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The statue of Egerton Ryerson collapsed after a demonstration in which the remains of 215 indigenous children were found at the boarding school.
The president of Ryerson University in Toronto said that after the protesters rally, the statue of an architect in the Canadian boarding school system has been torn down and will not be replaced. Tribute to 215 indigenous children Their remains were found in a former school.
Hundreds of people demonstrated in Toronto on Sunday Commemorate and demand justice The children found at the Kamloops Indian Boarding School in western British Columbia at the end of last month.
The statue of Egerton Ryerson was demolished and he helped to establish a boarding school system that separated more than 150,000 Aboriginal, Metis and Inuit children from their families and forced to attend church-run boarding houses school.
The boarding schools that opened from the 1870s to the 1990s were riddled with abuse, and it is believed that more than 4,000 indigenous children died there, in most cases from disease.
Ryerson University President and Vice President Mohamed Lachemi said in a statement that about an hour after the last group of protesters left, “a truck arrived… and began to tear down the statue of Egerton Ryerson.”
“This statue will not be repaired or replaced,” Lakimi said.
When the statue collapsed, people called on the Canadian government and the Roman Catholic Church, which runs most of the boarding schools, to take concrete actions to deal with the continuing harm these institutions have caused to the indigenous communities.
Over the years, students and professors at Ryerson University have been calling for the removal of the statue, joining a wider call from Canada and abroad to rename buildings and institutions—and Remove monument – Commemorate historical figures involved in racist systems, such as Slavery.
In late August 2020, the statue of John A Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, was removed from a plaza in downtown Montreal, and he played an important role in establishing a boarding school system.
Ryerson is a 19th-century figure who served as the director of education in Ontario.
According to a report Author: Ryerson University Indigenous Education Council (AEC), “Although [Ryerson] No implementation or supervision [residential] School, he contributed to their blueprint. “
The report cited a letter sent by Ryerson to the Department of Indian Affairs in which he wrote of the indigenous students: “Without the help of religious feelings, he cannot improve and enhance his character and condition. This information must be added. To all other information to make Indians sober and hardworking people.”
Indigenous students at Ryerson University said last month that they would start calling the school “University X” to “remove Ryerson’s name and the cultural symbol of genocide and intergenerational trauma.”
“For us, there is no dispute about reconciling Ryerson’s legacy. It doesn’t matter how many non-indigenous historians send letters of favor to Egerton. From the perspective of indigenous students, this is irreconcilable. “They wrote in a letter. Open the envelope May 11th.
At the same time, the survivors of the Aboriginal community and boarding school are updating their Catholic Church apologizes Because of its role in the abuse of institutions.
On June 6, after the Egerton Ryerson statue was demolished by Ryerson University in Toronto, a man stepped on his head [Nick Lachance/Reuters]
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