Issue link: https://takingitglobal.uberflip.com/i/1433180
Lesson Three: Niigaan Sinclair 185 At the Elkhorn residential school, there was a shop that printed the local newspaper, a carpentry business and a boot shop that prepared high-end orders from "many well-known people in the West." At Norway House, the principal of the residential school petitioned the Department of Indian Aairs to force students to stay until they were 19 because: "(Older students) are able to carry our heavier tasks and so take the place of help that would have to be hired from the outside. The present financial condition of our schools will not allow the engagement of much outside help on current wages." In some cases, Lindsay and Sapoznik Evans document, child labour provided up to 20 per cent of the funding of a resi- dential school. This constitutes a model that resembles slavery plantations in the southern U.S. and fully meets the criteria of "forced child labour and slavery," as established in 1920s international law. By the 1940s, Canadian ocials recognized residential schools had little to no education and most had become what the final TRC report called "child labour camps." As the report stated: "It is clear from the record that rather than being given training that helped them develop employ- able skills, students spent their half-day doing repetitive chores that helped subsidize school operations." It not only means the residential school system was evidence of openly practised slavery, but Manitoba's economy was built on this servitude. Worst of all, many Canadians knew what was happening. Final proof of this came in 1950, when the federal government mandated residential school students spend full days in the classroom — similar to their Canadian counterparts.