'It’s messier': A heated conversation with a Canadian historian

Imagine teaching young people a course on the “politics of memory.” At the University of New Brunswick, there is such a course, taught by professor Donald Wright, historical biographer and past president of the Canadian Historical Association.

“We look at the politics of statues’ naming and renaming,” explains the professor. “Should statues stay up; should statues come down?” he posits. And, he continues, “what do you do with a problem like Sir John A. Macdonald?”

I’m curious: what do his students say? “Well,” Donald offers, “I can tell you that the young people say, ‘Take them down,’ because, of course, they’re very sensitive to racism, very sensitive to reconciliation, and some statues, frankly should come down.” (America’s monuments to the Confederates — who were traitors — are worthy candidates for dismantling, in his opinion.)

“Macdonald’s a different kettle of fish,” he adds. As prime minister, he had many accomplishments, Donald acknowledges, then adds, “he does have the legacy of colonial schools.”

Ahem. Is this professor teaching young people to frame history through the singular lens of racism? Perhaps even endorsing laws to criminalize residential school deniers?

Donald assures me, he’s trying to help his students understand, “memory doesn’t fall from the sky; these statues came out of a particular historical context and we can think about them, critically.”

To those students who still disagree, and prefer the statutes removed, Donald’s counter: “Well, what if right-wing racist lunatic skinheads came and took down your statue to a progressive figure? You wouldn’t be very pleased. If these statues are going to come down, there has to be a democratic process and your elected officials can design a process and follow the process, when they talk about naming and renaming.”

Inviting young people to think about history (what did happen?) and to recognize history continues to unfold in the present; I’m good with that. As for the coddling of “very sensitive” youth? That’s a tad worrisome.

Donald is an expert on Donald Creighton, a historical biographer from a different time. Creighton won two Governor-General’s literary awards in the 1950s for his portrayal of Sir John A. as a pragmatic visionary who forged a new country amidst U.S. threats and imperial decline.

Fifty years ago, when I was in the classroom, chapters from Creighton’s two-volume biography of Macdonald were required reading. Today, Creighton is largely forgotten but some of what this 20th-century storyteller had to say will sound familiar, especially to the “elbows up” crowd.

Creighton frames Macdonald’s “national policy” (introduced in 1879) as a grand, integrated vision of nation-building. Protective tariffs were imposed to foster industrial growth in central Canada, fund the Canadian Pacific Railway and counter U.S. economic influence at the end of pre-Confederation free trade leanings and reciprocity.

“I was struck by just what a fantastic writer he was,” Donald shares, “and how he could tell a story.” But as Creighton’s biographer, Donald was also “struck by the contradiction between his remarkable prose, his many, many insights, but at the same time, his blindness. He could not see French Canadians. He could not see Indigenous Canadians. He could not see Italians. Portuguese. Chinese Canadians were completely blind to him.”

There’s no denying Creighton’s Anglo-view of the world — or his anti-American stance. Creighton died in 1979, so he wasn’t alive during the free trade debate in Canada, Donald explains. “It would have been curious to him … that the Conservative party was now the party of free trade in 1988, when it had been the party of tariffs and protection and national policy under Macdonald and Borden.” If Creighton were alive today, Donald chuckles, he’d be telling us, “I told you so.”

Donald’s students would be unlikely to know a time before the 1988 Canada-U.S. free trade agreement, negotiated by prime minister Brian Mulroney and U.S. president Ronald Reagan. “I think the students are genuinely surprised by Donald Trump and tariffs,” Donald reports, “and the relentless criticism of Canada.” They grew up with America as a staunch military ally and economic partner.

“I think they were disoriented. No one saw this coming. No one could have anticipated this,” Donald reflects. “This really is unique, and that’s why I say Donald Trump really will be remembered by historians as the most consequential president in American history.”

Our conversation winds back to Creighton — one of Canada’s preeminent 20th-century storyteller. The stories we tell ourselves, right now, guide our response to Trump’s tariffs and 51st state overtures. “What are those stories, especially from the perspective of his students?” I ask the historian.

“Creighton believed there was one story,” Donald answers, “and he was the storyteller. In the 1960s, multiple stories emerged, asserting their own story of Canada.” Women, workers, immigrants and now Indigenous peoples are telling their own story of Canada, Donald asserts. “So you have not a single story,” he says, “but you have multiple storylines, and it’s more complicated. And it’s messier. But I think it’s more accurate.”

Donald’s working on another biography, about Ramsey Cook, Donald Creighton’s star student from Morden, Man., who rewrote Creighton’s Canada. “Growing up on the prairies, he (Cook) always said, was like growing up in the United Nations,” Donald explains. “It was just a diverse, multilingual, multi-religious, multicultural society before we even talked about multiculturalism.”

Cook’s version of Canada is more akin to his students’ version of Canada, Donald reports; that is: pluralistic, multicultural and, there is no single story. Certainly, I accept that multiple narratives can exist, a compulsory narrative isn’t the answer. But what then binds us together as Canadians?

And this is the point where our conversation becomes a little heated.

We agree: People were very critical of Justin Trudeau when he said Canada’s the first post-national nation. I was one of those critics, suggesting our former leader was flippant, verging on traitorous, when he made this statement to the press in New York.

“Well, you know, Trudeau might have picked a different word, but he was right,” Donald counters, “I agreed with him from my vantage point of being a historian and recognizing that multiple narratives can exist, multiple truths can exist.”

At a time when there’s talk of sovereignty association, separation and hundreds of First Nations within the nation of Canada, the last thing we need, I forcefully suggest, is the further fracturing of our narratives.

What do Donald and I agree on? We both believe in one country and the need for some shared understanding of what it means to be Canadian. It’s a start.

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