Opinion
This Canada Day feels very much different. Similar to last year, there won't be any large public gatherings or events. But the recent discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at two former Native residential schools in BC and Saskatchewan have certainly dampened the celebratory mood. As well, the recent truck attack that killed four members of a family in London, Ont., apparently an act of terror by a young man fuelled by anti-Muslim hatred, has added another dimension to the ambiance surrounding the holiday.
What a magnificent country we live in, its vastness, diversity and multiplicities are certainly worth applauding. But as we approach its 154th birthday, the calls to cancel Canada Day are growing louder and more insistent. For the politicians, this is perhaps the most convenient time for these skeletons to be unearthed. There won't be much hoopla this year, anyway. However, for many Canadians, including this one, this year's national holiday is tainted with despair - an abiding sense of malaise concerning a litany of unreconciled wrongs that should have been dealt with long ago.
In brief, residential schools were mandatory boarding schools for aboriginal children ages 6-14 that operated from the 1870s until almost the end of the 20th century (the last residential school was shuttered in 1996). Altogether 150,000 children were processed through a network of 130 schools dotted across the country that were run by churches (Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Anglican and United) on behalf of the Government of Canada. Located a considerable distance from their homes, they were intended to isolate and assimilate Native children into Euro-Canadian society and left a legacy of mistreatment, physical and sexual abuse that extends across multiple generations - a system that was quite rightfully deemed “cultural genocide” by the Truth and Reconciliation Committee in 2008.
Certainly, none of this was even touched on in the history text books of this writer's era. For us, John A MacDonald was a heroic figure, a patriot who drank too much but was able to cobble together a confederacy under the noses of the Americans, carefully inserting the term “dominion” instead of “nation” in the British North America Act of 1867 to confuse the expansionist-thinking Americans south of the border.
Nonetheless, MacDonald was absolutely clear in his feelings on residential schooling. Most Canadians will probably find the following statement shocking: Prime Minister John A. Macdonald to the House of Commons on May 9,1883. “When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to read and write his habits, and training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly pressed on myself, as the head of the Department, that the Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.”
And for years, many of us believed Egerton Ryerson was nothing less than a tireless educator who provided the template for free public schooling in Ontario. However, a report he authored in 1847 laid out the ground work on how residential schools should be operated. Ryerson believed aboriginal children should be educated separately in agricultural-based institutions where they would be taught English and receive religious instruction from Christian churches, who would administer the schools. Although Ryerson did not originate the concept of residential schools, many of his ideas were influential. For many, he is considered the architect of the system.
Not surprisingly, the statues of these men have started to come down. John A Macdonald's likeness was pulled down in Montreal on August 30. Egerton Ryerson's sculpture, which stood outside the university named for himself in Toronto, was toppled and beheaded on June 6, in a scene that was reminiscent of similar statues of Saddam Hussein and Lenin being brought to the ground. Also, June 18 a bronze statue of John A. Macdonald was removed from a promontory at City Park in Kingston, (where it had stood since 1895), and taken to the cemetery where he is buried. Activists had refused to leave the park until the statue was removed.
So what can we make of Canada Day this year? Rather then seeing this as a sad and divisive time, one could interpret this as a turning point - that we are instead on the verge of a reckoning that is long overdue, perhaps even a renaissance of sorts to come. Bright skies are indeed on the horizon, with the incredible potential of this country, it's mostly democratic traditions, its tolerance and acceptance of other cultures (for the most part). The parades, the flag waving, and the patriotic speeches will be back next year - once we work through these nasty historical and racist bits. But clearly there is work to be done.
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