Where are the Children?

At its core, the Indian residential school system was designed to kill the Indian in the child. Missionary Hugh McKay explained in 1903 that it was a way to educate and colonize a people against their will.

Residential schools came to represent, both in theory and in practice, a systematic effort to remove generations of Aboriginal children, one by one, from their families, communities, languages, cultures, and broadly speaking, Aboriginal ways of living in the world.

The policies of the government of Canada towards Aboriginal Education can be divided into four distinct eras:

Assimilation (1840-1910)
During this time, Aboriginal children were taught the skills they would need to work as labourers in the mainstream Euro-Canadian economy. This would help them become amalgamated with the European Christian population.

Segregation (1911-1951)
During Segregation, Aboriginal children were removed from their communities, where they learned about the "civilized" ways of the European Christian society. The goal was to return them to their communities as "good Indians."

Integration (1951-1970)
The Integration policy determined that it was best to teach Aboriginal children in the same schools as other Canadian children. This approach offered "the best hope of giving the Indians [and other Aboriginal Peoples] an equal chance with other Canadian citizens to improve their lot and to become fully self-respecting." This started the long process of shutting down the residential school system.

Self-Determination (1971-today)
Self-Determination is an important part of the movement toward Aboriginal self-government, where Aboriginal people have more control over the education of their children.

Assimilation (1840-1910)
It was an ongoing misperception that Aboriginal people wanted to take on the mantle of "white citizens" within Canada. From the earliest missionary schools until the closing of the last residential school, the Colonial and then Canadian government believed that all Aboriginal people were eager to abandon their traditional ways of life for a life of "self-reliant civilization and thus to make in Canada but one community - a non-Aboriginal, Christian one." This narrow-minded and misguided attitude would have a significant impact upon First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people across the country.

By 1840, a number of schools had already been established by different religious denominations for the purpose of educating Aboriginal people. One of the earliest boarding schools to open in New France in 1620, for example, was started by a group of Franciscan monks. The mandate of these schools was to Christianize people whom the religious organizations deemed uncivilized, and to produce a population of "good Christians with an appreciation for settler mores and values."

It became increasingly urgent to develop an education plan for Aboriginal children once the treaty process began. Politicians like Duncan Campbell Scott (the Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs) were convinced that education would provide the means of cultural assimilation. By placing Aboriginal children into schools run by the policies and beliefs of the dominant culture, students would eventually embrace the way of life of the dominant culture because they would be taught about the advantages of doing so. When this metamorphosis did not occur as expected, government officials blamed the children rather than themselves, and they worked even harder to assimilate the Aboriginal people by changing the type of education the youth received. This led to a rapid expansion of church-run boarding schools, increasing the numbers from 11 schools in 1880, to 45 by 1896.

The purpose of the residential school system was to remove students from their parents, and place them in schools where they would receive an education that would "fit them for a life in a modernizing Canada." This education was divided between academic studies and vocational studies, the latter teaching them "the arts, crafts and industrial skills of a modern economy."

The real agenda of the residential school system was to ensure that modern Canada had a convenient and cheap labour supply to support its westward expansion. Either the Aboriginal students would become competent, employable workers, or they would become so disassociated from their culture and families that they would present no unified block to settlement in the west. Either way, the church and the government agreed that the main priority was to suppress, in the words of Duncan Campbell Scott, "an undesirable and often dangerous element in society." Whether the students actually graduated with marketable skills was secondary to the idea of assimilation. Learning the Canadian way and becoming a civilized Canadian was expected of every student, regardless of what else they did or did not learn.

To accomplish this task of Canadianizing the Aboriginal students, it was critical that they be removed from the influence of their families, communities, and cultures. The government believed that "[a] wedge had to be driven not only physically between parent and child but also culturally and spiritually. . . Only in such a profound fashion could the separation from savagery and the re-orientation as civilized be assured." Students needed to embrace a new world view that was Eurocentric in nature, a world view that promoted daily schedules and the adherence to European values and beliefs.

The first step in this process was to ensure that all Aboriginal children attended a residential school. Therefore, the Indian Act was amended in 1884 to make boarding school mandatory for all Aboriginal children between the ages of six and fifteen. The new provisions of the Act also granted the government the power to arrest, transport, or detain children at school, and to fine or jail those parents who did not co-operate. Once the students were at the schools, the work of assimilation could proceed without interference.

