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The Current Transcript for August 28, 2017

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

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Fame is going to be there for years. This disaster is going to be a landmark event. We're setting up and gearing up for the next couple of years.

MATT GALLOWAY: That is the head of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency speaking yesterday about tropical storm Harvey. More than 630 millimeters of rain - something like two and a half feet - have fallen in two days turning roads into raging rivers in Houston and other parts of Texas, and overwhelming city officials and residents alike. Five people have died. More than 1000 have had to be rescued and emergency crews are racing to keep up with calls, as people are stranded on their roofs with rising water all around them. This morning we'll talk with one resident whose home was damaged by a tornado unleashed by the historic storm, as the water continues to rise around her. I will speak as well with a climate writer who says whatever happens next, Houston and other Gulf Coast cities face some tough choices ahead. And then:

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From Macdonald's perspective, he wanted to settle the West with European Euro-Canadian settlers. I think he felt that First Nations people were expendable.

MG: That's a story in James Daschuk. The author of the book Clearing the Plains. New research into the actions of Canada's first prime minister towards indigenous populations has some people calling for the removal of monuments to John A McDonald. As Confederate statues come down in the United States, we'll ask if Canada should take a second look at some of the bronze and stone tributes to its past. Should we be naming anything after anyone? But first, rising waters in Texas, I'm Matt Galloway. This is the summer edition of The Current.

'My street looks like a river': Catastrophic tropical storm Harvey floods Texas

Guests: Tammy Elizondo, Rick Jervis, Brian Kahn

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This is a very, very dangerous storm with catastrophic consequences and folks need to not underestimate that it is going to be a sustained challenge for the coming days.

MG: That's U.S. Coast Guard Vice Admiral Karl Schultz speaking yesterday about Harvey, the tropical storm that wreaked havoc over parts of Texas over the weekend, after coming ashore Friday as a Category 4 hurricane. It has been called the worst storm to hit the area in 50 years and it's nowhere near done yet. Some parts of Houston were already flooded by 60 centimeters of rain. Forecasters say another half meter could be yet to come, breaking records in that state. At least five people have been reported dead; over 1000 people have had to be rescued as rising waters left residents stranded in their cars and on their rooftops. Famish Risvi father, Syed, was working as a chauffeur late Saturday night when his car got stuck on a flooded street in downtown Houston. He got out of his vehicle into waist high water and made his way into a nearby restaurant that was helping those who were stranded. We spoke with Famish Risvi as her father was still stuck in the building on Sunday afternoon.

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FAMISH RISVI: The thing is that they didn't have any food prepared in the restaurant. I think the lights were out. There was no water. He's really sick. He could not take any medications. He takes about like 10 or more medications every morning when he wakes up. He is cold. The water is all the way, surrounded at the restaurant. We've tried to call everyone. FEMA, the National Guard, 911. No one's answering because the lines are busy. Tried to go help him but we can't because all the highways are closed. He is not good health wise, like he's really sick and he has depression and all these things so we all really want him to come home.

MG: Syed Rizvi was later rescued from the restaurant on Sunday evening and taken to a nearby shelter with food and water. As if the flooding wasn't enough, Harvey also spawned tornadoes around the Houston area. One of them hit Tammy Elizondo house, in Richmond Texas southwest of Houston on Friday. And she joins us from her home. Tammy, hello.

TAMMY ELIZONDO: Hello.

MG: How are you doing?

TAMMY ELIZONDO: We're okay so far.

MG: Tell me about this tornado. What happened during the tornado?

TAMMY ELIZONDO: Lots of panic, [laughs] especially when we weren't expecting it. I know there was notifications on the phone but it's kind of one of those things that you hear it, you you take it seriously but you don't exactly expect it to hit your house. It was just… It was crazy.

MG: What did it sound like?

TAMMY ELIZONDO: Very loud, lots of cracking and popping and like the roof was trying to be sucked into it.

MG: And so as this is happening, describe what's going on in your house it's about 2:00 in the morning.

TAMMY ELIZONDO: I had just started to close my eyes. My children were in the living room. They were awake you know kind of on their phones trying to stay busy. They didn't want to go to sleep because you know they knew all of the rain and everything that was going on the hurricane. They had just went to their room as well. I heard the loud noise and I'm thinking “what is that? Why does it sound like that?” And as soon as I heard, what sounded like the roof trying to be put off, I jumped out of bed and I just started yelling “get in the bathroom! Get in the bathroom!” And I think my kids, kind of deep down knew what was going on and they ran into the bathroom. My husband has fell asleep and my son is in our middle room and he woke up, hearing me screaming, and he's kind of still half asleep saying like: “Calm down, what's going on?” and I'm almost hysterical. I'm like: “I'm not going to calm down, you know. It's a tornado! It's a tornado!” It happened very fast. Once we knew that it was gone, we opened our backyard just to see – gosh - six rows of fences just completely gone.

