C2C Journal
They Would Call Me a “Denier” – Let Me Explain what I Believe about Residential Schools in Canada
From The Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Originally posted in the C2C Journal by Rodney A. Clifton
In our largely “post-truth” society, the validity of a given statement is increasingly assessed based on who is making it. There are even those who believe that only some should be allowed to say certain things – while others should be scorned or even imprisoned for uttering the same words. This increasingly describes the discursive landscape concerning Canada’s Indian Residential Schools and whether Indigenous children disappeared from and/or were murdered there. Drawing on his lived experience as a onetime residential school employee, on his long academic record and, not least, on his personal courage in the face of those who wish to criminalize “denialism”, Rodney Clifton presents a humbly argued plea for Canadians to judge their country’s residential school record according to the truth – the actual, factual truth.
Over the last several years a new subspecies of Canadian has been named by some of our elites. They are called “deniers” and are said to be escalating a hateful, racially-motivated campaign to attack and denigrate Indigenous Canadians. The accusations have been numerous. One important recent example comes from Stephanie Scott, Executive Director for the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, who wrote, “Sadly…we see increased ugliness from those who deny our truths, experiences and oral histories as reality. Deniers will write their fringe blogs and substacks and leave their foul comments on social media challenging the documented experiences of Indigenous People, particularly residential school Survivors…They will say: ‘It didn’t happen,’ ‘It wasn’t that bad,’ ‘Some good came out of residential schools,’ or the most repugnant, ‘Children never died in those institutions.’”
Kimberly Murray (top), Canada’s Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites, deems Indian Residential School (IRS) “denialism” to be “violence” and “hate”, while Indigenous lawyer Eleanore Sunchild (bottom) calls for its criminalization in Canadian law. (Sources of photos: (top) The Canadian Press/Justin Tang; (bottom) Jason Warick/CBC)
The deniers are apparently so dangerous that mere vitriol, insult, accusation and denunciation such as Scott’s won’t be enough to contain them. They must be driven from the public square and silenced; if need be, they must be imprisoned. Last summer, prominent Indigenous lawyer Eleanore Sunchild suggested that “denialism” should be added to Canada’s Criminal Code, so that there are “consequences for people who are promoting hatred”. Not long thereafter Kimberly Murray, currently the federal government’s “Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools”, echoed that proposal. “Denialism is violence,” Murray intoned in one news conference. “Denial is hate.” The then-federal Minister of Justice, David Lametti, said he would explore the matter of criminalization, as has his successor, Arif Virani.
The anti-“denialist” campaign now appears self-sustaining. Barely a week ago as I was writing this essay, the federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh in a speech to Indigenous leaders accused a federal Conservative Party candidate, Aaron Gunn, of being a “residential school denier”. Also in the past week, the National Post’s Chris Selley reported that the RCMP now consider writing articles critical of the dominant residential schools’ narrative to be a potential threat to national security.
It is likely that Scott, Sunchild, Murray, Singh and perhaps our national police force would think that I too am a “denier”. By their standards, I suppose I am. But before you dismiss me as uninformed – or worse – let me explain what I actually believe. I am one of a number of informed Canadians who question some – but not all – of the claims about what happened to Indigenous children in Indian Residential Schools (IRS). If you must label us, call us “questioning critics”.
Were Children Missing and Murdered?
Questioning critics examine the claim that thousands of Indigenous children who lived in residential schools and hostels are missing and that this is because many if not most of them were murdered by their caregivers. These institutions were funded by the federal government from 1883 to 1996 and the majority were managed by five Christian churches: Roman Catholic (62 schools and hostels), Anglican (35), United Church (19), Mennonite (3) and Baptist (1); the 23 others were managed by federal, provincial and territorial governments (source of these figures is pp. 33-35 of this book).
The majority of Canada’s IRS were run by Christian churches; the claim that many children who attended the IRS went missing or were murdered has brought disgrace to the churches, which have not defended themselves against such accusations. Shown, (top) boys at play outside Fort Providence Mission Indian Residential School, N.W.T.; (bottom) children and nuns in front of the IRS in Maliotenam, Québec, circa 1950. (Sources of photo: (top) Library Archives, licensed under CC BY 2.0; (bottom) Library Archives, licensed under CC BY 2.0)
The claim that thousands of schoolchildren were murdered or otherwise went missing is therefore a direct attack on the churches. But these churches, surprisingly, have not defended themselves and their thousands of former employees. Instead, they have either tried to hide from view or have fallen over themselves with repeated apologies, confessions and gestures of contrition. The Catholic Church’s “Sacred Covenant” with the Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation (legally, the Kamloops Indian Band), described in this C2C article, is one such recent event.
Even so, the accusations against the IRS are difficult to believe for at least four reasons.
First, the federal Department of Indian Affairs (its exact name has varied over the decades) paid a per capita grant to the school administrators to care for the children and, as part of its oversight, the government required quarterly reports from school administrators showing the number of days each child had been at the school during the quarter. School inspectors regularly visited the schools to ensure that the students were being cared for and were attending. Even if Canadians today can’t believe that these officials cared about Indigenous children, the federal government wasn’t going to pay for students who didn’t exist or had disappeared. Yet we cannot find any documents indicating that any children were missing during the IRS system’s 113-year history.
Second, many responsible people, Indigenous as well as non-Indigenous, regularly visited the residential schools: chiefs, band councillors, parents, church officials and bureaucrats, along with dentists, medical doctors, nurses and optometrists. If students were going missing, surely someone among these many people would have discussed it with colleagues, raised the alarm among parents, notified the media or reported it to the proper authorities. Yet we cannot find any reports about missing children from any of these people.
Third, many of the residential school employees were themselves Indigenous, and their own children as well as the children of relatives and friends lived in the schools. Is it reasonable to assume that these employees would watch (or hear about) children being mistreated, or worse, murdered, and not report the malfeasance to Indian agents, chiefs, band councillors or the RCMP? Again, we can find no documents of any such thing happening.
Right under everyone’s noses? Children at the IRS were regularly observed by Indigenous and non-Indigenous visitors including bureaucrats, doctors, nurses, parents and chiefs; the author finds it very difficult to believe that children would go missing unnoticed or unreported. At right, a schoolchild and his grandmother at the St. Barnabas Indian Residential School mission hospital, Sarcee Reserve, Alberta. (Sources of photos: (left) The Canadian Press/Library and Archive Canada/Handout, retrieved from Global News; (right) Anglican General Synod Archives in Toronto)
Finally, questioning critics wonder why the extremely serious accusation of missing and murdered children – including some reportedly buried in schoolyards – was not included in the enormous, seven-volume report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), published in 2015. It seems strange that among the report’s 94 Calls to Action (i.e., recommendations or demands), there isn’t one demanding a search for children who were claimed to be missing, murdered or buried in schoolyards. (Volume 6 has six calls, numbers 71-76, to search for unmarked graves in mission cemeteries lying close to residential schools, but any child who had been buried in a formal ceremony was obviously not missing or murdered.) Questioning critics also wonder why the mainstream media didn’t report on this obvious anomaly.
This whole issue seems to have sprung up recently and for still-unknown reasons. It seems reasonable to propose that if children were murdered in residential schools, that information would have been reported long before May 27, 2021, when Kamloops Chief Rosanne Casimir announced that a recent investigation had provided “confirmation of the remains of 215 children who were students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.” The federal government sent almost $8 million to the band to investigate this claim but, so far, no excavations have even been initiated, let alone have any human remains been exhumed.
Of course, informed Canadians know that bad, abusive and unacceptable things took place in residential schools. Neither I nor any other questioning critic whom I know denies this or tries to suppress it. No one, in fact, denies that some Indigenous children died while registered in some schools. Nor do I have any reason to doubt the statement by former Assembly of First Nations Grand Chief Phil Fontaine that he had suffered sexual abuse while attending an IRS, something that, undoubtedly, shocked the nation when he first said it in a TV interview in 1990.
