More Cruel Institutions: Training Schools, Part One the Grandview Training School for Girls

In a previous post I talked about how cruel social policies by government created the nasty warehouses for mentally challenged people across Ontario. Well, in the process of looking at them, I came across yet another chain of abominations across the province: the Training Schools. I first became aware of them through a local institution, The Grandview Training School for Girls in Galt, Ontario. It was founded in 1933 and was a place where girls between 12 and 18 were sent for exhibiting "incorrigible or delinquent" behaviour. When a child was sent there, her parents lost any control over them and the government of Ontario was deemed their new "parent".

Here's an view of the Grandview facility from 1953.  Public Domain photo originally from the K/W Record.
Image c/o the Wikimedia Commons.

Unfortunately, it's very hard to find definitive, concrete examples of what happened to these girls because the legal process that was followed to pursue their complaints was designed to protect their privacy instead of educate the public about what went on. There was a documentary film on the subject that talked about some of the survivors. I tried to get a review copy, but the local library doesn't allow inter-library loans for films, and, the corona virus thing hit anyway. I did find a trailer for it on You Tube and the director of the film sent me the study guide that supposed to go with it. So, for what it's worth here's a little bit of what it's about. 

As I mentioned, it was a bit hard to figure out exactly what happened to these girls because such great pains were made to protect their privacy. I did a fair amount of research on line and the best source that I could find was The Kaufman Report which was created by the Justice Department of Nova Scotia. Luckily, it has a very detailed account of what the Ontario government did in response to complaints from survivors of the Grandview facility.

Primarily, the process adopted by the Ontario government avoided the formal adversarial court procedures and instead went for a more informal mediation process. What this meant in practice was they appointed women with relevant expertise to listen to the survivors tell their stories in private---to the point where no transcripts were recorded of the conversations. The people testifying were allowed the right to bring legal representation, but most opted not to have any. At the end of the process a set of guidelines were drawn up for awarding damages according to the severity of the abuse suffered. Once the mediators had drawn up a system, the survivors were allowed to vote on whether or not they agreed to it---which they overwhelmingly did.

According to Kaufman, Ontario spent $16.4 million on various group and individual benefits for survivors of the Grandview school. This was split up between group and private awards, with the private awards given on the following basis:

Successful claimants were entitled to a financial award for pain and suffering as a result of abuse and/or mistreatment. “Abuse” and “mistreatment” were defined as follows:

1.1 ABUSE means an injury as a result of the commission of a criminal act or act of gross misconduct by a guard or other official at Grandview or in some circumstances by another ward and includes physical and sexual assault or sexual exploitation. It is acknowledged that sexual abuse includes arbitrary or exploitative internal examinations for which no reasonable medical justification existed and which resulted in demonstrable harm. Act of abuse is the act that causes injury.

1.2 MISTREATMENT means an injury as a result of a pattern of conduct that was “cruel” and for which no reasonable justification could exist (arbitrary) and includes conduct that was non physical but had as a design the depersonalization and demoralization of the person with the consequent loss in self esteem, and may involve discipline measures unauthorized by any superior authority. This is conduct that is plainly contrary to the policies and procedures governing conduct at Grandview and the purpose of the governing legislation. Proof must establish a pattern of conduct directed towards the individual personally and errors of judgement will not be sufficient. This conduct may include taunts, intimidation, insults, abusive language, the withholding of emotional supports, deprivation of paternal visits, threats of isolation, and  psychologically cruel discipline or measures which were not officially permitted in the management and control of the residents of the facility. The general environment of Grandview, the discipline and regulation of the conduct of the wards in accordance with policies and procedures established for the governance and management of the institution cannot constitute mistreatment.

(P-336 of Searching for Justice: an Independent Review of Nova Scotia's Response to Reports of Institutional Abuse, by The Honourable Fred Kaufman, C.M., Q.C., D.C.L.)

Again, I imagine it will be hard for the average reader to figure out exactly what people mean by looking at this dry, legalistic language. People's psyches aren't really designed to assimilate new information this way, which means that they can often have a very hard time imagining the implications of what is meant. This can cause a problem getting people to really understand what people are talking about.

"Fortunately" there have been some exceptionally brave individuals who have stepped forward to tell their stories in public. Here's a clip of testimony given by a survivor of another training school---one for boys---from a CTV W5 documentary that I'm using under the "Fair Dealing" provision of the Copyright Act.  

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Most editors would probably note that bad things happened to people, the government is making restitution, and tell the reporter to move on to the next story. That's certainly what happened with most of the stories I've read. But the whole point of the Guelph-Back-Grounder is an attempt to put stories into a context that tries to explain why it was that a specific thing happened. The hope is that if readers can see the larger issues at play, they might be better prepared to see similar things happening in other contexts. The hope is that that will allow us to learn from past mistakes and stop the problem of constantly playing "catch up" as society lurches from one preventable problem to another.

The first thing readers should understand is that Grandview wasn't a "one off". There was a whole series of institutions spread across the province, including one in Guelph.

