Sask. Indigenous man John A. McDonald calls name an 'albatross around my neck'

This piece was originally published on Aug. 17, 2018.

It's not easy bearing the name of a man you see as an oppressor and architect of cultural genocide.

John A. McDonald says it leads to a similar question from many people:

"Why the [insert expletive] would your parents name you that?"

McDonald, who lives inPrince Albert,is a proud member of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, an Indigenous rights activist, an artist and a writer.

"It's between being a humorous anecdote, and an albatross around my neck," he said of the name.

"I used to joke that when I was born my father pulled a $10 bill out of his pocket and just named me after that and if he'd had a $20, I'd be named Elizabeth."

In reality, his father's name was Johnand the McDonald surname has deep roots at Muskeg Lake. He's not named after Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister, who oversaw the Indian Act and played a key role in establishing the residential school system.

• The 'trial' of Sir John A. Macdonald: Would he be guilty of war crimes today?

• A history of residential schools in Canada

This was a guy who advocated for the complete destruction of my people's way of life.- John A. McDonald

Finding identity

For the activist McDonald it's a tough name to bear.

"This was a guy who advocated for the complete destruction of my people's way of life," he said on CBCRadio's Saskatoon Morning.

None of this mattered when he was a boy growing up. No one seemed to care. But that changed at 12, when people around him began to learn of the destructive legacy of the other John A. and when he himself started to understand what it means to be Indigenous.

"Once I started becoming more aware of who I was as an Indigenous person and the life I was going to lead as an activist as a champion for my people, as a warrior, it started to mean a little bit more and I needed to make a decision about what I was going to do with this name."

He thought about changing his name.

But instead, McDonald is fighting through all of that and usesthe attention he gets as a weapon against the racism and xenophobia.

"I'm using this platform to say educate yourself," he said.

"The fact that I have a Scottish surname is a sign of colonialismI'm still trying to discover what my ancestral name is, what our traditional family name was."

Let the statues fall

While the modern-day John A. McDonald works to reclaim his name and identity, the reputation of Canada's first prime minister is under scrutiny. Recently a statue of Sir John A. Macdonald was removed from the front steps of Victoria City Hall.

The monument was taken down as a gesture of reconciliation.

• John A. Macdonald statue removed from Victoria City Hall

P.A.'s John A. is okay with that.

"I've always said let's take these statues and melt them down, and let's create little medals," he said.

"He stole a piece of you, here's a piece of himyou survived, and he didn't, and let's give it to every survivor of residential schools, everybody that survived the cultural genocide that he attempted."