Vincent J. Curtis
13 July 20
We can all agree that Canada is perfectible. After all, that’s why legislatures pass new laws and why protesters protest: to make Canada more perfect.
This means that in the past, Canada was less perfect that she is now. Perhaps a lot less perfect. To observe Canada’s past imperfections with shock and anger is to reveal both one’s ignorance and an arrogance. Of course Canada had her flaws – duh! The three million Canadians of 1885 didn’t have the education, insight, experience, and wealth of 2020. People in 2155 will look down upon those of today for their risible hubris.
It is fashionable these days to condemn Sir John A. Macdonald, and many want to pull down his statues. It never occurs to them to wonder why people put up a statue to him in the first place. It was because Macdonald, more than anyone else, created the geographical entity called Canada, and he kept it from being overrun and absorbed by the United States in the late 19th century.
If you despise the treatment of the plains Indians by Macdonald’s Canada, how much worse would they have fared at the hands of the 7th U.S. Cavalry?
After hubris comes nemesis. People today need to be more humble when evaluating the past. Macdonald was a man of his times, as we are of ours. Long after Macdonald’s death, people chose to honour him. What makes them wrong, and you right?
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment