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Timeline of residential schools and reconciliation

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Residential Schools - The Canadian Encyclopedia

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History, politics, arts, science & more: the Canadian Encyclopedia is your reference on Canada. Articles, timelines & resources for teachers, students & public.

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Last week, the Truth and Reconciliation commission began its final hearings in Edmonton. In May of last year Dennis Saddleman spoke at the Commission. The B.C. man performed some of his poetry, something he says has helped him heal.

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'Monster' by poet Dennis Saddleman: 'I hate you residential school, I hate you' | CBC Radio

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Last week, the Truth and Reconciliation commission began its final hearings in Edmonton. In May of last year Dennis Saddleman spoke at the Commission. The B.C. man performed some of his poetry, something he says has helped him heal.

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The Canadian insistence on the collective concerns of peace, order and good government has meant that state projects such as schooling are seen in terms of their overall impact on society.

The Canadian insistence on the collective concerns of peace, order and good government has meant that state projects such as schooling are seen in terms of their overall impact on society. In order to understand the growth of schooling in Canada, special attention must be paid both to official policies and the changing nature of children's lives.

Education in New France

During the French regime in Canada, the process of learning was integrated into everyday life. While the French government supported the responsibility of the Catholic Church for teaching religion, mathematics, history, natural science, and French, the family was the basic unit of social organization and the main context within which almost all learning took place. In the labour-intensive economy of the 17th and 18th centuries, families relied on the economic contributions of their children, who were actively engaged in productive activity. Children learned skills such as gardening, spinning and land clearing from other family members. Young males were trained for various trades through an apprenticeship system.

Schooling in Rural New France

Similarly, because the population was small and dispersed, it was usually the family that provided religious instruction and, in some cases, instruction in reading and writing. In certain areas, parish priests established petites écoles in which they taught catechism and other subjects. However, the majority of the population in New France, particularly in the rural areas, could not read and write. In the early 17th century, about one-quarter of the settlers were literate, but by the turn of the 18th century, the preoccupation of survival had taken its toll on the literacy rate and only one person in seven could sign his or her name.

Schooling in the 17th Century

In the towns of New France, formal education was more important for a variety of purposes. The Jesuits, Récollets, Ursulines, the Congregation of Notre Dame, and other religious orders provided elementary instruction in catechism, reading, writing, and arithmetic. More advanced instruction was available for young men who might become priests or enter the professions. By the mid-17th century, a course in classical studies, grammar and theology was available at the Collège des Jésuites, founded in 1635. In the 1660s Bishop Laval founded the Séminaire de Québec, which later became Université Laval.

Formal instruction for females was quite limited and usually did not extend beyond religious instruction and skills such as needlework. However, girls who lived in the countryside may have been better educated than boys as a result of the efforts of the sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame, who established schools in rural areas as well as in towns, and travelled as itinerant teachers.

Education as Mission

While only a minority of colonists in New France received instruction in an institutional setting, Catholic missionaries played an important role in formal education. The Récollets hoped to undermine the traditional culture and belief systems of the aboriginal people by educating the young boys and girls in the Catholic religion and in French customs. The Jesuits, who also embarked on an ambitious program to assimilate aboriginal people into French culture, compiled translations of the aboriginal tongues and established various schools.

Other groups, such as the Ursulines, focused their educational efforts on aboriginal girls. However, the Catholic Church's missionary efforts met with minimal success and the educational programs had little impact on the society of aboriginal people, in which learning continued to be viewed as an ongoing part of everyday activity ( see Education of Aboriginal People).

Schooling after the British Conquest of 1759-60

During the 18th and early 19th centuries, the family remained the unrivalled setting for education; few children in what was then British North America received formal instruction either from tutors or in schools. The pattern began to change during this period, however, as the British government looked to education as a way of promoting cultural identification with Protestantism, the English language, and British customs.

In the years after the Conquest of 1759-60, the British authorities were exceedingly concerned about the strong French Canadian presence in the colony, and they tried repeatedly to assist in the establishment of schools that were outside the control of religious authorities. These efforts were undermined by the Catholic Church and, more importantly, by the disinterest of local communities, in which education was associated more with households than classrooms.

However, the concept of schooling became more widespread among social leaders during the early 19th century. In these years, politicians, churchmen and educators debated questions of educational financing, control and participation, and by the 1840s the structure of the modern school systems can clearly be discerned in an emerging official consensus.

The establishment of school systems across Canada during the 19th century followed a strikingly similar form and chronology due to the complex and often competing ambitions of both official educators and parents. Within this similarity, however, were some notable differences related to important social, cultural and political distinctions.

The general similarity among school systems in Canada emerged from the ambitions of educational leaders (appropriately described by historians as "school promoters") throughout the mid-19th century, and the willingness of many parents (though certainly not all) to send their children to school whenever material conditions made it possible.

The fact that leading educators were so consistent in their ambitions is not surprising since they not only read each other's writings, but also were often in touch with each other. The leading figure in Ontario, Egerton Ryerson, worked in collaboration with Jean-Baptiste Meilleur in Québec, as well as John Jessop in British Columbia. In turn, these school promoters operated in an international context. For example, Egerton Ryerson visited more than 20 countries during 1844 and 1845 when he was developing his proposals for a public school system.

Leading educators, or school promoters, argued that mass schooling could instill appropriate modes of thought and behaviour into children. In their minds, the purpose of mass schooling did not primarily involve the acquisition of academic knowledge. School systems were designed to solve a wide variety of problems ranging from crime to poverty, and from idleness to vagrancy.

Educators related these potential and actual problems to 3 main causes: the impact of constant and substantial immigration; the transition from agricultural to industrial capitalism; and the process of state formation in which citizens came to exercise political power. While all 3 of these causes played key roles in the minds of school promoters across Canada, the relative importance that each educator attributed to them depended on the regional and cultural context in which the school promoter functioned.

The Mid-19th Century

In mid-19th century Ontario, the predominantly rural population (with only smaller commercial cities) meant that fears about the impact of massive economic change were based on developments elsewhere rather than immediate experience. However, massive immigration and the importance of state formation were very visible at the local level.

During the Rebellions of 1837, rural and village leaders in a variety of communities in central British North America took up arms in pursuit of political change. To many community leaders, the various uprisings supported the argument that school systems were needed to form the rising generation of citizens.

School promoters in Ontario often opposed the employment of teachers or textbooks from the United States. Instead, they imported certain components of Irish schools; most notably, the Irish readers which had been written to accommodate a Protestant and Catholic population. This strategy also made sense in that Irish immigrants formed the majority in mid-19th century Ontario.

In Québec, the Rebellions were even more important than they were in Ontario, and political concerns loomed especially large in the minds of educational leaders. Given the leadership role of the Catholic Church, however, the construction of an educational state lagged behind while secular and religious leaders debated the division of power and responsibility. Québec set up its first Ministry of Public Instruction in 1868, but abolished it in 1875 under pressure from the Catholic Church, which deemed it was alone capable of dispensing education. Thereafter, Québec was the only province without a Minister of Education.

Certainly, immigrants were very visible all along the St Lawrence River extending from the port of Québec City, but many were passing through the province on their way to more western parts of the continent. Similarly, Québec's economy was undergoing significant change, but only in Montréal could educators argue realistically that schools were needed to offset the negative consequences of processes such as industrialization.

Education on the West Coast

On the West Coast, for example, immigration was the primary factor in shaping the mass schooling movement, but it did so in ways quite different from those on the East Coast of the continent.

In the case of British Columbia, the key distinction was the arrival of substantial numbers of Asians, beginning with Chinese men who worked in the mines of the Cariboo and then as labourers for railway building. In the early 20th century, Japanese immigrants became a significant group in the fishing industry and to a lesser extent in other forms of commerce and farming.

In the context of a predominantly British-origin population, significant Asian immigration fuelled fears about the future of British Columbia as a "white province" and about immediate economic competition. Anti-Asian riots and pressure by groups such as the Asiatic Exclusion League resulted by 1923 in legislation to curtail Asian immigration (including a closed door to the Chinese). During the Second World War continued racism led to the uprooting from coastal villages of those considered to be "Japanese," including Canadian-born residents of Japanese ancestry, and their forced relocation to internment camps.

