Our first Prime Minister, Sir John A MacDonald, was a major architect and builder of our Confederation in 1867.  He won six elections (defeated once), serving from 1867 to 1874 and from 1878 to 1891.

Yet now he is vilified, his statues vandalized, torn down and hidden.  Why?

Because he was, as his own Minister of Indian Affairs, the architect and instigator of the policy of the assimilation of indigenous peoples into the culture of the Europeans colonizing and settling Canada.  He created Indian Residential Schools – involving forced removal and relocation of children – on the grounds that indigenous parents were “savages” and that education of children on Indian Reserves would simple create “a savage who can read and write”.  Hence the popular re-formulation of the objective: “take the savage out of the Indian”.

History tells us that residential schools were an atrocious and catastrophic public policy blunder.  The principal objective of cultural assimilation itself was a heinous offence against human rights.  The implementation of the policy caused grievous damage to many children, their families and their cultures.  There were horrific abuses and deaths.

So there are good grounds for condemnation in the strongest terms.

But that moral censure is based on our moral standards of today.  History shows that moral standards exist in a historical and socio-cultural context. It is a perhaps regrettable truth that moral absolutes exist nowhere but in eternity.

The principles of jurisprudence maintain that a finding of legal culpability for an offence requires intent on the part of the perpetrator.  The perpetrator must know that the action they take is wrong.  Culpability can also be assigned where the perpetrator did not know an action or inaction was wrong, but should have known it was wrong.

I argue that Sir John A. did not know that his actions were wrong, nor should he have known his actions were wrong.

Sir John A. thought his actions were right.  Assimilation of indigenous cultures was seen as a path to survival of indigenous peoples, when settler colonization and land appropriation by the non-indigenous had critically damaged if not destroyed the indigenous way of life.   Agreed that previous and contemporary government policies were largely responsible for that destruction, but those policies pre-dated Confederation and indeed pre-dated European governance of non-treaty indigenous lands.

How could or should Sir John A. have known his actions were wrong?  No one in Parliament said they were wrong; no dissent was recorded at the time.  No one in organized religion said they were wrong; indeed religious organizations were enthused by the evangelical opportunities.  No one in the press wrote that the actions were wrong.  There were no popular movements saying the actions were wrong.

Perhaps the condemnation of slavery of African peoples should have informed his thinking.  But the penny did not drop for anyone in Canada, at least among the European settler colonists.  Indigenous peoples were “savages”.

The critical voice missing was, of course, the voice of the indigenous peoples.  There were at the time indigenous voices protesting the residential schools’ policy (as well as the policies of land expropriation and starvation).  But there was a clear consensus among the settler colonists that the indigenous peoples did not have the rights or status of the colonizers.  (indeed, it was 60 more years before indigenous peoples were even allowed to vote). Of course in retrospect that was an egregious moral error, but that was not appreciated at the time.

Perhaps one could argue that moral principles would have told him (though he was far from a moral philosopher).  Given that the indigenous were not seen as having equal rights, the utilitarian principle of ‘greatest happiness of the greatest number’ would have favoured the interests of the colonists.  Similarly, the critical imperative principle of universality – would it be right were it done to you? – would only apply if the rights of indigenous were seen as the same as the rights of European colonists.

The policy of residential schools and assimilation can be understood as horrendous public policy failures, but their intent cannot be condemned as morally wrong.

By all means condemn the bad public policy.  But absolve Sir John A. from moral culpability.

So thank you, Sir John, for your role in creating the Canada of today.  Happy Birthday Canada!

Assimilator, assimilatee

My country ‘tis of thee:

Notwithstanding.