Celebrating Canada: Commemorations, Anniversaries, and National Symbols 9781442621558

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CELEBRATING CANADA Volume 2 Commemorations, Anniversaries, and National Symbols Edited by Raymond B. Blake and Matthew Hayday

Popular, government-funded anniversaries and commemorations play a significant role in shaping how we view Canada, allowing us to challenge pre-existing or dominant conceptions of our country. In Volume 2 of Celebrating Canada, editors Raymond B. Blake and Matthew Hayday continue the scholarly debate surrounding commemoration and national identity that was introduced in Volume 1, bringing together both emerging and established scholars to examine major anniversaries in Canada’s political, social, and cultural development as key moments in our collective history. The contributors to this volume capture the multilayered meanings of belonging in the Canadian experience, investigate various attempts at shaping and reshaping identities, and explore episodes of groups resisting or participating in the identity formation process. By considering formerly marginalized viewpoints on Canada’s many commemorative anniversaries, the contributors to Celebrating Canada push us to consider what these events can tell us about our history and the shifting function of nationalism. raymond b. blake is professor and chair of the Department of History at the University of Regina. matthew hayday is a professor in the Department of History at the University of Guelph.

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Celebrating Canada Volume 2 Commemorations, Anniversaries, and National Symbols

EDITED BY RAYMOND B. BLAKE AND MATTHEW HAYDAY

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

©  University of Toronto Press 2018 Toronto Buffalo London www.utorontopress.com Printed in Canada ISBN 978-1-4426-4981-1 (cloth)   ISBN 978-1-4426-2714-7 (paper) Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetablebased inks. __________________________________________________________________ Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Celebrating Canada (2018) Celebrating Canada / edited by Raymond B. Blake and Matthew Hayday. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. Contents: Volume 2. Commemorations, anniversaries, and national symbols. ISBN 978-1-4426-4981-1 (v. 2 : cloth). – ISBN 978-1-4426-2714-7 (v. 2 : paper)

1. Holidays – Canada.  2. National characteristics, Canadian. 3. Nationalism – Canada.  4. Canada – Social life and customs. I. Blake, Raymond B. (Raymond Benjamin), editor  II. Hayday, Matthew, 1977–, editor  III. Title. GT4813.A2C434 2018  394.26971  C2016-905760-7 __________________________________________________________________ University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the government of Ontario.

    Funded by the Financé par le Government gouvernement du Canada of Canada

an Ontario government agency un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario

Contents

Acknowledgments vii Introduction. Celebrating Canada: Commemorations, Anniversaries, and National Symbols  3 raymond b. blake and matthew hayday 1 National Symbols and Commemorations: Analysing the Loyalist Centennial and the Conventions nationales acadiennes in New Brunswick in the 1880s  26 denis bourque, bonnie huskins, greg marquis, and chantal richard 2 Emblemizing Canada in the Flag Debate of 1895  52 peter price 3 Children of a Common Mother: The Rise and Fall of the Anglo-American Peace Centenary  71 brandon dimmel 4 Competing Pasts, Multiple Identities: The Diamond Jubilee of Confederation and the Politics of Commemoration  97 robert cupido 5 Bilingualism and Biculturalism at the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation, 1927 robert j. talbot  145

vi Contents

  6 Canada’s Centennial Experience  174 helen davies   7 A “Labor of Love in a Community Spirit”: The Cape Breton Miners’ Museum and the Remaking of Historical Consciousness 207 meaghan elizabeth beaton   8 Federal Funding, Local Priorities: Urban Planning and Ontario’s Municipal Centennial Projects  237 christopher los   9 Alternative Identities: The 1967 Centennial and the Campaign for a Better Canada  259 ted cogan 10 “Fit for Citizenship”: Scouting and the Centennial Celebrations of 1967  290 james trepanier 11 A Continental Centennial: Situating Expo 67 within the Canadian-American Relationship  313 robyn e. schwarz 12 New Nationalism in the Cradle of Confederation: Prince Edward Island’s Centennial Decade  339 matthew m c rae 13 Conclusion: The Importance of Commemorations and National Symbols  376 matthew hayday and raymond b. blake Contributors 381

