Queen-Victoria-statue-toppled-in-Winnipeg-Justin-Fraser-CBC.jpg
This statue of Queen Victoria at the Manitoba Legislature was toppled by protestors (Justin Fraser/CBC)

Listen up! Enough already! | Commentary

Hugh Mackenzie

This week in Canada, Queen Elizabeth II and Queen Victoria bit the dust. Literally. At least their statues did, torn down by an angry mob in Winnipeg. That’s a line in the sand for me. Enough of this cancel culture nonsense!

Okay, I admit to being an old white dude, a class of people some say should just keep their mouths shut when it comes to what is happening in our world today. But I am not going to do that. I actually believe it’s time that some of us old timers, folks who have been around the horn a time or two, stood up and spoke up. It’s time for some hard truths.

Canada’s history, the good and the bad, should be left alone. It cannot be changed, and it should not be ignored. We should learn from the mistakes of those that came before us, and there are many. We should also learn from their achievements. There are a bunch of those as well. But we cannot continually beat our breasts over something about which we had no control.

We should not whitewash the past, nor should we rewrite history to change the facts to suit current activist agendas. Actual truth still matters.

One hard truth is that we do have a history of colonization. The only real way to apologize for that is to get back on the boat. Our ancestors, unless they were aboriginals, were not born here. They came, they saw, they conquered, and they colonized. Many of us are here only because of them. Others have followed because they have admired much of what succeeding generations of Canadians have accomplished. Colonialism is not a dirty word. It is the reality of the manner in which much of our world has been settled.

Another hard truth is the tragedy of residential schools for Indigenous children, established before confederation and existing well into the second half of the twentieth century. They were ill-conceived to say the least, with next to no oversight by successive governments who were ultimately responsible for them.

The discovery in recent months of so many unmarked graves of young people has underlined the stark consequences of these terrible times which have been known for decades but only recently marked by the reality of the remains of thousands of these children who died, away from their families, and were never returned home. We cannot forget that. It remains forever part of our collective heritage as Canadians.

However, it is also true that we cannot be held hostage by those who now want radical change in our current society and would capitalize on mistakes in our past, revise and amplify them, and then use them as an excuse to create havoc in our country today for their own purposes.

For example, statues of Sir John A. Macdonald, are being desecrated or torn down in many parts of Canada because those with a vested interest in stirring up guilt and anger in Canadians have succeeded in labelling him as the architect of residential schools and the resulting tragedies that occurred.

In reality, residential schools for Indigenous children existed in what is now Canada well before Macdonald became prime minister. It is true he condoned them, but they were not made mandatory and children were not torn away from their parents until twenty years after Macdonald was dead and Sir Wilfred Laurier was prime minister of Canada. To the best of my knowledge, his statues still remain upright.

For those who want a more balanced and accurate viewpoint about residential schools and our founding fathers, I recommend an article by Tom Lowman, a Toronto lawyer and historian. You can see it here.

Cancel culture is getting out of hand.

In spite of his imperfections, Sir John A. Macdonald was the architect of Canada, not of residential schools. Without him, our country would be very different today, if it existed at all.

It was Queen Victoria who gave consent to Canada becoming a nation and it was she who refused to bow to the demands of the Americans to return fleeing slaves who had fled to Canada for freedom, thus paving the way for the northern end of the underground railway.

As for our Queen Elizabeth, tearing down her statue makes me sick to my stomach. Again, for whatever imperfections she might have, she is without question one of the most admired woman in the entire world. Whether one supports the monarchy or not, Queen Elizabeth represents a form of democracy that has been critical to the western world for centuries.

And so, one must ask, why are we allowing this to happen? Tearing down statues, burning flags, damaging buildings, and burning churches is occurring in many places in Canada. It is a textbook definition of anarchy and bordering on mob rule.

Why are people who willingly desecrate public property and monuments not being arrested, charged, prosecuted, and sentenced? Why are people who burn Catholic churches for what happened long ago not being held accountable for hate crimes when we would not hesitate to do that if it was a mosque or synagogue that was attacked? What is happening to the rule of law here? Is that what we really want? Is this who we are?

Canada is not perfect. It never has been, and it never will be. While we acknowledge our past, we must resist those who would push us toward a dramatic swing of the pendulum to a more ‘woke’ society where we are ashamed of who we are. We cannot perpetually keep our flag at half-mast. We can only apologize so much. As long as we look only in the rearview mirror, we can never look forward.

