NEWS STORY: Meeting Seeks to Redeem Legacy of Canada’s Church-Run Schools

c. 2000 Religion News Service VANCOUVER, British Columbia _ Former staff members of Canada’s now-notorious residential schools for native Indians came from across the country earlier this month for the rare chance to say there’s more to their legacy than high-profile sex-abuse cases. “This has been something I’ve dreamed about for a long time. A […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

VANCOUVER, British Columbia _ Former staff members of Canada’s now-notorious residential schools for native Indians came from across the country earlier this month for the rare chance to say there’s more to their legacy than high-profile sex-abuse cases.

“This has been something I’ve dreamed about for a long time. A lot of good stories have been lost,” said Ken McLeod, 87, who worked in the 1950s at church-run residential schools in northern British Columbia and Manitoba.


The United Church of Canada, which has funneled millions of dollars toward native causes as a way to make up for what it considers its past religious imperialism, organized the private gathering to hear the stories of the now-stigmatized former staff of Canada’s 13 United Church-run residential schools.

Until the schools were closed in the 1970s, there were 80 federally funded, church-run residential schools across the country. Attended by roughly 130,000 native Indians, part of their purpose was to assimilate natives to European Christian culture.

In the past decade, however, dozens of staff who worked at the schools have been accused of sex abuse. As a result, natives have launched thousands of lawsuits to win compensation from the United, Anglican and Roman Catholic churches and federal government.

McLeod, who didn’t know of any other effort in Canada to let former staff discuss the pros and cons of their long-ago experiences, expressed regret for some of the destructive things he now realizes happened at residential schools. But he said he thought that for the most part the staff were extremely dedicated.

Bev Knowles, 61, one of 35 former staff members who came from as far away as Ontario and Newfoundland to attend the event, said she had no idea sex abuse was taking place at Port Alberni residential school on Vancouver Island when she was a supervisor there.

She said she now believes one of the worst things the system did was remove native children from their villages and families.

The moderator of the 800,000-member United Church of Canada, Bill Phipps,

said that attending the gathering helped him recognize that pedophilia isn’t the only story to come out of the schools, which he said he believes reflected the sinful desire virtually all Canadians had at the time to assimilate native Indians.


“The residential schools are examples of how good and well-intentioned people, for the most part, get caught up in a system which only in retrospect is seen as wrong,” Phipps said.

Just as people today now sneer at those who worked in residential schools, Phipps said, he thought his grandchildren will some day accuse him of being immoral for how his generation took part in environmentally damaging the Earth.

Alvin Dixon, a West Coast native and United Church member who spent eight years as a student at Port Alberni residential school, told the former school workers that it’s not fair their reputations are being tarnished by the actions of a few pedophiles.

Still, Dixon said the most destructive aspect of the residential school system was that it separated him and tens of thousands of other native children from their families. As a result, there is great bitterness between native Indians and other Canadians. Reconciliation, he said, will be a long time coming.

DEA END TODD

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