The Residential school system in Canada was a system devoted to providing a disciplined based ideal that promoted the rejection of the aboriginal culture in favor of the then dominant white European population. The teaching strategies that were encouraged ranged from pulling children as young as six away from their parents to mental, physical and sexual abuse. The Residential schools were run by a variety of participating church organizations, which received funding from the Canadian government. The funding was based on a per aboriginal basis therefore it was in the best interests of the churches to enroll as many aboriginal students as possible. The schools were run in almost every province in Canada from 1860-1884 and claimed to be promoting religious and cultural assimilation. However, the cruelty that was experienced by many young aboriginals in the residential schools emphasizes the differences between the aboriginal societies and the European dominant society making complete assimilation impossible. The imposition of residential schools on First Nations children has led to significant loss of indigenous languages, and this language loss has led to further cultural losses for traditional First Nations cultures in Canada.

The earliest known date opening of a Residential school was in 1840, located in Manitowaning, Ontario. The school was the Wikemikong Indian Residential School, it closed in 1879. The last Residential school to close was La Tuque Indian Residential School, located in La Tuque, Quebec. This school opened in 1962 and closed in 1980. These schools, run by religious people, were not a choice for Native Canadians. The education was forced upon these people and it was looked at as the resolution to the "Indian problem”. There were a total of 130 schools across Canada, and over 90 000 children attended them. In 1922, a law was passed that if parents did not hand over their children to a residential school official, they would be charged and, in some cases, jailed. In many cases, the parents were not told where their child would be brought, when they'd be back, or how they could communicate with them. This led to depression, drug abuse, alcoholism, and hopelessness amongst the Native Canadian parents separated from their children. The children, usually leaving home at the age of four years, were usually unaware of where they were being taken. The appropriate age to leave the school was when the child finished grades three; this was seen as appropriate education for an Aboriginal person. The goal of the schools was to properly educate all Aboriginal children into the ˜white world'. They were not permitted to speak their native language amongst themselves or even to their parents if they were lucky enough to have contact with them. They were separated from their siblings, not even allowed to speak to them during their playtime. Separation from all family contact often caused depression for the children; they spent all their time sad, scared, and lonely. Their parents often didn't visit them, leaving them feeling abandoned and unable to find love anywhere. They were not taught love and affection at the schools; this left them feeling deprived and confused. They didn't understand the sudden change in culture, tradition

language, and rules. They were young, and they were innocent people, learning a language and culture they'd never heard of. Some say that the hardest thing was being completely unable to express their loneliness and sadness.

The process of assimilation of aboriginals in Canada was doomed to fail because the missionaries and the federal government created a counterproductive atmosphere from which they were to achieve their goal of assimilation. Looking back at the history of the Residential school system in Canada, we can see the production of an alienated population because the tragedies that took place at the schools. Of the many tragedies that took place I want to focus on two important issues. First, a lot of aboriginals were taught to be ashamed of their own culture and belief system in order to promote the new one that was to be given to them. Secondly, many students were taken away from their families at a young age and subjected mental, physical and sexual abuse.

Residential schools robbed native children of their heritage to prepare them for life in “white society”. This led to stolen childhoods and forgotten heritage. Aboriginal children were sent to schools that were called “Indian Residential Schools”. Residential schooling was not optional; kids were taken from their parents without knowledge of what was going on. Since the children were removed from their families, a lot of kids grew up without love and nurture, so a lot of them did not have knowledge to raise their own families. Since the governments and the church's intent was to erase all aspects and memory of Aboriginal culture in these children and prevented it is passing from one generation to the next residential schools were considered to be a form of cultural genocide to a lot of people. To prove one motive of residential schooling here are two quotes: Sir John A Macdonald [prime minister of Canada (1867–73, 1878–91)], - “We have been pampering and coaxing the Indians; that we must take a new course, we must vindicate the position of the white man, we must teach the Indians what law is.” Dr. Duncan Campbell Scott (head of the Department of Indian Affairs from 1913 to 1932) - “I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country thought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone… Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department, that is the whole object of this Bill.”

Abuse of children was the issue that moved government to its first guarded effort at apology and reconciliation in 1998. The Prime Minister announced in the Speech from the Throne in October 2007 that an apology would be associated with the launch of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The content of the apology is unknown as this is being written. We can hope that the Prime Minister will be guided by advice such as that presented in articles in this collection on the qualities of an authentic, effective apology. The gestures toward redress in the common experience payments now being distributed and the independent assessment process for instances of serious physical abuse and sexual abuse, administered separately from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, can be seen as evidence of the sincerity of apology. A public, ceremonial statement from the highest political authority in the land has huge symbolic value. Such an apology acknowledges the enormity of the wrongful action by government, the responsibility of the Canadian citizenry in whose name the harm was inflicted, and it implicitly or explicitly promises that the wrong will not be repeated. A public apology establishes a new standard of behaviour toward Aboriginal people whose human rights have been trampled upon. But as Robert Joseph points out in his article, even a highly symbolic apology is only a speech act. It seeks to rectify a situation for which true restitution is impossible. Any positive effect is dependent on acceptance of the apology by the injured parties and adherence to the new standard in everyday transactions. The challenge for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will be to explore what hurts at the local level need to be healed, what actions would serve to translate public apology into local dialogue, and who in diverse Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities has the will and the stature to lead the building of mutual trust. Commissions and task forces in the past have been assigned responsibility for analyzing problems and coming up with solutions that are presented to governments. Public apology can have significant impact, and the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission can focus and highlight the ongoing public commitment that is required, but reconciliation has to take place at a thousand points of encounter, and it has to be reaffirmed when clashes of personalities, interests and cultures trigger old animosities.

Long before Europeans came to North America, aboriginal people had a highly developed system of education. There was a great deal for aboriginal children to learn before they could survive on their own. Aboriginal elders and parents passed on not only survival skills to their children, but their history, artistic ability, music, language, moral and religious values. When European missionaries began to live amongst aboriginal people, they concluded that the sooner they could separate children from their parents, the sooner they could prepare aboriginal people to live a civilized (i.e. European) lifestyle. Residential schools were established for two reasons: separation of the children from the family and the belief that aboriginal culture was not worth preserving. Most people concluded that aboriginal culture was useless and dying and all human beings would eventually develop and change to be like the ‘advanced' European civilization. Early residential schools were similar to religious missions. Later, the mission-run schools were administered jointly by Canadian churches and the federal government, and for a number of years, residential schools became official Canadian policy for the education of Indian children. Aboriginal children as young as six left the world of their families and were sent into the unfamiliar world of the white man. Children were usually rounded up in August and transported to residential schools. They were issued clothes and assigned a bed number. Even though many of the children could not speak any English, the supervisors spoke only English to them. The children were, in fact, punished for speaking their native languages. For as long as a year, and occasionally for several years, children were unable to express to anyone in authority what their basic needs were. Loneliness, sickness, confusion and abuse all had to be borne in lonely silence.