Yet having shown about the same degree of interest in military heritage as Mr. Chrétien, Harper has been demonized not only by the media and the opposition in Parliament but by the historical “establishment.” Professional historians have been harsh, premature, and inaccurate in their judgments. One academic, Lyne Marks of the University of Victoria, appeared on Steve Paikin’s “The Agenda” program to say that Harper wants “to develop and enforce … one narrative of Canadian history that focuses on wars” (June 13). It is not clear who will “enforce” this narrative for Harper: perhaps the history police?
Two older and better-known historians, Ramsay Cook and Margaret Macmillan, told a CBC radio interviewer (June 16) that “the government’s real agenda is to re-write Canadian history from a more militaristic, capital-C Conservative perspective.” But does this mean that pari passu Mr. Chrétien’s “real agenda” was to “Liberalize” history? As John Geddes pointed out in Maclean’s (July 29), funding the new War Museum was a key step “in the historical direction now associated with the Tories” but which “actually began under the Liberals.”
Andrew Cash, a New Democrat MP, says Harper is “obsessed with re-framing history and re-branding it in the image of the Conservative party.” The Globe and Mail speculated that changing the name of the Museum of Civilization to the Museum of History is “a ploy to highlight Tory history.” Setting aside professors Marks and Cook for a moment, to what extent has Harper promoted “Conservative” history and how well it is going.
These quaint socialists don’t know it, but there has long been a “Tory interpretation,” one that has little to do with the military. Just as England had Whig history (the steady ascent and benignity of law and parliamentary institutions from the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to the reforms of the nineteenth century), Canada has its own Whiggish history. It is associated with the twentieth century Liberal Party. It is the doctrine that Canadians are the beneficiaries of a triumphal march from the shackles of British colonialism and the bitter French-English conflicts of the past towards maturity, independence, and national unity under a succession of Liberal prime ministers. And just as Whig history was challenged by British historian Herbert Butterfield, the Canadian myth was exposed by Donald Creighton, a Red Tory historian and the closest thing Canada has had to an exponent of Tory history. In contemptuous prose from the late 1950s until his death in 1979 Creighton mocked the hypocrisy, distortions, and vacuity of unlikely heroes such as Mackenzie King, Lester Pearson, and the civil service from whose ranks they came and whose position they entrenched as a regnant “new class” in Ottawa.
Liberals continue to tell this story, a recent example being Robert Bothwell’s 2007 Penguin History, of which reviewer Mark Proudman (Literary Review, Jul.-Aug. 2007) wrote: “[Bothwell’s] history is a variety of what some condemn as ‘Whig’ history: history with a happy, or at any rate an acceptable, ending,” meaning in this case “the survival of the Ottawa state … whose survival [Bothwell] equates with our survival.” In short, we should all be grateful for the “fiscally redistributive, multiculturalist and quasi-neutral Ottawa state” that is “primarily the creation of the Liberal Party” and than which nothing greater could be imagined.
As a Globe and Mail op-ed by Professor Emmett MacFarlane of the University of Waterloo pointed out: “Criticisms that the Harper government is ‘politicizing’ history may be accurate but are also meaningless. By emphasizing the Charter of Rights and peacekeeping, associated with former prime ministers Pierre Trudeau and Lester B. Pearson respectively, previous Liberal governments did precisely the same thing.”
The real controversy should not be that the Conservatives have been embellishing historical events with patriotic themes that do not necessarily enhance Left-Liberal ideas and heroes. It should be that the symbols appropriated by the Liberals have held sway for so long. Canadian history had political implications long before Harper came on the scene. As the blog “Canadian Cincinnatus” (Aug. 27) put it, if Harper has an agenda, it is “trying to undo the quiet Liberal rewrite of Canadian history” that has prevailed in the land in the first place.
It is not clear that “Harper’s history” has had much success. The 1812 “Fight for Canada” television commercial may have had some impact, suggesting that Canada’s independence is rooted in something other than the anti-British struggle fabricated by Liberals. The Conservatives talk (a bit) about Magna Carta and Parliament. But on the whole their efforts have been scattered and uncoordinated. Ministers and staff have shown some enthusiasm but little marksmanship. Cutting archeologists and archivists instead of bureaucrats is topsy-turvy. The government’s approach to museums, historic sites, and archives has been weak. In practice they have put these institutions in the hands of historically-untrained bureaucrats. At the archives, functionaries from unrelated fields such as Revenue have wrought untold damage, though this began in the Chrétien years.
