The Residential School Debate

I've talked about this before but since it's come up again I think we should discuss both extremes. There was a big discovery of children's graves at the site of a Kelowna residential school. It created a lot of animosity and division as well as misinformation. Turns out after further excavation there were no remains found and a few hostile documentaries about it have been produced.

So once again let's balance the extremes and have an honest conversation about it. On one side we have some people on the left exploiting the news to promote their agenda. They scream about a genocide and claim all white people should be ashamed of their heritage and burn churches to the ground.

On the other side we have holocaust deniers that claim the fact that no remains were found proves the whole thing was a hoax. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. 

To claim that no bodies were found isn't entirely true. There may not have been any remains found at that site but there were remains found at other residential school sites. A previous inquiry cited young girls journals who attended residential schools. At the time the spread of diseases like smallpox, measles, tuberculosis, and scarlet fever effected everyone. 

My mother was born in Amherst, Nova Scotia. When she was a little girl her father died of scarlet fever and she had to move out west to live with relatives. 

The young girl's residential school diary the inquiry quoted talked about how many children died from tuberculous. She talked about a funeral they held for one child in their school saying the nuns dressed her in white and gave her a proper burial. So to say no children died is not true.  

To say that it was a genocide where they were slaughtering children is not true either. Pushing that claim had an agenda behind it. Obviously residential schools sucked much like boarding school back in England. Parents sent their kids to boarding school because they wanted them to get an education. Kids hated it.

Residential schools were far more traumatic because they were old school. When I was in elementary school they just started to phase out corporal punishment. I remember in primary one kid was sent to the principle's office and the principle brought him in front of the class and spanked him in front of everyone. It wasn't in any way traumatic. It was just a matter of fact kind of thing. 

So residential schools had corporal punishment but what's worse is that it was English immersion. Here in BC parents line up to put their kids into French immersion so they can learn French. In French immersion they don't speak English they just speak French. They do that to help you learn the language faster. For me I can only learn a few words at a time. Immersion wouldn't really work for me until I had a basic understanding. 

Residential schools were even worse because not only were the kids not allowed to speak their native language, their culture was shunned. That left kids feeling completely abandoned. 

Which brings us to orange shirt day. We see the orange shirts with the logo every child matters. I like that logo because every child does matter. I saw it as moving past the Black Lives Matter hostility. All of a sudden it was OK to say everyone matters. 

I just noticed from the website the reason for an orange shirt. The website tells the story of one First Nations child named Phyllis Webstad who wore an orange shirt to Residential school and they took it away from her along with the rest of her belongings and cut her hair. Back then their aboriginal culture was suppressed it was not celebrated. We have learned from that mistake but we recognize that it did happen. 

There are many political opportunists who cherish the opportunity to embellish and exploit the Residential schools as an attack on "colonialism" which is a cryptic way of promoting their brand of Communism. That I reject as do many others. Colonialism is a thing of the past. Climate change is not a valid excuse to throw away civil liberty and neither is colonialism. In a free Republic everyone's culture is celebrated. Like the traditional potlatch ceremonies which are good. 

So when we balance the extremes we recognize that residential schools were a bit dysfunctional. Their intent was to educate but the old ways of suppressing language and culture were not healthy. Now we celebrate First Nation's culture. 

So when we see one side get defensive and hostile denying anything wrong with residential schools I shun that extreme. Then we see the Red Braid Alliance for Decolonial Socialism try and exploit and embellish what happened at Residential schools to promote their own twisted agenda of turning everyone into slaves. I reject that extreme as well. 

In balancing the extremes I recognize residential schools sucked. The intent was good but the English immersion leave your culture at the door was toxic. It wasn't a genocide where they were lining up children and slaughtering them. That did not happen. People get angry and defensive when you claim it did. 

So truth and reconciliation means two things. It means telling the truth with the intent of reconciling the past and coming together as one. The extremism on both sides is not productive. Even that website mentions horrific torture. Those kind of statements aren't true or constructive. They aren't made with the intent of reconciliation. Their intent is to divide. 

Now I will say most of these Residential schools were run by the Catholic church. John A Macdonald was a Protestant. It was run by the Catholic church because the nuns were volunteers like Mother Teresa. Yet as we've seen in Boston and back in Ireland, many Catholic schools were plagued with sexual abuse. That is horrific and inexcusable but it wasn't limited to residential schools. It happened all over the world including Quebec. 

While I'm here I'll give a shout out to the French community in Canada who are a vibrant part of our heritage. The French were explorers that would travel through the back country on voyageur canoes. Those are awesome. I did some voyageur canoe trips when I joined the Fort Langley canoe club. 

The French weren't stuck up and didn't think they were better than the locals. Many of them intermarried with the First Nations. Their children are called Metis a mixture of French and Aboriginal. The Metis are all well respected in Canada as being an important part of our heritage. Everyone matters.