The Truth and Reconciliation Commission call it Cultural Genocide

        The gruesome stories that have been published in the last few days describing activities in the Residential Schools have been disturbing to say the least. We had some idea about sexual abuse in those schools as the Churches that operated them were brought to justice for what they did but we had no idea about the horrible cruelty and deaths of the children in their care.

       I was born and raised in Ontario in a relatively well off community during the great depression and World War 2. As a child I lived in a white homogeneous community where we seldom if ever met people of other races and religions. Christianity in many forms was predominant in my home town. We knew little of the Indian reserves nearby and if we encountered any Indians we didn’t know or recognize them as such. That was a child’s view; I don’t know what the adults thought. They probably didn’t think about it because of the other turmoil in the world at that time. 

       There must have been residential schools in my part of the Province. Maybe, like other communities in Canada, we were insulated from the native people by the rules and regulations that controlled their lives. There is aboriginal blood in my family which was never mentioned but my now deceased aunt spoke of being called a dirty Indian when she was young long before I was born.

        As I lived my life in Ontario and Quebec I encountered a few people of aboriginal ancestry and they were fine people. My family visited some reservations and admired the art and crafts produced by natives and later we bought cigarettes at cheap prices. We were annoyed when they protested by blocking roads and railways, the Oka crisis in Quebec and in Ontario the standoff at Iperwash and Brantford. The aggressive flag used by the Warrior Society was flagrant and fearful.

        Lately the Federal Government has made much of the native leader Tecumseh who with General Brock and the British/Colonial armies stopped the American invasion of Canada. Without him the Americans might have succeeded in taking the British Colonies in what became Ontario. Unfortunately after the war the British ignored their treaties with the natives, a practice that continues to the present day.

       The term cultural genocide has been used to describe the era of Residential Schools. I am ashamed that such a horrible thing actually occurred in my country. The residential schools were not used to educate the children but to separate them from their language, culture and traditions. Probably the government thought the children would integrate into white society but society was not interested in receiving ‘dirty Indians’ into their communities. What did happen is that native children did not learn parenting skills but did learn brutality and fear. As a result they have given birth to generations of lost children many of whom become alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes and murder victims.

      This is the price aboriginal Canadians have paid and continue to pay for government policies such as the Indian Act. Our current Conservative government is unlikely to change or implement recommendations of the Commission. Hopefully after the fall election a new government will take serious steps to bring the Aboriginal community into the larger Canadian community. Perhaps then all Canadians will atone for what was done to our First Nations.

                                                            Mohawk Warrior Society flag