Here's a map of Ontario Training Schools in Ontario. This again comes from an excellent CTV News story.
I'm using this image under the "Fair Dealing" provision of the Canadian Copyright Act.

They grew out of a series of laws passed by the Ontario and federal governments over one hundred years. Academics have put a lot of effort into understanding this process and I don't think anyone can really understand what happened at places like Grandview unless they make the effort to understand how it came into being in the first place. 

Some Technical Terms Plus Something About the Bad Old Days

The first thing to understand is the lingo around incarceration. 

• "lock up": a cage or holding cell in a police station for holding people prior to processing
• "jail" (or "gaol"): a temporary centre where prisoners without bail are held during trial, or, for incarceration for minor penalties for short period of time
• "reformatory": a provincial institution that used to be for youths of 21 years or younger, and which morphed into a place where people serve sentences of 2 years less a day
• "penitentiary": a prison where serious criminals are held for serious sentences of over 2 years duration
• "training school": a place where children ended up who for one reason or another were removed from their parent's care and who were not able to find a foster home 
• "prison": I'm using this as a "place holder name" in the following discussion simply because there needs to be a general, non-technical term for a place where people get locked up against their will because the criminal courts say they should

All of these descriptions are vague and imprecise because as society evolved the roles that each filled changed. But I do think that it helps readers to start off with these distinctions as they try to make sense of a very messy and confusing history.

George Brown, reporter,
prison reformer, Father of Confederation.
Public domain photo c/o Wikimedia Commons

The first real attempt at creating a prison in Ontario was the Kingston penitentiary which was built in 1834 to house criminals in Upper Canada. From what I've read, it sounds like it was a really "fun" place. One of the Fathers of Confederation, George Brown, wrote a report titled "The Brown Commission Report" that explained how outrageously inmates were being treated. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a copy of it on line, so I'll have to quote from a brief article in the Maclean's Magazine archives by Don Townson:

Smith [Henry Smith---first Warden of the Kingston Penitentiary] ordered physical punishment for the slightest infraction of the rules—talking, nodding, gesticulating. or turning around in the chapel. Ten-year-old Peter Charbonneau, who was committed May 4. 1845, for a seven-year sentence, was lashed on fifty-seven occasions in eight and a half months. His offences were those of a child: staring, winking, and laughing. Eleven-year-old Alex Lafleur, a French Canadian, was given twelve strokes of the rawhide on Christmas Eve. 1844, for speaking French. Fourteen-year-old Sarah O'Connor was flogged five times in three months of the same year for talking. James Brown, an insane prisoner, got 720 lashes while under Smith's jurisdiction.

There are two other points I'd like to make. First, that Warden Smith was a political appointee who was concerned about finances:

Henry Smith, the first warden of what later became Kingston Penitentiary, gained office by political pull. Once installed, he charged curious Kingstonians admission: male adults, one shilling threepence; women and children, sevenpence halfpenny. Smith made sure his patrons got a good horror show. Standard items on the tours included a visit to the dark cell and a leisurely march past convicts being punished with the lash, the ball and chain, the Oregon boot, the water hose and the sweat box.  

In case you didn't know, this is an "Oregon boot".
Imagine having to go through the day wearing one of those!
Public domain image c/o State of Oregon.

And that he was able to "pull the wool over the eyes" of outside observers: 

The fiendish warden was evidently not without charm. Charles Dickens visited Smith in the early 1840s and afterwards wrote: “Here at Kingston is a penitentiary intelligently and humanely run.”

Smith’s graft and cruelty eventually proved too much for the penitentiary physician, Dr. James Sampson. He laid charges against Smith which resulted in an investigation by a commission appointed by the new Reform (Liberal) government and headed by George Brown, founder of the Globe newspaper and a strong Liberal. Smith, after fourteen years as warden, resigned under fire. 

But the storm was to rage for many years yet. Smith and the Board of Inspectors of the penitentiary were good friends of the late Conservative government and Smith enlisted the support of the former receiver-general, John A. Macdonald. The ensuing investigations and bitter debates led to the enmity that was to continue between Brown and Macdonald in the years to come.

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This part of the series is getting a bit long, so I want to draw things to a close and talk about more in a future one. But there is a point that I really want to "put a pin in" and ask readers to consider. There are bad people in the world, and there are also good ones too. Further on, I will probably talk about someone who seems to have been very good who ended up in charge of both Grandview and Kingston for a period of time. But the point really shouldn't be about good or bad wardens, it should be about the system that was put in place to make sure that no warden deviates from a specific "minimum standard of behaviour". That's a systems approach as opposed to a moralistic one. Public policy shouldn't be about good people or bad people, instead it should be about whether a bureaucratic system works according to it's stated intentions or not. My experience in politics has taught me that a lot of people simply cannot understand the difference between these two things, and feel that "meaning well" should be good enough. The story of our penal system is all about how legislation made under the best of intentions can go horribly wrong if no one tries to understand what happens if bad people end up in positions of authority.  

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Moreover, I say unto you---the pandemic doesn't lessen the need to deal with the Climate Emergency!