MG: And the roof of your neighbor's house as well.

TAMMY ELIZONDO: Yes, the neighbor's house. They lost about 80 percent of their roof which was on top of our roof and their chimneys stack had punctured our roof.

MG: So, how badly damaged is your place?

TAMMY ELIZONDO: We have significant damage. All the rain has caused our interior… The ceiling is about 60 percent caved in. The kitchen, about half of it has gave way. You know we were able to get people to come out and do tarps first thing that morning. So it's ok for now but this rain has not let up.

MG: It's still raining? It's still raining now?

TAMMY ELIZONDO: It is still raining. Now we had a short break for maybe an hour or two, last night, but it just keeps on coming.

MG: How high is the water in your neighborhood? Describe what it looks like on the street?

TAMMY ELIZONDO: My street looks like a river. Last time I checked was late last evening and the water was slowly coming up our driveway.

MG: How long are you going to be able to stay in the house?

TAMMY ELIZONDO: We're hoping that the rain will stop before it gets to the house. But we're ready to go if we need to, although I don't know how far we can get just because of how much water is surrounding everywhere.

MG: I was going to say, if the street is a river, do you have a boat? How are you going to get around it?

TAMMY ELIZONDO: No we don't. I mean we're keeping up with you know all the social media and there's tons of people you know posting that you know if rescues needed there's big trucks, there’s people with boats. I know that the Cajun Navy from Louisiana came down. We're hoping we don't get to that.

MG: What is it like? I mean one of the things as you mentioned, social media. You can kind of watch this unfold from inside your own home. What is it like to see all of this happening right outside your neighborhood?

TAMMY ELIZONDO: Oh it's heartbreaking. I mean there's posts on Facebook from just regular local first cell groups and people are posting: “We're stuck at this address. Somebody please help!” You know emergency services are hard to get to people in there, even sending out notices that “Please stay put. Only call 911 if it is a life threatening emergency”, and I mean people posting that they don't have formula or their parents are stuck in they want to get to their parents but they don't know if they can. It's just… it's just devastating. It's heartbreaking.

MG: How are your kids doing in the middle of all this?

TAMMY ELIZONDO: They're pretty good, so far. I know they want it to be over. They were supposed to start school this morning but they have actually cancelled it until September.

MG: And there's a lot more rain apparently that's coming.

TAMMY ELIZONDO: There is.

MG: Try to get some rest and stay dry and good luck.

TAMMY ELIZONDO: Thank you so very much.

MG: Appreciate you talking to us, Tammy. Thank you.

TAMMY ELIZONDO: Thank you.

MG: Tammy Elizondo's home was hit by a tornado related to tropical storm Harvey. She was in Richmond, Texas, just southwest of Houston. We've been hearing residents in and around that city are faced with a weather forecast that just calls for more torrential rain. President Donald Trump plans to visit Texas tomorrow to survey the damage brought on by Harvey. In the meantime, many people remain trapped by water. And as emergency services continue to be overwhelmed by calls, many neighbors have taken to trying to rescue those in need themselves. You may have seen circulating around a photo of a 15 year old and his friends there in a boat and they are traveling down the street, which has turned into a river, rescuing their neighbors. Rick Jervis is a Texas based reporter for USA Today. We've reached him this morning in Houston. Rick hello.

RICK JERVIS: Good morning, Matt.

MG: What does that city look like from where you are this morning?

RICK JERVIS: It is something that I've never seen before. I came in yesterday afternoon, up from the south and just trying to get into the greater Houston area, it was just treacherous. It is a real challenge. Streets are flooded one after the other and even entire highways are completely underwater. I was trying to come up Interstate 69 and 69 was actually closed because of water. It's just - There is people who have left cars and flooded streets. There are people in boats trying to rescue neighbors from homes. There are thousands of like residents still stuck in their homes and all this is basically happening under steady, pelting rain. So it's this just continuing to like rain and the flood waters are just rising and rising.

MG: What are you hearing from residents who are stuck, who are stranded? We keep hearing about people who are in their cars, or people who are on the roof waiting for someone to arrive. What are you hearing?

RICK JERVIS: Well there's a real sense of sort of desperation in Houston. Houston PD received something like 56000 calls in 15 hours and just had just overwhelmed their sort of emergency system. They were able to do - I think there were at least there were some like more than 1000 rescues. But there are still thousands of other folks who are still in their homes. You know, you basically hear desperation from people who are trying to get through, who are trying to call 911 but really just can't get through. And there's a desperation of not knowing who to actually turn to at this point.

MG: One of the most powerful photos that was circulating yesterday was of residents in a nursing home. The nursing home was flooded. They essentially were stranded there and they needed to be moved to safety. What do you know about how some of the most vulnerable in in Houston are dealing with this, whether it's the elderly, whether it's the poor and the homeless?

