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Actors, Ideas, and Institutions: The Forces Driving Integrated Education Policy in British Columbia, 1947–1951
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 October 2018
Abstract
British Columbia (BC) charted its own course in 1949 when it passed legislation permitting Indigenous children to be schooled in provincial public schools. That is, BC's law predated federal legislation allowing integrated schooling by two years. This paper examines how and why BC followed its own policy path with respect to the schooling of Indian children in the years immediately following World War II. It illustrates three key forces propelling BC's integration agenda: policy actors, ideas, and institutional structures. Indigenous and non-Indigenous policy actors were shaped by the discourse of ethical liberalism, an ideology that dominated BC's educational landscape during the first half of the twentieth century. Key policy actors succeeded in implementing integrated schooling in advance of federal legislation due, in part, to Canada's political institutions, which have facilitated regional autonomy in matters such as education. This study highlights the importance of telling regional histories in addition to those of the nation-state.
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References
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67 Harold Sinclair to Byron Johnson, Sept. 17, 1949. Sinclair had earlier extended his thanks to John Cates. Harold Sinclair to John Cates, May 7, 1949, City of Vancouver Archives, John Henry Cates fonds, Political Correspondence, file 3, box 513-E-8, series S2, City of Vancouver Archives, Vancouver, BC (hereafter cited as CVA).
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71 Jamieson, The Native Voice, 121. Calder completed a theology degree at the University of British Columbia in 1946 and was the first Indigenous person to be elected to a Canadian parliament when he secured the seat for the Atlin riding in 1949. He served as a member of the legislative assembly for twenty-six years, first as a member of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), which later morphed into the New Democratic Party. He later joined the Social Credit Party and became the first Indigenous person to “achieve cabinet status.” “Chief of Chiefs ‘A Wonderful Guy,’” Times Colonist (Victoria, BC), Nov. 6, 2006, A3. See also Foster, Raven, and Webber, “Frank Calder and Thomas Berger: A Conversation” in Let Right Be Done, 37–38. In his first speech to the legislature in 1949, Calder noted that Indigenous enfranchisement had “paved the way for new rights and new responsibilities.” His vision was for “equality of opportunity in education, in health, in employment and in citizenship” for Indigenous peoples. Harper, Joan, He Moved a Mountain: The Life of Frank Calder and the Nisga'a Land Claims Accord (Vancouver, BC: Ronsdale Press, 2013), 29Google Scholar.
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73 “An Act to Amend the Public Schools Act,” RSBC 1949, c. 57, s 13.
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78 “An Act to Amend the Public Schools Act,” RSBC 1949, c. 57, s 13.
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88 “‘Traveler’ Straith Covers B.C.” Victoria Daily Times (Victoria BC), Nov. 26, 1951, William T. Straith: Scrapbook, BCA.
89 “No Child Should Have to Leave School,” Vancouver News-Herald (Vancouver BC), Feb. 24, 1949, William T. Straith: Scrapbook, BCA.
90 “Education Major Factor in Reaching World Peace, Says Hon. W.T. Straith,” Victoria Daily Times (Victoria, BC), Oct. 23, 1948, William T. Straith: Scrapbook, BCA.
91 “‘I Wouldn't Head Any Other System But Ours’” News-Herald (Vancouver, BC), April 15, 1952, William T. Straith: Scrapbook, BCA. In this regard, Straith perpetuated the dominant provincial view. It should be noted that support for denominational schooling was not legislated in BC until 1979—unlike the situation in other provinces. See Barman, Jean, “Deprivatizing Private Education: The British Columbia Experience,” Canadian Journal of Education 16, no. 1 (Jan. 1991), 12–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Downey, Lorne, “The Aid-to-Independent Schools Movement in British Columbia,” in Schools in the West: A History of British Columbia, ed. Sheehan, Nancy M., Wilson, J. Donald, and Jones, David C. (Calgary, AB: Detselig, 1986), 241–64Google Scholar.
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93 “Minister Says Indians Must Be Given Incentive to Sell Wares,” Daily Colonist (Victoria, BC), July 8, 1949, William T. Straith: Scrapbook, BCA; Straith and his wife were also longtime patrons of the University of British Columbia Players’ Club in Vancouver. For example, see the UBC Players’ Club playbill for William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (March 1952), 3, University of British Columbia Archives, https://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/pdfs/theatre/pc5203.pdf. The Society for the Furtherance of British Columbia Indian Arts and Crafts was founded in 1939 seeking to help preserve and market Indian arts and crafts. The Society incorporated in 1951 and changed its name to the British Columbia Indian Arts and Welfare Society. B.C. Indian Arts and Welfare Society Files, MS-2907, BCA.
