Built on a foundation of faith

Tomorrow used to be Dominion Day, until Parliament changed its name in 1982 to Canada Day, which is almost the most uninspired name for a national day. Would it be better to have United States Day instead of Independence Day, Ireland Day instead of St. Patrick’s, or Bangladesh Day instead of Victory Day?

I say “almost” the most uninspired, because that title goes to Quebec, which went from St-Jean-Baptiste to la fête nationale, which means their national day is imaginatively called “national day.” In fairness, their elder brothers in France also go in for la fête nationale, but the rest of the world thinks that rather drab for a nation with such a bloody modern history and opts for Bastille Day in common usage.

The Dominion of Canada was the name of our country at Confederation, but ambiguously so. The British North America Act of 1867 did not specify an official name, but spoke of the new confederated provinces forming a “dominion.” So while the government of Canada has been referring to just “Canada” for many decades now, no formal change of name was needed.

The biblically minded have seen in “dominion” a reference to Psalm 72, which speaks of the Lord having “dominion from sea to sea.” For a country geographically continental and culturally Christian, the images of Psalm 72 were apt, and the Canadian motto a mari usque ad mare took up that same verse of the psalmist.

The reality is not so pious. While the various acts of our constitutional history refer to Canada as a dominion, they do not define that it is to be called that. Sir John A. Macdonald floated at the Quebec Conference in 1864 that the new country be called the “Kingdom of Canada” to underscore its constitutional monarchy, but nervous hands at the colonial desk in London thought that might provoke America, which had become a swollen military behemoth after the Civil War. So the term dominion was employed instead, signifying a territory over which the British Crown held dominion.

That usage is also biblical, not from the psalms, but from Genesis. Man is given “dominion” over creation. At the colonial office, it was likely thought a suitable description for London’s control of her colonies. It was not until the Statute of Westminster in 1931 that it was clarified that “dominions” — Canada, New Zealand and others — were independent countries, while colonies were not. So in the 1930s, Canada’s status as a dominion was significant. After the war though, the term dropped out and the government of Louis St. Laurent officially adopted “Canada” in official usage.

Two years from tomorrow, we mark the sesquicentennial of Confederation. Preparations are already underway and over the next six months, many of the critical decisions will be taken about how we will celebrate our country’s 150th birthday. The term “dominion” provides some useful indications.

Canada’s history, and its status as an independent country, depend essentially, though not exclusively, on both the altar and the throne. Without the early explorers, religiously animated, and the missionaries, the British Crown and the French fact preserved by the Catholic Church, Canada likely would not have survived the 18th century, let alone the 19th, as independent.

Let’s call it “Faith in 150” and tell the rich religious stories that are a critical part of Canadian history: Bill Reid’s sculptures of the supernatural world of the Haida; William Kurelek’s paintings of the Ukrainian pioneers on the prairie; the history of Canadian popular finance, from Social Credit in the West to the caisse populaires in Quebec; medicare in Saskatch- ewan and the labour movement in Antigonish, N.S., Northrop Frye and Marshall McLuhan, Georges Vanier and Charles Taylor — all of this has made Canadians what we are.

If the sesquicentennial assumes that Canada started with Expo 67 in Montreal, and it’s all Paul Henderson and Terry Fox and the Canadarm and the 1982 Constitution, we will fail to tell our story as it was. Paul Henderson, by the way, played hockey for a few years, but has been a Christian missionary for decades. It’s all part of our story.

It’s easy to tell Canada’s story as the triumph of technology over geography, hence the national railway’s place in our imagination. From the seigneuries of the St. Lawrence to hydroelectric dams at James Bay, from Alberta homesteads to the oil sands, it is true that taming the land — taking dominion over it — has been our national task. Great ventures though are never only technical projects, but triumphs of the spirit. The work of culture is at heart a spiritual enterprise. Between now and Dominion Day 2017, that’s a story we need to show and tell.

For Canada’s 150th birthday, let’s tell the rich religious stories that are a critical part of our history