THE MIDDLE GROUND ON A CONTROVERSIAL ISSUE
Macdonald statue debate shows history is not carved in stone, writes Randy Boswell.
There’s been a lot of polarizing talk in reaction to Victoria city council’s recent decision to remove a statue of Sir John A. Macdonald from the high-profile place it has commanded in front of city hall since 1982.
The sculptor himself, Montreal artist John Dann, has remarked with regret that “everyone has dug in their heels and taken a position and vilified the so-called opposition.”
But there’s a middle ground on this controversial issue that remains largely unoccupied. That’s where I stand, an avowed admirer of Sir John A. as well as a supporter of the statue’s relocation. It’s a comfortable spot. Come on over. Most critics of Victoria’s move have condemned it as “erasing history.”
“We should not allow political correctness to erase our history,” tweeted federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer. In just a few words, he unfairly dismissed Victoria council’s carefully considered decision as kneejerk conformism, falsely suggested we are on a slippery slope to forgetting Macdonald, and showcased his unawareness that “our history” — a fraught notion at the best of times, especially for Indigenous Canadians but for other groups, as well — might in this instance be taken to refer to what his predecessor, Stephen Harper, once termed “old-stock Canadians.”
Then came the grandstanding Ontario Tourism Minister Sylvia Jones, offering to give Victoria’s statue “a new home” in Toronto, and her Progressive Conservative colleague Goldie Ghamari, who blasted Victoria council’s alleged determination “to erase parts of our history.”
Then Brian Lee Crowley of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute enlisted his troops (i.e. donors) in the fight against the “meanspirited” actions of Victoria councillors. “Will you commit $100 right now — or whatever you can afford — to help us defend Sir John A. Macdonald and his unparalleled contributions to Canada?” Crowley pleaded in a recent fundraising pitch, boldly headlined “We Must Stand Up For John A. Macdonald.”
Critics have noted that Sen. Murray Sinclair, an Indigenous Manitoban who chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, has counselled against the tearing down of statues. True, but that doesn’t acknowledge a few realities: that there may be reasonable exceptions to Sinclair’s general rule, and that the much respected senator does not speak for all Indigenous Canadians all of the time.
Relocating the B.C. capital’s bronze Macdonald does not in any way blot out the sweeping, 200-year narrative of Sir John A.’s remarkable life, leadership and legacy in creating modern Canada — an undisputed set of facts, in my view. The removal or relocation of a single statue — or, in fact, the removal or renaming of many more of the hundreds of statues, buildings and boulevards dedicated to Macdonald across Canada — could not possibly erase his indelible imprint on Canadian history.
He bridged French and English, Catholic and Protestant. He saved us from the States. He forged Confederation’s future. He didn’t do these things alone, but he led the doing.
The current controversy does remind us that there were some dark chapters in Macdonald’s epic story, with titles such as Pacific Scandal, The Hanging of Louis Riel, The Rise of Residential Schools, and In Praise of “The Aryan Character of British America” (that last one based on an 1885 quote from Macdonald expressing opposition to voting rights for Chinese-Canadians).
But the most relevant history in this case is the 36-year-old story of a commemorative artwork that was placed just a few metres from the entrance to Victoria’s municipal headquarters at the behest of some John A. Macdonald enthusiasts wishing to honour their hero. If moving the statue championed by the B.C.-based Sir John A. Macdonald Historical Society is “erasing history,” then so be it.
Not everyone gets to erect monuments to their favourite figures from history and have them last for all eternity.
If a city council in 1982 can approve the placement of a statue, a city council in 2018 can vote to remove it.
By all accounts, Victoria’s councillors responded thoughtfully and deliberately to a request from the city’s reconciliation committee to rethink the in-your-face location of the Macdonald statue that was unavoidably encountered by every citizen — including Indigenous and Chinese-Canadian people — heading into city hall.
“This is not about erasing history at all,” Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps has insisted. “We’re talking about history. The conversation this week has been about history, it’s actually amplifying history.”
It’s worth noting that the same society that donated the statue to the City of Victoria also financed the reprinting of Donald Creighton’s two-volume biography of Macdonald and its distribution to B.C. schoolchildren — in 1998, long after historians had begun acknowledging the understandable limitations of Creighton’s depiction of Macdonald from a 1950s vantage point.
There’s erasing history, and then there’s entrenching it. The book gift to B.C. students probably seemed like a noble cause at the time, but 20 years later we know better. We’ve learned more about Macdonald, listened to a much greater diversity of voices — scholars and other groups — and come to a more balanced and sensible view of our national patriarch.
We’ve reconfigured Macdonald’s place in our minds. Why shouldn’t Victoria reconfigure his place in their city?
Understand that I’m a fan of Sir John A. Macdonald (and of Creighton and historical societies, too.)
A few years ago, I travelled to Glasgow for events marking John A.’s 200th birthday, in part to raise awareness that his possible birthplace was still standing, but in the shadow of a wrecking ball.
I recently (and a bit angrily) spoke out publicly to condemn Canadian officials for failing to document the site or recover parts of that building before its demolition last fall.
Still, I can live with fewer statues and streets venerating Macdonald. If certain communities in certain circumstances — after thoughtful deliberation, following due process — choose to update their collective memory-scape, to shed certain tributes and add some fresh faces to the pantheon, I’m good with that.
History doesn’t have to be set in stone.
Not everyone gets to erect monuments to their favourite figures from history and have them last for all eternity. If a city council in 1982 can approve the placement of a statue, a city council in 2018 can vote to remove it. Randy Boswell
He forged Confederation’s future. He didn’t do these things alone, but he led the doing.