It is difficult to feel attached to a country you do not know.
Yet Canadian history is often treated as something to be endured during school rather than one of the most useful tools for understanding the country we live in. Many Canadians can tell you more about American presidents, American wars and American political history than they can about the events that created their own institutions, borders and national identity.
That is partly understandable. American media reaches Canadians every day, and the major events of American history have been turned into thousands of movies, television programs, podcasts and books.
Canada’s history is quieter.
It should not be confused with being less interesting.
The story of Canada includes Indigenous civilizations that existed long before European arrival, French exploration and settlement, the growth of New France, British conquest, waves of Loyalist migration, the War of 1812, responsible government, Confederation, westward expansion, the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, two world wars, the Great Depression, the creation of national social programs, the Quiet Revolution, constitutional battles, immigration from virtually every part of the world and the gradual development of an increasingly independent foreign policy.
There are stories of remarkable achievement.
There are also chapters that should make Canadians uncomfortable.
Residential schools.
The Chinese head tax and exclusion policies.
The internment of Japanese Canadians.
Discrimination against Black Canadians and other minorities.
The treatment of Indigenous peoples through colonial laws and policies.
Antisemitism.
The refusal of the MS St. Louis.
Restrictions and prejudices that remind us that today’s Canada was not created fully formed.
A mature nationalism has room for all of it.
There is a temptation in national debates to believe Canadians must choose between two versions of history. In one version, Canada is a heroic success story and criticism amounts to disloyalty. In the other, Canada is primarily a catalogue of injustices and expressions of pride amount to ignorance.
Both versions are incomplete.
Countries are created by human beings, and human beings are capable of courage, stupidity, generosity, cruelty, brilliance and prejudice, frequently within the same generation.
Knowing Canadian history should therefore make patriotism deeper rather than more fragile.
Consider the Canadian experience during the world wars. It is possible to honour Canadians who served and died while also studying the political tensions surrounding conscription. It is possible to commemorate Canada’s role in liberating the Netherlands while understanding the discrimination faced by some Canadians at home.
We can celebrate Confederation as the foundation of the modern Canadian state while also recognizing that Indigenous peoples did not enter Confederation as equal negotiating partners.
We can admire the extraordinary engineering achievement of building a railway across the country while learning about the Chinese labourers who worked and died helping to build it.
Complexity does not destroy national pride.
It makes national pride intellectually serious.
History also helps Canadians understand why different regions view the country differently.
To understand Quebec politics, you need to know something about New France, the Conquest, language struggles and the Quiet Revolution.
To understand western alienation, you need to know about settlement policies, resource disputes, railways and federal-provincial tensions.
To understand Indigenous politics, you need to know about treaties, the Indian Act, residential schools and land claims.
To understand Atlantic Canada, you need to know about fisheries, shipbuilding, Confederation debates, Acadian history and economic changes that reshaped the region.
Without history, these differences can look irrational.
With history, they begin to make sense.
That is why teaching Canadian history should not be viewed as a nostalgic exercise.
It is civic infrastructure.
Canadians making decisions about the country’s future should know how the country reached its present situation.
We should know why the Charter of Rights and Freedoms exists.
We should know why Canada has two official languages.
We should know why the Crown remains part of our constitutional structure.
We should know what treaties are.
We should know how our parliamentary system differs from the American presidential model.
We should know why Newfoundland joined Confederation only in 1949 and why Nunavut was created in 1999.
These are not trivia questions.
They explain the country.
A confident Canada should also do a better job of turning its history into stories ordinary people actually want to consume. More Canadian historical films, documentaries, museums, podcasts, novels, television programs and digital projects would help. The easiest way to ensure Canadians know every detail of another country’s history is to complain that nobody knows Canadian history while producing very little popular entertainment about it.
National memory requires storytellers.
Most importantly, knowing our failures should give Canadians reasons to protect the progress made since them.
The lesson of past discrimination should not be that Canada is uniquely terrible.
The lesson should be that rights and institutions improve when citizens demand better from their country.
Patriotism should never require historical amnesia.
Canada is worth caring about precisely because generations of Canadians inherited an imperfect country and attempted, with varying levels of success, to leave something better behind.
We have inherited that responsibility now.
0 comments