The primary means of promoting assimilation at the schools was through the power of language. The government and the churches responsible for the schools realized that language was the strongest link between students and their Aboriginal heritage. Language enabled students to communicate with their families and communities, and language also preserved the knowledge and traditions within those communities. By breaking the link between students and their Aboriginal languages, a key barrier was removed that would have prevented the students from embracing European values.

In receiving a church-run education that taught vocational skills and the languages of the dominant cultures, the objective was to have students remain apart from their Aboriginal communities and to voluntarily give up their status under the Indian Act in order to become enfranchised within Canada.

This objective was reinforced by the school policy to place graduates in jobs in non-Aboriginal communities, rather than allow them to return to their families where their school learning might be questioned. However, the schools failed to develop functional post-graduation placement programs, and the non-Aboriginal communities did not welcome the Aboriginal students. Graduates of the residential school system had little choice but to return to their home communities.

By 1910, it was evident that the residential school model then in use was ineffective at assimilating Aboriginal students into the European Christian culture. In addition, the attempt to place graduates into the European Christian society had failed. Many former students had returned to their home communities much worse off than when they left, for now they could not speak their traditional languages. They did not understand the ways of life in Aboriginal communities, and they had been sufficiently indoctrinated to believe that their parents and other family members were inferior human beings. Residential school graduates were ashamed of who they were and of their heritage, but they had no other options for their lives or livelihoods.

Segregation (1911-1951)
Between 1911 and 1951, the number of Indian Residential schools increased substantially to more than 80 schools. However, the system was proving to be significantly less than effective. Students were still graduating without employment prospects and were returning to their reserve communities ashamed of who they were, and bitter about their lack of opportunities.

Up to this point, no concrete plan had been developed for the school system. In 1911, the Canadian government finally negotiated contracts with the churches to run the schools. This was evidence that the government had abandoned its responsibility to provide an education for Aboriginal students, who were now under the direction and care of churches and missionary groups. The main problem with the contracts was that they lapsed after five years and were never renewed, which meant there was no "legal agreement to bind the parties . . . [and the administration fell] back into the previous unbusinesslike lack of arrangement and into discord over operation of the system." While this situation left the students extremely vulnerable, the churches benefited from the government's new open-wallet funding policy, and the government found itself inundated with requests to fund church-run schools that had already been running for many years. And, since most politicians knew that advancement within the civil service often required the support of the "right" religious organization, there was particular pressure on government officials to support the funding of Catholic and Anglican-run schools.

Despite its per capita system of financing the schools (implemented in 1892), the government's goal "to bring the system, and especially its rapidly rising costs, under control" was challenged by the rapid development of new schools, and competition among church groups for funding. By 1911, the per capita grants had increased at all the schools, from a low of $100 in St. Boniface and Brandon, to a high of $130 in High River. The government believed the per capita grant system would force the church organizations to operate in a more fiscally responsible manner and reduce unnecessary and extravagant expenditures.

However, these grants already fell below actual operating costs, which now included increased pay for teachers, and funds to repair buildings. The government publicly blamed the appetite of the churches for draining funds, although "privately it had its own figures that demonstrated dramatically that the per capita, pegged at $180 in 1938, was exceptionally low and inadequate for the needs of the children, particularly in relation to the funding of other residential care facilities."

At the time, continued underfunding was also affected by global events. The First and Second World Wars, combined with the Great Depression, strained the government's finances. The residential school system was not the only government obligation that saw cuts and reductions in funding, but no other group was so significantly affected.

The students were the ones to suffer the shortfall of government spending on the schools. The school buildings, substandard at the time they were built, were now even more decrepit, and had become a breeding ground for diseases like tuberculosis.

The dire situation of the schools was documented in two government-sponsored reports. In 1908, F. H. Paget detailed his findings in the schools of the west. He reported that the schools were rampant with disease and unfit for human use.

