Honouring the Truth Reconciling for the Future

The history • 119Students at the Kitamaat, British Columbia, school. In 1922, parents refused to return their children to school afterthe death of one student. The United Church of Canada Archives, 93.049P1835.school could also hold over 100 students, but by 1922, the year it closed, the schoolhad an enrolment of only forty. 512 The Middlechurch, Manitoba, school was not rebuiltafter it burned down in 1906, in large measure because it could not recruit enoughstudents. 513 For similar reasons, the St. Boniface, Manitoba, school closed in 1905; theCalgary, Alberta, school closed in 1907; the Regina, Saskatchewan, school closed in1910; the Elkhorn, Manitoba, school closed in 1919; and the Red Deer, Alberta, schoolclosed in 1919. 514By refusing to enrol their children in the industrial schools on the Prairies, parentsnot only undermined the federal government’s assimilation policies, but alsodeprived the schools of per capita grant revenue and student labour. As a result, theindustrial schools ran significant deficits, and overworked and underfed the childrenthey did recruit. This led other parents to withdraw their children from the schools.This was never a risk-free choice for parents. Often, residential schools were the onlyavailable schools. Parents who wished to see their children schooled had few, if any,options. 515Sometimes, government officials also took reprisals against parents who kept theirchildren out of school, in some cases denying them food rations and Treaty payments.516 Parents continued to keep their children out of school well into the twentiethcentury: in 1941, only forty-five students were enrolled in the Fort Providence school,which had an authorized attendance of 100. 517