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John A. Macdonald's complicated legacy | The Sunday Talk

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John A. Macdonald's complicated legacy is sparking heated debated over whether to remove his name from schools. Many Canadians are asking, how do we honour Canada's first prime minister while acknowledging his role in creating residential schools?

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elementary teachers' federation of ontario

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Should schools bearing Sir John A. Macdonald's name be changed?

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The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario want to rename schools that bear Sir John A. Macdonald's name because of his treatment of Indigenous people, a move that has sparked a contentious debate over how Canadian history is dealt with in schools.

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An Indigenous MP, who called for the renaming of Ottawa's Langevin Block because of its namesake's role in the creation of the residential school system, said he does not feel the same way about stripping the name of Canada's first prime minister from public schools.

This week the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario kicked off a national debate when delegates revealed they passed a motion that called on school districts to "examine and rename schools and buildings named after Sir John A. Macdonald."

This would be done, the motion said, "in recognition of his central role as the architect of genocide against Indigenous peoples."

"When we start effacing completely that history, and not recognizing it, then people can forget very readily what occurred. And so for me it's always important to have that anchor," Liberal MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette told Chris Hall, host of CBC's The House.

"Everyone has warts. That's what makes us human beings"

Macdonald is praised for rousing the support needed for Confederation, making it happen and then keeping the country together, but his legacy is also blemished by his support for residential schools, the Indian Act, and the hanging of Louis Riel.

Ouellette, originally from the Red Pheasant First Nation in Saskatchewan, said keeping Macdonald's names on schools allows teachers to reflect on the complexity of his character in Canadian history.

Langevin 'one of the smaller minions'

The Winnipeg MP was one of a group of federal Indigenous politicians, including fellow Liberal Don Rusnak, Independent Hunter Tootoo and New Democrat Roméo Saganash, who called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to rename the building housing the Prime Minister's Office so that survivors of residential schools would not be perpetually reminded of a man who "devastated their lives."

The building was named after Hector-Louis Langevin, a Father of Confederation and a prominent member of Macdonald's cabinet, who was also a proponent of the creation of the schools to assimilate First Nations children, although his role has since been questioned.

"Langevin, when we think about his role, he was more one of the smaller minions," Ouellette said. "Sir John A. Macdonald was actually very important to the founding of Canada and the Canada we know today."

Ouellette said he also pushed for the government to rename the Langevin Block after one of Macdonald's contemporaries, Métis politician Louis Riel, instead of simply renaming it the Office of the Prime Minister and Privy Council.

"I think a lot of Indigenous peoples need to have heroes that we can recognize and see in the most important and symbolic of places," he said.

'How would you feel?'

Perry Bellegarde, the national chief for the Assembly of First Nations, said he supports the teachers' motion.

"How would you feel if you were a young First Nations person going to that school, knowing full well that Sir John A. Macdonald was one of the architects behind the residential school system?" Bellegarde asked in an interview with CBC.

"You wouldn't want to feel good about attending that school, would you? Because I wouldn't."

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer called the motion "a ridiculous suggestion."

"I reject the thought process behind it," he told The House. "Instead of trying to erase their names or try to forget their contribution to Canadian society we should use that aspect as teaching moments to say, 'this is how far society has come.'"

Former foreign affairs minister John Baird, who supported renaming the Ottawa River Parkway the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway, called it "political correctness on steroids."

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elementary teachers federation of ontario

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Liberal MP who called for Langevin Block renaming supports use of Macdonald's name

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An Indigenous MP, who called for the renaming of Ottawa's Langevin Block because of its namesake's role in the creation of the residential school system, said he feels differently about stripping the name of Canada's first prime minister off public schools.

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Canada's first Prime Minister outlines his vision for Confederation en route to the Charlottetown Conference (1864).

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Jesse Wente talks to Andrew Nichols about the renaming of things and historical legacies.

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As U.S. legislators mull the removal of statues seen by many as painful reminders of the darker moments in American history, a similar debate is playing out in Ontario over whether public schools should bear the names of Canadian figures associated with this country's legacy around the treatment of Indigenous communities.

