Trump forgot about the moon!

 
     Put tariffs on the moon, Mr. Trump!

Peace, Order and Good Government – from whence these words came?

Canadians might lament the fact that our constitutional motto, Peace Order and Good Government, appears downright boring when compared to the American “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, or the French “liberty, equality, fraternity”.  The Canadian philosopher John Ralston Saul - spouse to former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson - argued in his book, A Fair Country (2008), that “peace, order and good government” was perceived as “elite” discourse, claiming instead that “peace, welfare, and good government” was more evident in early founding documents and more germane to Canada.[1]

As Saul and others have described it, when the Fathers of Confederation met in Charlottetown and Quebec City, the phrase “peace, welfare and good government” was in all the documents.[2]  It remained this way until the Liberal Gladstone government in Britain was replaced on 06 July 1866 by the Earl of Derby’s Conservative government, with Lord Carnarvon as the new colonial secretary.  Under Carnarvon, all references to “peace, welfare and good government” were replaced by the singular “peace, order and good government”.[3]  What happened?

In my view, too much ink has been spilled on trying to explain this change in the terms of valiant Canadians travelling to London to achieve independence for the country.  Critics of the change from Welfare to Order assume that the word Order held negative connotations at the time.  Ask yourself: What was happening elsewhere while these Confederation conferences were taking place?  Could it not be that the American Civil War (April 1861-April 1865) had sharpened a new taste for Order?

With this in mind, I would also like to direct readers to the works of John Stuart Mill, by far England’s most important political philosopher of the nineteenth century.  He was a Liberal, who took a liking to politics, and he even succeeded in winning a seat in the British House of Commons.  He was in parliament when he voted in favour of the British North America Act, which established the creation of Canada in 1867.[4]  He is also the author of Considerations of Representative Government, published in January 1861.     

In chapter 2 of Considerations, “The Criterion of a Good Form of Government,” Mill links Order with the idea of Progress, a prevailing notion in the 19^th century.  “Order”, he explains, “is not an additional end to be reconciled with Progress, but a part and means of Progress itself.”[5]  To his mind, Order and Progress are not exclusive of one another but complementary.  So, between Mill and the American Civil War there are palpable reasons for the use of the word Order instead of Welfare.

What about the word Peace?  It hearkens back at least as far as the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89.  It can be found in John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government, the writing of which predates these events by about a decade.[6] And it can be found in the English Bill of Rights (1689), which uses the words “Unity Peace Tranquility and Safety of this Nation”.  Here Peace refers to the peaceful transfer of power - from the exiled Catholic King James II to the Protestant William of Orange and his wife Mary (daughter of James II).  This peaceful transition also resulted in a limited monarchy, as it marked the supremacy of parliament alongside the Bill of Rights.  The word Peace may also be seen to signal the end to the English Civil Wars which occurred earlier in the mid-17^th century.

So, I put it to readers that the words Peace, Order and Good Government followed from some very non-boring events of the past.  Order may also have positive implications as we look again at our border to the South – and beyond.

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[1] See John Ralston Saul, A Fair Country: Telling Truths about Canada (Toronto: Penguin, 2008), Chapter 11.

[2] Ibid., p. 153.  Saul takes his cue from Stephen Eggleston, “The myth and mystery of POgG”, Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 31, no. 4, Winter 1996-1997, pp. 80-96.  Saul considers Eggleston to be an “expert”.

[3] Ibid., p. 153.

[4] See Graeme Garrard, “John Stuart Mill and the liberal idea of Canada” British Journal of Canadian Studies. vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 31-46.

[5] John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and Other Essays, ed. John Grey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 223.

[6] See, for example: John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, Book II, paragraph 131. 

On Sir John A. Macdonald and Canada’s Founding: A Book Review

I am no stranger to the flaws - perceived and otherwise - of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister.  But the time has come to revise the historical revisionists, who led the toppling of his statues and other forms of diminution following the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Report in 2015.  With this in mind, Patrice Dutil has written a balanced and nuanced study, Sir John A. Macdonald and the Apocalyptic Years 1885 (2024).  1885 was the year of Louis Riel, the year of famine among Indigenous Peoples, the year of smallpox, and the make-or-break year of the Canadian Pacific Railway, our iron link to continental connection.  In Dutil’s view, 1885 was as perilous to Canada as was 1917, the year of Dieppe and of conscription in Quebec.  To this we might also add: the year 2025 with Donald Trump’s tariff turbulence and other threats which have stirred Canadians and even united them.