Religion and Minority-Language Education

A great deal of educational conflict and controversy has involved religion and language. The establishment of schools brought local practice under official scrutiny and forced communities to conform to prescribed standards of formal instruction which did not accord with the reality of a diverse society.

For example, religious groups did not always agree on the desirability of nondenominational Christian curricula, and their protests led to the growth of parallel Catholic and Protestant school systems in Québec, the provision for separate schools in provinces such as Ontario, and a completely denominationally based school system in Newfoundland. These developments were legally guaranteed by the Constitution Act, 1867, which not only assigned education to the provinces but also enshrined the continued legitimacy of denominational schools that were in place in the provinces at the time that they joined Confederation.

In the context of higher levels of Asian immigration and rising prejudice, schooling developed somewhat differently on the West Coast than in the rest of Canada. One noteworthy difference was the emergence of a trend for examinations, especially the first standardized "intelligence tests" during the early 20th century. Somewhat more than provinces such as Ontario, and considerably more than Québec, educators in British Columbia seized upon "scientific" testing as an appropriate way to classify students.

The British Columbian leaders focused considerable attention on Asian students and were careful to examine test results in light of each student's ancestry. The consistent finding that Asian-origin students scored very well astounded educational officials and inspired them not only to concoct explanations based on the selective nature of immigration, but also to continue testing in the pursuit of educational "progress" for the British-origin population of the province.

Growing acceptance of public education

Changing parental strategies help explain why children were sent to school in increasing numbers and for longer periods during the course of the 19th century. The development of agrarian, merchant and industrial capitalism heightened perceptions of economic insecurity. Everyone became aware that while great fortunes could be made, they could also be lost just as quickly. The obvious insecurity of even well-paying jobs or successful businesses came to loom increasingly large in the minds of parents planning for their children. One response was to have fewer children and to invest more in their education. By the mid-19th century, many parents across English Canada were practising contraception in an attempt to raise a smaller number of children with a better quality of life. By the time compulsory attendance legislation was passed in the Canadian provinces (except Québec) during the later 19th century, only a minority of parents were not already enrolling their children in class.

Some resistance to schooling did develop, particularly from those reluctant to pay extra taxes, from those who did not approve of the local teacher, and from those who wished to maintain the connection between formal religious instruction and mass schooling. In cities, truant officers rounded up children (particularly from working-class and immigrant backgrounds) and sent them to residential "industrial" schools. However, this resistance was generally focused on the form and cost rather than the need for mass schooling; thus, compromises such as the acceptance of parochial schools (those funded by religious bodies) resolved some of the conflicts. For the most part, the attendance requirements of the compulsory laws were met well before the actual legislation was introduced.

Motivation and patterns of use

Why many parents believed that schooling would improve the prospects of their children was primarily connected to the value attributed to academic training. Unlike the emphasis of school promoters on character formation, the shaping of values, the inculcation of political and social attitudes, and proper behaviour, many parents supported schooling because they wanted their children to learn to read, write and do arithmetic.

Interestingly, the perceived value of this academic training was not necessarily dependent on finishing any particular level. While some parents sent their children to school to obtain credentials, many simply sent them whenever other priorities permitted. For example, the attendance of male teenagers declined in communities where industrial jobs were plentiful.

Similarly, children's attendance varied seasonally, particularly in rural areas, where family labour demands were the first priority. There was no neat transition from school to work at any point in growing up. Rather, many children worked and attended school with changing frequencies during the year and from year to year; and, in most cases, their final departure from school was not strongly related to the acquisition of a diploma.

The French Canadian Exception

However, French Canadians (both in Québec and other provinces) developed a generally weaker attachment to the importance of schooling. Although francophones did begin practising contraception by the mid-19th century, they did so with much less intensity than any other group. In the same way, francophone children increasingly attended school, but to a considerably lesser extent than the average elsewhere. Literacy rates among francophones remained far below the Canadian standard through the early 20th century. Overall, most francophones did not seek to raise a smaller number of children in the same way as most other groups after 1850 and before the mid-20th century.

The distinct family reproduction strategies of francophones was a result of many factors, but one important element was the continuing importance of child labour to familial economic activities. To a somewhat greater degree than other groups, francophones continued to seek material survival and security by combining the labour of family members. This strategy was not only apparent in expanding rural areas (both in Québec and Ontario), but also in wage labour settings in villages and cities. Only in the period following the Second World War would a new relationship between school and society take hold among francophones.

The Quiet Revolution

By the beginning of the 1960s, the Department of Public Instruction in Québec managed over 1,500 school boards, each with its own programs, textbooks and criteria for graduation. In many rural areas, children of different grade levels shared a single one-room schoolhouse. The Liberal government of Jean Lesage saw the need for change and appointed a major commission of inquiry of inquiry on education, which was chaired by Msgr.Alphonse-Marie Parent, at the start of what came to be called the Quiet Revolution. In response to the resulting report's recommendations the Québec government revamped the school system in an attempt to enhance the francophone population's general educational level and to produce a better-qualified labour force. Catholic Church leadership was rejected in favour of government administration and vastly increased budgets were given to school boards across the province.

The major changes to schooling in Québec were at the heart of the Quiet Revolution. Despite the reluctance of Catholic Church authorities, the Québec government portrayed educational progress as a key strategy for becoming "maîtres chez nous" ("masters in our own house"). More academically focused schooling was promoted as a "national" project; this better education would lead to economic and cultural renewal, and Québec francophones would become part of a fully modern society.

In keeping with the aspirations of the Quiet Revolution, the value of schooling for the Québécois was described in two ways. First, leaders emphasized that a legacy of high illiteracy and low attendance rates had to be rejected in order to achieve an appropriate societal level of modernity. Education was promoted as an inherently valuable possession required in contemporary civilization.

Secondly, the revamped school system was designed to produce a modern Québec society by ensuring economic competitiveness. Better skills in mathematics and science were particularly seen as an important strategy for overcoming British-origin oppression dating from the Conquest of 1763. The long-established emphasis on religion and the humanities in the francophone schools was not immediately abandoned, but their importance steadily eroded after the early 1960s.

The most controversial specific strategy was the language legislation of the 1970s, Bill 101, that insisted on French-language schooling for the children of immigrants to the province. This legislation was designed to reverse the traditional pattern in which immigrants integrated more into the anglophone than the francophone population of the province.

The promotion of educational restructuring as a national project in Québec attracted widespread support. Indeed, since the 1960s, officials and parents in Québec have supported higher-quality education with considerable enthusiasm despite massive tax increases to finance the changes.

Parents also began embracing the ambition to raise a smaller number of children in whom greater educational investment could be made. During the course of the 1950s and early 1960s, the birth rate in Québec dropped sharply, moving the provincial average from its traditional place at the highest level in Canada and the United States to a position at the lowest level. Interestingly, both religious and secular leaders in Québec opposed this trend - it threatened to decrease the relative importance of the francophone population. Despite this opposition, parents continued to limit family size to an unprecedented extent as part of their changing strategies of family reproduction.

Changing Approaches to Education Across Canada

The development of public school systems in the 19th century was marked by the standardization of textbooks, teacher training, classroom organization, and curriculum. Children were viewed as clay to be molded in desired forms, but over time a view of children as inherently distinct with varying levels of potential (that is, as seedlings that had to be cultivated according to their individual natures) came to prevail.

The changing view of children contributed to the growth of new educational programs (especially at the secondary level) designed to accommodate the differing abilities and potential of different students. Most importantly, technical and vocational courses were developed for students who were deemed unsuitable for further academic study. Not surprisingly, the criteria used for assigning children to various courses reflected cultural and social prejudices more than intellectual assessments. Measures such as IQ tests, developed by the 1920s, revealed unintentionally more about the school administrators than the students, but they were nevertheless used to place different students in different courses of study after the elementary years.

