Honouring the Truth Reconciling for the Future

62 • Truth & Reconciliation CommissionIn justifying the investment in industrial schools to Parliament in 1883, PublicWorks Minister Hector Langevin argued thatif you wish to educate these children you must separate them from their parentsduring the time that they are being educated. If you leave them in the familythey may know how to read and write, but they still remain savages, whereas byseparating them in the way proposed, they acquire the habits and tastes—it is tobe hoped only the good tastes—of civilized people. 116The federal government entered into residential schooling at a time when it wascolonizing Aboriginal lands in western Canada. It recognized that, through theTreaties, it had made commitments to provide Aboriginal people with relief in periodsof economic distress. It also feared that as traditional Aboriginal economic pursuitswere marginalized or eliminated by settlers, the government might be called uponto provide increased relief. In this context, the federal government chose to investin residential schooling for a number of reasons. First, it would provide Aboriginalpeople with skills that would allow them to participate in the coming market-basedeconomy. Second, it would further their political assimilation. It was hoped that studentswho were educated in residential schools would give up their status and notreturn to their reserve communities and families. Third, the schools were seen asengines of cultural and spiritual change: ‘savages’ were to emerge as Christian ‘whitemen.’ There was also a national security element to the schools. Indian Affairs officialAndsell Macrae observed that “it is unlikely that any Tribe or Tribes would givetrouble of a serious nature to the Government whose members had children completelyunder Government control.” 117 Duncan Campbell Scott succinctly summarizedIndian Affairs’ goals for the schools in 1909: “It includes not only a scholasticeducation, but instruction in the means of gaining a livelihood from the soil or as amember of an industrial or mercantile community, and the substitution of Christianideals of conduct and morals for aboriginal concepts of both.” 118 The achievement ofsuch invasive and ambitious goals would require a substantial level of funding. Thiswas never forthcoming.Funding: The dream of self-supporting schoolsIn announcing the construction of the three initial industrial schools, IndianCommissioner Edgar Dewdney said that although the starting costs would be high,he could see no reason why the schools would not be largely self-supporting in a fewyears, due to the skills in farming, raising stock, and trades that were being taughtto the students. 119 In supporting an Anglican proposal for two industrial schools inManitoba, Indian Affairs Deputy Minister Lawrence Vankoughnet wrote to PrimeMinister Macdonald that it would be “well to give a Grant of money annually to each