“No one’s hands are clean when it comes to the history of Canada.”—unidentified Indigenous Ryerson University student.
History, as I noted recently, is under the glass these days as more and more of our founding fathers are being scrutinized for their perceived failings.
Which brings up the question of so-called political correctness and judgments that are based upon current views and values. Whether it’s fair to assess someone’s actions of a century ago by today’s standards can be questionable, although, in extreme cases, what would be a crime today was a crime 100 years ago even if it wasn’t seen as such by the society and culture of the day.
But these are extreme cases.
On a truly positive level, there has been a tsunami of retrospective thinking in recent years. Various levels of government have formally apologized, on numerous occasions, for: the internment of Japanese during the war; for the Komagata Maru incident when would-be East Indian immigrants were turned away at gunpoint; for rejecting Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany; for the racial denigration of Chinese immigrants and the infamous head tax; for the cruelties of the residential schools; for sterilizing young women in mental homes; for students who were mentally, physically and sexually abused in various state-supported institutions. The list goes on…
Today, let’s look at some more of our founding fathers who, belatedly, are facing challenges to their long established places of honour in our history books and on our maps.
In Prince Edward Island, it was announced in February that a national park named for a British general will be renamed. The Port-la-Joye-Fort Amherst National Historic Site near Charlottetown was to be tweaked by adding a Mi’kmaq name, “skmaqn” (pronounced Ska-MAA-kin) — “the waiting place” — to the existing name.
Note that Jeffery Amherst, general and earl, hasn’t been expunged, just diluted. This seems to be a very gentle rebuff for the man who has been accused of trying to exterminate the Mi’kmaqs by giving them blankets infected with smallpox. The Canadian Press quoted Catherine McKenna, the federal minister responsible for Parks Canada:
“The Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada is aware of public concerns related to sites, events, or persons of national historic significance with ties to colonialism, racism, or other forms of discrimination.” Parks Canada, she said, is committed to “working respectfully with Indigenous Peoples, and to a system of national heritage places that recognizes Indigenous traditions, cultures and contributions to Canada.”
This token rebuke wasn’t enough for Mi’kmaq leader John Joe Sark: “Why would they name any place after a barbarian and a tyrant that this guy was? What you read in…books is not everything. They leave out all this stuff of how cruel and how barbaric these guys were.”
At last report, Sark’s letter to Environment Minister McKenna was under review.
Amherst’s accepted claim to fame is his instrumental role in the mid-1700s Seven Years War against New France when his army captured Louisbourg, Quebec City and Montreal. He went on to promotion to field marshal and became our first British Governor General.
He’s also commemorated by Amherst, N.S., Amherstville, Ont., and several places in the U.S. In 2017, the City of Montreal removed his name from a street in the city, and Amherst and Amherstburg are considering a name change.
It’s interesting to note that Amherst College in Massachusetts beat the Canadian government to the punch in admonishing the long-feted general by banning his presence as the college’s unofficial mascot.
Take that, General.
Another icon under fire is the British aristocrat Lt.-Gen. Edward Cornwallis, founder of Halifax. His bronze statue has been placed in “temporary” storage after years of criticism for his having issued a “scalping proclamation” against the Mi’kmaq inhabitants in 1749.
After assisting in putting down the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland, in 1745, he was made governor of Nova Scotia, 1749-1752, and tasked with establishing Halifax. He went on to marry a prime minister’s daughter and to serve as the governor of Malta.
Cornwallis is remembered in the naming of rivers, parks, streets, towns, and buildings in Nova Scotia. However, according to Wikipedia, “the honouring of Cornwallis has become controversial in Nova Scotia. Local Mi’kmaq leaders objected to Cornwallis’ violent colonial legacy — primarily a scalping bounty he signed in 1749 declaring ‘a reward of 10 Guineas be granted for every Indian Micmac (sic) taken or killed.'”
Besides the removal of his statue, which was erected opposite the CNR station in 1931, and vandalized in 2016, the Halifax Regional School Board scrubbed his name from a junior high school and other institutions are considering similar measures.
Publicly expressed opinions have been divided and emotional. “I feel my ancestors can finally rest. It’s a great day to be Canadian and First Nation,” said Isaiah Bernard, Mi’kmaq. “Cornwallis has become a lightning rod for a number of things, which we think is unfair,” said Leo Deveau, director of the Halifax Military Heritage Preservation Society.
“It’s not just about Cornwallis. He came with 2,500-plus people, settlers, and many of whose names exist in the city today.”
Deveau favours a proposed “founding park” to represent “not only the Cornwallis era, but the Acadians, Mi’kmaq and other founding groups that came into this settlement.”
Even the decision to deal with his statue didn’t come easily, a report by municipal staff noting that the question of the commemoration of Edward Cornwallis “is tied to deep, intractable questions of Indigenous and non-Indigenous relations and history. The panel cannot be reasonably expected to resolve such questions but, it is hoped will exercise a process that helps advance the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous persons in the Halifax region.”
The opposing arguments that Cornwallis deserves recognition for his role in founding Canada versus his being scrubbed from public view if not the history books as a racial oppressor goes on.
In Toronto, there’s mounting pressure to remove Egerton Ryerson’s name and statue from the famous university because he’s “widely believed to have helped shape residential school policy through his ideas on education for Indigenous children”.
This proposed historical remake has met stronger resistance, it being argued against because of the cost and because it could create difficulties for graduates who hold a Ryerson diploma. Also, there have been complaints that expunging his name and statue isn’t the correct way to address a dark chapter in Canadian history.
As an unidentified Indigenous Ryerson student posted on Facebook, “…It’s the history of the school. You do not have to agree with it, but it is the history of what people back then were thinking. It is a reminder [that] no one’s hands are clean when it comes to the history of Canada.”
A lot to think about. So let’s end for today on a lighter note. Last week it was reported that, through a public opinion poll, the federal government changed the name of its job training agency from “Future Skills Lab” to “Future Skills Centre.”
At a cost to the taxpayer of $30,480, including tax.
