Online backlash after radio ad calls residential school harms a myth
SASKATOON — A radio ad airing in Saskatchewan is asking listeners whether Canadians are being told the whole truth about residential schools.
The radio spot, which aired recently across multiple private radio stations, was made by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a Winnipeg-based think tank.
“We have been told that the residential school system deserves the blame for many of the dysfunctions in Indigenous society — abuse of alcohol and drugs, domestic violence and educational failures can all be blamed on the school system which did not finally end until the 1990s,” veteran prairie broadcaster Roger Currie says in the ad.
Currie says it was a myth that residential schools robbed Indigenous kids of their childhood because the average stay was less than five years and the radio piece claimed most Indigenous children never went to the schools.