Why now? The author finds it puzzling that the issue of missing or murdered children, such as the “confirmation of the remains of 215 children” erroneously claimed by Kamloops Chief Rosanne Casimir (top) in May 2021, did not arise years earlier, nor was mentioned at all in the seven-volume report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) published in 2015. (Sources of photos: (top) BC Gov Photos, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0; (bottom) megan.mason, licensed under CC BY 2.0)
Volume 4 of the TRC Report states that a total of 3,201 IRS students died (see pp. 33-35 of the linked document), mostly in the early years and mostly from infectious diseases like influenza and tuberculosis. Unfortunately, the Commission did not provide comparison data on the number of Indigenous children who died but were not in IRS, or the number of non-Indigenous children who died of the same diseases during the same period. Thus, the TRC Report leaves readers with the impression that residential school students died at much higher rates than children who did not attend residential schools. To verify this claim, more detailed analyses are needed.
My Experience with Indian Residential Schools
Questioning critics also suggest that some good things happened, at least in some schools. This would be one point of “agreement” with Scott, who as I explained above accuses “deniers” of (falsely, in her mind) asserting that some good came out of residential schools. I have had direct experiences that speak to this point.
I lived in an Anglican Church-run residential school, Old Sun (which like about 40 percent of the IRS bore an Indigenous name, in this case that of a famous Chief), on the Siksika First Nation (Blackfoot Reserve) in southern Alberta during the spring and summer of 1966. I was a university student intern working for the Band, and I had a room in the teachers’ wing at Old Sun. I saw what staff and students were doing and I heard the languages they were speaking. In fact, the Indigenous employees in the school and the Band Office were eager to teach me Siksika.
After the summer internship I got a job in the far north for the 1966-1967 school year, working as the Senior Boys’ Supervisor in Stringer Hall, the Anglican hostel in Inuvik, NWT. In that position, I managed the daily activities of 85 mostly Indigenous boys in three dorms, being on duty for 22 hours a day, six days a week. I kept notes about what I saw and what the children said and did.
As a living witness to life at two residential schools in the 1960s, the author recalls his overwhelmingly positive experiences at Old Sun Indian Residential School, Blackfoot Reserve, Alberta (top) and at Stringer Hall, Inuvik, N.W.T. (middle and bottom), of which he kept detailed records.
During my time at Old Sun, I met a young Siksika woman, Elaine Ayoungman. We fell in love and were married in 1968, and we’re still married today, 56 years later. Elaine attended Old Sun for 10 years. Her parents and most of her nine siblings also attended the same school, and over the years I heard many accounts of their experiences.
As a researcher, I have published several articles on the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. My first article on the integration of Dene, Inuit, Metis and non-Indigenous children in Stringer Hall was published in 1972, long before the current controversy about missing residential schoolchildren was in the news. Still, even with my experience and knowledge, and following a nearly 50-year-long academic and public policy research career, I am now to be considered a “denier”.
“Many students…have spoken positively about the impact that specific teachers had on their lives,” admitted the TRC Report, which also contains happy reminiscences and quotations from former IRS students; anyone making similar statements today is quickly denounced as a “denier” – and some even want them criminally charged and imprisoned.
These are just two of the positive, even heartwarming statements recounted in the TRC Report. It is sad that more Canadians have not read these stories; I hope some of you do so while you still can. Scott, Sunchild, Murray and others not only want me prevented from writing and speaking on this subject, some of them would want me sent to prison – merely for repeating what I personally witnessed, physically experienced, noted in writing at the time, and which, in a number of instances, closely corresponds to what was formally recorded in the TRC Report.
What is it We Are Really Questioning?
Among the strangest aspects of the campaign to prevent questioning of the official IRS narrative is the recurring claim that critics “deny residential schools”, as if some people are pretending the IRS system never even existed. For example, in Murray’s call for “denialism” to be made a crime, she stated that one of the sanctioned offences would be “denying that residential [schools] happened.” Another instance came during the recent eruption in Quesnel, B.C. over the local mayor’s wife’s decision to share a controversial book with a few friends. One media account claimed the book in question, the best-selling Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools), “questions the existence of residential schools.”
This is utterly bizarre. Possibly it reflects seriously slipshod thinking and writing; perhaps it’s an attempt to make the critics appear plain crazy. But I know of no-one who denies that residential schools existed and operated for over a century. As for me, remember that I lived and worked in two of them and I married a woman who attended one for 10 years at a time when fewer than 30 per cent of Indigenous children were enrolled in residential schools and the average time they spent was less than five years (see pp 29-33 of this book).
I do, accordingly, question that 150,000 Indigenous children were torn from the arms of their crying mothers and forced to go to school against their parents’ wishes, as the current narrative constantly claims. Even in the early days, most parents signed admission forms to enroll their children in school. When I worked at Siksika First Nation, I travelled around the reserve registering children for school, and I cannot remember any parent who was reluctant to complete the registration forms or any child who did not look forward to going to school.
The author’s personal experiences call into question the widespread belief that Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families to attend residential school; on the contrary, it was common for parents to sign a school enrollment form. Shown at left, The Scream, by Kent Monkman, 2017; at right, the application by Susan Drever for admission of her daughter Neta Drever to the Birtle Indian Residential School.
When I asked my mother-in-law, Nora, what she learned in Old Sun, she replied, “I’m talking to you, aren’t I?” She meant that she was speaking English, which she learned from her residential schoolteachers. Nora also implied that, thanks to learning English, she was able to communicate with other Indigenous people who did not speak Siksika, her mother tongue.
Of course, my mother-in-law thought that going to school and learning to speak, read and write in English was an advantage. But I would not call her or my wife “deniers”. All members of the Ayoungman family spoke Siksika fluently and took part in many cultural activities. Their time in residential school did not wipe out or even weaken their Indigenous culture or identity – but it did prepare them to deal with and navigate in modern-day Canada. (There is a fuller account of my time working at residential schools in this C2C article.)
The above exchange occurred as we were driving back to Winnipeg from the 1993 National Native Convocation in which the Anglican Archbishop and Primate, Michael Peers, apologized to Indigenous people, many of whom had attended the 35 schools and hostels managed by the Anglican church. There were frank and open discussions during the conference, but no one suggested that hundreds, let alone thousands, of children were missing and probably buried in residential schoolyards.
In August 1993, Anglican Archbishop and Primate Michael Peers delivered an apology to the National Native Convocation; while the three-day discussion included many testimonies of former IRS students, none mentioned missing or murdered children. (Source of photo: The Anglican Church of Canada)
As well, informed Canadians and the questioning critics know that in southern Canada, many residential school students went home on weekends and during school holidays. If children were abused by other children or by residential school employees, some of them surely would have told their parents, who would have reported the abuse to Indian agents, chiefs or members of the band councils. But we have found no reports from these people.
Although the next thing will surprise and perhaps even shock readers who have only been exposed to the official narrative about residential schools, I swear this to be the truth: almost all the stories I heard about residential schools and hostels were about positive and humorous things that happened. These included the sports days, Halloween and Christmas parties, the tricks the children played on their supervisors (myself included), or the fact that the schoolkids tried to teach staff like me their native language.
I did, however, hear from my parents-in-law about one case of abuse. Their oldest daughter, Rosella, who was about 9 or 10 at the time, had been forced by her residential supervisor to eat her breakfast cereal after she had thrown-up in the bowl. Rosella told her father, Arthur, about this incident when she was home for the weekend. When the family returned to Old Sun for Sunday church service, her father and grandfather, Anthony, met with the Anglican priest/principal, who listened to their complaint. Within a few days, the supervisor was fired.
