Christopher Dummitt: Canadian Encyclopedia succumbs to the wokification of history
Once an unbiased and fair summary of current knowledge on Canadian history, the encyclopedia now parrots the activist line
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If you’re looking for reliable information about controversial historical topics this Canada Day, you aren’t going to find it in the Canadian Encyclopedia. Over the last several years, what was once a bastion of national fairness has abandoned its raison d’être to become, in too many cases, a one-sided resource of wokery.
This ought to be surprising. After all, the whole point of an encyclopedia is to serve as an unbiased and fair summary of current knowledge. But if that might at one time have been true, it isn’t now. Just go looking for historical figures that have been in the news and you’ll find the encyclopedia repeating the activist line and either minimizing or eliminating counter-evidence.
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Take Egerton Ryerson, for example, the founder of Canada’s public school system and a man who the activists tell us helped create the Indian residential school system. The encyclopedia’s entry on Ryerson claims that he “influenced the development of Canada’s devastating residential school system.” It explains the various campaigns to dishonour him, including removing his name from Ryerson University.
But it fails to mention conflicting information. It neglects to tell you that Ryerson wanted voluntary schooling, run by........
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