I distinctly remember the publication of Jack Granatstein’s Who Killed Canadian History? in 1998. At the time, I lived abroad teaching history at The International School of Panama, but Canada was still then—and remains—the” inspiration of my life,” as Wilfrid Laurier put it.
I was so moved by the book that I wrote a letter to Jack to tell him I was going to be a part of the fight to preserve and promote the teaching of Canadian history. He wrote back: “Mr. Stewart: Thanks for your kind letter. It’s good to know some teachers still think our history matters—many do not. But why on earth are you in Panama? Come home where you’re needed.”
I returned and spent the next 25 years teaching
Canadian history and kept the note pinned to my desk bulletin board.
Granatstein’s book has never been too far from my mind. At its heart, Who Killed Canadian HIstory?
is a lament for a country that has turned its back on itself. A country
that for no good reason decided that its past was not worth the effort
to understand. “It is not that we do not have such a history,” he wrote.
“It is simply that we have chosen not to remember it" ...
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