Mr. Speaker, Bill S-8 would set aside two days, January 8 and November 20, as national memorial days, but not actually statutory holidays, in honour of arguably the two greatest prime ministers of this country, Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier.
In making these two days memorial or remembrance days we are giving them a status similar to the status given to Remembrance Day, November 11, for example, as opposed to Canada Day, which is of course a day on which work ought not to be performed. There is a distinction there that I think is important.
This bill is significant for its symbolic value and for what it says about what we think about these two figures and therefore what we think about ourselves. It is a sense of our own picture of our history. In our view of our own history, in our national mythology, we are in fact building our image of ourselves and our attitudes towards the world.
This is a question of particular interest to me. In my private life I am a Ph.D. candidate in history at Carleton University, working on a doctoral dissertation on evolving Canadian attitudes toward the monarchy. I see some parallels in the studies I have done on evolving Canadian attitudes toward the monarchy and the kinds of evolving attitudes we have had over time toward our historical figures, including of course the great Sir John A. and the great Sir Wilfrid.
Just to draw out the analogy a bit, the monarchy in the eyes of a man like Maurice Duplessis, and in his words at the time of the world visit of 1939, was dramatically different from the status of the monarchy in the eyes of the Quebec nationalists who greeted Queen Elizabeth when she visited Montreal about 30 years later in 1964. This was because the perceptions of the world had changed. The symbolic value that was given to the monarchy and to the visiting monarch had changed over that period of time.
The same thing of course can be said of our views toward Sir John A. and Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Keeping this thought in mind, the most striking thing to be said is the very fact that we have never previously set aside the birthdates of either of these two men as national memorial days. That in itself says a great deal about our attitudes, not only toward them but toward ourselves and our own history.
I think there are probably two reasons why this is the case. First, until recently Sir John A. and Sir Wilfrid to some degree were seen as partisan figures, in much the same way that in the decades following their deaths Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson were seen respectively as being a northern republican and a symbol of division rather than of unity, and a southern agrarian democrat and perhaps also a symbol of division rather than unity. Later on as the partisan considerations faded, their overarching greatness was recognized and they were properly memorialized and honoured. Of course in the case of Jefferson, no holiday has been set aside for his birthday but there is a beautiful monument in Washington, and of course everybody knows about the Lincoln monument. I think there is still a little bit of this element with Sir John A. and Sir Wilfrid. Of course they died much more recently than either Lincoln or Jefferson.
A predecessor bill to this one, honouring only Sir John A., was introduced in the last parliament by my hon. colleague from Calgary Southeast . There was some discussion at the time as to whether it was appropriate to honour a representative of the Conservative stream in Canada without similarly honouring a representative of the Liberal stream. I would suggest that this is perhaps an indication that we have not yet matured in our views toward these two men. I would suggest that while it is entirely appropriate to honour Sir Wilfrid, and I am glad that he is being honoured here, it is appropriate not because he was a Liberal and Sir John A. was a Conservative. It is appropriate because they were both men of extraordinary vision.
The second reason that I think we failed in the past to honour these two men is that for decades we saw ourselves, our Canadian identity, as being subservient to another identity. It seems pretty clear that we saw ourselves as being primarily British for at least the first half century of Canada's history as a confederated country.
The great holiday of the 1920s and 1930s that went on and did not vanish in Ontario until the 1960s was Empire Day, later Commonwealth Day. That was a celebration of our perceived Britishness. That of course has diminished over time. As the diminution of that particular identity has taken place, it has seemed more appropriate to honour clearly and primarily Canadian figures.
As we memorialize and mythologize these men, it seems to me it is appropriate that we recognize them not only for the way in which they governed us during their lifetimes, and if one gets into the details of how they governed us, of course they governed in this place, with its adversarial politics and its partisanship, with a fair bit of what could be called sausage making. As one tries to produce laws, there is a bit that is perhaps not all that attractive. I do not think we are memorializing them for that. I think we are memorializing them for some over-arching values they represent.
I suggest that there are five overarching values which each of these two men represent and which we ought to make reference to as we proceed to honour them.
First, both men were clearly reconcilers of competing interests, competing ideologies and competing regions. This is evident in the fact that both men were able to cobble together out of the extraordinarily diverse Canadian political landscape two remarkably effective and long-lasting coalitions. Sir John A. Macdonald was able to govern for 19 years and Sir Wilfrid Laurier from 1896 to 1911 in an unbroken streak that has never been matched.
They were able to obtain representation from all regions of the country. They were able to represent the two great competing religious bases that at the time represented a great division within Canadian politics, to represent both linguistic groups in the country, to represent both longstanding Canadian interests and more recent arrivals to Canada. They were extraordinarily effective in that. That clearly is a primary value in the politics of a diverse country like Canada.
Second, we should honour them as parliamentarians and for their profound respect for this institution.
Of course Sir John A. Macdonald was eminent in actually creating this institution in its present form out of its predecessor, the parliament of the province of Canada. Sir Wilfrid Laurier was known for, among other things, his encyclopaedic knowledge of parliamentary rules of procedure and precedent and for his ability to converse fluently in these matters in both languages.
Third, we should recognize them as constitutionalists.
Sir John A. Macdonald's greatest accomplishment perhaps was that he was able to create for the first time anywhere in the world a constitution that combined the unwritten constitutional foundation of the British system and the written constitutionalism, and indeed federation, of the American model. This is a model that has been achieved with remarkable success in Canada and later on was emulated in Australia. It is indeed an absolutely extraordinary accomplishment that should make all of us very proud or at least very grateful to him.
Fourth, we should honour them as federalists.
It is interesting to note that in 1867, Sir John A. Macdonald really in his heart of hearts would have favoured what was referred to in those days as a legislative union, which meant of course a unitary state. At that time, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who was of course a young man in private life, was actually a separatist. He would have liked to have taken Quebec out of Canada and worked on some new deal. He spoke quite strongly against the new arrangement in his newspaper at the time.
But through the union of the centripetal forces personified in Sir John A. Macdonald and the centrifugal decentralist forces personified in Sir Wilfrid Laurier, we have in fact achieved a model of federalism which, despite perhaps some maladministration in the intervening century, has functioned remarkably well. It has remained generally and genuinely federal to a greater extent than many other federations, indeed most other nominal federations around the world.
Fifth and last, I think we should honour both these men as extraordinary visionaries.
Of course the vision of Sir John A. was confederation itself. Sir Wilfrid Laurier is known best of all for his comment that the 20th century would belong to Canada, perhaps not in the sense that Canada would be the dominant world power, but in the sense that Canada would provide an extraordinary vision which so many other countries around the world could emulate.
In conclusion, I do very much support the bill. I hope other parliamentarians will do the same.