If we don’t move forward, we can’t fix the problems that we face today: equality for the marginalized, providing people with the opportunity to succeed, potable water for Indigenous communities, climate change, a widening economic gap between layers of our society, and a strong economy. Because Canada is on balance a great country, we are equipped to address these problems without radical change. Indeed, we have much to celebrate but we also have much work to do.

In writing this article, I have been careful to be non-partisan because I do not believe it is a partisan matter. It behooves all of us to stand up for our country, to acknowledge our past (perhaps in part, by annually remembering those who died in residential schools), to celebrate what we have accomplished, and to work toward a better and more influential Canada.

Having said that however, I cannot think of a better way to close this piece than in the words of the Member of Parliament for Parry Sound-Muskoka, Scott Aitchison, who said, “There is nothing wrong about Canada that can’t be healed with all that is right about Canada.”

Amen to that.

Hugh Mackenzie has held elected office as a trustee on the Muskoka Board of Education, a Huntsville councillor, a District councillor, and mayor of Huntsville. He has also served as chairman of the District Muskoka and as chief of staff to former premier of Ontario, Frank Miller.

Hugh has served on a number of provincial, federal and local boards, including chair of the Ontario Health Disciplines Board, vice-chair of the Ontario Family Health Network, vice-chair of the Ontario Election Finance Commission, and board member of Roy Thomson Hall, the National Theatre School of Canada, and the Anglican Church of Canada. Locally, he has served as president of the Huntsville Rotary Club, chair of Huntsville District Memorial Hospital, chair of the Huntsville Hospital Foundation, president of Huntsville Festival of the Arts, and board member of Community Living Huntsville.

In business, Hugh Mackenzie has a background in radio and newspaper publishing. He was also a founding partner and CEO of Enterprise Canada, a national public affairs and strategic communications firm established in 1986.

Currently Hugh is president of C3 Digital Media Inc., the parent company of Doppler Online, and he enjoys writing commentary for Huntsville Doppler.

Don’t miss out on Doppler!

Sign up here to receive our email digest with links to our most recent stories.
Local news in your inbox so you don’t miss anything!

Click here to support local news

Join the discussion:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

All comments are moderated. Please ensure you include both your first and last name and abide by our community guidelines. Submissions that do not include the commenter's full name or that do not abide by our community guidelines will not be published.

23 Comments

  1. Anna-Lise Kear says:

    William Corrigan; your concern for the teaching and learning of Canadian history from a variety of voices experiencing that history is Not lost.
    My husband (a retired 30 + year Canadian history teacher) still teaches in a faculty of education program – he teaches adult students Canadian (British, European viewpoint along with many other Canadian voices from differing backgrounds. Some of his adult students may be recently new Canadian citizens, in some cases; they show keen and remarkable interest in our collective history in Canada. However, they are exposed to an Asian, Black, and Indigenous Canada as well (with qualified guest speakers, and good resources for example).
    These adults will teach history in Ontario schools. At least at this stage, do not worry – much is in good hands, from my perspective.

  2. Hugh Holland says:

    Well, Hugh your article certainly raised a valuable discussion that we needed to have. Hopefully other comminities are having a similar discussion. Good points were raised by all participants and hopefully we all learned something. In the words of the Desiderata, “Whether or not it is clear to us, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should, With all of its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world”. We now have a very accomplshed indigenous woman as our new Governor General.

  3. Teri Souter says:

    My value system does not support statues of the oppressors at the expense of the oppressed. The notion that we will not be able to learn history without these symbols of systemic racism is laughable (if it weren’t so sad); there are no statues of Hitler in Germany, and yet…
    Mr. Tapley, Sir John A was most decidedly responsible for much of the horror; it was federal policy.
    Google is your friend.
    My friends do not like symbols of genocide. We need to take these racist symbols down legally — so they don’t have to. We broke it. Not them. It’s our responsibility to fix it. And while we are upholding legality let’s take a look at those treaties and unceded stolen land. It was always about land, resources and money. Could we now make it about people, nature and social equity? This too will be in the future historic narrative. Personally, I do not believe you can cancel history or stop it from occurring. You can take overdue actions to correct blights of the past. When you know better, you do better. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended 94 Actions. This was accepted. Not much action on them by us though. Topple some statutes? Rape, murder and hide dead babies? Hmmm…. Really, whose culture got cancelled? We settlers sure have a long way to go and a lot to learn about living harmoniously, and luckily for us Indigenous Peoples are mostly willing to teach us. A lot of the statue topplers are impatient non-indigenous people just like me, tired of waiting for ruling classes to see that there is no Planet B. None of us are getting out of here alive. If you think a statue of someone is more important than an actual living person or a whole race of people then you must admit to yourself your bias of hate and inhumanity. Do some soul searching and dig deep to see if you have the courage to change. I pray you do.

