Canada Residential School Survivors’ Flag on Parliament Hill

The Survivors’ flag flies beside the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Aug. 29, 2022. The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld

Commentary

So here we go again, with a flag flying on Parliament Hill to commemorate allegedly universal horrors of residential schools for the indigenous. Nobody says there was no abuse, although it’s nothing compared with today’s hell-hole prisons across Canada. They hold more indigenous inmates, nearly 15,000, than at peak enrolment in residential schools, just under 12,000, according to the volume “The History, Part 2” from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC).

Orthodoxy today doesn’t permit the saying of anything good about residential schools even as this comes from the TRC volume “The Survivors Speak”:

Many students have positive memories of their experiences of residential schools and acknowledge the skills they acquired, the beneficial impacts of the recreational and sporting activities in which they engaged, and the friendships they made. Some students went to public schools so they could graduate and attend post-secondary institutions and develop distinguished careers. But, for most students, academic success was elusive and they left as soon as they could. On return to their home communities, they often felt isolated from their families and their culture. They had lost their language and had not been provided with the skills to follow traditional economic pursuits, or with the skills needed to succeed in the Euro-Canadian economy. Worst of all, they did not have any experience of family life or parenting.

TRC doesn’t mention any of the following attendees. Sheila Watt-Cloutier wrote in her memoirs that the three happiest of her teenage years she spent at the school in Churchill. Or federal cabinet ministers Ethel Blondin, Leona Aglukkaq, and Len Marchand. Marchand graduated from the school in Kamloops where the false news arose that there were 215 burials—with not a single one actually found. The worst he wrote in his memoirs was that the potatoes they served were mushy. And three territorial premiers. And world-famous architect Douglas Cardinal. And Tomson Highway. The accomplished playwright, novelist, classical pianist, and Order of Canada recipient said this to Huffington Post in a 2015 interview: “All we hear is the negative stuff; nobody’s interested in the positive, the joy in that school. Nine of the happiest years of my life, I spent at that school.”

As for parenting, TRC’s Volume V says this:

According to the national Inuit women’s association, Pauktuutit, it “would not be considered appropriate ... to tell a child what to do, as this would be the equivalent of ordering an elder or another adult about, thus violating an important social rule in Inuit culture.”

Ignorance of this aspect of Inuit culture caused many non-Aboriginal people, including residential school administrators and child welfare officials, to make culturally biased judgments. They often saw Inuit parents as extremely permissive and indifferent to discipline. At the residential schools, in contrast, teachers attempted to control a child’s behaviour through corporal punishment and other harsh disciplinary measures distasteful to Inuit parents. There doubtless was some caning for bad behaviour. I was caned twice at boarding schools in England, for smoking if I recall. When survival on the land imposed its own imperatives, you either learned to survive or suffered an untimely death. Today, however, structure, discipline, and work ethic are necessary for holding any job at all. Today, many parents don’t impose structure in the home, don’t value education, don’t read books to children or even have a discussion. I’ve had indigenous adults tell me I’m the only person they’ve had a real discussion with in their entire lives.

Many parents don’t have regular mealtimes and don’t send their children to school on time or supervise homework. And the authorities don’t enforce timely or even any attendance at school. According to the progressive education of our time, “it’s not in the culture, you know.” This mindset carries forward into adulthood so that few would-be managers can give direction to subordinate employees. It’s the polar opposite, often found in Asian Canadian families, of parenting that enforces doing homework or practising the violin.

Doubtless, too, some children were forbidden to speak their native language. But, as related in the book “From Truth Comes Reconciliation,” there are also reports of educators learning and using those languages.

It’s not true that 150,000 children were abducted from their homes. Sometimes there were more applicants than available spaces. And many attendees were orphans or children like the late Alookto Ipellie, from Iqaluit, whose parents abused him horrendously.

It sickens me that billions of taxpayers’ money have gone indiscriminately as compensation for past wrongs. Why didn’t that money provide desperately needed housing, skills training and job placement, addictions treatment and mental health care, and support that works for next generations?

I know, for example, an Ojibwa grandmother who got a cheque for 10 grand for having attended residential school. It went in a week to pay for past and current consumption of crack cocaine. Is there anything more racist and bigoted than withholding the means for self-reliance and then paying people not to work and to debauch themselves?

How can this happen when unfilled jobs range from the hospitality industry to advanced technology design, and everything in between?

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.