That debate hit the floor of a meeting by the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario days ago, ending with a resolution to urge school boards across the province to consider removing the name of Canada's first prime minister - Sir John A. Macdonald - from public schools.

Felipe Pareja, a French teacher in Peel region just west of Toronto, is behind the motion.

Pareja says the decision was by no means unanimous, but that it passed by a substantial margin.

No opportunity for asterisks

Widely lauded as the father of Confederation, Macdonald is credited with having joined the eastern and western parts of Canada together through the creation of a transcontinental railway.

Pareja says he acknowledges Macdonald's foundational role in the country's Confederation, but that having public schools bearing his name leaves out his role in the starvation of Indigenous people along the railway to facilitate its construction - along with Macdonald's "central role as the architect of, really, what was genocide of Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island."

"At no point when it came time to learn about the Confederation of Canada, the Fathers of Confederation, was any of this part our history," he said, recalling his own time in the elementary school system.

David Mastin, president of the ETFO's Durham local, agrees.

"When you name a school after someone, there's an honour that's bestowed," Mastin told CBC News. "If there was a full opportunity to have alongside the name of Sir John A. Macdonald a little asterisk that said, 'Oh yes, he did so and so...' But that doesn't happen."

Tori Cress, an activist with Idle No More, sees the vote as a positive step.

"I like to see school teachers and educators following this kind of move to being inclusive with their students and be proud to be Canadian in a way that's not honouring people that destroyed other races," Cress said.

"There is a place for these people - maybe not in monuments or statues and school place names, but the history books, museums."

Union 'needs a lesson on how to teach history'

But the move isn't without pushback.

Former foreign affairs minister John Baird called it "political correctness on steroids."

"It's one of the most crazy and ridiculous things I've ever heard - just simply trying to erase Canadian history in the guise of an extreme and radical political correctness. I can't believe the average teacher in Ontario would support this type of ridiculous idea," said Baird, who was also a supporter of renaming the Ottawa River Parkway the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway.

Baird says he also didn't support Justin Trudeau's recent decision to rename the Langevin Block, the building that houses the Prime Minister's Office and was named after Hector-Louis Langevin, a strong proponent of the residential school system.

"In Ottawa, we honour our former leaders, whether it's John A. Macdonald or Wilfrid Laurier - great Canadians who helped build a fantastic and prosperous country," he said.

Earlier this month, CBC News obtained an internal federal government briefing note raising doubts about Hector-Louis Langevin's role as architect of the residential school system.

Baird says he sees no parallel behind the debate in this country with the one swirling around the removal of Confederate statues in the United States.

For his part, Conservative MP Erin O'Toole, who represents Durham, called the decision "embarrassing."

Embarrassing a Teacher's Union needs a lesson on how to teach history. Let's chat after you read this @etfopresident https://t.co/b0fqOJ3NSU https://t.co/n2jkyigLKZ
- @ErinOTooleMP

But Pareja responded that it's precisely because teachers are cognizant of Canada's history that they voted in favour of the motion. "It's the furthest thing from embarrassing."

Asked if a similar decision should apply to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, associated with boosting the Chinese head tax, Pareja said he wasn't sure.

"This is a part of a broader conversation about what kinds of things we can do as a society to truly reconcile ourselves as settlers to this land with the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island."

The teachers union has no power to remove Macdonald's name from the schools, but says it hopes school boards will be open to the idea.

"It's a long road that we need to travel, but it's one that we need to travel," said Pareja. "I would hope that school boards would join us along this path."

The ETFO's decision comes just over a month after a student-led campaign sprang up at Toronto's Ryerson University calling on the school to change its name out of respect for residential school survivors.

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The university is named after Egerton Ryerson, an education advocate who believed in a separate education systems for Indigenous and non-Indigenous children. In a 2010 document, the university says it is "proud of our history and of the contribution our namesake" but also notes that Ryerson's beliefs on separate education played a part in the creation of what would become the residential school system.

Sarah Dennis-Kooji speaks for the group pushing for Ryerson's name to be changed. She says removing Macdonald's name from public schools is a step in the right direction.

"Arguably he did not bring this country together. It was Indigenous people who brought this country together... We're the reason why settlers were able to survive in this country in the first place."

