Peace, order and good government - Sir John A.'s legacy

[Oscar]

Peace, order and good government: Pondering John A. Macdonald's legacy on his 200th birthday

[ http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/djclime ... lds-legacy ]

January 11, 2015 | By David J. Climenhaga

John A. Macdonald would spin in his grave in Kingston if he knew the crew that has appropriated his party's name!

- - - - -

QUOTE: ". . . Today's "Tories" despise the real Canada. As Harper famously said in the National Post in December 2000, Canada isn't the finest, freest country on the planet, it's nothing more than "a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status.""

- - - -

Today, or possibly yesterday, is the 200th anniversary of the birth of John Macdonald, first prime minister of Canada, arguably the person most responsible for the creation of our country and surely the one who deserves the most credit for it surviving as long as it has.

Let's keep those facts in mind when we argue about the historical legacy of Sir (for his accomplishments as the dominant figure of Confederation) John A. (for Alexander) Macdonald, as reasonable people are bound to do.

We should remember that Prime Minister Macdonald could work with others for the good of his country. It is particularly relevant at this fraught moment in Canada's history that Macdonald was prepared to form a coalition with his greatest rival, George Brown of the Reform Movement, whom he disliked, to ensure Confederation came about in 1867.

With the hideous example of the U.S. Civil War fresh in everyone's memories, the political union Macdonald, Brown and their contemporaries created, mere colonials themselves, allowed a disparate nation soon to span the top half of a vast continent despite different regional interests, two major religious traditions eyeing each other distrustfully, two languages and two cultures. And so it has thrived and prospered for most of a century and a half without civil war or breakup.

Peace. Order. Good Government. Plus a healthy respect for the value of putting our own compatriots first, in trade as well as simple patriotism. Sound ideals to live by, as it turned out, and thankfully resistant to the tinkerers, like those in our present government, who to serve their own interests would turn this place into a warped reflection of the United States as quickly as they could if given half a chance -- which we have very nearly done and ought not to risk doing again.

Macdonald, a Tory in the true meaning of the word, recognized the threat that United States imperialism posed then to our country, as it does in a different way now, even if the current stewards of his great old party's name do not and will not.

MORE:

[ http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/djclime ... lds-legacy ]