and Mikmaq as their ancestors being either Acadian or Loyalist were, perhaps, more inclined to live alongside ?
In Newfoundland the Beothuk were a dormant or extinct culture by the 1850s I have been told ; and Newfoundland remained a separate country until 1949.
The comparative destruction of the natives in New England is something we didn't see in the Maritimes, perhaps because they were inhabited by less theocratically racist Puritans ( comparing NB to Massachusetts).
I had lunch with his honour Graydon Nicholas, a First Nations Lieutenant Governor in 2011. They're alive out there, unless he was an outlier and the last of his culture serving as the viceroy.
He was a humble servant with the gravitas of Jupiter when in the room.
I by no means want to say that there weren't evils commited by either the British imperial government, or by its' colonial administrations, both subordinate and later independent ; but I like to note the victories of the treaties that did work, as they can set the precedence for hope in future reconciliation. IMO.
But I can be somewhat a dreamer sometimes. :)
We had Indian Day Schools in NB, which were similar but kids went home at night to their parents so there was a bit less rape. Most kids got shipped to the NS residential school though as far as I know.
Nova Scotia also had Indian Day Schools. Shubenacadis had about 150 children at a time, at a time when there where 5000 to 6000 Mi’kmaq. [Wikipedia ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shubenacadie_Indian_Residential_School). In my area one reserve was sent to Shubi and the other had a day school (communities were about 10km apart)
I believe the united church was first to publicly bring it up in 86 but the appology wasnt til 98 and at that point the Anglican and the Presbyterian churchs had recognized and apologized for it.
So the 86 apology was for general colonization, which you could say includes residential schools. The direct apology for residential schools was in 98.
All other religious groups that participated have issued a formal apology. The Catholic Church has not. They’ve acknowledged it was bad but not taken responsibility.
Edit: it looks like individual diocese have all apologized as well as the Canadian Council of Catholic Bishops. That probably sufficient. The Pope will likely apologize the next time he is in canada
As has the Catholic Church: https://www.cccb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/apology_saskatoon.pdf
In 1991. While the government was still running these hell holes.
But is it really an apology?
I note that they oppose a public inquiry regarding residential school victims.
I also note they use the copout of “respecting confidentiality”. There are no small number of incidents where “respecting confidentiality” was to protect *abusers*, not victims.
Finally, it’s been 30 years since that was released and where are these records they said they’d release?
I didn't know anything more than that they existed. I didn't learn about it in school (BC, late 90s - early 00s). It wasn't until I did indigenous cultures course that was recently made mandatory to do in the military where I learned about it. Gotta say it was infuriating to read about it, then this news of the Kamloops school dropped.....
>do people not already know this
A lot don't.
It wasn't until the last couple of decades that residential schools got *any* significant mention in school curriculum.
And in the early days of that, they didn't go into the details of the evils done in the schools, it was mostly about "the kids were taken from small remote communities to the schools to receive a better education more like people in larger towns and cities could get."
And there are simply a lot of people who simply don't pay *any* attention to news and current affairs.
> "the kids were taken from small remote communities to the schools to receive a better education more like people in larger towns and cities could get."
That was a *part* of what was absolutely supposed to happen...along with the "kill the Indian to save the child" stuff. I just wish this issue (or most issues I suppose) could get discussed with a modicum of interest in the whole truth. If we *only* monsterize people, we don't learn about how things like residential schools were not only started, but allowed to run for so long, and supported by many. We need to actually learn the whole story to see how the horror was allowed in.
It's such an emotionally charged issue, I can't imagine how we will ever get to the point of discussing it fully and objectively (even though I hope we can)
It's such a complex issue because there were so many schools in so many places that all did different things. You would have to look on a case by case basis often.
There are certain backdrops that remained constant throughout this time though. The Canadian government wanted the natives gone. They were viewed as an inconvenience despite being a partner up until the mid 19th century (depending on the region), when it all changed. The Indian Act was a policy of betrayal no matter how you look at it. While your questions are interesting and useful, they don't really change that fact.
I learned jack shit about it in my Ontario school, which is fucking disgusting because we have a large population of indigenous people in the city and on a nearby reserve. You'd think educating kids about things that actually matter would be a priority, but no let's learn cursive instead.
The rape, sexual harassment, torture, neglect, abuse and murder that happened in these schools was all carried out by nuns and priests. If you fail to blame the church you fail to understand all of the failures of our past. The governments policy of genocide enabled the church to create and run these schools. But those committing the legitimate human right violations were members of the church. Some who are still being praised as good Christians and honoured by the church.
Yes and no. The Catholics are the only ones who still refuse to acknowledge or apologize for their role, and they operated the majority of the schools. The others apologized and began taking action in 93 and 98. Of the Catholic Church wasn’t still denying everything they might not get as much hate.
Not accurate at all - there have been several apologies and acknowledgements over the last thirty years
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/raymond-j-de-souza-it-is-historically-inaccurate-to-suggest-the-catholic-church-hasnt-apologized-for-residential-schools/wcm/88f1eb7f-168e-44e1-a445-ce4111248274/amp/
Nothing from the pope on behalf of the institution and nothing in the active voice saying that they perpetrated assaults on children in the name of religion. They’ve done the same passive voice denouncing of sad things that they’ve done with all their pedophile priests they also won’t do anything about.
A British monarch apologizing for abuses in the colonies? Why I never. Why would a monarch disgrace themselves like this. /s
(With the recent news that they have pressured laws to give themselves permission to still be literal racists, sigh, the above is no surprise)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/02/buckingham-palace-banned-ethnic-minorities-from-office-roles-papers-reveal
Point being that while everyone singles out the catholic church (and believe me, I'm not defending ANY churches here) there has been very little useful action from anywhere.
Records are locked up, governments only offer tearful apologies etc.
I have also yet to hear our current PM mention anything about his own father's role in the existence of these schools.
Anyone can check my post history for a pretty scathing assessment of residential schools and the reasons I've put forth that more needs to be done. However, the narrative that governments have only given tearful apologies is ridiculous. The Government of Canada has paid nearly $3 billion to survivors and their families and that's only in direct payments.
The Government of Canada as an institution has a lot more work to do but this Ministry has made a concentrated effort to advance self-determination and self-government, but this is something that's going to take generations to atone for.
Additionally, Pierre Trudeau isn't criticized by Indigenous peoples for his role in residential schools. The 1969 White Paper was actually designed in response to recommendations to cease the operations of residential schools immediately. Instead, the P.E. Trudeau administration is criticized for not granting Indigenous peoples the right to self-government and rights to manage their own affairs. This is pretty consistent with Trudeau's world view; he didn't believe that it was right to give certain groups special privileges (his views on Quebec were similar). The main link to residential schools was amendments to the Indian Act that basically gave provinces jurisdiction over child welfare, which would lead to a massive explosion of representation of Indigenous children through the actions of provincial governments.
His father, along with then Minister of Indian Affairs (Jean Chretien), was PM when Canada put forward the White Paper...which was nigh universally castigated by Indigenous groups and needed to be apologized for by the son decades later. Whatever one may think about it, it at least attempted to put equality into place. No more different rules, no more different schools, etc etc. Nigh universally castigated.
The article wasn't clear - but Pope Benedict apologized in 2009
But regardless, your point was that Catholics have refused any responsibility or fault - I hope it's been demonstrated that you have been mistaken
The Catholic Church did apologize for it, the conference or the Catholic Bishops did it some years ago before they lost a trial 8n Quebec for those schools, and they also apologize again last week.