Obviously, this quick action did not happen in all cases. And again: neither I nor any of the other questioning critics with whom I’m familiar denies that serious abuses occurred in residential schools, that these abuses were wrong, and that the abusers should have been more effectively investigated and punished. Nevertheless, my example illustrates that at least in some schools, the administrators supported the children under their care and held their staff to account. The TRC Report does not, unfortunately, tell us how many school administrators and supervisors acted honourably towards the children. Instead, it leaves the impression that all residential school employees, both non-Indigenous and Indigenous, treated the children as if they were sub-human (see Volume 5, pp 139-140).
The author’s personal recollections about residential schools are largely positive and many are light-hearted or even humorous. Shown at top left, Christmas presentation at Portage la Prairie Residential School, Manitoba, 1950s; at bottom left, Portage Residential School hockey champion team, Manitoba, 1964. (Sources of photos: (top left) UCCA, 1986.158P/59; (bottom left) UCCA, 1986.158P/62; both retrieved from The Children Remembered; (right) Library Archives, licensed under CC BY 2.0)
For all these reasons, I am skeptical of some – but not all – of the things being claimed about the church-run Indian Residential Schools. Increasingly, I’m hearing that other Canadians are skeptical too.
What Needs to be Done?
The questioning critics strongly believe that something needs to be done because this issue is festering and polarizing Canadian society, not only between the purveyors of the official narrative and ourselves (those they call “deniers”), but also between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians more broadly and, as I have heard, even within some Indigenous communities. A detailed poll of over 3,000 people by the Angus Reid Group late last year revealed deep (though uneven) divisions among Canadians on core elements of this issue. For example, while 19 percent think the “legacy of colonialism” is “a huge problem”, 17 percent think it is “not at all” a problem. While 55 percent believe Indigenous people do have and should have a special status, 45 percent think they should be treated like other Canadians. While 49 percent think the situation of Indigenous people as a whole has improved in the past 10-15 years, 38 percent think it has worsened. While 19 percent think Indigenous children were “purposely killed” at residential schools, 39 percent think any deaths were due to “neglect”, and 13 percent think they were due to “uncontrollable factors”. And on it goes. This stand-off is not serving Indigenous people, nor is it helpful in reaching an honourable and fair reconciliation.
Open wounds: Recent polling by the Angus Reid Institute revealed that Canadians are profoundly divided on issues related to the IRS’ legacy; the author believes that such division is not conducive to an honourable reconciliation. (Source of charts: Angus Reid Institute)
Let’s pretend for a moment that the Justin Trudeau government had actually made “denialism” a crime and consider the implications of enforcing it. Had that law been in place in 2021, it would become a crime to quote or reprint certain portions of the TRC Report. Technically, some of the statements by the commissioners themselves would be criminal. Then, as soon as Chief Casimir made her announcement referring to “confirmed” “remains” of “children”, it would have become a crime to (correctly) suggest that the ground-penetrating radar survey had merely shown subsurface “anomalies” that could just be disturbances from old excavations.
Let’s also say that a few reckless deniers said so anyway and were packed off to prison. What would happen when, three years later, Casimir suddenly started talking – as she has done – about “anomalies” while quietly dropping the other claims? Would she then join the other deniers in prison for “denying” the “facts” of the “mass graves”? Of course she would be spared. But what would happen to the imprisoned deniers? Now that the formerly criminal word “anomalies” suddenly reflected the official narrative, would they be quietly released in the middle of the night? And if they were, would they then get to sue the federal government for their mistreatment, and each collect a few million dollars in out-of-court settlements for the harassment and false imprisonment they endured?
This seemingly fanciful scenario-spinning reflects the absurdity of criminalizing residential school “denialism”. Because really, there is no such thing; all we have are differences of opinion over the meaning of the available evidence and disputes concerning the body of facts at hand. Thankfully, there is a way out of this seemingly intractable impasse. We need to get at the truth in a way that will satisfy everyone. As the TRC commissioners themselves said, reconciliation depends on uncovering the truth.
First, the federal government should appoint a blue-ribbon RCMP task force to investigate the accusations that children are missing and possibly murdered at residential schools. The task force must have the expertise, resources and legal authority, backed by the necessary political will, to conduct a thorough investigation to its conclusion. Unfortunately, Indigenous organizations have so far resisted such a thorough criminal investigation – like the abortive criminal probe launched soon after the Kamloops allegations, which was suspended within days. But it needs to be done.
Second, if this task force finds evidence of malfeasance, a forensic investigation should be conducted in the schoolyards where people think residential schoolchildren were buried. (It’s important to be aware that to date, the only human remains found have been in neglected cemeteries, not any of missing children in schoolyards or the basements of churches.) It is worth mentioning again that the investigation must be conducted by competent independent professionals and not by either the churches or the Indigenous bands.
Third, if this investigation finds evidence that children were murdered, the school employees who are still living, both non-Indigenous and Indigenous, should be questioned and if there is evidence that they were involved in abusing or murdering children, they should be criminally charged and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Also, the names of deceased employees who abused or murdered children should be published.
Finally, a report of the investigation should be tabled in Parliament and distributed to Canadians, just as the TRC Report was distributed.
Thousands of Canadians, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, worked in residential schools. For their sake, for the sake of the churches who managed most of the schools, for the sake of Indigenous people and, indeed, for all Canadians, it is time to conduct a proper investigation, including forensic analyses, of the claim that children were murdered in residential schools. This is the only way to address the accusation that some Canadians are “denialists” and to ease the polarization of Canadian society on this very important human and public policy issue.
From the C2C Journal
By Greg Piasetzki
“You can’t go home again,” American novelist Thomas Wolfe once wrote. Should the same advice apply to the home of Canada’s most important political personality? Greg Piasetzki first visited Bellevue House, one-time Kingston abode of Canada’s founding father Sir John A. Macdonald, when he was a university student in the 1970s. Now, following a controversial renovation of the site by Parks Canada that aims to tell “broader, more inclusive stories about Canada’s first prime minister” – a makeover that includes signs denouncing Macdonald as “a monster” in his own home – Piasetzki returns to Bellevue House to take the measure of the changes.
When my wife and I were students at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario in 1978, we often spent our weekends enjoying the city’s many delightful amenities, including sailing on Lake Ontario and visiting local historic sites. Among the places we frequented was Bellevue House, the one-time home of Kingston’s most famous resident and Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald.
Built in 1840 by a wealthy local merchant and rented to Macdonald and his wife Isabella in 1848-1849, the house is a striking example of the Italianate style of architecture that was new at the time and quickly became popular among the well-to-do. With expectations that Kingston might soon become the capital of Canada, the ambitious Macdonald settled into the glamourous residence as a recently-elected legislator for Canada West (present-day Ontario) in pre-Confederation Canada.
Bellevue House was the Kingston, Ontario home of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, (top left) and his wife Isabella (top right) in the 1840s; it was later purchased by the federal government ahead of Canada’s 1967 Centennial and designated a National Historic Site in 1995. At bottom, the house circa 1891. (Source of bottom photo: Courtesy of Agnes Etherington Art Centre)
It was not a happy time for the young family, unfortunately. The rent on the house was beyond their modest means and their first son, John Jr., died there as an infant. The Macdonalds left Bellevue House shortly afterwards. The house remained a private residence until the federal government purchased it in 1964 and turned it into an historic park as part of Canada’s 1967 Centennial celebrations; it was designated a national historic site in 1995. When we first visited, Bellevue House looked every one of its 138 years.
