“But What Is The Object of Educating These Children, If It Costs Their Lives to Educate Them?”: Federal Indian Education Policy in Western Canada in The Late 1800s

Abstract

Debates in the Canadian House of Commons in the last two decades of the nineteenth century revealed persistent differences between the Conservatives and the Liberals over federal Indian education policy and the administration of industrial schools. Until their defeat in 1896, the Conservatives supported a denominational industrial school system and a policy of rapid assimilation. The Liberals generally opposed denominational schools and believed the industrial school system was too costly and was not leading to rapid assimilation. After gaining power, the Liberals stopped construction of industrial schools in favour of boarding and day schools, but denominational influence remained strong. The Conservative emphasis on assimilation was replaced by measures that supported reserve-based segregation as earlier hopes for rapid assimilation diminished. Despite policy differences, neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals held Aboriginal cultures in high regard, and debates regarding the means and intent of Indian education played out against well-known, high mortality rates and often abysmal conditions in the schools.