Of course they won't dare admit any positive experiences. And there were lots of positive experiences. But to admit it would preclude one from getting their share of the abused student pie. So all feedback will be negative.

Years ago, I heard two Native women who had been in the residential schools, say that they were very grateful for the schools. They said they were beaten up at home and were treated very well at the school they went to. They were also grateful for the education they received there, which they know they would never have got had they stayed with their families.

A fact that has got lost in all of the lawyers getting rich is that over 80% of the Native Chiefs ASKED the government to take their children into the residential schools, in order for them to get an education they could use in broader North America.

Another thing that has got lost in all of the politcally correct rigamarole is that no one asked government employees or bank employees or corporate employees to live on next to nothing, in order to educate Canada's Native peoples.

The government of Canada--the Canadian people, US--asked the Churches to take on this responsibility, I guess, because the Churches were already ministering to Native populations and, more to the point I suspect, because believing Christians in the various churches were altruistic and weren't looking to the bottom line of the others who weren't asked, or who didn't volunteer: what's in it for us?

The extreme irony is that, for the most part, selfless, altruistic, thoughtful, and generous people, who taught and lived in residential schools for paltry salaries and under very difficult living conditions, are now being denigrated and their reputations dragged through the mud.

By all means, anyone found guilty of abuse should have the book thrown at them. But, by association, the teachers, administrators, and administrators who were employed by the residential schools BUT DID NOT abuse Native children should not be undergoing the abuse they are being subjected to.

Two abuses don't make for reconciliation.

The way the residential schools have been handled reminds me too much of the HRCs: accusations being flung in every direction and scapegoats galore.

The lawyers continue to get rich.

NEVER, EVER, will any good be heard publically or in commissions about the good of residential schools. Because of Turdopia,socialism,and the PC-whitey's guilt,ANYTHING having to deal with Indians and whiteys will always be...Whitey guilty until proven more guilty. And the leftards with no souls and lives of their own just suck this crap up.. Not to mention the Chiefs/lawyers, and bureaucrats who don't want their leech way of life to end.

Yup. It is yet another cash grab by the first nation freeloaders and nothing more. Give them money, and hope they go away and STFU for awhile, rinse and repeat.

Well, first of all, never work the government!

Secondly, if enough Canadians stop caring about the self-described, native victims, the more likely the government will come up with the balls to set them free.

Vote to end apartheid and the government victimization (for political purposes) of Canada's Indians.

I attended UCC; out of a student enrollment at the upper school of over 500 boys, fewer than 80 were boarders. And, unlike the residential schools, UCC is smack-dab in the centre of Toronto. I don't see Mr. Clifton's point at all.

However, I read a few letters in the Post today from ex-employees of residential schools, and they all said that the reports of abuse and mistreatment are exaggerated. Gee, the MSM might not have told us the truth? What are the odds?

Justthinkin: "NEVER, EVER, will any good be heard publically or in commissions about the good of residential schools."

And that's why we have to push back at every opportunity: 'speak truth into lies.

At a public meeting a few years ago, with the local Librano MP, I brought up the fact that over 80% of Native Chiefs had asked the Canadian government to set up residential schools--a necessity because of the far-flung nature of so many settlements and the difficulties of getting staff, supplies, etc. to them--and that that fact should definitely be taken into consideration as the negotiations moved forward (sic).

His response: I don't see what that has to do with anything.

With this calibre of surrender-monkey stupidity at the government level--which was pretty much normal on the LPC benches--the largely innocent staff of residential schools didn't stand a chance.

BTW, has anyone else noticed which group has been unfairly and unjustly treated by the residential schools fiasco and the HRC boondoggles?

Christians.

You may not be a Christian, you many have arguments with the Christian Church (hey, so do I, and I'm a practising, go-to-church-every-Sunday believer) but to ignore the targeting of Christians for special treatment by these quasi-governmental gulags should be very troubling to most Canadians.

Who's next?

What Mr. Clifton completely ignores is that the basic and underlying rationale of the residential school system from the GoC's perspective -- to engineer a wholesale assimilation of the Aboriginal peoples into Western European culture -- is fundamentally wrong.