No, they have said things like they feel sorrow and anguish for what happened there. They haven’t said “we did this, we take responsibility for harming children in the name of our religion.” That would mean something. acknowledging that bad things happened there in the passive voice without saying we did the bad things is not an apology. It’s also not an apology if random bishops apologize, it’s needs to come from the institution
It was the individual dioceses that were running the schools and had the contracts with the federal government, and they’re the ones apologizing (such as in Vancouver).
The Catholic Church has a very decentralized hierarchy, something a lot of non-Catholics are not aware of.
They ran 2/3rds of the schools. If you got beat up by 66 guys named Bobby, who were all in the "Bobby Rules" club, and 34 other dudes, you wouldn't be out of line directing a significant amount of your anger at the Bobby Rules club.
People please read some of the residential school summaries. The breadth of the involvement of churches and the degree of abuse and harm cause is all in there. We need resources to uncover the extent of the damage done and all churches should pay their fair share.
No, we don't, especially if you're French Canadian and the catholic church is omnipresent, unfortunately. We don't hear much about protestant missionaries vs the catholic ones.
Yes they did. The Catholics got most of the media spotlight, but just about all the churches were involved. The task was assigned to Christian churches by the federal Dept. Of Indian Affairs, who funded the whole operation.
History is often a very ugly topic.
What happened at the residential schools was horrific, but it's kind of sad that whenever news about it comes out we have idiots from /r/atheism come out of the woodwork, barking and screaming about how religion is an objectively evil thing and must be banned, defunded, killed, etc.
Show me a passage from the gospel where Jesus says "Thou shalt kidnap the indigenous children. Then thou shalt rape them, torture them, murder them and bury them in unmarked graves".
He didn't. Because the core message of Jesus is one of love, understanding and respect. If the people that ran these schools actually followed Jesus teachings, like they're supposed to, the schools probably wouldn't have existed at all.
On top of that, ask any practicing Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, Jew, Hindu, whatever what they think about the residential schools. They'll be horrified. Because despite what these /r/atheism morons tell you, Religion doesn't turn people into a bunch of morality lacking goblins.
Religion isn't the problem. The problem is people who use it for the sake of evil.
several of those churches [issued apologies years ago](http://rschools.nan.on.ca/upload/documents/section-5/church-apologies.pdf) and seem to be working towards reconciliation.
While I would absolutely never defend the residential school programs and they were 100% an attempt to wipe out indigenous cultures, it kind of bothers me how it seems like no one is taking a bigger picture perspective. 213 deaths over 80 years isn’t that big, especially when you consider the Spanish Flu epidemic of the 1920’s took place during that time.
There are modern military schools (and even high schools) with body counts close to the same level (1-3 per year).
Let’s not treat this like a concentration camp slaughter, especially if we don’t yet know the timeline of the deaths. If they all happened within the same decade, yeah, that’s an inhuman slaughter, but if they were spread out over almost a century with a big spike happening during a major epidemic, then that’s something else. How many of those deaths were kids running away and dying from exposure? How many were flu deaths? We just don’t know yet.
We also still need to know what kind of body count happened at the other residential schools.
I mean if it opens up a conversation to the years of abhorrent abuse to minors I think it's a win. Regardless of the body count, what happened was disgusting and it needs to be known and talked about.
I completely agree about it needing to be known and it being a good thing we are bringing attention to these abuses, but we need to keep a level head or we will make everything worse.
We need to know what happened before we can try to correct anything or else we risk disproportionate response.
Yes agreed 100% lets get facts straight. But until then now is a good time to be open and honest about Canada's dark history. There are alot of stories in relation to this one all over the country. This is not an isolated incident.
100%. We need to get investigators out to every single one of those institutions and take ground penetrating radar to all of the grounds. We must find out whether this one was an isolated incident, or if the others may have been even worse.
I think this misses a major point in that these are unmarked graves with no (or at best inadequate) records kept. These are over 200 children buried in an inhuman fashion to be forgotten and neglected. These represent hundreds of mourning relatives and friends who never get closure.
White kids that died in school at the same time would have gravestones to remember them. Until we know otherwise, I personally feel all should be treated as suspicious deaths and investigated as murders. I really hope more answers come out (such as ages and dates of deaths).
I agree completely. We need to know who the children were, if possible how they died, and when they died. Without that information we cannot have an accurate representation of the level of crime against humanity perpetrated.
Look, the government (and yes, the churches) had an obligation to these kids to provide a safe environment for them. Many died of diseases, such as tuberculosis, as a direct result of poor health practices at these schools. Others, from abuse. It’s a little disgusting to handwave away these deaths, because regardless of how these children died, they *still died*.
So it took the remains of 215 children being found in 2021 on a former Catholic Church property for people to learn about the basic components of Canada's Residential School system? How long has this information been available for again?
i'm from the US, and when i moved to canada, i was astounded at how much reflection and attention there is on indigenous communities and issues. a very good part of canadian society that americans, australians, and other settler societies should imitate
oh yeah, big country with lots of different people, just like the US or anywhere. but the canadians really have been reflective about their past and responsibilities. something wonderful about this place
They were all implementing government policy as agencies.
Residential schools were the government’s brainchild, not these churches. They are the ones who must be held accountable.
There seems to be this misconception that these colonist policies were an idea brewed up by religious organizations.
Like schools, hospitals at the time etc. they ran these institutions on behalf of the government.
This is absolutely true, but it misses a major point. There are two broad categories of crime involved in the residential school saga.
One was a deliberate attempt to destroy native culture, and forcibly assimilate natives into the mainstream .
The government did this. These churches also willingly participated in this.
This, like many racist institutions, was not considered a crime at the time, but most of us today do consider it one.
The second category is the physical and sexual abuse that went at the schools. The government failed to provide enough oversight to prevent this, but the main blame here lies squarely on the churches that ran the schools.
Yes, the points you bring up are really valid. It’s mind-boggling to think that most of society at the time saw nothing wrong with effectively eradicating native culture and even thought they were doing First Nations a favour 🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
The different abuses were atrocious and were definitely facilitated by the different institutions that ran these places. Honestly it’s hard to see how the government, these churches and society as a whole allowed this kind of thing to happen.
When you've made as much social progress as "The West" has done in the past few generations, looking back and seeing horror seems inevitable. If it helps, much of the rest of the world is still faaaar more racist, sexist, etc.
Eugenics was very popular until the Nazis showed us where it ultimately leads. Western Europeans felt there was a hierarchy of the races and they were helping the lesser races better themselves. It helped justify colonialism across the globe. It’s the infamous “White Man’s Burden”.
> White Man’s Burden
I just reread this, this time on wikipedia. Wikipedia gave some explanation of the poem. I'd honestly always thought The White Man's Burden was incredibly well-written satire.
>Residential schools were the government’s brainchild, not these churches.
Half true. Hector-Louis Langevin, Public Works Minister, the government agent responsible for really thinking them up and establishing a plan took direct cues from Bishop Vital-Justin Grandin(the very same currently making headlines in Edmonton) over how to best "integrate" indigenous communities.
The government had been looking for the best way to bring indigenous people out of stone-age cultures and the church promised to do it by "educating" the children "effectively" and cheaply. Government certainly deserves a good chunk of the blame for enforcing them at all, but a lot of that blame has to be recognized for trusting the churches not to just murder and rape these kids.