Despite its fascinating backstory, Bellevue House in 1978 was a rather dreary experience. There was no bright and airy visitor centre on the grounds to welcome guests, as there is now. The house itself was poorly lit and signage inside said little about Macdonald or his many accomplishments. (Perhaps because most visitors learned all about him in school.) Several of the upstairs rooms were closed to the public and the washrooms were located in a grim basement. The surrounding gardens were also quite spartan. Visitors mostly came to admire the architecture and period furnishings (or what they could make out in the gloom) and pay homage to Canada’s founding father.
Major renovations were carried out in the 1980s, including construction of a reception centre where the carriage house used to be. Two upstairs rooms were re-opened as period bedrooms and the basement was returned to its original role as a scullery; the public washrooms were moved to the new visitor centre. Despite the improvements, however, the house’s aging infrastructure – floors, wiring, roof, and so on – remained largely untouched and slowly rotted away during the ensuing years.
Given the impressive modernization effort, Bellevue House is arguably in better shape today than when it was first built.
In 2012, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government dramatically reduced Parks Canada funding as part of its plan to return the federal budget to balance. Along with many other historic sites across the country, Bellevue House had its opening hours and staff sharply reduced. Necessary structural repairs were also put off. By 2017 it was in such bad shape that it was closed year-round. This past May it was finally reopened to the public. According to Parks Canada, which oversees Canada’s historic sites, the “extensive renewal” of Bellevue House now “tells broader, more inclusive stories about Canada’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald.” It’s a good news/bad news situation.
“Extensive renewal”: Bellevue House was closed in 2017 due to its deteriorating condition; Parks Canada re-opened it to the public in May 2024 following a comprehensive modernization project. Shown, Bellevue House undergoing repairs in 2020. (Source of photo: Bellevue House National Historic Site/Facebook)
First the Good News
This summer my wife and I returned to Bellevue House for the first time since our student days. We are pleased to report it looks fantastic. The new stucco, moulding, panelling, paint and roof work have the place literally gleaming. The gardens have been enlarged and are now well-suited to a leisurely ramble. A spacious parking area has also been added since we last visited. The well-lit rooms are packed with decorative and practical articles from Macdonald’s era. And a team of eager young staff seem well-informed and keen to engage with visitors, although they’ll leave you alone if you prefer to wander at your own pace.
Given the impressive modernization effort, Bellevue House is arguably in better shape today than when it was first built. And that is important. While Macdonald’s short stay at Bellevue House was not a particularly happy one, the building itself is clearly part of Canada’s political and historical heritage. It certainly has a stronger claim on our patrimony than the many colonial-era inns throughout New England that boast “George Washington once slept here” have on America’s past. As Canada’s most important historical figure, part of Macdonald’s legacy is embodied in this house. And now it has been returned to the state of its glory days in the 1840s when Kingston was a city of destiny and Macdonald a young politician on the move. That alone is a very good thing.
This old house looks great: The renovations of Bellevue House have transformed the structure into a beautiful representation of upper-class living in pre-Confederation Canada. Clockwise from top left: the visitor centre, Parks Canada staff in period garb, the dining room and the parlour. (Sources of photos: (top and bottom left) Bellevue House National Historic Site/Facebook; (bottom right) Dan Taekema/CBC)
Then the Bad News
Unfortunately, Bellevue House has become yet another battlefield in the federal Liberal’s war against what are sneeringly referred to as “dead white males” and the alleged evils of colonialism. As such, it reflects the lamentable decline in historical competency throughout Parks Canada’s portfolio. Bellevue House further reveals the apparent requirement under the Justin Trudeau government’s sweeping policy of “reconciliation” that Indigenous opinion be inserted into all possible government activities and institutions, regardless of relevancy or accuracy. As such, no opportunity is missed to paint our first prime minister in as unfavourable a light as possible. The goal, it appears, is to cancel Macdonald in his own house. This makes for a rather odd visitor experience.
After making one’s way through the welcome centre, guests are confronted with a variety of messages along the path to Bellevue House. Purportedly garnered from comments by earlier visitors, the messages range from entirely factual, such as, “We wouldn’t have Canada without him,” to the deliberately unsetting “He was a monster.” Without any context for this commentary, visitors – and especially impressionable young schoolchildren – will quickly figure out which responses comprise the “proper” view of the man.
The bad news: In keeping with the Justin Trudeau government’s apparent mission to denigrate and erase important figures from Canada’s colonial history, a sign on the path to Bellevue House claims Macdonald was a “monster”. (Source of photo: Dan Taekema/CBC)
The federal government’s plan to tell “broader and more inclusive stories” about Macdonald is as subtle as a sledgehammer. According to its opening-day press release, Parks Canada “formed working groups with Indigenous partners, culturally diverse members of Kingston and area communities…to share stories and develop new exhibit content.” Native Canadians may have plenty of stories to tell about Macdonald (although no Indigenous person alive today knew Macdonald personally or had any direct experience of him). But are they historically true and relevant to his time at Bellevue?
As visitors make their way through the house, they will notice nearly every room has some sort of aboriginal artifact on display. Some additions are modest and easily overlooked. On the main floor, for example, a dining room filled with Victorian-era dishes, candelabra and other knick-knacks also holds a side table with a collection of indigenous herbs such as sweetgrass, tobacco and sage; there are also books of native art on the shelves. It seems unlikely any of this would have been here when Macdonald rented the house. Then again, nearly all the items on display have no direct connection to Macdonald.
Upstairs the mood turns far more serious. A nursery with cradle (possibly the only authentic Macdonald artifact in the entire house) evokes a somber mood given the death of John Jr. On display in the same room, however, is a cradleboard used to secure an aboriginal infant to her mother’s back. And on the walls are excerpts from Macdonald’s speeches in the House of Commons promoting residential schools as the means to assimilate native children into Canadian society.
Repeat after me, colonialism, genocide and racism: Bellevue House is incongruously filled with numerous Indigenous artifacts and informational displays that attack or undermine Macdonald’s many great accomplishments. (Source of photo: Bellevue House National Historic Site/Facebook)
The obvious goal is to remind visitors of the impact residential schools had on aboriginal children in the very bedroom where Macdonald’s own child died. If visitors still don’t get the message, a video screen blares out interviews with residential school “survivors” on an endless loop. Children as young as four-years old, guests are informed, were forcibly removed from their families and sent to such schools, perpetrating “violent assimilation and abuse”. We are meant to have no sympathy for Macdonald’s own tragic loss.
In other second floor rooms, informative panels variously describe Macdonald the man, the politician and nation builder. These achievements – saving the Canadian colonies from being swallowed up by the United States, bringing them together into Confederation and binding the country with a transcontinental railway, among other feats of statesmanship – will be familiar to anyone who has read one of the many biographies of Macdonald, including Richard Gwyn’s magnificent two-volume work.
But wherever Macdonald’s very real achievements are mentioned, they are always married with some sort of attack on his policies, personal character or the era in which he lived. Besides residential schools, this includes the starvation of Indigenous tribes on the Prairies in the 1890s, the Chinese head tax and on and on. “His vision for Canada did not include everyone,” states one sign, deliberately undercutting his commitment to Canadian democracy. A lexicon helpfully defines key terms visitors will encounter repeatedly throughout the house: colonialism, genocide, racism et cetera.
“Stories” in Abundance, Truth in Short Supply
At Bellevue House’s reopening ceremonies in May, Rodrick Donald Maracle, Chief of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, exclaimed, “Macdonald supported oppression of Indigenous Peoples’ identity; their language, spirituality, the places they came from were stripped from them…The new exhibits at Bellevue House provide a place where truths about Macdonald are able to be fully discussed.”
Parks Canada controls the narrative by choosing which ‘facts’ to present and which to omit. Indeed, it deliberately misses numerous opportunities to provide visitors with crucial ‘non-biased’ facts about Macdonald’s actual accomplishments and beliefs.
