At least 4,000 Aboriginal children died in Canada’s so-called ‘residential schools’, and it’s expected that figure will rise once researchers have access to even more documents, according to Postmedia News journalist Mark Kennedy.
““Aboriginal kids’ lives just didn’t seem as worthy as non-aboriginal kids,” Kimberly Murray, the executive director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, told Kennedy in an interview.
So far, the Commission has determined that more than 4,000 of the school children died. It’s expected the number will rise once researchers access more documents.
The Commission was set up as part of a settlement between the federal government and indigenous people who went through the residential school system which existed from the 1870s until the 1990s. About 150,000 indigenous youth were taken from their families and sent to the church-run schools.
Last April, at one of the Commission’s hearings, former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin said the residential schools engaged in “cultural genocide”: “Let us understand that what happened at the residential schools was the use of education for cultural genocide, and that the fact of the matter is – yes it was. Call a spade a spade.”
More information:\
Postmedia News/Mark Kennedy – At least 4,000 aboriginal children died in residential schools, commission finds – here
RCI – Indigenous people talk of scars, former PM talks of ‘cultural genocide’- here
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada website – www.trc.ca
For reasons beyond our control, and for an undetermined period of time, our comment section is now closed. However, our social networks remain open to your contributions.