[Craic] Indian Residential Schools - Dr Peter Bryce

[Allan Baker]

Hi David;

Here’s some additional information on the “Finding Peter Bryce” video. This is from the Toronto United Church Council.
I found the 22 minute video, produced and narrated by his grandson, very moving.
It is also the story of how a brilliant mans career sabotaged by a bureaucrat named Duncan Campbell Scott.
Stay hopeful;
Allan



Finding Peter Bryce
As part of TUCC’s commitment to join the broader church community in responding to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 calls to action, we are pleased to offer copies of Gumboot Productions’ 22 minute documentary Finding Peter Bryce to communities of faith in Shining Waters, Horseshoe Falls, Western Ontario Waterways and East Central Ontario Regions.

The film has been loaded onto flash drives along with discussion questions and resources <https://www.tucc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Discussion-Questions-and-Resources.pdf> for your community of faith to explore. The drives are free of charge though contributions towards the cost of production are always appreciated.

Contact Ali Hayes for a copy at ali at tucc.ca <mailto:ali at tucc.ca> or 905-771-5124.

Other reconciliation initiatives partnered by TUCC:

Gibimishkaadimin <https://gibimishkaadimin.wixsite.com/home/about>
Great Lakes Water Walk  <http://greatlakeswaterwalk.ca/>

View trailer above and then contact us to access a free copy for your community of faith.

About the Film
Dr. Peter Bryce was Ontario’s first Chief of Public Health; his innovations were copied across North America. In the early 20th Century, as the medical officer with oversight res­ponsibilities for Canada’s Residential School System, Bryce identified the shortcomings of the system’s response to malnutrition and tuberculosis. His reports on the epidemics and recommendations for their remedy were set aside by senior government officers and he was relieved of his duties. In 1922, Bryce published Story of a National Crime, describing the tragic consequences.

The documentary Finding Peter Bryce reveals that not all settler peoples were blind to the injustice inherent in Canada’s residential school system and the effects of those shortcomings. If citizens were blind to the issues, it was a willful blindness. Dr. Bryce’s perspective was in sharp contrast to that of civil servant Duncan Campbell Scott, whose tragic role as deputy superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs is outlined in the film. But First Nations’ children’s advocate, Cindy Blackstock points out that many of us today find ourselves making similar decisions when there is pressure to conform. Each of us must choose how we respond to the challenge of reconciliation.

> On Aug 7, 2021, at 11:06 AM, David Walsh via craic <craic at lists.integralshift.ca> wrote:
> 
> It is difficult to believe that the tragic injustice of the Indian Residential Schools went on for over 100 years. We should ask how this could have happened in a civilized country such as Canada, particularly where many politicians called themselves ‘Christians’.
>  
> One can get a sense of the huge scale of this injustice by reading about Dr Peter Bryce, the chief medical officer who tried in vain to raise the alarm about what was happening. The attitude of the government towards the indigenous people of Canada was a form of blindness and ‘colonial injustice’ where thousands of children as young as 5 years old were taken away from their homes as a way ‘to fix the Indian problem’. 
> ‘The Story of a National Crime’ | The Tyee <https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2021/06/02/National-Crime-Residential-Schools/?__s=en9ip53ynuia19wy03v6&utm_source=drip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Roundup+-+June+5%2C+2021&utm_content=Kamloops> – also see attachment.
> For 15 years, in the early 1900’s, Canada’s first chief officer of medical health repeatedly warned his superiors that the country’s disease-riddled residential schools had become glorified tuberculosis death camps. He courageously pressed for reforms. But Bryce’s superiors and the government didn’t listen. They didn’t want to know the truth, and made the physician’s job impossible as only bureaucrats can do. And so, when Bryce left the government and was no longer oath-bound to secrecy, he wrote a 24-page exposé on the accelerated extinction of Indigenous people willfully being perpetrated in Canada’s residential schools. You can read it here <https://archive.org/details/storyofnationalc00brycuoft/page/n5/mode/2up>. 
> We should recognize a similar trend today with the mind-set of all levels of government ‘to fix the homeless problem’ - as a similar calamity happening today.
> Peace
> David
> 
> david at dwalsh.ca <mailto:david at awakeningproject.ca> 
>  
>  
> <?The Story of a National Crime and  Speech by MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq.docx>_______________________________________________
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