To the Editor,
Re: A statue isn’t history, Editorial, Aug. 15.
I would agree Sir John A. MacDonald was no saint and then, neither were many of the other founding fathers of our young nation or any other nation for that matter.
With due respect to your editorial and a misguided opinion that ‘a statue isn’t history’, I must disagree.
A statue is a symbol of an historical period in this country and represents our history with all of its ragged edges. I believe that it is misguided to think that all we need to do as a nation to achieve reconciliation with our First Peoples is to remove or deface statues, dismantle buildings, rename streets and parks and so on. I beg to differ from this over-simplification.
These physical manifestations of our shared history remind us of wrongs or rights committed by the founders of our country. By removing these symbols, we erase a critical aspect of our history…how will future generations be reminded to even think about ‘who was this guy’, ‘what did he do’ and how does one develop a critical perspective on the past if these reminders of the past are erased?
I pose another question: where will this destruction of our past end? Will we also dismantle the Empress Hotel in Victoria, a symbol of Victorian colonial power? What about all of the Canadian National hotels across the nation—all designed and built around the colonial power present in the early years of the founding of Canada.
These are only two examples (there are many others) of our history which symbolize many wrongs committed to many people on the planet including our First Peoples. It is time to stop looking backwards, make a decision to move ahead and contribute to building a shared and bright future.
Pamela Welgan,
via e-mail