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.
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