Heritage minister in no hurry to update profiles
Scholars and advocates say online profiles of PMs amount to a whitewashing of history
Reconciliation must involve public institutions, says the Minister of Canadian Heritage, reacting to a story this week about a federal agency’s online profiles of early prime ministers failing to mention their racist policies.
But Steven Guilbeault stopped short, on Tuesday evening, of calling on Library and Archives Canada to move expeditiously in amending the online profiles.
The failure to maintain updated biographies — which are among the first Google hits when searching for John A. Macdonald and Wilfrid Laurier — was highlighted in a Toronto Star story this week.
Scholars and advocates say the profiles — which mention nothing about residential schools or the Chinese head tax — amount to a whitewashing of history on a federal agency’s widely consulted website.
Library and Archives Canada (LAC), whose mandate includes being a source of knowledge about Canada that’s accessible to everyone, has said that it “regrets” the profiles may not have been updated and “may have omissions that should be corrected.”
The agency has since posted notes about the Macdonald and Laurier pages saying they are “archived on the web,” though the content remains the same.
“We recognize that they are lacking important facts about these figures and we welcome these critiques,” the agency said in a statement to the Star Wednesday. It said it is in the midst of a multiyear renewal project of its website, which includes reviewing the profiles.
“LAC has archived these pages to indicate they are no longer up to date and will be reviewing how we present collections associated with our prime ministers and other historical figures going forward.”
Library and Archives Canada reports to Parliament through Guilbeault. He said in a statement to the Star this week that he understood that the agency “is currently updating the information available on its website” and has been working in consultation with Indigenous peoples.
“Reconciliation is not only an Indigenous issue — it is a Canadian imperative and one that must also involve our public institutions,” Guilbeault said.
“Not only do we need to expose the tragic events that have long been silenced, but we have to do it in a way that clearly underlines and explains the role of important public figures and colonial structures in creating and reproducing harm and prejudice against Indigenous peoples but also racialized communities, with racist policies like the Chinese head tax.”
Not good enough, said Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, who has tried for years to direct federal agencies’ attention to inaccurate or missing information pertaining to historical figures.
“I think it’s pretty vacuous,” Blackstock said of the statement, “in that it really doesn’t acknowledge the importance of government publishing accurate information about historical figures on their website, and the problematic nature of Library and Archives Canada presenting really whitewashed material to the Canadian public as an official source of information.”
Macdonald’s profile mentions nothing about his leading role in the establishment of the residential school system, for which Canada would later apologize and acknowledge as responsible for widespread human rights abuses against Indigenous peoples.
“On one hand we see apologies or acknowledgment of the history of residential schools, and then on the other hand our deeply troubling history is completely ignored,” said Jennifer Brant, a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, whose work includes teaching a course on Indigenous experiences of racism and colonialism in Canada.
“How can lessons be learned from a history that Canada refuses to adequately acknowledge and be held accountable for?”
Macdonald’s profile also doesn’t mention his government’s efforts to make immigration prohibitive for Chinese immigrants, such as the imposition of a $50 head tax on every Chinese person coming to Canada.
The profile of another early prime minister, Wilfrid Laurier, fails to mention his government increased the head tax to $100 in 1900 and $500 in 1903.
It also doesn’t mention that Laurier signed a 1911 order-in-council — which was never invoked — that banned Black people from coming to Canada because, as the document stated, they were “deemed unsuitable to the climate and requirements of Canada.”
It’s a “positive and welcome message” that Guilbeault reinforced that shortcomings need to be addressed, but updating the profiles should not have to be a drawn-out process, said Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, academic director of the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre at the University of British Columbia.
“The fact is that profiles have not been updated and the material does not align with (Guilbeault’s) acknowledgment. The process should not involve years of deliberation, and be left to ‘consultation’ without particulars,” she said in an email.
Blackstock and Turpel-Lafond pointed out that it has been five years since calls to action were issued — including some directed at Library and Archives Canada — by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which studied the history and effect of the residential school system.
“It ought not take five years to simply update a website,” Blackstock said, adding the pages should be taken down until they can be updated.
The Star also requested comment about the profiles from Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett and Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller, whose offices both deferred to Guilbeault.
“That’s unacceptable,” Blackstock said. “They ought to be taking action to ensure the accuracy of information. Buck passing isn’t an action, it really is a choice to do nothing.”
It’s “disappointing” that there has been no commitment to an expeditious process with a clear timeline for updating the profiles, said Amy Go, president of the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice.
“The longer the current content is left online, the more people are exposed to erroneous, biased and whitewashed history that contributes to racism and discrimination,” she said.