Latest news with #CanadianHistory
National Post
3 days ago
- General
- National Post
Chris Selley: Is Sir John A. Macdonald being set up for a fall?
All eyes will be on Toronto later this summer — or they should be, because it could be darkly hilarious. That's when Queen's Park undertakes a bold, interdisciplinary experiment in Canadian history, policing and law: The province is going to let Sir John A. Macdonald's statue out of the plywood prison it has inhabited for five years. The monument had been restored after previous vandalism, only to find itself in a box to prevent future vandalism. Article content Article content Article content It is possible, as National Post's Tristin Hopper argued this week, that we may be seeing the end of 'Canada's nationwide purge of historic figures and names' — at least by governments themselves. That'd be nice. But has anyone asked the yobbos who vandalize and tear down statues if they're done with the purge? Article content Article content 'How are you going to stop the same thing from happening all over again?' was among the questions reporters asked of the people in charge. The answer wasn't entirely convincing. Article content 'Legislative security will be keeping a close eye on it,' The Canadian Press assured us, based on speaker of the legislature Donna Skelly's remarks. Legislative security and the Ontario Provincial Police, who patrol the legislature grounds (with assistance from the Toronto Police Service), had better be keeping a close eye on it, because Skelly even invited the Macdonald-haters to come to the as-yet-unscheduled unveiling. Article content 'People have the right to protest here. As long as no one is hurt, and you don't break the rules or the law, you're welcome,' said Skelly (a Progressive Conservative MPP), before taking it even further: 'This is where you should be protesting.' Article content Article content Article content Article content Of course, it's unlikely anyone would try to splatter, behead or topple Macdonald during an official event. So one hopes the Queen's Park security aces at least have a camera or two trained on the statue, if not to actually prevent any vandalism then at least to apprehend and charge the offenders. Article content But then, this is a city where a certain traffic speed-enforcement camera has been taken down five times by vandals in six months — and in one case, subsequently thrown in a pond — and apparently no one has thought to install a camera that might record people doing it. We are not imaginative people. Article content Montreal police never found the gang that beheaded Macdonald's statue in Place du Canada in 2020; instead, the city just decided not to reinstall it, since it was constantly getting vandalized. Problem solved! Why waste police time over some old dead bronze guy? Article content In 2021, something calling itself an Indigenous Unity Rally hauled down the statue of Macdonald in Gore Park in Hamilton, Ont. City police investigated in earnest, by the sounds of it, and laid charges against a 56-year-old suspect. Then, prosecutors stayed the charges.
Globe and Mail
3 days ago
- General
- Globe and Mail
The King of Canada, and other things nobody understands
In 2002, then-defence minister John McCallum admitted that the first time he'd heard of the Raid on Dieppe was when he attended a ceremony in France marking the battle's 60th anniversary. In an attempt to redeem himself from embarrassment, he wrote a letter to the editor of the National Post – in which he confused Vimy, Canada's First World War victory, with Vichy, France's collaborationist Second World War regime. Before entering politics, Mr. McCallum had been a university professor, the chief economist of a bank and dean of arts at McGill. With a resumé like that, you're not supposed to be last off the turnip truck. In most countries, you wouldn't be. But this is Canada, where our history is a self-erasing tabula rasa. Which brings us to the visit of King Charles III to deliver the Throne Speech – and high-level Canadian officials revealing low levels of Canadian knowledge. On Monday, the social media account of Governor-General Mary Simon tweeted the following: '#GGSimon was honoured to have an audience with His Majesty King Charles III at @RideauHall as part of Their Majesties' Royal Visit to Canada.' And then: 'These ongoing conversations deepen the meaningful bond between our nations. GB. CA.' The people who wrote those words work in the office of the person delegated to represent our head of state. Yet they're under the impression that our head of state is the ambassador of a foreign government – 'GB' for Great Britain. Vimy, Vichy. King of Canada, King of Kensington. Whatever. The post was later removed. But the high-level misunderstandings