The Calgary Board of Education’s (CBE) board of trustees ended a review of the Sir John A. Macdonald School name, two years after a committee was formed amid protests from students and community members.

In an update on Tuesday, Aug. 20, the board of trustees said it’s no longer reviewing the name of Sir John A. Macdonald School in Calgary’s northwest because of “many diverse perspectives on the legacy of Canada’s first prime minister.”

The update went on to say the board passed a motion at a meeting on June 25 to “cease the work of the name review committee.”

However, the motion was not included in a public copy of the agenda, and it is unclear when the board discussed that motion.

“This decision was not made lightly. The Board is committed to reconciliation through education and supporting improved achievement, equity, and well-being for students across our system,” the update read.

“Moving forward, the Board of Trustees will continue to dedicate its time and energy to the goals of the Education Plan and further supporting the success and well-being of all students and staff.”

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith previously raised concerns about the renaming, saying it will “erase portions of our history” and that it’s important to “understand the right and the wrongs that all our prime ministers did.”

On Friday, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Education responded to LiveWire Calgary’s request for comment saying, “School boards have the autonomy to make decisions around the naming of their schools, and Alberta’s government applauds the decision to maintain the name Sir John A. Macdonald Junior High School.”

The board of trustees did not respond to LWC’s request for comment before publication.

Sir John A. Macdonald’s colonial legacy

The committee’s dissolution comes more than a year after Calgary students and community members protested outside the CBE building downtown last March, calling on the district to rename the school due to the prime minister’s colonial and racist legacy.

As Canada’s first prime minister, he was responsible for punitive measures against Indigenous peoples.

Macdonald’s government authorized the creation of residential schools in 1883, where more than 6,000 children died. It also caused intergenerational trauma to thousands of Indigenous families across the country, the effects of which are still being felt today.

The prime minister also famously called Indigenous people “savages” and deliberately starved Indigenous nations to drive them into reserves for European settlement and the construction of the railroad.

Macdonald’s government also passed the British North America Act (now called the Constitution Act of 1867) and the Indian Act, which intended to assimilate Indigenous peoples into Canadian society. This included the pass system, which controlled the movement of Indigenous people, and policies that made powwows and potlatches illegal.

Previously, when the matter first came up, two historians Dr. Carmen Nielson from Mount Royal University and Dr. Sean Carleton, assistant professor at the University of Manitoba and formerly Mount Royal University wrote to the CBE about the renaming.

Writing to the CBE at that time, Dr. Carleton called Macdonald’s legacy one of nation-building, but also nation-destroying.

“While Sir John A. Macdonald was undoubtedly an important politician and nation-builder, the historical record is clear that he also played an instrumental role in initiating, supporting, and defending Canada’s genocidal Indian Residential School system, among other harmful policies targeting Indigenous Peoples,” Carleton wrote.

Calgary schools have been renamed before

The board’s decision drew criticism from activists because schools in Calgary have been renamed before. In June 2021, the CBE changed the name of Langevin School to Riverside School, erasing ties to Hector-Louis Langevin who helped build the residential school system. That school was renamed without a committee.

Months later, the Calgary Catholic School District renamed Bishop Grandin High School to Our Lady of the Rockies, erasing the legacy of Calgary Bishop Vital-Justin Grandin who was a key architect of the residential school system.

Michelle Robinson, host of the Native Calgarian Podcast, said the CBE board of trustees’ decision is a continuation of long histories of anti-Indigenous bias and white supremacy.

“I think it’s really good for settlers to see that it’s their institutions that are creating the barriers for reconciliation,” Robinson told LiveWire Calgary.

“It’s not just Natives complaining. It’s a bigger picture of Canadians being hurt by this process, because at the end of the day, it was settler families that were trying to get that name change, and us just agreeing and trying to help them in any capacity we could and say, ‘Yes, this is the spirit of reconciliation.’”

She also called the decision hypocritical because it goes against past commitments to adopt anti-racism policies.

“They’re not actually committed to anti-racism work, because it was multiple races that John A. Macdonald perpetuated discriminatory policies towards,” she said.

“To me, they are nothing more than superficial, and they don’t really respect or understand the trauma that we’ve had to endure in order to be speaking up about these issues. They just really minimize our experience and exclude us on purpose.”

Renaming efforts unclear

Activists also criticized the board for not being transparent about what actions have been taken to rename the school.

The board of trustee’s website does not list who was consulted, nor does it list who was involved in the committee. The board did not immediately respond to LWC’s questions about who was part of the board.

Rosemary Brown of the Reconciliation Action Group called the decision “gutless,” accusing the board of hiding behind “diverse perspectives” and not taking action on renaming the school.

“The process has not been transparent. You just know that a committee has been set up, but not the names of the people who will be on the committee. Initially, we’ve been told that the community would be involved in consultations, that there’d be a chance to prepare briefs and submit them to this review committee. As far as I know, that has not happened,” she said.

“I really do think they should be ashamed of themselves, and it just shows how far we have to go. People are not really willing, I think, to acknowledge the past history, to engage with it, to try and redress it in meaningful ways.”