The past, tense
Nellie McClung, the accomplished first-wave feminist, once dismissed her detractors by saying, “Never retract, never explain, never apologize — get the thing done and let them howl!”
McClung was fearless, and her followers loved her for it. She also got results: McClung played a key role in the suffrage wars of the early 1900s, and was later a member of the “Famous Five” who won legal recognition of women as persons.
In 2004, an image of the Famous Five was included on the back of the fifty- dollar bill. Twelve years later, the Famous Five’s run ended, and the Bank of Canada began searching for an individual woman to feature on a banknote.
The Angus Reid Institute decided to poll the public, and McClung, at twenty-seven per cent, got the most votes.
Despite this, she didn’t even make the Bank of Canada’s short list. One suspects that this was in part due to her support of eugenics. Widely supported during McClung’s era, this policy is today universally denounced.
McClung’s fall from grace isn’t unique. Across Canada and around the world, former idols are being knocked off their pedestals.
Chief among them is the man they called “the Old Chieftain” — our first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. In recent months, statues of Macdonald have been vandalized and even removed from public view.
In this issue, we examine Macdonald’s complicated and controversial legacy. Our essayists, Frédéric Boily, Charlotte Gray, Lee Maracle, and Christopher Moore, weigh the prime minister’s accomplishments against his faults and decide whether he deserves our ire or admiration.
Elsewhere, Western University historian Alan MacEachern recalls a time when Canadians looked to bears, and not groundhogs, for their meteorological prognosticating; and Canada’s History’s staff writers offer a DIY guide to surviving early Canada.
As for Macdonald, he will undoubtedly remain a lightning rod of controversy for the foreseeable future. And commemorations will continue to be problematic, regardless of who is being honoured. If your history heroes have feet of clay, even the best-built statues will eventually crumble.
But perhaps this ongoing debate speaks to Canada’s growing cultural maturity. As a society, we’re moving beyond the practice of simply lionizing the past and those who lived there.
Shining a light on the darkest parts of our history is crucial if we hope to blaze a brighter trail into the future. But we must be cautious: Rushing to judgment without first weighing the context of past decisions isn’t the answer.
We need to ensure that the harsh glare of hindsight doesn’t blind us when assessing the difficult — and sometimes impossible — choices that led to the Canada of today.