Victor Rabinovitch, the former HRSDC and Heritage bureaucrat whom Chrétien appointed as CEO of the Museum of Civilization in 2000, has called the Tory policy “narrow and parochial.” But whom did the Conservatives appoint as the new CEO in 2011? None other than Mark O’Neill, Rabinovitch’s executive assistant in the bureaucracy in the 1990s and his protégé until he retired. If there is a partisan agenda, museum and archive appointments seem to be exempt.
Tory history was a rearguard action and Creighton has had no successor. W.L. Morton, the dean of Western historians, gave Canada an alternative narrative that emphasized the role of regions, Western and Northern identities. But Morton died in 1980 and left no heir. The Calgary school includes historians Tom Flanagan and David Bercuson, though the latter’s 1995 biography of Pearson-era cabinet minister Brooke Claxton, entitled True Patriot, is incense on the Liberal altar and belongs to the Liberal-whig school. In Quebec, historians of the centre-right “new historical sensibility” are challenging received myths.
But no English Canadian historian has produced a conservative overview since Creighton’s. Only recently has Bob Plamondon given us The Truth About Trudeau (see p. 34 of the current Autumn/Winter issue) to begin to expose the policy record. Conrad Black’s next book is said to be a learned and entertaining epic of Canada from the founding of New France to recent times. It can be expected to offer insights and flourishes which will be perceived as “conservative” — a good start as many will buy and read it.
As for the imposition of “Tory history” by the Harper government since 2006, what is the evidence? Most often cited is the government’s decision to emphasize the War of 1812 bicentennial, together with speculation about what may be done with next year’s anniversaries of the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 coupled with D-Day in 1944. Secondly there was the somewhat clumsy announcement in May that a House of Commons committee will study how well history is being taught at school. Thirdly, there has been fevered, ritualistic speculation about what may or may not appear in new exhibits when the Canadian Museum of History unveils them in 2017. Lastly there is the supposed “new historical narrative” in the Discover Canada citizenship study guide which was published by former immigration minister Jason Kenney’s ministry in 2009 and has now reached at least one million readers. But this is far from being a “new” narrative, as will be illustrated below.
Adumbrating all of these “concerns” is the patronizing claim that the Harper government does not “understand” what history is about, or is for, or how it “should” be done.
Poor Professor Cook. Had he done any research before going on air he might have learned that the federal government in fact marked the bicentennial of the Red River Selkirk Settlement to the tune of a half-million dollars (press release, Sept. 13, 2012). Likewise, speaking of the First World War, the federal agency Telefilm Canada provided $3.5 million towards production of the 2008 movie, “Passchendaele.” (It was dreadful but earned $4.4 million at the box office.)
The CBC’s intrepid host did not challenge Cook on these bloopers (of which Mr. Enright was likely also unaware; presumably CBC staff do not fact-check). But to his credit he did raise one objection to Ramsay’s tirade. The historian avowed that he didn’t approve of the Conservative government’s getting involved in historical narratives and “civics” lessons because “they think they have the answers already” while it is the noble calling of trained historians to “ask questions.” The Conservatives have “an agenda,” while Ramsay Cook asks questions.
Cook was among a handful of critics of the Discover Canada citizenship guide, which was widely endorsed across the political spectrum for its sweep, subtlety, and inclusiveness: André Pratte, a Liberal standard-bearer at La Presse, said: “the government and the historians consulted have done fine work.” Lysiane Gagnon at the Globe and Mail called it “a well-done guide” due to “the respect shown towards Quebec, whose history and uniqueness are well portrayed” and “the respect shown to the history of the three founding peoples.” Raymond Giroux at Le Soleil said, “La ‘nation québécoise’ y est bien présente.” Andrew Cohen said the book “deserves warm applause.” The Globe’s editors called it “a welcome move that places a new and appropriate emphasis on Canada’s history and personalities.”
Few of the tiny number of detractors in 2009 offered accurate criticisms, suggesting that they had not read it before making pronouncements. Cook’s complaint, however, was that governments shouldn’t involve themselves in deciding which historical events to include because “history is not a civics lesson.”
Thus caught, Prof. Cook admitted that writing a historical narrative can be “a messy business.” Any historical narrative is “a representation,” a “selection” and “interpretation” of the facts. In writing the Ontario social studies curriculum, one had had to include certain “obvious things” like Confederation and the wars in which Canadians had fought.
Then Cook pronounced a significant line: “So of course governments involve themselves in those kinds of things.” Uh huh. Enright did not press Cook to explain exactly why it was acceptable for the Ontario government and Ramsay Cook to “involve themselves” but not the Harper government and its panel of historians and advisors — or why it was acceptable for Cook and the provincial government to proffer “answers” but not for the federal immigration ministry to do so.
