MONTHLY LETTER

Canada and its History

History, it is said, is a great teacher. Whatdoes Canadian history have to say to thepeople it has shaped? For one thing, that wehave never been without dissension. And foranother, that we have always managed to findthe way ahead...

[] The story is told of a high school student whoquerulously asks his teacher why he should beforced to learn history. ~Do you know what hap-pens to a man who loses his memory?" the teacherasks in return.

One thing that happens, presumably, is that theman also loses his identity. This may explain whyCanadians, in their seeming indifference to theirown history, have been restlessly searching for adistinctive national identity for many years.

The identity has been there all along, of course,as any Canadian in another country soon disco-vers. And so has a national history as remarkablein its own way as any in the world.

But like our national character, our history isfull of subtleties, complexities and contradictions.It defies simple interpretation. It is hard to digest.

This is one of the reasons why Canadians -- par-ticularly English-speaking Canadians--havelong been in the habit of importing history fromother countries for popular consumption. When theBritish Empire was at its zenith, the main sourcewas Great Britain, as witness the prevalenceacross the country of Marlborough, Wellington andNelson streets.

Since the British connection with Canada hasloosened, Canadians have turned to the massmedia of the United States for their popularhistory and heroes. No less a personage than thepresident of the Canadian Broadcasting Corpora-tion, A. W. Johnson, recently complained:

~The plain truth is that our kids know moreabout the Alamo than they know about Batoche orChrysler’s Farm. They know more about DaveyCrockett than Louis Riel." As if to emphasize John-son’s point, Maclean’s magazine felt obliged toprint a footnote to the quotation: "Riel’s headquar-ters were at Batoche, Saskatchewan; British troopsdefeated a U.S. force at Chrysler’s Farm in UpperCanada during the War of 1812."

Why this ignorance? Partly, it seems, becauseCanada lacks a national mythology. We are shortof the epic poems, folk-songs and historical novelsthat immortalize a nation’s Francis Drakes, RobertBruces and Paul Reveres. Only among French-speaking Canadians are historical heroes general-ly recognized: Dollard, Madeleine de Verch~res,Champlain, La V~rendrye. Among their English-speaking compatriots there is a curious lack ofappreciation of such giants of the wilderness asSamuel Hearne, Alexander Mackenzie, SimonFraser and David Thompson, who accomplishedadventurous feats of exploration second to none.

It is perhaps more serious that -- up to the latestgeneration, at least--Canadians should knowmore about Abraham Lincoln than about his greatcontemporary, Sir John A. Macdonald.

Macdonald did as much for his country as Lin-coln did for his. Or more -- in American terms hemight be called Abraham Lincoln and GeorgeWashington rolled into one. Not only did he hold apolitical union together, he played the leading part

in creating a new nation. Yet this man of magnifi-cent vision and purpose seems to be rememberedby his countrymen mainly as a merry buffoon, aninveterate boozer and shamelessly tricky politi-cian. His immense accomplishments are taken forgranted in Canada today.

A comparison of the careers of the two NorthAmerican leaders in the 1860s makes an interest-ing study of the differences in the Canadian andAmerican political traditions. The chief preoccupa-tion of both statesmen was to preserve an impe-rilled union--in Macdonald’s case the unitedProvince of Canada, consisting of the present-dayQuebec and Ontario. But while the United Statestore itself asunder in a bloody civil war, Canadafused itself into a greatly expanded federal state.

Lincoln would be assassinated in the aftermathof the Civil War; Macdonald would live to realizehis dream of a Canadian Confederation stretchingfrom coast to coast, and would actually cross thisfledgling nation on the great railway he had strug-gled so hard to have constructed. He died peaceful-ly in office at the age of 73.

If Canadians do not remember Macdonald aswell as they should, it is because he was a typicallyCanadian compromiser. The results of compromiseare seldom spectacular. There was little sound andfury in our first Prime Minister’s career.

The road to Confederationwas paved with compromise

If there is one consistent theme running throughthe Canadian story, it is compromise. At least twoof the most critical junctures in our history cameas a result of key individuals submerging theirown perceived best interests in a greater cause.

