Jonathan Kay on residential schools: Six reasons why Stephen Harper's government shoul... Page 1 of 6 More Blogs | National Post Home | Financial Post Home | News | Opinion | Arts | Life | Sports | Multimedia | Your Post Main | About | Contact Editor | Subscribe RSS Jonathan Kay on residential schools: Six reasons why Stephen Harper's government shouldn't deliver an apology Welcome to Full Comment Posted: June 11, 2008, 1:24 PM by Jonathan Kay Jonathan Kay About the blog of the National Post Comment section. Later today, the Canadian government will formally apologize — again — for our nation’s long-standing policy of forcing native children to attend residential Editor: Marni Soupcoff (e-mail) schools. Beyond the obvious trauma involved with separating children from their parents, the policy led to the abuse of thousands of children at the hands of inadequately trained (and, in some cases, sadistic) teachers and supervisors. Such emotional scars no doubt have stayed with the victims throughout their lives. And it would be a hard-hearted pundit who would cast doubt on a gesture ostensibly intended to palliate their suffering, even in some small way, with a solemn, official expression of contrition. POPULAR George Jonas on That pundit is me. the Maxime Bernier scandal: There are at least six good reasons why the Canadian government’s Julie Couillard is ongoing self-flagellation over residential schools is objectionable — and hardly a tramp why today’s apology shouldn’t be uttered. David Frum on 1. Apologies such as this one carry little moral weight: The evil that Scott transpired in residential schools was the responsibility of a different McClellan's new generation of political and religious leaders. Today’s gesture thus comes book: George off as both empty — in the sense that it will be uttered by politicians with Bush got the no moral authority to speak for the sins of the past; and cynical — in the team he deserved sense that the real goal, many suspect, is simply to capture the goodwill Marni Soupcoff our society associates with pious contrition, especially in the context of on Google's hot racism. trends: dry drowning, 2. No apology, no matter how contrite, is ever deemed sufficient. For currentcodes.comproof, consider that the federal government already expressed regret for and Lisa Miceli the residential-schools legacy way back in 1998. And the Assembly of The Post First Nations (AFN) pronounced itself happy with that apology — until it editorial board: became clear that more could be twisted out of the government. It is The Mark Steyn telling that, despite a $1.9-billion compensation plan for residential- complainants school victims, the AFN still isn’t happy. In fact, it has pre-emptively don't understand protested today’s apology because the group's officers didn’t help write it. freedom of The issue of residential schools is a lever of guilt that the AFN has pulled speech hard and often in the past. Don’t expect this latest apology to change that. E-MAIL 3. All official apologies of this type play into a toxic trend that has Send a note to permeated Western societies in recent decades: the fetishization of the editor victimization as a marker of group status. As we’ve seen in the context of Holocaust memorials, the trend sets up a perverse competition between groups — be they Ukrainians, Armenians, Japanese, natives, Jews, or Asian “survivors” of Canada’s head tax — with each claiming their Search... Submit Query suffering to be deserving of official recognition. Such political theatrics encourage the idea that modern problems can be Podcast attributed to ancient historical injustices. Whether one is speaking of the Palestinians in the Middle East, Muslim immigrants in Europe, Blacks in Join National Post the United States or natives here in Canada, the least successful sub- editorial board groups within communities tend to be the ones that expend the greatest members amount of psychic and political energy casting themselves as victims of Jonathan Kay, external forces. It is a fatalistic habit of mind that deters individual Marni Soupcoff achievement, which is the engine of advancement in any free society such and John Turley- as our own. Ewart for their weekly conversation about the stories and opinions that have the Comment section 4. The endless hand-wringing over residential schools masks the fact that abuzz. This week: The members of the Post the goal of these schools — social and economic integration, a proper editorial board consider Stephen Harper's education, the endowment of job and language skills, health care residential schools apology, and explain why bad provision, spiritual uplift — were entirely laudable; even if the execution things happen when governments say they're sorry. (most notably, the forced separation of children from parents, and the | Subscribe via iTunes mhtml:file://J:\MediaClips\MediaClips_2008\MediaClips\Six reasons why Stephen Harpe... 