The process of colonialism is definitive to the formation of Canada and our city (named after Queen Victoria, who ruled what was then "British North America"). Settling on First Nations territories and displacing those Nations was inherent to building the Canadian nation-state. Leaders of the newly defined 'Canada' made the suppression of First Nations peoples, culture and dissent an active part of their mandates, such as the Indian Act, which is now recognized to be a policy of cultural genocide. The residential school system was a cornerstone of the Act. Here is an excerpt from the correspondence of Canada's first Prime Minister discussing the residential school system: “When the school is on the reserve, the child lives with its parents, who are savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits and training mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly impressed upon myself, as head of the Department, that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men." -1879.
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