Acknowledgments

This book resulted from the efforts of the many people who patiently and diligently persisted in seeing the project through to completion. We would like to thank them for their efforts and their thoughtful contributions. This volume initially took shape at a workshop in the fall of 2014 at the Canadian Museum of History, supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Connections Grant. Our research assistant, Ted Cogan, did an excellent job coordinating logistics for the workshop and handled our website. We would like to thank Maureen Ward, Lisa Leblanc, Shainna Laviolette, Forrest Pass, and James Trepanier from the Canadian Museum of History for all of their help in making that workshop come together and for the museum’s sponsorship of the event. Mark Kristmanson, Robert Talbot, MarcAndré Gagnon, and Yves Frenette participated in our public roundtable discussion, which gave participants some initial food for thought. Sean Graham, from ActiveHistory.ca, recorded an interesting set of podcasts for the History Slam series with workshop participants in connection with this project. In addition to all of the contributors to this volume, we would like to thank the following people who also participated in the Celebrating Canada workshop and contributed to the improvement of the draft chapters that were discussed there: Joel Belliveau, Lee Blanding, Brittney Anne Bos, Lynn Caldwell, Caroline-Isabelle Caron, Teresa Iacobelli, Gillian Leitch, Darryl Leroux, Marcel Martel, Del Muise, Richard Nimijean, Ryan O’Connor, Cristina Ogden, Michael Poplyansky, Pauline Rankin, Ron Roy, Peter Stevens, Lindsay Thistle, Anne Trépanier, Allison Ward, Stuart Ward, and Lianbi Zhu.

viii Acknowledgments

This book has been published with the help of financial support provided by the Dean’s Office of the College of Arts and the History Department at the University of Guelph. The Journal of the Canadian Historical Association graciously permitted us to include a revised and expanded version of an article that Robert Cupido originally published with them. We would like to thank the four anonymous readers whose suggestions made this volume stronger. We are also grateful to the entire team at the University of Toronto Press for their work on this volume, in particular Len Husband, who worked closely with us through the whole development process; Kate Baltais, for her careful work copy editing the manuscript; and Leah Connor, who oversaw the production process. Finally, on a personal note, Raymond Blake wishes to thank Wanda, Robert, and Ben for always being supportive of his work and all of our friends who have always make Canada Day celebrations in our backyard enjoyable and memorable. The Canada 150 pig-roast was probably among the best. Matthew Hayday would like to thank his husband, Matthew Kayahara, for his support over the years of working on this project, and for understanding how being in Ottawa for Canada Day during the Canada 150 celebrations could possibly trump a trip to England.

CELEBRATING CANADA Volume 2 Commemorations, Anniversaries, and National Symbols

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Introduction. Celebrating Canada: Commemorations, Anniversaries, and National Symbols r aymond b . b l ake an d mat th e w h ay day

Scholarly interest in the commemoration of anniversaries of important historical events shows little sign of abating in Canada or elsewhere. In 2014 alone Canada was almost overburdened with an arcade of anniversaries and commemorations that included the two-year-long commemorations of the War of 1812, the hundredth anniversary of the 1864 Charlottetown Conference that launched the march of the British North American colonies towards nationhood in 1867, the hundredth anniversary of hockey in Canada, the National Research Council’s seventyfifth anniversary of Canada’s official time signal, and of course, all of the events related to the two world wars. The year also included efforts by the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Foundation to mark the anniversary of the first interment of Ukrainians during the First World War.1 The latter case is but one example of how particular communities and activists use commemoration and anniversaries as a means to highlight past injustices that now often help to define the identity of a particular group. Accordingly, there has been a burgeoning scholarship and increased public debate that considers these sites of commemoration, and the role that they play as focal points for thinking about atrocities.2 In 2006, with the hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War and the seventy-fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Second looming, Jay Winter, himself a prolific scholar on commemorating the memories of war, warned of an impending “memory boom.” He cautioned that “one of the unfortunate features of the memory boom is the tendency of commentators to term any and every narrative of past events as constituents of national memory or collective memory, understood as the shared property of the citizenry of the state.”3 Yet, the massive literature on acts of commemoration and the celebration of

