
As Trudeau departs, Sir John A. Macdonald makes a comeback
The facts of Canadian history — lights and shadows — are stubbornly reasserting themselves
On Jan. 11, 1885, Sir John A. Macdonald celebrated his 70th birthday. The subsequent year would be the most tumultuous of his long premiership, calling upon all his skills and wisdom to keep Confederation together and strong.
On Jan. 11, 2015, Canada marked the bicentennial of Sir John A’s birth. A most difficult decade for Macdonald would follow — and from the grave he could not fight back. Canada’s 22nd prime minister, Justin Trudeau, was elected in 2015 and would oversee 10 years in which Canada’s first and most important prime minister would be erased from our public spaces.
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In his infamous interview with The New York Times soon after his first election, Trudeau indicated what was coming. A country with no “core identity,” a “post-national” state must, by necessity, turn with ferocity against the founder of the nation. To destroy an identity it must be ripped out by its roots. The choice of instrument of the Trudeau post-nationalists was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which reported that same year.
Ten years have passed. Trudeau is headed for the exit, and his project of moving past the nation Sir John A. founded will go with him. This year, 2025, will mark the beginning of Sir John A.’s comeback. The worst of his difficult decade is now over.
The TRC-fuelled argument that Canada was a vast criminal enterprise from the beginning made great advances, but the argument is turning. The excessive claims of 2021 regarding “mass” residential school graves have been refuted. The facts of Canadian history — lights and shadows — are stubbornly reasserting themselves, despite the historical distortions of the TRC final report — assertions unsupported by its own published research.
An important new biography, Sir John A. Macdonald and the Apocalyptic Year 1885, presents anew a fulsome, truthful account. The biographer, the estimable Patrice Dutil, favours the nickname “Old Tomorrow” — the statesman who conserved the past but was remarkably progressive about the future.