Weblog (Mod 2 – WL5)

http://www.nwac.ca/sites/default/files/reports/InstitutionalAbusePublicResponse.pdf

This website from the Native Women’s Association of Canada, in 1992, and it documents how the government refuses to look into residential schools and call for an inquiry.

It focuses on schools which have faced allegations of sexual abuse and the redress as a result.  These include: Mount Cashel by the Newfoundland government, the Ontario government’s investigation into the St. Joseph’s Training School for Boys, and the British Columbia government’s inquiry into the Jericho Hill School for the Deaf.

At the time of the documentation, only St. Joseph’s in Williams Lake had an active RCMP investigation into the sexual abuse at the school.  Two convictions were handed down, but at that time no inquiry was made into the school, no arranged of compensation offered, and, as the document points out, no real outcry from the non-Native community.

The document points out that in addition to the government refusing to inquire or apologize for the residential school, churches have not been much more forthcoming than the government.  Although some churches have apologized, no compensation has been made available.

The four aforementioned schools are discussed, at length, by the article, but it is the Williams Lake school much brought me here.  In 1989, Father Harold McIntee was convicted of sexually assaulting 17 boys over a 25 year period at the school.  One year later, Brother Doughty (a Roman Catholic official) was convicted of 5 counts of gross indecency and indecent assault, for instances that occurred between 1961 and 1967.

The article also documents a study done by Roland Chrisjohn from Guelph University  on the graduates of St. Joseph’s was published and I will try to get my hands on it for my project.

One facet of the article intrigued me about St. Joseph’s.  The article states Williams Lake was more concerned about the lumber market that the residential school.  I will delve into that a little more and see f there is any substance to that allegation.   If so, I wonder if was collective shame that caused that response.  A school with that many students and things like that happening over a long time period, the people in the Cariboo had to know, right?

I will use this document in my research to outline the government’s slow response to addressing the concerns of the survivors of residential school and the silence they tried to buy with $16 million dollars.

Moore