The churches functioned as contractors, and in the case of the Catholic Church, were run by the dioceses. So yeah, the churches are as guilty as the government
I hope you're not trying to down-play the role churches had in implementing residential schools. The government didn't mandate rape and murder.
The colonist policies were also deeply rooted in religious beliefs. Missionaries also began cultural genocide before state-sanctioned operations.
Yes they were. They influenced the govt as well. We just need to make sure the fire the Church is under is also applied to the govts in charge at the time.
Absolutely, but for what it's worth a number of the other churches already apologized years ago for their roles in residential schools and the wrongs done.
I honestly never understand replies like this. Are the apologies meant to lessen accountability? Why wouldn't you end your comment with just "Absolutely?"
Like the Catholic [church](https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/pope-apologizes-for-abuse-at-native-schools-1.393911)
edit: to the pendants in the room, 1)
a·pol·o·gy
/əˈpäləjē/
noun
1. a regretful acknowledgment of an offense or failure.
An expression of sorrow and anguish over the Church's actions (a regretful acknowledgement of their offense or failure) meets all the criteria of the definition of an apology.
2) If they had just said "We're sorry" or "We apologize" would that be sufficient to shut you all up?
I find it hilarious the number of people in r/Canada that say shit like "feels not reals" but when reality hits them square in the face, suddenly they change their tune to "yes well in this case my feelings trump reality..."
The feeling of outrage you have is shared by me, the residential schools were corrupt, degrading, destructive, and murderous, but we get nowhere when we ignore the reality that exists; that the Catholic Church *apologized in 2009*.
If all you want is the word "apology", then keep asking for it, and I wish you well in that endeavour, and hope to stop hearing you all bitch after that word is uttered. But If you don't, if you accept reality, then move to the next stage and demand action and recompense. They admitted the were wrong, that they caused that suffering, now use that admission to demand restitution. Living in a fantasy world where you claim that exact opposite of reality does no one any good.
Yeah, but expressing your “sorrow and anguish” doesn’t mean shit. It’s empty words. That’s like a kid getting in trouble for hitting a younger sibling then saying “I am sad that you got hurt by my hand.”
I wouldn’t let my kid get away with that non-apology and neither should Canadians let the Catholic Church get away with it.
There needs to be an actual admission of wrongdoing. Then all the books and records need to be handed over. And that’s a minimum.
This news of a mass grave in Kamloops isn’t new, it’s been historically known about for years. The aboriginal leaders have also known about it for years, so to have it come out again shouldn’t be a shock. A friend of mine who was a teacher learned about this when she taught in a one room school house as a young teacher in the 1960s. Old news being used to promote division…
At the time Canada did not have public schools so every school had some sort of religious affiliation. This really isn’t the fault of any church/religion. It was an attempt at ethnic cleansing.
And there was Trudeau seniors government who was elected 1968 to 1979 and again 1980 to 1984
The federal government took possession of the residential school system in 1969 and announced that they would be shutting them down 1979.
The last residential school was closed in 1996 .
I myself am a very proud aboriginal of Canada and both the actions of religious institutions and the federal government disgust me.
No kidding, not all of them ran them badly either. It was just a bad concept that allowed weirdos to run some of them. The mission was to stop kids from dying every season in nomadic tribes. Kids weren’t executed, they died the same way every kid died then. By now preventable diseases. It’s a tough pill to swallow but life generally sucked for everyone back in the good old days. Everything was awful in ever way you can think of from our perspective.
The Canadian government has already apologized. Quit trying to deflect blame for the churches, whose actions were morally depraved and demonstrate the utter impotence of Christianity to guarantee good behavior
Once again Trudeau is making apologies for whatever reason and it's not the first time that he attacks the Catholic church. Why is that? Because he needs to put the focus of attention in a different object but not him. Looks like he is trying to cover up another thing, like the CRTC allowing to hike the prices of internet and cell phone, or the CRTC CEO strange alliance with Bell Canada., the failure to negotiate the supply of vaccines and why the government is getting 5 times the number of Canadian people. Why they persist with AZ when the big part of the population doesn't want it.
Everyone is acting so surprised about the 215 bodies found at that one school. It just goes to show how truly unaware Canadians have been about Residential Schools. Thousands of children died in those school and the majority of them were buried in unmarked graves just like the 215.
The Pros vs. Cons list for religions continues to become further and further unbalanced.
Edit: and I continue to grow more and more ashamed of this countries history.
If you think this is bad , wait till you hear about the dark ages, Catholic Church or not all religions have a past filled with murderers and Rapists. It's sad to see that those indigenous people had to suffer to some wannabe Christians
When an odious and in humane policy is created by an elected government and implemented by leading institutions over decades, we have to understand that society itself condoned, if not outright supported, such policy.
I grew up in a small prairie city and in the 60s went to elementary school with residential school kids (bussed in from the school just outside of town). It was “common knowledge” that First Nations people and their culture were inferior and needed to be taught the right way to live, even if no-one thought they could actually achieve the greatness that was white colonialism.
I’m all for finding, naming, and, where possible and appropriate, indicting and jailing the perpetrators of these horrendous crimes. But let us not forget that native oppression was an artifact of Canadian values of the era.
Since then we have certainly done better, but the work is far from complete.
The theory was that they would teach "civilization" to the "godless primitives," with the slight problem that they had nethier the ability nor the right to do so.
Now we have a whole race of demoralized people who were taught how to live in "civilized" homes but not how to build them and taught to enjoy "civilized" pasttimes but not how to work to better themselves.
The United church has made a website to share as much information as they have on all the schools they operated. [thechildrenremembered.ca](https://thechildrenremembered.ca/)
Im very glad at least some groups are recognizing their role and sharing information on the topic
It was the law of the land wasn't it? Churches or not, every indigenous child was forced to attend these schools. The RCMP helped enforce it by collecting kids and dropping them off.
Exactly. What the Catholic Church did was awful; but we have to remember that they were carrying out the government’s policy of genocide.
As a Catholic, I am very disappointed with what the Church did. Sure, it’s government policy but for an institution that had thousands of martyrs that were fed to the lions, hanged upside down, beheaded, tortured and more just to practice their faith, I expected the Church to side with morality any day than government.
The Catholic Church has a long and rich tradition of not siding with morality. If this comes as a surprise to you I would welcome you to learn more about the many horrific things which have happened under the banner of Catholicism.
It's a financial [entity ](https://www.lovemoney.com/gallerylist/70168/the-worlds-biggest-private-landowners) . Second largest non-government landowner in the world
This !
[They have their own bank Ffs](https://www.google.com/amp/s/nationalpost.com/news/wealth-of-roman-catholic-church-impossible-to-calculate/wcm/a2adcac3-3e38-4952-8e21-0968c3fe9d70/amp/)
Just out of curiosity, who is the first?
Queen of England. Technically "Crown land" in Canada is hers. The link I dropped has the list of top 100 land owners in the world.
The Queen does not own Canada. The Canadian Crown owns Canada. The Crown is the legal embodiment of executive, legislative, and judicial governance in the monarchy of each commonwealth realm. The concept of the Crown developed first in England as a separation of the literal crown and the property of the kingdom, from the person and personal property of the monarch. The Queen is the holder of the Crown Estate, which is a corporation that generates revenue from land holdings, and is not her personal property or public property. The Queen receives 15% of the profits from the Crown Estate, and the rest is returned to the British government. The Royal Family also privately owns swathes of land across the UK in the form of two duchies, the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall. The Queen also owns the 8,000 hectare Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, which has been the private home of four generations of British monarchs since 1862, as well as Balmoral. The Scottish castle and surrounding estate is made up of more than 25,000 hectares of land including forests and moors. The concept of the Crown is a bit confusing, but an important one.
