Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, read an official apology from the Canadian government for the policy of taking Native children from their parents and sending them to boarding schools meant to Christianize and de-Indianize them. Aside from the effects on Native communities of having their young people taken away and taught to reject all things Indian, many former students have reported physical and sexual abuse at the schools (which were similar to Indian boarding schools in the U.S.). These two clips are about 12 minutes in total:
In addition to the apology, there are plans for reparation payments in response to a lawsuit.
Here is a response from Phil Fontaine, head of the Assembly of First Nations:
Here is a segment about U.S. Indian boarding schools:
Here is a short video of a Lakota woman describing abuse at a U.S. boarding school:
Some of my mom’s cousins were sent to the Chilocco Indian School in Oklahoma when she was a kid. She did not understand the point of the schools and so thought her cousins were getting to go learn how to be “more” Indian and couldn’t understand why she wasn’t sent too.
