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Portage & Main Round Dance 2018-09-30 — 8
September 30, 2018
Winnipeg, Manitoba
A round dance was held at Portage and Main to commemorate the damage wrought by the Canadian Indian residential school system.
Residential schools were boarding schools run by Canada's Department of Indian Affairs in conjunction with Christian churches, from about 1870 to 1996. Both Anglican and Catholic churches were culpable.
Attendance at residential schools was compulsory, and Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their homes by government agents. That made both the Government of Canada and the Church collaborators in one of the largest mass kidnappings in history.
The function of the schools was to 'erase the Indian' by forcing children into speaking English or French. Severe punishment was given to those who disobeyed and continued to speak their own language.
The residential schools also became known for unchecked and widespread physical and emotional abuse by clergy. St. Anne’s Indian Residential School even had its own electric chair, something the Canadian government was aware of and didn’t stop. This was only one of the horrors students were forced to endure. High rates of child mortality within the nationwide system went uninvestigated, with many of the dead buried in unmarked graves.
Within the last week, a Saskatchewan radio station broadcast an advertisement paid for by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy (FCPP), a Winnipeg-based organization. The ad, featuring Roger Currie, claims that the indignities perpetrated by residential schools are a myth. The terrible claims made by former students have been independently investigated and found to be true. The Church and the Government of Canada have both since apologised for their roles, with the latter having unilaterally paid financial recompense to those remaining survivors who were victimized by the system.
The generational ramifications of the Canadian Indian residential school system are still visible today; indigenous men and women are marginalised and discriminated against in what are becoming public spectacles. Despite promises made by our current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, very little has been done by his government to find common ground with the Indigenous population. At times it seems as though the Government of Canada is still at odds with the Indians, as it was in the old days.
Portage & Main Round Dance 2018-09-30 — 8
September 30, 2018
Winnipeg, Manitoba
A round dance was held at Portage and Main to commemorate the damage wrought by the Canadian Indian residential school system.
Residential schools were boarding schools run by Canada's Department of Indian Affairs in conjunction with Christian churches, from about 1870 to 1996. Both Anglican and Catholic churches were culpable.
Attendance at residential schools was compulsory, and Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their homes by government agents. That made both the Government of Canada and the Church collaborators in one of the largest mass kidnappings in history.
The function of the schools was to 'erase the Indian' by forcing children into speaking English or French. Severe punishment was given to those who disobeyed and continued to speak their own language.
The residential schools also became known for unchecked and widespread physical and emotional abuse by clergy. St. Anne’s Indian Residential School even had its own electric chair, something the Canadian government was aware of and didn’t stop. This was only one of the horrors students were forced to endure. High rates of child mortality within the nationwide system went uninvestigated, with many of the dead buried in unmarked graves.
Within the last week, a Saskatchewan radio station broadcast an advertisement paid for by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy (FCPP), a Winnipeg-based organization. The ad, featuring Roger Currie, claims that the indignities perpetrated by residential schools are a myth. The terrible claims made by former students have been independently investigated and found to be true. The Church and the Government of Canada have both since apologised for their roles, with the latter having unilaterally paid financial recompense to those remaining survivors who were victimized by the system.
The generational ramifications of the Canadian Indian residential school system are still visible today; indigenous men and women are marginalised and discriminated against in what are becoming public spectacles. Despite promises made by our current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, very little has been done by his government to find common ground with the Indigenous population. At times it seems as though the Government of Canada is still at odds with the Indians, as it was in the old days.