Earlier this week a bronze statue was removed from outside City Hall in Victoria, BC. And not only was this statue removed, but a huge debate over whether or not to remove ALL his statues all over Canada ensues. Why was this done? Why all the debates? I’ll explain in a minute.
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The statue in question is of Canada’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A Macdonald ( b. 11th January, 1815 — d. 6th June, 1891 ). Sir John is, and has always been, a controversial figure.
There’s a whole lot of his story prior to being the first elected Prime Minister, which I won’t bore you with. You can read about it here if you want. He brought all the various territories and bits of Canada together and helped create a nation. Naturally he had help from friends and cronies, but he is the “founding father“ of our nation. He served two terms in Office. One from 1867 to 1873 when he resigned over a scandal involving taking bribes from businessmen looking to get the very lucrative contract to build the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). Despite this, he was re-elected in 1878 and remained in Office until his death in 1891. He was also a notorious drunk.
However, what makes the reason for removing his statue is this: his attitude towards First Nations and indigenous peoples and his ordering of the Residential Schools within all of Canada. It was also on his order that Louis Riel, a Metis man who led a rebellion when Macdonald tried to take over the Red River Settlement...Metis land, be executed and thousands of First Nations were starved.
It’s not just a statues that are being removed. Schools considering changing their names. Some municipalities are considering renaming streets and roads. Parks Canada is thinking about renaming some parks, And his face is on our $10 bill. This is Canada-wide. And the debate rages. Conservatives are upset and see the changes as “removing history”, whereas more liberal minded and First Nations want to remove a symbol of racism.
Like many of his contemporaries, Sir john was a racist, but he was also deliberately cruel to First Nations.
“He built this country but decided Indigenous people did not have a place in this country. They were disposable,” said James Daschuk, an assistant professor of history at the University of Regina and author of Clearing the Plains.
“He set up treaties and broke them, starved thousands of people on reserves, and was the architect for the relationship between Canada and First Nations … and the racism still festers today.”
Due to that aspect of his past, the union that represents elementary school teachers in Ontario — the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (EFTO) — is pushing to remove his name from a handful of schools across the province. The ETFO said using Macdonald’s name creates an unsafe environment for kids to learn and work in because of what it calls Macdonald’s role as the “architect of genocide against Indigenous Peoples.”
globalnews.ca/...
The purpose of Residential Schools was to “Take the Indian” out of the children. To educate them to white ways. So they went Canada wide to set up schools, most run by Catholic and Anglican churches. They went to all the reserves and simply took the children. Over a period of approximately 100 years, about 150,000 indigenous children were taken from their families. They sent them far away from their homes to live in these schools where they were forbidden to speak their native language or eat traditional foods, celebrate their heritage or wear their own clothing. Everything was taken from them.
Macdonald said that an indigenous child educated where he or she lives “is simply a savage who can read and write,” whereas children sent to boarding schools “will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.” To assimilate students, the schools banned indigenous languages and prohibited, sometimes forcefully, indigenous cultural practices.
www.nytimes.com/...
They were all dressed alike, taught only English or French, slept in large dormitories, punished severely for slight infringements. Sexual abuse was rampant. Physical abuse was common. Many ran away and tried to reach home...many never made it home. They simply disappeared. Generations of children were harmed because of these policies. Many First Nations and indigenous people in Canada still suffer from the effects of the Residential Schools today. It is now considered to be cultural genocide.
Canada has been trying to deal with the consequences and reparations to these lost generations. My government spent 6 years gathering the stories and testimonies of the survivors from the schools and has recently committed to acting on the 96 recommendations in the Truth and Reconciliation Report. A few years ago, I wrote two diaries on the Report. They are here….and here.
Truly, all reminders of the person responsible for such horrifying policies and acts should be removed from public spaces and buildings.
History is found in books and museums...it’s not found in statues.
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www.thestar.com/…
www.bclocalnews.com/...
Video of the statue removal in Victoria: globalnews.ca/…