RICK JERVIS: Yeah that's a really good question. That's always a major issue in almost every disaster. I actually drove up to Houston from Corpus Christi yesterday where basically covered Harvey's landfall. And they're also you know some of the most vulnerable people were, or some of the ones who couldn't get out and they were told to evacuate. They wanted to evacuate and just didn't have the means. And that's happening here and he says: “Well I'm sure there was a lot of folks here who kind of wanted to get out but just don't have the means”. I think that's really going to be an issue how to how to like how to sort of get to those folks as well.

MG: Part of it is that emergency services are telling people not so much to leave but to stay in their home and go to the rooftop, if the water gets too high. Do you think people are going to listen to that advice?

RICK JERVIS: At this point, this is what they can do because now they're stuck. There's several feet of water outside the house. The problem is, and like you heard this over and over again, is that it's not that easy to climb on some of these roofs. There are some people, especially you know with the elderly and the sort of infirmed, there's like no possibility of like somehow climbing onto the roof. So people are kind of stuck in their homes. I heard her from one person yesterday who was stuck with her grandmother in waist high water inside their home and they were just there. They still have cell phone service and they were calling everybody which they knew. But just we're kind of stuck and like didn't know what to do at that point.

MG: Is there any sense that something could have been done before this storm hits? The mayor has defended his decision not to order evacuations before the rain arrived, but are people thinking why are we still here?

RICK JERVIS: Sure. And the mayor points to Ike you know 11 or 12 years ago. Was that nine years ago? When Hurricane Ike was approaching that they basically ordered Houston like evacuate, and it basically ended up in very long traffic lines and became like evacuation hell, where over a hundred people died in those in those evacuation. So, he was he was thinking about that. And that's what he claims to sort of defend his actual decision. So, he was trying to avoid that but at the same time people now are really wondering why there was a more done prior to this event for sure.

MG: And in the meantime the rain continues to hammer down.

RICK JERVIS: It does. I was out there yesterday and I was trying to talk to folks. I was like… I was looking at a flooded street and that the rain was just coming down hard to steady pelt. It comes in bands just like a hurricane does. That will be band of really, really heavy rain. And then and then it might soften up and then you get heavy rain again. But they're forecasting that it's going to be heavy today and it's going to be heavy tomorrow. And it's just going to add to the mess here.

MG: Rick I appreciate you joining us. Good luck to you.

RICK JERVIS: Okay, Matt thanks.

MG: Rick Jervis is a Texas based reporter for USA Today. He was in Houston. Climate researchers are also watching tropical storm Harvey closely. And many say that it is one for the history books. For more on the conditions making this such an unprecedented event, I'm joined now by Brian Kahn science writer at Climate Central which is an independent organization of scientists and journalists tackling and tackling and tracking climate change. He's also a lecturer on climate and Society at Columbia University. He is in New York City today. Brian, good morning to you.

BRIAN KAHN: Good morning thanks for having me.

MG: What do you make of what we just heard from the people we spoke with on the ground in and around Houston? It sounds like a really desperate situation.

BRIAN KAHN: I mean it is. It sounds like those scenes are scenes that are playing out not just for [unintelligible]. You talk to people across the city and across the metro area; the storm is basically unprecedented. And the rainfall that it's brought has really just ground one of the biggest cities in the country to a halt.

MG: People, based on the footage that they're seeing, are already beginning to compare it to what happened in and around Hurricane Katrina. Would you go that far?

BRIAN KAHN: I mean this is a somewhat of a different storm. It's one of those comparisons that you know most Americans are kind of loath to make just because of the damage and destruction Katrina. There are already are, economists are, doing early looks and it's sort of suggesting that it's possible that Hardy could cause some more economic damage compared to Katrina. So, in that regard, it does sort of I guess start to raise those questions and make sense to make that comparison in terms of the loss of life. The human toll, hopefully, it doesn't get to that level just because I mean Katrina really is one of those watershed events that really changed how we thought about disasters here.

MG: The rain is the story. I mean it's rained constantly as we've heard and the forecast, if you look at it, just shows rain for the next several days. What are the meteorological factors that are producing this much flooding?

BRIAN KAHN: Well you have a storm that basically is just refusing to leave. It's stalled out over the Gulf Coast right over Houston, essentially just sending band after band of rain into the city. On top of that you have this deep tap into the Gulf of Mexico, that essentially gives it warm moist air that can keep kind of steering up over the region. So we have a storm just sitting there and you have that source of moisture that can tap into from the Gulf. You just have a recipe for absolute disaster. The problem with this too is that even though Harvey has started to move a little bit it's actually going to hook back and go back over Houston for a couple of days. So even though we're at Monday it's been two days of catastrophic flooding, there's still these two or three more days of rain left for the scene to be dealing with.

