1892: Federal government and churches officially partner in operation of schools

This is when it started

1970s: Residential schools begin to be transferred to Indian bands

Arguably this is when started to end. 78 years in total – 1970 minus 1892. The Liberals held power 57 of those years. Why is it the Conservatives should be apologizing? The Liberal party more than anyone had a chance to stop it, fix it, apologize for it. Plenty of blame to go around.

It’s to the Government of Canada as a legal entity, the blame falls, not the party who happens to be sitting in the chair at the time.

In fact, it looks like 45 years have passed when F.N. had some control over what was happening.

The last residential school closed outside of Regina in 1996 . The closing ceremony is live streamed at aptn .

After reading ski51’s comment which talks about the past, and affixes blame at the Liberals and at the victims (First Nations) themselves; I took another look at the cartoon, I did not see a sign at the back of the bus / van that pointed back to the past. What I did see was a Truth and Reconciliation sign pointing forward towards the future.

As for whether the Conservative Harper government will take action on any of the 94 recommendations contained in the Truth and Reconciliation Report; I submit the following link (a 57 second video), which underscores the Harper government’s response, when a member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended that there be a National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Aboriginal Women in Canada.

www. youtube.com/watch?v=sOGu4p1ftFM

Copy and paste the link to your address bar, then delete the space between the www. and the y

Sage, you can also right-click on the link and hit the Google search and the Youtube will open in another window.

As for Ski’s point, it was a Conservative government in power in 1892 and a Conservative government in power now and in both cases, they represent the government of Canada and as such, bear the responsibility to render the apology on behalf of all Canadians for past wrongs. Nobody is saying that the current government or even all Conservative governments are responsible for all past wrongs, but god knows there’s enough blame to go around. Control may have been passed over to 1st Nations in the ’70’s but that does not mean that blame was passed over with it. And even though the last residential school may have closed in 1996, the tallying of individual’s stories of abuse, heartbreak, loss, and shame has only just concluded and with that, healing can actually begin.
Please stop fussing and fuming over who is going to pay for what; huge amounts of money are being frittered away on bombing the Middle East, so let’s not pretend that there isn’t the money for doing the right thing here at home.

Krusty; obviously, I am not the only voice of reason on this site. Great comment!

Many of the perpetrators and enablers are still very much alive . We need our own version of the nazi hunters . The people that did this are no better than nazis .How many so called ex justice ministers are still alive that enabled the carnage to continue on their watch ? Paul Martin seems sorry but is he ? harper is so deluded that he can’t even say the words cultural genocide but then he’s a history revisionist . Justin knows a lot of what happened , happened on his dad’s watch . I guess that’s why he cried watching victims retell their stories .

What utter drivel. You can keep your self-loathing white-guilt progressive nonsense. Is it a prerequisite for all white immigrants to naturally shoulder this collective Canadian guilt trip? I don’t remember much of my citizenship ceremony as I was only six at the time, but I’m sure adopting responsibility for some wealthy Brit’s Victorian age idea of progressiveness, wasn’t in the handbook.
The common man and woman had no role in this event, and barely the ability to effect change if they wanted to. AS for what can be done? They are suing for ownership of the entire province. I would say that should just about cover the cost of all past grievances.

Including murder of children Jimmie ? The only remuneration for that is justice .

Funny how drama teacher’s grandfather, James Sinclair, and father, apparently saw no-reason to stand in the way of residential schools. Now the boy with a familiar name and a silver spoon in his mouth is going to condescend to inform the great unwashed what he will do to right the wrongs of past generations of wealthy Liberal party elites. Next.

Hundreds of thousands of Canadian men were killed on the battle fields of France and Belgium during WWI, on no other authority than these same pontificating elites, whose collective military acumen could be tallied on a head of a pin and yet, not a family or descendant has launched a lawsuit for reparations. Why not? Was the conscription valid? Was their deployment valid? Was their wasted lives worth it for a few hundred feet in a war of attrition? No,on all accounts. But somehow…we can satisfy ourselves in the fact that we do NOT apply today’s moral code to past injustices. Well, not if you are a white Anglo-Saxon.

Wow, over 500 views in the past 2 and a half hours, since since I posted that youtube video link. I would encourage everyone to share it with your family and friends on facebook, and in other forms of social media. :-)

So your interest is purely driven by the need for attention? How cliché. Thanks for living up to the stereo-type.

