Residential Schools

Residential schools were boarding schools operated by the Canadian government as part of its “aggressive assimilation” policy which sought to assimilate aboriginal children into mainstream European Canadian society by adopting Christianity and speaking English or French. Canada’s residential schools are marred by countless allegations of sexual, emotional and physical abuse of aboriginal children by staff. 150,000 aboriginal, Inuit and Métis children were forced to attend a recorded 130 residential schools across Canada between 1874 to 1996. New research has found at least 3,000 children are now known to have died during attendance at Canada’s disgraced Indian residential schools.