At least 4,000 aboriginal children died in residential schools, commission finds
January 5, 2014
Thousands of Canada’s aboriginal children died in residential schools that failed to keep them safe from fires, protected from abusers, and healthy from deadly disease, a commission into the saga has found.
So far, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has determined that more than 4,000 of the school children died.
But that figure is based on partial federal government records, and commission officials expect the number to rise as its researchers get their hands in future months on much more complete files from Library and Archives Canada and elsewhere.
The disturbing discovery has cast a new light on the century-long school system that scarred the country’s First Nations peoples.
Evidence has been compiled that shows residential school children faced a grave risk of death.
“Aboriginal kids’ lives just didn’t seem as worthy as non-aboriginal kids,” Kimberly Murray, executive director of the commission, said in an interview.
“The death rate was much higher than non-indigenous kids.”
The commission has spent the last several years studying a scandal considered by many to be Canada’s greatest historical shame.
Over many decades — from the 1870s to 1996 — 150,000 aboriginal children were taken from their families and sent by the federal government to church-run schools, where many faced physical and sexual abuse.
A lawsuit against the federal government and churches resulted in a settlement that included payments to those affected and the creation in 2008 of the commission. Its job is to hold public hearings so people can tell their stories, collect records and establish a national research centre.
The commission has also established “The Missing Children Project” to assemble the names of children who died, how they died, and where they were buried.
The list of names will be contained in a registry available to the public. Murray said the exact number of deceased children will never be known, but she hopes more information will come from churches and provincial files.
“I think we’re just scratching the surface.”
Many perished in fires — despite repeated warnings in audits that called for fire escapes and sprinklers but were ignored.
“There was report after report talking about how these schools were firetraps,” said Murray.
She said it was well known that schools were “locking kids in their dormitories because they didn’t want them to escape. And if a fire were to break out they couldn’t get out.”
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