Recognize but don’t honour Sir John A. Macdonald

The current debate over Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, provides an overdue opportunity for everyone to reflect on and better understand our history and Macdonald’s contribution. In recent Cape Breton Post articles, columnists David Delaney and Jim Guy both presented their views on the man and his legacy.

While I recognize that Macdonald was a major player in Confederation and the early history of Canada, he is not someone that I would choose to honour. His vision was a rather opportunistic one, not one of altruistic nation building, respect, equality and freedom for all.

For many years prior to Confederation, Macdonald was part of the Tory establishment that fought against reforms such as representation by population, the elimination of the privileged position of the Anglican church, and an end to patronage and corruption in government. It is to Reformers (Liberals) such as Baldwin, LaFontaine, Brown and Mackenzie that we owe our thanks for many of the democratic values and institutions we hold dear.

Macdonald was a very crafty politician, but he was a man without principle, where the end justified the means. The end for him was to stay in power. Indeed, he voted against the idea of a federation of all the British North American colonies. It was only when he saw that he would lose power in 1864 that he jumped on George Brown’s proposal, along with George-Etienne Cartier, as part of the Great Coalition.

The midnight “Double Shuffle” of 1858; the hollow amnesty promise to Louis Riel; the bribery of Riel to allow Cartier to be acclaimed in Provencher in 1872 after his defeat in Montreal; the Gerrymander election boundary revisions of 1882 to try and eliminate Liberal opponents; and his decision to stand for election and be acclaimed in Marquette a few days after his defeat in his own Kingston riding in 1878 are just a few other examples of how far Macdonald would go to achieve and retain power.

There is no doubt that a federation was going to happen. Maritime colonies were already meeting on the idea when the representatives from Canada East and West joined them. It was all the Fathers of Confederation that crafted the agreement. Macdonald wanted much more power to be centralized in Ottawa while George Brown, Cartier and others fought for a significant balance of power with the provinces. This became the essence of Confederation.

When British Columbia asked for a wagon road across the Rockies as the price to join Confederation, Macdonald’s government offered them a railway to be built within 10 years. Was this a nation building idea or one to gain favour and money from the powerful railway barons who paid $350,000 to the Tories (over $10 million in current dollars)? When the Liberal government consolidated a variety of acts under the Indian Act in 1876, it gave the federal government responsibility for Indigenous education. Further amendments under Macdonald established the Residential School System.

Some modern historians and politicians have placed Macdonald high on a pedestal as if he were single-handedly responsible for Confederation. This is not the case. We can recognize Macdonald and his contributions to Canada, but given his many faults and questionable values, should we really honour him?

I think not.

John Morgan Ottawa