07) STARVATION INFLICTED ON FIRST NATIONS CHILDREN

(PV Vancouver Bureau, with files from CBC and Canadian Press)

            The latest chapter in the story of genocide against Aboriginal peoples in Canada came to light in mid-July, with news reports about shocking experiments against children in the residential school system during the 1940s and '50s.

            Recently published historical research shows that for over a decade, about 1300 people, mostly children, were deliberately starved by government researchers. Milk rations were halved, essential vitamins were kept from people who needed them, and dental services were withheld.

            Researching the development of health policy for a different project, nutritionist Ian Mosby uncovered "vague references to studies conducted on Indians,"and found the details of a government‑run experiment.

            According to news reports, Justice Murray Sinclair, chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, became aware of the experiments during their collection of documents relating to the abuse of native children at residential schools across Canada from the 1870s to the 1990s.

            The experiments are entrenched with the racism of the time, says Sinclair.

            "This discovery, it's indicative of the attitude toward aboriginals," Sinclair said. "They thought aboriginals shouldn't be consulted and their consent shouldn't be asked for. They looked at it as a right to do what they wanted then."

            In his research paper, published in May, Mosby wrote, "the experiment seems to have been driven, at least in part, by the nutrition experts' desire to test their theories on a ready‑made `laboratory' populated with already malnourished human experimental subjects."

            The first experiments began at Norway House in northern Manitoba in 1942, where federal scientists found "isolated, dependent, hungry people," impoverished by the collapse of the fur trade. The demoralized Cree population, they concluded, were marked by "shiftlessness, indolence, improvidence and inertia," traits they regarded as "hereditary" rather than the results of malnutrition. These people were considered ideal subjects for tests on the effects of different diets. The scientists calculated that the local people were living on less than 1,500 calories a day, far less than the 2,000 generally required by healthy adults.

            Instead of recommending an increase in support, they selected 125 out of a group of 300 Cree residents to receive vitamin supplements, which were withheld from the rest.

            The research was expanded in 1947, to involve about 1,000 children at residential schools in Port Alberni, B.C., Kenora, Ont., Schubenacadie, N.S., and Lethbridge, Alta.

            At one school, milk rations were deliberately held to less than half the recommended amount, to get a "baseline" reading for when the allowance was increased. At another school, children were divided into one group that received vitamin, iron and iodine supplements and one that didn't. One school depressed levels of vitamin B1 to create another baseline before levels were boosted.

To compare the results, children at one school were allowed none of the supplements.

            CBC has reported the recollections of 76-year-old Alvin Dixon, who was forcibly taken from his family in Bella Bella, on British Columbia's northwest coast, and relocated to Port Alberni, where he says he and many of his classmates were starved.

            Dixon remembers having to milk cows during his stay at the residential school, yet he was always fed only powdered milk.

            "We would be so hungry and we would steal these potatoes [from farmers' fields] and eat it raw," he told CBC News.

            "The term `guinea pig' comes to mind quite quickly and readily, because that's what we were, I guess," says Dixon, who recalls having to fill out forms about his food consumption. By the time he reached high school, Dixon said he remembers being smaller compared to his non‑aboriginal classmates.

            The chief councillor of the Tseshaht First Nation in Port Alberni has demanded an apology from the federal government.

"Canada has been sitting on this and hiding this information from the aboriginal people now since it first happened in the '40s and '50s," said Hugh Braker, who added that the band is horrified by the revelations.

            (Written with files from CBC and Canadian Press)

(The above article is from the August 1-31, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)