'Cancelling' Sir John A. Macdonald denies Canada's rich past
The NCC plans to take his name off the western parkway in Ottawa. But to vilify Macdonald is to vilify the foundations of the country itself.
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Published Feb 27, 2023
Earlier this year, the National Capital Commission announced that it was dropping the name of Sir John A. Macdonald from a parkway in our nation’s capital.
Sir John A. Macdonald is our nation’s first prime minister. He is the founder of the country. He is the man who was most instrumental in writing our Constitution. He is the man who unified the country and expanded it from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Yet in the last few years, Macdonald has been vilified in an organized campaign. He has been subject to relentless and endless media attacks, principally for his involvement in the creation of residential schools. Statues have been pulled down and an effort is underway to erase his memory from our history.
There is no question that residential schools are a dark chapter in our nation’s history, but that history is complex. Many learned scholars have analyzed and investigated the issue. Yet there is an effort to condense that complex history into simplistic assertions, assertions which some proponents argue cannot be debated.
This is also a history that has been well known for decades. When the parkway in Ottawa was named for the former prime minister a decade ago, the former Stephen Harper government had already issued its national apology for the Government of Canada’s decades-long involvement with residential schools. Yet, there was no opposition in Parliament to the naming of the parkway for Macdonald. There was no outcry in the media. In fact, in the years prior to that naming, there had been a campaign to rename Wellington Street, in front of the Parliament Buildings, for Sir John A. Macdonald — a campaign that was not opposed based on residential schools.
The effort to blame the entirety of the shameful history of residential schools on Macdonald is, at its root, an ideologically driven campaign which seeks to vilify not only Macdonald, but Canada itself. Underscoring the attack on Macdonald is a much more insidious idea that there is little in Canada’s past that is worth celebrating. If the man who was instrumental in creating Canada’s constitutional structure was villainous, what does that communicate about Canada itself? If the man whose government was instrumental in settling the West is nothing more than an imperial colonialist, what does that say about the immigrants from all parts of the world who settled the West? What does it say about their descendants?
There has been little debate or discussion of these issues. Learned scholars on the subject have been either ignored or silenced in the face of a mainstream media feeding frenzy and groupthink. This absence of debate is undermining the confidence that Canadians have in their country. If the very father of the country can be “cancelled” in this manner, what will be left with respect to Canada’s founding as a nation, its settlement of immigrants across the country, and its constitutional history that remains worth celebrating?
Despite the fact that residential schools were supported and promoted by every Canadian government from Sir John A. Macdonald to Pierre Trudeau, the entire blame is now being placed on Macdonald with growing demands that all tributes to him be eradicated. Initially, the current government did not openly support this effort. As late as last year, Indigenous Services Canada Minister Marc Miller claimed that: “Knocking things down, breaking things is not my preferred option. Turning my eyes away from things is not my preferred option. Looking at things as painful as they are, explaining why they are is my preferred option.”
Yet today the government is very content to “knock things down.” This is a grave mistake.
“Cancel culture” campaigns do not stay confined only to their initial target. They morph into targeting other figures. They seek to eradicate not just single individuals but also core ideas. Above all, they seek to end all discussion and debate.
Instead of supporting this destructive campaign, the government should be standing up for Canada. It should strongly support open and fair debate where all points of view can be heard. But it should not support or countenance a campaign of wilful destruction.
There is a way both to honour the accomplishments of our first prime minister but also to recognize his failings. When instead we seek simply to erase history, we undermine understanding. We are also establishing precedents that risk unravelling the entire history and fabric of our country.
This may be the objective of some, but it is one that should never be supported by the government of Canada.
Sen. Don Plett is leader of the Opposition in the Senate.