Canadian Guilt

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that Canadians are misguided in feeling any guilt over slavery or the Indian residential schools.

Slavery was never recognized in Canada. In the lower 13 colonies, laws had to be passed permitting the institution. Common law does not recognize the right to own another person. In Canada, as in the UK, there were no such laws. This means slavery was, by default, always illegal. There was no reason or need to pass any specific law prohibiting it. Although Upper Canada, aka Ontario, did so in 1793.

All a supposed slave needed to do in Canada, was to run away. The government and the authorities would not support the slaveowner in any attempt to recover his property. If he went to court, the court would declare the enslaved man free. 

There was slavery, granted, everywhere else in the world. But not here, except among the “First Nations” beyond the reach of the law.

I also believe Canadians have nothing to apologize for regarding the Indian residential schools. There has even been an attempt to make that statement illegal and punishable by up to two years in prison. There would be no need were it not a true statement. I have read the Truth and Reconciliation Report. Despite it being their mandate to dig up all the possible dirt on the residential schools, they found nothing. And there were no mass graves.

No doubt there were some predatory individuals in the schools, as there are in any school. But the structure of the residential schools was designed to reduce this risk to a minimum. No doubt some children died in their care. Children often died young a century ago. No doubt some schools were short of funds, and cut corners. As happens with bureaucracies everywhere. The bottom line remains: the intention to educate was a noble and a charitable intention, and one called for by treaty and by the First Nation themselves. If getting educated is an attack on one’s culture, what does that say about your culture?

You may argue that the schools suppressed the native languages. After all, they forced everyone to speak English or French.

Just like any language school today. Immersion is the best way to learn a language.

What is the purpose of language? To communicate. On average, an aboriginal language in Canada has about one thousand speakers—and, having no written form, no literature. One thousand people with whom you can communicate. Compared to English the practical value of knowing that language is infinitesimal. Why spend class time on it, especially since, arriving at the age of six or above, the student is already fluent in it, more fluent than the teacher.

These schools took in students from a variety of tribes or “nations.” The students themselves could not communicate to one another in any language other than English or French.

Were the schools designed to suppress Indian culture and force assimilation to the mainstream? Perhaps they should have been, but they were not. Just the opposite. Were assimilation the intent, there would have been no Indian schools—the children would have been sent to the regular provincial schools with everyone else. Residential schools preserved some sort of Indian separateness, cultural distinctness. They trained for skills thought useful for a life on the reserve, not for success in the broader society.

Canadians will need to look harder for something to feel bad about. Might I suggest in this regard, for more suitable contemplation, our chronic anti-Americanism? Our turning away from religion? Our unrestricted abortion, and now euthanasia? Our arrogance on the world stage?