A state-run system that forcibly removes one group of people (citizens of Canada or a sovereign peoples, depending on your view) and places them in institutional environments to ingest a propramme of acculturation that the state deems is for their own benefit -- as conservatives with a libertarian bent, surely this is not something that you can possibly endorse.

The fact that some Native children benefited from the residential school experience should indeed be noted, but that fact is largely irrelevent when placed alongside, and thus should not detract from, the deeper truth involved here -- that the system itself rested of flawed philosophical grounds, and is fundamentally repugnant in consequence.

"I brought up the fact that over 80% of Native Chiefs had asked the Canadian government to set up residential schools..."

batb, I’m not sure about the the 'over 80%' figure (can you please cite your source?), but in any case, you are glossing over the different motives behind what Native leaders wanted and what the Canadian government wanted.

Native leaders, at least those who supported the residential school system, wanted their children to learn the skills of the European settlers, to better prepare them for life in a changing world. What they didn't want – but what many were forced to endure – was for their children to be forcibly removed from their homes, preventing from returning, and culturally assimilated into the European belief system. There is a massive difference between wanting your children to learn how to survive in a new society and having your children taken away and forced to adopt the identity of that society.

Ask yourself, batb, whether in wanting your own children to learn (for example) mandarin, you would have allowed them to be taken from your home, relocated permanently to China, and acculturated in Chinese values? They might have had fun, they might have been treated well, they might even have benefited from the experience in the long-term -- but the underlying assumption of the system (that Chinese culture is superior to your own) would itself still be fundamental wrong.

[quote]A fact that has got lost in all of the lawyers getting rich is that over 80% of the Native Chiefs ASKED the government to take their children into the residential schools, in order for them to get an education they could use in broader North America. [/quote]

Batb,
I think the record @ Indian Affairs will show that, when they wanted to close/shut down the residential schools, the Native Chiefs insisted that the schools remain Operating.

The P.E.T. era Indian Affairs lacked the balls to do what was right...

QE states categorically that the government's basic rationale for residential schools was: "to engineer a wholesale assimilation of the Aboriginal peoples into Western European culture". I know this "flawed philosophical ground" is the basic assumption of the progressive-liberal-left. But I would have thought that a Kate konservative would have given it a little more critical analysis.

Where is the proof that it was official Canadian policy to eradicate Indians through assimilation? As far as I can see, this whole theory originates in one lonely Duncan C. Scott quote which could be interpreted as wishing for natives the prosperity enjoyed by "whites" but is instead interpreted as proof that three or four generations of our forefathers aspired to genocide through assimilation. We are judging a hundred years of governance and the work of thousands of bureaucrats and politicians, all based on one sentence.

Let me suggest another motive for residential schools: a compassionate response to widespread social dysfunction that was ruining aboriginal youth before they even got started. I think there are quite a few sentences evidencing that situation.

Venomous interpretations of the Scott quote are better for the victimhood narrative, and a more dramatic problem for the righteous left to tackle. But are they worthy of unquestioned repetition by a "conservative with libertarian bent"?

"Where is the proof that it was official Canadian policy to eradicate Indians through assimilation?"

1. Gradual Civilization Act, 1857 ("An Act to Encourage the Gradual Civilization of Indian Tribes in this Province, and to Amend the Laws Relating to Indians").

2. An Act for the gradual enfranchisement of Indians, the better management of Indian affairs, and to extend the provisions of the Act 31st Victoria, 1869.

3. Indian Act, 1876, plus subsequent amendments.

4. Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy, 1969 (white paper).

I do remember a sad little story within the last two years. Now I seem to think one of the printed media carried the story. I simply would not invent it.

A gentleman from around Winnipeg's North End, being an aboriginal, got a thirty thousand dollar settlement. This for abuse suffered in a residential school. He went around various bars in Winnipeg. A very popular figure. Within six weeks he was down to seven hundred dollars.

His health had suffered, though he was extremely well thought of, by those whom he favoured. His wife left him. I am sure, positive, that he said he had told a batch of lies, to get that money.

I do not gloat, merely think sadly of the whole business.