Kooji suggests trying to "create balance" by naming institutions for foundational Indigenous figures.

With files from As it Happens, Power and Politics, CBC Ottawa

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Ontario teachers' union wants Sir John A. Macdonald's name stripped from public schools

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As legislators south of the border mull the removal of statues seen by many as painful reminders of the darker moments in U.S. history, a similar debate is playing out in Ontario when it comes to public schools and this country's legacy around the treatment of Indigenous communities.

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Should public schools be allowed to bear the name of Canadians associated with terrible treatment of Indigenous people?

The Ontario Teachers Union thinks not. A few days ago, it passed a resolution urging school boards to remove the name of Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, from public schools. It's no coincidence that this comes just as Americans are hotly debating whether statues and monuments memorializing the Confederacy should be permanently removed.

READ MORE: Why Sir John A. Macdonald's name should stay on our schools

Not surprisingly, opposition to the Ontario teachers was swift. Many people trotted out the "political correctness gone mad" argument, saying this amounts to the "whitewashing of history."

As a Métis woman and mom, it strikes me as particularly ironic that they're worried about history being lost. After all, the very fact that we send our children to schools named after the architect of Indigenous genocide through the residential schools attempts to remove our story, negate our well-being and ignore our continued survival. It is, in fact, a push to actively lose history.

Perhaps if the education system were truly inclusive, particularly of Indigenous history, people and issues, the voices asking for the man who condemned an entire culture to be removed from the places where our children learn would be louder, because they would include more Canadians in the chorus.

I hear all the time that colonization happened 400 years ago, that it's so far gone that we shouldn't be so sensitive. And maybe this is where education has a larger role to play-both in the classroom and in the home. John A. famously set out to 'kill the Indian in the child.' But the reality is that the last residential school closed only in 1996. We still live under the Indian Act. We are still affected by racism, both systemic and violent. Repercussions of Macdonald's mandate continue to impact our rights, our languages, our education and the very survival of our women. Colonization didn't happen 400 years ago; it began 400 years ago and continues today. Right now.

RELATED: The case for keeping 'Langevin Block'

The environment we raise our children in shapes who they become. Think racism is dead? Think our kids know better and so they are largely unaffected by the way we gloss over Canada's spotted past? Here's a story from 2017.

My daughter has just graduated from a very well-respected Toronto arts high school that was recently called out for being vastly white. In an attempt to jump on the "Canada 150" celebration bandwagon, the school put up a banner in the hallway asking students to write something "positive" about Canada's 150. My daughter, who is the granddaughter of both Anishnaabe Métis community members and West Indian immigrants, wrote "Founded on genocide. Built by slavery."

What happened next is hard to believe. She was attacked by a group of white male students online and verbally in the school. She was quoted Wikipedia pages and right-leaning articles about how residential schools "weren't that bad," how slavery in Canada never happened, and how Canada is above reproach. Our house was egged while her grandmother and younger sister sat near the window reading. She was told to "go back to the reservation" if she hated Canada so much.

To be clear, my daughter is OK. She held her ground and met with school officials to talk both about the particulars of the incident and the issue of aggressive nationalism that excludes diversity in culture and opinion. She will be starting at York University this September with the goal of going to law school and sitting on the bench one day, which is how she sees making effective change. She spent the summer with her large, extended Indigenous family at powwows and gatherings and feels loved and protected. She's great.

But she isn't the child I'm worried about in this story.

For these particular young men, there is complacency in being Canadian. They grew up in communities where they didn't have to think about Canada's history as full of horrors. Where they learned that being Canadian meant "not being American" with all that baggage. I get it-who wants to inherit guilt? But what if it's not guilt we're asking you to inherit? What if it's a sense of responsibility, of justice, of innovative goodness? What if we want to build a full history of our shared territory instead of one cobbled together out of select voices and personalities, which really is a literal white-washing of history? Isn't that what is at the core of being Canadian?

No one is forcing anyone to rename the Toronto schools for an Indigenous figure (although Louis Riel Elementary does have a nice ring to it-there's one in Calgary-and would keep it within the Founding Fathers category). What we're asking is that you not force Indigenous people to send our children to a school named after a man who stole our grandparents and forced them into schools. What we are asking is to give all Canadian children a better chance. Surely even the most right-wing conservative nationalist could see how this would be problematic. It's just so simple and decent. The Teachers' Union gets it, our educators are moving on it, and I know parents who want the best for their children would agree.