This approach has been constantly revised during the 20th century, especially after the Second World War, when the expansion of post-secondary institutions provided a new way of sorting different students into different programs. In these years, educational debate focused on the content of the appropriate curriculum for various age groups.

Religion and Language

A great deal of educational conflict and controversy has involved religion and language. The establishment of schools brought local practice under official scrutiny and forced communities to conform to prescribed standards of formal instruction which did not accord with the reality of a diverse society.

For example, religious groups did not always agree on the desirability of nondenominational Christian curricula, and their protests led to the growth of parallel Catholic and Protestant school systems in Québec, the provision for separate schools in provinces such as Ontario, and a completely denominationally based school system in Newfoundland. These developments were legally guaranteed by the Constitution Act, 1867, which not only assigned education to the provinces but also enshrined the continued legitimacy of denominational schools that were in place in the provinces at the time that they joined Confederation.

Culture and Discrimination in Education

Canada's educational history has been marked by constant conflict over minority-language education. Most controversies have involved francophones outside Québec, but recently the language question has affected Québec anglophones as well as heritage language instruction to children of immigrant groups ( see Second-Language Instruction). These conflicts reflect the fact that within the general expansion of standardized public schooling, there have been competing educational visions among policymakers and parents.

Similarly, within the concept of a standard education, there has been a sharp distinction between males and females. The ideal public schoolhouse of the mid-19th century included separate entrances, classrooms and recess areas for boys and for girls. In addition, the redefinition of the family as less of an economic unit of production than an association based on emotional attachment was accompanied by the idea that girls should be educated for household responsibility while boys should be trained as breadwinners.

By the late 19th century, girls attended home economics programs to learn cooking and cleaning skills while boys, especially from working-class families, learned manual skills related to factory production. The idealization of women as wives and mothers, as well as the relative lack of other employment opportunities for women, contributed to the feminization of the elementary-school teaching force.

While the proper sphere for women was considered the home, young single women came to be viewed as ideal teachers for younger children who could benefit from their supposedly inherent nurturing qualities. Women teachers were poorly paid and were supervised by male officials who saw themselves as the real educators. Even in the later 20th century, many of the earlier patterns remained unchanged. The history of education has therefore been quite different for men and women.

Formal education also had different implications for Canadians of non-European ancestry. The ambitions of educators to encourage the assimilation of aboriginal peoples continued unchanged after the time of New France. In the 19th and 20th centuries, boarding schools were a major strategy for separating aboriginal children from their own people, but this approach only served to confuse the children culturally and damage them psychologically. ( see Residential Schools)

Recently, official educators have made efforts to collaborate with aboriginal peoples in developing educational programs that respect cultural identity.

The history of Canadian education also includes the establishment in the 19th century of separate schools for blacks in Ontario and Nova Scotia and special regulations for Asians in BC. Such discrimination is no longer official policy in Canada, but more subtle and informal racism is still apparent in some educational programs and textbooks.

Conclusion

The history of education in Canada, as in other Western countries, has involved the growth of formal instruction funded by taxes and supervised by the state. This growth resulted from concern about cultural, moral and political behaviour, the emergence of a wage-labour economy, changing concepts of childhood and the family, and the general reorganization of society into institutions.

By the late 20th century, schooling had become part of an institutional network which included hospitals, businesses, prisons, and welfare agencies. Various groups experienced this development in different ways, sometimes by official design and sometimes by their own choice. As a result, there are many histories of Canadian education and important distinctions within the general trends.

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The Canadian insistence on the collective concerns of peace, order and good government has meant that state projects such as schooling are seen in terms of their overall impact on society. The Canadian insistence on the collective concerns of peace, order and good government has meant that state projects such as schooling are seen in terms of their overall impact on society.

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WARNING: This story contains details some readers may find distressing.
The discovery of what is believed to be the remains of 215 children at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C., has stunned Canadians and renewed focus on what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called a "dark and shameful chapter of our country's history."

It is also another reminder for Indigenous peoples living in Canada of a painful history they've known about all along.

The Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation said last week that preliminary findings from a ground-penetrating radar survey at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School detected the remains, a confirmation of what the community already understood from oral history.

Since the news broke, CBC readers have reached out with questions about Canada's residential school system and its aftermath. Below are answers to some of your questions.

How many children were forced to attend these schools?

More than 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were forced to attend church-run, government-funded schools between the 1870s and 1997.

Amendments to the Indian Act in 1894 authorized the government to remove an Indigenous child from their family if it was felt they were not being properly cared for or educated and place them in a school. Subsequent amendments to the act in 1920 further reinforced compulsory attendance at the schools.

Children were removed from their families and culture and forced to learn English, embrace Christianity and adopt the customs of the country's white majority.

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation examining residential schools has identified the names of, or information about, more than 4,100 children who died while attending these schools, most due to malnourishment or disease.

Former senator Murray Sinclair, who chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) examining residential schools, has said he believes the death count could be much higher because of the schools' poor burial records.

How many schools were there? Where are they?

The Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) has recognized 139 residential schools across Canada. However, this number excludes schools that operated without federal support, such as those run solely by religious orders or provincial governments.
Click here to see a larger version of the map of residential school locations.

The 139 schools operated in all Canadian provinces and territories except Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador. (There were residential schools in N.L., but they weren't included in the IRSSA.)

In 1931, at the peak of the residential school system, there were about 80 schools operating in the country.

The last one to close, in 1997, was Kivalliq Hall in Rankin Inlet, in what's now Nunavut. (It only became a IRSSA-recognized school in 2019, which is why earlier accounts describe the last school closing in 1996.)

Who is being held accountable?

Many of the children at residential schools were physically, sexually or psychologically abused in a system described by the TRC in its landmark 2015 report as cultural genocide.

In 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered a formal apology in the House of Commons on behalf of the government of Canada over residential schools and the damage they did to Indigenous people.
WATCH | Harper apologizes for residential schools in 2008:

The apology came nine months after the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement took effect. The comprehensive class-action settlement - which involved survivors, the federal government and churches that ran the schools - included the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

It also included financial compensation, which took two forms: a common experience payment for all students who attended the schools, and an independent assessment process to adjudicate claims from students who had suffered abuse at the schools.

More than $3 billion has been paid to 28,000 victims of residential school abuse, according to a report released this past March.

What has the Vatican said or done about this?

The Catholic Church operated roughly 70 per cent of Canada's residential schools, including the Kamloops residential school from 1890 to 1969 before it was taken over by the federal government to serve as a local day school until 1978.

While other churches, like the Anglican and United churches, have formally apologized for their roles in the residential school system, the Catholic Church has so far refused to do the same.

The closest it came was in 2009, when Pope Benedict XVI expressed "sorrow" for some of the "deplorable" conduct of church members. In 2018, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said Pope Francis "felt that he could not personally respond" to the request for an apology for residential schools.

However, many individual Catholic church leaders in Canada have made apologies, both and the discovery in Kamloops.

The Catholic Church has also refused to release many of its residential school documents, which could shed light on unmarked burial sites, citing privacy laws.

Meanwhile, NDP MP Charlie Angus, the party's critic for Indigenous youth, says the church has dodged paying survivors compensation.

As part of the IRSSA, Catholic groups were required to pay tens of millions of dollars - $29 million in cash to the now-defunct Aboriginal Healing Foundation, $25 million in "in-kind" services, and to use their "best efforts" to fundraise $25 million for healing programs. However, a controversial court ruling in 2015 let the groups off the hook after they raised only about $4 million of the $25-million goal.

Is there an inquiry?

The TRC released 94 calls to action in its landmark 2015 report, including a section on missing children and burial grounds.

It called on the federal government to work with churches, Indigenous communities and former students "to establish and maintain an online registry of residential school cemeteries, including, where possible, plot maps showing the location of deceased residential school children."

Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett said Wednesday the government already earmarked some $33 million in its 2019 budget to implement the TRC's burial-related recommendations.

However, little of that money has been spent so far, with $27 million still available. Bennett said the money "will be distributed on an urgent basis" in partnership with the Winnipeg-based National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and Indigenous communities that have site searches planned or underway.

Are other schools being investigated now?

