Voices from The Killing Fields of Canada
SEQUEL — The Children Have to Die, Why? — short videos
SYNOPSIS — Genocide in Canada
For over 200 years, more than 150,000 Indigenous children in Canada were taken from their families to attend state-funded Christian boarding schools in a genocidal effort to forcibly assimilate them into Canadian society.
They were given new names, forcibly converted to Christianity and prohibited from speaking their native languages. Thousands died of disease, neglect and suicide; many were never returned to their families.
Nearly 70% of the 130 residential schools were run by Roman Catholic missionary congregations, with others operated by the Presbyterian, Anglican and the United Church of Canada, which is today the largest Protestant denomination in the country. The last residential school closed in 1996.
In 2015, a historic Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that the residential school system amounted to a policy of cultural genocide. The commissioners identified 20 unmarked gravesites at former residential schools, but they also warned that more unidentified gravesites were yet to be found across the country. To-date, more than 1000 bodies of children and their remains have been found.
Survivor testimony revealed that sexual, emotional and physical abuse were rife at the schools. And the trauma suffered by students was often passed down to younger generations — a reality characterised by systemic racism, social injustice and social inequities that persist across Canada.
VIDEO 1: How residential schools in Canada robbed Indigenous children of their identity and lives (4.44 min) — The Guardian News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4wExQG9Dyk&t=27s
In Canada, more than 1,000 unmarked graves have been discovered on the grounds of former church-run residential schools, where an estimated 150,000 First Nations children were sent as part of a campaign of forced assimilation for more than a century until 1996. A historic truth and reconciliation commission was conducted in the 2000s. In 2015 it concluded that the residential school system amounted to cultural genocide and that unmarked graves would be found in the former school grounds, but the recent findings still shocked many Canadians and prompted calls for a new investigation. Leyland Cecco explains how the discovery is just the tip of the iceberg in uncovering Canada’s traumatic colonial past.
VIDEO 2: Residential Schools in Canada: A Timeline (5.39 min) — Historica Canada
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFgNI1lfe0A
The history of residential schools in Canada can be traced as far back as the 17th century. Watch the “Residential Schools in Canada Timeline” video to learn about the significant dates in its history — from the landing of Jesuits in what is now known as Quebec, to the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s final report in 2015.
VIDEO 3: Death at Residential Schools (8 min) — CBC News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FydzIzkndA&t=315s
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its final report. Among its findings, more details on the scale of tragedy at residential schools. Thousands of children died in that system. And that number only begins to show how lives were erased and loving families were changed forever.
VIDEO 4: Non-indigenous residential school survivor speaks about his childhood at St. Anne’s (7.22 min) — CBC News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyVrohwsHX8&t=111s
Ron Gosbee isn’t Indigenous, but as a child, he attended a residential school. He describes what life was like attending St. Anne’s, in northern Ontario, with white skin.
Today, dozens of First Nations indigenous people do not have access to drinking water, and racism against Indigenous people is rampant within the healthcare system. Indigenous people are overrepresented in federal prisons and Indigenous women are killed at a rate far higher than other groups.
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