Globe editorial
A squishy nation-building gesture would “Canadianize” our history by erasing a street that predates Confederation and which Sir John A. Macdonald himself would have known well.
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
In a peculiar attack on history and tradition, a historian of the Conservative Party, with cheerleading from the sidelines by the president of the Historica-Dominion Institute, is attempting to whitewash a little of Canada’s past by renaming Wellington Street in Ottawa, arguably the most historic address in Canada, “Macdonald Boulevard.”
The unlikely chief advocate for this squishy nation-building gesture, which would “Canadianize” our history by erasing a street that predates Confederation and which Sir John A. Macdonald himself would have known well, is Bob Plamondon, a defeated Tory candidate and party insider whose credentials include the well reviewed tome Blue Thunder: The Truth About Conservatives From Macdonald to Harper, which features an introduction by no less a figure than Conrad Black.
Mr. Plamondon has found support in an unlikely place too, from Andrew Cohen, the president of the Historica-Dominion Institute, an organization that has done much to promote knowledge and appreciation of Canadian history, though pointedly not at the expense of erasing our colonial heritage. The denial of history, after all, would be a unusual posture for the head of a history advocacy group. Or so one might have thought. (Mr. Cohen’s column in the Ottawa Citizen states that these are his “own views.”)
The main argument being used against Wellington Street is that the Duke of Wellington himself never set foot in Canada, though as another historian, C.P. Champion, points out, it was the Iron Duke who in 1825 ordered the construction of the Rideau Canal, and sent Colonel John By to build it. If this logic were more widely applied, the map of Canada would be remade. Queen Victoria, for example, did not visit Canada either. Will Victoria, the B.C. capital, be the next target of this curious campaign? Perhaps it can be renamed “John.”