When it came to light that the City of Victoria was going to remove their statue of Sir John A. MacDonald, I emailed the mayor and council of Victoria, asking about its future. At that point, there was no public knowledge of their plans for the statue. I said that if they had plans to recycle it, the Town of Cochrane might be interested in adding it to our collection of historical bronzes instead. If Victoria’s Council was willing to give it to us, I was then going to bring it forward to our mayor and council for official consideration. However, shortly after I sent my email, the Mayor of Victoria informed me that they would be keeping the bronze in storage, and the conversation was closed. As you may have read in last week’s edition of the Cochrane Eagle, my idea has caused quite the stir. I wanted to take this opportunity to respond to my critics, as I feel the reputation of MacDonald and our nation is being done a great disservice. People who know me, know that I have always been a vocal and unapologetically proud Canadian. Something they don’t know is that my own grandmother spent time in a residential school and orphanage in Prince Albert. I am aware of the tragic abuses that she witnessed and endured there. However, despite the impact of residential schools in my own family, I emailed the Victoria Council because I am tired of the new myth being developed that Canada is a bad country with an evil past. There should be no misunderstanding, tearing these statues down is not about protecting a few offended onlookers. The heart of this assault on Canadian history is far more perverse than that. The people who want to remove our statues, want to send a message that we ought to be ashamed of our past. They want to permanently tarnish the legacy of Canada’s founding prime minister and thereby the reputation of our whole country along with it. My grandmother and I wholeheartedly disagree with this anti-Canada agenda. We know MacDonald was not perfect by any means, but he is the reason that Canada and Cochrane even exist. If you read his biography, it's clear the man sacrificed everything he had personally, in order to build our country. I believe his struggle with alcohol addiction was a symptom of the enormous weight he carried on his shoulders and I thank him for enduring it. His ultimate success was achieved through a number of successful policies and programmes that had nothing to do with the abusive residential school system. In the early days of Canada, the political thinkers in Europe looked at our wild, wintery land mass and thought it would be impossible to turn it into a single nation. While most other western countries used guns and violence as their means to build nations, MacDonald opted for a more peaceful approach. He dedicated his entire life to talking, negotiating and deal making with rival European settlements, to found one of the largest nations in the world, exclusively through diplomatic means. The key to it all was MacDonald’s monumentally ambitious railroad that our town was built on. Without MacDonald there would have been no railroad. If there was no railroad, there would be no Cochrane. Despite his mistakes, I still think his achievements are worth honouring. I would also add, that while the residential school system obviously isn’t something to be proud of, it’s academically dishonest that people are now trying to pin all the blame on one prime minister. After MacDonald, the awful school system continued operating and expanding for several generations under a number of subsequent prime ministers. So if we are to shame the memory of MacDonald, are we also going to tear down every trace of our other prime ministers? I say no. I think the anti-Canadian apologists should open some history books and compare us to the rest of the world. Every country has had their share of mistakes, but it’s abundantly clear Canada actually has one of the most peaceful, fair and just histories in the entirety of human civilization. We shouldn’t be ashamed of our history. We can acknowledge our mistakes, but all told, we ought to be proud of what this country has achieved. Morgan Nagel
