A request by a major teachers union to strip Sir John A. Macdonald's name from schools across the province has "missed the mark," Premier Kathleen Wynne says.

"Sir John A. Macdonald was a father of confederation, our first prime minister, and he contributed greatly to the creation of a stable federal government for Canada," she said in a statement. "He is an important part of our history and, while decisions about naming schools belong to school boards, I don't believe his name should be removed from schools in Ontario.

Macdonald was "far from perfect — certainly his decision to open residential schools was among the most problematic in our history," but his name should not be erased from schools, Wynne said.

However, Ontario’s public school trustees will seriously consider a request to rename all schools that honour Macdonald.

Laurie French, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association (OPSBA), said that while the final decision of a school’s name rests with local boards, she is consulting with the Indigenous trustee council.

“There’s a lot of conversation around a number of historical figures, and that’s really where we have to consider our shared history and the events that have brought us today,” French said. “At the same time this is a highly sensitive topic that we need to have some thoughtful dialogue about. This is going to start that conversation and that’s a good thing.”

The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO), which represents the province’s public elementary teachers, issued a statement Thursday calling for all schools to drop the Sir John A. Macdonald moniker.

“The motion recognizes that Macdonald has been celebrated based on an incomplete version of Canadian history,” the ETFO statement says. “As a central architect of the Indian Act and residential schools, Macdonald played a key role in developing systems that perpetuated genocide against Indigenous people. Passing this motion recognizes the impact this history has on all of our students, but specifically on Indigenous students, parents and educators.”

Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown tweeted: “I’m proud to have the names of Canada’s founding fathers on Ontario schools.”

Conservative MP Tony Clement also tweeted on the topic: “People entrusted to teach history, now trying to erase history. Hands off Sir John A.!”

Many Twitter users objected to the ETFO motion, calling it stupid and the action of “social justice warrior crackpots,” while one supporter of the motion said “Canada’s founding father was a white supremacist.”

ETFO president Sam Hammond said that the union’s mandate is to support a positive learning environment, and questions what students will understand about history in a school named after “a major figure in the history of colonization and residential schools?”

The ETFO motion, that comes as the United States is immersed in a polarizing debate over Confederate symbols, would impact school boards across Ontario.

John Hawker, vice-chair of the Sir John A. Macdonald Society of Hamilton — a city which features the country’s first statue of the founding father — said there’s no question that the former prime minister’s conduct with the Indigenous peoples could be called cruel.

However, the man was a skilled and determined politician who successfully pulled Canada into a cohesive country, he said.

“I am concerned about whitewashing that happened; I am concerned about the idea of negating history as if it didn’t happen,” Hawker said. “I think it is a learning process for the children to learn that, ‘Hey, politics isn’t always clean, situations aren’t always perfect.’ Occasionally a person of any type of work, politics included, will make a rash decision for the cause and regret it later. And I’m sure he did.”

There’s a Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate Institute located on Pharmacy Ave. in Scarborough.

Shari Schwartz-Maltz, a spokesman for the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), said a request to rename the school has not come before the board.

“When we name or re-name schools it involves considerable consultation with the school community,” she noted.

Macdonald, who was born in Scotland, is even a controversial figure in Kingston, Ont., where he grew up.

“Who was John A. Macdonald? Statesman, politician, nationalist, consensus builder, visionary, pragmatist, drunkard, racist?” the official City of Kingston website asks. “Painted variously as saint or sinner, he remains an enigma. His views on immigration and First Peoples are currently being re-examined.”

Kingston Mayor Bryan Paterson, in a statement, said the city’s approach has been to encourage conversations and dialogue about his legacy and treatment of Indigenous peoples.

“As for the ETFO’s motion, our local school board has an independent process and issued a statement indicating that they will provide a response pending further consultation with their provincial trustees’ organization and Indigenous leaders,” Paterson said.