Spend time honouring Indigenous heroes rather than debating Macdonald: Murray Sinclair

2017/08/31 Leave a comment

Indeed:

The former chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission says tearing down tributes that are considered offensive to Indigenous Peoples would be “counterproductive” because it smacks of anger, not harmony.

Sen. Murray Sinclair says the debate over whether to remove Sir John A. Macdonald’s name from Ontario schools is time that would be better spent discussing the need to honour and elevate Indigenous heroes.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Sinclair calls that approach a recipe for fighting and rancour.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says there are no plans to remove Macdonald’s name from buildings or sites that are in the purview of the federal government.

In June, Trudeau decided to remove the name of Hector-Louis Langevin, a father of Confederation and architect of the residential school system, from the Ottawa building that houses the Prime Minister’s Office

Sinclair’s remarks come after an Ontario teachers union passed a controversial motion calling for the rechristening of schools named after Canada’s first prime minister, accusing Macdonald of advocating Indigenous genocide.

Source: Spend time honouring Indigenous heroes rather than debating Macdonald: Murray Sinclair – Toronto – CBC News

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Teachings about aboriginals ‘simply wrong’, says Murray Sinclair

2015/05/26 Leave a comment

Valid and needed points:

But Sinclair emphasized that one of the most important messages that will come from the report is that the consequences of the school system are far more wide-reaching than many realize.

“This is not an aboriginal problem,” he said. “This is a Canadian problem. Because at the same time that aboriginal people were being demeaned in the schools and their culture and language were being taken away from them and they were being told that they were inferior, they were pagans, that they were heathens and savages and that they were unworthy of being respected — that very same message was being given to the non-aboriginal children in the public schools as well.”

As a result, he said, many generations of non-aboriginal Canadians have had their perceptions of aboriginal people “tainted.”

“They need to know that this history includes them,” Sinclair said of Canadians.

He said many people have told the commission they did not know their country had set up a school system that treated aboriginal children so poorly.

Sinclair said the commission decided during its work that it needed to be “gentle” with Canadians as they learned of their country’s past.

“We needed to be sure that people were brought to the table of knowledge about this in a way that didn’t scare them, didn’t push them away, didn’t make them feel ashamed or guilty or that they were to blame.

“But they needed to see that they were victims, too, of this history.”

In their report, Sinclair and his co-commissioners, former journalist Marie Wilson and Alberta Chief Willie Littlechild, will make recommendations to federal and provincial governments. It’s clear one of them will be to ensure schools teach children about the residential schools and indigenous culture.

“By including teaching around residential schools in Canadian curriculum,” said Sinclair, “we are not only opening the door to having aboriginal people become part of the circle, we are also opening the eyes of Canadians to the fact that they have been educated in the public schools about aboriginals historically, and even today, in (a way) that is simply wrong and doesn’t contain accurate information.”

…“The message for all Canadians is it’s important for us to understand that it’s now time for us to live up to the reputation that we think we had, that we thought we had — and we don’t have,” he said.

“It’s important for us to understand that we have deluded ourselves as a country to a certain extent because we have not educated ourselves about this experience.”

Teachings about aboriginals ‘simply wrong’, says Murray Sinclair.

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