We should debate past, not rewrite it
WE NEED TO PAY MORE ATTENTION to Canadian history and to the institutions that convey it
The manner in which Canada’s wars are being interpreted by the federal government is creating its own set of wars — and this is as it should be. History — the way the past is written — should be debated.
Some feel that a focus on past wars will revive interest in our history, while others believe that peacetime events are more appropriate to talk about. Both approaches have their merits.
It is false to claim that the past is mostly about war or mostly about peace. We cannot divide our past neatly into war and peace. Wars shape the peace that follows. For instance, the War of 1812 saw the world’s first use of a steamboat in war. The Swiftsure carried soldiers, supplies, information and prisoners between Quebec City and Montreal efficiently and cheaply. The success of steam power caused the British to finance the Lachine, Rideau and other canals in order to defend Canada after the war. These infrastructure projects drew in thousands of immigrants and cleared vast new areas of Lower and Upper Canada (present-day Que- bec and Ontario) for settlement. Another impact of the same war: the British army’s success in financing it with paper money led directly to the creation of Canada’s first bank, the Bank of Montreal, in 1817.
The U.S. Civil War threatened British North America with invasion. This threat led to Confederation and a transcontinental railway that settled Western Canada in the latter part of the 19th century. Canada was also altered rad- ically by the First and Second World Wars. As with every nation, Canada was forged by both war and peace.
There are history wars being fought today on the provincial battleground. Quebec’s Parti Québécois government has declared its intention to change the history taught in schools, CEGEPs and universities.
PQ governments do not just promise a brand new future for Quebec; they also promise a brand new past. The PQ rejects a Canadian future and the reality of a Canadian past. For instance, Quebec’s officially approved history textbooks in both French and English say that Pierre Laporte was found dead in a car — rather than that he was murdered by the Front de Libération du Québec terrorist organization. The official
Canada needs a much wider and deeper series of debates about our history.
textbooks and history examinations contain many other errors and distortions.
Canada and Switzerland are the only two countries in the world with no national ministry of education. We have never had a common history textbook.
There is no co-ordination among the provinces on the teaching of history, and there is no national attempt to monitor the history taught in schools.
Nobody calls the provinces to account for the absence of Canadian history in school instruction, or for distortion of our past.
Like most western nations, we do not put much emphasis on history, let alone a common national history.
Canada needs a much wider and deeper series of debates about our history and the institutions responsible for transmitting that history.