Boreal

The Fractured Nation Interviews

Boom-Boom Singh

Johnny Talks About Canada’s Early History

Boom-Boom: My views. Well, my views on The Fracture sort of begin where the lovely doctor Diane left off except for her comparison [chuckling] of Canada’s downfall to the rise and fall of the Roman Empire … what do you say … over the top.

Johnny: Why is that?

Boom-Boom: I don’t mean to quibble but Canada’s rise and fall, if you can call it that, in no way compares to the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was, for most of its history, a dynamic force to be reckoned with. It outlasted Canada’s somnolent existence by more than a thousand years, maybe two-thousand years. The Romans built their empire with blood and sweat and fought heroically to the very end to preserve what they had built. Can the same be said about Canada? I don’t think so!

Johnny: I don’t mean to quibble either. I agree that few took notice of Canada’s passing and even fewer cared. I also agree that ending a country “à la Havel” is not at all reminiscent of the fall of the Roman Empire. That is why I introduced the first interview with a selection from T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men and its evocative line about “this is the way the world ends not with a bang but a whimper.” Again, I don’t mean to quibble but, while Canada’s fall was not Roman-like, its birth was a totally different story and was the result of an heroic struggle by brave men and women. Perhaps not on the scale of the birth of the Roman Empire, but heroic nonetheless.

Boom-Boom: Perhaps I spoke to quickly. I didn’t mean to trivialize the struggle that you say was Canada’s birth. Again, I apologize.

Johnny: No need to apologize.

Boom-Boom: I know so very little about Canada’s early history even though as a teenager, before The Fracture, I attended Canadian public schools. If I remember correctly we were not encouraged to learn about Canada’s early history. The emphasis seemed to be on learning our history; the history of our ancestral land; the history of our ancestors who came to Canada. If we did learn about Canadian history it was modern Canadian history in which our contribution to building the country figured prominently. The only early Canadian history I am familiar with is the history of the ruthless exploitation of early immigrants from Asia and the Asian sub-continent.

Johnny: At the risk of sounding as an apologist for Canada, will you allow me a few minutes to inform our viewers about Canada’s early history?

Boom-Boom: First you take up my interview time by reading a letter from a previous guest. Now you want to take more of my interview time to talk about the early history of Canada. Maybe I should have brought a book [smiling broadly]. Just kidding. Take all the time you need … how do you say it … knock yourself in.

Johnny: Thank you. It’s knock yourself out. I will be as brief as I can possibly be and if we run out of time I will make it up to you, I promise.

Boom-Boom: Call me, perhaps? No, maybe you can introduce me to Dr. Diane [smiling]. Just kidding. Speaking of briefs; of being brief.

Johnny: Okay [speaking to the camera]. It’s the winter of 1534. Jacques Cartier, a French explorer and his companions are slowly dying from scurvy in the land that would become Canada. In a show of compassion, a common trait of the local inhabitants, they give Cartier the cure for the disease and the little band of brave men from France are rescued from certain death. The next two hundred and twenty-nine years are marked by conflict as the French and English bring their never-ending wars to the New World and the Natives choose sides. The exception being the western interior which for most of the eighteenth century remains in relative peace thanks, in part, to that great Canadian explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de la Vérendrye who, between 1730 and 1749 negotiates a series of treaties with the local inhabitants. One of these would be an alliance with the Cree-Assiniboine-Ojibwa against the Dakota to the south thereby preserving the Great Plains for the future country of Canada.

Boom-Boom: Sieur de la Vey·ren·dree. With a name like that and he was born in Canada?

 Johnny: [glancing at Boom-Boom] Yes, he was. In 1763, France decides that its colony is not worth the trouble and abandons it to the British in favour of the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. Guy Carleton, the second Governor of the former French colony, convinces the British government to allow the inhabitants “the Canadians” to practice their religion and keep their language.

Boom-Boom: That was nice of the British.

Johnny: [glancing again at Boom-Boom] Yes, it was. When the American war of independence begins in 1775, most of the Iroquois Nations under the great Mohawk chief Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea) fight the Americans denying them the land that would become the province of Ontario. When the Americans, under Benedict Arnold try to wrest Québec and the entire St. Lawrence River valley from the British, they erroneously assume that tens of thousands of French-Canadians will gladly join the thirteen colonies in rebellion. He meets his Waterloo in front of the city of Québec, on the Plains of Abraham on a cold snowy December night.

Boom-Boom: Was that the same Benedict Arnold that was accused of being a traitor during the American war for independence?

Johnny: Yes. In the war of 1812, the British, French-Canadians or simply Canadians as they are called at the time and Natives again join together to preserve the integrity of the territory that will become Canada. Tecumseh, the famous Shawnee warrior and leader and the Iroquois Nations are again instrumental in denying the Americans the land that would become the Province of Ontario. The Canadians deny the Americans the land that would become the Province of Québec. Following the war, Natives surrender most of their lands in Upper Canada to the British Crown in formal treaties. Further bloodless surrender of native lands will follow as the European settlers move west. For this extremely generous act, the British Government guarantees, in writing, that it will always look after their needs it terms of food, shelter and general well-being.

Boom-Boom: That too was nice of the British.

Johnny: [glancing at Boom-Boom and showing some impatience] Yes, yes it was. In 1851, it’s the Métis who fight and defend the territory that would become the country’s breadbasket. In the Battle of Grand Coteau, the Métis defeat the Sioux from further south for control of key buffalo hunting grounds. For close to a century the Métis defend, dominate, settle and farm the prairies. In 1867, the former French colony and the remaining English colonies put their differences aside and join together for the greater good and security of all in a Confederation. In 1878, John A. MacDonald and the Conservatives are re-elected to continue in their nation building ways. During the election campaign MacDonald promises to protect the country’s fledging economy from being completely dominated by its southern neighbour by the adoption of a national economic policy or as it was called The National Policy to, in MacDonald’s own words “benefit the agricultural, the mining, the manufacturing and other interest of the Dominion.” The National Policy is a success.

Boom-Boom: I don’t understand why Canadians let Mulroney get rid of this National Policy?

Johnny: You’re not the only one. In 1896, it is the Liberal’s turn to continue the nation building process. Under the leadership of Wilfrid Laurier, the first French-Canadian Prime Minister, the prairies are opened up to massive immigration thereby creating a new generation of Canadians and ensuring that the West will remain Canadian. At Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee in the summer of 1897 he rebuffs Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain’s proposal to bring the former colonies into an imperial, military, economic, and political federation thereby setting the stage for the creation of the Commonwealth and Canada achieving full independence.

Boom-Boom: Not unlike the beginnings of our Commonwealth.

Johnny: The next eighty or so years are an exercise in strengthening the union and continuing the co-operation among the three founding nations - English, French and Natives, the First Nations - while promoting everyone’s welfare and creating a country spanning a continent and bordering three of the world’s five oceans. On Canada’s Coat of Arms you find the words “A Mare usque ad Mare.” By setting aside their differences and cooperating instead of fighting each other, English, French and Natives built a country from “Sea to Shining Sea.” Its southern neighbour fought a revolutionary war and a civil war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives to achieve what Canada did with little loss of life. [looking at Boom-Boom] That’s it.

 Boom-Boom: That’s it???

Johnny: Yes, the subsequent history of Canada was more or less covered in the first interview on Monday with Diane Frances.