Honouring the Truth Reconciling for the Future

100 • Truth & Reconciliation CommissionDr. Peter Bryce, Indian Affairs chief medical officer,recommended in 1909 that Canada’s residentialschools be turned into sanatoria and placed under hisadministration. Library and Archives Canada, Topley Studio,a042966.at home and sent to residential schools,where they infected other children. Thechildren infected in the schools were“sent home when too ill to remain atschool, or because of being a danger tothe other scholars, and have conveyedthe disease to houses previously free.” 362The following year, Bryce published adamning report on the conditions atprairie boarding schools. In an age whenfresh air was seen as being central to thesuccessful treatment of tuberculosis, heconcluded that, with only a few exceptions,the ventilation at the schools was“extremely inadequate.” 363He found the school staff and evenphysiciansinclined to question or minimize thedangers of infection from scrofulousor consumptive pupils [scrofula andconsumption were alternate names for types of tuberculosis] and nothing lessthan peremptory instructions as to how to deal with cases of disease existing inthe schools will eliminate this ever-present danger of infection. 364He gave the principals a questionnaire to complete regarding the health conditionof their former students. The responses from fifteen schools revealed that “of a total of1,537 pupils reported upon nearly 25 per cent are dead, of one school with an absolutelyaccurate statement, 69 per cent of ex-pupils are dead, and that everywhere thealmost invariable cause of death given is tuberculosis.” He drew particular attention tothe fate of the thirty-one students who had been discharged from the File Hills school:nine were in good health, and twenty-two were dead. 365The extent of the health crisis was so severe that some people within the federalgovernment and the Protestant churches became convinced that the only solutionwas to close the schools and replace them with day schools. However, the IndianAffairs minister of the day, Frank Oliver, refused to enact the plan without the supportof the churches involved. The plan foundered for lack of Roman Catholic support.During the same period, Bryce recommended that the federal government take overall the schools and turn them into sanatoria under his control. This plan was rejectedbecause it was viewed as being too costly, and it was thought that it would have metwith church opposition. 366