Canada must admit aboriginal maltreatment to start anew: Editorial
A snapshot from the 1960s of aboriginal children at St. Anne's residential school in northern Ontario. It was revealed this week that federal scientists used starving aboriginals in residential schools and on reserves to study nutritional supplements.Explore This Story
From residential schools to forced
relocations, Canada’s record on institutional abuses of its aboriginal people
is well documented. Despite this, the discovery of papers proving that federal
researchers denied nutrition or deliberately starved aboriginal children in the
1940s and ‘50s is both shocking and tragic.
What a terrible burden for the 1,300
(or more) children who were deprived of sustenance and even dental care in
secret experiments, all of which came to light in research uncovered by Ian Mosby, a post-doctoral
fellow at the University of Guelph. It’s a powerful discovery.
These “nutritional experiments”
began in 1942 in northern Manitoba and within five years were being conducted
on kids in at least six residential schools across the country. As the Canadian
Press first reported, native children were used as nutritional guinea pigs
after researchers found widespread malnutrition on reserves as the result of
the dying fur trade.
Crucially, the experiments were done
without obtaining consent from those affected. According to Murray Sinclair,
chairman of the Truth and Reconcilation Commission looking into residential
school abuses, even at the time that violated accepted scientific standards.
That mindset seems inconceivable
today, although rampant discrimination against aboriginal people, especially
the numerous cases of missing women, has been widely exposed in recent years.
And while no one can rewrite
history, the Assembly of First Nations is right to ask the federal government
to “acknowledge” this most recent example of abuse — and admit that many
children are still hungry today, if only because their communities are so
depleted. It’s a symbolic request, but as the assembly said on
Thursday, “Canada, this is your history. We must confront the ugly truths and
move forward together.”
Making progress requires leadership from Prime
Minister Stephen Harper, who should speak out against disturbing government
practises after World War II. Once commended for his full apology over Canada’s
mistreatment 150,000 native children who were sent to residential schools,
Harper isnow seen as indifferent to requests for aboriginal self-determination
