Conservative senator's comments on residential schools show 'lack of knowledge'
Lynn Beyak says she will not apologize or step down from Senate's Aboriginal Peoples committee
A prominent Indigenous leader in Sudbury, Ont. says recent comments by a Conservative senator show a misunderstanding of Canada's residential school system.
Senator Lynn Beyak defended the residential school system during a speech earlier this month, saying that the "good deeds" accomplished by "well-intentioned" religious teachers have been overshadowed by negative reports documented by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
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Rick Ouellet, director of the Wabnode Centre for Aboriginal Services at Cambrian College in Sudbury, said commenting on the positive experiences of residential schools without fully understanding their history is "problematic."
"I think [Beyak] really struggles to understand the depths by which the Canadian government intended to erase Indigenous culture," Ouellet said.
"For someone in her position ... to speak in the way she has, and get national coverage, is just disappointing," he said.
You can't pick and choose positive stories about residential schools, Ouellet says
Even though Beyak quoted the positive experiences of prominent Indigenous author Tomson Highway, Ouellet said picking one point of view on residential schools doesn't negate the bigger picture.
"You can pick and choose and say 'this guy was in the right place,'" he said.
"That may be true, but you don't understand the larger project. Bringing in Tomson Highway, who went to school at a later time, obfuscates those early years and why those schools came to be."
Ouellet said that, in Beyak's speech, she also connected Indigenous "success" with practising the Christian faith, which is a throwback to the perspective many Canadian leaders had a century ago.
"A lot of that kind of perspective was said in Parliament at the time," he said. "She's a hundred years out of date."
Ouellet suggested the senator take a crash course in residential school history.
"She needs to read the Truth and Reconciliation Report. At least the summary."
Listen to Rick Ouellet's interview on CBC's northern Ontario afternoon show Up North here.
With files from Jason Turnbull