The TRC concluded in its 2015 report that the bodies of the majority of students who died at the schools were not returned to their home communities.

The commission has records of 51 children dying at Kamloops Indian Residential School. In light of the recent discovery, Trudeau has pledged federal support in preserving grave sites and uncovering potentially more unmarked burial grounds at other former residential schools.

However, he and his ministers have stressed the need for Indigenous communities to decide for themselves how they want to proceed.

Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller said Wednesday that Ottawa is "walking at the pace of communities" and is intent on developing culturally appropriate protocols to honour the lost children.

Where are the leaders of these schools now?

The University of British Columbia said this week it is reviewing an honorary degree given to the now-deceased Catholic bishop, John Fergus O'Grady, who served as principal of the former Kamloops residential school.

The discovery in Kamloops has also increased calls across Canada for cities and institutions to rescind honours given to those who were involved in setting up the residential school system.

In P.E.I., a statue of John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister, was removed following a vote by Charlottetown city council.

Toronto's Ryerson University is being urged to change its name and remove a statue of Egerton Ryerson from its campus. The university's school of journalism has already stated it will rename two of its publications.

Meanwhile, Calgary's board of education has passed a motion to rename Langevin School, which is named after Hector-Louis Langevin, one of the Fathers of Confederation who is considered an architect of the residential school system.
Support is available for anyone affected by their experience at residential schools, and those who are triggered by the latest reports. A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support for former students and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419.

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Your questions answered about Canada's residential school system | CBC News

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CBC readers have reached out with questions about Canada's residential school system and its aftermath following the discovery of what is believed to be the remains of an estimated 215 children at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C.

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http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/residential-schools/

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http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/aboriginal_identity__the_classroom/

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This section is excerpted from a discussion paper by Karrmen Crey about Aboriginal identity in the classroom. This paper was initially written for the What I Learned in Class Today project. Although the initial context of this paper was written with a classroom context in mind, we strongly recommend it as foundational reading for understanding the complexities of Aboriginal identity- and the way in which it is constructed, regulated, and perceived- both inside and outside of classroom contexts.

Introduction

Identity is a highly charged subject for Aboriginal people, owing largely to colonial efforts to eradicate Aboriginal identities as a part of the colonial project in Canada. ¹ The social and cultural legacies of this history continue to be experienced very profoundly today and generate deep tensions that often manifest in troubling and unexpected ways in classrooms. This material provides an overview of the historical and social circumstances affecting Aboriginal identity as a starting point to understanding why identity is such a charged issue and why it appears so frequently in troubling classroom situations.

It is critical that an understanding of the historical and social contexts be accompanied by an awareness of how individuals interpret this information and position themselves in relation to it. Both students and instructors, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, are constantly interpreting meaning from this history in relation to their sense of self, but the ways that they do so are often the source of classroom tensions. For non-Aboriginal students, discussions of the issues affecting Aboriginal people are often understood as taking place "in the past" and events are at a great "distance." Aboriginal students, however, may have experienced these events or lived their consequences in their families and social realities and do not necessarily conceptualize their family and community histories in this way. For these students, history is lived every day, and very personally. Perspectives that distance these events or diminish their magnitude are not only inaccurate, but will be perceived as profoundly trivializing and insulting. As a result the classroom discussion can become highly charged, leaving Aboriginal students angry and alienated and non-Aboriginal students anxious, perplexed and defensive.

Another aspect to consider is that tensions do not solely arise between non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal students; these tensions are also often internal to groups. In this section we discuss situations that arise from tensions between Aboriginal students from positions differentiated by gender, skin color, and other factors that affect a person's social identity. Tensions can also arise between non-Aboriginal students in various ways depending on how they position themselves in the classroom. Some students consider themselves "allies," while other students may find themselves personally or socially challenged by the issues, and that can result in resistance to the discussion.

The next section begins with an overview of key historical and social factors affecting Aboriginal identity. For those unfamiliar with this history, we suggest reviewing this material, as it may assist you in developing ways to reframe problematic positions or arguments you may encounter in classrooms. For those familiar with this history, you may want to go directly to the analysis of classroom situations; these analyses will link to historical materials in the rest of the section where relevant.

The Role of the Indian Act

Identity is a highly charged subject for Aboriginal people owing to attempts by colonial nations and societies to undermine and eradicate Aboriginal peoples' cultural and social distinctiveness in order to stabilize colonial authority and settlement in North America. Historically, colonial policy and legislation had the explicit goal of terminating Aboriginal peoples' cultural and social identities in order to assimilate them into colonial society. Colonial governments and institutions operated on the paternalistic and Eurocentric assumption that in order to function in contemporary colonial society, Aboriginal people needed to abandon their own cultures and adopt a settler identity. By undermining Aboriginal peoples' cultural and social relationships to their traditional territories, colonial governments hoped to weaken Aboriginal peoples' resistance to being removed from their land bases in order to accommodate growing settler populations and designed policy and legislation to this end.

In Canada, the is the primary piece of legislation designed to assimilate and dispossess Aboriginal peoples who are recognized under the Act. It administers major aspects of these Aboriginal people's lives, even setting out a legal definition of "Indian" and how this legal identity, called " Indian status," can be conferred and inherited. It is, in effect, a state-constructed racial category that is imposed on those Aboriginal peoples it recognizes in order to make it possible for the state to administer policy and legislation directed at Aboriginal peoples. Under the Indian Act, tracts of lands called " reserves" were set aside for use by Status Indians with the intent of settling land disputes between Aboriginal peoples and settlers and introducing Aboriginal peoples to colonial ways of life based on private property, while at the same time clearing the way for settlers to take up occupancy of newly "available" lands. Assimilation and dispossession of Aboriginal peoples operate simultaneously in the Indian Act, as they do in other colonial agendas, since,

[T]he only way in which Indigenous peoples can be permanently severed from their land base is when they no longer exist as peoples. The ongoing regulation of Indigenous peoples' identities is therefore no relic of a more openly colonial era - it is part of the way in which Canada and the United States continue to actively maintain physical control of the land base they claim, a claim which is still contested by the rightful owners of the land (Lawrence, "Real" Indians and Others, 38).

While Aboriginal peoples and communities have historically challenged this legislation, the Indian Act has created legal and conceptual frameworks for lived and perceived understandings of Aboriginal identity, for both mainstream society and for Aboriginal people.

The Indian Act...is much more than a body of laws that for over a century has controlled every aspect of status Indian life. It provides a conceptual framework that has organized contemporary First Nations life in ways that have been almost entirely naturalized, and that governs ways of thinking about Native identity. To date few individuals appear to have recognized the depth of the problem that the Indian Act represents - its overarching nature as a discourse of classification and regulation, which has produced the subjects it purports to control, and which has therefore indelibly ordered how Native people think of things "Indian."(Lawrence, 25)

This is not to say that traditional understandings of identity have not persisted despite colonial efforts to eradicate them, or that Aboriginal people do not have agency to determine Aboriginal identity. In addition, for those Aboriginal groups not recognized under the Indian Act - historically the Métis and the Inuit - Indian status may not have affected their lived realities and identity construction in the same ways and/or to the extent that it has for groups that live under it. It is important, however, to understand that the Indian Act has produced powerful discourses of Aboriginal identity that have deeply affected Aboriginal people and communities because they have been exercised through Canadian law and have had very real consequences for Aboriginal people's lived realities. Those with Indian status are entitled to have access to resources set aside by the Canadian federal government in "compensation" for removal from traditional territories, including health care, education, and the legal right to reside on reserve lands. This legislation also "set[s] the legal parameters by which Indigenousness can be said to be eliminated":

Once these parameters have been set, policies can be put into place to continuously restrict and diminish membership in Indigenous societies, until the "final conclusion" - the elimination of Indigenous peoples as peoples, according to these parameters - is reached (Lawrence, 16).

As it exists today the Indian Act sets out two categories of Indian status that a person may possess: 6(1), which means "full status," and 6(2), which is "half-status." Those with 6(2) have "half status" because one of their parents does not have status. Those with 6(1) - or full - status can pass on their status to their children. Those with 6(2) - or half - status cannot, unless they have children with another person with 6(2) or 6(1); in effect, two "statuses" make a "full status."

