Danny B

I was referring to the British kids sent to Australia & Canada in the 50's, not the poor Indian kids snatched from their parents all over Canada and brainwashed by crazy Nuns.

BEVS

Yes. That was exactly it. Not all children were orphans and orphanages, such as they were called, did not cater to just orphans.

scilly

I do a lot of family history including for other people, and am on various internet sites.

It is amazing the number of children sent from the UK to Canada and Australia who were taken from their parents. In many cases, they might be taken from an orphanage but they had been placed there for a temporary period of time because one parent had died and the other (most often the father) needed time to arrange help to look after the kids.

That parent almost always intended to get the children back as soon as possible ........ but found the child(ren) had already been sent overseas. The memory of the child(ren) remained with the family, and now we have descendants trying to find out anything they can about that their ancestors' lives in the foreign country. Some of the stories are heart-breaking.

Yes, a lot of the men sent to Canada (and also Australia) before WW1 joined up, and did not return here after the war was over, if they survived.


Both these children and those from the First Nations were thought to be worth little other than training to be "servants" to others, but the difference was that the First Nations were also considered to be "savages".

All they knew was to be beaten out of them, forbidden to speak their own language, to follow their way of life, and trained to be good little maids and farmers' labourers at best, and following one of the "correct" religions .... RC, Anglican, United or whatever.

BEVS

Yes. Me too.

Exactly this. It is exactly this. Kids from the slums were considered half wits fit only for toil. No sense and no feelings.

I mentioned in another post that a first cousin of mine remains 'missing' . She was given the name Noleen . The saying for those babes and children missing in the Irish mother and baby homes was 'gone to scottish relatives'. Of course they did not. Those kids and babes were seen as born evil and unclean. Not good is it.

My heart goes out to all the families and communities , no matter where or why, that were robbed of their children and babies . This silent secret knowledge will have been in their communities for a very long time without the ability to bring it into the open or to the fore.
My mother wasn't lost at all but she remembered the nuns beating the gaelic and irish out of her. Her niece disappeared. My Dad and all his half siblings spent time in childrens homes . There but for the grace , it could have been him whisked silently away .

Jingsamichty

This inhumanity is absolutely heartbreaking, all the more so when I see older friends and colleagues lamenting for the 'good old days' when Britain ruled the world. What happened at the residential schools was geographically in Canada but it was undoubtedly a British approach.

It was shameful beyond belief, and the notion of British exceptionalism is still causing pain today.

mikelincs

A lot of these children from the various countries just 'disappeared', the UK government did apologise a few years ago, but much too late for many. Many were taken from families who 'couldn't cope' with the kids they had, taken into care and then sent to another country. Many have/had siblings left behind who know/knew nothing of where they had gone to. All 'civilised' countries did something like this, and, at the time, it was thought to be in the child's best interests. Much of this we are only now finding out the true scale, and I suspect really we need international co-operation and a full investigation, also to ensure it doesn't happen again.

dbd33

Why on earth do you think this might not happen again? Abduction, slave labour and sexual assault, typically bound up with religion, are common features of human behaviour. For example, can you spell Uighurs?

Danny B

or Rohingya?

BEVS

True enough.

scrubbedexpat091

Looks like September 30, will be an observed holiday called National Day for Truth and Reconciliation .

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/nati...canada-holiday

JamesM

https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/10-things...SVfoGHnFMtmoRo

caretaker

I'm wondering what sort of ground penetrating radar they have that can show 215 distinct bodies in a mass grave. It hasn't been developed yet as far as I know. It shows anamoies in the ground, not an x-ray. I assumed they were in individual unmarked graves like at the other residential schools, which would make sense since they didn't bury them all at once, as is the case with mass graves by definition. They found quite a few in the former Yugoslavia and they had to exhume everything to get a body count.

dbd33

I disregard most of that as sentimental tosh. We know the authorities, government and religious, caused countless people to be put to death. To my mind, counting them, by technology or exhumation, is pointless unless the specific people can be identified and that brings solace to their families. 500 people, 1000 people, 10000 people tortured and buried, the count doesn't matter, the victims and the perpetrators are dead now. People are shit, we know already.

The important issues listed there have nothing to do with past persecutions. People should not be living in shacks with "aboriginal siding" and they should not be drinking unsafe water. I don't think people should live on reservations, I think they should be assimilated, but if they are to live in human zoos then the government, as keeper of the zoos, has an obligation to see that the occupants have the means of life; shelter and clean water. This shouldn't be more or less the case according to how many bodies are dug up.

scilly

Several media have got it wrong, as one might expect. And, of course, people are repeating the wrong information.

It isn't 215 bodies in a mass grave, but separate graves that have been found, so easy to see 215 distinct bodies, even if 2 or 3 had been buried together. But it is, I gather, 215 individual burials.

And this is just in one area of the grounds. They have several other suspected sites to still investigate.

caretaker

But not our beloved Canadian Broadcasting Corruption! Using their superpowers to read my thoughts, they clarified the issue in a matter of hours.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/groun...ains-1.6049776
Follow up article is more Saskatchewan specific.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saska...aves-1.6052698