Social Policy in Ontario

On June 21, National Aboriginal Day, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the federal government will change the name of Langevin Block, the building across from Parliament Hill, to the Office of the Prime Minister and Privy Council.

The building was named after Father of Confederation Sir Hector-Louis Langevin. Recently, people have requested that it be renamed on the grounds that Langevin was the architect of Canada’s Indian Residential School system. Earlier this year, Calgary’s city council used similar rhetoric when it announced the Langevin Bridge would be renamed Reconciliation Bridge as part of the city’s commitment to strengthening Indigenous-settler relations.

Many have debated the merits of name-changing in the era of so-called reconciliation. Less attention has been paid, however, to the singling out of Langevin as the primary player in the creation of residential schools. In fact, while Langevin was certainly a proponent of the system, he was not the architect. That distinction belongs to a figure that many Canadians hold in much higher regard: John A. Macdonald.

Indeed, Macdonald, as Canada’s founding prime minister, played the instrumental role of initiating, supporting, and defending the residential school system in the late 19th century. It was Macdonald, not Langevin, who served as the Superintendent General of Indian Affairs and was responsible for overseeing the establishment of residential schooling. It seems, though, that Langevin, as a lesser-known figure, is taking the fall.

To be sure, Langevin is an easier target than Macdonald, as is a figure like Egerton Ryerson — another name incorrectly linked to the “architect” label. But if Canadians are serious about reconciliation it is important that they understand the truth about residential schools, as the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission made clear. Facing the truth must include reckoning with the uncomfortable fact that Canada’s “Father of Confederation” was also the architect of Canada’s Indigenous genocide.

Langevin, as the Minister of Public Works in Macdonald’s cabinet, played an important role in advocating for residential schools. In 1883, Langevin spoke in favour of the schools: “The fact is if you wish to educate these children you must separate them from their parents during the time that they are being educated. If you leave them in the family they may know how to read and write, but they still remain savages, whereas by separating them in the way proposed, they acquire the habits and tastes — it is to be hoped only the good tastes — of civilized people.”

There is no way to sidestep such a comment or the role that Langevin, as a high-ranking government official, played in supporting the nascent residential school system. Yet, as others have asked, aside from one quote, what evidence is there that Langevin should be identified as the architect? As a historian of residential schooling in Canada, I see little evidence to support such a claim.

Rather, the person ultimately responsible for planning and bringing about the system — its architect — is Macdonald. In the late 1870s, Macdonald dreamed of creating an organized system of federal schools for Indigenous children that could be used to disrupt Indigenous lifeways and control over the land to accelerate successful settler colonialism.