MG: And the sense is that the water has nowhere to go. What are the conditions in Houston itself that would make it more vulnerable to this sort of flooding?

BRIAN KAHN: I mean Houston is a huge metro area. It's home to 6.5 million people in that metro area. Obviously a lot of people rather than building up - Like New York have built outwards. In the process of building outwards, they paved over - just over the past 15 - 16 years but 167000 acres, that includes a coastal prairie ecosystem that if there had rain upon there, chances are it would have been able to absorb a lot of this rain, help a drain towards the bay. As a result of having all this hard pavement, you're looking at just basically water with nowhere to go.

MG: And that's the result of planning and developing, as you say outwards, not upwards.

BRIAN KAHN: Yes, exactly. I mean that's something that just comes naturally when you put pavement down on the water when it rains this much. There's just no where for that water to go.

MG: Are people thinking differently about the effect of storms like this, given the way that cities grow, that the sprawl that often accompanies the growth in cities?

BRIAN KAHN: I mean if they're not thinking differently it certainly makes sense they have to, especially as you're looking towards the future. You know, this storm, I mean there's a lot of talk “is this climate change? Isn't it?” And you know research will tease out what specific components are driven by climate change but really this is a preview of the future we're looking at already. We're already seeing more heavy downpours. We're already seeing you know intense hurricanes driving storm surge. You can look at Katrina and see Sandy here in New York five years ago. These storms are kind of the harbinger of things to come and so cities are going to be forced to make tough choices in terms of understanding, you know how, they develop or I guess not tough choices, let's say smart choices and they need to make smart choices thinking about what infrastructure looks like? Where people live? And how much they want to put in harm's way?

MG: What are those smart choices that a city like Houston could make. It's the fourth largest city in the United States. But all that development is already done.

BRIAN KAHN: I mean they certainly need to think about and they have thought about this to a degree. I mean installing areas that can help ease some of the floods. Maybe instead of taking out some of the pavement putting back some green infrastructure. And even though Harvey was in a big storm surge issue there's a lot of plans in Houston thinking about storm surge, especially the shipping canal that brings in a ton of shipping traffic and processes oil and gas, and thinking about how you can protect those areas from both rising seas and potentially super storm surge.

MG: Do you think, as somebody who is studying climate and storms like this, that we are likely to see more of this kind of extreme weather as the climate continues to change?

BRIAN KAHN: Yes, absolutely. I mean we're looking at the rainfall amounts. It is something we've already seen. Heavy downpours are on the rise, not just in the Houston area, not just in Texas, but across the U.S. and around the world. That's a direct result of having warming due to climate change, and the atmosphere can basically hold more water and it comes down in heavier bouts. So, absolutely when it comes to rainfall like this, we'll see more events just like this. Maybe not quite as extreme but certainly becoming more common to see you know 10 - 20 inches of rain in a storm.

MG: Is that being acknowledged by those who are leading, whether it's the federal government or regional governments? The President is on his way down to Texas tomorrow. He has said in past that he does not believe in climate change. Does something like that matter when you're looking at the devastation that a storm like this has brought?

BRIAN KAHN: I mean it should matter. Whether it's a wake-up call for the President or whether it's a wake0up call for the governor of Texas, who also doesn't accept the science of climate change. You know these kinds of storms are not going away and they need to be thinking about them, even if it goes against their belief system and what they feel comfortable acknowledging. This is reality.

MG: What are you going to be watching for in the next couple of days as the rain continues to fall?

BRIAN KAHN: I'll be keeping an eye on the forecast. The National Hurricane Center has done an amazing job forecasting a star, there's also great resources on Harris County which is where Houston is located. So those are things I'll be watching just to see what's going on and ultimately you know seeing how much moisture this thing continues to tap in the Gulf of Mexico, as it stares back out for a few hours, I mean hopefully not ramp up too much but likely to ramp up again in Houston.

MG: Just in a few seconds or so, what's the worst case scenario for this storm?

BRIAN KAHN: We've already seen about 30 inches of rain. Chances are they're about to see 20 more so the worst case scenario is that it just keeps raining.

MG: Brian, thank you.

BRIAN KAHN: Thanks for having me.

MG: Brian Kahn is a senior science writer at Climate Central, an independent organization of scientists and journalists tracking climate change. He's also a lecture on climate and Society at Columbia University. He was in New York City, this morning. Well, CBC News is next and then, as Canadians debate his legacy, we will try to get to the stone hard truth about Sir John A. MacDonald. There is a call to remove his name from schools in Ontario and beyond. What could this lead to? Find out. Coming up. I am Matt Galloway. This is the summer edition of The Current.

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Renaming John A. Macdonald schools is part of reconciliation, argues professor

Guests: Cecilia Morgan, Niigaan Sinclair, John Boyko

MG: Hello I'm not Galloway. You're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

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MG: Coming up, rethinking Surjani.

