No denying genocide intent of residential school system By: Tom Brodbeck Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2022

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/11/2022 (1083 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s becoming increasing difficult for residential school denialists to defend their cause. The latest blow: a unanimous resolution by the House of Commons last week that calls on the government to recognize what happened to Indigenous children at residential schools as genocide.

The motion was introduced by NDP MP Leah Gazan. It was the Winnipeg Centre representative’s second attempt to convince her parliamentary colleagues to come to grips with Canada’s true past. A similar motion last year failed.

As Canadians learn more about how their country conspired with organized religion to eradicate Indigenous people through assimilative and other policies, the term genocide can no longer be dismissed. Pope Francis, who issued a formal apology during his visit to Canada in July for the Catholic Church’s involvement in residential schools, acknowledged it was genocide.

The House of Commons resolution, although not binding on government, was significant. The fact it received all-party support, including from the Conservative Party of Canada (hardly considered “woke” members of Parliament) is indicative of the public’s growing awareness of Canada’s genocidal policies against Indigenous people.

There is incontrovertible historical evidence the goal was to eliminate them as a people.

It’s precisely what Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minster, referred to when he said educating Indigenous children without ridding them of their language, culture and way of life was pointless. It’s why, he argued, they needed to be sent far away from their communities to undergo transformation.

“When the school is on the reserve, the child lives with its parents, who are savages,” Macdonald told the House of Commons in 1883. “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.”

The objective was not to educate, it was to destroy a people by (among other tactics) sending their children to residential schools and beating the “Indian” out of them. They were malnourished, forced to live in unclean and unsafe buildings, abused sexually, physically and psychologically, subject to child labour, and sometimes buried in makeshift, unmarked graves without parents’ knowledge.

If that isn’t genocide, what is?

There is incontrovertible historical evidence the goal was to eliminate them as a people.

Where does all this leave the residential school deniers, who continue to claim Canada’s only motive was to provide Indigenous children with an education? In an increasingly lonely spot.

Not surprisingly, there’s been renewed pushback against the use of the word genocide to describe residential schools.

Trent University historian Christopher Dummitt argued in a National Post column last week that while atrocities did occur at residential schools, they did not amount to genocide because there was no intention to destroy them as a people. He cites a piece written last year by Canadian historian and author J.R. Miller, who made a similar argument.

Interestingly, in Miller’s 1996 book Shingwauk’s Vision: a History of Native Residential Schools, the author makes the opposite argument.

Quoting the 1948 writings of an official from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, Miller concludes: “Clearly, Canada chose to eliminate Indians by assimilating them, unlike Americans, who had long sought to exterminate them physically.”

Miller goes on to reference the U.S. official and remarks: “By the cultural assimilation it would bring about, education in residential schools would prove ‘the means of wiping out the whole Indian establishment.’”

Canada can’t move forward without fully recognizing its past and how it affects today’s social order, including the systemic racism that still pervades society.

“Chose to eliminate” and “wiping out the whole Indian establishment” sounds an awful lot like genocide.

Why is all this important? Because Canada can’t move forward without fully recognizing its past and how it affects today’s social order, including the systemic racism that still pervades society.

Non-Indigenous Canadians benefited from colonialism and continue to do so through generations of privilege. That came at the expense of Indigenous people.

Listening, learning and acting is the only way Canada can transform itself into a more equitable society. The unanimous consent of the House of Commons to accept Canada’s true history is a promising step towards achieving that goal.

Hopefully, the denialists are paying attention.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca

Tom Brodbeck
Columnist

Tom Brodbeck is an award-winning author and columnist with over 30 years experience in print media. He joined the Free Press in 2019. Born and raised in Montreal, Tom graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and commerce. Read more about Tom.

Tom provides commentary and analysis on political and related issues at the municipal, provincial and federal level. His columns are built on research and coverage of local events. The Free Press’s editing team reviews Tom’s columns before they are posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press’s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.