50th anniversary of the October Crisis?...crickets. Do Canadians acknowledge Samuel de Champlain's founding/settlement of Quebec City of New France on July 3rd, 1608?...Never. Countdown to 40th anniversary of the often quoted and relied upon Charter of Rights and Freedoms?...Not an ounce of anticipation. 102nd anniversary of World War 1, 75th anniversary of end of World War 2 and 70th anniversary of Korean war and Canada's contributions to them?...Covid times, observe at home, no history tests, mention or ceremonies for that.
Sadly in Canada, "...History is an afterthought in this country, and always has been. Only a tiny fraction of those kids will go on to study history after high school, and what little they’ve learned will get muddled in their minds as time passes — this is the nature of things. So we shouldn’t be surprised when people are shocked that bad things happened in Canada, and that even some of our most pivotal citizens were sometimes responsible for them. The principal is more right than she knew — we really are discovering all this in recent years.
But that’s only because we haven’t been paying attention. Macdonald’s conduct wasn’t recently discovered because some trove of documents was unearthed that radically altered our view of the man..."
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