By Sally Barnes
One problem with today’s popular “cancel culture” movement is that extremists damage their cause by alienating those of us who may share some of their concerns but are disgusted by their actions.
Our first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, tops the charts in Canada for falling victim to this trend.
There was a time when we believed in learning from our mistakes.
Today’s cancel culture means shaming and erasing dissenting opinions, practices, or actions. It smacks of revenge, envy, and settling scores at any cost.
From our universities to our parks and public institutions—a vandalized statue here, bombardment of venom on social media there—our cultural icons still living and long dead are under attack.
Victims of cancel culture are humiliated, their work ridiculed, and careers and reputations destroyed.
As the practice becomes more prevalent, once-outspoken defenders of free speech and culture fall silent to avoid the inevitable tidal wave of abuse.
In this age of social media, to stand up and be counted and to speak one’s mind have become acts of masochism.
As a history/political junkie and longtime resident of Sir John’s “hometown” of Kingston, I am especially saddened and bitter over what is happening.
A few examples:
- A statue of Sir John was toppled and beheaded in Montreal earlier this fall.
- A similar statue was vandalized at Queen’s Park this summer and boarded up for protection.
- Sir John’s larger than life statue erected in 1895 in downtown Kingston is vandalized on a regular basis. The city is studying whether it should be removed as protesters have demanded along with the change of bridge, street, and school names.
- A life-size bronze statue called “Holding Court” designed by Canadian artist Ruth Abernathy that now sits in front of the Picton Library may be headed for storage. The depiction of Macdonald’s first case in the local courthouse in 1834 should be removed, says a local working group. Council will vote on this next month.
- Two years ago the city council in Victoria voted to remove the Macdonald statue at City Hall.
- The principal of Queen’s University announces Macdonald’s name will be stripped from the building that houses its law school (despite threats by many big donors to end their financial support).
To cancel and discredit Macdonald’s historic role in the formation of this First Capital of Canada and the greatness of this country is madness.
John Alexander Macdonald moved to Kingston from Glasgow at age five with his parents. He was educated here, practiced law, elected to Parliament at age 29, and became the key architect of Confederation and our first prime minister. He lies buried in the local cemetery.
Macdonald’s detractors either don’t know of his greatness or want only to dwell on the ugly conditions of his time.
In the words of Macdonald biographer Richard Gwyn, Canada would not exist had it not been for Macdonald’s vision and leadership. “No Macdonald, no Canada,” Gwyn concluded after extensive research and study.
Bruce Pardy, a professor of law at Queen’s, says colleagues regard him as a barbarian for his views on Macdonald and cancel culture.
“In fact, Macdonald was enlightened for his time, but that will make no difference. The test for tearing down statues and cancelling historical figures has become whether their values and behavior conform to modern progressive sensibilities,” Pardy wrote in an article for the National Post.
There is great irony in Queen’s stripping Macdonald’s name from its law school. He was a strong believer in the rule of law and was one of the original founders of the university.
Long-time senior public servant Graham Scott, in a letter to the Globe and Mail, had this to say:
“If piling all the blame for past failures on Sir John A. Macdonald would atone, it might be worth it. The sad truth is that society in the 19th century was racist, and our history confirms that the actions of Macdonald reflected Parliament and Canadian society.
“Where were the opposition and all the subsequent prime ministers who turned a blind eye to the residential schools?”
Scott also raised the issue of George Monro Grant the famed, long-term principal of Queen’s, friend and advisor to Macdonald, and a leader in the Presbyterian Church, which operated many residential schools. Grant Hall is the hallmark of the Queen’s campus.
“How does Queen’s make the exception and Macdonald the scapegoat?” asks Scott, who says society should focus on dealing with racism and prejudice—not scapegoating.
Another letter-writer went even further in applying cancel culture to Queen’s, saying the university is named after Queen Victoria whom she described as “an ardent imperialist and fierce opponent of women’s suffrage. In the name of equity, diversity and inclusivity, Queen’s should do the right thing and rename the university.”
Another Globe letter that caught my eye was written by an associate professor and Queen’s National Scholar in Indigenous Studies. Recently arrived in Kingston along with her husband and Aboriginal family, the woman said her eight-year-old asked her “why people in this city have so many roads and buildings and statues to honour a man who did bad things to our ancestors.”
Like a lot of other kids, this one obviously had never been told anything good about our first PM.
Patrice Dutil, writing in the Toronto Star, bemoaned the lack of positive or realistic teaching about Sir John A. Macdonald.
