Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise in the House today, and to have the opportunity to speak to my colleague's private member's motion that was brought forward.
September 28 seems like a good day, and to now have the opportunity to further commemorate it sounds like a good opportunity for Canadians. I have a number of family members who have that as their birthday. The issue with regard to the British home children certainly does need to be in the forefront of the minds of Canadians.
It is something that needs to be brought into the classroom, so that children are made aware of what happened. It is certainly a very important part of our history here in Canada. With that, I will take a moment to discuss why I believe it is so important.
When we think about childhood, we often talk about the innocence of a child. We often talk about the innocence of a child in our western context. We talk about a child being able to grow up and play on a playground down the street, or being able to go to school and access an education from K to 12 and hopefully beyond. We talk about children being able to dream about their future, about their endeavours, about what they want to become when they grow up. That is a common question we ask children.
In our society here in Canada, it is a luxury to be able to ask those questions, and to have access to education and health care. It is a luxury to grow up in a home with heating, a bed, a dining room table, and food in the fridge. These are things that are a part of Canadian childhood today.
However, the reality is that these things were not the norm in the U.K. in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In fact, we are looking at a society where there was great depravity. There was great sickness that came out of that, and parents whose lives were taken. As a result, there was this cohort of children, approximately 100,000 of them, who were then brought over to Canada in order to escape their reality in the U.K., and to start a new life here in Canada. At least that is what was proposed to them in many cases. I am sure there were others who maybe did not fully understand what they were getting into, or the world that they were coming to, because they were too young.
Nevertheless, it held a promise of a different future. It held the promise of their hopes and dreams, and being able to go into a vibrant and prosperous future. More than that, to start off with, it was a form of care. It was making sure that the next meal was on the table in front of them, that there were shoes on their feet, and clothes on their back.
When these 100,000 children came to Canada, they were used as indentured farm workers for the most part. These farmers were told that the children were orphans. That was only true for about 2% of them. The remainder had a parent back in Europe, in the U.K., or a loved one who was looking after them, but perhaps could not because there was not the monetary amount there to do so adequately, or perhaps because of a sickness in the family.
These children then came here and worked on these farms. Many of them came, meaning for it to be a temporary solution only. It was not meant to be permanent. Of course, as we know, for the most part, it did end up being a permanent move for these individuals who came in this way.
For some of them, they had a very positive experience. They were taken into homes, into families on farms, and were given a positive experience or encounter with Canadian society. They were well looked after. They were given the food they needed, and the clothing they needed. They were given a bedroom with a bed, et cetera. They were given the necessities of life, and were treated very well.
There were others who were actually not treated with the necessary care, love, and concern that they should have been given. Unfortunately, they were exploited, taken advantage of, used as nothing more than cheap labour, which is unfortunate, and a very sad part of our country's history.
That said, all of the children who came over to Canada as British home children came with determination and tenacity. All of them overcame adversity, whether that adversity was simply overcoming loneliness, being away from friends, family and familiarity, or if that adversity was overcoming sickness, or if that adversity was overcoming a vision and a hope that had to be put on hold for awhile, or perhaps even altogether.
Another form of adversity was for those who went into a place where they needed to perform hard labour or where they were maybe taken advantage of in some cases.