A Collective Step Forward

Founded in the19th century, the Canadian Indian residential school system was intended to force the assimilation of the Aboriginal peoples in Canada into European-Canadian society.

The purpose of the schools, which separated children from their families, has been described by many commentators as "killing the Indian in the child."  

Although Education in Canada had been allocated to the provincial governments by the British North America Act, BNA Act, Aboriginal peoples and their treaties were under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Funded under The Indian Act by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, a branch of the federal government, the schools were run by churches of various denominations - about sixty per cent by Roman Catholics, and thirty per cent by the Anglican Church of Canada and the United Church of Canada, along with its pre-1925 predecessors, Presbyterian, Congregationalist and Methodist churches.

This system of using the established school facilities set up by missionaries was employed by the federal government for economical expedience.

The federal government provided facilities and maintenance and the churches provided teachers and education. The foundations of the system were the pre-confederation Gradual Civilization Act (1857) and the Gradual Enfranchisement Act (1869). These assumed the inherent superiority of British ways, and the need for Indians to become English-speakers, Christians, and farmers.

The attempt to force assimilation involved punishing children for speaking their own languages or practicing their own faiths, leading to allegations in the 20th century of cultural genocide and ethnocide. There was an elevated rate of physical and sexual abuse. Overcrowding, poor sanitation, and a lack of medical care led to high rates of tuberculosis, and death rates of up to 69 percent. Details of the mistreatment of students had been published numerous times throughout the 20th century, but following the closure of the schools in the 1960s, the work of indigenous activists and historians led to a change in the public perception of the residential school system, as well as official government apologies and a legal settlement.