Egerton Ryerson and Residential schools
- themidnightmagazin
- Jul 21, 2021
- 2 min read
By: Niala S.
Egerton Ryerson statue permanently removed amid rising pressure to change the universities name
Ryerson, Brock, McMaster, George Brown. Do you know who these people are and what they did in Canada? I don’t blame you if you don’t know. Would you research the history of the university that you are attending? Again, I also don’t blame you if you wouldn’t.
As many of us have learned in recent weeks, Egerton Ryerson was a man who was supportive of residential schools. Egerton Ryerson also wrote a report on how to operate these schools. Yet, Ryerson University was named after this man despite the pain and suffering he caused.
For those who don’t know, residential schools were religious schools paid for by the government of Canada. These schools intended to assimilate Indigenous children into Canadian culture. The children were treated harshly, and thousands died. Survivors of residential schools report physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. The living conditions at these schools were beyond horrible. Children were numbered, starved, and treated way worse than prisoners in Canadian jails. Egerton Ryerson and his plan to run residential schools caused generations of the Indigenous community a vast language and cultural loss. Countless amounts of deaths occurred and to those that survived, they experienced lifelong traumas. Understandably and quite reasonably, anger is still among the Indigenous people of Canada. Now, people of other cultures, creeds, religions, and races express sympathy for the Indigenous community and share a resented anger towards the Canadian government of this time.
When 215 children were found in a mass grave at a residential school, calls to change Ryerson University's name grew. This was because he assisted in the Indigenous community's form of genocide that occurred in our country. Protesters vandalized and pulled down Ryerson's statue that had stood outside the university. It is now permanently removed.
Removing Ryerson's association with the university name is very important to stop commemorating his actions. The step to rename Ryerson university is the first step in reconciliation with the Indigenous people of Canada. Complete reconciliation will definitely not happen overnight. Canada, the Catholic Church, and any other organizations involved in residential schools need to take meaningful action to have peace and reconciliation with the Indigenous people of Canada.
I encourage everyone to support the movement to change Ryerson University’s name. Once that change happens, continue to take steps in the right direction to create peace with the Indigenous people of Canada.
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