Thursday, February 09, 2023

This doesn't seem like the right path towards reconciliation

A couple of articles in today's Globe and Mail (adjacent articles, coincidentally) concern the unenviable predicament of Indigenous people in Canada, and our rather confused settler response to it.

Firstly, the Toronto District School Board has voted to replace the mandatory Grade 11 English course with a new course called First Voices, a course about contemporary First Nations, Métis and Inuit literature. It's a bold move to establish a whole course on Indigenous writing, which has become much more mainstream and widely-recognized in recent years.

Thing is, though, this new course is not just an interesting elective available to those who are curious. It REPLACES the traditional core English literature course, long considered a linchpin of a Canadian high school education, and it is MANDATORY. Now, you might say, "about time, too", the system is long overdue for a shake up. And what better way than to combine it with reconciliation education? But let's think about it a little more deeply.

Sure, I have no problem with reconciliation education; it is clearly much needed. But wouldn't it be more appropriate as a module of a Civics course? Neither do I have a problem with Indigenous literature being incorporated into an English literature course. But what message are we sending by replacing the whole course with Indigenous literature? That there IS no white man/woman literature? That Indigenous writers are BETTER than the rest? That decades, nay CENTURIES, of excellent books by white authors - Canadian, British, Australian, you name it - are suddenly worthless? That black writers are no good, women writers of all colours not worth the trouble of checking out?

It seems like a prime example of overkill and overreach. Or, at best, well-meaning virtue-signalling. If this is an attempt at positive discrimination, it seems doomed to failure, and a whole cohort of kids already suffering from a COVID-disrupted education are being short-changed AGAIN.

On the same page of the newspaper is the revelation that the young man out on bail who shot and killed Constable Grzegorz Pierzchala at the end of December was out on bail specifically because he was Indigenous. Despite a bunch of red flags suggesting that young Randall McKenzie should be refused bail (previous bail violations, violation of a weapons prohibition after an armed robbery charge, and strong evidence against him), red flags that the Ontario Superior Court Justice fully acknowledged, he was allowed bail anyway because of his First Nations status. This is part of the recent injunction for judges to treat Indigenous offenders more leniently in an attempt to reduce the large overrepresentation of Indigenous offenders in Canadian prisons.

Well, how is that going? Surely, there are some absolutes that apply even when a person's background is to be disproportionately taken into account. If an accused person is judged to be likely to re-offend, common sense dictates that they are not released to potentially assault, even kill, members of the public or security forces. Caution still applies; prudence still applies.

I feel a bit like a curmudgeonly old white guy flailing against the march of progress. I am indeed a curmudgeonly old white guy, but my bone of contention is with what exactly constitutes "progress". Neither of these developments, in my view, represents true progress. They may tick some boxes and signal some virtue, but neither seems like a valid move towards Indigenous reconciliation, and both have the potential for real adverse outcomes in other respects.

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