Look, we're looking at the residential schools from OUR perspective, in some cases, 100 years later. These schools have been operating for a long time. 'Easy to apply our standards to those of so long ago, when most Canadians either had no idea there were residential schools or, if they did, had little or no idea what "the plan" might have been (IF it was assimilation), save to educate Native people in the use of English--not a bad idea, given that most North Americans at the time spoke English.

As I said earlier, and thanks Phillip G. Shaw for your contribution on this, a majority of Native Chiefs wanted their children educated in residential schools--and fairly recently. Hindsight is 100% and to apply it to today and then sue is, as I also said earlier, making a lot of lawyers very rich--not so much Native Canadians. (Some lawyers went to Native groups--something which was illegal 25 years ago, why not still?--and asked them if they wanted to make a lot of money. If they did, they (the lawyers) could help them. Who knows if one was offered such an arrangement, if one wouldn't take the lawyers up on their offer?)

This idea that Native culture could have survived pristine and unsullied if only "the White Man" hadn't come along is a pipe dream, a fanciful conceit. The way of the world, everywhere and for millennia, has been that if you have the technology to build the boat to sail to a faraway place, and you also have the technology and know-how to survive in said faraway place, you end up settling and populating said faraway place.

This is what happened with the European explorations: Spanish, French, English, Dutch adventurers sailed to the shores of North America (and many other countries) and had the technology to not only survive in an inhospitable climate but to master how to live in such a climate. Their technology built cities, roadways, vehicles, bridges, schools, hospitals, court houses, universities, discovered cures for deadly diseases, etc.

This is a bad thing?

That's just the way things are. To expect mea culpas for things that happened hundreds of years ago, let alone 100 years ago, makes no sense--and when/where does it end? If we want to take the apologies and lawsuits to their logical conclusions, Native Canadians should be suing the British, French, Spanish, and Dutch governments for allowing their people to sail to our shores let alone settle here.

On The National (CBC) last week there was a feature on how the payouts from the residential schools have caused mayhem in many Native people's lives--as mentioned above by Peter Lock City--which would not, in itself, be a reason why Native people who were abused by individuals in the residential schools should not be compensated. But, it does point out that money isn't always the solution. If it was, our Native populations should be doing very well, as they receive over $9 billion a year from the Government of Canada.

As many Natives themselves point out, Native people need to become much more part of the solution to the tragic dysfunctions of too many of their people: chronic and debilitating alcoholism, drug abuse, poor health, sub-standard housing, etc.. If money were the only solution, these problems would have been solved a long time ago.

The problem is much deeper than that.

QE is correct that the policy of the Government of Canada was, particularly after the Second World War, to assimilate aboriginal people, but the church-run residential schools were seen by the government not as a means to accomplish that end but an obstacle to it. From the late 1940s until the end of the 1960s, the federal government sought, wherever possible, to require students to attend, wherever possible, local public schools and to restrict the number of students attending church-run residential schools. As most aboriginal peoples whose children attended residential schools were Christians, they preferred sending their children to the church schools rather than to local schools, where their children were ridiculed and bullied by the majority population.

Touché. Jeez, QE, you should warn a fellow if you've actually done research.

Congratulations. You've mustered the evidence and forced me to concede that Canadian governments have, since the beginning, shown a consistent interest in improving the lot of Indians. Let us condemn all such governments for they have sought to equalize, enfranchise, educate, and empower without ever once offering to quit altogether and send the required remittances from London.

I started to try to explain the unfairness of expecting our early forefathers to run their world by our standards. But then I realized that anybody who looks at the White Paper of 1969 and sees malice has his eyes wide shut. The White Paper was produced by Jean Chretien - a man of multiple failings but enmity towards aboriginals wasn't one of them - he adopted a native child, for gosh sakes. Whoops, that's probably a sin today too - a non-aboriginal adopting a native child! The White Paper was very sinful of course - it egregiously proposed single-class citizenship and equality for all. Very sly!

Thanks for your proof that it was official Canadian policy to eradicate Indians through assimilation. And the attendant proof that people tend to see what they are looking for.