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….