4  Raymond B. Blake and Matthew Hayday

anniversaries reminds us that these events do not pass into the nation’s collective memory in an unmediated manner. As Winter himself contends, commemoration and memory are parts of a process that arise out of the actions of groups as well as individuals who may, or may not, work in concert with the state, but “they are never wholly subsumed by it.”4 Indeed, many of the collectives, groups, and individuals that come together in public to remember and commemorate a past event often contest the official, state-sponsored narrative of the past as they invoke their own distinctive identity politics. In other words, the commemoration and memory of past events are complex, messy, multilayered, and elusive, and they tend to evolve over the years. Historians who engage in the study of various aspects of commemoration attempt to understand the celebrations surrounding past events and engage in the debates about how the construction of national and regional symbols contribute significantly to the scholarship on collective memory. This is what this book attempts to do. Having celebrations and commemoration at its core, the authors expose the varieties, commonalities, and contradictions of Canada’s experience with its various acts of commemoration, its anniversaries, and its multiple symbols of national identity. Moreover, they capture the multiple and multilayered meanings of belonging in the Canadian experience, investigate the various attempts at the shaping and reshaping of identities, and explore episodes of groups resisting the identity-formation process. The authors explore nationalism and its uses, considering the small voices, those who were on the margins and excluded from some of Canada’s many commemorative anniversaries since 1867, alongside the more powerful and dominant. Some chapters focus on the clash between the modern and the anti-modern, while others consider the conflict between the top-down and bottom-up attempts to mobilize during commemorative events. Collectively, the chapters in this volume demonstrate the constant and fluid reimagining and reimaging of what it means to be Canadian. In their exploration of various commemorations, anniversaries, and symbols, the authors herein capture how Canadians have participated in the memory boom. The chapters in this collection were initially presented as papers at a SSHRC-funded workshop at the Canadian Museum of History in September 2014. The contributors were asked to reflect on the political, social, and cultural forces that have shaped Canada and its identities over the course of its history. They were invited to submit proposals related to how national holidays and major commemorative

Introduction 5

anniversaries in Canadian history have contributed to both the process of defining and shaping Canada’s national and regional identities and the ways in which these commemorative events and anniversaries have challenged pre-existing or dominant conceptions of the nation. The first volume based on this workshop, Celebrating Canada, volume 1, Holidays, National Days, and the Crafting of Identities, considers the role that national days and annual holiday celebrations, such as Canada Day, Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, Victoria Day, Thanksgiving, and others, have played in the construction of national, regional, provincial, and community identities in Canada. The essays in this collection, many of which come from new scholars either still in graduate school or just launching their academic careers, aim to further the scholarly debate about commemoration and national identities in Canada. They show how anniversaries and commemorations have helped to define and shape Canadian identities and how such events have either built on or contributed to and challenged pre-­ existing or dominant conceptions of the country. The chapters consider key moments in Canadian history when major anniversaries of Canada’s political, social, and cultural development were being celebrated. Collectively, the subjects and periods covered here present key moments in the development of the symbols and cultural representations of Canada and its identities. The essays focus on some of the important years when the celebratory impulse was heightened and there was a great deal of energy – and money, in many cases – invested into events and ceremonies that were organized by governments and other key actors. In this respect, the events discussed in this volume capture very specific commemorative moments and periods, when increased resources were devoted to commemoration and nation- (or province- or region-) building. Each chapter contributes to our understanding of the changing idea of Canada and how it has responded – and continues to respond – to questions of nationalism and identity in the pursuit of an always elusive national identity. The essays in this collection link memory and commemoration to constructions of the idea of nation. Authors were selected because they provide a journey through some of the key historical moments that shaped Canada over the past hundred and fifty years or so. The subject matter considered here is varied and diverse, ranging from the commemoration of the Loyalist Centennial and the National Acadian conventions in New Brunswick in the 1880s to the commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the Charlottetown Conference in Prince

6  Raymond B. Blake and Matthew Hayday

Edward Island in 1964. Other major commemorative moments examined herein include the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation in 1927 and the Centennial of Confederation in 1967 but also lesser known moments, such as the Anglo-American Peace Centenary to commemorate a century of peace between the United States and Great Britain and Canada in 1914 and the first campaign for a distinctive Canadian flag in 1895. All of these events link memory, symbols, and commemoration to different constructions of the idea of Canada. Collectively, the chapters demonstrate that it is important to think not only about how centenary moments are presented to the public and what they tell us about popular and official understandings of these seminal historical moments, but also that participation in such moments is rarely uncontested. As John Bodnar reminds us, commemoration is fraught with conflict. His analysis of twentieth-century commemoration identifies the inherent conflicts that exist between the official and vernacular versions of historical anniversaries in most national commemorative moments.5 The chapters that follow move away from this binary between official and vernacular and show that even those engaged in organizing national commemorative events – as well as the participants – have their own objectives and aspirations. Not only in the Canada of today with its deep and persistent divisions over politics, culture, and ethnicity and with rapidly changing immigration patterns and demographics is the notion anachronistic that national unity and consensus are the primary goals of any historical anniversary. That has been the case for nearly all of Canada’s moments of commemoration, as these chapters so amply make clear. These chapters also show how the marking of a centenary or participation in changing a country’s symbol is really an act of contemporary politics. Commemorations and Anniversaries in the Context of the Scholarly Literature The scholarly literature has long emphasized the important contributions that celebrations and commemorative anniversaries have made to our understanding of nationalism and national identity. This remains important even in today’s era of globalized economies, societies, and cultures. Nationalism and national identity, as they emerged in the nineteenth century, were forms of social and cultural bonding designed to forge cultural and racial uniformity within a state to create an identity that separated one nation from another. There has been considerable