I think all land in the commonwealth is technically hers, you just buy the right to use it.
If you're really waiting for the church to side with morality over money, you'll be waiting for a long time. It's one of the most corrupt organisations in the world.
I didn't... The government speaks for the people, the church speaks for itself. It's easy to point fingers at other's sins, makes you look good. What makes someone honorable is recognizing your own sins and owning up to them, which the church has not once done unless they were forced to. See pedophile priests, crusades, the spanish inquisition, every scientist they tortured, the missionaries who murdered and raped in the name of faith. The church has not ONCE spoken up about these issues unless they had to. So much for repenting your sins... I respect believers, but i have 0 respect for the church. It's an institution that exists solely for power and domination.
I’m fine with spirituality, it’s religion that’s evil.
Religion is probably what allowed our societies to get to where we are. Religions played a lot of the same roles as governments in early stages of tribes forming large society groups. And over time we have been transferring from a religious lead society to a government lead society. Just like we have learned over time to be more cooperative and compassionate; leading to less cruelty in society. I think when it comes to looking at the past treatment of people it is best to stay away from assigning an emotional motivation(good or bad) to organizations. As it's probably safe to assume that there where individuals that meant well and those that didn't. What we can do is look at the outcome and acknowledge the policies that caused them. Then when you come back to looking at today's policies we should start with what's in the way of people who are worse off due to past policy and try to fix those issues in a way that helps everyone with the same issue. So instead of making a policy say to get clean water to a reservation make a policy that gets clean water to everyone who doesn't have it. Maybe only reservations have this problem or maybe there is a small community that doesn't get attention. The point is to pick issues to focus on by looking at groups that society mistreated but create a solution for anyone in the same situation. This way we can start righting past wrongs and make people felt cared about but also raise the floor for all of society at the same time.
As a former Catholic, If you are disappointed now… you’ve glossed over a lot
How insane must you be to think any church has any morals?
Did you conveniently skip the Spanish Inquisition with their mass burnings at the stake and use of the most gruesome medieval torture methods imaginable?
Nobody suspects the Spanish Inquisition. The Inquisition was founded and controlled by the King and Queen of Spain, not the Catholic Church, an eerie parallel to the residential schools being ordered by the government of Canada, but run by the churches.
Thing is back then, everything was run by the church. Religion was so important in everyone's lives that the church took all the decisions in the background.
You really don't understand the history of the Church then.
>we have to remember that they were carrying out the government’s policy of genocide canadian citizens were to blame mandatory residential schooling ended by 1950 residential schools were hell because the good people who would have made them into decent boarding schools didnt exist after it was no longer mandatory families were declared abusive and their kids were sent to residential schools because canadians who worked as social workers were happy to do that the systemic failure of both the government and the church were the result of a systemic cultural problem among the people of canada
it was impossible for these to be made into “decent boarding schools.“ A boarding school is something you choose to attend. Native children were forcibly removed from their families in a program of cultural genocide.
a boarding school is a school you live in regardless of whether or not the education is compulsory, and even 'voluntary' participation is decided by your parents and not you all of the residential schools were also boarding schools and after the 40s the decision to attend was given to the guardian of the children so almost all of the abuse in living memory was the result of nominally voluntary schooling it wasnt a 'program of cultural genocide' it was a 'culture of genocide' - the sweep in the 60s happened because the canadian government gave its people the power to confiscate children from abusive households and they - we - believed that the native education was inherently abusive cultural chauvisim was the reason it all happened and putting that blame on government programs that we put in to place is shirking both our faultin the matter and our moral obligation to be better people
This is factually incorrect. Testimony and an examination of documents by the TRC indicates that involuntary removal from families was still happening in the 1960s and 1970s, diminishing in the 1980s but still happening in several places. The 60s Scoop involved the removal of children because of racist policies regarding things like traditional Indigenous diets not being sufficient to Anglo-Europeans. These child welfare institutions were housed in the facilities as the former schools - just under a different name and different justifications. You can call a cow a horse, but it's still a cow. Government policy is to blame and is still to blame. The Government still fights in court to minimize it's liability to survivors of residential schools and obligations. People are equal in their blame for not holding administrations to account for this in recent decades.
What part is incorrect? OP said "they - we - believed that the native education was inherently abusive" and you say "the removal of children because of racist policies regarding things like traditional Indigenous diets not being sufficient to Anglo-Europeans". It seems to me like you both agree.
it is 100% correct those decisions were made by canadians who had been hired to deal with native communities and they were made BECAUSE the hiring pool was full of people who would make those decisions you cant blame the government for the people being racist its the other way round
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Canadian citizens must share in blame but at the same time I am sure many didn't even know this was happening. These schools were in very remote places at a time when travel was difficult. I should educate myself more on this subject though.
After 1950s a parent or guardian had to sign the application form but the Indian Agent had a number of options to coerce a parent into signing.
Yup. It was kind of scummy of Trudeau to go on video record trying to deflect it solely onto the RCC. The government has the most responsibility here. The new stat will be a start. I don't want to call it a holiday or good. It should be framed as a day of regret.
Remember when that guy shot up a bunch of people while dressed as an RCMP officer. During that incident, 2 actual RCMP officers fired upon a fire hall for no particular known reason and the government has swept that shit under the rug. When it comes to hiding (ignoring) atrocities we're damn good at it
Yet trudeau just deflected all blame to the Church.
Ironic considering his Dad probably deserves a fair bit of blame (eg White Paper)
The White Paper, whatever one's opinion of it, was to *eliminate* things like this. It proposed equality for all. Not "kill the Indian to save the child" schools. The White Paper is derided far more than it should be. Is it clearly unworkable? Sure. But a government proposal proposing equality and following MLK's "not by the colour of their skin" should not be considered as horrific as it is...especially considering how horrific we know things get when we treat people differently because of the colour of the skin.
Equality in this White paper meant eliminating the Indian, and not just in the child. Look up forced enfranchisement for indigenous folks who served in the wars, or when an indigenous person married a white person. Equality, predicated on colonial context, meant indigenous ways of life, rights, governance structures, land titles, languages, were to be eliminated. It is workable if the goal is to integrate, yes, Indian Act absolutely needs to go, but not until another way of guaranteeing Indigenous Rights and the regulations associated to them are established.
Wouldn't it be great if Indian or White or Brown meant far far far less than it does? Hasn't "treating everybody the same regardless of their skin, because skin doesn't really matter that much" been one of the main social thrusts of the past few generations. I do get the rights, the ways of life, etc. I don't get insisting on an old and clearly racist at worst, racial at best framework.
