I have just a few general remarks here that are matters of principle rather than detail, but I think they will probably be useful to you. I hope so.
First of all, there was no official history written about 1967, apart from The Anniversary Compulsion. I have copies of the book here for anybody who cares to take one. It's still in print. It was the only chronicle of the centennial in 1967 that was written, oddly enough. That's a clue perhaps to the new group who is going to take over the heritage aspect. You had better assign somebody to write the history, because it's assumed it will be lost, as it was in the case of 1967.
There are two basic kinds of circumstance that bring about the knee-jerk reaction to celebrate. A repetitive calendric date is one of them--think birthday when you think of that rubric. The second is a perceived milestone that has particular interest. If it is divisible by five, that makes it important: 2016 is ho-hum; 2018 is too late. It's odd--and I'll leave that mystery with you--why it is divisible by five and why that makes it important. I have not yet satisfied myself about that.
The issue is also not about nationalism now. There's a very fine distinction between nationalism and patriotism. I stand, or sit, challenged on that, but I believe that nationalism has a different connotation. It's really related to comparisons of countries and cultures and their particular attributes and history. Patriotism is something fine or more personal. Just think, “Breathes there the man with soul so dead/Who never to himself hath said/This is my own, my native land!”
So 2017 is the stuff of patriotism: my home, my native land. It's fundamental in planning and thinking about it to make that distinction between nationalism and patriotism. I give it to you as a philosophical matter to consider in your planning.
Following 1967 there was no quantitative or qualitative analysis of what went on. The programs just occurred and that was that. To this day, except for a few MA and PhD theses that exist, there is still no qualitative or quantitative analysis of what happened.
All of the archives of the Centennial Commission--and it was my responsibility to see that this took place--were deposited in the National Archives of Canada. There are eight stacks down the street at the National Archives, right down to the level of the Ottawa River. In those are 100 metres of files. Every scrap of paper we ever had is there.
So there's no dearth of material to really understand what happened in some of these programs and whether they succeeded or not. That's a great bonus to everybody who's planning for Canada 150. The material is all there to be used.
In my own analysis, in the book The Anniversary Compulsion, I tried to concentrate on the “how” of the compulsion, and the result is encapsulated in what I call the anniversary axiomatic. I looked at all the programs, refined them down to what they were all about, and then backed up and said, “Okay, now if we want to do this again, what are some rules to follow?” In the anniversary axiomatic are the ten precepts that I come up with for a successful anniversary. I commend them to you, because I believe they have some substance of value.
I'd like to pay tribute to Peter MacLeod and the institute's public administration for hosting the first conference on the subject in March 2010.
I guess that's all I want to say in terms of general remarks. I'll be happy, of course, to answer your questions later on.
I will just hold up a copy of The Anniversary Compulsion and say that I don't need to say any more; it's all in the book.
Thank you.