Canadian Politics Today

The point though is whether this is something that our public schools should be instilling in our children?

I don't think students should be warped into the same political ideology of their teacher or the political leanings of the party in power in a given province, whether right or left.  Nobody on the left wants their kids turned into Trump supporters and no parent on the right wants their kids to become a Marxists because their teacher told them it was the best ideology and Trump sucks.

There is an argument to be made of making our young students into good citizens, which simply means knowing some history (good and bad and everything in between), the basics of how our government works (civics) etc.  Playing the national anthem in the morning.  The same things an immigrant needs to know in order to pass a citizenship test.  You can let students debate, just don't have the teacher lead kids to have one opinion or another.  Teach kids about residential schools, then let them debate.

I think people in Canada know extremely little about their country, both good and bad.  It's pathetic.  Canadians know more about the US than Canada.  If you don't know anything about your country it's harder to feel connected to it and the other people that live in it.  If you feel you don't share anything with other Canadians across the country you will have less national unity.  On the other hand you don't want to be spreading false narratives and slanted propaganda to people just to build a sense of nationalism.  Just teach kids the facts of history and I think they will come to connect with their country more.  If they don't that's their choice too.

I think it's important to feel like you're a part of the national family that is Canada, and in order to do that we need to listen to the stories of everyone in this country so we understand each other more.  I like learning about the refugee stories of different immigrant groups too, it makes me understand why they came to Canada, and gets rid of the "othering" thoughts we tend to do when we don't understand somebody.  What are the stories of the Quebecois?  Different indigenous groups?  People on the east coast?  If you still don't like each other well that's fine but at least you understand them.

The idea that history is an objective set of facts would be rejected by most historians. History is as much about the production of narratives as it is about past events. The mere act of choosing which "facts" to teach is itself a subjective and biased action. That's why teaching critical thinking matters.

Also, if you're gearing your education system with the express purpose of promoting national unity through creating shared historical narratives, congrats, you're doing a propaganda.