Not challenging the stratification in society leads to deadly consequences

When Sir John A. Macdonald was involved in setting up residential schools in the 1860s, this recent Scottish immigrant was not so much coming up with a new idea of Anglo-Saxon superiority that he brought with him; he was integrating into what had been happening since at least 1694, two hundred years earlier.

Young Indigenous boys, pictured in this undated photograph, at the Metlakatla Indian Residential School in British Columbia. So when the churches ran almost all the residential schools, it wasn't like Sir John A. Macdonald had to go out and twist their arms to run them. The churches by then had a long history of “educating” Indigenous peoples. Making them civilized. Beating the Indian out of them, writes Andrew Cardozo.Photograph courtesy of William James Topley/Library and Archives Canada

Opinion

BY ANDREW CARDOZO

June 7, 2021

OTTAWA—Every country is stratified and, to a large extent, we all just accept it. The taxi driver in Ottawa is likely to be of Lebanese origin. The parking lot attendant, likely to be of Somali or Ethiopian origin. When you visit a seniors' home, all the staff—nurses and PSWs—are usually imm...

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