Maracle’s unrestrained antipathy towards Macdonald is clearly the prime example of the “broader and more inclusive stories” Parks Canada wants Bellevue House to tell. Despite its explicit mandate to “protect and present nationally significant examples of Canada’s natural and cultural heritage and foster public understanding,” Parks Canada makes no effort to let visitors know which stories are legitimate and which are pure fiction.
In an interview with a travel writer for The Globe and Mail, Tamara van Dyk, Bellevue’s Visitor Experience Manager, said, “We can’t tell [visitors] how to feel about this history. But we can help them to understand this history…we share facts, non-biased facts.” This is a transparent cop-out; Parks Canada controls the narrative by choosing which “facts” to present and which to omit. Indeed, it deliberately misses numerous opportunities to provide visitors with crucial “non-biased” facts about Macdonald’s actual accomplishments and beliefs. (The Globe article is also noteworthy for its grotesque error in claiming the “confirmation, in 2021, of hundreds of unmarked graves discovered on the grounds of Canada’s residential schools.” There was never any such “confirmation” and, where excavations at suspected grave sites have been subsequently performed, no human remains have been unearthed.)
Controlling the narrative: Rodrick Donald Maracle, Chief of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, used the re-opening ceremonies at Bellevue House to declare that “Macdonald supported oppression of Indigenous Peoples’ identity.”
Among the ample exculpatory evidence about Macdonald missing from Bellevue House’s numerous information plaques and displays is that most Indigenous students during Macdonald’s era went to day schools, not residential schools. Further, between 1891, when Macdonald died, and 1950, half of all residential school students dropped out after grade 1, hardly indicative of a program of “violent assimilation”. Children at residential schools were also sent home to their parents for a two-month summer holiday every year and, if practical, for the Christmas and Easter holidays as well. These facts – verifiable and true – are entirely inconsistent with the suggestion Macdonald deliberately plotted genocide, cultural or otherwise.
Also unmentioned is the Macdonald government’s extremely successful smallpox vaccination campaign for native Canadians. Over a period of more than 20 years, the Government of Canada sought to inoculate every Indigenous resident. Some natives were inoculated twice and, in at least one instance, a group of natives received their shots before local white residents did. If genocide was Macdonald’s goal, why go to such trouble to save so many Indigenous people from disease?
Similarly, despite the surfeit of Indigenous content in nearly every room, no mention is ever made of Macdonald’s many friendships with prominent aboriginal Canadians. This includes Oronhyatekha (aka Burning Cloud), a member of the Six Nations Confederacy who attended the Mohawk Institute Residential School and later graduated from the universities of Toronto and Oxford. Oronhyatekha campaigned for Macdonald in the 1872 election and later named his first child after him.
Despite the surfeit of Indigenous content in Bellevue House, there is no mention of Macdonald’s friendship with several prominent aboriginal Canadians, including Oronhyatekha, aka Burning Cloud (left) and Kahkewaquonaby, aka Peter Jones (right). Both earned university degrees (Oronhyatekha also attended a residential school) and played significant roles in Macdonald’s political campaigns.
Another close contact was Kahkewaquonaby (aka Peter Jones), the head chief of the Mississauga of New Credit, who received his medical degree from Queen’s University in 1866 and acted as a political organizer for Macdonald. He was also consulted on changes to the federal Electoral Franchise Act in 1885, an effort by Macdonald to give all native Canadians the vote, but which was stymied by his political opponents.
As to the Chinese head tax, the historical record shows Macdonald was a consistent foe of the idea; his instincts were always to defend minority rights. It was his political adversaries, largely anti-immigrant nativists in British Columbia, who forced Macdonald’s hand on the matter. When head tax proponents first demanded a $100-per-person tax, he appointed a Commission that countered with a very modest $10. And while Macdonald’s government eventually settled on $50, the tax had no appreciable impact on Chinese immigration. It was Macdonald’s Liberal successor, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who hiked it to an unaffordable $500, effectively shutting down Chinese immigration for many years.
The Summing Up
Parks Canada’s revitalization of Bellevue House presents an opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to the debate about Macdonald’s place in our country’s history at a time when his reputation has come under assault from many sides. Clearly, this effort is not entirely successful. A magnificent renovation and modernization project has been marred by decolonization faddism. But is the good of its physical make-over outweighed by the bad of the historical nonsense?
Putting myself in a judge’s seat and based on my experiences at the property in 1978 and today, I find the changes to Bellevue House are, on balance, a benefit to Canada. The haphazard insertion of Indigenous artifacts in the room displays and the validation of untrue or hopelessly biased “stories” about Macdonald is certainly disconcerting and distracting at times. Yet many of these additions are so irrelevant or harmless – the native herbs in the dining room, a red ribbon dress in Macdonald’s own dressing room – that the visitor can easily disregard them.
Bellevue House ought to be seen as a physical manifestation of Macdonald and his enduring importance to Canada. And that alone is reason for hope.
Other additions are harder to overlook: a sign proclaiming Canada’s first prime minister to have been a monster, the video and audio barrage inside the house as well as the repeated efforts at undercutting Macdonald’s many political accomplishments. Every room upstairs makes some claim to this effect. And while initially grating, over time it all becomes rather silly. What calumny will they come up with next? The cumulative effect is so incongruous and contextually out-of-place that eventually one becomes numb to it – the way our brains tune out an unpleasant smell. And having done that, all that’s left is the house itself: a magnificent example of colonial-era British Canada.
Parks Canada’s attempted cancellation of Macdonald in his own residence was always an absurd mission. Unlike the erasure of his name from various schools or other buildings and landmarks across the country, or the toppling of his statues, Bellevue House has not been removed as a physical presence. It still stands. Remember, the only reason Ottawa owns the house in the first place and then spent so long fixing it up is, as its national historic site designation states, because “it is associated with Sir John A. Macdonald, a Father of Confederation and Canada’s first Prime Minister.” Visitors to the site are not drawn there by a desire to learn more about his personal flaws or to view a random collection of Indigenous bits and pieces. Rather the magnetic force is and always has been Macdonald’s own unparalleled significance as a national figure. And with most of these actual historical achievements given at least grudging acknowledgement throughout the house, any discerning visitor should be able to separate the numerous grains of truth from the vast bushels of chaff.
For all time: Macdonald’s significance as Canada’s pre-eminent statesman is what draws visitors to Bellevue House. And this record of achievement is sturdy enough to survive any attempt to cancel him, even by the current federal government. Shown, Macdonald, standing at centre, in Robert Harris’ famous painting Fathers of Confederation, circa 1884.
Bellevue House ought to be seen as a physical manifestation of Macdonald and his enduring importance to Canada. And that alone is reason for hope. Given the quality and scale of the renovations, the site will easily outlast our current Liberal government and, one can assume, society’s recent ahistorical convulsions as well. Video screens, red dresses and wall plaques are easily removed. But the house itself is going no where. After many perilous and grim years, Bellevue House is back better than ever. The same will eventually hold true for Macdonald himself. Cultural fads and social hysterics come and go, but his legacy – the legacy of Canada as an improbable country that became one of the world’s most successful and stable democracies – is here to stay. Like his house, it just needs a little sprucing up.
Greg Piasetzki is an intellectual property lawyer with an interest in Canadian history. He lives in Toronto and is a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario.
Source of main image: Bellevue House National Historic Site/Facebook.
From the C2C Journal
By Gina Pappano of InvestNow
It’s a central tenet of the free-market economy: a corporation’s job is to maximize investment returns to its shareholders. Bluntly, to make money. And “shareholder proposals” have been a powerful tool enabling investors to pressure a company’s board to take a particular action to increase its value. In recent years, however, activist groups have been weaponizing shareholder proposals to pressure companies into pursuing ideological goals, especially environmental and “progressive” social-welfare causes. In the case of the oil and natural gas industry, they’ve even pushed for companies to take actions that would drive them out of business. Veteran markets expert Gina Pappano examines this damaging phenomenon – and the new movement pushing back.