Wrong! My interest is to expose, as far and wide as I possibly can, how absolutely pathetic our federal and provincial governments are.

For clarity; that would be “how absolutely pathetic our Harper and Christy Clark governments are”!

“They are suing for ownership of the entire province.”

Hopefully they are suing Britain! It colonized this continent together with the French. That is how it all got started. Everything that happened here happened under their rule, until Trudeau finally patriated the constitution.

Only five (5) Indian Residential School were opened prior to Canada becoming its own country in 1867. 98% of all Indian Residential Schools were opened, and actively funded, by the governments of Canada.

Gee whiz, Jimmy, good thing you weren’t given a history test during your citizenship ceremony since slightly under 65,000 Canadian soldiers were killed in WWI, not “hundreds of thousands”. Hyperbole aside, do you serious equate the death of grown men who could speak the language and were part of the two dominant cultures as the same as the death of 6,000 children for whom the language and culture were entirely foreign? What’s more, those grown men had the opportunity to go before a tribunal if they thought there was good reason for them to not go and fight and even at that, could still serve under conscientious objector status, which kept them from going overseas. Fat chance any Aboriginal children were given the same respect.
You insult those of us who approach this matter seriously and with a conscience while your own statements suggest you are guilty of bigotry, willful blindness, or stupidity (or all of the above) by accusing us of “self-loathing white-guilt progressive nonsense”. Too bad we can’t send you “back where you came from” since it doesn’t appear you’re much of a Canadian.

“Only five (5) Indian Residential School were opened prior to Canada becoming its own country in 1867.”

That is five too many and that is how it got started! Our British Head of State did not object at the time and to my knowledge never did during all the ensuing decades. It always appeared to be o.k. with whoever was at the top.

Thanks for adding strength to the argument I made.

More drivel. The whining left and their morale equivalency argument. Sorry I am an immigrant and have no dog in this fight, so why do I need to pay anyone or offer an apology.

Krusty, would you like to try and send me back where I came from? I dare you to read that post you just made to me in person. Worm.

I take the time to address the content of a post and not the individual. Krusty, who feels so insecure that any broad statement targeting the spineless policies of the navel gazing left, invite a vulgar personal attack.
Stay anonymous. It is wise.

Wasn’t Harper the first and only Prime Minister to apologize in the House of Commons for this? Why is 150 years of this travesty now on him?

Sophic sage, take a Valium. Your over the top arrogance as “the voice of reason” is tedious. You are clearly a leftard troll. Peeps disappears and SS spams this site. HHMMMM

Jimmy….keep calling them on their BS.

Where is the Catholic church in all of this? After all, they are responsible for the horrible things their fathers, brothers and sisters did to those people in the schools, not todays Canadian taxpayers.

Soap opera Stage, you are no where near the voice of reason, you could only wish.The real voice of reason on here is the poster VOR!

Hey Jimmy, you started with the snide, rude comments, calling our comments “drivel” and stating, “You can keep your self-loathing white-guilt progressive nonsense”. Yet when someone calls you on it, you want to resort to violence. There is a saying, something the first person who resorts to violence is the first one to run out of ideas. Well, looks like that describes you to a tee.

Where are the Catholics ? Where are the Anglicans ? Hiding behind a wall of blood money .

And shouldn’t it be easy to get the records out of the budgets of the last 100 years as to how much money the government paid them . Or has it all been shredded . Are more than science records being destroyed ?

Hmmm… I have seen this before, some people get angry when the level, and standard, of debate, dialogue, and discourse is raised. The ones who cannot keep up become frustrated, upset, and angry, these negative emotions are reflected in their name calling and insulting comments.

“Insults are the last resort of insecure people, with a crumbling position, trying to appear confident.” ~ anonymous

Peace out y’all.

12040 views now Sophic . Bernard valcourt Canada’s most insensitive jerk .

Just on the news. Rates of HIV are exploding in FN’s. Stupid Harper.

SS if you call spam a higher level of discourse, you have raised the bar.

First off not very native was in a residential school so why didn’t the ones who weren’t keep the culture and language going? Why didn’t the elders make sure of this? It was deplorable what happened.. So hold those who ran the schools and forced the natives into schools accountable.. It’s not my fault what happened.. As for the numbers of murdered children…it’s a guess.. There are no real numbers.. To compare them to Canadians at war is just grand standing which is pathetic.