94 Seymour Wilson has noted that provincial officials have generally been “only too glad to accept the funds offered” by federal authorities but have been “just as quick in disclaiming any other federal incursion in the field of educational matters.” See Wilson, “Federal Perspectives on Education,” 39.
95 Raptis, “Implementing Integrated Education Policy,” 121–22.
96 Mann, Jean, “G.M. Weir and H.B. King: Progressive Education or Education for the Progressive State?,” in Schooling and Society in Twentieth Century British Columbia, ed. Wilson, J. Donald and Jones, David C. (Calgary, AB: Detselig, 1980), 91–115Google Scholar.
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99 “‘Traveler’ Straith Covers BC.”
100 “‘Traveler’ Straith Covers BC.” At the time, new capital costs for schooling required the support of local ratepayers.
101 See, for example, Stanley, Timothy J., Contesting White Supremacy: School Segregation, Anti-racism, and the Making of Chinese Canadians (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011)Google Scholar; and Raptis, “Implementing Integrated Education Policy,” 120.
102 Jamieson, The Native Voice.
103 John F. Anderson, President, Campbell River and District Liberal Association, to Byron Johnson, April 22, 1949, file 11, box 82, Labor: Indian Inquiry Committee, Premiers’ Files, BCA.
104 Marie Battiste, “Micmac Literacy and Cognitive Assimilation,” in Indian Education in Canada, 23; Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Canada's Residential Schools, 77; and Miller, Shingwauk's Vision, 186–87, 217–40.
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112 Helen Raptis and Samantha Bowker, “Maintaining the Illusion of Democracy: Policy-Making and Aboriginal Education in Canada, 1946–1948,” Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy 102 (March 2010), 9.
113 Raptis and Bowker, “Maintaining the Illusion of Democracy,” 11.
114 This political diversity among Indigenous groups of BC continues, as illustrated by differing views on the proposal to expand the Kinder Morgan pipeline from northern Alberta to the port of Vancouver. The Tsleil-Waututh (of North Vancouver) are opposed, whereas the Simpcw (in central BC) are in favor. “‘We've Made Our Decision’: BC First Nation Speaks Up for Trans Mountain Pipeline,” Global News, https://globalnews.ca/news/4165979/first-nation-support-trans-mountain-pipeline.
115 National Indian Brotherhood (NIB)/Assembly of First Nations (AFN), Indian Control of Indian Education: Policy Paper, Presented to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Ottawa: National Indian Brotherhood/Assembly of First Nations, 1972), 25–26. Johnson's coalition government dissolved in 1952 with the election of the more conservative Social Credit Party led by W. A. C. Bennett. By the late 1960s, BC's educational governance had changed significantly. See Thomas Fleming, Worlds Apart: British Columbia Schools, Politics and Labour Relations Before and After 1972 (Mill Bay, BC: Bendall Books, 2011), 60.
116 NIB/AFN, Indian Control, 10.
117 It is important to note, though, that the slow pace of change has prompted critics to characterize the shift in control as more illusory than real. See Assembly of First Nations, First Nations Control of First Nations Education: It's Our Vision, It's Our Time (Ottawa: Assembly of First Nations, 2010), 6; Harold Cardinal, The Rebirth of Canada's Indians (Edmonton, AB: Hurtig, 1977), 56–83; and Longboat, Dianne, “First Nations Control of Education: The Path to Our Survival as Nations,” in Indian Education in Canada, Vol. 2: The Challenge, ed. Barman, Jean, Hébert, Yvonne, and McCaskill, Don N. (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1987), 24Google Scholar.
118 Tyack, David and Cuban., Larry Tinkering toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 57Google Scholar.
119 Tyack and Cuban, Tinkering toward Utopia, 7.
120 Howlett, Ramesh, and Perl, Studying Public Policy, 60.
121 Rancor was particularly evident during the prolonged constitutional negotiations that dominated Canadian politics during much of the 1980s and 1990s, decades that witnessed the rapid decline of the “liberal consensus.” Miljan, Lydia, Public Policy in Canada: An Introduction. 5th ed. (Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press, 2008), 5Google Scholar, 15, 63.
122 Beadie et al., “Gateways to the West,” 418–19. See also High, Steven, “Sharing Authority in the Writing of Canadian History: The Case of Oral History,” in Contesting Clio's Craft: New Directions and Debates in Canadian History, ed. Dummitt, Christopher and Dawson, Michael (London: Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London, 2009), 21–47Google Scholar.