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Griffith’s sequence of events is not strictly accurate. I was a member of the Minister’s Office at the time and can attest that this is not what happened. Ours was an exceptionally hands-on office but the bureaucrats (or one of their friends on contract) did write the first draft, albeit an abysmal one. That story may perhaps be documented another day. Griffith was on leave for health reasons during much of the process. This will not prevent his book from being used as a case study in university seminars, as it deserves to be.
Griffith refers to the “new national narrative” which he says conflicted with his preconceived view. He calls himself a small-l liberal though a number of senior bureaucrats are big-L politicos who made themselves permanent prior to the 2006 Accountability Act. (See note 1 at the end of this article. Some of them are quite aflutter about Justin Trudeau’s assumption of the Liberal helm, constituting what Creighton once called an “unofficial but powerful arm of the Liberal Party.”) But is the “new” narrative really so new? The left-wing historian Margaret Conrad read the guide as a return to the 1950s. They can’t have it both ways.
In fact the so-called “new” narrative was well within the Canadian mainstream. It included exploration, the fur trade, the Quebec Act of 1774, slavery and its abolition, representative and responsible government, Confederation, the world wars and Korea, and so on. Discover Canada may have highlighted the wars (in which nearly two million Canadians served) and downplayed peacekeeping — but after all Canadians have themselves downplayed peacekeeping since the 1990s. The Chrétien government committed the armed forces to the Afghan war in 2001, five years before Mr. Harper came to power and nine years before the citizenship guide was revised.
Moreover, a comparison published in the American Review of Canadian Studies, a reputable journal, found that the citizenship guides published under Pearson and Trudeau contained historical content very similar to what was published by Mr. Kenney. Adam Chapnick, a historian who is not uncritical of Harper on a range of policy issues, took the trouble of comparing them, and found that it was only under Mulroney and Chrétien that citizenship materials were denuded of history.
If Harper could be accused of anything, then, it was restoring the historical narratives presented in the Pearson and Trudeau years. It would be more accurate to say that Discover Canada echoed the series presented by former British Conservative MP Michael Portillo on BBC Radio, “The Things We Forgot to Remember,” putting back information that had previously been excluded.
They are also frequently careless. Professor Lyne Marks told Steve Paikin, on Global TV, that the Conservatives were seeking to suppress “negative aspects” of Canadian history such as the internment of Ukrainian and Japanese Canadians during the world wars. Conservatives are in denial about these actions of previous governments, according to Marks, and do not want Canadians to learn about them.
“My sense is that these are stories that the Harper government does not want to focus on,” said Marks, adding in the Victoria Times-Colonist (May 8): “Most would agree that some chapters in our past are far from positive. Students also need to know about them. If they don’t know about the head tax on Chinese immigrants, the turning away of desperate Jewish immigrants in the 1930s, the internment of Japanese Canadians and the shameful history of residential schools, how will they become informed citizens?”
Marks is preposterously off-base. The Conservatives have poured several years and millions of dollars into their Community Historical Recognition Program, publicizing and memorializing the internment of Ukrainian-Canadians, the Chinese head tax payers, the Jews aboard MS St. Louis, the treatment of the Canadian Japanese, and other efforts to exorcise the memory of historic discrimination. Chinese head tax payers or their surviving spouse were paid $20,000 each for a total of $15.7 million in compensation.
Dominique Marshall, president of the Canadian Historical Association, made the same blunder. “It’s very important to examine those aspects of our history that might be considered more difficult … mistakes that were made” (CP, Oct. 16). But in fact, among the events featured prominently in Discover Canada from its inception were Indian residential schools (p. 10), the turning away of Jewish refugees (p. 15), the Chinese head tax (p. 20), the internment of Ukrainian Canadians (p. 21), and the maltreatment of Canadian Japanese (p. 23). Professors Marshall and Marks, please ask yourself a few questions before talking to the media.
In reality, it is the Liberals who constructed a great man history based on contrived crises presided over by King, Pearson, and the functionaries celebrated in Jack Granatstein’s books published in the 1980s — “great” Liberals who struggled against the Tory Imperialists for Canada’s independence (in their fictional world). They even portrayed King as a brilliant warlord! — holding the country together by his cunning when conscription threatened to tear it apart — in popular books like Rating Canada’s Prime Ministers by Granatstein and Norman Hillmer and Fights of Our Lives by John Duffy.
