The Essential Truth of the Residential Schools

 

Greg Piasetzki writes today in the National Post: “in 1946, decades after the first residential schools were built, the Globe and Mail reported that, ‘Of the 128,000 Indians in this country, only 16,000 last year received formal schooling. Of this number, few stayed more than a year and only 71 … reached Grade 9.’”

This simple fact explodes the myth of the residential schools. Attendance was not compulsory--even though school attendance was compulsory for non-native children. Had mistreatment occurred, or “cultural genocide” been on the table, parents could simply withdraw their children. The government, and the churches, were offering a service: education in useful trades, plus, in the case of the residential schools, free room and board.

Eventually, the truth will come out. But we will never be able to recover all the historic churches burned down, the statues pulled down, the heritage lost.