The argument that we need to keep history free from political correctness so that we can all remember and do better doesn't hold much water either. And are we really naming schools after people we recognize as a nation may be problematic? Are we truly saying, "This guy may have done some crap things, but let's put his name up here so we can keep that discussion going"? Let's teach our children about Macdonald, not make them line up under his banner. Let's respect that fact that sometimes one nation's genocide means that yes, we do have to have some respect and not send their children to a school emblazoned with the perpetrator's name. Let's be better at this. Let's be more Canadian about this. For all our children.

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Why John A. Macdonald's name doesn't belong on Canada's schools - Macleans.ca

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Should public schools be allowed to bear the name of Canadians associated with terrible treatment of Indigenous people? The Ontario Teachers Union thinks not. A few days ago, it passed a resolution urging school boards to remove the name of Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, from public schools.

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Story transcript
Felipe Pareja wants the name of Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, removed from all public schools in Ontario. Now, the teacher and member of The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO), is one step closer to seeing that happen.

At a meeting last week, the ETFO approved a motion introduced by Pareja calling on school boards across the province to consider stripping the name of the man considered the father of Confederation from public schools and buildings.

The motion describes Macdonald "as the architect of genocide against Indigenous Peoples."

Pareja says that although he is willing to acknowledge Macdonald's role in creating Canada, the first prime minister, "presided over and directed some pretty awful things to happen to Indigenous people of this land. Mainly the creation of the Indian residential school system."

This move by the EFTO comes after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau changed the name of Langevin Block to The Office of the Prime Minister and the Privy Council in recognition of Hector-Louis Langevin, a founding father and an architect of residential schools.

Pareja spoke with As It Happens guest host Jim Brown about why this motion is important for truth and reconciliation. Here is part of their conversation.
Why shouldn't Ontario kids go to schools named after Sir John A.?
Really, it's a conversation, Jim, that's being had across the country. In this age, in these times of truth and reconciliation, this is part of a broader conversation about what kinds of things we can do as a society to truly reconcile ourselves as settlers to this land with our Indigenous peoples... With the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island.

And so as a federation, as an elementary teacher's federation, as the federation of Ontario, we've made the decision, we've passed a resolution at our annual meeting last week to urge school boards to consider changing the names of school buildings or other buildings possibly that are named after John A. Macdonald in recognition of his central role as the architect of really what was genocide of Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island.
Could you describe the nature of the debate that led to the passing of that resolution? There must have been some dissenting voices in the room.
Oh certainly. Certainly there were. It was a debate in the truest sense of the word. We had speakers lined up [behind] pro-mics. We had speakers lined up behind con-mics. It was by no means unanimous. It was vigorously debated. But when it came time to call for the vote, it did pass. And it passed by a substantial margin based on my sort of reading of the floor.
Presumably some of the people there were history teachers, and presumably someone made the argument that without Sir John A., this country probably wouldn't exist. He was the Father of Confederation. If you can't name a school after Sir John A. Macdonald, who can you name a school after?
If we're going to attribute that piece of history to him, we also have to be prepared likewise [to] attribute some darker elements of our history to him as well. And that project, this project that we call Canada, in its conception, Sir John A. Macdonald presided over and directed some pretty awful things to happen to Indigenous people of this land. Mainly the creation of the Indian residential school system, which we know the Truth and Reconciliation [Commission of Canada] came to the conclusion that it did amount to genocide of Indigenous peoples.

Embarrassing a Teacher's Union needs a lesson on how to teach history. Let's chat after you read this @etfopresident https://t.co/b0fqOJ3NSU https://t.co/n2jkyigLKZ
- Erin O'Toole (@ErinOTooleMP) August 23, 2017
Where does it stop? Horrible things have been done by people who we honour on our currency and on our public buildings from the date of confederation to present and preceding confederation as well. You mentioned the Indian residential school system. The last residential school didn't actually shut down until the mid 90s. So does that mean only prime ministers who served after Chretien can have schools named after them?
That system was created under prime minister John A. Macdonald. In addition to having been prime minister at the time he also occupied a position that we would come to understand today, what we would call today, as the minister of Indigenous or Aboriginal affairs.