Dr. P. H. Bryce, the author of the second report, confirmed Paget's findings. He listed overcrowding, substandard housing, and underfunding as contributors to the epidemic levels of disease and high death rates (often as high as 47%). Although the government was well-informed of these issues, no action was ever taken to address them. Even the highest-ranking officials in the Department of Indian Affairs seemed indifferent to the problems in the schools. On one occasion, "[Duncan Campbell] Scott dismissed the fact that, system wide, fifty per cent of the children who passed through these schools did not live to benefit from the education which they had received therein."

Despite an awareness of these issues, schools continued to recruit new students at an alarming rate, now drawing in Métis and Inuit children as well as First Nations students. By 1945, there were 9,149 students in the residential school system across Canada, but none of them were receiving what could be called a decent education.

The actual education of the students seemed secondary to the list of issues and problems that plagued the schools. Yet it was equally as problematic. The system of the divided school day, where students spent half the day in academic classes and half the day in vocational work produced little or no actual results. As well, the skills the students acquired in their technical training "contained very little of instructional value but consisted mainly of the performance of repetitive, routine chores of little or no education value."

The most significant change in this era involved the mandate of the schools. When government officials realized that assimilation was impossible, they needed a new way to justify the continued operation of the schools. This "led the government to shift the focus of its Aboriginal education policy from assimilation to segregation. In the new framework, students would be supplied with basic rural skills after which they were expected to return to their First Nations community."

To aid in the success of the segregation policy, graduating students returning to reserve lands received loans for the purchase of farm equipment. The expectation was that these students would become farmers and also encourage other members of their communities to try farming. The loans were to be repaid once the farms had become self-sustaining. However, neither the government nor the schools did anything to ensure that the students were successful, either as farmers themselves, or at teaching others how to farm. Once again, the government's failure to identify such challenges, or to invest in any kind of assistance to help overcome them, prevented the Aboriginal people from achieving success as farmers.

Integration (1951-1970)
As student numbers continued to rise throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the Canadian government was pressured by internal and external groups to review and revise its Aboriginal education policy, and to address the problems within the residential school system.

First, the government decided to abandon the residential school system. Aboriginal groups had lobbied the government to stop the segregated education of their students, which the government interpreted as a supported return to some form of assimilative education. The government began "an extensive redesign of its Aboriginal education strategy that not only took the emphasis off residential schools but determined that the system should be shut down completely as soon as possible."

The new superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs, R. A. Hoey, had also advocated for the closure of residential schools, arguing that they had not accomplished their intended goals, and that day schools would be a more effective way to educate Aboriginal students and "increase[e] the likelihood of their absorbing non-Aboriginal culture."

Responding to these pressures, the government adopted a new policy of integration, and developed a system of day schools. In this school model, Aboriginal students would attend school during the day, and return home to their families after their classes. In addition, non-Aboriginal students would also attend these schools. While the government made day schools a priority, however, it still maintained residential schools for students who lived too far from a school to be able to return home at the end of each day.

Day schools appealed to the government for a number of reasons: the financial burden of residential schools was unsustainable; Aboriginal students would be assimilated more quickly if they were in schools with non-Aboriginal students; integrated day schools represented what Aboriginal groups were asking for; and, finally, by sending Aboriginal students home at the end of the day, their parents could be "educated" as well. In fact, one of the most radical policy changes of this time involved the status of Aboriginal parents. They were now included in their children's education system, a concept that was a complete reversal of how Aboriginal parents had been perceived less than fifty years earlier.

Because the overriding objective of an Aboriginal education was to teach students the importance of functioning in a non-Aboriginal world, great emphasis was placed on the importance of speaking English (or French and English, in the case of Québec). A new Language Arts program was developed for the students, which not only corroded their ability to speak their own languages, but had an additional and negative impact on their cultures when they returned home every day with their new language skills.

The transition to day schools and the shift to a policy of integration required a complete restructuring of the residential school system that took time to implement. In many locations, new schools needed to be built closer to reserves, and access changes needed to be made through reserve roads. During this time, the existing residential schools continued to operate: some remained full residential schools for students who could not go home each day; some became boarding houses for students who attended local provincial schools; and others became day schools. To further minimize the need for residential schools, a new placement system helped to board students with local families, so that they could attend the day schools.

