Revising History

By: Sophia Deen

Across the United States, citizens have been taking down Confederate statues as a method to battle systematic racism and oppression. John A. Macdonald was Canada’s first prime minister, holding office for almost 19 years. John A. Macdonald was responsible for the starvation of Indigenous people- starving thousands of Indigenous people to get them to migrate to the reserves and away from the Canadian Pacific Railroad (opened for the Prairies to White Settlement) while telling the House of Commons that his agents were withholding food to ‘reduce expense’. Macdonald also oppressed Asians in Canada, making claims that the Chinese and Europeans were a separate species. The 1885 Electoral Franchise Act stated that Chinese Settlers did not have the right to vote since Chinese exclusion was ‘necessary or else the ‘Aryan character of the future of British America should be destroyed’. 

Over 45,000 people signed a petition for the removal of his statue in Montreal, the 29th of August being the date where protestors took it down themselves. Many politicians and Canadians have made claims that ‘Canada wouldn't exist with Sir John A. Macdonald”, but this does not imply that he should be celebrated as a leading figure in history. Many indigenous families still face his racist policies, where the last residential was still running until 1996. These schools build traumatic experiences and affect family systems, even causing the loss of the teaching of tradition, language, and culture. 

The Canadian Government needs to do more to fight systematic racism by revising history.

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