Canada's House of Common's voted to recognize the Residential School System as Genocide today.

The Residential School System was an abusive system designed to destroy the Indigenous peoples of Canada's culture and idendity and to 'Europeanize' them. The schools were run by the the Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches with the overwhelming majority run by the Catholic Church. Indigenous children were forced to attend these schools with most taken from their families by force and at the schools those children endured physical and psycological abuse as well as rape, torture, sexual assault, and murder at the hands of the schools staff. The children were also subjected to horrific experiments conducted by the Government of Canada.

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) maintains a memorial register for students who died at residential schools and that number is now at 4,120 children.

In 1969, after over a century of reports of abuse and rape the Government of Canada took over the running of the Residential Schools and began to close them or turn them over to Indigenous nations to run. In 1996 the last Residential School was closed.

In 2007 Canada negotiated the Residential School Settlement which has seen over $3 billion paid in restitution to the survivors and their families of the Residential School System.

From 2007 to 2015 Canada Held the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission (TRC) to bring healing to the Indigenous Peoples of Canada and to educate the Canadian population who overwhelmingly did not know about the Residential School System as to the horrors perpetrated on the Indigenous peoples by their government. The final report issued in 2015 by the TRC gave a finding of cultural genocide and the government of Canada did not accept that finding.

After bodies have been found in unmarked graves at former Residential Schools in 2021 the Canadian government has pledged $320 million to exhume and repatriate the remains to their nations per their nations wishes.

Finally 7 years later Canada has not only accepted the TRC's finding of cultural genocide but have gone further and declared the Residential School System was genocide as defined by the 1948 Geneva Convention that was adopted by the U.N.

Currently Canada is still negotiating the Day Schoolers settlement which will pay restitution to the survivors of the Residential School System who only attended during the day and did not live at the Residential Schools.

If you are a former residential school survivor in distress, or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419

Additional mental-health support and resources for Indigenous people are available here.