This is just largely in recognition of that. And it's not dissimilar to a decision made by the federal government recently to rename the Langevin Block building on Wellington in recognition of Hector Louis Langevin's role in the same project that was the Indian residential school system.
I'd just like to read you a short quote from conservative MP Erin O'Toole. This is something he tweeted out when he heard about your motion. His quote is, "Embarrassing a Teacher's Union needs a lesson on how to teach history." What would you say to Mr. O'Toole?
I would say that it's precisely because we as teachers are fully cognizant of the full history of this country, that's the reason why we are pushing this motion forward.

I would say it's the furthest thing from embarrassing.

Awful..next for removal: Wilfrid Laurier and Mackenzie King. Presided over residential schools 40 years; head tax; opposed Jewish refugees. https://t.co/hOFveyLn2t
- Rick Anderson (@RickAnderson) August 23, 2017
Your motion has been approved. But your union doesn't have the power to make these name changes happen. What would have to happen for Sir John A. Macdonald's name to start coming off schools?
It would be a conversation that the federation through our provincial body and likely through our locals in all parts of the province would engage in with the boards.

In days and times such as these when we see the kinds of things that we're seeing all over the world, south of the border, up here as well, I would be hard pressed to think that anyone would believe or agree that a little bit of open and genuine conversation is not the way to go.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. For more, listen to our conversation with Felipe Pareja.

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Ontario teacher explains why Sir John A. Macdonald's name should be stripped from public schools

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Story transcript Felipe Pareja wants the name of Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, removed from all public schools in Ontario. Now, the teacher and member of The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO), is one step closer to seeing that happen.

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Read Story Transcript
What to do with statues that glorify icons of slavery and white supremacy is not only a hot debate in the United States. The controversy holds up in Canada as well, with the latest discussion surrounding the legacy of Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald.

The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario recently voted to have his name removed from all public schools in the province.

"This project that we call Canada in its conception, Sir John A. Macdonald presided over and directed some pretty awful things to happen to Indigenous peoples of this land," Felipe Pareja told CBC As It Happens, a teacher behind the successful motion.

Niigaan Sinclair, who teaches at the University of Manitoba, is encouraged by this move and says it shows that "Canada is beginning to grow up, starting to act like responsible ethical adults with one another by acknowledging the history and the experiences of all peoples."

Sinclair tells The Current's host Matt Galloway that with this acknowledgement comes "this uncomfortable feeling," which he explains "is really what reconciliation begins to feel like."

He argues that removing John A. Macdonald's name from schools is not about erasing the past, pointing to an impactful legacy, but says rather it's about critical context.

"Schools are perhaps the most important parts of a nation. That's where the most important discussions happen, and it's critically important that we look at those symbols and say, 'What is it that we're holding up?'" Sinclair asks.

John Boyko, a former dean of history at Lakefield College School, agrees that there is a real need "to advance the conversation in Canada about who we are, who we aspire to be, because we need to engage the past intelligently. And we need to atone for mistakes and crimes in order to plot a path forward."

However, Boyko argues that none of the 95 recommendations in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued in 2015 mentions renaming schools or buildings.

"But what the truth and reconciliation did recommend is that education be used as a tool through which we can properly better educate ourselves and engage in this conversation - that is, I believe, what should be done," he tells Galloway.

Related: 'Everyone has warts': Indigenous MP supports John A. Macdonald's name on schools

Boyko says that his two grandchildren, who are Ojibwe, are proud of their heritage and to know their history.

"I would be happy with them attending a school named after Sir John Madconald if that school, and other schools properly named after leaders in our history, were to engage the kids in age/grade appropriate manners," he explains.

What is important, Boyko adds, is to be critical and ask the important questions.

"Who is this school named after and what was it in our history that we should be proud of? What is it in our history that we know now were mistakes?"
Listen to the full segment near the top of this web post. This segment was produced by The Current's Liz Hoath and Ramraajh Sharvendiran.

