At that time they also took over the work of the bankrupt Frères Charon at the Hôpital Général de Montréal located outside the city walls.

These early mission boarding schools never recruited more than a small percentage of the number of school-aged children in the region.

[8]: 96  Though often at odds, the Canadian government and the various religious organizations operating residential schools agreed that Indigenous cultural practices had to be suppressed.

[8]: 627 Students at the schools were subjected to physical and Sexual abuse;[9]: 104–107  insufficient food;[9]: 88–89  and being forbidden to speak their native languages or engage in their cultural practices.

Survivor testimony later sparked a long-running OPP investigation; two nuns were eventually convicted of assault for their actions at St Anne's.

[14]: 439 The Sisters and the Oblates objected to the characterization of their actions during the IRSSA process, stating that they felt many students had positive experiences and that some of their members had been falsely accused.

[16]: 168 As of 2018[update], the Sisters had not turned over several thousand photos and records which they had promised to return to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.

Marguerite d'Youville and her colleagues adopted the particular black and beige dress of their religious institute in 1755: despite a lack of grey colour, they kept the nickname.

Besides the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the sisters pledge themselves to devote their lives to the service of suffering humanity.

The sisters undertook the first mission by a female religious institute to Western Canada in 1844, when a colony of Grey Nuns left their convent in Montreal and travelled to Saint Boniface, on the shore of the Red River.

[23] In response to increased industrialization of the area, in 1864 they founded the workhouse of Saint Geneviève to " procure work for the poor women when they are unable to find any on the outside.

"[20] The workhouse produced woollen fabric and soap, and provided employment for ten women, fifteen girls, one man, and three boys.

The sisters serve in a variety of ministries in the East Coast states New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts as well as in Georgia and Alaska.

[33] Although the institute's informal name contains the word "nuns", members are actually classified by the Roman Catholic Church as religious sisters, as they are not cloistered and belong to a congregation, not an order.

[21] In March 2013, the Mother House in downtown Montreal was vacated by its remaining Grey Nuns, after having sold the property to Concordia University in 2005.