‘ treated as if they were offenders’

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which documented the legacy of Canada’s residential schools, will release its final report on Tuesday. The Ottawa Citizen’s Mark Kennedy summarizes its key findings.

Child welfare

Just as the objective of residential schools was to “civilize” aboriginal children by removing them from their homes and culture, today’s provincially run system of child welfare does the same. Thousands of aboriginal children are put in “non-aboriginal homes with little consideration of the need to preserve their culture and identity.”

More aboriginal children are placed in foster care each year than attended residential school in any one year.

“Like the schools, child-welfare agencies are underfunded, often culturally inappropriate, and, far too often, put aboriginal children in unsafe situations.

“The child welfare system is the residential school system of our day.”

The conditions that send so many aboriginal children into the welfare system are connected to the “intractable legacies of residential schools including poverty, addictions, and domestic and sexual violence.” Reform of the child welfare system is “essential,” says the TRC.

Education

One of the most devastating impacts of the residential school system was that it gave most students a poor education. For many, that led to chronic unemployment or underemployment, poverty, poor housing, substance abuse, family violence and ill health.

“Governmental failure to meet the educational needs of aboriginal children continues to the present day. Government funding is both inadequate and inequitably distributed. Educational achievement rates continue to be poor,” says the TRC.

The former Conservative government’s attempt to reform on-reserve First Nations education failed because legislation was paternalistic and did not adequately consult First Nations, says the TRC. “The inadequate funding of First Nations schools on re- serves remains a national disgrace. Those classrooms today bear a shameful resemblance to the residential schools.”

Language, culture

Children who attended residential schools were forced to speak English and to a lesser extent, French. If they spoke their aboriginal language, they were punished. “The damage affected future generations, as former students found themselves unable or unwilling to teach their own children aboriginal languages and cultural ways.” Many of the almost 90 surviving aboriginal languages in Canada are under “serious threat,” says the TRC, adding language is central to indigenous identity, and even physical well-being.

Health

The schools left a catastrophic imprint on the health of students and on later generations. “Aboriginal people in Canada suffer levels of poor health that would simply not be tolerated by other Canadians,” says the report. “Aboriginal people have higher mortality rates, higher rates of disease, higher rates of accidental deaths and dramatically higher rates of suicide.

“Many of these problems stem from the intergenerational legacy of residential schools. The destructive beliefs and behaviours of many students have been passed on to their children and grandchildren as physical and mental health issues.”

The TRC says students in residential schools were “powerless to take any of their own healing measures. They were refused access to traditional foods and aboriginal healers who might have helped them.”

Justice

Residential schools “inflicted profound injustices” on aboriginal people. “The children who attended residential schools were treated as if they were offenders and were at risk of being physically and sexually abused,” the TRC says. When they complained of abuse, the students were often ignored. Years later, when they launched civil lawsuits, they found the legal system was stacked against them “in a way that often re-victimized the survivors.”

The criminal justice system also fell short. The TRC has been able to identify fewer than 50 convictions stemming from abuse at residential schools — a fraction of the more than 38,000 claims of sexual and serious physical abuse that were submitted to a compensation adjudication process established several years ago. “In many ways, the residential school experience lies at the root of the current over- incarceration of aboriginal people,” says the TRC.

“Traumatized by t heir school experiences, many succumbed to addictions and found themselves among the disproportionate number of aboriginal people who come into conflict with the law.”

The TRC says once aboriginal people are arrested and convicted, they are more likely to go to prison than are nonAboriginals. Canada’s prisons are disproportionately filled with aboriginals.

“The Commission cannot ignore these facts, as uncomfortable as they may be. We also need to look beyond the statistics to hear from the ( school) survivors about the reasons they committed offences.”

Indigenous people are threatened by higher levels of violence than non- aboriginals, particularly aboriginal women. The TRC says the justice system needs to be fundamentally reformed. “A key element of that change must be a justice system, based on aboriginal law and healing practices and under aboriginal control.”

Inadequate funding of schools ... a national disgrace