If a person with 6(1) and a non-status person have a child, that child will be 6(2). If that 6(2) person has a child with a non-status person, their child will not have Indian status. This is called the "two-generation cutoff" and removes Indian status from those below the cutoff mark. Indian status is very complex and can be very confusing, but what is key to understand is that Indian status will be "bred out" after two or three generations. As a result, in order to preserve Indian status, those with status would have to have children only with other people with Indian status - in effect, a form of racial engineering.

The logic of Indian status flows from thinking of Indigeneity (or ethnicity more broadly) as something that can be quantifiably measured and expressed in concepts such as "blood quantum." "Blood quantum" in this case refers to the degree of "Nativeness" a person possesses expressed as a percentage. Blood quantum assumes that a person's Indigeneity can be empirically measured and has its history in pseudo-sciences common in the 19 th century that proposed that degrees of "racial mixing" could be measured, for instance, by the color of a person's skin, hair texture, and other physical traits (Lawrence, 40). Indian status is not strictly based on blood quantum but rather on "Victorian notions that judged a person's heritage only by their descent along the male line" (Lawrence, 73). A generational cutoff, however, is related to blood quantum in that the more a person's heritage is mixed, the less likely that they will qualify for Indian status. As a result, Indian status "bleeds off" over generations of intermarriage (Lawrence, 51).

In addition to those who do not qualify for Indian status after the "two generation cutoff," the Indian Act has also historically excluded particular Indigenous groups and individuals, such as the Métis and the Inuit, and so these groups were not entitled to Indian status. ³ Indian status has also been patrilineal until relatively recently, and the ways in which Indian status could be conferred or inherited depended on men's status. Prior to 1985, if a woman with Indian status married a non-status man, she would lose her status and their children would not be entitled to status. Even if she divorced or if her husband died she could not regain her status. On the other hand, if a man with Indian status married a non-status woman, his wife would gain status even if she did not have Aboriginal heritage, and their children would be entitled to Indian status.

The legal termination of Indian status is called "enfranchisement," and affected generations of Aboriginal women and their descendents. There are significant consequences to being enfranchised, among them the loss of the right to live on reserve. Many women were forced to live away from their home reserves and by extension their communities and families. Even if they left their husbands or if their husbands died, they were not necessarily able to return to their communities. Many women were forced into urban areas to find employment and ways to support their families, increasing the representation of Aboriginal people in urban areas.

The gender discrimination of the Indian Act did not go unchallenged. Lobbying and legal action by Aboriginal women, women's organizations and others resulted in the introduction of Bill C31, which proposed to amend the Indian Act to return status to those who lost status as a result of forced enfranchisement. In 1985, Bill C31 was passed and the Indian Act was amended to return status to those who had been enfranchised as well as their children. It also formally separated "Indian status" from "band membership": Indian status remained in the control of the federal government while band membership was given to individual First Nations, making it possible for First Nations to develop band membership rules that "reflect their unique cultures and customs" (Lawrence, 68) and so have some degree of autonomy over the configuration of their communities' identities.

Bill C31 is not without contention, however. While it allowed the Canadian government to resolve the embarrassing problem of gender discrimination in Canadian law in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it also allowed the fundamental project of the Indian Act to remain intact. Bill C31 did not call for redistribution of land and resources from the Canadian government to First Nations; instead, at the same time that it returned status to those entitled to it, Bill C31 also introduced additional legal categories of Aboriginal identity that added further bureaucratic and legal complexity to Indian status. By separating band membership from Indian status, Bill C31 made it possible for a person to have Indian status without being enrolled in a band or vice versa, though a band member without Indian status would not be entitled to access resources set aside for status Indians. And as already discussed, it also introduced new definitions of Indian status called 6(1) and 6(2), which did not change the logic of Indian status but only deferred the "bleeding off" of status by a generation.

First Nations already coping with impoverished or inadequate economic and social infrastructures faced the possibility of having increased membership without resources to support them. In addition, years of coping with difficult living conditions resulting from the Indian Act and mainstream racism in Canadian society have left many First Nations deeply protectionist and wary of "outsiders" including newly enrolled or re-enrolled Aboriginal women and children, despite their rights to have Indian status or their ties to communities; in some cases, these women and their descendants have been referred to as "new Indians" to denote a second tier of legitimacy (Lawrence, 71), further fragmenting Aboriginal identity and Aboriginal communities.

While addressing the legislated sexism of the Indian Act, Bill C31 generated tensions in Aboriginal communities that frequently play out at the expense of Aboriginal women and their descendants. Since Bill C31 is often synonymous with Aboriginal women's rights, these tensions often play out along gender lines. Certainly internalized sexism plays a role in some critiques of Bill C31, particularly those that ultimately uphold Aboriginal women as the target of its exclusionary logic. It is important, however, to understand the material stakes at the basis of many critiques of Bill C31. To read all critiques solely within the framework of internalized sexism obscures the ways more complex critiques challenge the right of the state to define Aboriginal identity and thereby unilaterally set the terms for the relationship between Canada and First Nations.

Why not terminate the Indian Act or Indian status?

Because of the ways that Indian status has deeply affected Aboriginal people's lived realities, it cannot be thought of as an external, legal category that can be easily thrown off. It is deeply experienced and affects how Aboriginal people understand their own identities and those of others. For many people who may not have community connections or may not be physically recognizable as Aboriginal, Indian status is meaningful because, despite the fact that it is state-defined, it does provide proof of Aboriginal ancestry. This same authenticating power can undermine other dimensions of Aboriginal identity, however. Those with Aboriginal heritage who consider themselves to be Aboriginal may not feel that they are "real Indians" because this category is reserved for those with Indian status (Lawrence, 220). In some cases, those without status "encounter suspicions about their Nativeness because they lack Indian status" (221). Indian status is exclusionary by design, and consequently has generated deep stratifications and divisions within Aboriginal communities where identity is frequently configured around who has Indian status and who does not, and for many Aboriginal people deeply affects sense of self.

Indian status has also, over time, emerged as a legal and political identity. Historically, the Canadian government has exclusively recognized status Indians in treaty negotiations, and treaty beneficiaries have typically been status Indians. First Nations, which are usually comprised of status Indians, have been entitled to access monies to bring Aboriginal right and title cases to Canadian courts. The Indian Act and by extension Indian status is "virtually the only concrete indicator of the special relationship that exists between Aboriginal peoples and the Canadian government" (222) and the dominant legal framework through which the terms of this relationship, in specific Aboriginal rights and title, can be articulated and negotiated.

This is the dual nature of the Indian Act. It is both an oppressive piece of legislation imposed by the state, and the dominant legal and political mechanism that recognizes and affirms that Aboriginal peoples are distinct within Canada with distinct rights. The Indian Act was an early sign of Aboriginal peoples' distinct constitutional status that would become enshrined in the Canadian Constitution Act, Section 35. Efforts to dismantle the Indian Act, most notoriously the 1969 " White Paper," have been roundly criticized as the Canadian federal government disavowing its obligations to First Nations and erasing the legal and constitutional standing of a broad range of Aboriginal peoples. ⁴ The White Paper was developed without consultation with or involvement of First Nations, and unilaterally proposed to abolish Indian status without the consent or participation of Aboriginal peoples in the process or by negotiating an alternative that would uphold Aboriginal rights. The outcry from First Nations and Aboriginal peoples across Canada was immediate:

We do not want the Indian Act retained because it is a good piece of legislation. It isn't. It is discriminatory from start to finish. But it is a lever in our hands and an embarrassment to the government, as it should be. No just society and no society with even pretensions to being just can long tolerate such a piece of legislation, but we would rather continue to live in bondage under the inequitable Indian Act than surrender our sacred rights. Any time the government wants to honour its obligations to us we are more than happy to help devise new Indian legislation. ⁵

The White Paper was successfully shelved in the face of massive opposition, but its effects continue to be felt as aspects of the White Paper continue to inform federal policy and legislation towards Aboriginal people and new relationship processes. As a result, struggles for Aboriginal rights tend to be oriented around protection of Indian status and acquiring Indian status, or its legal and political equivalent.

