Residential Schools: A Personal Perspective

I never learned about Residential Schools when I was going through elementary and high school. The topic just did not come up. Then again I went through these schools in the 70s and 80s so it was a different world then.

It was only in University and afterwards that I began to learn about them and then it was only by chance. In an example of learning being a life long activity I kept learning more and more about them as more information came out. What I learned became much more troubling.

Now, of course, more than 1300 unmarked graves of children who went through this system have been found and it is reasonable to expect that the number will climb, by a great deal, going forward. My wife asked me how these children died. Many of them probably died of disease, such as TB and other ailments common to children before vaccines. However, a sizeable number of them would have died as a result of violence, abuse and neglect. Regardless, taking these dead children and burying them in unmarked graves instead of giving them back to their parents for burial according to their burial rights makes how these children died moot.

I do still believe that the people who set up and ran the Residential School system had good intentions, at least from their perspective. This is not to excuse what they did. After all we all know what the road to Hell is paved with. As well, any good intentions or motives they might have had does not absolve them of the outcomes of their actions. If I kill someone with intent, that is murder. If I kill someone without intent, that is manslaughter. Both are serious crimes and both carry heavy penalties.

As well, while I do believe they had good intentions I also believe that those intentions grew out of ignorance, self-righteousness and hubris. The politicians who set up the system believed they were "civilizing" the "Indians" while the churchmen who ran the actual schools believed they were saving the childrens' souls. It did not occur to any of them that the Indigenous people of this land did not need to be civilized or saved.

In short these people were not evil. They were blinded by ignorance and they were narrow-minded. 

Again, I am not making excuses, I am proposing an explanation for this tragedy. These men deserve the condemnation that they have been receiving. As well, the Catholic church has much to answer for and the current Pope is not going to escape that.

A great historical wrong was perpetrated on the Indigenous people of Canada long before many of us were born but it will be up to us to make amends for their actions.