Canada’s dark history of ‘cultural genocide’ at residential schools

The Canadian government’s former policy of removing aboriginal children from their families and placing them in special schools amounted to “cultural genocide,” according to a new report. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released the findings of its six-year research project, consisting of 6,750 interviews with survivors and witnesses of abuse at Indian residential schools across the country.

There we had a primary goal, and it was to so-called ‘civilize’ the so-called ‘savages’ and to Christianize them. And to do everything that we could so that…there would be … no more ‘Indian problem.’

Marie Wilson, one of the group’s three commissioners

This story of how the Canadian government passed laws and policies that legally permitted separating thousands of native children from their families and communities is not widely taught, Wilson said. More than 150,000 children were taken from their homes, and more than 4,000 died, according to the commission. The last of the schools, which were run by the government and churches, closed its doors in 1998. Aboriginals, who make up 4 percent of Canada’s population, have higher levels of poverty and a lower life expectancy than other Canadians, and are more often victims of violent crime, addiction and incarceration.

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