Community and Aboriginal Identity

Indian status and understandings of Aboriginal identity are also complexly associated with community and connections to place. Tribally specific relationships to the land are at the core of tribal identity, and as previously discussed, the success of colonial agendas hinged on severing these relationships and by extension eradicating traditional understandings of identity. Displacing Aboriginal peoples to reserves was central to this process. This is not to say that reserves are not communities, or that traditional perspectives of the relationship to land have not persisted despite extreme measures taken by colonial governments and societies to erase them. Communities located on reserves are important to maintaining family structures and cultural practices and for those that come from these communities, these relations are at the core of their identities. For many Aboriginal people, however, the loss of Indian status from intermarriage and forced enfranchisement has meant that they do not come from a reserve or other Aboriginal community and so cannot claim these community relations as a way of understanding their identities. For these individuals, authenticating discourses of Aboriginal identity tied to rural communities or reserves obscure their positions and perspectives.

"Looking Aboriginal": Race and Aboriginal Identity

The social realities of skin colour in the day-to-day experiences of Aboriginal people also significantly inform Aboriginal identity. In mainstream society, if someone claims Aboriginal identity there is an expectation of what Aboriginal people look like, typically associated with dark skin colour. Light-skinned people of Aboriginal heritage, particularly those who do not have status or community connections, often struggle to have their identities recognized or validated as being "authentic" or "real," not only by mainstream society but by other Aboriginal people. Dark-skinned Aboriginal people have no choice but to be visible in mainstream society where their skin colour and heritage are continually made aware to them in such stark and damaging ways that any other lived reality of being Aboriginal, particularly being light-skinned, is "almost inherently contradictory" (Lawrence, 173), making it difficult to acknowledge the positions of light-skinned Aboriginal people. In mainstream society, where "power and privilege are organized along lines of skin colour" (Lawrence, 175), light-skinned Aboriginal people do not have to experience the daily burden of racism that goes along with having darker skin. This is not to say that they do not experience discrimination in their lives or that they cannot speak to a certain Aboriginal reality, but color functions socially in a person's experience of discrimination, and for dark-skinned people it is often felt acutely and deeply. The ways in which Aboriginal identity is experienced because of skin colour is the source of many tensions in discussions of Aboriginal issues, not only between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, but between Aboriginal people as well.

The relationship between assimilation and Western education

Western education in North America has historically functioned as a mechanism of colonial assimilationist policies. Educational institutions, in particular residential schools and boarding schools, were established with the primary purpose of stripping off Aboriginal peoples' social and cultural distinctiveness in order to facilitate assimilation into the colonial mainstream. Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their homes and communities and made to live the majority of the year in these schools where they were made to adhere to Western social and educational systems. This involved, among other things, forbidding children from speaking their own languages and associating with children of the opposite sex, and alienating students from their cultural practices, families and communities. Physical, psychological, sexual, and emotional abuse was common in these institutions. In addition to the individual impact on children attending these institutions, the residential school system has caused profound ruptures in Aboriginal families and communities and has significantly affected the communication and continuity of Aboriginal cultural and social values and practices for generations. For more about this, see our section on the residential school system.

Educational systems and institutions in Canada and North America have only very recently begun to account for their role in destabilizing and undermining Aboriginal identities and de-legitimizing Aboriginal perspectives and histories. While many Aboriginal people today have not attended residential or boarding schools, their impact continues to be experienced across generations in a trickle down effect, in particular because we are only now developing an understanding of the extent to which Aboriginal people, families, and communities have been affected by these institutions. Educational institutions continue to represent a threat to Aboriginal communities and cultures, leaving many Aboriginal people feeling deeply ambivalent about them and the history they represent.
Aboriginal students have experienced silencing in education in their lives, through the physical, psychological, and cultural mechanisms used in residential and boarding schools and their intergenerational effects, or because they have not been adequately represented in educational curriculum and educational systems. Only very recently has the curriculum at all educational levels begun to address Aboriginal peoples and histories. However, educators at all levels have not been trained in negotiating the ways in which such historical and contemporary exclusionary and racist policies impact the incorporation of Aboriginal content amongst Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students, which leads us to our next section.

Identity and the classroom

The specificity of the historical and legal circumstances affecting Aboriginal identity means that it is insufficient to discuss or attempt to resolve them solely in terms of racial or ethnic diversity. This is not to say that racism does not play a role in difficult discussions of Aboriginal issues in classrooms; racist assumptions about and reactivity towards Aboriginal people are very much active in contemporary Canadian society and are frequently the basis for problematic classroom situations. However, an understanding of these historical and legal circumstances assists to explain why identity is a critical issue in classroom discussions of Aboriginal content and why it has such a profound impact when it does happen. Meaningful and relevant approaches to addressing these situations will flow from understandings of the issues and of the ways that students and others interpret and position themselves in relation to them.
This document is an excerpt of Karrmen Crey's discussion paper on Social Identity & the Classroom, a document intended to enhance instructor understandings of the challenges faced by Aboriginal students, and how we might effectively navigate these situations. In the full version of this document, Crey explains the importance of understanding the historical context of why Aboriginal students may face particular challenges. To read this paper in full, please visit the What I Learned in Class Today website at: www.issuesintheclass.com

By Karrmen Crey.

Works cited & recommended readings

Books & Articles
Lawrence, Bonita. Real Indians and Others: Mixed-blood Urban Native Peoples and Indigenous Nationhood. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004.

Garroutte, Eva Marie. "Real" Indians: Identity and the Survival of Native America. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003.

Razack, Sherene. Looking White People in the Eye: Gender, Race and Culture in Courtrooms and Classrooms. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998.

Retzlaff, Steffi. "What's in a Name? The Politics of Labelling and Native Identity Constructions." The Canadian Journal of Native Studies XXV, 2 (2005): 609-626.
Films
Club Native. Directed by Tracey Deer. Rezolution Pictures Inc/National Film Board of Canada, 2008.

Endnotes

¹ Canadian policy and legislation towards Aboriginal people has historically been designed to eradicate Aboriginal social and cultural difference, in particular through the Indian Act and the residential school system; for further discussion see Bonita Lawrence, " Real" Indians and Others: Mixed-Blood Urban Native Peoples and Indigenous Nationhood, Vancouver/Toronto: UBC Press, 2004: pp. 105-119, and our sections on the Indian Act and the residential school system.

² Tracey Deer's film Club Native (Rezolution Pictures Inc/National Film Board of Canada, 2008) visually illustrates this process and is a useful resource for those interested in examining these dimensions of Indian status in more detail.

³ For further discussion of Indian status and Métis identity, see Bonita Lawrence, "Real" Indians and Others, 82-101.

⁴ The specific parameters of Indian status may be different in individual Aboriginal communities, since Indian status is often attached to treaties and individual treaties vary across Canada. While these differences are too complex to note here, it is more important to understand that the definition of Indian status is not uniform for Aboriginal people in Canada but historically determined and often contingent on individual Aboriginal groups' relationship with the Canadian state.

⁵ Cardinal, Harold. The Unjust Society. 2nd ed. Vancouver: Douglas & MacIntyre, 1999. 140.

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This section is excerpted from a discussion paper by Karrmen Crey about Aboriginal identity in the classroom. This paper was initially written for the What I Learned in Class Today project.

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http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/christianity/

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​Christianity is a major world religion, and the religion of some 80 per cent of Canadians. Believers hold that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus in the first century AD, as presented in the Bible and in the Christian tradition, are central to their understanding of who they are and how they should live.

Christianity is a major world religion, and the religion of some 80 per cent of Canadians. Believers hold that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus in the first century AD, as presented in the Bible and in the Christian tradition, are central to their understanding of who they are and how they should live. As the Messiah, or the Christ (Greek christos, "the anointed one," or "the one chosen by God"), Jesus was to restore God's creation to the condition intended by its creator..

