Former PM Jean Chrétien's comments about residential schools draw pushback
CBC
WARNING: This story contains details some readers may find distressing.
Former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was in the hot seat on Sunday night, during an appearance on the popular Radio-Canada talk show, Tout le Monde en Parle.
Chrétien, who was minister of what was then called Indian Affairs from 1968 to 1974, said he never heard anything about abuse happening in residential schools during his tenure.
"This problem was never mentioned when I was minister. Never," said Chrétien, now 87.
During the French interview, Chrétien appeared to draw a comparison between his own experience attending a conventional college boarding school as a teenager to that of Indigenous children who were forced to attend residential schools.
"I ate baked beans and oatmeal. And to be sure, it was hard living in a boarding school, extremely hard. Here in Quebec, we had to [in order to get into university]," he said.
"In Shawinigan, we didn't have a college. We had to go to Trois-Rivières or to Joliette," he explained. "We had no choice. It was hard but my parents insisted I go to university and I had to do it," he said.
Chrétien said while he didn't enjoy sleeping in a dorm with 200 others, he "never had a problem."
Stories of physical and sexual abuse of Indigenous children in residential were documented in the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
More recently, discoveries of unmarked graves on residential school sites have once again brought the issue to the forefront.
The former prime minister's comment drew the ire of another guest on the talk show, Innu author Michel Jean.
"Respectfully, I don't think Mr. Chrétien knows exactly what residential schools are," he said.
"The word boarding school makes people think it was a school where we teach people to write, but it wasn't that," said Jean.
He said that while Chrétien might recall eating poor quality food, it doesn't compare to what children in residential schools were subjected to.
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