  4. Jim Logagianes says:

    This happened in a Canadian University to a well regarded faculty member. . She .mentioned in a blog that systemic racism did not exist in Canada from her experience as a Lebanese immigrant. The University suspended her without even having a discussion. She was first made aware of the suspension through social media by a friend.
    Your Next Dr Rima Azar interview with Jordan Peterson.
    Is this where we are heading as a society?

    https://youtu.be/cIw8mH7ZpFY

  5. Carol Stueck says:

    Perhaps it is the teacher in me but I think all of these statues are a perfect teaching moment to tell youth now and in the future how we as a country have changed our thinking on certain hot button issues. Instead of tearing these monuments down why not put up a second sign beside the one already there to explain the change in thinking of then and now. We learn from the past and eliminating the past does us no service but cancelling out what we no longer like or want to deal with anymore.
    Having an opportunity to talk about our hopefully evolved ways of thinking on certain subjects makes much more sense to me and gives perspective. We all need perspective on these issues!!

  6. Wendy J Brown says:

    Now I’m asking this question because it’s one that needs answers I believe. When I was a small child in the 50,s? I had 3 diseases that could have killed me. Red Measles , diphtheria, and Scarlett fever. My uncle had polio. My brother had severe ear infections so badly it could have killed him in the 1940,s. Health care wasn’t up to what we have now, im sure everyone knows that. What I want to know is will they test all those children for cause of death? Cynic that I am ,I realize that in some cases there would have been extremely bad people running those schools, but not every school . Also some of those schools were in existence during the Spanish flu also. I’m not saying the mourning shouldn’t be happening in any sense but I would like to know cause of death. Is that wrong?

  7. Meg Jordan says:

    All of this makes me very sad but I must point out that toppling statues does not actually phyisically hurt anyone. What I see is that deep emotions and feelings of trauma have been aroused about horrific things that happened in our past and continue to happen in different ways to this very day because of systemic racism in our society. These were symbolic acts against the self-satisfied imperialism of an empire that injured and killed many human beings as the accepted cost of doing business. And I don’t agree, Hugh, that the only way to apologize for the injustice of the past is to get on the boat and go back to where we came from. Nowhere in the Calls for Action delivered after the months of gathering and listening for Truth and Reconciliation in cities across Canada was such a suggestion made. Your articulation of this as an obvious impossibility reveals how inexperienced we all are in making amends for wrongdoing which in my humble experience usually involves slow and painful personal and systemic change.
    As for history–which is the stories we tell about the past– I know for a fact, as a woman and as a Christian, that truthtelling is very rare. I have heard good friends speak about colonialism as if the dominance of one social group over another is biologically inevitable–the same way masculine members of humanity sometimes speak as if they were obviously superior than others. And as for re-writing history–I believe it is something we have to do. We can’t truthfully avoid it. It doesn’t mean that we change the facts but it does mean that our interpretation and our understanding has to change as new facts come to light. That is what makes history so interesting. As a woman of the church, all of this is very enlightening and disturbing. The clear collusion of the church with the whole systemic order of government and nationbuilding is hard to face. I suspect that’s the real problem. This is all so difficult to face and I hear your pain. However, I do not agree that the only way to apologize would be to get back on the boat. I see that statement as a futile attempt to avoid the pain of what we must do– recognize the wrongs and the broken treaties upon which our society and our privilege is built–and make deep changes that are going to hurt. And, like you, I agree with Scott. There things about being Canadian that make it possible to believe that we can learn and change, and grow and heal.

  8. Brian Tapley says:

    Hugh has some good points.
    One thing that seems left out of this conversation is just exactly how would you propose to try to provide “education” to Canadians of the far north. Remember, when residential schools were created there was not even telephone, let alone internet. It would have been quite impossible to build schools in all the tiny communities and staff them.
    So the leaders of the day had two options.

    One, was to create residential schools” which are nothing more or less essentially than a boarding school and bring the children to the schools.

    Two, would have been to do nothing at all. With hindsight, perhaps this might have been a better option because these northern people had a good understanding of how to survive in the north, a better understanding than they would ever have learned in a residential school and one that may well have served them better in the long run. Just because they lived differently from the rest of Canada does not mean that the rest of Canada was “right” and we needed to change these people. What these people knew about the north had and still has great value, value that most of us living in the southern part of Canada do not appreciate very well.