continued on Wednesday in Question Period. A Bloc Québécois MP asked why taxpayers' money had been wasted on 'the King of England.' I get that this is the term the BQ always uses, but come on: There hasn't been a King of England since 1707. Wanting to end the monarchy is a perfectly reasonable position, but at least know what you're swinging at. Steven Guilbeault, the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture (real title, I swear) replied that there was nothing unusual about the visit because, even when the King doesn't attend in person, 'it's always the British Crown that reads the speech.' Opinion: King Charles's visit to Canada was a show of weakness, not strength The 'British' Crown? Seriously? The minister of Canadian Identity needs help identifying the pieces on our constitutional chessboard. The personified symbol of national sovereignty (it sounds weird, I know) who read the Throne Speech is not a representative of the British government. In fact, given that the King was participating in a ceremony of Canadian sovereignty directed at an American audience, it's possible that Britain – where he's also the head of state – would have preferred he not come. But the request to the Canadian head of state came from the Canadian head of government, and as such would have been received as something of an obligation. The guy who arrived on a Canadian plane, rode through the streets of Canada's capital, visited the Canadian national war memorial and opened the Canadian Parliament with words written by his Canadian ministry, was the King of Canada. He was not on the clock in Ottawa as King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, or King of Australia, or King of the Bahamas. Fifteen countries share the monarch, but he occupies each post independently. Someone working at Starbucks while attending university is not the representative of Starbucks to their school. Nor are they their school's representative to Starbucks. Same thing here. Coyne: This was the moment Charles became King of Canada, and Canada his kingdom We're trying to make a big show of how we're not Americans, yet when we encounter our most shockingly not-American bits, we trip over them. Even Prime Minister Mark Carney has had trouble. Since the election, he's several times said that Canada has three founding peoples – English, French and Indigenous – with the monarchy related to the first of them. Leaving aside whether we should be talking anymore of 'founding peoples,' the reason for the Crown, or this visit, isn't that. Canada is an independent constitutional monarchy, and the King of Canada is the independent constitutional monarch. The government advised the monarch that he was needed to take part in an important constitutional convention, so he did. A historical connection to Britain is how we got here, but Canada's Crown has long been independent of that. Canada has many people of Indian ancestry, but that doesn't mean Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to be asked to read the Throne Speech. Is Canada a weird country? Sometimes. It's the result of a history of not being American. And this particular arrangement is almost impossible to change, so you might as well embrace it. Stay weird, Canada.
National Post
7 days ago
- Politics
- National Post
When truth isn't a defence — Joseph Howe's courageous fight for a free press
Article content Article content In this NP Comment video, the Post's Terry Newman speaks with Trent University Canadian studies professor Christopher Dummitt about his new video series, 'Well, That Didn't Suck!' Article content Dummitt set out to create a series of videos on Canadian history that would make sense to people who have grown up on social media — including YouTube, Tiktok and Instagram, which is where you can find his short history lessons. Essentially, the short Canadian history series finds audiences where they are. Article content The first lesson, 'The Price of the Truth,' is about government corruption and the importance of the free press. It tells the story of Joseph Howe, who, in addition to being a politician and poet, was the sole editor and owner of the Novascotian. Article content Howe published an anonymous letter accusing local police and politicians of stealing public money, resulting in him being charged with seditious libel. Article content Unfortunately, the truth alone wasn't a defence at the time. Unable to find anyone willing to defend him, Howe defended himself. In a six-hour speech, he urged the jurors to 'leave an unshackled press as a legacy to your children.' Even though the judge advised jurors that it was their duty to return a guilty verdict, they ignored the judge and the law, finding Howe not guilty after a mere 10 minutes of deliberation.
