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The Residential School System of Canada

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The Residential School System of Canada
Better Late Than Never The residential school system of Canada are network of residential school for Aboriginal peoples of Canada funded by the Canadian government's Department of Indian Affairs, and administered by Christian churches. In the early twentieth century, young natives were removed from their families, and deprived of their ancestral languages, exposed physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their teachers and other students. In this essay, I will discuss about how those young natives affected by residential school system in their future life and what have government or organization done to help them out. There are two opposite parties commenting on residential school system. The child welfare agencies insisted they were acting in the children’s best interest – simply moving them into better environment than they were getting in their native parents’ home. However, Manitoba family court Judge Edwin Kimelman claims that the action of taking kids away like this was totally unacceptable (Michael 445). As we can see, residential schools have had lasting effects on aboriginal communities. We can conclude that as a removal of next generation. The documentary “Unrepentant – Canada’s Genocide” is a documentary which contains first-hand testimonies from residential school survivors. Kevin Annett – director of this documentary faced firing and the loss of his family, reputation as a result of his efforts to help survivors and bring out the truth of the residential schools. According the documentary, children were prohibited from and punished for speaking their own languages or practicing their own faiths even among themselves and outside the classroom, so that English or French would be learned ,as a result, their own languages forgotten. They were subject to corporal punishment for speaking their own languages or for practicing non-Christian faiths (Kevin). Physical and sexual abuses were a common occurrence at the school. Overcrowding, poor

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