Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
has completed a multi-year investigation regarding the treatment of
children of First Nations ancestry in state-supported boarding schools.
In its final report entitilted "Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future", the Commission states:
For over a century, the central goals of Canada’s AboriginalThe Final Report is available HERE.
policy were to eliminate Aboriginal governments; ignore Aboriginal
rights; terminate the Treaties; and, through a process of assimilation,
cause Aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social,
cultural, religious, and racial entities in Canada. The establishment
and operation of residential schools were a central element of this
policy, which can best be described as “cultural genocide.”
Physical genocide is the mass killing of the members of a
targeted group, and biological genocide is the destruction of the
group’s reproductive capacity. Cultural genocide is the destruction of
those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a
group. States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the
political and social institutions of the targeted group. Land is seized,
and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is
restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted,
spiritual practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are
confiscated and destroyed. And, most significantly to the issue at hand,
families are disrupted to prevent the transmission of cultural values
and identity from one generation to the next.
In its dealing with Aboriginal people, Canada did all these things.
[Canada and the US both did these things..Trace]
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