Macdonald and Cartier mirror the complexity of Canada says Historica Canada president

 

Actor Steve Cumyn (L) as Sir John A. Macdonald en route to the Charlottetown Conference in a new Heritage Minute released on Macdonald’s 199^th birthday.

 

By Roderick Benns

Canada’s two key founders are each being featured in their own inspiring, just-released Heritage Minutes, produced by Historica Canada.

Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir George Etienne Cartier are each given the one minute historical treatment through deft film making and tight scripts that bring to life some of their key moments on the path to Confederation.

From a leadership perspective, the president of Historica Canada, Anthony Wilson-Smith, tells Leaders and Legacies that Macdonald “was a man of wide, sweeping, and bold vision.” He also had a “scrappy nature and sometimes bare-knuckle focus” on achieving his goals, he says.

Wilson-Smith points to his realization of the dream of a united Canada, which Macdonald managed, and his achievement of a coast-to-coast railway. 

“He was also a pragmatic politician who believed, at least to a degree, that the end justifies the means,” says Wilson-Smith. “In other words, he was both a dreamer and a pragmatist, with the daring to aim high, and a realist’s awareness that dreams alone (would not be) enough. He would have to win over others…in order to achieve his goals.”

The Historica Canada president says it’s also essential that Canadians understand that notable figures in our history “were as human as everyone else – sometimes balancing flaws and attributes…on a large scale.”

Released officially on Macdonald’s birthday, January 11^th, the minutes depict the core achievements of Canada’s two key founding fathers.

In the Macdonald minute, he is shown on a steamship on the St. Lawrence River in 1864, three years prior to Confederation. Macdonald and Cartier are planning tactics with Macdonald’s old rival and now ally, George Brown, just before the Charlottetown conference.

Cartier’s minute first shows Macdonald unveiling a statue of his late friend. (Cartier died in 1873.) Through the use of flashbacks we see how the French-Canadian leader played a key role in bringing Manitoba and British Columbia into the Canadian fold.

Wilson-Smith says what he likes about the pairing of Macdonald and Cartier in the new Heritage Minutes is the way in which the two leaders “mirror the challenges and blessings of modern-day Canada.”

“Among them, a Francophone and an Anglophone — who also happens to be an immigrant — transcending their differences and initial suspicions to form a great partnership and friendship,” says Wilson-Smith.

Cartier evolved from someone who fought with the Patriotes against the British in 1837, says Wilson-Smith, to the Father of Confederation who played such a key role in bringing in Quebec, Manitoba and BC into the Canadian fold.

“Each man faced particular challenges — personal as well as professional — as they left behind some of their initial, natural constituencies to work for something greater,” he points out.

Many of Cartier’s 1837 compatriots thought his new desire for a united Canada that included Quebec was little short of traitorous, says the Historica Canada president.

“Sir John A., meanwhile, had many associates who were not very friendly to Francophones and disliked his embrace of Cartier. And Macdonald and George Brown, who actively disliked each other for many years, had to overcome that as well,” he says.

“So we learn that when a cause is big and bold enough – as is the case with Canada – it really is possible for the things that unite to triumph over the things that divide. A lesson for all times and ages.”