Indigenous communities say his stature invokes traumatic memories but Premier Kenney says he’d be glad to give it a home in front of the Alberta Legislature.
Last Saturday, protest in Montreal brought down a statue of Canada’s first Conservative Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, whose policies were cruel and in some cases genocidal to many indigenous people suffering long lasting impacts today.
PM Macdonald was the leading figure in the British North America Act of 1867 and the birth of Canada as a nation on July 1, 1867.
He was the first Prime Minister of Canada who served 19 years of terror on minorities.
Not just the indigenous communities got a taste of PM Macdonald’ terror, he implemented a Chinese Head Tax.
Residential schools, dubbed, cultural genocide was his baby, which he defended with passion in parliament as reflected in this quote:
“When the school is on the reserve, the child lives with its parents, who are savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits and training mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly impressed upon myself, as head of the Department, that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.” 1879 Sir John A.Macdonald.
Premier Kenney, whose speechwriter questions the impact of residential schools on indigenous communities, is calling for a debate on the legacy of PM Macdonald at a time when statues of controversial leaders like King Leopold ll of Belgium, and Christopher Columbus, are being taken down.
Winds of “just change” are blowing across the world, how will history remember those resisting this change?
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