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[Crowd cheering]

MG: Sounds of celebration in Durham, North Carolina as demonstrators hauled down a statue of a Confederate soldier. Across the southern United States, statues of Confederate generals and leaders are indeed coming down. What to do with the statues that glorify icons of slavery and white supremacy is a hot debate on the other side of the border. But a similar discussion is heating up here in Canada, with more people calling for changes to the way we memorialize and remember the people who shaped Canada's history. The latest controversy is over the legacy of Canada's first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. The Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario voted to have his name removed from all public schools in Ontario. Teacher Felipe Pareja was behind the successful motion. Last week, he talked to Jim Brown, on As It Happens.

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FILIPE PAREJA: In the same way that we need to, or that we should be acknowledging his central role as a father of Confederation and as somebody who is largely responsible for the joining of candidates from coast to coast. We also have to be prepared to attribute some darker elements of our history to him as well. And that project, this project that we call Canada, in its conception, Sir John A. Macdonald presided over and directed some pretty awful things to happen to indigenous peoples of this land.

MG: Thanks to that legacy, Ontario school boards are being urged to remove the name of the man considered to be the father of Confederation. And this has sparked a wider conversation, as you can imagine, about how we memorialize and remember key figures in Canadian history. To talk further about this I'm joined by two guests. Niigaan Sinclair is an associate professor in native studies at the University of Manitoba. He is in our Winnipeg studio. John Boyko has written a number of books on Canadian history. We've reached him in Peterborough, Ontario. Hello to you both.

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: Oh. Bonjour. Hello.

JOHN BOYKO: Hello. Good morning.

MG: Niigaan Sinclair. We'll start with you. What did you make of the call by Ontario's Elementary Teachers Federation to remove the name of Sir John A. Macdonald from schools in Ontario?

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: Well I think it's a it's a yet another step. It's an encouraging step in a process in which Canada is beginning to grow up, starting to act like responsible ethical adults with one another, by acknowledging the history and the experiences of all peoples in which we're sure trying to share this project called Canada. This uncomfortable feeling, this uncomfortable feeling about acknowledging indigenous experiences within the fabric of the country itself, that uncomfortable feeling is really what reconciliation begins to feel like. It feels like, you know, the history of what the country has been always built off the backs of indigenous peoples, denying experiences, ignoring experiences that indigenous peoples have had. And what Canadians are feeling now and I think some of the trauma that Canadians are feeling, in this particular act by the teachers union, is to begin to feel what indigenous peoples have experienced for the past 150 years.

MG: And you see this as you say as a sign of Canada growing up. What do you mean by that?

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: Well you know, nobody in this this idea of our national monuments or national symbols which is what schools are – You just have to look at the front of what we fly, what songs we sing there, what stories we tell there. Schools are perhaps the most important parts of a nation. That's where the most important discussions happen. And it's critically important that we look at those symbols and say what is it that we're holding up? What is - What are the ideals that we're holding up? And who are the members of those ideals that we're holding up? And nobody is asking in any way to expunge or erace or or scrub away national members of the past.

MG: Hmm.

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: That's a hysterical, immature, ignorant argument. What we're asking for and what people are asking for, what the teachers are asking for is let's consider deeply what we are teaching our children. And in 2017 today what are the stories that we're going to tell them? And we're not asking to erase anyone's history. Nobody can ever forget the influences and the important and impactful legacies of Sir John A. Macdonald. People are saying it's let's look at them [unintelligible] in critical context.

MG: I want to bring John Boyko into this, in just a moment. But first, I think it's probably important, Niigaan, to I guest describe in some detail what Sir John A. Macdonald’s legacy was when it comes to indigenous peoples.

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: Okay. So let me put it this way. You know, every morning I get up with my children and I get them ready either for school or for whatever we're doing there for that day. And we'd get out and we start heading towards whatever we're doing. And there's a train line that goes right by our house and my children ask me “Why is that train line here?” And then if we go into the reserve my children ask me “Why are the reserves here? Why are they located in this place that gets flooded every year?” for example or where there's poverty there, or they ask me “What ever happened to Louis Riel?” Sir John A. Macdonald was a key figure in all of those things, in the creation of the Indian Act, the creation of the residential schools, the starvation of indigenous peoples on the prairies - post Confederation, the war and the shelling of - not just communities but also women and children in Indigenous communities. And while he did do important things; bringing the French into Confederation for example, to hold the country together - particular upper and lower Canada. He did perpetuate great things that we now refer to as genocides.

MG: John Boyko, that's the case against Sir John A. Macdonald. Is it time, given that, to strip his name from schools and other public places?

