A final thought on the Sir John A Macdonald controversy. Steve Paikin published an essay condemning the toppling of Macdonald statues and calling for "more debate" and problematically (in my view) invoking the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s as a model https://www.tvo.org/article/what-we-lose-by-tearing-down-sir-john-as-statue

But while he ends with the "more debate" argument, he also launches a long defence of Macdonald as not being the sole architect of the Indian Act or the creator of residential schools.

While it is, indeed, true that Macdonald wasn't the original creator of the Indian Act, Paikin does conveniently fail to mention that his government introduced many of the most punitive measures of the Indian Act, including the Potlatch Ban.

His claim that Macdonald didn't invent residential schools is also true, but conveniently fails to mention that the national *system* of residential schooling was, indeed, a policy designed and implemented to brutal effect by Macdonald and his government

I actually agree with Paikin's argument that Macdonald wasn't solely responsible for any of this, btw. The repression & attempted destruction of Indigenous communities & peoples was the work of entire governments and was sought by setter politicians of all stripes for centuries.

But then Paikin switches gears and argues (borrowing from Richard Gwynn) "No Macdonald, No Canada."

If you believe this, is it that much of a stretch, then, to accept that he must also be held responsible the policies carried out under his watch?

Macdonald was not solely responsible for the horrific starvation policies carried out on the prairies in the 1880s, nor for the entirety of the residential school system.

But as the PM & SG of Indian Affairs, he was clearly *a key architect* of many of these specific policies