Image source: Egerton Ryerson (courtesy Public Archives of Ontario/S-2641)

Reconciliation in Canada made another step forward when Toronto’s Ryerson University dropped its colonial title and was renamed Toronto Metropolitan University. The change occurred on April 6, 2022 – 74 years after it was founded as the Ryerson Institute of Technology.

Ryerson University, located in downtown Toronto, was named after one of the more ardent supporters of Canada’s Residential Schools. Adolphus Egerton Ryerson. was a Methodist minister, born in 1803, on the northern shore of Lake Erie in Upper Canada or what is called Ontario today.

While Ryerson did not develop the Residential School policy, he did recommend the 1842-44 Bagot Commission to the Department of Indian Affairs which recommended  “manual labor schools where Indigenous children were separated from their parents to achieve [the] assimilation” of Canada’s Indigenous People – a legacy that has had and would continue to have detrimental effects on Canada’s Indigenous Peoples for the next 178 years.

... a legacy that has had and would continue to have detrimental effects on Canada's Indigenous Peoples for the next 178 years.

Ryerson’s role in the development of Residential Schools was identified in The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume 1, Part 1 (Page 77-78) in 2015. In 2010, Ryerson University recognized “the legacy of a painful past” and initiated the Aboriginal Education Council who identified Ryerson’s “role in shaping the concept of the residential school system, and the system’s devastating impact on Indigenous people” in 2018. In 2020, the President of the Ryerson University established the Mash Koh Wee Kah Pooh Win (Standing Strong) Task Force which made a number of recommendations, one of which suggested changing the name of the University in the spirit of Reconciliation.

For a more graphic depiction of the history of Residential School, please read D’Arcy Rheault’s PDF pamphlet-style report or by clicking on the linked image below. D’Arcy Rheault was born in Timmins, Ontario and is a non-status member of the Anishinaabe Nation.