Residential Schools In Canada Essay

One hundred or so years ago, many believed that assimilation of First Nations in Canada was a good policy. No one was aware about the horrid conditions of residential schools at the time. 93,000 residential school students are still alive today. They are the limited survivors of a cultural genocide that many did not even realize had occurred in Canada until very recently. The last residential school did not close until 1996, and to this very day Indigenous society is taut with corruption as a result of centuries of horrors and traumatic experiences . The government’s objective was to continue on this genocidal path until there was not a single Indian in Canada, thus eliminating the “Indian Problem,” as they so called it. They desired to kill the Indian in the Indian, eliminating all traces of tradition that had once existed. The conditions of residential schools for students were …show more content…
Native children were treated atrociously, becoming victims of recurring sexual abuse and beatings, being forced to strip naked in front of other students as humiliation, and having needles thread through their tongues if they dared to speak Aboriginal languages. Although residential schools have since been formally apologized for in a Statement of Apology by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2008, as well as, banned, the long-term effects of residential schools are far from being wiped out. Indigenous communities continue to face extensive issues including high unemployment levels, low levels of education, inadequate health care services, and poor housing. Residential school students grew up being abused and that was their way of life. They are unaware of any other way of life, and thus, they raise their own children in this brutal manner because they were deprived of their own culture back