The discovery of 215 bodies in Kamloops is
a gruesome reminder that maybe “genocide” is an appropriate term to use for Canada’s
assimilationist policies after all. And
this may just be the tip of the iceberg: what will the final death toll be,
once the grounds and the paper trails of every residential school in Canada
have been thoroughly examined? Native Residential Schools were Canada’s Crime
of the Century.
And yet… many people still think that it
is wrong to be tearing down statues of our first Prime Minister, Sir John A.
Macdonald, and removing his face from our currency, and his name from every
school and every airport and public building.
Why? Because, in the words of Macdonald’s most recent biographer,
Richard Gwynn: “No Macdonald, no Canada.”
And if there is no Canada, there is no New Treaties, no Section 35 of
the Canada Act, no aboriginal title, no Delgamuukw case, no Chilcotin
case. No official multiculturalism, no
official bilingualism---and probably no universal medicare or gun control, for
that matter.
Besides, according to Macdonald’s apologists,
most of what befell the First Nations people was not really his fault. For example, it is argued that he never actually
intended the starvation of the Plains Indians, who were devastated by the
spread of new diseases and the decimation of the buffalo herd long before he took
charge. Moreover, it is worth noting that attendance of indigenous children in
residential schools did not become compulsory until 1920, which was 29 years
after Sir John A.’s death.
David Frum attempts to restore Macdonald’s
reputation in a
recent Atlantic Monthly article.
He states: "As
attorney general of the pre-confederation province of Canada, [Macdonald] battled
to protect escaped American slaves from extradition. His government persuaded
the British government in 1862 to pass a new habeas corpus act that imposed new
restrictions on cooperation with U.S. slave hunters. He welcomed Jewish
immigration to Canada and for a long time strenuously but unsuccessfully
resisted efforts to exclude Chinese immigrants … He headed a political
coalition that bridged Canada’s great divide between French speakers and
English speakers—and worked all his life for accommodation and respect between
the two mutually suspicious cultures. … As the person who proposed the
[residential] schools, Macdonald shares the blame for their grim human
consequences. But … the worst wrongs in the schools happened after Macdonald
had left this Earth, and could neither be aware of them, nor correct them.”
All of these
things may be true, but Frum is still white-washing the past. It would be more
accurate to say that Macdonald’s attitude to slavery mirrored that of the
British Foreign Office: opposed to slavery in principle, but also willing to
encourage the secession of the slave states if it meant that the USA was less
of a threat to the British colonies. And although his attitude toward
escaped slaves and immigrants may have
been morally ambiguous, his attitude toward Canadian indigenous peoples was
not. They stood in the way of his vision of continental expansion. So he
was harder on them. He may not have been
the initial cause of their starvation or of the near-extinction of the buffalo,
but he still rationed their food relief so as to induce them into fixed
settlements. He starved them. His motive for doing so was plain: he felt that land
had to be taken for white settlements and for the Railway, and the natives forced
into becoming agricultural and industrial workers, whether they wanted to or
not.
Americans seem to be able to accept that
Washington and Jefferson owned slaves, but it is difficult for Canadians even to
accept that Macdonald authorized residential schools. That is because the
residential school system is so recent, within the living memory of so many
Indigenous Canadians. Sure, Macdonald may have only intended to “assimilate”
native people and not to literally kill them. But ultimately, that is not such
an easy or excusable distinction to make, as the discoveries in Kamloops make
all-too clear.
Mark Crawford is an Associate Professor of
political science at Athabasca University.
