One can argue, as did Manitoba columnist Brian Giesbrecht on Saturday, that “there is no credible evidence that any child who died at a residential school died, or was buried, under sinister circumstances.”.What one cannot argue however, is that no indigenous children were brutalised, mistreated or intentionally harmed by those who should have been caring for them. For that sadly, there is evidence enough. Even in a century when all Canadian schools were run with a rigour and harshness that appalls parents today, the worst residential schools were worse again, thoroughly nasty places where poor supervision and lax management gave sexual predators opportunity for vile crimes against young children. So lax was the system that even when apprehended, they were typically moved on without criminal charges being pressed..Nobody wanted to deal with the problem..Some schools were fine. Others were hell..Years ago, I was publisher of the Port Alberni newspaper. One of the nastiest stories ever covered by the Alberni Valley Times on my watch was the trial and conviction of the late Arthur Plint, who in 1995 pleaded guilty to sexually abusing boys at the residential school there..The school was run by the United Church of Canada. Plint worked there as a dormitory supervisor for 21 years..The trial heard how in that time he variously bribed children with candy to perform sexual favours and savagely beat some of them when drunk. He manipulated their emotions: He once withheld a letter from a child’s mother, until the boy performed oral sex on him. Unfortunately, this list is illustrative, not exhaustive: There are no redeeming stories to be told of him..He was a horrible man..Sentenced to 11 years in prison, the-then 77-year-old Plint later died of cancer in 2003..What makes his case unusual however is that the allegations against him actually ended up in court. As a 2017 Ph.D. thesis put it, “The matters of sexual acts involving students were almost never brought to the police and even less often prosecuted.” Too true..Thus, fully investigated cases are rare; accounts of abuse of all kinds are offered years after the events, when the alleged perpetrators are dead and any kind of investigation, charge or verdict is no longer possible..Nor did everything brought to court, even end with a judicial decision. A typical case was that against nuns at St. Anne’s school, which was extensively investigated by the OPP in 2003..Here, a group of former students filed an abuse lawsuit against the school. The allegations included assaults, sexual assaults and various other abuses. Obviously, it was not a happy place. But no verdict was ever rendered: It ended with a cash settlement..All of this makes it possible to believe that some of what we hear about the schools may be exaggerated. And politics being what it is, some of it may be..It is also true that some residential school students do have more pleasant recollections. Tomson Highway is a successful Cree author, playwright and classical pianist who attended Guy Hill Indian Residential School near The Pas, Manitoba. It was there that he learned the skills that made him famous. (He would later receive an honorary degree from the University of Manitoba.) He writes, “nine of the happiest years of my life I spent at that school... There are many very successful people today that went to those schools.” .Highway speaks for many..But not for all. The court-tested cases of abuse that we have, few in number as they may be, validate the sad anecdotal accounts of a larger number of indigenous people who regret the time they spent at the schools..There are valid reasons to push back against the narrative of oppression now being pushed by indigenous activist groups. Some of the allegations against those who ran and taught at the schools are bizarre, and clearly aimed at upping the ante for future compensation..Nevertheless, a balanced and decent perspective on the entire residential school story requires all people of good will to recognize that even if there is no evidence of murder, there is evidence enough to accept that some sadists and paedophiles did terrible things to children, and were never held to account..It is not so much then what Brian Giesbrecht said, as what he didn’t say. Whatever the good intentions of those responsible for the schools may have been, there were also great wickednesses done..And for allowing them, those responsible deserve the censure they now receive.