Introduction 7

discussion on how this was achieved: is nationalism a part of a cultural system or is it an ideology? Arguing that the creation of national myths was essential to nationalism, Hans Kohn holds nationalism to be “first and foremost a state of mind,” an idea that Benedict Anderson extends into what he calls an “imagined community.”6 National identity and its construction are not solely the preserve of politicians and state bureaucracies, although they often attempt to manoeuvre and mobilize citizens in a particular direction or to a particular way of thinking about national identity and nationalism. National identity is complex and often those engaged in its construction embark on paths that run counter to any exclusive or reified state-directed versions. Walker Connor, however, contends that ideas and myths articulated by national leaders are essential in nation building. It was not chronological or factual history that provided the idea of the nation, Connor noted, but “sentiment or felt history ... an intuitive conviction of the group’s separate origins and evolutions.”7 This may have been the case for many of those involved in the construction of Canadian Confederation in 1867. Certainly, it can be argued that even then – and certainly since – there were factions within the Canadian state that found considerable attraction in their own province or region. Frenchspeaking Quebec is perhaps the first illustration of this, but it also holds true for the Prince Edward Islanders and Newfoundlanders who at first rejected Confederation, and for the Métis of the Red River settlement who sought to preserve their particular cultural and linguistic identities when Manitoba became a province of Canada. Early scholars of nationalism and national identity contended that it was the elites that were responsible for the development of these phenomena. Ernest Gellner suggests that when states attempted to bring citizens within a national culture, they were determined to inculcate a “high culture” to all citizens, rather than what he calls “wild” or low culture.8 Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger argue that the powerful within society and the state “invent” traditions that link the current nation to an historic past and “inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.”9 Through a series of invented traditions, they and their supporters contend, elites seize upon large-scale spectacles and pageants and a host of rituals to create the illusion of a cohesive sense of belonging, to foster the acceptance of a set of common values and beliefs about the nation, and to legitimize the power of the existing elites and the state itself. As Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay insist, national identities

8  Raymond B. Blake and Matthew Hayday

are a process rather than a thing, a “becoming” not a “being,” and they are continuously shaped over time, but not necessarily by the elites and the agencies that they control. The chapters in the present collection build on those ideas and show that not only are national identities and nationalisms actively constructed by the state and its leaders – and a large group of others – but also, regardless of who is involved, national identities are continually remanufactured if they are to be sustained.10 Both Gellner and Hobsbawm and Ranger are correct that national elites and their attempts to stage and restage ceremonies do create cultural forms and practices for the national communities, and they continue to play a role in the cultural constructions of national identity. Yet, Hobsbawm and Ranger, especially, are a tad overzealous in portraying the elites as manipulative and intent only on control, suggesting that the masses passively and eagerly ingest the ideological messages that accompany the pageants and commemorative events staged by the elites. To suggest that the masses fall submissively into line behind the goals and objectives conveyed in the activities associated with commemorative events and anniversaries ignores the cultural dynamism associated with the construction of national identities. It also belies the simple fact that cultural traditions and symbols are often contested and claimed by different groups at different times. Such claims as those made by Hobsbawm and Ranger ignore, for instance, the role of local communities and regions in celebrating a country and its national identities.11 The chapters in this book suggest that local politicians, civil servants, and cultural agents are integral to shaping commemorative moments and contributing to their version of national identities. As Los argues for municipalities in Ontario, Beaton for the cultural industry in Cape Breton, and Cogan for federal civil servants, they all worked diligently during commemorative moments to construct their own version of what Canada is and should be. Anniversaries are continually reinvented in many different contexts. Ernest Gellner’s work on nationalism has been extremely influential on scholars interested in nationalism and identity, and his portrayal of nationalism as a function of the process of modern state bureaucracies and modern technologies has won wide acceptance in the scholarly community. Yet, in a country as geographically and ethnically diverse as Canada, where there have been immense cultural, social, and economic transformations over the past 150 years, national institutions and the national state have had to change and adapt to retain any authority over national identity and national culture(s). Many in Canada have

