Not everyone connected with residential schools was a pervert.........and you have to wonder why we don't hear more about the treatment of students in private residential schools.
June 2, 2008
Truth And Antirevisionism
As a young student, Mr. Ignatieff attended Toronto’s Upper Canada College, arguably the top private “residential school” in the country. At the time, he probably did not know that employees of other Canadian residential schools received little pay and many sleepless nights for their labour. But, as an intellectual and as an MP, he should have searched harder for the available evidence. In Stringer Hall, for example, I was responsible for 85 senior boys between the ages of 12 and 21 for 22 hours a day, six days a week. The work was difficult, even for a strong 21-year-old.Yet today, the reward for former residential school employees is denigration in the national press by people such as Mr. Ignatieff — and, more surprisingly, by the churches they served. I pray that the Commission will hear a variety of perspectives.
Unfortunately, I do not think this will happen because of the hostile climate that now exists. Few former school employees — both non-aboriginal and aboriginal — will acknowledge that they worked in residential schools, and even fewer will appear before the Commission. They already know that the “truth” has been pre-determined, and that “reconciliation” means financial compensation, which is already being distributed in any event. Few people will praise the residential schools — their administrators, their teachers or their supervisors. Fewer still will dare publicly admit that their residential-school experiences were positive.
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