In 1841 Louis Hippolyte Lafontaine, leader ofthe French-Canadian reform movement, joinedRobert Baldwin to form the government of the newunited Province of Canada. Lafontaine had strongreasons to abhor this union, which deprived Que-bec of its traditional political autonomy. It waswell within his political power to demolish it. Byforming his alliance with Baldwin, Lafontaineplaced himself above language, religious and re-gional factiousness.

Twenty-two years later, with the union threat-ening to fly apart, it was the turn of an OntarioOrangeman to put his ideals ahead of his preju-dices. For many years George Brown, founder ofthe Toronto Globe and leader of the ~’Clear Grits",had been an implacable opponent of French-speak-ing and Roman Catholic influence in Canadiancolonial affairs. He despised John A. Macdonald,who was his opposite in practically every personaland political characteristic. Yet the dour, hithertoinflexible Brown found the moral courage to join ina coalition with Macdonald and George-EtienneCartier to save the union.

Moreover, Brown had the foresight to beginworking with his former political foes towards ageneral federation of all the scattered BritishNorth American colonies. He bowed to the need tobring two distinct lingualistic groups together inthe formation of a new and different nation. Wellmight he say, as if in wonderment at his own acts,~Where, sir, in the pages of history shall we find aparallel to this?"

As the distinguished Canadian historian W. L.Morton once pointed out, the events leading to theConfederation represented a defeat for ~the politicsof ascendancy". As long as one racial group de-manded ascendancy over the other (usually, butnot always, the English over the French) the oldCanadian union would not hold. The resolutionsframed at the Quebec Conference of 1864 affirmedthe partnership of French- and English-Canadiansin the embryonic nation, and the pact eventuallysealed in 1867 enshrined the political principlesthe two language groups had in common. Accord-ing to Morton:

The union of British North America was pro-posed, not to achieve sought-after privilegesand liberties, but to preserve an inheritance offreedom long enjoyed and a tradition of lifevalued beyond any promise of prophet or dem-agogue. Confederation was to preserve byunion the constitutional heritage of Canadiansfrom the Magna Carta of the barons to theresponsible government of Baldwin and Lafon-taine, and, no less, the French and Catholicculture of St. Louis and Laval.

This is an oblique way of saying that the Fathersof Confederation rejected the republican principles

of the United States in favour of a constitutionalmonarchy. Canadians of both founding races hadbeen resisting annexation by the United Statesever since the American Revolutionary War. Whenit came to forming their own federation, the lead-ers of the British North American colonies made itclear that they wanted to build a different societyfrom the one across the border. They were NorthAmericans, yes; Americans, no.

It is popularly assumed today that Canada at thetime of Confederation had no choice but to remainpart of the British Empire. Actually there is con-siderable evidence to suggest that the politicalleadership of Great Britain, then going through ananti-colonialist phase, did not much care whetherCanada was absorbed by the American republic ornot. According to Macdonald’s biographer, DonaldCreighton, it was mainly up to the Canadians. Hewrote that the first Prime Minister believed Cana-dian nationhood must move towards two ob-jectives:

Canada must, in the first place, maintain aseparate political existence on the NorthAmerican continent; and in the second, shemust achieve autonomy inside the BritishEmpire-Commonwealth. Obviously the firstnational objective was the more basic and alsothe more difficult to achieve, for the NorthAmerican continent was dominated by theUnited States and, of the two imperialisms,American and British, the former was by farthe more dangerous.

The building of a nationwith a heritage all its own

The history of Canada since Confederation hasseen fitful advances towards these objectives.While steadily achieving more and more indepen-dence from the British Crown, Canadians devel-oped and maintained a way of life that was NorthAmerican, but distinct from that of their neigh-bours to the south. Canadians insisted on doingthings their own way through their own institu-tions, mostly British institutions adapted to NorthAmerican conditions. They took what they deemed

best from the American system- municipal go-vernment and public education, for example -- andarrived at a system that was neither British norAmerican. They built Canada into a nation with aheritage all its own.

If the Canadian character is often defined innegative terms -- in terms of what Canadians arenot- it is largely because of the sheer size andpower of the United States and the pervasivenessof American culture. In their attempts to remainseparate from the United States, culturally asmuch as politically, Canadians have left them-selves open to the accusation of being petulantlyanti-American. Actually, their rejection of Ameri-can ways has been more a matter of recognizingflaws in the American society and resolving not tolet them develop here.

