Your Subdued Canada Day Open Thread

Look – it’s been a pretty bad few weeks up here in the Great White North. Among the ‘highlights’:

• Remains of 215 children discovered on site of former residential school.
• 751 unmarked graves found at residential school.
• How Thousands of Indigenous Children Vanished in Canada.
• Forensic experts say identifying the remains of Indigenous children and adults buried at former residential schools is a painstaking process that could take decades.

So I’m not going to pretend that there isn’t some national soul-searching going on in the wake of all this. All of which, naturally, has put a damper on the annual celebration. (I assume some activist was arrested for trying to throw paint on/at/near Justin Trudeau at the national celebration in Ottawa.) I’m going to use some of my time here to bring people up to speed so you can understand why there’s protests outside the Cup games in Montreal.

For lack of a better expression, this issue will become, over the next couple of decades, Canada’s reckoning with slavery. In short, the Residential School system operated for over 100 years – between 1879 and 1996 – under the auspices of the Indian Act (1876) and in that legal capacity removed over 150,000 kids from their homes to centralized learning institutions, with the dual purpose of trying to eliminate their culture (government) & save their pagan souls (religious). That’s why you are hearing stories about Catholic schools coming out of this – the federal government, because education is a provincial power, contracted religious orders to run these schools because they could operate within their own curriculum & without provincial funding. Beyond the Catholic Church, there were schools run by the Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian and United churches.

They based this principle of the research of Egerton Ryerson, whom the university is named after. Ryerson recommended that domestic education and religious instruction was the best model for integrating the Indian population into the greater population. This was reinforced by the 1879 Davin Report, which studied Indian schooling in the US and Canada & recommended the partnership with the churches, because they had a common goal to, to quote Rudyard Kipling,

Take up the White Man’s burden –
And reap his old reward,
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard.

The federal government had a “don’t ask; don’t tell” policy towards how the schools were run. As long as the common end result was pursued, there was little concern for the ancillary damage.

In 1920, a civil servant & Canadian poet named Duncan Campbell Scott pushed the government to make attendance mandatory, believing that indoctrination would be the best way to assimilate the aboriginal population into the greater society. He couldn’t have been more clear with what he was doing,

“Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department, that is the whole object of this Bill.”

but the stereotype of the uncolonized Indian allowed many people to rationalize the situation. Even in the age of official multiculturalism (brought in by Justin’s father), most Canadians preferred to live with their heads in the sand about the whole thing.

Until I was in my 20s & taking courses at university, I was basically one of them. From then, obviously, I know better.

In 2007, and modeled on the post-Apartheid South African “Truth & Reconciliation” Commission, the Canadian government began hearings into the Residential School system. What came out was horrific – you can read the whole report here – and has been the basis under which this historical reckoning is coming to light. Unmarked graves is just the beginning of what will come to light. A friend of mine’s wife was a recording secretary for the Commission, and she’s still in therapy five years later.

If you like, Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip worked on a solo project before his death called the “The Secret Path“. It grew out of his researching a Maclean’s story called, “The Lonely Death of Charlie Wenjack.” It was about a boy who tried to escape a residential school, only to freeze to death walking the track tracks to what he thought would be his freedom.

As much as I can’t stand The Tragically Hip & their overblown place in Canada’s rich musical landscape, I can’t deny that this is an important entry point to many people learning about Canada’s national shame. So if you’re inclined, give it a look. If nothing else, it’ll give American commentists an answer when a Canadian brings up slavery & tries to act morally superior.

Sorry to be dour on a day of national celebration, but it’s too important a teaching moment not to pass up. Canada is a good country, but we can’t deny some bad things were done to the people supposedly under our care.

Tonight’s sports: (it’s a holiday, so I prepped it early. Apologies if schedules changed.)

• NHL:
  • no game. Stupid Gary Bettman.
• NBA:
  • Atlanta at Milwaukee – 8:30pm | TNT / Sportsnet
• MLB:
  • Mariners at Blue Jays – 7:00pm | Sportsnet360
    • Canada Day in Buffalo!
  • 2021 Google MLB All-Star Starters Reveal – 9:00pm | ESPN / TSN4
  • Giants at D-backs – 9:30pm | ESPN / TSN4
• Futbol:
  • MLS:
    • Austin vs. Portland – 9:30pm | TSN3
  • Copa:
    • resumes Friday
• Wrestling:
  • IMPACT – 7:00pm | AXS / FiteNetwork Canada

Well, I hope July 4th isn’t as traumatic to your national psyche. Enjoy the futbol tomorrow.