John A. Macdonald's Legacy

Vincent J. Curtis

7 October 2017

RE: The ‘Canada First’ legacy of John A. Macdonald  (Hamilton Spectator 7 Oct 2017)

While one can appreciate Mr. Brouwer’s effort to defend the legacy of John A. Macdonald, he needs to do so with actual facts and proper terms.

Macdonald’s National Policy was formulated in 1876, and so the episode on which his story hung – Macdonald’s encounter with a Hamilton coffin maker cannot be true.  Macdonald won the election of 1878 on his platform, and by 1879, the National Policy was already in force, having been enacted in the budget of March 14, 1879.  The “I will see what can be done to help you” quote could be true – because the policy of high tariffs on manufactured goods was by then the law of the land.

Referring to the United States, then or now, as an imperialist state or ‘proto-imperialist’ is pejorative at best, and certainly false.  Imperial has an actual meaning, and the U.S. has never met the definition.  Canada, on the other hand, was a component of the British Empire.

The reciprocity treaty of 1854 expired in 1864 and was not renewed; it wasn’t “cancelled.”

The Hudson’s Bay Company were a willing seller of Rupert’s Land, granted to them by Charles II in 1670.  By 1870, the fate of the Northwest Territories was obvious and they wanted to accommodate themselves to the new facts on the ground as profitably as possible.

The Irish Fenians were not the “alt-right” of their day.  The term “alt-right” was unknown until last year for heaven’s sakes.  The Fenians were Irishmen who sought an Ireland free of British rule.  Fenianism is not classifiable as right or left.

The Know-Nothing party was an American Nativist party, anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic in policy.  The party dissolved in 1860, before the ‘rogue nation to the north’ even formed.  It is highly unlikely that Know-Nothings would have wanted to absorb Canada into the United States any more than they wanted to absorb Mexico into the U.S., which could have been done in 1849 -  the beginning of the Know- Nothing movement.

Canada was left alone by America because they saw us as an extension of Great Britain, then a great world power whose navy could destroy American trade on the high seas.

The Liberal Party of Canada has consistently been for free trade.  Wilfred Laurier won the election 1896 by promising to continue the National Policy, and lost the election of 1911 when he ran for free trade.  National Policy was slowly dismantled during the long rule of the Liberal Party of the 20^th century.

As a leading Father of Confederation, John A. Macdonald had the vision to create a new self-governing country in the legal mould of Britain out of the disparate colonies of British North America.  With a little money and a great practical mind, he navigated his vision around republicanism, Americanism, bankruptcy, and disaster until his death in 1891.  By then, a vision of Canada had taken root and has lasted to the present day through wars, rebellions, economic depression, and crises of national unity.

Macdonald is deserving of his statue in Hamilton, even if Canadian standards of honour are more modest than those of our neighbour to the south.  To say that Macdonald deserves to be dishonoured on account of the policy of schooling of Aboriginals developed under his watch is to provide an example of blinkered small-mindedness worthy of utter contempt.  Never mind the statue, Canada herself is Macdonald’s legacy.

That is the defense of Macdonald’s statue in Hamilton.

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An abbreviated version of this was published in the Hamilton Spectator on 16 Oct 2017.