Mr. Speaker, I rise to strongly support the official recognition of Sir John A. Macdonald Day and Sir Wilfrid Laurier Day.
I want to address the first half of my speech to the school children of Yukon. Other members may find it interesting because nothing I will say today has been said before in the House of Commons or in the other place in this debate.
Some might say that Macdonald and Laurier are obscure historical figures, irrelevant to the 21st century agenda of Canadians. Others might say it is odd for a member from Yukon to support a day in their honour because Yukon was not even created when Sir John A. Macdonald died, or a few years later when Sir Wilfrid Laurier became Prime Minister.
However I believe that these two creative and constructive statesmen made enormous contributions to Canada, contributions that Canadians can see and value every day, even or especially in a place like Yukon, so relatively recent and so far from the original heartland of Confederation.
When this important gesture of honouring Macdonald and Laurier was mentioned to a Yukon immigrant, that is, one from abroad and not from what we Yukoners like to call the “outside”, she was astonished that Canada did not already recognize the seminal contributions of these two great figures. She had learned so much about them as she prepared to become a Canadian citizen, and assumed we had already given them this honour.
Let us consider a few of the decisive effects that Sir John A. Macdonald had on Yukon, effects that we feel to this day.
First, in 1871, he acquired Rupert's Land for Canada, a vast and largely uncharted territory that contained what we Yukoners today call our home.
Second, he created the Northwest Mounted Police in 1873. The Northwest Mounted Police and its successor, the RCMP, have played a glorious role in Yukon's history, ensuring that Yukon's early history was characterized by quiet and orderly development, not the chaos, mayhem and bloodshed that our friends in Alaska experienced all too often. Indeed, what image could be more Canadian than the Northwest Mounted Police constable with his dog team, bringing order and good government to the farthest reaches of Yukon?
Third, and most importantly, without Sir John's vision of Canada there would be no Yukon as we know it today. His grand concept of a transcontinental Canada created a strong and dynamic country, one that provided the political and economic structure that has allowed Yukon to develop into the unique and vibrant community it is today.
Sir John A. Macdonald bought the land, then Sir Wilfrid Laurier laid the foundations for Yukon over his four terms as prime minister and his impressive 45 years in the House of Commons.
In 1898, his Yukon Act created the Yukon Territory as a separate entity, as I noted on its anniversary in the House last June 13. The Yukon Act still serves as Yukon's constitution, with amendments such as the historic measures on devolution that I introduced last December in the House of Commons.
In 1898, Laurier created the Yukon field force, one of the first Canadian military forces, to assert Canadian sovereignty and add some military muscle to the Northwest Mounted Police. Today Alaskans are our great friends but at the time Yukoners appreciated having a line of Laurier's troopers with their new fangled machine guns guarding the passes to protect us from the notorious terrors like Soapy Smith and the Alaskan judge who went wrong, Arthur Noyes.
Laurier also presided over the tangled border dispute between Canada and Alaska. Any Canadian enjoying a hike in the Coastal Mountains on the west coast of Canada can thank Laurier's determination that much of this beautiful area is now Canadian.
Of course, we did not succeed in getting all the things that we thought were fair, but the shortcomings of imperial diplomacy were not Laurier's fault. In fact, he took the opportunity created by the Alaskan border controversy to take further concrete steps to define a foreign policy for Canada independent of England, something we are all proud of today.
Both Sir John A. and Sir Wilfrid Laurier fought great battles with those outside Canada for our independence and our freedom. Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier are not misty historical figures to Yukoners. Our laws and our customs and even the shape of our land are ours thanks to them.
I heartily support the bill and commend my colleague and mentor from Don Valley West for bringing it forward. I would like to thank the Yukon students for listening to this part of their history which is dedicated to them.
I say to my fellow Canadians, gens du pays, that what we have here are two great founders of our nation: one who tied this great land together with a ribbon of steel and the other who held it together with the persuasiveness of his silver tongued oratory.
And it is the progeny of that orator that gives me great pleasure in the House of Commons today: as I listen to the great, passionate speeches of my colleagues from Quebec from all sides of the House.
I implore my colleagues to not vote against this great spirit of Quebec by voting against this bill; do not vote against les Québécois, les Canadiens, by rejecting a favourite son, a boy from the village of Saint-Lin who became an orator of unparalleled eloquence in the history of this nation.
It has been said that we should support these two great leaders because they encapsulated much of what was Canada in four boxes: French, English, Protestant and Catholic.
However that is not what we celebrate. We celebrate that these two great men became larger than life by expanding and breaking the bounds of these boxes. They realized that Canada was far greater than the two provinces that they came from, Ontario and Quebec, far greater than two languages, far greater than two religions. It is the many cultures starting with the first nations, the many languages and the many religions which provide the diversity and the strength that make Canada the greatest nation in the world.
In closing, I personally would like to celebrate our two founders. Since they finished their work far too many women in the world have died in childbirth. My mother did not die in childbirth. Since they wove our colourful cultures together into the shimmering fabric of our nation far too many people in the world have starved to death. We did not starve to death.
Since they joined our great peoples with respect far too many children in the world have died for lack of medicine or vaccinations. That was not our fate. Since they made the great sacrifices they did to hold the nation together thousands of children around the world have died in conflict over language or religion but not in the land of Laurier and Macdonald.
In the land of Laurier and Macdonald a boy from a family without too many resources and whose grandparents came from the old country could be bestowed the great privilege of being one of 301 people to represent the greatest nation on earth.
Sir John A. Macdonald, Sir Wifrid Laurier, I remember.