Opinion: Agitators losing their heads

Photo: Contributed

Apparently, “Old Tomorrow” has had his head removed by some shiftless miscreants in what was once called New France. The usual psychobabble percolated to justify these actions - colonialism, Sir John A.’s race, defund the police, etc. I’ll not deny that our first prime minister had several imperfections and that some of his policies hindered more than they helped my own First Peoples. But to behead and compare him to 20th century tyrants is insulting and absurd.

Second only to my vitriol for all things Post-Quiet Revolution in this banal excuse for a country is my unending puzzlement at our homegrown leftists from the 1960s onwards who are always aping their American cousins. From Vietnam protests to contemporary agitation over all things race and gender related, one would think our own radicals would display a little originality. Instead, while proclaiming to be anti-Amerikkka to the max, they mime their movements daily.

Of course, this only serves to harm the objectives of Canadian radicals, for the moment that anyone becomes acquainted with the facts, the comparisons come apart. At the exact same moment John A. was founding this country, America was piecing itself back together after what is still the bloodiest conflict in their history, the Civil War. The victorious Union then turned their army, the largest in the world, west and began bullying or killing my ancestors, the Plains Sioux. 

That did not happen in Canada. Even if one wants to cite the Louis Riel rebellion, first, the casualties bear no resemblance to the conflicts south of the border and second, open rebellion, like Fenian Raids, earns you the untempered violence of state authority - have a plan to win or prepare to face the consequences. As a side note, we restive First Peoples had modern assault weapons - lever actions - in that conflict while the Canadian Army carried outdated small arms.

Despite rebellion, and my own tribe’s penchant for stealing back the horses sold to the American whiskey traders, eventually resulting in the Cypress Hills Massacre which in turn resulted in the creation of the Northwest Mounted Police, treaties with First Nations as well as legislation to aid their transition continued to be debated and passed in Parliament. Indeed, even Sitting Bull referred to the now defaced Queen Victoria as “Great-Grandmother Across the Sea.”

None of it was perfect and I have consistently called for the Indian Act to be amended to an unrecognizable degree or tossed out completely. But again, looking at the situation of the late 19th Century, especially questions of race and culture, considering that this was in the midst of the rise of eugenics, the fact that a campaign of full scale slaughter did not occur in this country is actually a miracle. And part of that reality is thanks largely to Sir John A.’s own temperament.

Let us recall again that after breaching the Rockies and delivering the promised CPR to the Most Beautiful Place on Earth, Macdonald was shocked B.C. had not made treaties with local tribes. In typical liberal fashion, our lover of the universe premier had no sympathy for the First Peoples or their claims, while Gov. Douglas, a Creole-Scott, and Gov. Seymour, an illegitimate son of nobility, displayed both empathy as well as fidelity regarding agreements over landuse.

But none of this is here nor there. How can the black masked cowards know any of this if all they’ve been taught is Marxian theory by pseudo-academics at the adult day care centres we call universities? Hyphenated courses and the degrees they add up to are nonsense - they do not teach the facts of what happened, only the predetermined conclusion we must all come to lest we not be allies, or worse, stay within our racial bias, which obviously is inherently violent.

Sir John A. Macdonald knew how to deal with agitators. It is my sincere hope all are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Our founding father deserves at least that much.