The settlement of the Canadian West offers acase in point. During the first five years of the newDominion, the vast reaches of the Canadian prair-ies from the Red River to the Rocky Mountainswere populated almost exclusively by a few thous-and Indians and M~tis. Practically the only otherhuman inhabitants of the Canadian plains werewhisky traders and wolf hunters from the "wildwest" of the United States.

The plains Indians were mercilessly exploited bythe American traders. In May, 1873, a party ofthem, along with some "wolfers", massacred 20 ormore Indian men, women and children in the Cy-press Hills, near the present boundary betweenAlberta and Saskatchewan. Slaughters of this kindwere not uncommon across the American border,where the saying, "the only good Indian is a deadIndian", was put into practice with bullets. In Can-ada, by contrast, the shocking incident promptedMacdonald to hasten the formation and dispatchwestward of the North-West Mounted Police.

In an astonishingly short time, this intrepidband of 600 red-coated men had expelled the

whisky traders, won the confidence and friendshipof the natives, and established a regime of strictlaw and order. Through the diligent efforts of twoof its top officers, the Cypress Hills murderers weretracked down in Fort Benton, Montana, where anAmerican court rudely refused to extradite themfor trial. When one of the party, arrested onCanadian soil, was brought to trial in Winnipeg, hewas acquitted for lack of evidence. But the messageof the police action was clear to all concerned: thatthis was a land of peace and justice where the lawwould be administered impartially, and where itwas meant to be obeyed.

The drama of men fightingnature, and not each other

In the Canadian West, by common consent,public order came before the oft-abused individualliberty which was the touchstone of Americandemocracy. The early Mounted Police symbolizedthe differences in the society on either side of the49th Parallel. To the south, lawmen and judgeswere elected, and they frequently indulged in graftand other kinds of lawlessness. To the north, thelawmen were members of an incorruptible uni-formed constabulary, subject to strict militarydiscipline, who never drew their fire-arms untilreason and force of will had failed.

The rarity of violence on Canada’s western fron-tier might lead to the conclusion that its history isdull. Certainly it seems to pale in comparison tothe American Old West, so exhaustively celebratedin song and story. This is natural enough; anorderly, law-abiding society does not inspire manymovies or paperback books.

There is drama in Canadian history- and notonly in that of Western Canada--but it is morethe drama of men fighting nature than of menfighting one another. True, there was violence, andplenty of it, during the earlier years of settlement.But there has been relatively little strife on Cana-dian soil since the War of 1812, perhaps for thevery reason that nature in one of the world’s

biggest, coldest and most rugged countries pre-sents such a formidable challenge. Strugglingagainst the elements, wresting a living from aninhospitable land, Canada’s pioneers had littletime or energy to spare for hatred. Traditionalanimosities from the old countries of Europe wereburied in an atmosphere of common hardship.

Three steps backward for everyone forward -- and yet...

The historian A. M. R. Lower has written thatCanadians must seek their collective soul in theland, for Canada has none of the social commondenominators which normally unite a nation. Cert-ainly the land, in all its vastness and harshness,has left its imprint on the way Canadians tradi-tionally have behaved.

From its earliest days, Canada has been a placewhere people have countered adversity by sharingthings in the common interest. This inborn gener-osity- along with the vastness of our spaces-has made it possible to offer a home here tomillions of people from all over the world.

Like history in general, the history of Canadaseems like a matter of taking three steps backwardfor every one forward. Canada has never beenwithout difficulty and dissension. Yet, in the longrun, Canadians have always managed to find theway ahead.

In recent years there has been a long-overduepublic awakening to Canadian history as a spate ofpopular books on historical subjects has been pub-lished, often being adapted for film and/or televi-sion. They are worthy of study, as is our history asa whole.

It tells a story of divergent political interestsrestlessly moving, not without a struggle, towardscommon ground; and of diverse people somehowfinding a way to live together peacefully in spite ofthe differences among them. If Canadian historyhas a lesson to teach, it is that great things cancome of gradualism, conciliation, tolerance andmoderation. In this new time of trial for Canada,Canadians should know their own history for theirown good.