They’re affixed to old buildings where someone important used to live. Or they’re mounted on a rock overlooking somewhere where something once happened.
Cast in bronze or lettered on a sign, they’re sometimes the only history lesson many of us ever get. And now Parks Canada wants hundreds of them changed.
“The way that many of the national historic designations are framed and positioned does not do justice to the breadth of impacts that they had on Canadian society,” said Pat Kell, the agency’s director of heritage.
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Parks is in the middle of a three-year program to re-examine and rewrite the plaques that the Historic Sites and Monuments Board use to point out places deemed important to understanding Canada’s past.
Sites slated for rewrite include fur trade forts such as Fort Langley in British Columbia and Manitoba’s York Factory. Others relate to the War of 1812, like Queenston Heights in Ontario.
Some involve historic figures who held beliefs at odds with current standards. They include one of the Fathers of Confederation, John A. Macdonald; Archibald Belaney, otherwise known as Grey Owl; and Nicholas Flood Davin, founder of one of the West’s first newspapers.
The rationale for the changes, as well as a list of priority sites, is outlined in a document obtained under Freedom of Information legislation.
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The document says that out of 2,192 historic sites, about two-thirds of plaque texts are fine. Of the remainder, more than 200 are considered high priorities for change.
Reasons include ignoring Indigenous contributions or using antiquated language, such as “Indian” or “Eskimo.” Another issue is controversial beliefs held by historical figures.
The most common reason for rewriting — covering plaques for French explorer Jacques Cartier, Alberta’s Bar U Ranch and Nunavut’s Kekerten Island Whaling Station — are “colonial assumptions,” the document says.
“Plaque texts can be described as ‘Whiggish’ in character,” it says. “This refers to a form of history where the progress of western civilization is understood as inevitable.
“Earlier assumptions about Canadian history that have excluded Indigenous people, among others, can no longer be accepted.”
Those plans have drawn accusations of presentism — the mistake of judging the past by standards of the present. Such charges have been levelled by Larry Ostola, former vice-president of heritage conservation at Parks Canada.
“A new woke perspective is being imposed on what was formerly an apolitical, fact-driven historical designation process,” he wrote in the National Post.
But Kell said the changes are being partly driven by the 2015 report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. One of the calls to action recommended Canada “develop a reconciliation framework for Canadian heritage and commemoration.”
She said it’s an attempt to use the latest scholarship to broaden the stories told, not erase familiar ones.
“They build on what was there before. They take that as a starting point and add additional layers and voices.
“It’s important to continue to reflect on these events. There are additional layers of understanding about them and some of those understandings are not celebratory.”
Many of the high-priority sites are old fur trade forts.
“Many designations associated with the fur trade have excluded the essential role of Indigenous people,” the document says. “By providing recognition of the necessary partnership that existed between the two cultures, this gap in historical significance will begin to be rectified.”
Concerns over how Indigenous perspectives are included also affects sites associated with the War of 1812, in which many First Nations warriors fought alongside British troops and Canadian militias.
Other plaques are trying to come to grips with ideas many famous and accomplished Canadians publicized that are today considered abhorrent.
William Osler, sometimes called the father of modern medicine, mocked Indigenous people and wrote Canada “should be a white man’s country.”
But Bob Coutts, for many years the chief historian of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board, said it’s a mug’s game trying to decolonize sites that are historic, largely because of their role in colonization.
“The story still focuses on a colonialist story,” he said. “You could pad it a little bit, but it’s still going to be a plaque about the building of a fur trade fort.”
As well, the whole idea of plaques depends on written history. That works against Indigenous history, Coutts said.
“Those rules lend themselves to white, colonialist history. Someone wrote it down.”
What gets commemorated is changing, said Kell.
“We are actively working with members of a variety of communities who have not been well served in order to ensure there are subjects of importance to them that are becoming part of our national program of commemoration.”
Priority areas for that effort include the history of diversity, Indigenous history and environmental history.
Still, messing with history is always going to be complicated, said Coutts.
“I love stories that are complex. That’s what history is. There isn’t a narrative that goes from A to B.
“On the other hand, there’s still a story in there somewhere that needs to be told.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