No matter what business they engage in, the purpose of all corporations – their raison d’être – is to generate returns on their shareholders’ investment and to maximize shareholder value by achieving a rising price in the stock market, paying dividends to shareholders, and eventually perhaps engineering a profitable “exit” from the market by being taken over at a premium. This understanding is known as “shareholder primacy” and it is so central to good corporate governance that companies and regulators have developed a mechanism, the shareholder proposal, whereby anyone who holds stock in a corporation can petition its board of directors to examine some practice or other with an eye towards improving the company and its value.
But in the 21st century – especially in the last decade or so – activist groups have repurposed shareholder proposals into weapons used to pressure companies to adopt policies informed by the group’s ideological concerns. No sector in Canada has been targeted by ideologically driven agendas more than the oil and natural gas industry, a crucial branch of Canada’s economy that includes hundreds of producers, pipeline companies, refinery operators and service companies, many of which are publicly traded. Using shareholder proposals whose goal is the limitation and eventual elimination of Canada’s oil and natural gas production, activists who are shareholders-of-convenience are attempting to villainize one of the most productive, vital and longstanding pillars of our country’s economy.
Popular delusions: Climate activists push for an end to the oil and natural gas industry even as an energy-hungry world set records last year for energy consumption and oil production; the world will need crude oil and natural gas for decades to come and Canada could be a preferred supplier. (Sources: (photo) Rainforest Action Network, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0; (chart) Energy Institute)
Stand.earth, Investors for Paris Compliance, the BC General Employees’ Union, Environmental Defence Canada, the Shareholder Association for Research and Education and MÉDAC are just a few of the activist groups that over the past few years have presented anti-fossil-fuel shareholder proposals to Canada’s “Big Five” banks and to oil and natural gas companies. Last year, for example, Stand.earth demanded that the Royal Bank of Canada’s (RBC) “Board of Directors adopt a policy for a time-bound phase-out of the RBC’s lending and underwriting to projects and companies engaging in new fossil fuel exploration, development and transportation.” In other words, they were asking Canada’s biggest bank to stop supporting an industry that provides hundreds of thousands of Canadian jobs, pays tens of billions of dollars in taxes annually and forms the economic backbone of three Canadian provinces.
The demands of these groups are premised on convincing shareholders that eliminating one of our country’s most productive sectors will benefit Canada socially and environmentally and reduce global CO2 emissions, when the facts demonstrate that nothing Canada could do domestically could influence emissions on a global scale. The most recent Statistical Review of World Energy, for example, described 2023 as a “year of record highs in an energy hungry world”.
The world will continue to need crude oil and natural gas for decades to come – not only the energy these fuels provide, but the thousands of crucial products that are made from them. Canadian oil and natural gas companies, with their high environmental and safety standards and technical expertise, should be among the preferred suppliers of the energy that powers the world. Yet the activists driving these economically ruinous crusades, based on dogma and ideology, want shareholders, investors and Canadians at large to vote in favour of their proposals. How did we get here?
The Annual General Meeting as Town Hall Meeting
Annual general meetings (AGM) used to be mostly stodgy affairs, dedicated to discussing a company’s financial statements and general business; the rise of shareholders’ proposals has made some of them much more contentious. Depicted, (top) Ford’s AGM, 1980; (middle) Bank of America’s AGM, 2024; (bottom) an activist is removed from Shell’s 2023 AGM. (Sources of photos: (top) Ford Motor Company; (middle) Rainforest Action Network, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0; (bottom) Sky News)
Historically, the annual general meeting (AGM) of a corporation (whether privately held or publicly traded) was called to present and discuss the previous year’s results as embodied in the audited annual financial statements, to elect any new directors that might be required, to announce the retirement of existing directors if applicable, to announce any major changes to the company’s executive team, and to discuss any other relevant business as the company’s leadership might deem necessary. These were often stodgy and boring events, especially if things were ticking along smoothly. And these are still the core matters to which the majority of AGMs are devoted among Canada’s approximately 3,500 publicly traded companies as well as the vastly more numerous privately held companies.
But since the Second World War, and especially over the past 30 or so years, AGMs have become more – much more. In the United States’, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Shareholder Proposal Rule (Rule 14-a8) came into force in 1942. In testifying before Congress on the then-new rule in 1943, SEC Commissioner Robert H. O’Brien explained that its motivation was to “approximate the widely attended town hall meeting type of forum characteristic of the days when nearly all corporations were closely held and geographically limited.”
The Town Hall analogy is a good one. In a 2022 speech entitled The Shareholder Proposal Rule: A Cornerstone of Corporate Democracy, former SEC Director Renee Jones laid out the role and the rights of the shareholder. “Shareholders, that is individuals or institutions that invest in a corporation, are purchasing a share of the company with the understanding that the board of directors and senior management team will use their investment wisely, making sound corporate decisions with the intent of increasing profits, to which [the shareholders] are entitled to a share. They are also entitled to certain governance rights including the right to elect directors, approve major corporate transactions and express their views on corporate governance matters and other fundamental issues related to the corporation’s business. Additionally, shareholders generally have the right to bring matters before other shareholders for a vote at a shareholder or ‘town hall’ meeting.”
In 1969 a group called the Medical Committee for Human Rights filed a shareholder proposal asking Dow Chemical Corporation to stop manufacturing napalm, an explosive chemical used with at-times horrifying effects in the Vietnam War.
The bulk of the foregoing paragraph is a good synopsis of a shareholder’s rights and roles as it has been understood for the past 200-300 years. But Jones packed a lot into the sentence following the word “Additionally”. What she mentioned has in fact happened – with a vengeance. Since the enactment of the U.S. Shareholder Proposal Rule and the U.S.-inspired Canada Business Corporations Act’s Shareholder Proposal Regime, the number of shareholder proposals being presented every year in each country has increased exponentially.
The mechanism allows for any shareholder to present a proposal to a corporation provided the shareholder meets certain technical requirements set out by the SEC or the Canada Business Corporations Act, as the case may be. The proposal is printed in the set of corporate documents sent to all stockholders prior to any AGM. At the AGM, the shareholder presents the proposal and there is a vote.
In the early years, most shareholder proposals concerned matters of corporate governance. It was not until the 1960s and 70s that the phenomenon took off, possibly reflecting the era’s increased social activism. For example, in 1969 a group called the Medical Committee for Human Rights filed a shareholder proposal asking Dow Chemical Corporation to stop manufacturing napalm, an explosive chemical used with at-times horrifying effects in the Vietnam War. In the 1970s and 1980s, the anti-Apartheid movement used the shareholder proposal process to pressure corporations to terminate their business dealings in South Africa.
Renee Jones, a former director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, defended the right of shareholders to bring matters to a vote at AGMs; many such proposals have focussed on left-leaning environmental, social and governance (ESG) topics, and companies have been anxious to play along. At right, a screenshot from the presentation entitled “Unlocking the Power of Environmental, Social and Governance Data” by the World Economic Forum. (Source of right photo: World Economic Forum, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Most such proposals did not tend to get very far, however; Boards of Directors typically recommended voting against them, and that tended to be the end of it. Most shareholders in publicly traded companies do not delve very deeply into the affairs of the often-numerous companies in which they might hold a position. A small business owner who is saving for retirement, for example, might well hold shares in several dozen companies via their RRSP portfolio; what they or their investment adviser monitor above all is whether dividends are being paid and share prices are doing well.
