Do not sanitize history!

Dear Friends: "Let's get things back into perspective here!"

I got this in the mail today:

Allan:

I read with consternation the article concerning the Ontario elementary school teachers’ demand that the name John A. Macdonald be removed from school buildings. 

The rationale for the teachers’ demand is disquieting. They posit that Canada’s first prime minister sponsored legislation punitive to Indigenous populations. In matters of social history, it is essential that events, social realities and government initiatives be considered in the context of their time. I echo Brian Porter’s sadness and his observation that the teachers’ demand leans toward their lack of familiarity with Canadian history. If the teachers’ demand is accepted, what happens next? Following are a few historical examples.

In 1536, Jacques Cartier kidnapped 10 St. Lawrence Iroquoian and took them to France to use as leverage to secure funding for more exploration of the St. Lawrence River Region. Cartier did not return to the region until 1541. All of the kidnapped people died in France except a small girl whose ultimate fate is unknown. There would be much work to be done removing Cartier’s name from buildings, highways and schools.

In 1609, Samuel de Champlain allied himself with the Wendat (Huron), Algonquin, Montagnais and Malecite against the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy. The French alliance was the beginning of the Beaver Wars which, among other social disasters, resulted in the Great Pursuit and Dispersal of the Huron from southern Ontario and extinction of Ontario Indigenous tribes such as the Wenro, Neutral and Petun. There would be much work to be done removing Champlain’s name from buildings, schools and bridges.

Louis de Buade de Frontenac, Governor of New France, built Fort Frontenac, present-day Kingston. Aside from planning and leading punishing invasions of Iroquois ancestral lands and his refusal to obey his sovereign’s proclamation to stop trading alcohol to Indigenous trappers, Frontenac successfully petitioned the French Monarchy to import African slaves from the West Indies to address scarce labour resources. It would be much work to remove Frontenac’s name from schools, buildings, historical places and municipalities.

Our Canadian history is an amazing story of great events, many tragic. Our Canadian history should not be sanitized to be made acceptable for teachers to teach. This will be a disservice. We don’t have to appreciate all our history, or any of it. But to erase history by hiding the things that offend is not acceptable. What meaningful learning does that allow?

Our historical leaders were tough, pragmatic visionaries. This includes Indigenous people who struggled to come to terms with the overwhelming and unstoppable flood of European settlement on their ancestral lands.

In the historical sense, Canadians have always done what needed to be done at the time and in the context of their reality. It is best that young Canadians learn how this great country became the Canada we have today. A sanitized version of history satisfying educators is not education. We need to know about the events that shaped the cultural and political landscape of Canada today.

If we do not know where we have been, it is difficult to know where we are going.

Mike Hart, Brockville