Jesus' first followers included some fishermen, a rich woman, a tax collector and a rabbinical student - a diverse group of enthusiasts who scandalized their fellow Jews and puzzled their Greek neighbours. They claimed that Jesus had accomplished his redemptive mission by submitting himself to execution as a state criminal and later rising from the dead. They argued that he was thus revealed to be both human and divine, and they invited all, not just Jews, to join them in living as members of the Church (Greek kuriakon, "that which belongs to the Lord").

Influence in Secular and Spiritual Worlds

Christianity gradually became interwoven with the histories of numerous nations, especially in Europe, and developed its own history, gaining and losing influence in both secular and spiritual worlds and surviving serious schisms within. Today the major divisions of Christianity, all well represented in Canada, are Roman Catholicism (12.7 million adherents as of 2011), the Orthodox tradition (550,700 adherents) and the United Church (two million adherents). They have similar calendars of the church year, and all celebrate Christmas and Easter as the major feasts.

Sacraments (religious acts regarded as outward signs of spiritual grace) are practised by most groups, although most Protestants view only baptism and communion (Eucharist) as sacramental, whereas the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches include as sacraments baptism, confirmation (chrismation), Eucharist, penance, extreme unction, holy orders (ordination) and matrimony.

Religion is a response to ultimate questions, and it makes ultimate demands. What Christian in Canada can be said to be truly religious? Many Canadians are serious Christians, but although there is certainly a plurality of religious standpoints in modern Canada, there is no general acceptance of pluralism, even within the Christian community itself.

All Christians look to the Bible, but Christians live different lives in the light of the Gospel, and Canadian Christians are far from a consensus that all ways are legitimate and worthy. Nor do all Canadian Christians commit themselves to the same degree.

Until the mid-20th century, public rhetoric and fundamental laws took it for granted that Canada was a Christian country, but since the 1950s there has been a significant shift away from Christian language in public life to more general affirmations that Canada is a country that recognizes "the supremacy of God," as the Constitution Act 1982 puts it. Buddhists and other nontheists chafe at even this mild declaration. But such vague public theism may wither away by the end of the 20th century.

History in Canada

Ville-Marie [Montréal], named in honour of Mary, the mother of Jesus, was founded in 1642 as a mission station by Roman Catholics caught up in the great 17th-century religious revival in France. The island on which the mission stood had been named Montréal for the Italian home of a cardinal who helped sponsor Cartier's explorations of 1535. (The origin of the name was later ascribed to "Mont Réal" - mountain of the king - in honour of the king of France.)

Although one should not romanticize such beginnings, it is true that many early settlers of New France were motivated in part by religious concerns. Marie de L'incarnation, the Ursuline nun who was a source of civil and spiritual strength to Québec 1639- 72, understood herself as a founder of a "New Church" rather than of a "New France." Later in the 17th century the colony passed effectively into the hands of the king, officially "His Most Christian Majesty." In practice, royal direction proved less Christian than secular.

18th Century

During the 18th century, both French and British governments took for granted the European tradition that political stability depends in part on the people's allegiance to one church, carefully established as an arm of the royal government. European kings were known as "vicars of Christ" long before the pope assumed that title, and many colonial administrators saw their own role in a religious light. But the notion of an "established church" was difficult to realize in Canada.

In the first place, the established churches themselves, Roman Catholic and then Church of England ( see Anglicanism), lacked the financial and human resources to bind together a scattered pioneer society. Secondly, Catholic and Anglican bishops often had agendas differing from those of the politicians. Thirdly, people often turned for inspiration to religious leaders such as the mystical revivalist Henry Alline, who shunned political involvement. Fourthly, from the common people's personal experience came religious responses and convictions only incidentally related to the rubrics laid down by church leaders; e.g., the Acadians' "white mass" (mass without a priest), the curiously pagan healing practices of Scottish Highland settlers, and the home devotions and supernatural tales of French Canadian peasants.

Finally, the consolidation of Canada under the British Crown, effected by the Treaty of Paris in 1763, created a political entity comprising a highly diverse collection of Christians. To the existing Catholic population of Lower Canada [Québec] were added English-speaking immigrants of all kinds: sundry Protestant dissenters from England, northern Europe and the US; Catholics and Protestants from Ireland; Catholics and Presbyterians from Scotland. Clergy trained in the home country often accompanied the immigrants and, like the priests of Lower Canada, fought to hang on to their flocks and their distinctive traditions.

Early 19th Century

During the early 19th century, independent religious revivals in Lower Canada, the Maritimes and Upper Canada [Ontario] greatly strengthened the hands of those churches that opposed the feeble efforts of the Anglican establishment to reproduce in Canada the hegemony it had enjoyed in Britain.

Mid-19th Century

By the middle of the 19th century, public Christianity was taking shape. Universities, founded by particular churches in order to train indigenous clergy, received public support and began to admit students from all religious backgrounds, even while retaining their peculiar denominational leanings. There developed public school systems officially committed to producing "Christian citizens"; outside Québec they were Protestant for all practical purposes, and English-speaking Catholics struggled to support private schools with little help from government ( see Separate Schools).

There arose a public rhetoric that was often biblical (e.g., Canada was called a "Dominion" because the term is found in Psalm 72:8) and laws pertaining to personal morality reflected popular Christian standards. The public calendar was marked by Christian holidays, particularly Christmas and Easter, and Sunday was traditionally a day of rest.

Within Québec the Catholic majority and Protestant minority came gradually to a workable living arrangement, perhaps because Catholic numbers were balanced by Protestant economic power. Elsewhere, mainstream Protestants such as Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists and Congregationalists came to an accommodation but frequently had acrimonious disputes with the Catholic minority.

George-Étienne Cartier's dream of a Canada stretching from sea to sea with provinces evenly balanced between Protestant and Catholic, as Upper and Lower Canada had been, foundered in the wave of westward migration from Protestant Ontario and the sad results of the Riel resistances. French Canadian society adopted a defensively nationalist outlook ( see French Canadian Nationalism), turning inward to consolidate a Catholic homeland while leaving the rest of Canada to more Protestant imaginings.

By mid-19th century both Protestant and Catholic leaders began to realize that they faced a common adversary: cities were beginning to attract more and more Canadians. Small-town parish and congregational organization failed to sink roots in the modern city with its cosmopolitan morality, its anonymity, separation of home and workplace, specialization of tasks and complex economy.

In response all the churches began to stress the importance of a well-trained, professional clergy and to develop special programs for children - in Québec the clergy gradually replaced lay people teaching in the schools, and elsewhere the Sunday School movement took hold. The local congregation or parish remained the fundamental unit of organization, but church newspapers and lay organizations based on particular occupational groups or age ranges went beyond the parish.

The YMCA, for example, transcended traditional Protestant church boundaries, and the St-Jean-Baptiste Society transcended traditional Catholic diocesan boundaries. Church buildings became imposing, permanent and expensive structures, funded largely by prosperous church members ( see Religious building). Working-class Canadians then came to be seen as the object of missionary activity, which was sometimes directed through downtown missions.

Urban Threat to Traditional Christian Ways

The urban threat to traditional Christian ways brought Protestant and Catholic leaders together in support of the Lord's Day Act of 1906 (proclaimed 1907; see Lord's Day Alliance of Canada). Respect for Sunday, the "Lord's Day," was hallowed by custom in rural society, but in urban society it could only be maintained by law.

Many of the furthest-reaching modifications to the Act, permitting more amusement and labour on Sunday, occurred during the two world wars. The changes were justified as necessary to the success of war efforts "to defend Christian civilization." Some responses to urbanization were even more defensive.

For example, the Catholic Church encouraged its people to shun the "Protestant" cities and Protestant New England in order to transform the wilderness of northern Québec into a Catholic, rural civilization. This "colonization movement" was more successful in novels such as Jean Rivard and Maria Chapdelaine than it was in practice.

But there were often positive and unexpected results from such defensive responses - e.g., the efforts of many Christian temperance organizations, Protestant and Catholic, which culminated in Canada-wide prohibition during the First World War. After the war the legislation withered away, but meanwhile the Protestants of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union formed the core of a movement that finally won the vote for women in 1918 ( see women's suffrage).