While the intent of the new policy was to completely close all of the residential schools in Canada, this did not occur during the period of integration. The function and purpose of the schools changed during this time, from the education of all Aboriginal students, to being responsible for the education and welfare of "orphans and children from disrupted homes." The schools became repositories for children who were considered, by non-Aboriginal provincial and federal standards, to be at risk for neglect and abuse within their homes. In this way, the residential school system was maintained for several more years. The churches running the remaining residential schools fought long and hard to keep them open, in direct opposition to the government's policy of integration. The government eventually ended its contentious partnership with the churches in 1969.

As residential schools in most areas of the country were closing or changing their policies and operating principles, Canada was expanding its own frontiers further north. New schools were opening to accommodate First Nations, Métis, and Inuit students from the Northwest Territories. While many Aboriginal students from the far north had already been sent to schools in the northern parts of the provinces, new schools were now being built closer to their homes.

Economic and social factors created the need for a new education system for the citizens of the north. The traditional hunter-gatherer way of life was being threatened because of resource extraction and a population increase. Despite the failure of schools in the southern part of the country, the government forged ahead with northern schools that replicated the assimilation policies of the earliest residential schools.

Self-Determination (1971-today)
During the four decades that it took to finally close the residential schools, there were still a significant number of Aboriginal students who were forced to endure the system: the so-called orphans and children from disrupted homes. As the system moved toward closure, these students continued to live at the schools, until many of them were eventually placed in foster care through new child and family service agencies run by both the federal government and Aboriginal groups.

In dealing with the other ongoing problems with the residential school system, the government of Canada and the First Nations people also both worked on changing the roles and responsibilities of the Department of Indian Affairs. In 1969, the Trudeau government brought forth the White Paper, under Jean Chrétien, then Minister of Indian Affairs.

The White Paper proposed that Aboriginal peoples be included in the social, economic, and political arenas of Canadian society. Therefore, it was assumed that the best process would be for the government to work toward the complete assimilation of Aboriginal people into mainstream Canadian culture, while allowing them to retain their unique cultural differences. The White Paper imagined a future in which Aboriginal people would hold no special place that was separate from the rest of the Canadian population, and would have no special recognition as the first peoples in the country.

Although the White Paper was prepared without consultation with any Aboriginal groups, the government was incredulous when response to the document was unanimously negative. For over one hundred years, the Canadian government had been incapable of understanding that the Aboriginal people did not want to become part of the cultural majority, but wished to celebrate their traditional differences, and to maintain the terms of the Royal Proclamation. In preparing the White Paper, the government had yet again mistakenly believed that its offer of complete assimilation would be seen as anything but a great opportunity for Aboriginal people to become part of the prosperity and social advantages of the Canadian mainstream.

The Aboriginal response to the White Paper proved to be the turning point for relations between the federal government and Aboriginal groups. From coast to coast it "generated a storm of protest from Aboriginal people, who strongly denounced its main terms and assumptions . . . [although] it also served to strengthen the resolve of Aboriginal organizations to work together for a changed relationship."

Aboriginal organizations helped to establish a presence and a voice that could no longer by ignored by the government. While the primary focus of that voice was self-government, issues like education were included within the framework of government lobbying for Aboriginal rights. Slowly, and for the first time, the voices of Survivors also began to be heard, as Aboriginal people started speaking about their experiences in residential schools.

Survivor accounts were supported by a number of published reports that appeared at the time. These were honest and open reports about the failure of the residential school system, both in terms of the rationale and impact of the assimilation and socialization policies in the schools, and the educational achievement of the students. In addition, the public was also starting to learn about the extent of the abuse that was rampant in the schools.

In 1998, the last band-run residential school was closed. The long-term effects of abuse and neglect are still significantly felt by many people, and it will still be many generations before the healing process is complete. However, steps have been taken to redress the harm that was done, and even though this does not excuse or rectify the past actions of the Canadian government, it is a step in the right direction. Most of the churches, as well as the Canadian government, have made formal apologies to the children of the residential school system for the harm and damage they caused and allowed to happen.

Aboriginal organizations and communities continue to work hard to promote Aboriginal awareness. And today, the First Peoples of Canada now have a much stronger voice in the appropriate education of their children.