Peter Bryce

Peter Henderson Bryce (August 17, 1853 – January 15, 1932) was an official of the Ontario Health Department, Canada. As a public official he submitted reports that highlighted the mistreatment of Indigenous students in the Canadian Indian residential school system and advocated for the improvement of environmental conditions at the schools. He also worked on the health of immigrant populations in Canada.

For the Canadian Methodist and United Church of Canada minister, see Peter Bryce (clergyman).
Peter Bryce
Bryce in 1890
Born(1853-08-17)August 17, 1853
Mount Pleasant, Ontario
DiedJanuary 15, 1932(1932-01-15) (aged 78)
At sea near West Indies
Resting placeBeechwood Cemetery
Scientific career
FieldsPublic health

Biography

Peter Bryce was born in Mount Pleasant, Ontario on August 17, 1853.[1] He obtained his medical degree from the University of Toronto, where he studied natural science geology, and went on to study neurology in Paris. He lectured for a time at the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph, Ontario in science and applied chemistry.[2] Bryce served as the first secretary of the Ontario Board of Health from 1882 to 1904, when he was appointed the Chief Medical Officer of the federal Department of Immigration.[1][3]

Bryce was hired by Indian Affairs Department in Ottawa to report on the health conditions of the Canadian residential school system in western Canada and British Columbia. His report was never released by the government but was published by Bryce in 1922 under the title The Story of a National Crime: Being a Record of the Health Conditions of the Indians of Canada from 1904 to 1921.

Bryce claimed that Indigenous children enrolled in residential schools were deprived of adequate medical attention and sanitary living conditions. He suggested improvements to national policies regarding the care and education of Indigenous peoples.[4][5] In a 1907 report Bryce cited an average mortality rate of between 14% and 24% at the schools and a shocking 42% infant mortality rate on the reserves, this due to sick children being sent home to die.[6]:9 Bryce noted that the lack of certainty about the exact number of deaths was, in part, due to the official reports submitted by school principals and "defective way in which the returns had been made."[7]:405

He appealed his forced retirement from the Civil Service in 1921 and was denied, subsequently publishing his suppressed report condemning the treatment of the Indigenous at the hands of the BNA.[8]

Bryce died on January 15, 1932 while travelling in the West Indies.[9] Dr. Bryce is buried and honoured at Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa, the same location as Nicholas Flood Davin, author of the 1879 Davin Report that called for the establishment of a residential school system in Canada and Duncan Campbell Scott who served as deputy superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs from 1913-1932. To assist reconciliation while also addressing historical and societal injustices, Beechwood Cemetery has a Reconciling History program, where “school children of all backgrounds...place paper hearts of gratitude and remembrance at Dr. Bryce’s grave site, as they do their own part for reconciliation" [10] https://ottawacitizen.com/sponsored/life-sponsored/reconciling-history-with-canadas-first-nations-beechwood-cemeterys-program-of-national-healing-through-truth-and-education

Publication
  • "The duty of the public in dealing with tuberculosis" (Microform). 27 October 1898. Retrieved 6 September 2016.
  • "Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs, for the fiscal year ended 30th June, 1906". University of Toronto - Government Information Collections - Sessional Papers, 1901-1925. Department of Indian Affairs. 1906. pp. 272–284. Retrieved 5 September 2016.
  • "The story of a national crime : being an appeal for justice to the Indians of Canada ; the wards of the nation, our allies in the Revolutionary War, our brothers-in-arms in the Great War". Internet Archive. Ottawa: J. Hope. 1922. Retrieved 5 September 2016.

See also

Sources

Hay, T., Blackstock, C., & Kirlew, M. (2020). Dr. Peter Henderson Bryce (1853-1932): whistleblower on residential schools. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 192 (9), E2223-E2224. Retrieved from:https://www.cmaj.ca/content/192/9/E223

References
  1. FitzGerald, J. G. (February 1932). "DOCTOR PETER H. BRYCE". Canadian Public Health Journal. 23 (2): 88–91. JSTOR 41976579.
  2. Lux, Maureen K. (2001). Medicine that walks : disease, medicine, and Canadian Plains native people, 1880 - 1940. Toronto [u.a.]: Univ. of Toronto Press. ISBN 9780802082954. Retrieved 5 September 2016.
  3. Dickin, Janice (2013). "Peter Henderson Bryce". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Retrieved August 27, 2019.
  4. "Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future - Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada" (PDF). The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. 31 May 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 September 2018. Retrieved 28 June 2016.
  5. Sproule-Jones, Megan (1996). "Crusading for the Forgotten: Dr. Peter Bryce, Public Health, and Prairie Native Residential Schools". Canadian Bulletin of Medical History. 13 (2).
  6. Hope and Healing: the Legacy of the Indian Residential School System (PDF). Ottawa: Legacy of Hope Foundation. March 2014. ISBN 978-1-77198-002-9. Retrieved 4 May 2017.
  7. Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015). "Canada's Residential Schools: The History, Part 1 Origins to 1939" (PDF). Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Volume 1. National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. Retrieved 1 July 2016.
  8. https://archive.org/stream/storyofnationalc00brycuoft/storyofnationalc00brycuoft_djvu.txt
  9. "Who was Dr. Peter Henderson Bryce?". First Nations Child & Family Caring Society. Archived from the original on 16 April 2016. Retrieved 5 September 2016.
  10. Deachman, Bruce (14 August 2015). "Beechwood ceremony to honour medical officer's tenacity". Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved 5 September 2016.

"He was a whistleblower, who exposed deadly conditions in residential schools". CBC News. 17 August 2015. Retrieved 6 September 2016.


Pushed out and silenced, CBC Unreserved, April 20, 2020| access date= 19 May 2020 .https://www.cbc.ca/radio/unreserved/exploring-the-past-finding-connections-in-little-known-indigenous-history-1.5531914/pushed-out-and-silenced-how-one-doctor-was-punished-for-speaking-out-about-residential-schools-1.5534953

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