JOHN BOYKO: No I don't believe so. There's a great deal to unpack and all that's been said so far and one of the things that I find deeply ironic is that this was begun by a group of teachers who seemed to have forgotten what teaching is all about and the role of education. Something that my friend in Manitoba mentioned is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I think we can agree that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a tremendous avenue to do the kinds of things that he is talking about that I agree need to be done, and that is to advance the conversation in Canada about who we are, who we aspire to be because we need to engage the past intelligently. And we need to atone for mistakes and crimes in order to plot a path forward. And in 2015, just two years ago, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission published 95 recommendations but I find it interesting that none of them, none of those 95 mentioned renaming schools or buildings. One thing it did do was ask of the United Nations Declaration of the rights of indigenous peoples - It was published a few years before, in 2008 - that it should be adopted as a reconciliation framework in order to implement the commission's recommendations. And that's well and proper.

MG: But given everything that Sinclair has just said…

JOHN BOYKO: At the same point, none nothing in the United Nations documents mentioned renaming buildings, either. But what the truth and reconciliation did recommend is that education be used as a tool through which we can properly better educate ourselves and engage in this conversation. That is I believe what should be done.

MG: So do. Do you believe that in doing this, if the names were stripped from the schools themselves, that that would hinder the possibility of greater education?

JOHN BOYKO: Of course not, because history exists in the books and it exists in our memories and it exists in the conversations that we have with our children. I have two grandchildren who have an Ojibway father. And they are being brought up to be quite proud of all of their heritage and to know their history. I would be happy with them attending a school named after Sir John A. Macdonald, if that school, and other schools, properly named after leaders in our history, were to engage the kids in age/grade appropriate manners, obviously, in who is this school named after and what was it in our history that we should be proud of. What is it in our history that we know, now, were mistakes.

MG: Do you follow though, what Niigaan Sinclair is saying that's part of – a huge part of his history a huge part of his legacy, has been associated with things that have been since you know called, if not attempted, then movements along the line toward genocide, whether it's the initiation of the residential school system, whether it's an attempt to starve out Indians and native people across Canada, that is not something that's worth celebrating, worth honoring in this way.

JOHN BOYKO: No, and what use the word huge. It's a part of his legacy. It's part of his legacy that must be discussed, as we are now, as it should be in schools a in a better way. And it must be a part of our national conversation but it's not a huge part of his legacy. As awful as it was, it was not the principal part of his legacy. For this I go to Professor from Yale University, Dr. Witt, who in trying to help Americans come to grips with the monuments that are coming down there, came up with a four step task. I'll only mention the first part, he said a monument should come down, or in our case our discussion name should be changed, is the principal legacy of the namesake fundamentally at odds with our values. The principal legacy, the principal legacy of Sir John was positive. The principal legacy of Sir John is everything that my friend of Manitoba was talking about. That does not mean that we forget the ball of the things that we've been talking about, with respect to Indigenous people, but we must recognize the principle legacy of Sir John.

MG: Niigaan Sinclair?

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: Well, I mean I appreciate the argument. I appreciate this kind of this presentism right. I mean people say you know, “You got to look at Sir John A. Macdonald in the time of the period” and absolutely hating people, perpetrating violence, and you know what we now refer to as genocide against indigenous people was a national hobby throughout the 19th century. Every Canadian participated within it. But you know, who is it better than to look at teachers? Teachers looking out for the best interest of their students and having that critical conversation; who should be better to take a lead in this position? You know our children will lead us. If we teach our children the kind of history and the kind of critical perspective that history, that Mr. Boyd goes referring to, I have no doubt whatsoever that it will be the children who will lead the changing of the name of that school because they will look at that history and say: “How do we bring in indigenous people into this country as meaningful responsible adults?” And that they will say well part of that will be recognizing that the names the national symbols that we carry. It's important to consider indigenous experiences within that and maybe we can have a country where we'll be responsible and ethical and peaceful with one another and not the past 150 years.

MG: Premier of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne, has said that this move misses the mark, in her words. That we need to understand history both the good and the bad and that there is a teaching opportunity here to teach children the full history of this country. Do you lose that teaching opportunity, Niigaan, if you take the name off the school?

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: Oh, absolutely not. It's preposterous to take this argument that we're going to somehow forget history. I teach my children history every single day as we're looking at that train line, as we drive into the reserve, as we're live in in a in a world in which they don't speak their language. We're living in a world in which - my daughter for example goes to French immersion. She speaks French immersion. She goes to French immersion because of the legacies of Sir John A. Macdonald and the good, the bad, all of that is a part of that legacy. And as you know, as an Indigenous person, I live with that legacy every single day as every Canadian does. We're never going to forget Sir John A. Macdonald, regardless of whether the change some building names or not. The national symbols that we hold up in 2017 today, which is really what this conversation is about, 2017 not the past, it's about today who we are and how we look at that past. Whether we change schools or not, it's really not going to change a lot. What is going to change is the critical conversations and the way that we treat one another and that's what teachers are trying to lead us in that direction.

