Untangling Mark Carney's father's ties to Fort Smith, N.W.T., Indian day school

Warning: this story contains outdated language and discusses physical and sexual abuse at residential schools.

It was March 1965, and Catholic educator Robert J. Carney had gone on CBC Radio to discuss his work as a federal day school principal in the Northwest Territories. Today, it's an interview some may find jarring.

"Mr. Carney, at the teachers conference not long ago, you told about a program you have working at the Joseph B. Tyrrell (JBT) school in Fort Smith for culturally retarded children," the host began. "First of all, would you define a culturally retarded child for me?"

The reply was unequivocal and direct.

"A culturally retarded child in the context of the Northwest Territories is a child from a Native background who for various reasons has not been in regular attendance in school," said Carney.

"He's from a language background other than English and who is behind in school, say three or four years. In many centres in southern Canada, the subculture groups, say in the working-class area of a large city, you would have children who you would call culturally retarded."

Sixty years later, Liberal Leader Mark Carney's father is generating debate among First Nations people. Posts circulating online have incorrectly called him an Indian residential school principal.

While that's false, it's true that the Joseph Burr Tyrrell school was officially recognized under a 2019 class-action settlement as a federal Indian day school between 1948 and 1969, when it was transferred to the territory.

And it's also true Indigenous children from Fort Smith's Grandin College and Breynat Hall residential schools attended the day school during Carney's principalship, which began in 1962, according to his thesis and historical records reviewed by CBC Indigenous.

"The school in question was a combined school," said Crystal Gail Fraser, who is Gwichyà Gwich'in and an associate professor in history and Indigenous studies at the University of Alberta.

"You had this mix of white settler kids and Indigenous kids who lived in Fort Smith, plus all of the children from Breynat Hall, the residential school nearby."

Along with historians Jackson Pind and Sean Carleton, Fraser co-authored an article in the blog Active History this week about Robert Carney's legacy. They told CBC Indigenous much remains unknown about day schools — Fort Smith's federal school records remain restricted at the national archives in Ottawa, for instance — rendering the full truth elusive.

"We're trying to have these discussions in productive ways that don't harm survivors as we get to the truth," said Pind, an assistant professor at Trent University's Chanie Wenjack School for Indigenous Studies.

"Looking at our legacy as Canadians, we're all kind of tangled in this web of colonial schooling, both Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people."