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Renaming John A. Macdonald schools is part of reconciliation, argues professor

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Read Story Transcript What to do with statues that glorify icons of slavery and white supremacy is not only a hot debate in the United States. The controversy holds up in Canada as well, with the latest discussion surrounding the legacy of Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald.

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The former chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission says we should stop arguing about whether schools should be named after Sir John A. Macdonald, and start thinking about how to honour overlooked Indigenous heroes.

Sen. Murray Sinclair's remarks come after an Ontario teachers' union passed a controversial motion calling for the removal of Macdonald's name on buildings, accusing Canada's first prime minister of advocating Indigenous genocide.

Sinclair, the first Indigenous judge to be appointed in Manitoba, spoke with As It Happens guest host Susan Bonner on Tuesday. Here is part of their conversation.
What bothers you about this debate over Sir John A. Macdonald?
As a person who spent so many years studying and discussing the importance of reconciliation, I'm concerned about the fact that we're really concentrating our efforts on doing something negative that doesn't really need to be. We could turn this into a positive.
The issue, of course, came to a head last week when [a] teachers' union in Ontario passed that controversial motion, which called for Sir John A.'s name to be removed from the schools, and which referred to him as an "architect of genocide" against Indigenous people. Can I ask you what you think about that characterization?
There's a lot of merit to it. I don't think we can get past that.

Keep in mind the fact that genocide was not a crime at the time that he was prime minister, and it wasn't a crime when Hitler was doing what he was doing in Europe during the Second World War, but that doesn't mean neither of them did things that were terribly wrong.

And incidentally, people talk about the fact that he didn't do anything different than what was acceptable in society. A lot of what he did was not acceptable in society and there were a lot of people that opposed him. But because Macdonald was the prime minister, he got his way.

Whether or not we now like it or are prepared to condone it or even continue to commemorate it, the reality is that's not what reconciliation is all about. Reconciliation is really about trying to find a balance in telling the history of this country.

The most important thing that I think we should be looking at is that there are a lot of Indigenous people who have made a positive contribution to this country, to their people and to the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who have largely been ignored by history and who deserve to be honoured and commemorated just as much, and we should be talking about what to do about them.
Are there divisions, though, within the Indigenous community about what reconciliation really means? Because the national chief [of the Assembly of First Nations], Perry Bellegarde, has said he supports the idea of removing Sir John A.'s name from the schools.
There are divisions within society. There are divisions within the non-Indigenous community, as well. So I'm not surprised by that. I think that people are still trying to come to terms with their own sense of what reconciliation means and what it should mean.

Reconciliation is about establishing a relationship of mutual respect, and ensuring that we do not tolerate any more the fact that one society or one element of society believes that it is superior to another element of society.
Again, I go back to your comments about how this is a negative debate and about how this debate is actually "counterproductive" to reconciliation. Is there a productive side to it because people are engaging in this debate and having the conversation?
There is an equally controversial, perhaps, but more positive tack that can be taken, which is to identify those Indigenous individuals in Canadian society who have contributed as much to this country as Macdonald, if not more.
Give us a couple of examples of who you would like to see commemorated in this way?
One of the first ones, of course, is one in Manitoba with the Selkirk Treaty. When Lord Selkirk, on behalf of his people, came to what is now the Forks area in the southern part of Manitoba, to establish a settlement, he negotiated the presence and the ability to occupy land with Chief Peguis.

Chief Peguis not only protected the people, but agreed to give them land upon which they could establish their villages and also agreed to help them survive and took care of them.

In the West, Poundmaker and Big Bear, who were instrumental in keeping Indigenous people from joining the war against Canada during the Saskatchewan rebellion.
How would you like to see these men honoured or recognized? More statues? More school namings?
Exactly. I think they should be on our currency. I think they should be on the walls of public institutions, just like the portraits of speakers of the House and members of Parliament and prime ministers are hanging in our public buildings. We shouldn't be hiding them away in small buildings and dark places.
And they should be alongside some of these names that are controversial now, like Sir John. A?
In order to bring balance to the story, yes.
Where do you think we are on that effort?
Oh, we're stumbling at the starting line of reconciliation. There's no question of that. We haven't even started the race yet. There's a long way to go.
With files from Canadian Press. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. For more, listen to our interview with Sen. Murray Sinclair:

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Debate over John A. Macdonald's name 'not what reconciliation is all about,' says Murray Sinclair

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The former chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission says we should stop arguing about whether schools should be named after Sir John A. Macdonald, and start thinking about how to honour overlooked Indigenous heroes. Sen.