CBC
7 days ago
- General
- CBC
Island students present research at P.E.I.'s Provincial Heritage Fair
More than 200 Island students from grades five through nine participated in this year's Provincial Heritage Fair on Friday. Another 20 students from grades 10 through 12 also participated as part of a pilot project. The P.E.I. Heritage Fair program provides an opportunity for students to dive into a part of Canadian history that interests them. Leah Arsenault, a Grade 6 student at École Évangéline, focused her project on the thousands of Acadians deported from Prince Edward Island in the 1750s. "We picked this topic because it's such a big topic and there's so much information about it," she said. Arsenault said she researched the stories of those who were deported and learned about this piece of Island history from different perspectives. A personal focus For some students, the fair provided an opportunity to learn more about their family history. Maggie Densmore, a Grade 6 student at Belfast Consolidated, researched her family's military past. "I learned a lot because I didn't know that… a lot of these people even existed," she said. "A lot of people … they just get forgotten," Densmore said. "I thought it'd be nice to put a highlight on my family." Among other artifacts, Densmore displayed one of her family member's passports from 1975, as well as her military medals and patches. Densmore said her grandmother helped her gather information to put the project together. While she doesn't know what she will do next with her research, Densmore said she was excited to share her new knowledge with others. A common thread Having recently moved to P.E.I. from Qatar, Chelsey Pelias said she wanted to learn more about the Island. She also wanted to learn more about the Philippines, she said, since she grew up there and is also Filipino. To merge those two ideas, Pelias created a project about what the Philippines and P.E.I. have in common. "I found out some pretty cool, amazing things," she said. "I found out they both have amazing farming traditions, like for example the Philippines grows rice and here they grow potatoes." A group of people came to P.E.I. from the Philippines last year to learn more about potato farming, Pelias said.
Globe and Mail
19-05-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Remember, remember, the economic lessons from Canada's uneasy past
John Turley-Ewart is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail, a regulatory compliance consultant and a Canadian banking historian. Monday, Victoria Day, is the past's shout-out to the present. The current moment makes that shout-out all the more poignant: A reminder from Victorian era Canadians that they forged a working federation while laying rails to hang an economy on. They were nation builders. Queen Victoria, whom the day honours, was a strong proponent of Confederation in 1867. She told a Canadian delegation she took the 'deepest interest in it' because she believed it would make her North American provinces 'great and prosperous.' And such was the dream. By 1876 the Intercolonial Railway was in place, connecting the economies of the Maritimes, Ontario and Quebec. Treaties were being signed with Plains First Nations and Dominion Land Surveys were developed in Western Canada to divide land into parcels of one square mile for farming and inexpensive homesteads. Canada was a new frontier for investment. Capital flowed from Britain, new banks and insurance firms were founded. Immigrants were arriving. In November of 1885 the greatest infrastructure achievement of Victorian Canada was completed, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). Using iron spikes, workers fastened a transcontinental economy to the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The work was hard, the idea of Canada caught people's imagination, but the gap between its promise and the economic reality gave reason for many to think Canada was a failed project. Despite completing the CPR, the economy wobbled, banks failed, and Ottawa's coffers ran low. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians moved south to the United States in the 1880s and early 1890s. While Canada's current Liberal Prime Minister, Mark Carney, rightly said 'never' to the idea of Canada becoming the 51st state in his recent visit to the White House, some Liberals in the late 1880s said 'maybe' to the idea back then. The union that Queen Victoria presided over, after all, was an alliance of strangers. There was little truck or trade between the three-and-a-half million people spread across a giant continent. Most provinces were more familiar with their U.S. neighbours than each other. The appeal of late 19th-century America to Canadians of the time rings familiar today. Carnegie, Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford – the billionaires of their day were the faces of a modern industrial economy that produced skyscrapers, the modern corporation, modern steel production, modern finance, the petroleum industry and the beginnings of the auto industry. In contrast, Canada seemed a motley crew of regions that trains happened to roll through from time to time. The promise of a national economy was not a reality. What changed? Investments that farmers in Ontario and Quebec were making in new equipment and farming methods to improve productivity in the late 1880s and 1890s began paying off as the 20th century approached. The result was bumper crops and bumper profits from sales to export markets that also spread to the Prairies. This reinforced the demand for new farm equipment, driving added manufacturing capacity and innovation in the process. The knock-on effect could be seen in the growth of banking and the demand for engineers, lawyers and a professional managerial class. With more deposits coming from farmers in Ontario and Quebec, there was more capital to support larger, complex projects that continued to give momentum to productivity improvements, including two new national railways built between 1900 and 1912. Mining for gold, silver and other minerals took off in Ontario and B.C. Developing efficient sources of energy, such as hydroelectric power in Ontario and Quebec helped electrify cities while making it easier to produce steel as well as pulp and paper. Today, Canada is in the kind of economic ebb that tested the country in the late 1880s. If Canadians who built the economic foundations of Canada in the three decades after Confederation could speak, they would tell us that national infrastructure isn't enough. Building productive businesses is equally important if you want the prosperity Queen Victoria believed Canada was capable of.
