Indigenous services minister Marc Miller speaks after the Sir John Macdonald statue removed by Charlottetown city council
The Canadian Bazaar
TORONTO: With the Charlottetown city council voting to remove a statue of first prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald amid rising anger over the discovery of remains of 215 native kids in Kamloops on May 27, federal indigenous services minister Mark Miller on Wednesday said his statues should be spared.
Sir John A. Macdonald is blamed for starting Indian residential schools in 1883, forcibly removing indigenous kids from their “savage” parents and putting them in these schools.
In fact, what the country’s first prime minister said about native people in the House of Commons on May 9, 1883, will outrage Canadians today.
Sir John Macdonald had said: “When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its 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. He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly pressed on myself, as the head of the Department, that the Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will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.”
As anger mounts against Sir John Macdonald after the horrible discovery in Kamloops, Minister Marc Miller today said he opposed removal of his statues.
There are many Sir John Macdonald statues around Canada as are many places named after him.
“Breaking things, breaking things isn’t my favourite option. It’s not my favorite option,” Miller said, perhaps fearing targeting of the Sir John Macdonald statues in the coming days.
“Seeing things as painful as they are, explaining why they are, is my preferred option,” the minister added.
In all, 139 Indian residential schools ran across Canada from 1883 to 1996 when the last one closed. Over 150,000 kids were forcibly put in these schools, away from their families.
Thousands of kids died in these schools run by many churches with support from the Canadian government.
They were buried at unmarked graves as it has been found out at the Kamloops residential school – the biggest of all schools.
Kids suffered malnutrition and mental, emotional and sexual abuse at these schools. They were whipped for speaking their native language. Some schools recorded mortality rates of over 60 percent. Many more kids perished or froze to death while fleeing from these schools.
There have been allegations that native kids were used as ‘guinea pigs’ to know the impact of malnutrition on human beings.
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