Getting to know Viola Desmond

Iadmit that until Thursday I had never heard of Viola Desmond, the woman who will be the first non-Queen to grace the front of a Canadian banknote, nor of the other four finalists who made the short-list for the $10 bill.

This is embarrassing and despicable for a number of reasons, not least because it shows that an expensively-educated Canadian who has spent years writing about the country can still be clueless about people with some pretty impressive credentials. I imagine I’m not the only one, however, and the demonstrates the larger problem, i.e. that we do such a poor job of passing on the memory of important people who have done much to help make the country what it is.

Recently Canada has fallen victim to the unfortunate fad of championing national “values” as a test of someone’s validity as an authentic Canadian. It’s a by-product of the equally regrettable rise of identity politics, which assigns worth based on individual gender, ethnicity, sexual inclination or whatever other personal attribute people choose to see when they look in the mirror. There is a evidently a measurable portion of the population that puts a premium on “values” — usually as defined by themselves and people they agree with — yet remain grossly uninformed about the people, like Desmond and the other short-listers, who actually helped develop and implant those values.

Desmond, for those who don’t know, was a Nova Scotia woman who refused to sit in the blacksonly section of a movie theatre, like she was expected to do. Pauline Johnson was a part-Mohawk woman who established herself as an accomplished poet, speaker and performer in Canada’s earliest days. Elsie MacGill was an aeronautical engineer at a time women simply didn’t earn such degrees, who overcame polio to establish a successful career, contribute to Canada’s war effort and become a leading advocate of women’s rights. Fanny Rosenfeld was an astonishingly versatile athlete who became one of Canada’s best female hockey players, set numerous track and field records and win two medals at the 1928 Olympics. Idola Saint-Jean was a Quebec professor who spent years campaigning for women’s right to vote. you might land at Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport; if you’re headed to Toronto you’ll probably put down at Lester B. Pearson airport; if it’s Saskatoon you’ll find yourself at John G. Diefenbaker airport. Canada’s busiest highway is named after Sir John A. Macdonald and George-Etienne Cartier. The federal Public Works department invites visitors to tour 17 bronze statues scattered across Parliament Hill, only four of which are devoted to politicians or monarchs. Until now Canada’s currency has been almost exclusively the preserve of politicians and the Queen.

We don’t teach much beyond that group in our schools. We barely teach our history at all, in fact. A young Canadian can easily make it to university and beyond without even a rudimentary understanding of Canada’s past or the important figures (besides politicians) who peopled it. It may reflect the national propensity to eschew boasting (other than at international hockey tournaments), but it leaves millions of people in the dark about what their country is and how it got here. It also feeds opportunist politicians who think a quick appeal to prejudice is a swell way to pick up some support. I bet some of the loudest campaigners for “Canadian values” would struggle to pass a basic Canadian citizenship quiz, while denouncing applicants we expect to have the answers down pat.

The reason is that we don’t teach it adequately in schools, and seem to share a bizarre sense that it’s not that important. We leave it to Canadians to educate themselves on the history of the country, if they happen to feel motivated. It’s a lousy way to treat a country, especially our own country.

Here’s an idea: after putting Viola Desmond on the $10 bill, the Finance Department and Bank of Canada should pool their resources to fund a book containing biographies of the five final candidates, and others on the lengthy list of suggested honorees, to be followed by a collection of equally worthy males. It could prove quite effective if distributed to schools for students young enough not to realize it’s cool to be ignorant of Canada.