Premier Danielle Smith waded into the problem on Tuesday, saying she’s “involved about erasing parts of our historical past”
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Indigenous advocates and college students took to the road in Calgary’s Beltline Tuesday morning to demand the title of Canada’s first prime minister be wiped from a college within the metropolis’s northwest because of his disturbing historical past as an architect of the nation’s residential faculty system.
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Roughly two dozen protesters gathered outdoors the Calgary Board of Schooling workplaces — shortly earlier than a scheduled faculty board assembly — to demand trustees take motion on renaming Sir John A. Macdonald Junior Excessive Faculty, because of the hurt the present title causes to Indigenous and racialized college students. A handful of law enforcement officials confirmed up because the protest started, holding watch from contained in the entrance doorways of the CBE constructing.
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That is the most recent of a number of makes an attempt lately to have the CBE transfer to rename the varsity because of its namesake politician’s contentious historical past. Within the late 1800s, Macdonald championed the implementation of the residential faculty system, of which the acknowledged aim was to assimilate Indigenous youngsters. The final establishment closed in 1997.
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The Reality and Reconciliation Fee discovered the system amounted to cultural genocide, estimating roughly 6,000 youngsters died whereas attending the faculties — exact numbers are unknown because of incomplete data. Lots of of potential unmarked graves have been discovered at former residential faculty websites over the past two years, together with in Alberta.
‘(I)f it was totally different, then folks wouldn’t must be reminded of him’
Makena Halvorson, a Grade 9 scholar at Sir John A. Macdonald Faculty, mentioned she’s been advocating for a reputation change for the final two years with little motion by CBE to treatment her and her classmate’s issues.
“It type of defines us,” she mentioned of the title. “It actually does as a result of, if it was totally different, then folks wouldn’t must be reminded of him and the intergenerational hurt that he’s brought about.”
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Whereas largely peaceable, the protest did end in some shouting from the demonstrators directed at a lone counter-protester, Patrick Flynn, who they known as a “racist” for his help of Macdonald. Flynn, a Calgary prison defence lawyer, mentioned he was a scholar on the faculty rising up and admitted Macdonald had flaws, however he mentioned he wouldn’t let the group throw the primary prime minister into “the dustbin of historical past.”
“You can not overlook historical past and also you significantly can’t simply wipe his title off of a college,” he mentioned, noting the varsity’s title commemorated the one hundredth anniversary of Canadian confederation when it opened in 1967. “I’m silently protesting what I think about to be a shift in politics the place extremism wins out over widespread sense.”
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Protest deliberate to demand renaming of Calgary’s Sir John A. Macdonald Faculty
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From 2021: Alberta First Nations welcome initiative to find, honour unmarked graves
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Piikani First Nation to start out investigation of potential graves
Premier Smith ‘involved about erasing parts of our historical past’
Talking at an unrelated information convention Tuesday morning, Premier Danielle Smith took an analogous stance to Flynn — and her predecessor Jason Kenney — on the problem.
“I do get involved about erasing parts of our historical past,” Smith mentioned. “As a result of I do assume it’s necessary that we perceive the rights and the wrongs that every one of our prime ministers did. It’s a part of Canadian historical past.”
The protest additionally took goal at John Diefenbaker Excessive Faculty’s emblem and “Chiefs” sports activities workforce title. Fernanda Ortiz, a Grade 10 scholar on the faculty, mentioned Indigenous and racialized college students have endured an “unsafe and hostile atmosphere the place our humanity is decreased to a mascot.”
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“Diefenbaker Excessive Faculty has taken our id and turned it right into a humorous trope, a caricature and a joke,” Ortiz mentioned. “They’ve taken a headdress that represents 1000’s of years of ceremony and sacred traditions and have printed it over shirts, hats, banners and flooring. And I’m right here to say sufficient is sufficient.”
The CBE advised Postmedia Monday it’s dedicated to the TRC’s 94 Calls to Motion and work to contemplate the renaming of colleges is ongoing — together with a reputation evaluate committee particularly whether or not Sir John A. Macdonald Faculty ought to be renamed.
“There is no such thing as a room for racism or discrimination in any of our colleges or workplaces,” mentioned Board chair Laura Hack.
“We acknowledge extra must be finished and we’re listening and studying so we will proceed to do higher,” she mentioned.
Twitter: @michaelrdrguez
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