    Take you pick.

    We use what could be called “residential” schools today for university as very few students are lucky enough to be able to live at home and attend a university.

    The problem was and still is that the people who actually ran these schools apparently did a pretty poor job of it when it came to looking after the children. A totally inexcusable job actually.

    But I am not guilty here, and neither was Hugh or Queen Victoria nor probably Sir John A. and even those that were guilty are now pretty much long gone to dust and past being called to their responsibility.
    Tearing down statues and trying to re-write history is a non starter of an idea. It has no basis, no sense of history and no place to go for a future.
    Far better to learn, keep the past, maybe add a plaque to the statues that adds some more historical perspective or spend a bit more time in our current schools so that the context of these historical monuments is better understood today. Bowing to mob control and tearing down statues that have stood for over half of Canada’s history is not a good way to go.

    Don’t think I am excusing the residential schools. What has happened is terrible and absolutely inexcusable and we should make every effort to find out how it happened, who (even if they are now dead and gone) was responsible. Although nothing we can do now will in any significant way “repair” the family damage that was done, we should look for practical ways to try in some way to make amends to those families. Never letting something like this happen again would be a good starting point and maybe a few statues and monuments to this effect to remind us would help here.

    Like Hugh, I am just a bit tired of seeing attempts to re-write history to fit current beliefs and the implied responsibility for the problems dumped on my generation. For whatever reason, I had no knowledge at all of residential schools until just maybe 4 or 5 years ago. Blame this on our school system in Ontario as I am a product of this system but regardless, history cannot be changed and I don’t think it is fair to try to somehow blame those of my generation who knew nothing about this issue for the bad things that happened. There is blame to be had but not with us.

  9. William Corrigan says:

    I agree whole heartedly with Hugh in that we are destroying our past rather than learning from it. Our grandsons and granddaughters will not understand where we came from and the mistakes we made without the historical statues to help remind us of our pas.

  10. Gordon Middleton says:

    Twice the term, “cancel culture,” was used in this article. It’s a loose ideology that the right is leaning on too heavily.

    The fact of the matter is there are groups of people who are insulted by the presence of these statues; bronze idols sculpted in the likeness of people under whose leadership resulted in many indignities to human remains…

    …and that’s only what we know so far. One day we’ll know how many more unmarked graves lie on the lands of former residential schools, and we’ll know what caused their deaths. I think we are all fairly sure many more sinister details are to follow.

    So a word of warning to the writer of this article: be careful with your opinions today as you may find them on the wrong side of history tomorrow. Living survivors of the residential school system have been disgracefully under-represented in this article in favour of chunks of bronze.

    In light of the discovery of unmarked graves, if it’s toppled statues and “cancel culture,” keeping people awake at night, humanity has some serious problems indeed.

  11. Wanda Gora says:

    Thank you for putting forward the thoughts of many. In our current situation, free speech is criticized and condemned. We should move on by learning from the past the mistakes made. Residential schools have been closed for almost 30 years, most closing well before that. Mistakes were made. All the facts about Sir John A. are not out there. The media is unbelievably biased and makes news instead of reporting it. No consequences for vandalism is only encouraging more. Respect works both ways. We cannot change history but we learn from it so the same mistakes do not happen again. What happened has been acknowledged. We can’t change history. Time to teach the truth in schools, not a modified version. Sir John Ay. helped form this country with many personal tragedies in his life. Vision formed this country. A unified vision has kept it together. All Canadians are just that, Canadian! We are fortunate in many ways. Let’s move on in unity, as equals!

  12. Sherri McGrath says:

    What ridiculous commentary especially referring to cancel culture as that is what the churches, the government and everyone has done to the indigenous, try some critical thought Hugh, try thinking of how others may feel you know not white males

  13. Anna-Lise Kear says:

    Mr. Boyes, a cursory look shows me that police are investigating vandalism and charges are being laid.
    So where is this lack of police investigation happening?

  14. Anna-Lise Kear says:

    Touchee Mr. Boyes. My request was genuine. A link would be useful.

