Given the atrocities this country has been forced to confront over the past month, Canada Day — normally a moment for celebration — was always going to be difficult to frame this year.
But in recent comments, Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole seems to be angling for a political fight over the national holiday.
“As someone who served Canada and will soon ask for the trust to lead this country, I can’t stay silent when people want to cancel Canada Day,” O’Toole said in a televised address to Conservative MPs last week. “I’m very proud to be Canadian. And I know most people are as well.”
Canada Day has not been cancelled, nor has there been any serious public discussion about doing so. While the hashtag #CancelCanadaDay has trended a few times on Twitter, the national holiday does not seem to be in imminent danger of being called off.
What has happened is that several municipalities have opted to drop their usual celebrations.
Most Canadians probably understand that this Canada Day requires something more nuanced than in years past.
But O’Toole seems to want to speak to an audience uncomfortable with the current discourse about Canada’s failings — and to use the occasion to assert his own patriotism and question the patriotism of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Erin O’Toole, leader of the Official Opposition, says he’s troubled by calls to cancel Canada Day celebrations. He says the voices of the few threaten to tear the country apart rather than bring it together. 0:57
In his remarks last Wednesday, O’Toole said the discovery in Kamloops was a “necessary awakening” for the country that “brutally forced us to confront our past … and to recommit ourselves to reconciliation.”
O’Toole said that Canadians should acknowledge “where we fall short” and “not forget or cover it up.” He also said we should “channel the pain of Canada falling short to build up the country and not tear it down.”
The phrase “falling short” may not do justice to the incredible tragedies confronting us right now. And the choice between “tearing down” and “building up” may be a false one. Sometimes things — buildings, laws, systems, ideas — have to be torn down so that something better can be built in their place.
Cue the culture war
It’s possible the people with negative feelings about this country agree with those who have more positive feelings when it comes to what Canada should be: equitable, inclusive, just, generous. They might simply disagree on how much Canada deserves to believe it has lived up to those ideals.
But in setting himself in opposition to those who would “cancel” Canada Day, O’Toole is calling back to the culture warrior he presented to Conservatives when he ran for the party leadership in 2019. Back then, he was very concerned about “cancel culture” and the “radical left” and very opposed to anyone who would tear down a statue of John A. Macdonald.
But cries of “cancel culture” tend to obscure real questions about individual actions and accountability. Reducing this moment to a culture war over Canada Day would evade legitimate questions regarding how Canadians should feel about their country, and how governments should reflect and frame those feelings.
Patriot games
“There is a difference between acknowledging where we’ve fallen short, there is a difference between legitimate criticism and always tearing down the country,” O’Toole said Wednesday. “Always being on the side of those who run Canada down. Always seeing the bad and never the good.”
So who is lining up with those who always “run Canada down”? On Wednesday, O’Toole didn’t say. But in an interview with Global’s The West Block on Sunday, the Conservative leader claimed that Trudeau and some cabinet ministers “almost want to cancel Canada Day because we failed in the past.” He also suggested he might be the only national leader who is “proud of our country and wants it to do better.”
Questioning another leader’s pride in the country is an astonishing attack — just as it was when Paul Martin’s Liberals questioned Stephen Harper’s patriotism in 2006 (Conservatives might remember how well that worked out for Martin).
But O’Toole is also not the first Conservative leader in the last six years to lament that the popular view of Canada’s history is getting too negative. Four years ago, Andrew Scheer gave a speech in which he challenged “those who deny we have anything to be proud of as a country.”
It’s fair to say that Justin Trudeau has put an emphasis on facing up to Canada’s sins and apologizing for the federal government’s past misdeeds. The skeptic’s view is that offering apologies and official recognition for past wrongs is too easy. But ideally, facing the past would build resolve to do the hard work of making things better in the present and future.
People embrace in front of the Centennial Flame on Parliament Hill June 4, 2021 at a memorial for the 215 children whose remains reportedly were found on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)
Every moment spent dwelling on unmarked graves, for instance, should increase the moral and political pressure to advance reconciliation. The greatest risk is that Canadians choose to look away, or move on too quickly.
