Welcome! Here, we pledge to talk regularly about Canadian history, with a special emphasis on our 22 prime ministers. Today, I'd like to take a look at 'How the East Won and How Canada Lost.' We live in a country where there is an acute lack of national consciousness – of national memory. We’re decentralized. We have regional self-absorptions. I think we should have listened to the Americans 100 years ago. Not the ones living in the U.S. – the ones who chose to move here, especially to our Canadian west. They wandered northward a century ago by the tens of thousands searching for new land and following their dreams. In the process, they became part of ours. I agree with Pierre Berton, who wrote in The Promised Land that some American newspapers actually thought it was the beginning of a takeover, there were so many Americans who poured over the border! And yet these wishful thinkers didn’t count on the feeling of loyalty these people had transferred to Canada. As Berton tells it, for the young, rugged country that had nurtured them and provided true personal liberty, they quickly became great Canadians. But what confused these new Canadians was eastern Canada’s idea of itself – that Canada was somehow Britain Lite. They were shocked that a British consciousness, a British way of life, was preferred over the forging of a new Canadian identity. And for their part, Eastern Canada could not understand resistance to British traditions. Eventually, Eastern Canada would have its way. And in the absence of any will to forge a Canadian identity the West formed its own sense of self. It is part of the reason our attitudes are shaped so differently, to this very day. |
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CategoriesFirst NationsGovernment Prime Ministers Teaching History The Settlement of the West This and That |
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