A Disgrace to This Province

Crowded dormitories, locked doors, neglect, physical beatings, and sexual abuse were common to childhood inside the Huronia Regional Centre, a sprawling institution in Orillia, Ontario. Operating for over a century, the “Orillia Asylum for Idiots,” as it was first named, was home to thousands of “undesirables,” those considered to be socially, culturally, economically, and genetically unfit for membership in the broader Canadian community.

With its unique method of combining historical research and nine chapters authored by survivors of the facility, this book exposes the violence and dehumanization that stems from and is at the root of the practice of labelling, segregating, and institutionalizing children. Fighting back against historical injustice, survivors today share stories of resilience, friendship, and activism, demanding that readers “remember every name” of those who lived and died at the facility.

Set against an historical backdrop of colonialism, industrialization, poverty, eugenics, and increasing medical and psychiatric dominance, A Disgrace to this Province enlightens readers to Canada’s shadowed past of institutional violence against children throughout the twentieth century. It challenges the long-standing assumption that the Huronia Regional Centre was good and caring place. Life inside the institution was hellish. It was a provincial and national disgrace.