as printed in the Star. 30 April 2022
“Setting the Record Straight.”
Your story” has a key mistake right in the first line. Ryerson University was not named after “an architect of Canada’s residential school system,” but after a friend of Indigenous people, named a “brother” by an Ojibway chief.
Yes, that was the real Egerton Ryerson, who lived with the Ojibway, learned Ojibway and supported their land claims and the preservation of their culture. He supported the voluntary , bilingual schools Indigenous leaders wanted and had nothing to do with the appalling system actually set up by the federal government after his death.
Lynn McDonald, CM, fellow of the Royal Historical Society
co-founder of Friends of Egerton Ryerson