CANADA
Toronto Sun
BY NICOLE IRELAND, QMI AGENCY
FIRST POSTED: SUNDAY, JANUARY 11, 2015
Aboriginal people in Canada say the 200th anniversary of Sir John A. Macdonald’s birth is anything but a cause for celebration.
“If people really knew the history of Sir John A. Macdonald, I’m not sure if they would celebrate his legacy,” Alvin Fiddler, Deputy Grand Chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation, told QMI Agency. Nishnawbe Aski Nation represents 49 First Nation communities in Ontario.
First Nations and Metis people continue to live with the consequences of Macdonald’s policies — both as minister of Indian Affairs and as prime minister — to this day, Fiddler said.
In particular, Macdonald was “instrumental” in establishing the Indian Residential School system in the late 1800s. Back then, Macdonald insisted aboriginal children must be taken from their families and assimilated into the rest of society, rather than receiving education in their own communities.
“When the school is on the reserve, the child lives with his 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,” Macdonald said, according to archived documents. “He is simply a savage who can read and write.”
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