Context

Health and Social Welfare Professionals have labelled individuals, who did not display what they deemed productive and efficient behaviours, in dehumanizing ways as “unfit,” “defective,” and “subnormal,” and placed them in institutions. Huronia Regional Centre Staff punished residents for not complying with policies and regimes designed to enforce their behaviour. Staff enforced various punitive, labour intensive, and shaming punishments under the guise of treatment, education, life skills training, and work activities.^1(footnote)

It is important to note that institutions such as Huronia were designed to be self-sustaining. At Huronia, children were thus forced to do unpaid labour to reduce the costs of daily operations. Labour included kitchen duties, laundry, cleaning, and sewing.^2(footnote) This is an example of how institutions and government administrations exploit those in the custody of total institutions.^3(footnote) Slark and Charlebois worked with Sue Hutton to sketch out their memory of scrubbing the floors with a toothbrush, which was one way that labour and training was imposed as a form of punishment. They created a second sketch to show the dehumanizing punishment they experienced, which shows a child forced to lie face down on the ground with their hands behind their back. This is a reference to staff telling children to “dig for worms.”