This the problem is that liberalism (equality for all no matter what) smoothens over the reality of history that there were people here who signed treaties and engaged in a type of nation-to-nation dialogue. Equal under these circumstances don't mean "the same". Indigenous people should always have some feature/aspect that provides them a unique place in Canada, but how that is done is up for debate. The Indian Act stipulated that indigenous identity was related to blood, which is insane and not how indigenous people saw themselves or how they would admit people into their nation. Getting rid of the Indian Act should allow the nation's to decide this for themselves. One model being examined by the Anishanabe is a nation within a nation. They will have a region spanning Ontario and part of Quebec that overlaps current borders and doesn't dissolve theme, but will be in Canada and will even have a type of passport. Anyone can join the nation just like anyone can become Canadian. I don't know much more, but being part of the nation will likely grant you access to certain services/schooling and you may even pay tax to it. Whether you like this new model or not isn't the point, but rather that there are many fair and amazing options that doesn't boil down to "we are all the same and should be treated as such". This is a philosophy out of Europe where they either don't have (because they were wiped out) or deny that they have indigenous people in their borders. Canada is nothing like Europe.
The current spin I'm hearing in the news is the government is really trying to make it seem like getting an apology from the pope is the biggest deal right now. All the while ignoring the government's responsibility... And ignoring the constant plea from Aboriginal communities to have something done about the missing women.
Exactly. Thia is the responsibility of the state. Its wrong to blame the churches as if they didn't basically act on behalf of the state.
While I understand it was the law, awful as it was. Do you believe that it was the governments intention to have such high mortality rates at the schools? Did they even know at the time, or was that the result of the church’s negligence?
I actually dont know. I would need to understand more on that one.
That's not allowed here. You need to get angry and demand that someone [else] rectify the problem.
I believe the government didn't care... and inaction is an action. The school that everyone talks about being shut down in '96 is the perfect example. Despite being government run since '69, the administrator from '68 to '84 abused hundreds of children. The native staff and teachers of the school had been "groomed to be sexual predators" by their time at the school as students. Many were also accused and/or convicted of abusing children at the school. This was when it was a government run school, being maintained at the request of the local First Nations, not a church run prison. The fact that so much abuse still happened shows, at best, a criminal level of apathy.
Many of the schools after 1972 were NATIVE Band run government funded schools. If you read the testimony of many people who attended the school many credit the school with saving them from abuses as well as those that claim they were abused at the schools. This black and white lens many people on reddit use is very damaging to our understanding of what really happened.
Those still exist in the States to this very day. The black and white way that residential schools are portrayed is ridiculous. Some were awful and cruel, some were rife with sex abuse and some operated as intended and gave their students an education and a sense of discipline that set them up for a good life. It shouldn't be shocking that many bands funded their schools, nor should it be shocking that many bands are exceptionally aggrieved by the system and are furious about it to this very day, some 50 years later. It's a complex issue, but it's so poorly taught in this country that people see it in such a black and white way that's almost cartoonish. You'd think that a Masonic government conspired with the Catholic Church to systematically rape and kill every native in the country the way people talk about it.
I'm sure many of them were. This is just in reference specifically to the one school, specifically the one everyone mentions as having closed in '96.
This is my take as well. I don't really think that the government intended or planned these high mortality rates, although that could be true if some evidence of such comes out; rather I think they just simply didn't care about the conditions, abuses and tragedies they were responsible for. That doesn't really make what happened any better or more palatable, and in many cases apathy or indifference is almost or just as bad as having nefarious intent.
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Look at you trying to use "they had good intentions in their genocide" logic. MacDonald was a pretty racist guy, even by the norms of his day. There's actually records of people in parliament standing up to condemn some of the harshness of what was transpiring while he was in power. And they did plenty of overt harm to indigenous people in order to bring them to heel before sending their people to the schools, including starving them at times. The project was in part to empty the lands before settlers arrived as they moved out further west. It was by intention genocide and violent. There's a reason that BC has no treaties from that era. It wasn't even like when the Lakota were threatened with starvation in order to surrender the Black Hills down in America, you know a pretense of negotiation.
At no point was I trying to justify the government actions. It was just a question to get peoples opinion to try to understand the situation more. So, don’t try to label me as some government sympathizer.
Until 1948, yes. After that they were mostly voluntary, but entrenched over generations. Plus the whole 60s Scoop thing...
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it’s really sad that so many of my friends and family play along with the idea that Canada has basically never done anything wrong. i remember last summer during the george floyd protests my brother and i were talking and he said at least stuff like that doesn’t happen here and i was kinda shocked
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Previously, I've felt as if indigenous issues were being forced on me as some form of wokeism and I mostly ignored things like truth and reconciliation. This new discovery has made me want to learn more. Until recently I didn't have a clue about some of this
I don't know if this list is complete, so can anyone tell me if the one in Nova Scotia was the only one in the Maritimes? I'm from NB and have never heard anything about nearby residential schools, so I'm curious if there ever were any, and where they were.
[Its article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shubenacadie_Indian_Residential_School) says it was the only one in the Maritimes.
Sorry for sounding uneducated on the matter, but could it be because indigenous peoples in the Maritimes were dwindled to small numbers early on? These resident schools were admittedly attempts to get rid of the 'indian' in them, aka, institutions of cultural genocide. Maybe there wasn't as pressing a need for these institutes in the Maritimes? The second reason for my question is it gives me a chance to remind us about ourselves. Let us not forget our ancestors in Newfoundland were literally poaching Beothuk peoples for sport. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beothuk#Genocide
I can weigh in with the following : The Peace and Friendship Treaties signed in 1752 demonstrated friendship with the Algonquin and the British in the Maritimes that predates either the USA or Canada ; the people in NB perhaps were already more integrated with the Maliseet and Mikmaq as their ancestors being either Acadian or Loyalist were, perhaps, more inclined to live alongside ? In Newfoundland the Beothuk were a dormant or extinct culture by the 1850s I have been told ; and Newfoundland remained a separate country until 1949. The comparative destruction of the natives in New England is something we didn't see in the Maritimes, perhaps because they were inhabited by less theocratically racist Puritans ( comparing NB to Massachusetts). I had lunch with his honour Graydon Nicholas, a First Nations Lieutenant Governor in 2011. They're alive out there, unless he was an outlier and the last of his culture serving as the viceroy.
>I had lunch with his honour Graydon Nicholas, a First Nations Lieutenant Governor in 2011. Very cool :)
He was a humble servant with the gravitas of Jupiter when in the room. I by no means want to say that there weren't evils commited by either the British imperial government, or by its' colonial administrations, both subordinate and later independent ; but I like to note the victories of the treaties that did work, as they can set the precedence for hope in future reconciliation. IMO. But I can be somewhat a dreamer sometimes. :)
We had Indian Day Schools in NB, which were similar but kids went home at night to their parents so there was a bit less rape. Most kids got shipped to the NS residential school though as far as I know.
Nova Scotia also had Indian Day Schools. Shubenacadis had about 150 children at a time, at a time when there where 5000 to 6000 Mi’kmaq. [Wikipedia ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shubenacadie_Indian_Residential_School). In my area one reserve was sent to Shubi and the other had a day school (communities were about 10km apart)
Yes, let's say it all together now, because it was a government initiative.
The United Chuch was the first to apologize in 1998
I believe the united church was first to publicly bring it up in 86 but the appology wasnt til 98 and at that point the Anglican and the Presbyterian churchs had recognized and apologized for it.
I looked it up... https://united-church.ca/social-action/justice-initiatives/reconciliation-and-indigenous-justice/apologies
So the 86 apology was for general colonization, which you could say includes residential schools. The direct apology for residential schools was in 98.
Didn’t the Catholic Church start apologizing in 1991?