MG: John Boyko, what about that timing? That this is 2017, that we have to look at people in history through a bit of a different lens, given who we are where we are and where we want to go.

JOHN BOYKO: I agree and I also think we're inching toward agreement here. And I think that this is back to what I was referring to, with the teacher's union missing an opportunity here. If we are going to do what I think we are agreeing needs to be done, then I think more than renaming schools, or other public buildings, or bringing down monuments. What we need to do is have a deep conversation about the way we teach Canadian history in our schools. Consider Ontario for example. In Ontario secondary schools have only one mandatory Canadian history course. That begins at the end of the First World War. So therefore, new Canadians who come into Canada, or to Ontario, can graduate from high school never having heard about Pre Confederation history, or Sir John, or so. Therefore never having explored or debated the good bad and ugly of his legacy, of his career. That I think is where we need to begin. And I think we're beginning to agree. We need to begin with that education, deeply looking at our past, intelligently looking at a teaching the critical thinking skills that we need.

MG: The number of politicians and former politicians, as I mentioned, have been speaking out about this. One of them John Baird said that this was political correctness on steroids. Is that really what this is about John?

JOHN BOYKO: No. I don't believe it is. I think that's a talking point for the base that he's appealing to, calling something political correctness in order to dismiss it. I think that the skins along the surface of what this debate is all about.

MG: Brad Wall, the outgoing Premier of Saskatchewan, has said that it's not a short walk between the calls to remove the names of our first prime minister from schools to the closing of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., or the removal of Tommy Douglas his name from a Saskatchewan school.

JOHN BOYKO: Well, I think the argument can be made whether it's a legitimate argument or not, but if we are going to look at Sir John A. Macdonald in the name of schools and things after him then we need to look at all. For example, the residential schools were established but they were maintained by every Canadian prime minister from Macdonald until Pierre Trudeau. So, therefore should we be taking all of those names off? The 60s scoop, another horrendous episode in our history, took place under the leadership of Lester Pearson. So should we change the name of Pearson college and get rid of the airport name in Toronto?

MG: Niigaan, the question for you, then. Should we be looking at all of those names?

JOHN BOYKO: I think we go back to what I was discussing before, and I think what my friend in Manitoba is talking about and that is that we have this national conversation in an intelligent way and that we begin to look at the manner in which Canadian history is taught, in elementary and secondary school, so that we bring up a generation of kids in the next generation who have the vocabulary and the knowledge in order to discuss it.

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: Oh. I think the arguments of politicians and ideologues who want to talk about when you know a name of a building and somehow that erases history is preposterous ignorant and immature.

JOHN BOYKO: I agree.

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: And so, that being said, you know, this conversation that Mr. Boyko is referring to about, now looking at national symbols airports all of those things you've named are national symbols. This is what reconciliation looks like. This is called growing up as a nation. It is exciting to hear Canadians who have, walking through everyday life, having political power having conversations about really what it means to have a meaningful relationship with the indigenous people, not denying it, not casting it aside, but actually acting like an adult and saying: “Hey! Let's look at the name of an airport. I have no problem at all.” Let's say let's look at that airport.

MG: But that makes some people really uncomfortable and is that the point?

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: That's called growing up. That's called being an adult and having a hard conversation about what it means to be a Canadian. That's the kind of Canada that I teach and that's the kind of Canada that I encourage Canadians to have a conversation. And you know I'm speaking to many of the teachers in Ontario, this year at many different conferences. And what I say is that Canadians are experiencing trauma because they're waking up to what the Nation is really all about, which historically has been hating and perpetuating violence against indigenous people. That's uncomfortable to talk about. But it is the truth.

MG: Niigaan Sinclair and John Boyko. We'll leave it there. Thank you both.

JOHN BOYKO: Thank you.

NIIGAAN SINCLAIR: Thank you.

MG: Niigaan Sinclair is an associate professor in native studies at the University of Manitoba. He was in Winnipeg. John Boyko has written a number of books on Canadian history. He's in Peterborough, Ontario. For more on this debate about how historical figures, I guess evolve over history if we can put it that way, and how to commemorate them. We're joined by Cecilia Morgan, professor of history at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and the author of Commemorating Canada: History, Heritage and Memory. She is in Niagara on the Lake. Cecilia, good morning to you.

CECILIA MORGAN: Good morning, Matt.

MG: What do you make of this debate, particularly around Sir John A. Macdonald. Should his name be removed from schools?

CECILIA MORGAN: Well, I think your two previous guests just laid out some very interesting concepts, and made some very important points about both Macdonald and the way in which national symbols are used. And I guess my point would be to just shift the ground a little bit. I had my own thoughts as a historian about Macdonald but what really strikes me in this discussion is the very important role that history plays, or sense the past plays, in giving us a sense of who we are as individuals, as community members, and as a nation. And you know, there were words that were used like ‘uncomfortable feelings’, ‘aspiration’ and ‘atonement’ that I think to me go to the heart of some and much of this, that as much as this is also about you know the logical rational narratives, it's also about strong emotions that our past evokes for us.