If anyone feels threatened or offended by the attention given to the worst aspects of this country’s past, it’s worth asking why — whether that discomfort is really necessary.
It’s also fair to ask how much difference there is between what O’Toole claims to believe and what he claims to be against.
Four years ago, the prime minister delivered an address to the United Nations general assembly that dwelled at length on reconciliation and the mistreatment of Indigenous peoples in Canada. But he also spoke about his government’s efforts to fix that relationship and held out Canada’s efforts as an example to other countries.
Flags mark where ground-penetrating radar recorded what are believed to be 751 unmarked graves in this cemetery near the grounds of the former Marieval Indian Residential School on the Cowessess First Nation, Sask., on Saturday, June 26, 2021. (Mark Taylor/The Canadian Press)
Trudeau struck a similar tone in his Canada Day remarks that year. Reconciliation, he said, “is a choice we make, not because of what we did, or were, but because of who we are.”
Four years later, the prime minister hasn’t cancelled any official Canada Day proceedings (though the performances will again be virtual). Neither has he voiced support for tearing down statues.
Trudeau still faces a significant challenge in calibrating his own remarks on Thursday. And what he says will move to the centre of a conversation about how Canadians should feel about their country.
In the meantime, O’Toole seems to be trying to score points in a poorly conceived dispute.
Some people would, no doubt, like to get through Canada Day without having to think too much about negative things. Other people — especially now — will find it hard to get through Canada Day without feeling pain or sorrow … or guilt.
But it’s hard to see how anyone would be left better off by a fight over who loves Canada best.
Nova Scotia RCMP say their investigation into two suspicious deaths earlier this month has concluded that one man died by homicide and the other by suicide.
The bodies of two men, aged 40 and 73, were found in a home in Windsor, N.S., on Sept. 3.
Police say the province’s medical examiner determined the 40-year-old man was killed and the 73-year-old man killed himself.
They say the two men were members of the same family.
No arrests or charges are anticipated, and the names of the deceased will not be released.
RCMP say they will not be releasing any further details out of respect for the family.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
For the first time in their history, members of the Cree community of Nemaska received a visit from a sitting Quebec premier on Sunday and were able to share first-hand the story of how they were displaced by a hydroelectric project in the 1970s.
François Legault was greeted in Nemaska by men and women who arrived by canoe to re-enact the founding of their new village in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region, in northern Quebec, 47 years ago. The community was forced in the early 1970s to move from its original location because members were told it would be flooded as part of the Nottaway-Broadback-Rupert hydro project.
The reservoir was ultimately constructed elsewhere, but by then the members of the village had already left for other places, abandoning their homes and many of their belongings in the process.
George Wapachee, co-author of the book “Going Home,” said community members were “relocated for nothing.”
“We didn’t know what the rights were, or who to turn to,” he said in an interview. “That turned us into refugees and we were forced to abandon the life we knew.”
Nemaska’s story illustrates the challenges Legault’s government faces as it looks to build new dams to meet the province’s power needs, which are anticipated to double by 2050. Legault has promised that any new projects will be developed in partnership with Indigenous people and have “social acceptability,” but experts say that’s easier said than done.
François Bouffard, an associate professor of electrical engineering at McGill University, said the earlier era of hydro projects were developed without any consideration for the Indigenous inhabitants living nearby.
“We live in a much different world now,” he said. “Any kind of hydro development, no matter where in Quebec, will require true consent and partnership from Indigenous communities.” Those groups likely want to be treated as stakeholders, he added.
Securing wider social acceptability for projects that significantly change the landscape — as hydro dams often do — is also “a big ask,” he said. The government, Bouchard added, will likely focus on boosting capacity in its existing dams, or building installations that run off river flow and don’t require flooding large swaths of land to create reservoirs.
Louis Beaumier, executive director of the Trottier Energy Institute at Polytechnique Montreal, said Legault’s visit to Nemaska represents a desire for reconciliation with Indigenous people who were traumatized by the way earlier projects were carried about.