Dutil, co-editor of Macdonald at 200: New Reflections and Legacies, says the Ontario school curriculum “ignores Macdonald’s vital contributions and instead tells students that Canada was programmed to be a human embarrassment from its very beginning. Sadly, the gist of the Ontario curriculum is representative of what is taught across the country. It needs to be fixed urgently.”
Amen to that!
Some years ago I was invited to join a small group to advise the city’s tourism office.
I have long regretted that we inadequately promote Macdonald’s Kingston roots and our status as Canada’s First Capital.
As part of a marketing scheme, I proposed hiring a young person (history/political science major) to impersonate Sir John A and frequent the tourist district each summer to greet visitors and chat up the kids about Canada and our historic city. Late in the afternoon our Sir John A look-alike might even drop by his favourite watering hole, the old Royal Tavern, and talk politics over a wee dram.
The plan might have worked then but today no one in their right mind would want the job. Our famous hometown boy would be about as popular as a skunk at a garden party and sent packing.
And a sad closing note: The above mentioned advisory group included a historian and huge Macdonald fan who over the years devoted countless hours promoting an appreciation for our first prime minister.
Like so many others, he has grown silent. The final straw came when his family home was defaced and his car damaged after he publicly condemned those who repeatedly throw paint over the Macdonald statue in our city’s downtown.
Cancel culture is robbing us of our past and endangering our future.
Pity.
Sally Barnes has enjoyed a distinguished career as a writer, journalist and author. Her work has been recognized in a number of ways, including receiving a Southam Fellowship in Journalism at Massey College at the University of Toronto. A self-confessed political junkie, she has worked in the back-rooms for several Ontario premiers. In addition to a number of other community contributions, Sally Barnes served a term as president of the Ontario Council on the Status of Women. She is a former business colleague of Doppler’s Hugh Mackenzie and lives in Kingston, Ontario.
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Will Moore says
Finally … an honest reflection on the current “cancel culture “. We must, also, reflect on those who empower this “cancel culture “ with a goal to hold onto their current political power.
Absolutely shameful.
Anna-Lise Kear says
Surely to goodness, these questions and discoveries of imperfect human beings from our past need conversations, not cancellation. We set ourselves up for problems when we commission our statues, plaques. Also, critiquing the processes of how we record and revisit history need consideration. Our “heroes” were products of their times. So have been our agents of progressive change.
I recall a nurse, writing in one of our magazines, her disgust with Florence Nightingale in her lack of advancement of women’s issues in nursing of our day. She did advance women’s education in nursing, epidemiology, and influenced British government policy, post-Crimean war. She fought her family in order to study mathematics! However, the critic felt Florence had failed by a subservience to the medical community, and could not understand why FN was still being lauded in our profession.
Separately, I understand that the Queen’s U. decision was with considerable public consultation, complete with report.
Contrast that with DF’s unilateral cancellation of the teacher workshops concerning the complexity of Indigenous issues (workshops already paid for and approved by the Ministry of Education), cancelled on the Friday afternoon, workshops scheduled to start on the following Monday. The teacher education flowed from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
A binary, simplistic view of our history, our heroes is not helpful. We need to uncover perspectives that are at variance for a fuller picture. Public consultation is often a good idea.
Josephine McClelland says
Right on could not have said it better.
Gladys Middlebrook says
Unfortunately, it seems to be the way to be heard. Promises made and not honoured, ignoring pleas
over many years have caused this as well. Education has been a total failure. It is starting to be recognized but, we must push to ensure the people are cared for. I am just about to turn 80 and am thoroughly ashamed of the past governments.
Start listening and act accordingly, please.
dorothy green says
Thank You Sally for setting it straight! We need to remember the past with all its blemishes and missteps to understand where our roots are, how we evolved and to make decisions based on fact, not fiction. Tearing down and destroying does nothing to improve the history…we need to move past the ignorance and shame. I applaud your article.
Holly Schmid says
A note from a Huntsville-raised, current Queen’s Law student, who is a proud member of those who voted towards the renaming of our building (pictured in this article and discussed in your post).
Firstly, “the men” as compared to “the woman” Sally Barnes discusses, (Dr. Celeste Pedri-Spade, an Indigenous professor at Queen’s), have been crying wolf about cancel-culture for too long. Professor Bruce Pardy is not considered a barbarian at this school. He is heard and considered like all other professors. The difference is that scholars like Pardy and the men you have referred to are speaking from a point of undeniable privilege as well as from a fear that their position in society is being eradicated by the widespread acknowledgement of the harms that members of their race and gender have historically committed.