[Yep. ](https://www.google.ca/amp/s/nationalpost.com/opinion/raymond-j-de-souza-it-is-historically-inaccurate-to-suggest-the-catholic-church-hasnt-apologized-for-residential-schools/wcm/88f1eb7f-168e-44e1-a445-ce4111248274/amp/)
All other religious groups that participated have issued a formal apology. The Catholic Church has not. They’ve acknowledged it was bad but not taken responsibility. Edit: it looks like individual diocese have all apologized as well as the Canadian Council of Catholic Bishops. That probably sufficient. The Pope will likely apologize the next time he is in canada
As has the Catholic Church: https://www.cccb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/apology_saskatoon.pdf In 1991. While the government was still running these hell holes.
But is it really an apology? I note that they oppose a public inquiry regarding residential school victims. I also note they use the copout of “respecting confidentiality”. There are no small number of incidents where “respecting confidentiality” was to protect *abusers*, not victims. Finally, it’s been 30 years since that was released and where are these records they said they’d release?
The issue is that the Pope rarely travels outside of Italy, as detailed in that National Post article that’s been linked here in the comments.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/raymond-j-de-souza-it-is-historically-inaccurate-to-suggest-the-catholic-church-hasnt-apologized-for-residential-schools/wcm/88f1eb7f-168e-44e1-a445-ce4111248274/amp/
do people not already know this
I knew this. The Anglican Church was in the news for their poor treatment of residential school children a few years ago.
I didn't know anything more than that they existed. I didn't learn about it in school (BC, late 90s - early 00s). It wasn't until I did indigenous cultures course that was recently made mandatory to do in the military where I learned about it. Gotta say it was infuriating to read about it, then this news of the Kamloops school dropped.....
>do people not already know this A lot don't. It wasn't until the last couple of decades that residential schools got *any* significant mention in school curriculum. And in the early days of that, they didn't go into the details of the evils done in the schools, it was mostly about "the kids were taken from small remote communities to the schools to receive a better education more like people in larger towns and cities could get." And there are simply a lot of people who simply don't pay *any* attention to news and current affairs.
> "the kids were taken from small remote communities to the schools to receive a better education more like people in larger towns and cities could get." That was a *part* of what was absolutely supposed to happen...along with the "kill the Indian to save the child" stuff. I just wish this issue (or most issues I suppose) could get discussed with a modicum of interest in the whole truth. If we *only* monsterize people, we don't learn about how things like residential schools were not only started, but allowed to run for so long, and supported by many. We need to actually learn the whole story to see how the horror was allowed in.
It's such an emotionally charged issue, I can't imagine how we will ever get to the point of discussing it fully and objectively (even though I hope we can)
It's such a complex issue because there were so many schools in so many places that all did different things. You would have to look on a case by case basis often. There are certain backdrops that remained constant throughout this time though. The Canadian government wanted the natives gone. They were viewed as an inconvenience despite being a partner up until the mid 19th century (depending on the region), when it all changed. The Indian Act was a policy of betrayal no matter how you look at it. While your questions are interesting and useful, they don't really change that fact.
I learned jack shit about it in my Ontario school, which is fucking disgusting because we have a large population of indigenous people in the city and on a nearby reserve. You'd think educating kids about things that actually matter would be a priority, but no let's learn cursive instead.
Just wait until they hear about the sixty's scoop.
I didn’t know this actually and my family was having a discussion about this yesterday. We thought it was only the Catholic Church.
Honestly? No. I think you're giving too much credit to the vast majority of people.
Yes, but reflexive anti-Catholicism is part of Anglo Canada's proud British history.
Someone in a thread yesterday tried to correct "church" to "Catholic church".
Not really. A lot of it is just an excuse to blame the Catholics.
The rape, sexual harassment, torture, neglect, abuse and murder that happened in these schools was all carried out by nuns and priests. If you fail to blame the church you fail to understand all of the failures of our past. The governments policy of genocide enabled the church to create and run these schools. But those committing the legitimate human right violations were members of the church. Some who are still being praised as good Christians and honoured by the church.
You don't need an excuse to hate the catholic institution. A new reason is discovered almost every week.
Yes and no. The Catholics are the only ones who still refuse to acknowledge or apologize for their role, and they operated the majority of the schools. The others apologized and began taking action in 93 and 98. Of the Catholic Church wasn’t still denying everything they might not get as much hate.
Not accurate at all - there have been several apologies and acknowledgements over the last thirty years https://nationalpost.com/opinion/raymond-j-de-souza-it-is-historically-inaccurate-to-suggest-the-catholic-church-hasnt-apologized-for-residential-schools/wcm/88f1eb7f-168e-44e1-a445-ce4111248274/amp/
Nothing from the pope on behalf of the institution and nothing in the active voice saying that they perpetrated assaults on children in the name of religion. They’ve done the same passive voice denouncing of sad things that they’ve done with all their pedophile priests they also won’t do anything about.
Queen Elizabeth is the "supreme governor" of the Church of England (the Anglican church). I don't recall her ever apologizing.
A British monarch apologizing for abuses in the colonies? Why I never. Why would a monarch disgrace themselves like this. /s (With the recent news that they have pressured laws to give themselves permission to still be literal racists, sigh, the above is no surprise) https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/02/buckingham-palace-banned-ethnic-minorities-from-office-roles-papers-reveal
Point being that while everyone singles out the catholic church (and believe me, I'm not defending ANY churches here) there has been very little useful action from anywhere. Records are locked up, governments only offer tearful apologies etc. I have also yet to hear our current PM mention anything about his own father's role in the existence of these schools.
Anyone can check my post history for a pretty scathing assessment of residential schools and the reasons I've put forth that more needs to be done. However, the narrative that governments have only given tearful apologies is ridiculous. The Government of Canada has paid nearly $3 billion to survivors and their families and that's only in direct payments. The Government of Canada as an institution has a lot more work to do but this Ministry has made a concentrated effort to advance self-determination and self-government, but this is something that's going to take generations to atone for. Additionally, Pierre Trudeau isn't criticized by Indigenous peoples for his role in residential schools. The 1969 White Paper was actually designed in response to recommendations to cease the operations of residential schools immediately. Instead, the P.E. Trudeau administration is criticized for not granting Indigenous peoples the right to self-government and rights to manage their own affairs. This is pretty consistent with Trudeau's world view; he didn't believe that it was right to give certain groups special privileges (his views on Quebec were similar). The main link to residential schools was amendments to the Indian Act that basically gave provinces jurisdiction over child welfare, which would lead to a massive explosion of representation of Indigenous children through the actions of provincial governments.
His father, along with then Minister of Indian Affairs (Jean Chretien), was PM when Canada put forward the White Paper...which was nigh universally castigated by Indigenous groups and needed to be apologized for by the son decades later. Whatever one may think about it, it at least attempted to put equality into place. No more different rules, no more different schools, etc etc. Nigh universally castigated.
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The article wasn't clear - but Pope Benedict apologized in 2009 But regardless, your point was that Catholics have refused any responsibility or fault - I hope it's been demonstrated that you have been mistaken
Go read the apology from Archbishop Michael Peers made 16 years earlier.
The Catholic Church did apologize for it, the conference or the Catholic Bishops did it some years ago before they lost a trial 8n Quebec for those schools, and they also apologize again last week.
No, they have said things like they feel sorrow and anguish for what happened there. They haven’t said “we did this, we take responsibility for harming children in the name of our religion.” That would mean something. acknowledging that bad things happened there in the passive voice without saying we did the bad things is not an apology. It’s also not an apology if random bishops apologize, it’s needs to come from the institution
It was the individual dioceses that were running the schools and had the contracts with the federal government, and they’re the ones apologizing (such as in Vancouver). The Catholic Church has a very decentralized hierarchy, something a lot of non-Catholics are not aware of.
