Ryerson University’s namesake statue has been vandalized once again in the wake of the remains of 215 children being found at the site of a former residential school in British Columbia.
The statue of Egerton Ryerson has been doused in red paint and marked with graffiti referring to the tragic discovery announced last week.
Ryerson was an architect of Canada's residential school system, which aimed to convert and assimilate Indigenous children into Canadian culture and saw them suffer physical and sexual abuse as well as death.
Last summer, the statue was also defaced during a demonstration where protesters called for “monuments that represent slavery, colonialism and violence” to be torn down.
In February, the magazine long known as the Ryerson Review of Journalism temporarily removed Ryerson from its name as the school reviewed the names of its two student publications- The Review and the Ryersonian- due to their namesake’s history.
On Tuesday the school announced that it will rename the two publications ahead of the new school year, dropping any reference to Ryerson.
The university also created a task force that will “recommend actions to reconcile the legacy of Egerton Ryerson.”
“The university is a very colonial institution but particularly Ryerson because of the history of our namesake Egerton Ryerson. We’ve had a lot of talking, a lot of consultation but I think that what the statue looks like right now kind of speaks for itself and I think it’s time,” librarian at Ryerson University Jane Schmidt told CP24 on Tuesday.
The discovery of at least 215 children’s remains, some as young as three years old, at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. was announced last week with the help of ground-penetrating radar. It is believed the deaths were undocumented.
The Kamloops Indian Band says it wants to go through the process of identifying and returning the childrens’ remains home to bring peace to their families.
Since the grim discovery, politicians across the country and in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area have ordered flags to fly at half-mast.
The Kamloops residential school operated between 1890 and 1969. The federal government took over the facility's operation from the Catholic Church and ran it as a day school until it closed in 1978.
-With files from The Canadian Press
