Canadian Boarding Schools Inflicted #CulturalGenocide

Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission

has completed a multi-year investigation regarding the treatment of

children of First Nations ancestry in state-supported boarding schools.

 In its final report entitilted "Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future", the Commission states:

For over a century, the central goals of Canada’s Aboriginal

policy were to eliminate Aboriginal governments; ignore Aboriginal

rights; terminate the Treaties; and, through a process of assimilation,

cause Aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social,

cultural, religious, and racial entities in Canada. The establishment

and operation of residential schools were a central element of this

policy, which can best be described as “cultural genocide.”




Physical genocide is the mass killing of the members of a

targeted group, and biological genocide is the destruction of the

group’s reproductive capacity. Cultural genocide is the destruction of

those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a

group. States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the

political and social institutions of the targeted group. Land is seized,

and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is

restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted,

spiritual practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are

confiscated and destroyed. And, most significantly to the issue at hand,

families are disrupted to prevent the transmission of cultural values

and identity from one generation to the next.




In its dealing with Aboriginal people, Canada did all these things.

The Final Report is available HERE.





[Canada and the US both did these things..Trace]