Governments to blame for residential schools

Re: Residential schools conceived in Parliament, not the pulpit, Sept. 13.

Right on the mark. The federal government must assume full accountability and responsibility for the residential schools tragedy — in fact for all the problems experienced by Canada's Indigenous Peoples.

The government signed the policies and laws. It knew the situation in the residential schools and did nothing to end it. The churches are culpable and should be held to account, but they were enabled by the government to carry on with their vicious administration.

Every prime minister in power from Confederation until the last school was closed in 1997 could have stopped this instantly and failed to do so. This is Canada's shame.

Bill Reid, Ottawa