Canada's dirty secret
 

This has echoes of what happened in Australia (and Ireland?)...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...nt/7860552.stm

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

From the late 19th Century up to the 1970s, an estimated 150,000 native children in Canada were seized from their parents and sent far away to state-funded, church-run schools to learn how to think, speak and act like white people. The country is still coming to terms with the disastrous results.

A real dirty secret.

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

A pretty poorly kept secret methinks....:cool:

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

I have to say I did know about this and did not think that it was such a secret.
They did not just lose thousands of their children but many many years of knowledge related to children and childbirth practices. Today as we look at our medicalised western childbirth system many women try to experience childbirth in a natural way, that knowledge could be helping us now if it had not been destroyed. The tribal system of knowledge thrived on the spoken word being passed down through generations, the link with the past is badly damaged and can never recover.
It was a very effective way of destroying the culture of the native population.

Lets hope we learn from our mistakes
Madwife

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

Its no secret.

Last year it was apologized for on the floor of Parliament, with Native representatives present, by the Prime Minister, and a compensation scheme has been agreed and implemented.

It was certainly a disgrace, but not a secret one.

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

uuummmmmm!!!! lets see now.....australia, ireland, canada, parts of africa, india, isreal (were ever that was, moved, moved again).......looks like the 'pink' bits on the old maps, me thinks????? do you think 'we' should be very ashamed of ourselves? yes sirreeeeeee.......... :confused:

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

It may be a dirty little secret in the rest of the world but I don't think it is in Canada. Successive Canadian governments have been attempting, not with great success, to resolve this and numerous other First Nations' issues for many years. No Canadian, born here or imported, should look upon the situation as anything but unacceptable. It is somewhat analogous to many situations around the world where present citizens have to accept responsiblity for the sins of their forefathers.
Multi-billions of dollars are spent each year in attempts to improve the lot of our native peoples but obviously money is far from being the full answer. In many northern communities there is no clean water, proper hygiene facilities and no employment. People live on government handouts and children raised in such environments end up following in their parents footsteps, so a revolving door system thrives. Large payouts have taken place recently to some of the children forced to attend such schools but unfortunately, such money has led, in some cases, to increased alcoholism and misuse.
It's a mess, to say the least.

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

Can't blame the sons of the fathers and all that. I feel very sorry and terribly sad but not guilty or ashamed, it wasn't me!

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

I have to say alot has to be done to improve the situation, I am in no way saying nothing should be done but, I do not think that it can ever be rectified and put right.
What has happened has to be aknowledged and never forgotten but we have to look forward to improve the lot of the Native/immigrant Canadian (by that I mean all Canadians).
Madwife

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

Step on many reserves and you'll realize very little has actually been done

other than maybe a lot of promises and talk


reality....... nobody cares here or not enough anyway

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

No, no secret to me either. This has been a topic of interest of mine for about 25 years through people I know who were affected and my personal interest in social-anth issues in Canada. And the media; news, articles, debates and documentaries aplenty... though in Canada. To me, it's a very important issue and very interesting.

Just title of the article makes me cringe though... dark history? This is an ongoing issue. Though residential schools are now closed, the effects are still very much in the present.

And that's just the residential schools... then there's the forced settlement of the Innu, the lack of a plan to deal with homelessness, the closing of psychiatric hospitals and chucking vulnerable people out to fend for themselves, the lack of action on the cultist abuse in Bountiful, BC, the quiet erosion of pay-equity, etc... lots of 'secrets' and that's just some of the social ones.

Ok, I'll shut up now.

(or maybe not)

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

I have heard this sentiment many times.

For me, being a white-looking person, I am very aware of the advantage I have in this still racist society. Probably not as aware as my non-white friends but I am quite preceptive and well read in this sort of stuff.

I do not feel any personal guilt for my advantage and the history that produced it but I do recognise that I benefit from it, while other people suffer with the shit end of the stick. I feel it's ethically sound to help level the playing field and I do this in various ways that use my skills.

I can not imagine saying, 'hey, it wasn't me!' and moving on.

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

The Glenbow museum has a really good (i suppose you'd call it) exhibit on the subject. We learnt a lot and will revisit another time as it is so much information to take in. You know I knew some of the stuff but not much.

I have also read a book on the Beothuk(sp) which was a narrative history which I found fascinating and horrifying.

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

Unfortunately this sort of thing has happened in, oh, almost every single country in the world. Majorities or those more powerful have always done this kind of thing to the minorities in the countries. Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Blacks, Women you name it it's happened. But hey, at least Canada didn't deal with it the same way the US did, and give smallpox infected blankets to the natives to wipe them out and get the land.

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

There's no evidence that anyone in the US actually did that. The idea was discussed but we don't know that it was implemented. However, full marks for joining in with the local obsession.

I thought Canada's dirty secrets were experimenting with mentally ill people by giving them electric shock treatments in Montreal, forced sterilisations in Alberta, both relatively recent government policies, PMU mares in Manitoba and the mass import of American horses for slaughter. Of course, I'm not Inuit nor a seal.

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

The bloke (Amherst) who is often credited with that order was British, and very active in political bodies that would later become Canadian ones. To say he was American is a bit odd to me. IIRC, there was no Canada or USA at the time; it was British vs French vs/with 'The Indians' (in various combinations and alliances).

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

Shhhhhhh.... I'm telling!

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

Not exclusive to Canada though

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

Indeed not. I suppose overall governments in Canada have been about as bad as other western governments.

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

Christ!

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

Meaning ?

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

Have a f~ing guess

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

Maybe it means my remark was too banal for words. Maybe it means that no other government has ever been as evil as the Canadian ones and I'm being blasphemous in suggesting the idea.

