Canada hears of native abuse pain (BBC) {forced 'schooling' of Amerinds}

[eppur_se_muova]

A truth and reconciliation commission examining what native leaders call one of the most tragic and racist chapters in Canada's history has begun.

The commission will study Canada's decades-long policies that removed Aboriginal children from their families to force Christianity upon them.

The state-funded religious schools were often the scenes of horrific physical and sexual abuse.

The commission has a five-year mandate to detail the abuses.

From the 19th Century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 aboriginal children were required to attend Christian schools in an attempt to rid them of their native cultures and languages and integrate them into society.
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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7430270.stm

Holy crap -- I thought the Canucks were supposed to have been better than the US in their treatment of native peoples. I hadn't heard anything like this -- thought this was the US way.

Harper's former apology (in Parliament) is scheduled for 11 June.

[Posteritatis]

1. If anything we strove to be worse

The current conception of Canada as a (metaphorically) warm, tolerant multicultural society is something the country's only really tried to strive for in the last thirty or so years. There are some vile things in our too-recent past - things like that, the Jewish immigration policies into the early fifties, etc.

[HeresyLives]

2. Residential Schools

One of those things that looked good on paper, but was horrific in practice.

It was meant to assimilate and integrate natives into white society, but the way it was carried out is a national disgrace.

[PDJane]

3. We continue to treat First Nations badly......

The housing situation for First Nations people is abysmal, even worse than the housing situation for the rest of the country, and we are dealing with the worst housing and homeless situation since the Great Depression.

While the general population of Canada is socialist, the government has been following America's lead, and the gap between rich and poor has been growing.

The Aboriginal peoples are right on the bottom of that demographic.