Money has never and will ever help with abuse.. Professional help is needed. So the elders should make sure they use the money they already get to keep the culture and language alive..they also need youngsters to want to keep it alive.. Many old languages have been lost because no one used them..

The statement that canada is broken because if this is wrong. The religious factions at the time..the government at the time need to stand up and accept responsibility for their actions..THEIR actions.. Holding Canada accountable for what happened is wrong.

PVal the government set the policy and alloted the funding . Then someone got paid to build thee residential schools . Then the police or what ever arm of government got paid to go out and capture the children to be processed . The churchs took the processing money It’s not your fault pval . I didn’t know either . If I had , I don’t know what I would have done or could have done . I’d love to know who took the construction and maintenance money . Too early for SNC .

All the money is blood money . Red blood money .

Sophie Saga, we’ve seen many self-important, arrogant, self-righteous know it all’s on this site, long before you decided to bless us with your amazing wealth of knowledge.

Funny thing is, after being taken to task repeatedly and after being shown to be no more intelligent than the rest of us, they drift off into oblivion, only to later rise again under another moniker! The rest of us are still here! We don’t run away with our tails between our legs!

By the way, you still haven’t answered the question that I posed to you in a previous post. Peeps, aka BH used to do that too, haha!

What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue!

So, for those of you who lean to the right.

Here’s why you have to pay attention and shovel them more money, just from a pragmatic point.

Firstly – we broke our own laws when we didn’t negotiate treaties. Basic principle of law is that you can’t make new law to exempt prior law-breaking behaviour. I can understand your aversion to obeying the law – conservatives seem to only like laws when they benefit themselves (see Harper’s robocall, senators, appointment to the supreme court, etc). The rest of the time they whine about the Charter giving us freedom. Now that I’ve got your attention…

Pragmatically – FIRST NATIONS ARE OUTBREEDING US at an insane level. See http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-645-x/2010001/growth-pop-croissance-eng.htm. “Between 1996 and 2006 the Aboriginal population grew at a much faster rate than the non-Aboriginal population at 45% and 8% respectively.”

So almost 6 times our growth rate.

Then make this community largely dysfunctional. Think about how well your children would fare if they were taken away from you – and having them sent to a place where they were more likely to die than a soldier in World War II. And the only way they could survive was by being subservient and taking all of the physical and sexual abuse.

Think about how the government doing that would wreak you as an individual. Think about how having one child per class at your children’s school die under suspicious circumstances – in every freaking class, after many beatings and abuse from the ‘teachers’ would affect your child’s ability to behave and your ability to function. Think about the rage and powerlessness you would feel as a parent?

So that might explain to a large extent the reality that first nations are over-represented by a factor of 8 in our prisons.

So now we have them grow at 6 times as fast as our growth? Do you see the problem? This is not a trivial “Aw crap” kind of problem. This is a major “Change the very nature of Canada” kind of problem. And whining about how it isn’t your problem doesn’t fix it. Even my children know that if you don’t own a problem you can’t fix it. So stop being a selfish ass and step up and own it if only for selfish pragmatic reasons. The problem is only going to get worse until you do.

Wow, awesome comment apoliticalgeek, and every one of your points are verifiable facts and truths.

It gets worse;

“A nurse takes a blood sample from a boy at the Indian School in Port Alberni, B.C., in 1948, during a period when nutritional experiments were being conducted on aboriginal people. Documents show these experiments were approved by a House of Commons committee. (Library and Archives Canada/Canadian Press)” Many of these children were intentionally malnourished as part of that study.

“For the past year and a half, lawyer Fay Brunning has been fighting to get the federal government to hand over documents about the St. Anne’s residential school.

It’s a school that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a judge described as having the worst cases of abuse out of any residential school in Canada. Brunning, who represents survivors, says they were taken away from their parents at age five or six for 10 months a year. They were forced to eat vomit, subjected to sexual and physical abuse and put in an electric chair.” ~ CTV News Published Wednesday, January 15, 2014 8:22PM EST

When Aboriginal Children resisted being taken away from their families, or were deemed to be at risk of running away, they used these on them, not just in the US but here in Canada:

http: //tinyurl.com/pshswee

Cut and copy to your address bar and then delete the space between the http: and the /

Some posters on here need to realize that their comments are a matter of record, and could be used in future studies, to be shown as examples of denial when it comes to our country participating in the severe abuse of an entire race of people, and our country’s attempt to perform Cultural Genocide on them.