Jonathan Kay's June 11 post Six reasons why Stephen Harper's government shouldn't deliver an apology" is deserving of a response. Not knowing Mr. Kay, nor being familiar with any of his writing, I can only presume his intentions in writing about Prime Minister Harper's forthcoming apology were as honorable as my own are in responding to both.
However well-intentioned, though, his piece represents precisely the sort of misconception and lack of understanding that the apology itself strives to correct. Unlike Mr. Kay, I am writing this after the apology has aired instead of making pronouncements on it before it happened. And, unlike Mr. Kay, I am also writing with the benefit of 8 years experience working directly in the face of the consequences wrought by the legacy of Indian Residential Schools in
As a contract researcher for Indian Residential Schools Resolution
Litigation, as time consuming and stressful as it is for the many often very elderly claimants, was the only option open to the plaintiffs at the time. All subsequent efforts made by the government were for the expressed purpose of dealing with the legitimacy of these claims, while avoiding the often adversarial nature of the litigation process.
But the purpose here is not to provide a history lesson to Mr. Kay, as much as he might find it beneficial for any future writing he may wish to do on Indian Residential Schools. It is simply to correct misstatement and obfuscation in his column.
For starters, Mr. Kay conveys the impression in his opening line that this is somehow the second formal apology by the government for the residential schools, writing that "the Canadian government will formally apologize — again — for our nation's long-standing policy of forcing native children to attend residential schools." He is both right and wrong here. The 1998 Statement of Reconciliation to which Mr. Kay refers was a statement of regret, to be sure, but one which Kay neglects to mention stopped well short of acknowledging responsibility.
In fact, one of the links Mr. Kay provides in support of this undercuts his claim entirely. The story itself points out that the government's Statement of Reconciliation was very carefully worded to avoid taking responsibility. And with a relatively small but growing number of cases before the courts at that time (in 1998), it makes perfect sense with even a modicum of hindsight, never mind at the time the Statement was given.
And this leads into Mr. Kay's second point, that "[n]o apology, no matter how contrite, is ever deemed sufficient." Notwithstanding his absolutist platitude here, Mr. Kay offers as "proof" the fact that the AFN had pronounced itself happy with that apology of 1998 (without providing a source to back this up) "until it became clear that more could be twisted out of the government." Again, what Mr. Kay does not say, but what his linked supporting article clearly does, is that there were a mere "260 legal actions launched by former students" at this point in time. This pales in comparison to the over 13, 000 litigation claims that would eventually be filed over the next few years. This corresponds to a 50-fold increase in the number of cases, cases which threatened to clog the Canadian courts for decades to come.
It is fair to say then that no one in 1998, not even the AFN, could have been aware of the staggering extent of the abuse which had occurred in the schools. If this cannot be considered a "game-changer" for Mr. Kay, then I don't know what would ever convince him.
Regardless, this renders Mr. Kay's third point a shameless foray in to blaming the victim. Remarkably, he writes that "[s]uch political theatrics [... whether] one is speaking of the Palestinians in the Middle East, Muslim immigrants in Europe, Blacks in the United States or natives (sic) here in Canada, the least successful sub-groups within communities tend to be the ones that expend the greatest amount of psychic and political energy casting themselves as victims of external forces."
He goes on to say that it is this "fatalistic habit of mind that deters individual achievement, which is the engine of advancement in any free society such as our own." Unless, of course, those individuals happen to be stripped of their rights to express it as such, to the point of being sometimes savagely beaten for even speaking their native languages. To ascribe the simple wish for public acknowledgment of responsibility for this as an act of "political theatrics" is just this side of reprehensible, even for a self-affirmed "hard-hearted pundit."
But Mr. Kay is not finished. In his fourth point he complains that the "endless hand-wringing over residential schools" glances over the fact that "the goal of these schools [...] was entirely laudable; even if the execution [...] was often thoroughly barbarous." I will assume that the dark irony of his comment is lost on him here, given that some students were actually beaten so severely they died, only to be buried in unmarked graves.
More unbelievable still is that he then invokes the very rationale which led to the formation of the residential schools in the first place. He writes that "by encouraging the romantic idealization of native society in its pre-Contact state ... we risk discrediting the larger project of integration, which, done properly, is our only realistic strategy for addressing
Again, I am going to presume that Mr. Kay has honorable intentions in writing such nonsense, but it is comments like this which make it increasingly difficult not to wonder what his motivation is. There is no question that Native reserves in
In his fifth point, Mr. Kay makes the declarative but prescient observation that "any idiot would have foreseen" that five-figure per person payouts could lead to an upsurge in drinking binges and deaths in many northern/Native communities. This is a sad truth and consequence. But though Mr. Kay is quick to point out that the ultimate goal of these schools was entirely laudable, he ignores or is unaware of the many former students, elderly in many cases, who are using the money to pay for college and university tuition for their grandchildren, something they may have otherwise not been able to afford.
In this sense I would agree with Mr. Kay's earlier comment completely: Individual achievement is indeed the engine of a free society like ours. But those freedoms must also extend to those who may inadvertently author their own demise. We cannot legislate financial or personal responsibility. Even Phil Fontaine has conceded this.
Finally, Mr. Kay argues, while once again basking in the warm glow of absolutist platitudes, that "[t]he process of apologizing inevitably leads to a warping of history." Well, if I may be equally sweeping then, so does bad journalism.
Mr. Kay is entirely correct, however, to point out that "residential schools produced much that was good alongside much that was evil." All of us involved in the research process, and dare I say our superiors also, cherish these happy stories. I once met a former student who told me her time at residential school was one of the happiest times of her life. I loved hearing that. We all love hearing that.
What I am less happy to hear comes from people like Mr. Kay, who, despite some very important and worthwhile caveats to the sort of knee-jerk sentimentality which can sometimes arise in situations like this, should have waited to actually hear the apology before he wrote his column.
For one of the things he fears "the roving Truth and Reconciliation Commission" will ignore over the next five years is precisely this kind of story. If only we all had a crystal ball which could reveal the future for us as clearly as this. But none of us do. And so Mr. Kay should be respectably advised to take a wait-and-see attitude. One of the goals of the Commission, as I understand it, is to slowly inculcate, over the next five years, a new awareness in the collective imagination of all Canadians of how terribly misguided this well-intentioned policy actually turned out to be.
In conclusion, Mr. Kay writes that politicians should not enter the business of "rendering editorial judgments on history — even historical episodes involving their own precursors. That job should be left to historians, educators, authors and — yes — even journalists."
As an educator myself, I could hardly agree more. But one of the things any teacher should impress upon a student is the importance of making an informed comment, regardless of the political ramifications of the comment itself. That, I believe, is the essence of real learning.
I also happen to believe it is one of the hallmarks of good journalism.