Accordingly, most shareholders take their cue from the Board of Directors and vote according to their recommendation, via so-called “proxy” forms, which also cover votes on standard matters like approving the financial statements and electing new directors. In this vein, proxy advisory firms have arisen, which institutional investors and large public pension funds rely upon to guide their voting. This is why it is very difficult to vote against a board and why most shareholder proposals fail at the AGM ballot.
Still, the number of shareholder proposals has grown dramatically and this increase has coincided with a rise in ideologically driven proposals. And none more than those associated with the environmental, social and governance (ESG) movement. In even a cursory investigation into this issue, one is struck by the degree to which shareholder proposals and ESG have become inextricably linked. Many of the current definitions of shareholder proposals one comes across, in fact, claim that they are “an important corporate governance tool which allow[s] shareholders to engage with public companies with respect to environmental, social and corporate governance issues.” Effectively, the shareholder proposal mechanism has been hijacked and harnessed to one dominant purpose.
Shareholders vs. Stakeholders
The evolution away from shareholder primacy to what is known as stakeholder primacy in the purpose and governance of corporations has been closely aligned with the rise of ESG investing. Proponents of so-called “stakeholder capitalism” contend that corporations should care less about superficial concerns like profits for shareholders and instead focus on the good of all their “stakeholders”, by which they mean anyone who is affected by, depends on or makes use of a company: customers, employees, the communities in which a company operates, the environment, governments and society as a whole. Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, is a prominent proponent of stakeholder capitalism, writing a book of that title.
Under the ESG or ‘responsible investing’ vision, society presumably no longer has much need for profitable companies whose earnings help build up the retirement accounts of tens of millions of future pensioners, but has become primarily focused on saving whales, fighting climate change or paying for free social housing.
The company’s actual investors, who make its work possible, should presumably get some consideration as well, but their good tends to get lost in the idealistic rhetoric which accompanies the ESG approach. The corporation’s original purpose as a profit-maximizing entity dedicated to serving its shareholders’ financial interests becomes subsumed by the deluge of social welfare-oriented activities (“giving back to the community”) and support for environmental causes. It is noteworthy that all of this is heavily skewed towards “progressive”, i.e., left-leaning, causes. In some cases, this has become self-destructive if not borderline suicidal, such as the BP CEO who some years ago infamously stated that the “B” in British Petroleum should be reimagined as “Beyond”.
Advocates of “stakeholder capitalism” believe companies should care less about profit – but it’s the push for those profits that makes companies successful, creates jobs and wealth, and finances retirement for millions. (Source of photo: Scott Beale, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
An important and current statement of ESG principles can be found in the United Nations-supported Principles of Responsible Investing (PRI), which has been signed by over 3,500 asset managers pledging to further “environmental, social, and corporate governance” goals in order to “better align investors with broader objectives of society.” Under this vision, society presumably no longer has much need for profitable companies whose earnings help build up the retirement accounts of tens of millions of future pensioners, but has become primarily focused on saving whales, fighting climate change or paying for free social housing.
It is interesting to note that the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Investment Board is one of the PRI’s founding signatories. As a future beneficiary of Canada’s public pension system, I find myself worried by this fact. Like millions of other Canadians, my future wellbeing depends on the continued solvency of the CPP which, in turn, depends on the ongoing profitability of the companies in which it invests. The same can be said about dozens of other pension funds such as those for teachers, nurses and government employees.
The United Nations-supported Principles of Responsible Investing, signed by 3,500 asset managers – including the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board – demanded that companies pursue ESG goals to “better align investors with broader objectives of society”; ideological dogma has replaced the pursuit of shareholder value. (Source of photos: (left) expatpostcards/Shutterstock; (right) Sheila Fitzgerald/Shutterstock)
The two most prominent concepts among ESG investing principles and in shareholder proposals meant to push ESG agendas are: (1) diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and (2) “sustainability”. DEI is a highly ideological, neo-Marxist doctrine with which C2C readers are by now amply familiar. Sustainability is a somewhat older term that refers to goals pursued by the environmentalist movement, which currently include “net zero”, so-called decarbonization and the divestment from, reduction or outright banning of fossil fuel production and consumption.
Most shareholder proposals focused on sustainability are sector-specific. Oil and natural gas companies and financial institutions received the largest number in the 2023 AGM season. In Canada, most proposals have been aimed either at pushing oil and natural gas companies to net zero and decarbonization goals or at pressuring the Big Five chartered banks to stop investing in oil and natural gas companies and projects.
In 2022, for instance, Investors for Paris Compliance (I4PC) asked Calgary-based pipeline and utilities giant Enbridge Inc. to “strengthen their net zero commitment such that the commitment is consistent with a science-based, net zero target.” I4PC defines net zero to mean “no new oil and gas fields are required beyond those already approved for development in conjunction with a historic investment surge in clean technologies.” So not only was I4PC demanding that Enbridge officially commit to long-term decline in its business (since all oil and natural gas fields deplete over time, requiring continuous reinvestment in new fields merely to maintain current production), but it was also prescribing a huge (“historic”) amount of investment in so-called “clean” technologies that are outside Enbridge’s core business (wind turbines do not require pipelines).
Oil and natural gas companies and financial institutions have been the primary targets of shareholder proposals in Canada, which typically demand aggressive decarbonization and divestment from the energy sector. Shown at bottom, protesters march at the RBC AGM, Toronto. (Sources: (chart) Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance; (photo) Rainforest Action Network, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0)
The Gathering Pushback in the United States
There are glimmerings of an awakening that the wave of activist shareholder proposals and ESG investing is materially impairing investment returns and could prove economically ruinous. Investors are, in effect, being defrauded by companies diverting capital, executive attention and employee talents towards expensive social goals that do not, say, develop new products or generate revenue.
In the U.S., pushback has been gathering from several directions. Warren Buffett, the famous “Sage of Omaha,” has openly expressed skepticism about ESG investing and things like corporate reporting on climate change efforts – although it is a sign of the ideology’s thorough penetration of the investment world that Buffett’s stance would be labelled “unconventional” in a business magazine.
One of the world’s most successful investors, Warren Buffett, has been decidedly lukewarm on ESG, a position one business magazine called “unconventional” – an indication of how thoroughly the ideology has penetrated. (Source of photo: Fortune Live Media, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
More substantively, new asset management firms have been launched by entrepreneurs who concluded that the stakeholder primacy model just does not work. Strive Asset Management was founded in early 2022 explicitly to “live by a strict commitment to shareholder primacy – an unwavering mandate that the purpose of a for-profit corporation is to maximize long-run value to investors.” Its founders are private equity manager Anson Freriks and flamboyant commentator Vivek Ramaswamy, who was a candidate for the most recent Republican Presidential nomination, won by Donald Trump.
Strive believes that companies should do what they do best and not fall prey to other agendas. The fund was started specifically to “solve a problem,” as its website explains: “Large financial institutions, including the biggest asset managers, were using their clients’ money to advance social, cultural, environmental and political agendas in corporate America’s boardrooms. Asset managers and for-profit corporations have a fiduciary duty to maximize value, and that duty had been neglected.”
Strive’s pitch clearly resonated with investors, as the firm soon became one of the fastest-growing asset managers in the U.S. And its position appears to be having an effect. The latest edition of Strive’s newsletter, The Fiduciary Focus, includes the following headlines: “The Financial Times Credits Strive for Pushing Companies to Drop ESG-Linked Compensation,” “John Deere Pulling Back on ESG,” and “Wall Street Cools on Sustainable Funds.”
“Asset managers and for-profit corporations have a fiduciary duty to maximize value,” says Vivek Ramaswamy, co-founder of Strive, an asset management firm committed to the primacy of shareholders’ financial interests; the firm’s data on the fall of ESG-focussed fund launches suggests his approach is resonating with investors. (Source of left photo: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
There is also growing concern in the political arena that ESG investment and other socially motivated corporate activities pose a threat both to the financial integrity of public pension funds and a challenge to democratic governance. A number of U.S. states have taken formal steps to confront and counter the ESG investment behemoth. One such measure is the non-profit State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF). According to its website, “SFOF’s mission is to drive fiscally sound public policy, by partnering with key stakeholders, and educating Americans on the role of responsible financial management in a free market economy.”
