Huronia Regional Centre
The Huronia Regional Centre (previously the Ontario Hospital School, Orillia, and initially the Orillia Asylum for Idiots) was an institution for developmentally disabled children operated by the government of Ontario, Canada between 1876 and March 31, 2009. After the closing of the school, and prompted by a class-action lawsuit, the government agreed to apologize for decades of neglectful abuse of the facility's residents and pay a settlement to surviving victims.
The Ontario Hospital School, Orillia served Central Ontario, including the Counties of Halton, Peel, York, Ontario, Simcoe and the Districts of Muskoka and Parry Sound.
In 1859, the Ontario government established a branch of the Toronto-based Provincial Lunatic Asylum in Orillia, modifying a hotel to suit this purpose. Within a few years, the facility was closed down due to disrepair, but due to increasing demand for residential mental health services, it was reconditioned and reopened in 1876, this time as a newly independent "Hospital for Idiots and Imbeciles"—specifically children.
In 1885, the hotel building was becoming overcrowded, and it was replaced by a new property on the shore of Lake Simcoe. The new main building and two three-storey "cottages" were augmented by several additional buildings built around 1915 and 1932. By the time of its closure in 2009, it was configured with individual apartments, a canteen, a chapel and a therapeutic swimming pool. With the purchase of adjacent lands in 1911, the facility stood on a 1.8 km2 plot and included a farm.
When Toronto Star columnist Pierre Berton visited the Ontario Hospital School in 1960, he reported dilapidation and gross overcrowding—2808 residents occupying spaces that could hardly contain a thousand fewer, with sleeping quarters installed in repurposed classrooms, playrooms and therapy rooms. Washroom facilities were also insufficient—on one floor, 144 patients shared 8 toilets, 3 showers and 1 bathtub—and Berton observed that "[p]risoners in reformatories have better facilities." 900 of the higher-functioning patients were housed in the oldest and least fire-resistant buildings, because they were judged most able to flee in case of evacuation. Despite these glaring flaws, Berton also noted that "[i]n many respects it [was] an up-to-date institution with a dedicated staff fighting an uphill battle against despairing conditions."
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