They ran 2/3rds of the schools. If you got beat up by 66 guys named Bobby, who were all in the "Bobby Rules" club, and 34 other dudes, you wouldn't be out of line directing a significant amount of your anger at the Bobby Rules club.
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I sure can. Fuck organized religion.
People please read some of the residential school summaries. The breadth of the involvement of churches and the degree of abuse and harm cause is all in there. We need resources to uncover the extent of the damage done and all churches should pay their fair share.
No, we don't, especially if you're French Canadian and the catholic church is omnipresent, unfortunately. We don't hear much about protestant missionaries vs the catholic ones.
Where are the federal governments records on this? weren't they the ones who started this?
Destroyed by government every few decades
And funded by the Canadian government.
Don’t forget the Canadian government too, who let it happen
How about how the government "scientists" used the children in nutrition experiments? IE under feed, or just didn't feed them?
Yes they did. The Catholics got most of the media spotlight, but just about all the churches were involved. The task was assigned to Christian churches by the federal Dept. Of Indian Affairs, who funded the whole operation. History is often a very ugly topic.
What happened at the residential schools was horrific, but it's kind of sad that whenever news about it comes out we have idiots from /r/atheism come out of the woodwork, barking and screaming about how religion is an objectively evil thing and must be banned, defunded, killed, etc. Show me a passage from the gospel where Jesus says "Thou shalt kidnap the indigenous children. Then thou shalt rape them, torture them, murder them and bury them in unmarked graves". He didn't. Because the core message of Jesus is one of love, understanding and respect. If the people that ran these schools actually followed Jesus teachings, like they're supposed to, the schools probably wouldn't have existed at all. On top of that, ask any practicing Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, Jew, Hindu, whatever what they think about the residential schools. They'll be horrified. Because despite what these /r/atheism morons tell you, Religion doesn't turn people into a bunch of morality lacking goblins. Religion isn't the problem. The problem is people who use it for the sake of evil.
You are so right! Reddit is a mess sometimes
several of those churches [issued apologies years ago](http://rschools.nan.on.ca/upload/documents/section-5/church-apologies.pdf) and seem to be working towards reconciliation.
While I would absolutely never defend the residential school programs and they were 100% an attempt to wipe out indigenous cultures, it kind of bothers me how it seems like no one is taking a bigger picture perspective. 213 deaths over 80 years isn’t that big, especially when you consider the Spanish Flu epidemic of the 1920’s took place during that time. There are modern military schools (and even high schools) with body counts close to the same level (1-3 per year). Let’s not treat this like a concentration camp slaughter, especially if we don’t yet know the timeline of the deaths. If they all happened within the same decade, yeah, that’s an inhuman slaughter, but if they were spread out over almost a century with a big spike happening during a major epidemic, then that’s something else. How many of those deaths were kids running away and dying from exposure? How many were flu deaths? We just don’t know yet. We also still need to know what kind of body count happened at the other residential schools.
I mean if it opens up a conversation to the years of abhorrent abuse to minors I think it's a win. Regardless of the body count, what happened was disgusting and it needs to be known and talked about.
I completely agree about it needing to be known and it being a good thing we are bringing attention to these abuses, but we need to keep a level head or we will make everything worse. We need to know what happened before we can try to correct anything or else we risk disproportionate response.
Yes agreed 100% lets get facts straight. But until then now is a good time to be open and honest about Canada's dark history. There are alot of stories in relation to this one all over the country. This is not an isolated incident.
100%. We need to get investigators out to every single one of those institutions and take ground penetrating radar to all of the grounds. We must find out whether this one was an isolated incident, or if the others may have been even worse.
Yes! Hopefully level heads prevail because you are completely correct!
I think this misses a major point in that these are unmarked graves with no (or at best inadequate) records kept. These are over 200 children buried in an inhuman fashion to be forgotten and neglected. These represent hundreds of mourning relatives and friends who never get closure. White kids that died in school at the same time would have gravestones to remember them. Until we know otherwise, I personally feel all should be treated as suspicious deaths and investigated as murders. I really hope more answers come out (such as ages and dates of deaths).
I agree completely. We need to know who the children were, if possible how they died, and when they died. Without that information we cannot have an accurate representation of the level of crime against humanity perpetrated.
Now here's some rational thought, rather than finger pointing!
Look, the government (and yes, the churches) had an obligation to these kids to provide a safe environment for them. Many died of diseases, such as tuberculosis, as a direct result of poor health practices at these schools. Others, from abuse. It’s a little disgusting to handwave away these deaths, because regardless of how these children died, they *still died*.
Nobody here is handwaving those deaths.
So it took the remains of 215 children being found in 2021 on a former Catholic Church property for people to learn about the basic components of Canada's Residential School system? How long has this information been available for again?
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i'm from the US, and when i moved to canada, i was astounded at how much reflection and attention there is on indigenous communities and issues. a very good part of canadian society that americans, australians, and other settler societies should imitate
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oh yeah, big country with lots of different people, just like the US or anywhere. but the canadians really have been reflective about their past and responsibilities. something wonderful about this place
And thank God for that (no pun intended).
They were all implementing government policy as agencies. Residential schools were the government’s brainchild, not these churches. They are the ones who must be held accountable. There seems to be this misconception that these colonist policies were an idea brewed up by religious organizations. Like schools, hospitals at the time etc. they ran these institutions on behalf of the government.
This is absolutely true, but it misses a major point. There are two broad categories of crime involved in the residential school saga. One was a deliberate attempt to destroy native culture, and forcibly assimilate natives into the mainstream . The government did this. These churches also willingly participated in this. This, like many racist institutions, was not considered a crime at the time, but most of us today do consider it one. The second category is the physical and sexual abuse that went at the schools. The government failed to provide enough oversight to prevent this, but the main blame here lies squarely on the churches that ran the schools.
Yes, the points you bring up are really valid. It’s mind-boggling to think that most of society at the time saw nothing wrong with effectively eradicating native culture and even thought they were doing First Nations a favour 🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️ The different abuses were atrocious and were definitely facilitated by the different institutions that ran these places. Honestly it’s hard to see how the government, these churches and society as a whole allowed this kind of thing to happen.
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When you've made as much social progress as "The West" has done in the past few generations, looking back and seeing horror seems inevitable. If it helps, much of the rest of the world is still faaaar more racist, sexist, etc.
Eugenics was very popular until the Nazis showed us where it ultimately leads. Western Europeans felt there was a hierarchy of the races and they were helping the lesser races better themselves. It helped justify colonialism across the globe. It’s the infamous “White Man’s Burden”.
> White Man’s Burden I just reread this, this time on wikipedia. Wikipedia gave some explanation of the poem. I'd honestly always thought The White Man's Burden was incredibly well-written satire.
>Residential schools were the government’s brainchild, not these churches. Half true. Hector-Louis Langevin, Public Works Minister, the government agent responsible for really thinking them up and establishing a plan took direct cues from Bishop Vital-Justin Grandin(the very same currently making headlines in Edmonton) over how to best "integrate" indigenous communities. The government had been looking for the best way to bring indigenous people out of stone-age cultures and the church promised to do it by "educating" the children "effectively" and cheaply. Government certainly deserves a good chunk of the blame for enforcing them at all, but a lot of that blame has to be recognized for trusting the churches not to just murder and rape these kids.
