Matt's Lesson: The Indian Residential School Crisis

While it is evident that the Indian Residential school crisis was dealt with accordingly, it took the Canadian government 162 years to close the last Residential school and no apologies or retributions were made until 2007. Between those years, thousands of survivors struggled to fit back into society and had no support system to help them cope. Victims were tired of being ignored and years of legal campaigns to force the government and churches to recognize the injustices of the system led to a Statement of Reconciliation being created, which acknowledged the trauma cause by the schools. Finally on September 19, 2007, the Canadian government joined the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA). This agreement included compensations to …show more content…
It teaches Canadians that violence is not the best way to deal with injustice, but by apologizing, redressing and raising awareness, people can deal with it in a much friendly matter. The prejudice in this book is something that could not be prevented as it is how the author wanted to tell Matt’s story. The author does however; give readers a different take on how her characters dealt with injustices. If the characters that supported Matt spoke out of the discrimination against clones, they could have prevented the abuse Matt faced because the other characters would be more open minded after hearing Matt’s perspective. This could also lead to El Patrón formally addressing the issue and apologizing for the exploitation of clones, perhaps also preventing the many deaths readers discovered in this book. The House of the Scorpions deals with wrongdoings in its own unique way and although it did not take place in Canada, the events are still very real and may have occurred in Canada and other parts of the world. Nevertheless, this novel teaches Canadians that injustice should be dealt with acknowledging and raising awareness on the