During the heyday of lynching in the United States, children were let out of school so they could watch the hangings. Postcards of the events were sold. Billie Holiday's famous song "Strange Fruit" is about lynching. "Southern trees bear strange fruit." refers to black men hanging from trees in the southern U.S.

Of course, Canada isn't perfect. The residential schools for First Nations children damaged a generation, thereby affecting the present and future.