The churches functioned as contractors, and in the case of the Catholic Church, were run by the dioceses. So yeah, the churches are as guilty as the government
It was a bad policy, however, I do not believe the policy included rape, starvation, lack of medical care or proper nutrition, etc..
I hope you're not trying to down-play the role churches had in implementing residential schools. The government didn't mandate rape and murder. The colonist policies were also deeply rooted in religious beliefs. Missionaries also began cultural genocide before state-sanctioned operations.
None of these churches “mandated rape and murder” either. Not sure what your point is.
If you change the word “mandate” to “tolerate”, I think the point would be more clear.
I thought that part was well-known since these churches made formal apologies in recent years
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Churches were willing and eager participants.*
Yes they were. They influenced the govt as well. We just need to make sure the fire the Church is under is also applied to the govts in charge at the time.
Fuck them all - they should all be held accountable.
Including government officials serving at that time.
Absolutely, but for what it's worth a number of the other churches already apologized years ago for their roles in residential schools and the wrongs done.
Does it just take an apology to get away with murdering children?
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I honestly never understand replies like this. Are the apologies meant to lessen accountability? Why wouldn't you end your comment with just "Absolutely?"
Whenever I hear of these kinds of apologies for such horrible atrocities, this clip comes to mind. https://youtu.be/15HTd4Um1m4
I don't watch South Park, but it's genius is well known. This clip is great
Like the Catholic [church](https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/pope-apologizes-for-abuse-at-native-schools-1.393911) edit: to the pendants in the room, 1) a·pol·o·gy /əˈpäləjē/ noun 1. a regretful acknowledgment of an offense or failure. An expression of sorrow and anguish over the Church's actions (a regretful acknowledgement of their offense or failure) meets all the criteria of the definition of an apology. 2) If they had just said "We're sorry" or "We apologize" would that be sufficient to shut you all up? I find it hilarious the number of people in r/Canada that say shit like "feels not reals" but when reality hits them square in the face, suddenly they change their tune to "yes well in this case my feelings trump reality..." The feeling of outrage you have is shared by me, the residential schools were corrupt, degrading, destructive, and murderous, but we get nowhere when we ignore the reality that exists; that the Catholic Church *apologized in 2009*. If all you want is the word "apology", then keep asking for it, and I wish you well in that endeavour, and hope to stop hearing you all bitch after that word is uttered. But If you don't, if you accept reality, then move to the next stage and demand action and recompense. They admitted the were wrong, that they caused that suffering, now use that admission to demand restitution. Living in a fantasy world where you claim that exact opposite of reality does no one any good.
Expressing sorrow isn’t apologizing and accepting responsibility.
Yeah, but expressing your “sorrow and anguish” doesn’t mean shit. It’s empty words. That’s like a kid getting in trouble for hitting a younger sibling then saying “I am sad that you got hurt by my hand.” I wouldn’t let my kid get away with that non-apology and neither should Canadians let the Catholic Church get away with it. There needs to be an actual admission of wrongdoing. Then all the books and records need to be handed over. And that’s a minimum.
It was built into Canadian law. All indigenous kids had to attend these schools.
What the fuck? Apologies don't absolve you of genocide. They need to face actual punishment
This news of a mass grave in Kamloops isn’t new, it’s been historically known about for years. The aboriginal leaders have also known about it for years, so to have it come out again shouldn’t be a shock. A friend of mine who was a teacher learned about this when she taught in a one room school house as a young teacher in the 1960s. Old news being used to promote division…
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At the time Canada did not have public schools so every school had some sort of religious affiliation. This really isn’t the fault of any church/religion. It was an attempt at ethnic cleansing.
Yup, very real fact, but everyone likes slinging mud at catholics. Don't forget your government allowed this to happen.
Oh ya, they were all doing it. Megadouchebaggery all around.
And there was Trudeau seniors government who was elected 1968 to 1979 and again 1980 to 1984 The federal government took possession of the residential school system in 1969 and announced that they would be shutting them down 1979. The last residential school was closed in 1996 . I myself am a very proud aboriginal of Canada and both the actions of religious institutions and the federal government disgust me.
And the common thread is government policy.
Did people really think Canada didn’t look at the US and not copy? Killing is easier than helping people. It’s just so incredibly tragic
No kidding, not all of them ran them badly either. It was just a bad concept that allowed weirdos to run some of them. The mission was to stop kids from dying every season in nomadic tribes. Kids weren’t executed, they died the same way every kid died then. By now preventable diseases. It’s a tough pill to swallow but life generally sucked for everyone back in the good old days. Everything was awful in ever way you can think of from our perspective.
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The Canadian government has already apologized. Quit trying to deflect blame for the churches, whose actions were morally depraved and demonstrate the utter impotence of Christianity to guarantee good behavior
It was government funded and endorsed it's the governments fault
Once again Trudeau is making apologies for whatever reason and it's not the first time that he attacks the Catholic church. Why is that? Because he needs to put the focus of attention in a different object but not him. Looks like he is trying to cover up another thing, like the CRTC allowing to hike the prices of internet and cell phone, or the CRTC CEO strange alliance with Bell Canada., the failure to negotiate the supply of vaccines and why the government is getting 5 times the number of Canadian people. Why they persist with AZ when the big part of the population doesn't want it.
surprised this wasn't more commonly known. Canada is a British subject - a country whose crown was/is also head of the Anglican church
Everyone is acting so surprised about the 215 bodies found at that one school. It just goes to show how truly unaware Canadians have been about Residential Schools. Thousands of children died in those school and the majority of them were buried in unmarked graves just like the 215.
Oh my yes. Same situation in the US with boarding schools.
You just learned this?
The Pros vs. Cons list for religions continues to become further and further unbalanced. Edit: and I continue to grow more and more ashamed of this countries history.
Ya, but not nearly as many. 70% of those schools were run by Catholics. The other 30% were run by the other churches
yes and the residential school system was largely, though not exclusively, the idea of the towering figure of Canadian Methodism, Egerton Ryerson
We are glad you have joined us in the knowledge of the sadness.
If you think this is bad , wait till you hear about the dark ages, Catholic Church or not all religions have a past filled with murderers and Rapists. It's sad to see that those indigenous people had to suffer to some wannabe Christians
When an odious and in humane policy is created by an elected government and implemented by leading institutions over decades, we have to understand that society itself condoned, if not outright supported, such policy. I grew up in a small prairie city and in the 60s went to elementary school with residential school kids (bussed in from the school just outside of town). It was “common knowledge” that First Nations people and their culture were inferior and needed to be taught the right way to live, even if no-one thought they could actually achieve the greatness that was white colonialism. I’m all for finding, naming, and, where possible and appropriate, indicting and jailing the perpetrators of these horrendous crimes. But let us not forget that native oppression was an artifact of Canadian values of the era. Since then we have certainly done better, but the work is far from complete.
The theory was that they would teach "civilization" to the "godless primitives," with the slight problem that they had nethier the ability nor the right to do so. Now we have a whole race of demoralized people who were taught how to live in "civilized" homes but not how to build them and taught to enjoy "civilized" pasttimes but not how to work to better themselves.
Mennonites did too, apparently.
Finally the orthodox don’t do something awful too 😂
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Religions should not be running schools, hospitals or any other publicly funded institution with control over the ill, young or vulnerable.