The recent discoveries of unmarked graves at the sites of so-called Indian Residential Schools has put Canada’s treatment of its indigenous peoples back under the spotlight.

For more than a century, tens of thousands of children were forced by the state into a religious school system that split families and brutalised the children in its care.

Tanya Beckett looks at the history of the residential schools and asks why so many children died there.

Producer: Rob Cave and Olivia Noon


(former Kamloops Indian Residential School, British Columbia, Canada, 2 June 2021. Credit: Cole Burston/Getty Images)