Guest Column:Dealing with Sir John A. Macdonald

By Medicine Hat News Opinon on August 25, 2018.

Now that Mayor Lisa Helps and her fellow Victoria city councillors have removed the statue of Sir John A. Macdonald from its pedestal in front of city hall, it is timely to encourage and promote further progressive initiatives.

As the acknowledged trendsetter among our provinces, the B.C. government, together with Victoria’s city council, should take up the cause. It is time for further exculpatory action.

Let’s begin by urging Ontario to rename the Macdonald-Cartier Freeway. Delete the Macdonald. Quebeckers and other Canadians will applaud such progress. Our west coast counsel to Ottawa must be to rename its famous Macdonald-Cartier Bridge. Let it be called the Trudeau-Trudeau Bridge since both father and son, as prime ministers, have had nothing to do with Sir John.

Several other major realities must be addressed. The Canadian Mint must immediately remove Sir John from the $10 bill. Racism must be removed from legal tender. Then there are the other statues, mounted busts and portraits still in place across the land. They must go. Perhaps the federal Heritage Ministry can launch a recovery program in which, for one year, it offers a bounty of $1,000 for a Sir John statue, $500 for a mounted bust, and $100 for a mounted portrait measuring at least 45 cm by 60 cm. Smaller ones shall be burned. With such payments should go a memorandum encouraging the recipients to donate their funds to local schools to enhance the teaching of civics and Canadian history.

Unfortunately, all this purging of the past creates a problem for me. For four years as a high school teacher and for 36 years as a university professor I taught thousands of students that Sir John, despite his affinity for alcohol and his acknowledged racism, reflective of his times, was actually a great Canadian hero. I taught that it was he who had a bold vision for Canada, who brought B.C. into Confederation and who, despite a railway scandal, built the railway to the Pacific coast and generally nurtured Canada in developing as an independent country north of “the border.”

Now I need to undo my pedagogical errors. I’ve wracked my brain about how to get the revisionist truth out. To no avail. I’m stymied. At least this article is a start.

Having launched our own renewal of national self-image, we would be well-advised to encourage our closest ally and only neighbour to do likewise. Let’s offer the U.S. some enlightened counsel. Sending a few tweets from Ottawa should get us started.

In Canada we are beginning with our first prime minister. Let’s encourage our American cousins to begin with their first president, George Washington.

This heretofore honoured military commander and president must be exposed for what he was. At the early age of 11, George inherited 10 slaves. At one point, while living in his Mount Vernon Mansion, he had 317. When he died, he owned 123. That’s worse than promoting residential schools!

Equally reprehensible is George Washington’s strong support for Article 1, Section 2 of the 1789 Constitution which specified that for purposes of government representation, “those bound to service” [slaves] should be counted as “three-fifths” of a person. I’d sooner be ignored, as in Canada, than be considered only three-fifths of a human being.

So here’s what we must tell President Trump and members of both houses of Congress. Rename the 555-foot Washington obelisk on the National Mall. “Unity Obelisk” is rather pedestrian but better. Rename the capital city. Call it Americana. We also want Washington state renamed. Call it Cascadia South or Pugetland. Both are better. Also, you should pay states and cities to remove all symbols of your slave-holding president.

What can I do to help usher in this much-needed sanitizing of American history? I can tweet President Trump and all (Washington) politicians. I can also stop buying cheaper gasoline in Lynden, Wash. That only bolsters Washington’s image and adds to his state’s economy.

John H. Redekop Ph.D. is Professor Emeritus in Political Science, Wilfrid Laurier University. He now lives in Abbotsford, BC