Secondly, and I can only speak to Queen’s Law, but I can guarantee that before his name was removed, we weren’t talking about him anyway; except in studying constitutional law, where we acknowledged that his harmful policies have led to the required vast restructuring of our current legal system. He isn’t cancelled, he simply isn’t relevant to us, to the future of law and policy, nor to the goals of our country as interpreted in both our constitution and Charter. No one is writing him out of textbooks, nor denying his contributions, we are simply acknowledging that his vision, to eradicate Indigenous peoples from our society, no longer sets the tone for our country, province, and in particular my legal education.
I have linked below the Globe article by Dr. Pedri-Spade, the statement made from our faculty outlining the process of the removal of the name, as well as an article written by a fellow student here at Queen’s Law in response to Bruce Pardy’s recent statements. Enjoy.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-removing-sir-john-a-macdonald-isnt-cancel-culture-its-a-sign-of/
https://www.queensu.ca/principal/equity-diversity-inclusion-indigeneity
https://lukesabourin95.medium.com/in-response-to-bruce-pardy-d2a84eee6195
Bertha Wilson says
I agree with you Holly. The Faculty of Law is not erasing history, they just want to ensure that the name of their building reflects the values of the school and students!
Anna-Lise Kear says
Thank you Holly Schmid for adding your voice to the conversation,
Mike Lee says
Absolutely agree. Im first nations, anishinaabe, smashing cultural symbols or levying abuse via social networking is immature, futile, and completely ignores the fact that there abides good and evil in all of us irrespective of race. We grow through acknowledging past mistakes and growing from them.
Rob Millman says
Instead of dwelling on our first PM; his predilection for cultural genocide of the aboriginal community; and all the expense involved in protecting/rehabilitating his multitudinous statues: why aren’t we concerned with the current plight of our first people?
They are so often ignored because they don’t pay taxes; as if that’s a generic solution. Why don’t we worry about their lack of potable water?; the fact that their youth die sniffing gas?; and when they leave the res for high school, they’re often murdered by their peers?
I applaud the few aboriginals who have managed to obtain college, university, and more advanced degrees. They relied heavily on scholarships/grants, and working diligently on course work/part-time jobs.
If the government can’t bring water to the reservations or educational aid for their youth; then maybe we should be considering where our charity dollars go. We sponsor African children; try to end every possible disease; to save every endangered species, and every pet.
Black lives matter; no question. But in Canada, Aboriginal lives matter too.
Michael Handy says
If MacDonald was cruel to whites, there would be no statues of him at all. But he was cruel to natives, so we are “proud” of him
Jim Smith says
MacDonald is the Father of Confederation. Unfortunately for the original inhabitants of the country, he chose to include, as part of his plan, removing 150,000 children from their parents, and imprisoning them in Residential Schools. He wanted to indoctrinate their culture and language right out of them.
Conditions in many of these schools was horrific, and 6000 of those children died in captivity.
The author of this article weighs the two, and decides we should celebrate the first, and I assume, ignore the second. She has also concluded that the vandalism by some people that have not reached her conclusion, is somehow horrific, so she couldn’t possibly support the cause. She has lots of company in this, as that is what most Canadians have done for a hundred years.
My thought is that viewing fellow humans as somehow less human is what is horrific. State sponsored kidnapping of children is what is madness. Torturing children in the name of religious upbringing and indoctrination was the real horror.
Honouring the engineer of the genocide tells the families of the victims that they don’t matter, thus perpetuating the injustice.
So, when I weigh the two realities, father of the country versus father of the genocide, I am not in favour of honouring the man. I don’t think my position is tainted one iota by vandalism, though I don’t condone it.
I don’t think the author has shown us any moral justification for keeping MacDonald’s name on any memorial in this country.
It is time for Truth, and Reconciliation.
Karen Wehrstein says
Amazing what North American white people whine about these days, after we cancelled entire cultures across two continents so as to grab all their land.
Karen Wehrstein says
Genocide is the ultimate cancel culture.
Nathan Cockram says
The fact that the legacy of JAM is now filtered entirely through the lens of post-Colonial ideology is a damning incitement of contemporary Canadian culture.
So is the apparent ease some, like the law student who posted above, have at the prospect of historical revision. It’s facile to pretend that this is somehow unrelated to ideological undercurrents in our post-secondary institutions.