LETTER

Canada's 150th

 

In this, the year that marks Canada’s sesquicentennial, it may be time that we look to the possibility of truly celebrating all of Canada’s history and not just celebrating the landmarks of our European origins.

Most Canadians get just a glimpse of their history from their high-school history books and they tell the story of a nation that was forged in the battles between the English and the French, two competing world powers locked in a struggle to claim dominance in North America for much of the 17th and 18th centuries. Then the story goes on to tell of how that cultural struggle played out through much more strife, including the Upper and Lower Canadian Rebellions leading up to Confederation. Finally, this tableau of warring cultures includes the modern era events of the passing of the Official Languages Act, the Quebec Charter of the French Language, the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords and the two Quebec referendums.

There can be little doubt that the singular focus on the nature of this war going on through the centuries in Canada’s heart has done much damage to the Canadian psyche. So much so in fact, that Canadians shy away from speaking much about their history for fear of awakening the spectre of what McLennan dubbed the Two Solitudes.

But Canada has so many more dimensions to its rich cultural history than this narrow, two-dimensional view; the full history is so much richer than that. Canada’s history shows that neither the French nor the English would ever have survived in Canada without the support of First Nations. The history also shows that most of Canada would never have been built without contributions from myriad other people who arrived with a belief in its potential.

During negotiations with Premiers for repatriation of the BNA Act, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau proposed a preamble for what would become the Constitution Act, 1982. However, due to the nature of negotiations, that preamble did not make the final draft. Trudeau championed the preamble because he strongly believed that the country needed to have enshrined in the Act, a complete and reconciled statement of its cultural history. He understood that cultural nationalism is anathema to building any kind of democratic and pluralist nation-state. He knew that Canada had yet to put its own expressions of cultural nationalism behind it. Perhaps though, in 1982, Canadians were not yet finished writing that story of the two solitudes, but perhaps today we are now ready to write the rest.

The Preamble reads as follows:
“We, the people of Canada, proudly proclaim that we are and shall always be, with the help of God, a free and self-governing people.

“Born of the meeting of the French and English presence on North American soil which had long been the home of our native peoples, and enriched by the contribution of millions of people from the four corners of the earth, we have chosen to create a life together which transcends the differences of blood relationships, language and religion, and willingly accept the experience of sharing our wealth and cultures, while respecting our diversity.”

Isn’t it time for all Canadians to be able to celebrate the full fabric that makes up the cultural weave of our history, a Canada that we all recognize and call home? Isn’t it time to finally enshrine the preamble to the Constitution in this, our 150th birthday celebration?

I say we give ourselves a 150th birthday present by finally getting this done, for ourselves and for all Canadians who were ever here and all who are yet to be.

Rick Henderson
Author of Walking in the Footsteps of Philemon Wright
Past-VP of the Quebec Community Groups Network
Past-President of the Regional Association of West Quebecers

Aylmer