Thoughts on BC Politics and More

Late last year The Hub was proud to publish a series of essays and podcast episodes that marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of Canadian historian Jack Granatstein’s best-selling book, Who Killed Canadian History?. These commentaries, which brought together the different perspectives of an academic historian, a young Ph.D. student, a high school teacher, a popular historian, and even Granatstein himself, were generally sympathetic to the book’s thesis that the growing insularity and parochialism of academic historians and a broader retreat from a popularized history of the country represent negative developments that in the ensuing quarter century have contributed to Canada’s attenuation, complacency, and lack of common purpose. The series somewhat unexpectedly drew the attention and ire of academic historians invested in an anti-Granatsteinian conception of history and its aims and methods. There were claims that the articles were “misinformation”, “one-sided”, “bad faith,” and “truly...

I studied history at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay in the early 2000s. It was a small yet pretty impressive department that outperformed its size in research grants, publications, and instruction quality. Specialized scholars like Bruce Muirhead and Ron Harpelle were leaders in their fields. Old-school professors like Victor Smith and Peter Raffo were fountains of knowledge and compelling lecturers.  Perhaps due to its small size, geographical isolation, and the disparate and eclectic interests of the faculty, it wasn’t a polarized place. One would have found the usual Left-Right debates in seminars about Pierre Trudeau or Margaret Thatcher or whatever. But otherwise, the so-called “History Wars” of the 1990s never quite reached Thunder Bay.  I had barely heard of them when I arrived at Carleton University in fall 2005 to start my master’s degree. It soon became clear, however, that its history department was on the front lines of an unfolding intellectual ...

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 no...

Political correctness in Victoria strikes again … This time they’re renaming the historic Ogden Point … erasing the memory of a man, Peter Ogden, who was one of this country’s most iconic fur traders and explorers.   And for what? An admittedly checkered past?   The guy was born in 1794 -- a fur trader in the wild west.  Who did you expect?   Mother Teresa? And another thing … this purely superficial change will cost taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars. We’re literally paying to erase our own history. If anything, we should be doing the exact opposite; using Ogden Point to tell the story of our past … the good and the bad. That’s the only way to truly learn from our mistakes; that’s the only way to measure how far we’ve come. It’s time for our politicians to realize that the history of Victoria, this province, and this country, don’t belong to them … it belongs to the people who live here. So inst...

Political correctness has reached Canada’s currency. Once again, it’s at the expense of our first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. A man who united us, built this country and delivered on the audacious promise of a national railway. A man who’s now been kicked off the face of the $10 bill for an individual who, while noble and courageous, is a comparative footnote in Canadian history. It continues a trend in this country, where our politicians and institutions attempt to re-write our history and erase our past. Where historic events are re-told void of context, and with little regard for the truth. H e is the single most important figure in Canadian history. Without him, this country, its traditions, its history, even our currency wouldn’t even exist