Conservatives defend first PM’s legacy after feds deem him too controversial
Conservatives are rallying behind the legacy of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, after reports that a federal board has deemed the father of confederation too controversial.
Author: Clayton DeMaine
Conservatives are rallying behind the legacy of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, after reports that a federal board has deemed the father of confederation too controversial for commemoration.
As first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter on Thursday, Parks Canada’s Historic Sites and Monuments Board recommended that Macdonald only be commemorated on Parks Canada’s website, and that no new plaques be made about his legacy.
Later, an article about the move was reported by the Toronto Sun, prompting Conservative MPs and the party’s leader to criticize the move as an erasure of Canada’s history.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre decried the decision, saying the board has “no right” to “cancel” Canada’s Father of Confederation.
“It’s very simple: no Macdonald, no Canada. No federal board has the right to cancel the first Prime Minister of our country,” Poilievre said in a post. “Sir John A. Macdonald deserves to be clearly recognized for his role in the foundation of the wonderful country we get to call home.”
During the last federal election, Poilievre pledged to establish an economic union in Canada, fulfilling the vision of Sir John A. Macdonald. Before the election, Poilievre vowed to restore Macdonald’s statues, erect new monuments and strengthen laws against vandalism of those statues.
Conservative MP for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, Andrew Lawton, similarly came out in defence of Macdonald’s legacy on social media.
“Members of the federal Historic Sites and Monuments Board want to erase Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister and the architect of Confederation, from Canada’s story. Shameful,” Lawton said.
Conservative MP for North Island—Powell River, Aaron Gunn, also blasted the board on X, calling on all those on the board of a department meant to preserve Canada’s history to be fired.
“Historically illiterate. Enablers of cultural Marxism. Vandals of Canadian history,” he said.
Parks Canada’s commemorative post, meant to serve as a replacement for new commemorative plaques, notes that the original 2014 text commemorating Macdonald was reviewed in 2024 due to “colonial assumptions and an absence of layers of history in the statement.”
“The original text did not reference his government’s role in shaping and advancing policies affecting Indigenous Peoples, founding a national system of Indian Residential Schools, and in the disenfranchisement and restriction of immigration of Chinese people,” the site said.
The Parks Canada website stated that the original plaque was removed and a new plaque would be prepared, as the “limited text of a plaque does not allow for adequately communicating this complex history.”
Over the past five years, Canada has witnessed several attacks and attempts to cancel the legacy of Canada’s founding figures by activists and institutions, including schools and government departments.
Patrice Dutil, a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University and author of “Sir John A. Macdonald & the Apocalyptic Year 1885,” told True North the move to revise the plaques in 2024 was “nothing short of a national embarrassment.”
“It is filled with errors of fact and shows a glaring anti-Macdonald bias,” Dutil said. “One has to question the value of so-called ‘national cultural institutions’ when they hold positions like this.”
At the beginning of the year, the Toronto District School Board declared it would rename several schools due to their apparent racist connections, including Macdonald’s namesake. Dutil told True North at the time that cancelling Macdonald was a “terrible idea.”
He argued that Macdonald was a “champion of all minorities” and that his legacy had always been honoured. He said Macdonald treated Indigenous Canadians fairly and saved Indigenous lives by providing them with food and medicine.
Following another name change of a historic figure last year, Thomas Flanagan, co-editor of “Grave Error, How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth About Residential Schools),” told True North that Macdonald oversaw the initial funding of residential schools. However, the stated goals of the program were not to commit genocide against the Indigenous population.
He said the intentions of those key members of the government in the establishment of the schools were to spread Christianity, educate the largely illiterate Indigenous population, and integrate them into British society as self-supporting members of the Commonwealth.
True North released its first children’s book, “A Day with Sir John A,” written by Lindsay Shepherd, to counter the demonizing narrative against Macdonald’s legacy, with an alternative perspective for kids and parents to understand more of the father of Confederation.”
Parks Canada did not respond to True North’s requests for comment.