A crucial issue currently troubling the country has to do with the suffering of native peoples in the now-abolished religiously oriented Residential Schools, which sought both to convert aboriginal students to Christianity and to integrate them into the wider culture. Thousands of Indian children were purportedly tortured, killed and buried in mass graves by Catholic priests and nuns in the period 1890-1969. The shame and resentment which followed the scandal became a national cause célèbre.