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Even though the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario's resolution to strip our first prime minister's name off the province's schools made plenty of people furious, we should probably thank the organization for forcing a long overdue debate in this province.

Americans are neck-deep in their own version of this issue. In community after community, they're taking down statues of Confederate soldiers and politicians, having realized that many people don't regard those men as heroes, but rather as proponents of slavery.

And perhaps making that decision even easier is the fact that men such as Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and Robert E. Lee were, in fact, traitors to the United States.

Sir John A. Macdonald was not a traitor himself. On the contrary: he was the single most-important political figure in creating Canada. The eminent historian and columnist Richard Gwyn has said that without Macdonald, British North America could easily have been swept into the American Civil War vortex. Instead, thanks in large part to Sir John, we became our own country and, 150 years on, are the envy of much of the world.

But of course, Macdonald's utterances about Indigenous peoples do not stand up to 21st-century standards and values. And so, many teachers want his name scraped off the facades of elementary schools across Ontario.

Should we do this? After all, if you're from an Indigenous community, wouldn't the sight of Sir John offend you in the same way a statue of Robert E. Lee would offend an African-American?

By chance, last week I visited the nearly 150-year-old Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa, the final resting place for 75,000 Canadians. Former governor-general Ramon Hnytyshyn, former prime minister Robert Borden, and former federal NDP leader and Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas are all buried there.

So is someone you've probably never heard of: Nicholas Flood Davin, a lawyer, journalist, member of parliament, and man of letters, originally from Ireland. And that's mostly what you'll find out about Davin if you read his headstone.

However, there's a new plaque beside Davin's gravesite that adds some greater context to his life. The plaque points out that at the request of Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, Davin wrote a report called "Industrial Schools for Indians and Half-Breeds." We go on to learn that Davin was an architect of the residential school system, which aimed to remove "the influence of the wigwam" from Indigenous children. The plaque concludes by quoting the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's view that the policy was tantamount to cultural genocide.

As I read the headstone, then the modern plaque in front of it, I began to wonder whether this wasn't an appropriate Canadian compromise for other figures from our history whose views were abhorrent by modern standards.

So I wonder: rather than expunging our history of yesterday's leaders, perhaps we should do what they've done at the Beechwood Cemetery. Perhaps we should start erecting a lot more plaques, acknowledging the contribution of the historic figure in question but also explaining the darker side of their legacy.

We really do need to figure this out because it won't end with Sir John, whose name and face appear on statues, roads, and buildings across the country, not to mention on the $10 bill. Sir Wilfrid Laurier's face is on the $5 bill, and his name appears on an Ontario university, a prominent Ottawa hotel, and elsewhere. He was also the prime minister who sent the Chinese "head tax" skyrocketing.

The Komagata Maru incident, in which immigrants from India were denied entry into Canada, took place on Borden's watch. Should we take him off the $100 bill? German-Canadians, Italian-Canadians, and especially Japanese-Canadians were interned in World War II, during William Lyon Mackenzie King's tenure. Should we take him off our $50 bill?

This may be one of those wonderful teachable moments in our history: we don't have to bury the past, because that would actually hinder our ability to learn from it.

Maybe we should start putting up some plaques. Or even better, maybe we should start naming more schools after the many Indigenous figures who helped shape this country, too many of whom have been forgotten in our history.
Clarification: This post originally stated that Japanese-Canadians were held in "prison camps." The facilities can be more accurately described as "internment camps." [Visit the Canadian Encyclopedia for more information.]

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Can we strike a Canadian compromise on John A. Macdonald's legacy?

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Even though the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario's resolution to strip our first prime minister's name off the province's schools made plenty of people furious, we should probably thank the organization for forcing a long overdue debate in this province. Americans are neck-deep in their own version of this issue.