Any new projects will need the consent of local First Nations, Beaumier said, adding that its easier to get their blessing for wind power projects compared to dams, because they’re less destructive to the environment and easier around which to structure a partnership agreement.
Beaumier added that he believes it will be nearly impossible to get the public — Indigenous or not — to agree to “the destruction of a river” for a new dam, noting that in recent decades people have come to recognize rivers as the “unique, irreplaceable riches” that they are.
Legault’s visit to northern Quebec came on Sept. 15, when the community gathers every year to remember the founding of the “New Nemaska,” on the shores of Lake Champion in the heart of the boreal forest, some 1,500 kilometres from Montreal. Nemaska Chief Clarence Jolly said the community invited Legault to a traditional feast on Sunday, and planned to present him with Wapachee’s book and tell him their stories.
The book, published in 2022 along with Susan Marshall, is filled with stories of Nemaska community members. Leaving behind sewing machines and hunting dogs, they were initially sent to two different villages, Wapachee said.
In their new homes, several of them were forced to live in “deplorable conditions,” and some were physically and verbally abused, he said. The new village of Nemaska was only built a few years later, in 1977.
“At this time, families were losing their children to prison-schools,” he said, in reference to the residential school system. “Imagine the burden of losing your community as well.”
Thomas Jolly, a former chief, said he was 15 years old when he was forced to leave his village with all his belongings in a single bag.
Meeting Legault was important “because have to recognize what happened and we have to talk about the repercussions that the relocation had on people,” he said, adding that those effects are still felt today.
Earlier Sunday, Legault was in the Cree community of Eastmain, where he participated in the official renaming of a hydro complex in honour of former premier Bernard Landry. At the event, Legault said he would follow the example of his late predecessor, who oversaw the signing of the historic “Paix des Braves” agreement between the Quebec government and the Cree in 2002.
He said there is “significant potential” in Eeyou Istchee James Bay, both in increasing the capacity of its large dams and in developing wind power projects.
“Obviously, we will do that with the Cree,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
NEMASKA – For the first time in their history, members of the Cree community of Nemaska received a visit from a sitting Quebec premier on Sunday and were able to share first-hand the story of how they were displaced by a hydroelectric project in the 1970s.
François Legault was greeted in Nemaska by men and women who arrived by canoe to re-enact the founding of their new village in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region, in northern Quebec, 47 years ago. The community was forced in the early 1970s to move from their original location because they were told it would be flooded as part of the Nottaway-Broadback-Rupert hydro project.
The reservoir was ultimately constructed elsewhere, but by then the members of the village had already left for other places, abandoning their homes and many of their belongings in the process.
George Wapachee, co-author of the book “Going Home,” said community members were “relocated for nothing.”
“We didn’t know what the rights were, or who to turn to,” he said in an interview. “That turned us into refugees and we were forced to abandon the life we knew.”
The book, published in 2022 by Wapachee and Susan Marshall, is filled with stories of Cree community members. Leaving behind sewing machines and hunting dogs, they were initially sent to two different villages, 100 and 300 kilometres away, Wapachee said.
In their new homes, several of them were forced to live in “deplorable conditions,” and some were physically and verbally abused, he said. The new village of Nemaska was only built a few years later, in 1977.
“At this time, families were losing their children to prison-schools,” he said, in reference to the residential school system. “Imagine the burden of losing your community as well.”
Legault’s visit came on Sept. 15, when the community gathers every year to remember the founding of the “New Nemaska,” on the shores of Lake Champion in the heart of the boreal forest, some 1,500 kilometres from Montreal. Nemaska Chief Clarence Jolly said the community invited Legault to a traditional feast on Sunday, and planned to present him with Wapachee’s book and tell him their stories.
Thomas Jolly, a former chief, said he was 15 years old when he was forced to leave his village with all his belongings in a single bag.
Meeting Legault was important “because have to recognize what happened and we have to talk about the repercussions that the relocation had on people,” he said, adding that those effects are still felt today.
Earlier Sunday, Legault had been in the Cree community of Eastmain, where he participated in the official renaming of a hydro dam in honour of former premier Bernard Landry.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