MG: What's at stake if a school, that is named after Sir John A. Macdonald, is renamed or all of the schools are renamed?

CECILIA MORGAN: Well, I think for one thing, I don't think all of the schools are going to be renamed. But I think what is at stake is that we - And again this is something that your guests are bringing up. We open up the past for reflection, for thought, and we take another look at it. And I think we also recognize too that our conceptions of the past change as we change as a society. That it's not a static body of knowledge, that it's a form of social knowledge that does shift as our perspective shift as a society.

MG: Do you lose some perspective if you only view someone's achievements through the lens of the society that you're in right now?

CECILIA MORGAN: Yes, I think. I mean I think there is certainly that particular danger but I think that is part of the problem though, commemorative history. You know, the naming of institutions, the naming of that particular forms of landscapes, and the putting up of monuments. The commemorative history leads us into - I think fairly one dimensional almost, in some ways, almost cartoon like characterizations of individuals. So we lose context and we use nuance. Your previous guests spoke in various ways about the need to teach history in the schools. As a historian I think that is a more effective way to deal with the past than simply relying upon the naming of things as a way of educating ourselves about our history.

MG: But in Niigaan Sinclair's point though, if he's walking his young child through their community and they see the symbols of the nation that come into conflict with who they are, in this nation. Does that not prompt some need for further reflection if not for their action?

CECILIA MORGAN: Certainly not. I would I would certainly agree with that. But it prompts the need for further reflection, further study and further understanding.

MG: In the United States we're seeing this play out in real time. As I mentioned people are pulling down Confederate statues. If you look elsewhere in the world, how have other countries dealt with things that have been named after somebody whose deeds are looked at differently, hundreds of years later?

CECILIA MORGAN: Yes. I mean this this has been - I mean the history of commemoration is kind of littered with examples of symbols that over time become contested. And there's, you know, sometimes there is actual conflict as we've seen and that statues are pulled down and others are put up in place. What I think is interesting about the Canadian context is that we're seeing very - we're having similar kinds of debates as have happened, for example in Australia, where the history of settler violence against indigenous people became very large political controversy in the 1990s - 2000s. And I don't think that there's any easy resolution for any of these things. This is an ongoing process. So for example, school textbooks get changed. You know, that's one outcome. And some and sometimes are other forms, or other individuals who symbolize something different. There are monuments put up to them, although sometimes that can result in similar kinds of controversies, because no one individual embodies every single quality that we might want them to do so today.

MG: Easier to change a textbook than a school or a monument. Should we be naming anything after anybody these days?

CECILIA MORGAN: Well, I think we will because this is a genre of cultural and social history that has taken a long time to develop and is deeply rooted in the 19th century. I think we just need to have those kinds of discussions as to who we commemorate, being aware of the, again of the problems of commemorative history as a kind of genre, as a way of remembering the past. But just to get back to your point about textbooks. I've been involved in writing some school textbooks and they're actually, you know, they're not that easy to change.

MG: Hmm.

CECILIA MORGAN: There are a lot of interests involved, when it comes to textbooks, ranging from the Ministry of Education, to textbook publishers, to teachers groups, and so on. So, it's an interesting process but it's not without its own tensions and conflicts.

MG: Just a couple of seconds left.

CECILIA MORGAN: Sure.

MG: Do you anticipate this growing, spreading, moving across the country on a national scale?

CECILIA MORGAN: Well I wouldn't be surprised. Put it that way. Historians are not very good Futurists, but I wouldn't be surprised because of the impact I think that the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission have had. And I wouldn't be surprised to see more questioning, more thinking and more reflection about our past. And as a historian, to me that's a good thing and it's a sign of a healthy society.

MG: Cecilia Morgan great pleasure to have you here. Thank you.

CECILIA MORGAN: Thanks for inviting me, Matt.

MG: Cecilia Morgan, professor of history from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and the author of Commemorating Canada: History, Heritage and Memory. If you missed the debate on Sir John A. Macdonald, you can find it on the website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Having heard it, we would love to hear from you, particularly around the idea of history, how history is viewed now, and whether the actions of people in the past - who we have celebrated through monuments and buildings and maybe airports - we should be looking differently at those actions and whether we should or perhaps removing some of the ways that we are remembering them, given the broader lens that we're looking at history through now. You can get in touch at cbc.ca/thecurrent. Find us on Facebook or Twitter @TheCurrentCBC and click on the Contact link on our website, to hear from us. That is it for our program today stay tuned to CBC Radio One for Love Me. Wherever you happen to go, you can take CBC radio with you on the CBC Radio app. It's free through the App Store, through Google Play. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to the summer edition of The Current.

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August 28, 2017 Full Episode Transcript

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