For the most part, the book is well written, apart from a few clichés, but I fear the best part was confined to a footnote.  In the conclusion, Dutil writes that the phrase “killing the Indian to save the child” is falsely associated with Macdonald.  He goes on to explain in the footnote:

Though Macdonald is consistently accused of having uttered this phrase, there is no record of it.  None of his ministers or government officials ever used it.  In fact, no Canadian politician used the phrase until Stephen Harper did in 2008 in his apology for residential schools.  This is an American expression that was first used by Captain Richard Pratt, the director of the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.  Beverly McLachlin, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, was probably the most eminent Canadian to cite that phrase in a speech in May of 2015.[1]

So, it appears that even eminent Canadian figures don’t always get their history right.  As Macdonald’s fortunes have tumbled, the prestige of Indigenous Studies rose – as if in an inverse relationship.  But history is not a zero-sum game, and it should not be about one fixed allegiance to an historiographical tradition.   Rather, it is about embracing complexity: the past cannot be understood outside of history itself.  History belongs to a time and a place.  Context matters.  And while we have all been busy retrofitting our houses to suit current building codes, we should remind ourselves that these “codes” have changed over time.  Today’s Land Acknowledgements are oddly reminiscent of yesterday’s Lord’s Prayer.

I have trouble with the word “genocide” and other current terms of our day.  Yes, Macdonald is pilloried for his role in the formation of Indian Residential Schools.  But if Macdonald and company were so bent on “genocide”, why was his government busy inoculating the (grateful) Indigenous Peoples?  Why was almost half of the budget at Indian Affairs dedicated to supplying food to the Indigenous Peoples, who were starving?  Why were Indigenous Peoples (owning property) given the right to vote? Why did they have the opportunity to meet in person with Macdonald’s cabinet, and with the Prime Minister at his Earnscliffe home in Ottawa?  

More questions: Why did Macdonald’s proposed $5 head tax on Chinese coming to Canada result in a $50 tax?  (Answer: Because British Columbians demanded it as a condition of entering Confederation).   Why did Macdonald want Canada to be the first nation in the world to give women the right to vote?  (Answer: Because he knew of the writings of England’s leading public intellectual, John Stuart Mill).

As Canadians today rally around each other is it not incumbent on us to restore some honour to our first and founding Prime Minister?  Ask yourself: where would you be now if Macdonald hadn’t succeeded?

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[1] Patrice Dutil, Sir John A. Macdonald and the Apocalyptic Year (Toronto: Southerland House, 2024), p. 312, n. 2.

Did Bishop Budde reveal Trump’s unwitting “contempt”?

The Gospel was freely tendered; but they with much Affront and Contempt, rejected it.

Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana (1702)

Source: Oxford English Dictionary online 

What is a Nation? Or, Election Duties in Times of Tariffs and Other Threats

A nation is therefore a vast solidarity, constituted by the sentiment of the sacrifices one has made and of those one is yet prepared to make.  It presupposes a past; it is, however, summarized in the present by a tangible fact: consent, the clearly expressed desire to continue a common life.  A nation’s existence is (if you will pardon the metaphor) an everyday plebiscite, just as an individual’s existence is a perpetual affirmation of life.  Oh!  I know this is less metaphysical than divine right, less brutal than alleged historical right.  In the frame of ideas I put to you, a nation has no more right than a king does to say to a province: “You belong to me, I am seizing you.”  A province, for us, is its inhabitants; if anyone has the right to be consulted in such an office, it is the inhabitant.  A nation never has any real interest in annexing or holding on to a country against its will.  What the nation wants is, ultimately, the only legitimate criterion, the one to which one must always return.[1]

Ernest Renan, What is a Nation? (1882)

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[1][1] Ernest Renan, What is a Nation? and Other Political Writings, tr. and ed. M.F.N. Giglioli (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), pp. 261-262.

Wisdom on today’s spectacle in Washington, D.C.

He said, “Go and tell this people:

  “‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding
     be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’
Make the heart of these people calloused;
     make their ears dull
     and close their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
     hear with their ears,
     understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”

Source: The Bible, Isaiah 6:9-10.

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