Confronting the Legacy of Residential Schools

All in all, the attitudes and actions of our forefathers, no matter the nature, represent a holistic and the most accurate perspective of our study of history; as a modern society we must acknowledge our past in order to proceed into the future. It is within these darker chapters that contain the mandated “aggressive assimilation” of Aboriginal children, within the church-run, government funded residential school system. This mandate was based on the assumption that aboriginal culture was unable to adapt and conform to a rapidly-industrialized and modern society. This overwhelming public attitude, materialized into governmental educational policy. If Aboriginal children adopted Canadian customs, they would pass these teachings onto their children and successfully assimilate into “mainstream” Canadian society. However, what this mandate truly represented was the thinly-veiled destruction of Indigenous culture. In total, during the more than a century long adoption of this policy, 150,000 First Nation, Inuit and Métis children were removed from their families and made to attend. These children were removed of their native languages and cultural traditions, lived in substandard conditions and endured physical, emotional and even sexual abuse.