Phil Fontaine’s 1990 account of physical and sexual abuse at residential school

April 10, 2024

Fontaine’s tell-all interview from 1990 of abuse at a church-run residential school. Aired on CBC’s The Journal on Oct. 30, 1990. Warning: This video contains distressing details. About 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children were forced to attend the government-funded residential schools from the 19th century to 1996, when the last one closed. They lived in substandard conditions and endured sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. The system was “cultural genocide,” said the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015…