RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS— 14 MÉTIS EXPERIENCE RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS—MÉTIS EXPERIENCE Planning your FIRST STEPS learning journey The first church-run mission schools established How were the Métis people in western Canada beginning in the 1860s were open to First Nations and Métis children. As a in Alberta impacted by the result, many Métis students in the communities of Fort Chipewyan, St Albert and Lesser Slave Indian residential school Lake did attend school. In 1879 the Government of Canada, as part of its strategy of First Nations system? assimilation into the Euro-Canadian culture, entered into a partnership with the Christian churches to establish government-funded, church-run residential schools for Indigenous children. While the federal government acknowledged its responsibility for educating First Nations children, its overall policy was that the provinces were responsible for Métis children. Local public schools often refused to admit Métis children, and most of the Métis communities did not have enough funds to build their own schools.1 In very few cases, schools were established for Métis children. The town of St Paul originated as a Métis farming settlement (St Paul des Métis), and a school was established in 1903. The school was, however, unpopular with the community and was burned down in 1905.2 In some instances, Métis children were DECHÂTELETS ARCHIVES, OBLATES OF MARY IMMACULATE COLLECTION admitted to federally funded schools as acts of Saint-Paul-des-Métis School. charity or if the parents were willing to pay.3 Many Métis parents who wished to see their children educated in schools had no option but to try to have them accepted into a residential school. the federal government had started to Alberta government paid for Métis MÉTIS STUDENT dismiss Métis students from residential children to attend the residential schools, while the provinces, for cost school in Grouard until 1958, when ATTENDANCE reasons, were reluctant to ensure that a government inspector reported AT RESIDENTIAL they were admitted to public schools.7 disturbing conditions at the school.15 How many Métis children SCHOOLS What factors impacted Métis attended residential schools? The federal government’s school attendance? position on accepting While the majority of students Métis students was caught Federal government funding for residential schools was calculated on attending residential schools were between their unwillingness First Nations, many Métis were part to pay for the education a per student basis. To control costs, the federal government often sought of the residential school system. Due and its fear that if Métis to incomplete records, inconsistent children were not taken into residential to limit admittance to First Nations students. For their part, the churches regulations and inaccurate status schools, they would not be assimilated accounts, it is impossible to know into the dominant culture. In 1899 that administered the schools sought to admit both First Nations and Métis how many Métis children attended Indian Affairs minister Clifford Sifton residential schools.16 In some cases, ruled that Métis children should students. In some cases, Métis children from schools with adequate enrolment Métis children were not officially be admitted to government funded placed on the register and therefore not residential schools, because without would be relocated to schools that 17 8 reported to the federal government. formal schooling they would grow up needed more students. 4 Indian and Northern Affairs Canada an “uneducated and barbarous class.” Residential schooling also led to estimated that out of about 105,000 However, this policy was inconsistently situations in which Métis peoples former residential school students alive applied; admission to residential schools were pressured to identify themselves in 1991, 9 per cent were Métis. was erratic and often depended on the as First Nations. For example, when local situation, church involved, local The Truth and Reconciliation Treaty 8 was entered into, Roman government officials and enforcement of Commission of Canada found that Catholic priests encouraged Métis admission regulations.5 Métis students did attend almost every to declare themselves as Indians residential school at some point, and For most of the residential school history, so that their children could be sent based on the evidence of the students Métis were not recognized as Indians to residential schools, allowing the who attended residential schools, it by the federal government and were churches to collect funding.9 is clear that the education of Métis often discouraged from attending the In 1937, the federal government people experienced in the residential federally funded schools, especially if announced that it would no longer school system paralleled that of First they were seen as “Christianized” and be providing any funding for Métis Nations and Inuit students.18 Regardless “civilized enough.” Other times, federal children attending residential schools.10 of the exact number of children in officials called for the inclusion of Métis attendance, Métis people share in the children and regarded them as part of By the 1940s the federal government Indigenous collective trauma resulting the “dangerous class,” leading an “Indian owned most residential schools. There from government policies of forced way of life” and in need of assimilation.6 were, however, a number of church- assimilation through residential Some First Nations who refused to owned schools that had a greater schools. enter Treaty were labelled Métis by degree of control over admissions. In the government. Other people chose to Alberta, six church-owned schools enfranchise so they wouldn't have to did not need government approval to 11 MÉTIS STUDENT send their child to residential school. admit students. Catholic run schools in Alberta consistently reported EXPERIENCES IN From the early 1920s until the 1940s, a high number of Métis children Métis parents faced numerous barriers enrolled, including the Grey Nuns RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS if they wanted to provide their children run institutions in St Albert and The experiences of Métis children with a formal education. Once again, Fort Chipewyan.12 Hobbema, Fort at residential schools varied and Vermilion, Blue Quills, Grouard, Fort depended on many factors. The Chipewyan, Joussard and Wabasca extent to which they identified increased enrolment of Métis children with their European ancestry, their throughout the 1940s and ’50s, with familiarity with the Christian church inconsistent support from the provincial doctrines and the conditions of each government.13 In 1945, 100 of the 123 individual school all influenced the students enrolled at St Bernard School students’ experiences. As well, the in Grouard were reported as Métis.14 degree to which school employees During this time, the schools looked projected negative stereotypes on to the provinces for more funding. Métis children’s identity also had an Beginning in the 1940s, the Alberta impact. For many Métis, the prejudices DECHÂTELETS ARCHIVES, OBLATES OF MARY IMMACULATE COLLECTION government began providing funds to against them in residential schools residential schools for Métis children was reflective of the prejudices from Grouard School. apprehended by child welfare. The the dominant settler society; they were Walking Together: Education for Reconciliation seen as “lesser than” both their First the education opportunities for their dialogue and sharing in the healing Nations relations and their European children. The Métis Brotherhood was process, including Nobody’s Children ancestors.19 successful in lobbying the Alberta in Saskatchewan, 2012, and We Are government to form the Ewing Children of the Métis Nation in Ottawa, Métis children frequently faced racism Commission tasked with investigating 2013. and discrimination inside residential the living conditions of Métis in the schools. In some places, Métis were province. The 1936 Report of the Royal often cast as “worse off than Indians” Commission Appointed to Investigate the or because they were half-breeds, they Conditions of the Half-Breed Population were considered by others to be less in Alberta (Ewing Commission25) 20 than either one of their halves. They reported that approximately 80 per NEXT STEPS were often seen as outsiders by other cent of Métis children in Alberta lacked children and were frequently treated as formal, western education because of 26 »»» second-class citizens by school staff. At jurisdictional negligence. Then in 1937 Métis are one of the three times, they were made to work longer the federal government reversed Sifton’s distinct Aboriginal peoples of and harder on housekeeping tasks to policy of including Métis children in Canada recognized in the 1982 operate the school than other students residential schools, denying any federal 21 Canadian Constitution. The Truth to earn their education. For example, government responsibility for Métis and Reconciliation Commission officials from the Red Deer school education that now fell squarely on the stated in its final report objected to the federal government’s province. The Métis 31 removal of Métis students because Experience, Volume 3: “There is “some of the biggest and best trained Métis people living throughout the no denying that the harm done to boys and girls” were among the non- province of Alberta were entitled to the children, their parents and the Treaty children; “no quantity of new attend provincially funded