29/04/2010 Jonathan Kay on residential schools: Six reasons why Stephen Harper's government shoul... Page 2 of 6 inadequate oversight of abusive staffers) was often thoroughly barbarous. By casting the legacy of residential schools in an unremittingly negative Subscribe to Full Comment light — and, by implication, encouraging the romantic idealization of native society in its pre-Contact state — we risk discrediting the larger • RSS Feed project of integration, which, done properly, is our only realistic strategy • ATOM Feed for addressing Canada’s scandalously impoverished and dysfunctional native reserves. 5. As an empirical matter, every apology comes with cash — whether Recent Comments before or after. A lot of it. In this case, the five-figure per person payouts from the federal government to make amends for the residential schools If I may add to my last comment a further program has caused a deadly upsurge in binge drinking in many northern observation on the irrationality and absurdity of communities — an outcome any idiot would have foreseen. As legions of Mr. Kay's reasoning... One of Canada's premiere lotto winners can attest, putting a big fat cheque in the hands of people philosophers, George Grant... who aren’t used to money is a recipe for misery and disaster – longsword Full Comment 6. The process of apologizing inevitably leads to a warping of history. Since the point is to express contrition, all of the sins of the past are Well done, Mr. Nagy. A well-deserved six slaps on systematically summoned to mind as an endless parade of horribles, while the wrist for Mr. Kay, and you let him off lightly all of the positive aspects get systematically ignored. As Rodney Clifton with that. Having just read his piece on the and Ray de Souza recently reminded us on the pages of the National Post, apology, I can only... residential schools produced much that was good alongside the much that – longsword was evil. Yet I am guessing that this side of the ledger will be ignored in Full Comment today’s apology — just as it will no doubt be ignored by the roving Truth and Reconciliation Commission that will be hearing testimony on Recent Posts residential schools in coming years. I know it gives politicians a warm, fuzzy feeling to say sorry. But our The Post editorial board on the Supreme Court's governments would do better to focus on more boring tasks like paving divorce decision: Share the wealth ... and the tax roads and fielding armies. They should not be in the business of rendering shelters editorial judgments on history — even historical episodes involving their –Marni Soupcoff own precursors. That job should be left to historians, educators, authors Full Comment and — yes — journalists. When politicians take the job on themselves — even if it is in the service of apologizing for a genuinely shameful blot on Colby Cosh: New food-miles skepticism their nation’s history — only bad things can happen. –Colby Cosh Full Comment [email protected] Comment links Comments (9) Send to a friend Permalink 9 Comments • Colby Cosh You must be logged in to post a comment • Victor Davis Hanson Click here to post a comment • Transterrestrial Musings by IainGFoulds • Little Green Footballs Jun 11 2008 ... 7 (related to #3)... this only further entrenches the • Iraq the Model 2:37 PM regressive principles of social collectivism- the • Jihad Watch considering of ourselves as divided into groups. • Stephen Taylor • Arts & Letters Daily ... Personally, I find it an entirely alien, and slightly offensive, to consider some individuals as "my people", and others as not. Full Comment Mobile ... In a nation based upon the principles of individual rights, the state does not recognise citizens as divided Get headlines and stories from Full Comment and into groups. other National Post feeds delivered straight to your BlackBerry or Windows Mobile-powered PDA by Raze with Viigo. Free, instant, lightning-fast access gets Jun 11 2008 IainGFoulds: you what you want, when you want it. 4:01 PM Iain, I also find it offensive to think of myself as a Click here to get started. "Second Nations" indiviual. Jon mentioned that "By casting the legacy of residential schools in an unremittingly negative light — and, by Active Tags implication, encouraging the romantic idealization of native society in its pre-Contact state.." and "The process • Adam Daifallah of apologizing inevitably leads to a warping of history. • Alberta Election Since the point is to express contrition, all of the sins of • Allan Gotlieb the past are systematically summoned to mind as an • Barbara Kay endless parade of horribles, while all of the positive • Bjorn Lomborg aspects get systematically ignored. " • Brian Day • Brian Kalt mhtml:file://J:\MediaClips\MediaClips_2008\MediaClips\Six reasons why Stephen Harpe... 29/04/2010 Jonathan Kay on residential schools: Six reasons why Stephen Harper's government shoul..