Canadian Politics Today

I'm confused about this justification. He says the loss of Aboriginal identity resulted in all kinds of things which we KNOW are statistically much more common on reserves. I.e, psychiatric disorders, substance abuse, unemployment, violence and suicides. This seems bizarre to me. On top of that he's claiming these people lost their aboriginal identity. If that was the case they'd all be leading happy normal whitebread Canadian lives, wouldn't they? So clearly they didn't lose their aboriginal identity.

Considering that these kids were often housed in dormitories, like orphanages, dressed differently than other kids, sounded different and looked different and the prevailing attitude of Whites toward Aboriginals at the time the expectation that they'd 'live happy normal whitebread Canadian lives" seems pretty bizarre to me.   In the rural school I attended and which had a bunch of these kids, they weren't accepted into 'whitebread Canadian society' and any non-aboriginal kid who befriended them was ostracized and demeaned, just like the native kids were.   So they lost their aboriginal heritage and they weren't accepted by the society they were expected to integrate into.