Written By David Gomez
Imagine being forbidden to speak your mother tongue because someone decided it was not “civilized.” Imagine being a child, waking up every morning to shouting and punishment. Imagine being forced to pray to a God you do not believe in. Or simply imagine not being allowed to eat, left to feel the unbearable ache of hunger. These ideas send shivers down my spine and make me think about the pain Indigenous Peoples endured for so long. The harm caused by residential schools and the system of cultural extermination is immeasurable. Many people believe it is no longer necessary to talk about that dark chapter, but we cannot forget the last residential school closed in 1996—less than thirty years ago. That is recent history, and it needs not only to be studied but also shared. This is why the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation matters so deeply: not just to learn about the issue, but to honour the thousands of children and families destroyed by a policy that created an enormous intergenerational trauma.
In Southwestern Ontario, two residential schools once stood as symbols of this destructive system—the Mount Elgin Industrial Institute in Muncey and the Mohawk Institute in Brantford, often remembered as The Mush Hole. Both were built on the belief that Indigenous culture, language, and identity should be erased and replaced with European values. Behind this idea was the cruel notion that the only way to “civilize” a child was to strip them of everything that connected them to their people.
Mount Elgin opened in 1851 and operated for nearly a century under the supervision of Christian churches. Children from more than twenty First Nations were taken there, often without the consent of their families. Once inside, they were isolated from their communities, forbidden to speak their languages, and subjected to long hours of labour instead of learning. Reports from survivors and archives describe strict discipline, limited food, and poor living conditions. The days were ruled by bells, silence, and fear. Nights were cold, and the absence of comfort was part of the punishment. What was presented as “education” was, in reality, a deliberate attempt to reshape human beings against their will.
About an hour east, the Mohawk Institute operated even longer—one of the oldest and most notorious residential schools in Canada. It opened in the 1820s and only closed in 1970, spanning nearly 150 years of forced assimilation. For many of the children who passed through its doors, life became an endless cycle of punishment, hunger, and humiliation. Even food itself became a memory of deprivation; the institution became known as The Mush Hole because of the thin porridge the children were served day after day.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada later defined these institutions as tools of cultural genocide. Across the country, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were placed in similar schools. Thousands died of disease, malnutrition, neglect, or abuse. Many were buried in unmarked graves, far from their families, their names and stories erased. In Mount Elgin, members of the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation continue to search for the remains of those children, hoping to restore a piece of dignity denied to them in life.
The tragedy of residential schools is not ancient history. The last one closed less than thirty years ago, within the lifetime of today’s parents and grandparents. Survivors still live among us, carrying the invisible weight of memories too painful to share. The trauma has passed through generations, shaping family structures, mental health, and the preservation of language and culture. For Indigenous communities, the struggle for healing is ongoing, and for non-Indigenous Canadians, the responsibility to listen and learn has only begun.
Truth and Reconciliation Day is not a symbolic gesture or a day off work. It is an invitation to pause and face what this country has done—and what still needs to be done. Reconciliation cannot exist without truth, and truth cannot exist without empathy.
What happened at Mount Elgin and the Mohawk Institute should never be reduced to statistics or dates in a textbook. These schools were not faraway tragedies; they existed in this region, in our time. The children who suffered there were neighbours, community members, human beings who deserved safety, love, and the right to be themselves.
When we remember them, we confront not only the cruelty of the past but also the silence that allowed it to persist. We owe it to those children—and to the generations still healing—to speak about it, to teach it, and to ensure it is never repeated.
