What is the historical significance of residential schools in Canada?

Residential schools were government-funded, church-run boarding schools that operated across Canada from the 1830s to 1996, designed to assimilate Indigenous children by removing them from their families, languages, and cultures. The Indian Act of 1876 provided the legal basis, and amendments in 1894 and 1920 made attendance compulsory for First Nations children aged seven to fifteen. About 150,000 First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children passed through the system.

The federal government funded the schools and the Roman Catholic, Anglican, United, Presbyterian, and Methodist churches operated them. Conditions in many schools were severe: children were forbidden to speak their languages, separated from siblings, subjected to harsh discipline, and exposed to widespread physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission identified at least 4,100 documented student deaths and concluded the cumulative impact of the system constituted cultural genocide.

The last federally funded residential school, Gordon Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan, closed in 1996. Survivors organised lawsuits through the 1990s, leading to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement signed in 2006, the largest class-action settlement in Canadian history. On June 11, 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered a formal apology in the House of Commons.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Justice Murray Sinclair, ran from 2008 to 2015 and issued 94 Calls to Action. The September 30 National Day for Truth and Reconciliation became a federal statutory holiday in 2021. The 2021 discovery of unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School site renewed national attention, and Pope Francis delivered an apology on Canadian soil at Maskwacis, Alberta on July 25, 2022.