Ryerson was a prominent figure in the creation of the public education system in Ontario during the s but his role in preparing the ground for separate schools with forced indigenous assimilation has led to growing calls in recent years to reassess his legacy.
Students and indigenous faculty members were among those who renewed calls to change the university's branding to "X University" following the discovery of the mass grave at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. Kamloops was the biggest of Canada's compulsory boarding schools run by the government and religious authorities during the 19th and 20th Centuries with the aim of forcibly assimilating indigenous youth.
University officials have previously acknowledged Ryerson's role in shaping the residential school system and its impact on the indigenous community by adding a plaque to the statue. The issue of how historical figures with links to colonialism and racism are commemorated, including with statues, has become a contested issue round the world. The child graves behind Canada's national reckoning. The truth about Canada's 'cultural genocide'. Who controls Canada's indigenous lands?
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Egerton Ryerson helped create a Canadian school system which forcibly assimilated indigenous people. He had a whole university named after him, and the least we could do is remove his statue from the campus. Join the conversation Load comments.
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That seems reasonable to me. Had I been alive in , I would have opposed the decision, taken in a fit of wartime patriotism, to rename the Ontario city of Berlin as Kitchener. But the decision on whether to rebrand Ryerson University is not mine. And the government will do, presumably, whatever delivers the least political grief.
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