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

Sorry old chap,just showing my shock at the level of nastiness of Canadian politicians, against their western counterparts

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

And who could ever have been worse than George W Bush, or Tony Blair? :thumbdown:

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

ooh look, I gained a star :D

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

"PET", shouts varied rednecks and rubes.

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

Some chap in Zimbabwe,possibly.

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

Are you sure? ;)

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

I think the worst aspect of the Residential School system was that the people at the time thought that this was the right thing to do. It was not intended to be an evil move, but rather one that would bring the "Indians" into "our" world.

It was a classic case of "the law of unintended consequences"

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

I am sorry but that is complete rubbish ! The anglican and catholic churches who were mainly responsible for the running of the residential facilities knew exactly what they were doing... Refusing a culture the right to indulge in their own practices and speak their own language is no honest held belief that they thought they were doing the right thing!!

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

When you believe absolutely that your religion is right and theirs is wrong, and because you think they just don't know any better
and you are from the industrial age and they appear to be just out the stone age....
You have fine written language, written history and generations of education
The Church really did believe it was doing the right thing no matter how much pain
It's a problem with people that believe and avoid reason
Stupid mistakes always follow dogma's

Its easy to judge in a age of reason
Ask a southern baptist about Darwin and you'll find that innocent stupidity is still around today
Is not the church but those that chose to follow it with out question

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

I'm going to be watching this thread with great interest as I've studied Canadian history and am very familiar with the effects of residential schooling to First Nations peoples, at least the many different First Nations that live in British Columbia. "Cultural genocide" is often the term used to describe what happened.

Perhaps this is all a big a secret for those of you who still only pay attention to British media/newspapers, but it's a frequent topic in Canadian media/newspapers.

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

And these same churches were doing this long before the US or Canada existed in most of the America's. The Spanish and British were not exactly friendly to the Natives through history and tried to force their ways onto them.

The Natives never had a fair chance.

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

Cultures have always commited genocide, even the Cree and the Blackfoot.

I remember a very controversial play in Britain about 30 years ago, shown at the National Theatre, called "The Romans in Britain." It was controversial for two reasons - it depicted the brutal anal rape of a Briton by a Roman. It was an allegory of Britain's involvement in Ireland.

None of this is new.

Back to my original preposition: Blackfoot men from one of the warrior societies told me (when I worked in the correctional system) that when they beat another tribe in battle they would kill the men, have their tribeswomen bite the noses off the women of child bearing age and use them as slaves, and take the children into their society.

It's not Canada's little secret: there's a part of ourselves , as humans, that WE have to master in order to live in a global village.

To suggest it is an Anglo phenomenon is racist! To suggest that aboriginal people didn't is blind. I have been told by native elders from the Blackfoot, that they despise the white man as weak, because we didn't assimilate them, and foolish because, that being the case, we were not, then, just.

Many native people trust the Queen more than the Canadan Government, and hold the view that they as nations treated with the Crown, rather than with a dominion.

Maybe more Anglo's did engage in more assimilationist policies than other nations, but only (I would submit) because their industrial, economic, administrative and military infrastructures were so powerful at the time.

The victor writes history.

If we took the desire to point the finger to its ultimate and absurd conclusion we Brits should take the Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, French, and Italian governments to the Hague, and the Scots, Irish and Welsh should take the English.

In fact being of Welsh, Irish and English (and therefore of Saxon, Briton, Norwegian, Dane and Norman) origin I should sue myself. And being a Catholic through my English as well as Irish ancestors I should sue the Church of England for burning my ancestors at the stake.:eek:

Cough up you protestant bastards!





And though slightly flippant I am not denigrating the experience of native Indians who suffered through and because of the assimilationist practices of the past. In fact, having worked specificially with native populations in a prison setting I probably have more insight than most on this board. Therefore, I'll end with this. Native people do not want our (the dominant culture's) sympathy, or our understanding, they want Justice.

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

Well put

I once heard it put into simpler terms

We learned from the Romans, watched the French and the Spanish, Studied china
Then we showed the world how to Conquer

There is never Justice for the Loser, he simply chose the wrong side

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

A Lost Heritage: Canada's Residential Schools

In 1928, a government official predicted Canada would end its "Indian problem" within two generations. Church-run, government-funded residential schools for native children were supposed to prepare them for life in white society. But the aims of assimilation meant devastation for those who were subjected to physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Decades later, aboriginal people began to share their stories and demand acknowledgement of — and compensation for — their stolen childhoods.

.......... Interesting Video archive

http://archives.cbc.ca/society/education/topics/692/

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

Just to contextualize residential schools.

1914 -1918 the western world ordered millions of it's young men to walk slowly across muddy hellscapes into the decimating fire of machine guns, after enduring relentless shelling.

60,000 British casualties the first morning of the Somme.

The same level of critical thinking went into residential schools.

However the government has not apologised for those orders/actions of WW1. The soldiers are seen as heroes.

The problem with apologies to the native people is that they are cast as victims. When people are cast as victims they are further victimized.

Was it Einstein who said that you can't solve a problem using the same set of thinking skills that created the problem?

Re: Canada's dirty secret
 

What an excellent debate with some really interesting viewpoints from all areas but I still get this feeling that some quarters are still trying to find comparisons and use those as justification for the horrendous way in which the native people have been treated.

Unfortunately for me I was raised catholic and throughout my entire life that particular organization has forever sought excuses for their awful misdemeanours.

I too work and socialize with Native people and the poster was right that they do not want sympathy, they want their lives and culture back and more importantly to be able to function as a family and know what that is. The family concept was taken by the residential system !