Carney distances himself from late father’s views of some Indigenous people, residential schools

Warning: this story contains outdated language and discusses physical and sexual abuse at residential schools.

Liberal Leader Mark Carney distanced himself Saturday from comments his late father made 60 years ago as an educator that were dismissive of some Indigenous people, and his subsequent defence of residential schools in the later years of his life.

“I love my father, but I don’t share those views, to be absolutely clear,” Carney said at a campaign event in Oakville, Ont.

He was responding to a CBC Indigenous story that explored comments made by his father, Catholic educator Robert J. Carney, who died in 2009.

During a 1965 CBC Radio interview, the elder Carney spoke of a program at an Indian day school in Fort Smith, N.W.T., where he was principal, for “culturally retarded children.”

He defined such a child as one “from a Native background who, for various reasons, has not been in regular attendance in school,” or a student with a non-English-speaking background who is behind in their studies.

His views reflected the assimilationist attitudes commonplace in Canadian society at the time, particularly among educators, historian Jackson Pind told CBC Indigenous.

WATCH | Mark Carney objects to late father’s past comments:

‘I don’t share those views,’ Carney says of father’s past comments on Indian day schools

During a stop in Oakville, Ont. on Saturday, Liberal Leader Mark Carney was asked about comments his father Robert Carney made 60 years ago about the residential school system.

In a 2019 settlement, the federal government acknowledged the Indian day school system divided children from their families, denied them their heritage and subjected many to physical, emotional and sexual abuse. 

Carney’s father went on to hold various positions before becoming a university professor. In a 1991 church-commissioned study, he interviewed 240 former residential school students, eventually reporting allegations of extreme physical abuse and 15 alleged instances of sexual abuse at eight western Arctic residential schools.

He acknowledged the abuse in his report, saying these students had been “scarred.” But in later comments he stressed a number of the interviewees had had positive experiences and the work of educators “cannot be viewed as being wholly destructive or ill-intended.”

He later criticized Indigenous-led studies highlighting the negative effects of these schools as one-sided and imbalanced.

Schools caused ‘fundamental damage’

On Saturday, Mark Carney said residential schools and Indian day schools are a “long, painful part of our history.”

He said he and the country has learned of the “fundamental damage of residential schools and day schools to those who attended them [and] those who were their descendants.”

Advancing truth and reconciliation, he explained, was a core element in his brief tenure as prime minister prior to the election call. He said it would continue if his party is re-elected.

“That is a fundamentally and deeply-held personal commitment of mine.”

Historians say it’s unclear if Robert Carney’s views evolved after the report from the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was released. 

In 2006, the government reached a settlement with residential school students. Carney died three years later.