Mark Proudman, writing online for H-Net, saw a “Tory” interpretation in Granatstein’s 2004 book, Who Killed the Canadian Military? It was, Proudman wrote, is “a story of decline” because “where there was once a happy ending, we now have betrayal and abandonment.” This evokes the declinism of George Grant (d. 1988), Creighton in The Forked Road and Canada’s First Century (reissued in 2012 by Oxford University Press), lesser-known writings by Scott Symons (d. 2009), and essays by the Anglo-Quebecer John Farthing (d. 1954) collected by Judith Robinson (d. 1961) in the book, Freedom Wears a Crown (1957).
But there is a twist: Tory history has also been about recovery. The Anglo-American journalist Peter Brimelow, a self-described “wandering WASP,” predicted in The Patriot Game (1986), that English Canada, beaten down by decades of Liberalism, Trudeauism, Official Bilingualism, and what Brimelow saw as reverse colonization by francophone étatisme and dirigisme, would one day “rediscover” its glorious past and regain its old confidence.
Crowley assembled a battery of quotations from old school Liberals, beginning with Laurier himself, to demonstrate that the “true” Canadian tradition is not welfarism and the ever-expanding state but the “dignity and freedom of the individual person.” As he told an annual meeting of conservative intellectuals (the paper is published online), the challenge for Conservatives is “to reclaim our forgotten political tradition of a deep commitment to individual liberty, limited government, self-reliance and personal accountability,” the “true roots” which even Liberals once defended. (Notably Mr. Harper told a similar audience that patriotism in most countries is associated with the right-of-centre party and that Canada’s Conservatives need to recapture the patriotic ground seized by the Left in their long march through the institutions.)
Crowley’s heresy was to expose the un-Canadian folly of post-1960s Liberalism and the frankenstein’s monster it unleashed. Repealing the social policy mistakes of the 1960s would not be to turn the clock back, he implied, but to learn from our mistakes, rein in excesses, and remove various injustices inflicted on society and held in place by inertia and entrenched interests. Contrary to Liberal whigs, Canada was not coterminous with their established Ottawa state.
Far from being “a story of decline,” the Tory interpretation in Brimelow and Crowley is one of restoration and recovery. This is why Scott Stirring in Policy Options (Feb. 2013) is mistaken in criticizing the restoration of the “Royal” title of the navy and air force, which were suppressed in 1968 and restored in 2011: “Behind this attempt to return to conservative military traditions,” wrote Stirring, “there is very little that can be described as genuinely ‘conservative.’ The aim of the Harper government is not so much to conserve Canada’s existing traditions [as] to leapfrog backwards in time in hope of resurrecting long-vanished ones.”
It is possible to conserve what is in danger of being lost through ignorance and folly but before it has been altogether lost. The motivation is recovery, restorative history, and the escape from banality. Does this mean that Harper will “restore” the old flag that preceded the maple leaf of 1965? Not a chance. But some day a future government will give some sort of junior status to the Red Ensign, which served as the distinctive Canadian flag for 100 years. Chrétien flew Red Ensigns on VE-Day in 1995. It is bizarre, by international standards, that the old Canadian flag does not hang anywhere in Parliament, at the National War Memorial, or on the grounds of the War Museum.
These matters are perplexing for self-declared progressives because they regard history as a one-way street from which only left turns are permitted. In the hope that we will never find our way home they have crossed out the old street names and printed “Progress” on them in red letters. Sorry, they say, the old signs are “long-vanished.” Whatever we decided to do a few decades ago (e.g. suppressing the “Royal” titles of the armed services) and whatever we impose on you in future must forever remain, even if it was a blunder, and even if we have undermined a generation’s understanding of “the past” because our history is really anti-history.
Notes
1. One blatant example is Nicole Bourget, former Liberal Minister Art Eggleton’s communications assistant who was entrenched permanently as an Assistant Deputy Minister at Canadian Heritage before the Tories were elected. Despite having little background in ceremonial, protocol, or history & heritage, she is in charge of ceremonial, protocol, Canada Day, and history and heritage files. Nothing has been done since 2006 to better align her power and oversight authority with her actual competencies.
C.P. Champion has a Ph.D. from McGill and an M.Phil. from Cambridge. He advised the Canadian government on citizenship policy from 2008 until this summer, and in 2009 oversaw production of the Discover Canada citizenship test study guide. His book, The Strange Demise of British Canada: The Liberals and Canadian Nationalism, 1964-1968, was published in 2010 by MQUP. He has taught at McGill, Concordia, and the University of Ottawa.