Speech by TRC Chairperson, the Honourable Justice Murray ...

But the government implementation of the “schools clause” came with aterrible price. Children were taken forcibly and placed into schools faraway from the reserves where the government had promised they wouldbe. In many cases, Indigenous students were subjected to terrible abuse.Hundreds, if not thousands, of them, died in the schools. Parents werenot told the full extent of what was happening to their children. Visitingchildren at the schools was discouraged and in many places notpermitted. Loneliness and fear were the indigenous students’ constantcompanions.In light of its growing failure, and with the dawning of an awareness ofwhat human rights should look like after the Second World War, Canadagradually restored basic human rights to Indigenous people. The passsystem; prohibitions on ceremonies; the denial of access to the courtsand the denial of the right to vote, all fell away. Beginning in the1970’s, the residential schools era slowly ended with the last residentialschool closing in 1996. But a great wrong had been done and thedamaged and injured survivors of those schools sought redress throughan increasingly enlightened Canadian court system.6