Re - Editorial on Sir John A. Macdonald

Scott Maudsley | Sep 20, 2017

In regards to your editorial in your September 7, 2017 edition on Sir John A. MacDonald:
First of all, a minor correction – the organization that called for the removal of Sir John A’s name is the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) not the Elementary School Teachers Association of Ontario as you stated. This Federation represents over 70,000 Elementary Teachers and Early Childhood Educators across Ontario, mostly in the public school system.

As a member of this organization, I am sorry to say that this motion, passed at our Annual Meeting, feels more like a symbolic gesture than a proactive policy to improve the lives of our First Nations, Metis and Inuit (FNMI) peoples in this country. The resources that it will take to make these changes would be much better spent actually making a real commitment to the FNMI peoples by ensuring, for example, decent education and clean drinking water in their northern communities.

And where do such “symbolic” gestures end? For example, it is documented that the Catholic Church was culpable in many of the abuses against FNMI children at Residential Schools. Should we therefore demand that the name of every public institution chosen for a figure in the Catholic Church be eradicated? I agree with your editorial that placing the blame on Sir John A. MacDonald is an over-simplification. I would add that doing so is neither productive nor constructive. We do not reverse or prevent the eradication of one culture by advocating the eradication of another. Isn’t that what the Commission on Reconciliation has been trying to tell us all along? And haven’t we learned this lesson yet after trying to do the very same thing to the FNMI peoples for centuries?

It seems to me that it takes very little courage or effort to make the kind of gesture ETFO has made with their new policy. It takes a great deal more courage and effort to actually get our hands dirty affecting real change; by changing the curriculum in our schools to include comprehensive education about the FNMI peoples and our FNMI past, by putting our money where our mouths are to actually change conditions for FNMI peoples throughout Canada including decent places to live, infrastructure, self-government and educational opportunities. We need to offer alternatives – viable ones. And this does not include the kind of attempts made south of the border to eradicate the past by knocking down a few statues. These attempts have done nothing more than foment violence and destruction. Let’s not make the same mistake by attempting to eradicate the memory of Sir John A. MacDonald. We’re better than that. At 150, this fledgling nation is better than that. And ageless and still counting; First Nations, Metis, and Inuit are far far wiser than that.