The organization and its members are firm and vocal defenders of shareholder primacy. Among their activities have been letter-writing campaigns to corporations and fund managers that urge them to scale back political activism and instead focus on the interests of their shareholders. They are putting teeth to their words: according to a recent Torys Report, 18 of the SFOF’s member states have enacted anti-ESG laws, including prohibiting fund managers from considering ESG factors in their investments and state entities from investing with asset managers deemed to be discriminating against or boycotting the fossil fuel industry.
ExxonMobil’s bolder, more confrontational tactic may be pointing the way, because in late June both activist groups not only dropped their proposals but promised not to bring forward similar demands in future; in return, ExxonMobil agreed to have its lawsuit dismissed.
Some of the SFOF member states have also put their money where their mouths are in pushing to restore shareholder primacy. The organization recently supported the State of Texas Permanent School Fund (a large investment fund with US$53 billion in assets that helps pay for the state’s school system) as it cancelled a US$8.5 billion investment with BlackRock, one of the world’s largest investment funds and a prominent proponent of ESG investing. As SFOF urged, “BlackRock should withdraw from international organizations seeking to orchestrate opposition to fossil fuel investment, abandon ‘decarbonization’ policies that are a form of boycotting fossil fuels, and stop using its proxy voting authority to promote an anti-fossil fuel agenda.”
Pushing back: The U.S. State Financial Officers Foundation has urged corporations and fund managers to put shareholders first; 18 member states have enacted anti-ESG laws, including prohibitions on state entities investing with asset managers deemed to be discriminating against or boycotting the fossil fuel industry. (Source of photo: Center for Media and Democracy)
Further pushback is coming from some of the recipients of activist shareholder proposals. It is perhaps not surprising that ExxonMobil is among the leaders here. The company has long been reviled by environmentalists for its insistence on keeping profitability, technical excellence and energy production central to its business. To some, it is the ugly face of “Big Oil”.
In January, ExxonMobil filed a lawsuit to block a shareholder resolution put forward by the groups Follow This and Arjuna Capital, whose stated objective was to force the company to commit to precipitous cuts in CO2emissions, including with respect to the downstream effects from the combustion of its products by customers. Exxon argued that such a resolution would force the company to “change the nature of its ordinary business or to go out of business entirely.” Which is what these “shareholders” intend; Exxon’s lawsuit quotes Arjuna Capital’s contention that “Exxon should shrink” and Follow This’s statement that its goal is “to wind down the company’s business in oil and natural gas.”
As Follow This states on its website: “We buy shares in order to work on our mission to stop climate change.” And, it says, its shareholder proposal aims to make ExxonMobil “stop exploring for more oil and gas.” While this kind of agenda is no longer surprising, ExxonMobil’s response was. Corporations generally try to deal with motivated activists by adopting some version of their favoured policies in the hopes they’ll go away (not that they do). ExxonMobil’s bolder, more confrontational tactic may be pointing the way, because in late June both activist groups not only dropped their proposals but promised not to bring forward similar demands in future; in return, ExxonMobil agreed to have its lawsuit dismissed.
Blazing the trail: ExxonMobil early this year filed a lawsuit to block two activist groups from submitting shareholder proposals demanding that the company stop exploring for oil and natural gas and, thereby, “change the nature of its ordinary business or to go out of business entirely”; in June the activist groups backed down. (Source of photo: ET Auto)
Still more pushback in the U.S. is coming from the small but growing number of advocacy organizations submitting anti-ESG shareholder proposals that call on corporations to refocus themselves on shareholder-centred capitalism. The National Center for Public Policy Research and the National Legal and Policy Center are two such organizations. According to a recent SquareWell Partners report entitled “What Do Shareholders Propose?” these kinds of proposals surged by 64 percent in 2023.
Now What About Canada?
This process is still at a much earlier stage in Canada. Last year the not-for-profit organization I lead, InvestNow, submitted and presented shareholder proposals to three Canadian banks asking for explicit commitments to continue to invest in and finance the Canadian oil and natural gas sector. These were the first proposals of this nature presented to Canadian banks and their shareholders. The overwhelming majority of the vote – 99.5 percent of it – was against InvestNow’s proposal. However, fellow shareholders and even some board members approached me after the meeting and thanked me for standing up to the banks and for advocating on behalf of Canadian oil and natural gas and everyday Canadians.
We were back again doing the same this year, presenting shareholder proposals at the AGMs of all five big chartered banks – BMO, CIBC, Scotiabank, RBC and TD – asking them to commission and issue reports qualifying and quantifying the impacts and costs of their net zero commitments. This time we received one percent support for our proposal, a 100 percent increase over last year.
Although InvestNow’s proposal was rejected by Suncor’s board, our hope is that we planted a seed in the directors’ minds about their duty of care and fiduciary obligations to the company’s shareholders and that they will soon find the courage and conviction to say ‘No’ to the activists and ‘Yes’ to shareholder proposals like ours.
This year InvestNow also submitted our first shareholder proposal to an energy company. We asked Suncor Energy Inc., one of Canada’s largest oil producers and refiners (with production this year estimated at approximately 800,000 barrels per day), to drop its pledge to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and rededicate the company to its core business of producing and refining crude oil. In our view, Suncor should be producing more oil and getting it out to more customers in Canada and around the world – not contributing to its own demise and that of its industry. And it should do this unapologetically. In the face of growing global demand and concerns over energy security, Suncor should increase Canada’s energy supply, thereby helping to reduce energy costs for Canadians and the world.
In the first actions of their kind in Canada, the not-for-profit group InvestNow – led by the author – submitted several shareholder proposals to Canadian banks, asking them to commit to keep investing in the oil and natural gas sector, and to Suncor Energy Inc., asking it to drop its “net zero” commitment; Suncor, the author points out, has held its overall greenhouse gas emissions virtually flat year-over-year, and should unapologetically keep producing oil. (Sources: (photo) Suncor; (graph) Statista)
Like Exxon, Suncor has received many anti-fossil-fuel shareholder proposals over the years. Unlike Exxon, however, Suncor has not yet publicly pushed back. But why not? Suncor has worked concertedly to improve its “emissions intensity”, which is the volume of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of oil or natural gas produced, and has held its overall greenhouse gas emissions essentially flat, as the accompanying graph shows. [Editor’s note: the recent passage of the Liberals’ Bill C-59, which makes it illegal for energy companies and advocacy groups to defend themselves, on pain of criminal penalties, caused a vast amount of useful technical information to be abruptly removed from the internet.] Why commit to an arbitrary target like net zero, especially one that would necessitate massive declines in the use of oil and natural gas? Net zero wouldn’t increase shareholder value. Quite the opposite, since fossil fuels are Suncor’s main business.
Although InvestNow’s proposal was rejected by Suncor’s board, our hope is that we planted a seed in the directors’ minds about their duty of care and fiduciary obligations to the company’s shareholders and that they will soon find the courage and conviction to say “No” to the activists and “Yes” to shareholder proposals like ours.
Canada’s shareholder proposal regime was put in place as a response to the U.S.’s rule on shareholder proposals. Hopefully, the boards of directors at Canadian corporations and financial institutions, investors, customers and citizens at large will see what is happening south of the border and will add to the still-budding pushback movement in our own country. It’s time.
Gina Pappano is executive director of InvestNow and was formerly head of market intelligence at the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV).
Source of main image: Kenzie Todd, retrieved from History and Future of Divestment at St. Olaf.
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