By Dan Gardner, The Ottawa Citizen
Bob Plamondon deserves our thanks. Not for suggesting Wellington Street be renamed in honour of Sir John A. Macdonald, mind you ('Wellington's time is up,' Citizen, Feb. 23). That's a daft notion. Indeed, if I may be so presumptuous as to speak for the dead, I'm sure Macdonald himself would decline the honour with a cutting and slightly archaic remark. Something like "that's a daft notion, Mr. Plamondon."
But still he deserves our thanks because in making his very bad suggestion he has nicely illustrated the perverse relationship Canadians have with Canadian history.
We adore history. In the abstract. But actual history? The lives people really lived? What they built and believed? What they fought and died for? All the vast currents of human affairs that flowed together to make us who we are now? We're not so keen about that. It's the idea of history we adore.
Prince Edward Island has become a monument to this uniquely Canadian relationship. From its name to its red dirt, the island is bursting with real history, but cross the Confederation bridge, enter the giftshops, and you'll see scarcely a trace. Oh, there's lots of what's billed as "heritage," but that usually means the sort of Celtic kitsch that's made in China and sold around the world. Even in Charlottetown, a gorgeous town filled with ghosts, there is -- "Confederation tours" aside -- remarkably little evidence of real people, places, events, and passions. There's heaps of the "heritage" that retailers buy from catalogues. But little history.
"Heritage" is the key word here. People who like the idea of history but don't care for the real thing often gush about "heritage," even when they want to do away with the alleged object of their affection. Victoria Day may be a uniquely Canadian holiday, it may be older than Canada itself, but every now and then some earnest person pops up to suggest we celebrate the past by changing the name to "Heritage Day." When Russian Bolsheviks tore down statues, changed street names, and edited the calendar, they acknowledged that they were erasing history. But not Canadian Bolsheviks. They torch museums then congratulate themselves on being fine curators.
Pierre Berton was among the worst arsonists. And he, unlike many others, knew what he was doing -- and was explicit about why he did it.
"One of the reasons we English-speaking Canadians are so preoccupied with the idea of a Canadian culture and a Canadian identity is because, for most of the life of this young nation, we haven't had one," the other Saint Pierre wrote in 1991. Berton wanted Victoria Day scrapped and replaced with, naturally, "Heritage Day." "We've had a British identity, and the Queen's birthday harks back to it. When I grew up in the '20s, I didn't think of myself as Canadian. I was British and proud of it."
To Berton, building up a Canadian identity meant tearing down all things British. "For almost a century (sic), we've been marking the birthday of a silly, old woman who ruled a foreign country on the other side of the ocean," Berton complained. The fact that doing away with Victoria Day meant doing away with some very real and very old heritage didn't bother him in the slightest. Nor did it strike him as slightly odd to replace tangible heritage with a day celebrating heritage in the abstract. No, all that mattered was drawing a mental line between those people over there and us -- a line that ran not only through the present but the past.
Mission accomplished. And so it became inevitable that a hooligan with a spray can would come for the poor old Duke of Wellington. The wonder is that it took this long.
"There is no disputing the Duke of Wellington's important place in British history," Randall Denley wrote in these pages, seconding Bob Plamondon, "but surely it would make more sense for Canada's premier political street to be named after one of our own." That is the line Berton wanted Canadians to draw: between British history and Canadian history; between some foreigner and "one of our own."
Macdonald wouldn't have recognized that line. Not many 19th-century Canadians would. To the people who built Ottawa, and Canada, to be Canadian was to be British and the British story was the Canadian story. That's why they honoured Wellington as they did. And it's why, not far from Wellington Street, there is an Albert Street. And a Queen Street. And a Gladstone Avenue. Each of these British figures was "one of our own."
We do not see the world as Macdonald and other 19th-century Canadians saw it but that is not the point. What they did, what they believed, what they honoured: That is our history. We have no other. Do away with it and we are left with nothing but "Heritage Day" and kitsch.
Happily, Wellington Street isn't likely to be airbrushed any time soon, not because people oppose it on principled grounds, but because, as Denley wrote, there are so many smothering layers of bureaucracy involved that change is a Sisyphean task.
That, too, is a fine illustration of who we are. Thanks, Bob.
Dan Gardner's column appears Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Blog: ottawacitizen.com/katzenjammer.
E-mail: dgardner@thecitizen.canwest.com