Ryerson Students’ Union issues demands for Indigenous justice - The Globe and Mail

6.7.17

Ryerson Students’ Union issues demands for Indigenous justice - The Globe and Mail - “I think it is just necessary for Ryerson to acknowledge the history from within its name and the history with having a statue up like that that represents an individual who had an active role in creating residential schools,” said Susanne Nyaga, who is the union’s incoming president.

The university’s website lists Egerton Ryerson (1803-1882) as a “prominent figure … in politics, religion, arts, sciences and perhaps most significantly, education” who was instrumental in creating Ontario’s public school system.

It goes on, however, to say that “while Egerton Ryerson supported free and compulsory education, he also believed in different systems of education for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children. These beliefs influenced, in part, the establishment of what became the Indian Residential School system that has had such a devastating impact on First Nations, Métis and Inuit people across Canada.”