Topic spans: 1955 - 2002
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.
Photo of residents of Regina "Indian school" (c. 1921) from Library and Archives Canada, PA-020921
14 television clips
8 radio clips
Abuse affects the next generation
Broadcast Date: April 2, 1993
Residents of some northern Ontario reserves are reeling from a series of suicides by their young people, and they're pointing to their own past as the culprit. With no parental role models, a generation raised in residential schools has passed on the trauma to their kids. A CBC Radio reporter visits the reserve and finds that many parents have gone back to native traditions in an effort to combat the lessons of their youth.Abuse affects the next generation
• Many students at residential schools rarely had opportunities to see examples of normal family life. They were in school ten months a year, and parents usually weren't allowed to visit them. Letters home were copied from the blackboard and written in English — which many parents couldn't read. Brothers and sisters at the same school rarely saw each other, as all activities were segregated by sex.• When students returned to the reserve, they often found they didn't belong. They didn't have the skills to help their parents, and constant belittling of their culture by school authorities taught them to view native ways as inferior. The education at the schools was generally substandard, so it was also hard to function in an urban setting. For some, life after residential school was like being on an island between two worlds.
• With loneliness, isolation and abuse as their model in childhood, generations of residential school students went on to demonstrate the same behaviour with their own children. Not all problems of addiction, abuse and neglect on reserves can be attributed to residential schools, but at the time of this clip, many were just coming to grips with the painful legacy of the schools.
• Reserves have responded to the problem of suicide in young people by helping native youth gain a sense of identity. Traditional practices such as smudging (in which a person is "bathed" in smoke from burning sage or sweetgrass), sweat lodges (heated tents where participants have visions and rid themselves of impurities), and language learning have all been used to combat the hopelessness and grief that can lead to suicide.
Abuse affects the next generation
Medium: Radio
Program: The World At Six
Broadcast Date: April 2, 1993
Guest(s): Garnet Ajunicab, Cueney Navagone
Host: Michael McIvor
Reporter: Colleen Rooney
Duration: 4:45
Last updated:
March 24, 2005
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22 clips in this topic . page
Abuse affects the next generation .
The CBC Digital Archives Website.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Last updated: March 24, 2005.
[Page consulted on Feb. 13, 2012.]