Don't Shoot The Messenger

A truly objective analysis of this chapter in Canada’s history would reveal that Canadians should be proud – not ashamed – that, under the leadership of Sir John A. MacDonald the government set the wheels in motion to pull Canada’s aboriginals out of the Stone Age into the Modern Age, bypassing the Bronze and Iron Ages in the process. In other parts of the world, this process took tens of thousands of years, but in Canada, it only took about 200 years.

There is no doubt that, as a consequence of millions of impoverished homesteaders flocking to Canada seeking a better life, there was an inevitable clash of cultures with the indigenous inhabitants. To deal with the problems caused by this clash of cultures, which included frequent violent confrontations, the government of John A. MacDonald had only two realistic choices: either eliminate the problem completely (similar to the American strategy), or try help the aboriginals integrate by teaching them the skills they would need to survive and become equal participants in the new Canadian society. The Residential School option was clearly the most humane one.

Anyone with an open mind should consider this: if the Residential School system had not been established, the aboriginals (especially those who refused to move to reserves, despite agreeing to do so in the Treaties) would have been left to fend for themselves with no mechanism to teach them the skills they would need to survive in the new Canadian society, and they would ultimately have vanished.

When one peels off the thin veneer of the “victim” narrative, it becomes increasingly clear that the people who so are so eager to use the term “genocide”, and so loudly condemn anyone who suggests that some good did indeed come out of the Residential School program, are the ones who benefit financially - including the countless thousands of lawyers, consultants, employees at all three levels of government, and opportunistic politicians (including many Indian Chiefs). Most of those people are making a very good living by keeping Canada’s aboriginals perpetually dependent on government handouts, in the what is often referred to as “the aboriginal industry”. Add, to the mix, the bevy of gullible journalists who have bought in to the narrative, and you have a well-oiled propaganda machine. When only one side of a story is told, that’s propaganda – not necessarily the truth. Adolph Hitler and Josef Goebbels would have been proud.

To anyone who takes the time to do the research, it will become clear that the transition of Canada’s aboriginals from the Stone age to the Modern Age was more of a success than a failure. Until this is acknowledged by both sides of the debate, there cannot be any true “reconciliation”.