Protestants often began in the Temperance Movement, then moved on to broader concerns, ultimately forming part of the Social Gospel movement which spawned Protestant social activists ranging from those who stayed firmly within church structures, e.g., Nellie McClung and novelist C.W. Gordon, to others, such as J. S. Woodsworth and T.C. Douglas, who found the left-wing Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation less inhibiting.

Catholic social activists were more likely than their Protestant counterparts to stay within church-affiliated groups, such as the various Catholic Action organizations and the Antigonish Movement.

Mid-20th Century

By mid-20th century Québec was so highly clericalized that nearly half its Catholic priests were engaged in full-time work outside the traditional parish: teaching, guiding Catholic labour unions ( see Confederation of National Trade Unions) and administering social services, etc. Catholic lay people had a great respect for the clergy but they were not puppets of the priesthood, as many Protestants thought.

The vitality of anticlerical jokes and songs, and the largely spontaneous generation of popular devotions such as a pilgrimage to Brother André's shrine, demonstrated considerable independence from the hierarchy. The lay elites that formed in the worlds of politics and journalism included Henri Bourassa, Maurice Duplessis and André Laurendeau - Catholics who could scarcely be described as "priest-ridden."

The Christian communities of the early 20th century suffered many tensions. Among English-speaking Protestants, the disputes that arose over the value of the Bible as history and over church involvement in social action sometimes created new institutional divisions (e.g., the Baptist schisms of the 1920s and the student divisions of the 1930s leading to the Student Christian Movement and Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship) and sometimes encouraged solutions that buried the disputes, unresolved, in silence. The Catholic consensus was rarely disturbed, but when it was, the results were briefly spectacular (e.g., in the ostracism of Jean-Charles Harvey).

Most Protestant tensions were obscured by a series of movements toward union, starting in the mid-19th century and climaxing in the 1925 foundation of the United Church of Canada. Jesus' call to unity (e.g., in John 17:21), together with the practical advantages gained by pooling scarce resources in a vast land and together with the Canadian tradition that the churches have a public role, have made this trend toward unity a characteristic of Canadian church history.

It is remarkable that, although Canada's population is based on immigration from many different lands and cultures, almost two-thirds of its citizens claim to belong to three churches: Roman Catholic, United and Anglican. Nevertheless, diversity has thrived, largely as a result of the influx of numerous cultural groups and of ideas from outside Canada. Ukrainians, Romanians and others have brought various Orthodox Church traditions with them. Mennonites and others with Anabaptist roots immigrated, as did Lutherans, chiefly from Europe; Mormons came from the US.

Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists are well established, and Holiness Churches, such as the Salvation Army, have a long history in this country. Transdenominational movements are active as well: in the early 20th century, Pentecostal Movements crossed Protestant denominational boundaries, and more recently Charismatic Renewal has attracted both Protestants and Catholics. The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), though considered a denomination, is committed to the ultimate unity of all Christians across denominational lines.

Post Second World War

In the wake of the Second World War, church leaders were confident in the strength of the churches: attendance at weekly services was high, and the resources that once went into war could now be devoted to building the peace. But in the 1960s, church attendance and vocations to the ordained ministry fell off sharply, most dramatically in Québec, but elsewhere as well.

The 1970s

In the 1970s it became apparent that conservative Evangelical and Fundamentalist Churches, whose membership made up only a tiny slice of the population as a whole, were attracting as many Sunday worshippers as all the mainstream Protestant giants combined. The reason may lie in the nature of modern society in which, generally speaking, public life is secularized and religious life has become private.

Secularization

To secularize is to treat something as belonging to the world, rather than to God, and to judge the worth of things according to their usefulness in human activity. For example, the Lord's Day Act is regarded as valuable because it gives workers a weekly rest and therefore increases productivity, not because it honours God; religious education is good because it produces well-behaved citizens, not because it cultivates a person's love of God.

Christians have frequently adopted purely secular values in the course of defending public Christianity. Virtually every contemporary Canadian author who writes about the awe and wonder experienced in human life has only scorn for modern churches - an indication, perhaps, that few Canadians expect to find that which is "holy" in the churches.

People have come to think of themselves as "real" or "themselves" only in private. Elsewhere they take on roles dictated by the institution that sustains them: e.g., the same person will behave in markedly different ways in school, at work, at a political rally or in a sports arena. Only in the privacy of the home does the individual think that the real self emerges. Within this private segment of modern life religion has become lodged.

The movement of religion into the individual's private life helps to explain why religion in Canadian public life has gradually become secular or has simply eroded, why church attendance is seen to be less and less important, and why private religious practices (e.g., watching evangelical TV programs, reading religious paperbacks or magazines) are more widespread than ever in Canadian life.

The few public issues seen to be clearly religious are closely tied to this private world of home and family: abortion, the use of alcoholic beverages, obscenity, marriage and divorce, sex education, etc. People who tell the census taker that they are "Christian" generally want to be married and buried in a church setting, but they often feel no urgent need to take a larger part in the life of the institution with its tradition of public responsibility.

Changing Contours

Nevertheless, Christianity remains, its contours constantly changing. The Bible is still the basic reference point for all Christians, though they often differ widely as to how it is to be understood. International Christianity continues to influence what happens in Canada: leaders of the World Council of Churches and the pope have visited Canada, and Canadians follow their doings through the secular media; most religious broadcasting in Canada originates in the US; candidates for the ministry often journey abroad for their theological education.

At the same time, Canadian scholars such as Northrop Frye, Bernard Lonergan and Wilfred Cantwell Smith are familiar in Christian circles around the world.

The local parish or congregation continues as the basic unit of Christian organization in modern Canada, but the variety of views within congregations is often as significant as the divisions between the denominations to which the congregations belong.

The more liberal Christians often find support in the activities of their denominational leaders, particularly those working in central offices, and tend to view the conservatives as too private; the more conservative Christians tend to view the liberals as too secular. Between these groups lies the broad "middle" of church membership, perhaps less intensely involved in the churches' institutional life, but providing stability at the centre.

Co-operation among the churches is channelled through several Canada-wide coalitions devoted to Ecumenical Social Action, but members of local congregations often feel alienated from these coalitions with their relatively progressive stances. In addition, public prayer meetings frequently bring Christians together during urban crusades led by travelling Evangelists, or on special occasions such as Good Friday and Remembrance Day when ceremonies are held with local clerical leadership.

The Eucharist (Communion or Lord's Supper, the ritual sharing of bread and wine that commemorates Jesus' crucifixion) is seldom celebrated at such interdenominational gatherings, since the particular ways of celebrating that central and nearly universal rite remain closely linked with denominational identity. But modern Christians in Canada are much more likely than their ancestors were to take part in another denomination's Eucharist, drawn by friendship or marriage to members of that congregation, and there are few clergy who would deny them access.

Furthermore, these Christians are now much more likely to be favourably aware of the doctrines and practices of Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism or the Baha'i Faith, and possibly even of new religious movements, as practised by other Canadians.

Private Nature of Religious Life

To the extent that Canadian Christians have accepted the secularization of public life and the increasingly private nature of religious life, they have made a working accommodation to the peculiar nature of modern society. But the accommodation is inconsistent with a tradition whose favourite prayer says, "Thy kingdom come," and takes for granted that a kingdom is no merely private matter. It is also inconsistent with the fundamental nature of religion itself, which aspires to knit everything together into one ultimately meaningful pattern, and which demands that things be holy as well as useful.

Therefore it seems likely that Christianity will persist as a useful thing proper to the private lives of many Canadians, but challenged from time to time to be open to that which is holy and to be active in that which is public.

See also Bible schools; Canadian Council of Churches; Evangelical Fellowship of Canada; Christian Religious Communities; Canadian Bible Society; Calvinism; Millenarianism; Pacifism.

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​Christianity is a major world religion, and the religion of some 80 per cent of Canadians. Believers hold that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus in the first century AD, as presented in the Bible and in the Christian tradition, are central to their understanding of who they are and how they should live.