The founding, and our key founding father, play a crucial role in shaping our national soul. This is why the narratives around them have to be aspirational, contra their iconoclastic detractors.
Excellent piece! I have greatly enjoyed both MLI's Confederation series, and more recently Conrad Black's History of Canada. Both gave a much fuller sense of the goings on during the mid-19th century. A serious role likely exists here for better instruction and education on these topics in high school, coupled with required follow on courses in college/uni.
But schooling can't be the only answer to better knowledge of, and crucially belief in, Canada's foundation and principles. That's the sort of thing that takes cultivation and multi-year growing which no institution alone is really set up to provide. I wonder if its just more widespread and grass roots level education and discussion a la the 1867 and all that podcast and others...
Yes, I agree entirely on the insufficiency of it just being about a few classes in schools, we need to find ways to instil and build a broader civic culture. We do of course have historical societies in existence, and a historical review like the DR, but I still wonder what else we could do, and I have often wondered whether we need some sort of "1867 project" that could do some public and civic education at a widespread level, beyond schools. I admit I have no clear ideas how you could do this though, it's something I would love to hear from other people about if they have ideas.
While I am partial to your argument, I am unconvinced that simply defending the figure of Macdonald is enough. As you say, Canadians' knowledge of their own history is insufficient. To that end, surely there must be another figure among the fathers of confederation that we can elevate for the same purpose of defending an aspirational founding without needing to engage in futile culture war debates. Why keep all our eggs in one basket?
This is a fair point, though this isn't quite my argument and the danger of abandoning Macdonald as if it is a "futile culture war debate" is exactly the kind of attitude I am pushing back against. Macdonald wasn't just a father of Confederation he was the key figure, and abandoning him is ceding the narrative over one of the central figures in our history, if there's one hill to take a stand on it's this one. But you are correct that we shouldn't just focus on Macdonald, and I have had plenty of discussions about this privately with other people, while Canadians don't know much about Macdonald at least they've heard of him, but how many could name a single other important founding father? The Confederation Project I linked to in the piece (which I played a small role in helping to put together) has some excellent essays on some other key figures (Brown, Cartier, Galt, Tilley, Tupper, D'arcy-McGee) and yet they are practically forgotten figures now which is absolutely something that needs to be prioritized beyond just Macdonald. Fun story, when I lived in Montreal (now live in Ottawa) I used to attend Mass at St Patrick's Basilica, where McGee attended, and they have a pew marked that was McGees pew. I used to like sitting in it just because you had a little connection to history doing so, and never once did someone else want it or tourists come by to look at it. This is a problem. I'm going to do more stuff on other founding fathers at some point, and highlight essays as they come my way on them.
Excellent piece! I have greatly enjoyed both MLI's Confederation series, and more recently Conrad Black's History of Canada. Both gave a much fuller sense of the goings on during the mid-19th century. A serious role likely exists here for better instruction and education on these topics in high school, coupled with required follow on courses in college/uni.
But schooling can't be the only answer to better knowledge of, and crucially belief in, Canada's foundation and principles. That's the sort of thing that takes cultivation and multi-year growing which no institution alone is really set up to provide. I wonder if its just more widespread and grass roots level education and discussion a la the 1867 and all that podcast and others...
Yes, I agree entirely on the insufficiency of it just being about a few classes in schools, we need to find ways to instil and build a broader civic culture. We do of course have historical societies in existence, and a historical review like the DR, but I still wonder what else we could do, and I have often wondered whether we need some sort of "1867 project" that could do some public and civic education at a widespread level, beyond schools. I admit I have no clear ideas how you could do this though, it's something I would love to hear from other people about if they have ideas.
While I am partial to your argument, I am unconvinced that simply defending the figure of Macdonald is enough. As you say, Canadians' knowledge of their own history is insufficient. To that end, surely there must be another figure among the fathers of confederation that we can elevate for the same purpose of defending an aspirational founding without needing to engage in futile culture war debates. Why keep all our eggs in one basket?
This is a fair point, though this isn't quite my argument and the danger of abandoning Macdonald as if it is a "futile culture war debate" is exactly the kind of attitude I am pushing back against. Macdonald wasn't just a father of Confederation he was the key figure, and abandoning him is ceding the narrative over one of the central figures in our history, if there's one hill to take a stand on it's this one. But you are correct that we shouldn't just focus on Macdonald, and I have had plenty of discussions about this privately with other people, while Canadians don't know much about Macdonald at least they've heard of him, but how many could name a single other important founding father? The Confederation Project I linked to in the piece (which I played a small role in helping to put together) has some excellent essays on some other key figures (Brown, Cartier, Galt, Tilley, Tupper, D'arcy-McGee) and yet they are practically forgotten figures now which is absolutely something that needs to be prioritized beyond just Macdonald. Fun story, when I lived in Montreal (now live in Ottawa) I used to attend Mass at St Patrick's Basilica, where McGee attended, and they have a pew marked that was McGees pew. I used to like sitting in it just because you had a little connection to history doing so, and never once did someone else want it or tourists come by to look at it. This is a problem. I'm going to do more stuff on other founding fathers at some point, and highlight essays as they come my way on them.