The Indian act was written primarily to provide jobs for bureaucrats in Ottawa.
Not really, its primary purpose was assimilation, to make Indians into good little Euro-Canadians.
Two things can be true at once.
But in many respects especially initially you're probably more correct that it was primarily a tool of assimilation, which is why they dumped running the schools on the Church.
And remember initially school attendance was not manditory, it was optional.
But it DID give the bureaucrats jobs AND it let them control things, which is largely what a beurocrat's job is (in their minds).
Assimilation was the goal in Canada - at least partial assimilation. And who wouldn't WANT to be assimilated by a clearly superior culture! - so they thought in the day. I mean - Europe had law! Culture! Crumpets! Photogenic monarchs! What did the first nations have? Beaver loincloths and long hair - hell they hadn't even figured out how metal worked yet!!!
But never fear - we can grant them the GIFT of our culture and ways, teach them to be "civilized" and learn which fork to use. Then if they still want to run around in the bush like savages, fine! Let them do what they want! But at least they'll be PROPER savages!
Sigh. I mean, in fairness you really can't hold it against them. They honestly though they were doing the right thing, the thing they felt that they'd want someone to do for them if the rolls were reversed. You CAN fault them heavily for the execution tho. And for the following 100 years of turning a blind eye to the problems in the schools. And to the medical experiments in Sask schools.
But initially? I'm sure they thought they were being the kindest kind of people by sharing their knowledge and culture of how to be a proper person with the savages FREE OF CHARGE mind you. At least that's a little less shameful than trying to wipe them out.
Honestly - at the end of the day i've tried to wrack my brains as to what the best thing they could have done would be and i still don't know. Would they have been better off to take a handful and make them teachers and send them back to the reserves? Would they have been better to not provide 'education' at all? (Remembering the first nations at the time demanded it as part of the deal). How should we have handled it to avoid the problems encountered?
Anyway - we are where we are and we should take steps to fix things for the future.