  15. Jim Boyes says:

    ALK,

    There have been several defacings and toplings of statuary and monuments in Canada recently.
    It shouldn’t take too much effort to research police and press sources to come up with a list of those arrested and charged with these crimes, and the sentences received . If there have been any.
    Your crafty tactic of politely asking posters ( only the ones with whom you disagree ) to provide source material for their statements is just an attempt at a polite little smear .
    If you wish to have any statement I make corroborated or disprooven you’ll have to do the research yourself . It is not a game I’ll play.
    play.

  16. Anna-Lise Kear says:

    Jim Boyes; help me out here. Where is your information that those vandalizing are not being arrested and charged? Are there specific examples of this? Do you have access to any police reports?
    I am not disagreeing with you about consequences for those who vandalize, just want some reliable sources for your information.

  17. Anna-Lise Kear says:

    Dwight Shakespeare; well said. All baby boomers don’t think alike!
    It seems as with every generation, we idolize some. Look at the idol worship in Hollywood, sports teams – it is all a matter of degrees. When we erect people in stone, metal, and place them on a literal pedestal, we create a larger than life persona of someone who was only a human being.
    There must be better ways to acknowledge a person and their accomplishments without imbuing them with a god-like status. Helpful thoughts in your comments.

  18. Jim Boyes says:

    Well thought out piece Hugh.
    I also am distressed beyond measure when the peaceful majority stands by watching while thugs , criminals and agitators – to call them by their correct name – vandalize and destroy public property to force the rest of us to pay attention to some goal they can’t acieve through the ballot box.
    That is anarchy. Those activities are crimes. In a civilized country the authorities who are responsible for maintaining “peace, order and good government” are delinquent in their duty to the citizens when they choose to turn away and fail to maintain order. It is nice when societal differences can be resolved peacefully but it is sometimes necessary to meet law breaking with a forceful and proportional response. Turning the other cheek isn’t an effective response to an unruly mob moving up the street smashing windows, looting and setting fires and terrifyng the public. Toppling public statuary and monuments is criminal activity regardless of the motivation of the vandals. Failing to arrest and charge those involved only signals that it is ok to do more and more .
    Anti social mobs don’t get to set society’s agenda and when they are alowed that sort of power by default nothing good ever results.

  19. Bev Belanger says:

    When genocide happened in Europe, didn’t they remove Hitler statues? “Cancel culture” should be the descriptive phrase for cancelling the indigenous culture from those innocent children.

  20. Wendy Brown says:

    Well said Mr MacKenzie, honestly there is nothing more frustrating to me than seeing statues torn down . I never thought I would see in my life Canadians acting foolishly, I thought Canadians were level headed people with common sense. But lately I’ve seen anti vaxers and I’ve even heard of a man from muskoka who is a flat earther. I believe everyone should be treated fairly i dont care if the person is any religion or race as long as they don’t promote violence , or try and change canada to there culture and if they do they shouldn’t be in canada. The children from the schools should have there records given to there bands so they can be buried by there families,churches should be forced to hand them over.

  21. Anna-Lise Kear says:

    Mr. Mackenzie; thank you for your timely commentary. Some comments and questions.
    1] I agree that this cultural upheaval “should not” be a partisan matter. Our filter in listening and viewing political parties should be to separate those who would play on this as a binary, divisive wedge issue .
    You quote SA. Might you have also quoted some of the Indigenous leaders who condemn these acts of violence – a way of exemplifying the non-partisan approach you wish to achieve?

    2] Your comment that people who are “doing these things” are not being charged. How do you know that as a fact? From where are you getting your information about charges/no charges?

    3] I would really appreciate a definition and description of what the hackneyed phrase “cancel culture” means. Does it just mean that whoever does not agree with my view of culture cancels it? I’ m serious. This label gets bandied about without any accountability for its supposed meaning, if there is indeed a common one. Please define this phrase.

    4] I believe any and all issues can be magnified by our collective mental health during this pandemic. Does this excuse the vandalism? Absolutely not. Just be mindful that our mental health challenges are more pronounced. Ask any police officer, EMS worker, or our health care providers about what they see and experience.
    Thanks for reading.

  22. Susan Godfrey says:

    Neither the far right (populism) or the far left (cancel culture) correctly reflect the heart of balanced leadership. Our apologies mean nothing unless our future actions reflect a better intention devoid of “control”. To quote Maya Angelou “when we know better, we do better”. Now we know.

  23. Victoria Lazier says:

    Well said and rather brave I may add. Anyone not subscribing to the current orthodoxy on the left or right do so at their own peril. Historical context is important because without it, the conversation is reduced to a dangerously simplistic view of complex issues and undermines our ability to navigate an increasingly challenging world.