Indigenous leaders want to strip name of residential school proponent from PMO building

Indigenous leaders are calling on the government to change the name of Langevin block, the building across from Parliament Hill that houses the Prime Minister’s Office, because it is named after a strong proponent of the Indian Residential School system.

The building is named after Hector-Louis Langevin, a father of Confederation and a prominent member of Sir John A. Macdonald’s cabinet, who proposed the creation of these schools as the most expeditious way to assimilate First Nations children into Euro-Canadian society.

He served as secretary of state for the provinces when the country’s first residential schools were introduced.

Indigenous MPs, including Independent Hunter Tootoo, and Liberal backbenchers Robert Falcon-Ouellette and Don Rusnak, and NDP MP Romeo Saganash, were scheduled to speak to the media at 11 a.m. ET. CBCNews.ca will carry the press conference live.

“The fact is that if you wish to educate the children you must separate them from their parents during the time they are being taught,” Langevin said in a speech to Parliament in 1883.

“If you leave them in the family they may know how to read and write, but they will remain savages, whereas by separating them in the way proposed, they acquire the habits and tastes … of civilized people.”

Hector-Louis Langevin, a father of Confederation and prominent member of Sir John A. Macdonald’s cabinet, proposed the creation of Indian residential schools as the most expeditious way to assimilate First Nations children. (Library and Archives Canada)

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde said Canada must face the “harsh truths” of its colonial past and strip the name of Langevin from such a prominent building in the nation’s capital, all in the spirit of reconciliation.

“One of those truths is that key architects of the devastating Indian residential school system include prominent leaders of the past such as Hector Langevin,” Bellegarde wrote recently in a letter to Public Services Minister Judy Foote and obtained by CBC News.

“Launching a process to rename the building, in co-operation and consultation with Indigenous peoples, will signal a commitment to real change and aid in the healing required to renew the relationship between Canada and First Nations.”

The push comes after Calgary changed the name of a bridge, also named after Langevin, to “Reconciliation Bridge,” after a recommendation from city’s Aboriginal urban affairs committee.

Langevin held a number of key portfolios over his 40 years in colonial and Canadian politics, leaving the federal  scene briefly after the 1873 Pacific Railway scandal, only to return as Macdonald’s Quebec lieutenant in the 1880s.

He was one of the few Quebec Conservatives to be re-elected after the Macdonald government ordered that Louis Riel be hanged.

Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/indigenous-leaders-hector-langevin-1.3985526?cmp=rss