June 6 +79 Years

 

Juno Beach Centre, Courseulles-sur-Mer, Normandy, France, on its twentieth anniversary.

History of "woke"

Rick Salutin:

Conservative academic/journalist Andrew Potter catalogues in the substack The Line why he abhors design changes in the new passport: “The lengthy list of apologies for past transgressions; the acceptance of Canada as a genocidal state; allowing the country’s 150th anniversary to be turned into an orgy of national self-hatred; ordering the national flag to fly at half staff for an entire summer while blithely ignoring, for months, the factors that went into that decision; letting 24 Sussex turn into a ruin; the obscenely casual, almost sabotaging, attitude toward the appointment of a governor general; the general indifference to the Crown, the Royal Family, and what it symbolizes.”

A 20-something I know opines: “I love when he lists all the good stuff Trudeau’s done. As a Canadian nationalist I support every one.” (Try rereading that list with a positive tilt.)

I'm far from being a twenty-year old, but I'm with the kid on this one. It's depressing how often "History" is assumed to be on the side of the reactionaries. 

Meanwhile, Parks Canada is considering revisions to the texts of almost ten percent of the more than 2000 heritage plaques it maintains around the country. So, for instance, old plaques at fur trade posts will now give more recognition to the indigenous role in the trade. It's part of Parks Canada's response to Call to Action #79 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission ("to develop a reconciliation framework for Canadian heritage and commemoration").  Frankly, it sounds like this could be routine maintenance anyway: how many historians would not consider reassessing things they wrote fifty years ago when they were being republished?

Yet people who should know better -- including a former Parks Canada VP, Heritage Conservation quoted in the article -- declare "a new woke perspective is being imposed on what was formerly an apolitical ... process."  Yeah, right.

I'm an old Parks hand myself (Historic Sites Branch, natch), and I've often noted Parks Canada's long held grasp of "commemoration, not celebration." The first of my (very few) ventures into drafting text for plaques was at Louisbourg, when a plaque about James Wolfe was being reviewed to make it a little less "Rule Britannia" in spirit.  Parks Canada, from administering sites like the Plains of Abraham (and Batoche) has long had opportunities to consider the pitfalls of picking sides, and it's good to know that process continues.

More on Canada Day

Matthew Hayday, of the University of Guelph recently posted a long thoughtful tweet series about Canada Day, cancellation, and how to proceed. The whole thing is worth a look: 

Because of my past research about the history of Canada Day, I've been asked by a few media outlets for comment about recent cancellations of events for this year. July 1 has always been politicized, and frequently contested. A few thoughts in the following thread. 🧵

— Matthew Hayday (@mhayday) June 25, 2021

My own feeling is that, beyond grief, pain, anger and regret, we are going to need Canadian institutions more than ever. Reconciliation, if it ever moves beyond promises and apologies, is going to depend on a nation-to-nation, treaty-based relationship between Canada and the First Nations, replacing one driven by the Indian Acts and all they led to. That treaty-based relationship needs to be driven by the Canadian state taking up its constitutional obligation to respect treaty principles and treaty commitments. Canada created these horrors. Canada could address them, and it will take more than apologies and renamings.

Thanks also to Jared Milne who comments:

Family connections, and the larger heritage and culture, are what most people are probably celebrating on Canada Day. They're as much a part of Canada as its racism and violence.

History of statues, history of commemoration: Charlottetown

Charlottetown city council has agreed to recontextualize a statue of John A Macdonald, in consultation with Indigenous partners:

The change is one of several recommendations by Indigenous groups on Prince Edward Island that were adopted by city council Monday night by a vote of 8-1..... 

Indigenous groups wrote to council in January recommending several changes to the statue, including that the city install a new plaque describing more of Macdonald’s story, including his role in the creation of the residential school system.

This approach -- "nothing about us without us," as the indigenous meme goes -- seems the right one. Better to broaden interpretations than to dig in around old ones -- or simply make them all disappear.