Introduction 9

refused to accept any notion that there is a single national culture, as Bourque and his colleagues show for New Brunswick. The Acadians, they remind us, have been unwilling to give up their own cultural and ethnic identities, even if they have accepted some semblance of a national culture and have demonstrated – as Canadians have for 150 years – that they want the country to work. Such thinking lends credence to Anthony Smith’s notion that nations are comprised of preexisting ethnies.12 Even the New Brunswick Loyalists, as Bourque and his colleagues remind us, held to their distinctive past as they weaved it for a time into the Canadian meta-narrative to present themselves as the original founders of Canada. Anthony Smith has been very critical of Gellner and of Hobsbawm and Ranger for their insistence on nations emerging as modern entities. He insists that nations are founded on pre-existing ethnic groups and communities, or what he terms “ethnies,” and that these groups continually help define the nation. Unlike Gellner and Hobsbawm and Ranger, who see national elites as largely united, homogenizing groups, Smith sees considerable conflict and differences among various groups and regions as states attempt to create national symbols and other identifiers of national identity. There is often considerable debate over what precisely is the national culture or the national identity, and he suggests that in nation states where there is no agreement on a common set of symbols, it is not uncommon to select multiple symbols or identities so that the diverse groups can all express allegiance to the national enterprise.13 The nation state can survive only when it finds accommodation for all its ethnic, linguistic, and political communities. Smith recognizes national identity for its dynamism and describes it as “both an inter-generational repository and heritage, or set of traditions, and an active shaping repertoire of meanings and images, embodied in values, myths and symbols that serve to unite people with shared experiences and memories and differentiate them from outsiders.”14 For nation states that are geographically large and diverse, Benedict Anderson’s link between imagination and national identity is particularly attractive. Although he glosses over the social, economic, ethnic, and political cleavages that are evident within most countries, including Canada, Anderson contends that a nation must be considered an “imagined community” united by “a deep, horizontal community,” and it is sustained in the actions of the routines of the everyday lives of its citizens, such as their reading of newspapers, and not solely or necessarily in pageants, spectacles, and anniversary celebrations.15 But

10  Raymond B. Blake and Matthew Hayday

as Talbot, Price, and Cupido remind us in their contributions that follow, countries need more than imagination to succeed, although the development of new or revised symbols of nationhood can be useful tools to reinforce a community’s sense of belonging and solidarity. As Talbot points out, after the divisions brought by the First World War, especially between French- and English-speaking Canadians over conscription, many in Canada came to believe that a measure of bilingualism and biculturalism during the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation would go some distance to healing the wartime rifts. The Canadian Context Many of the scholars who have investigated national identity and nationalism in Canada have been heavily influenced by these seminal works noted above, and many share the belief, as the historian Pierre Nora has pointed out, that the present usually serves as an important reference for understanding a particular past.16 Yet, it is no easy task to sum up the national identity of any country, especially that of Canada. Some of the earliest Canadian historians interested in national identity and national development focused on Canada’s slow constitutional maturity as it moved from colony to nation ­– those Whiggish notions of progress became a unifying identity.17 Linguistic dualism was for several generations a staple in the study of national identity. Recently, the search has broadened considerably. Ryan Edwardson shows that Canada’s national culture has been successively reinvented by the intelligentsia, cultural elites, and state bureaucracies, noting, in particular, the emergence of cultural industrialism in the 1970s.18 This follows from Paul Litt’s excellent work on the Massey Commission, which promoted a national identity based on high culture (as described by Gellner above).19 Stephen Azzi has shown the importance of individuals, such as Walter Gordon, in creating a nationalism based on economic nationalism.20 Philip Resnick demonstrates the importance of Europe in the construction of Canadian identity,21 while Keith Banting and Janine Brodie have linked social citizenship to national identity.22 Will Kymlicka, Charles Taylor, Michael Ignatieff, and others have shown how diversity, multiculturalism, and a rights-based political philosophy have come to define Canada’s approach to nationalism and national identity.23 Equally important for understanding the framework for the new research presented here are recent titles dealing particularly with English-Canadian identity formation in Canada after the Second World

Introduction 11

War. José Igartua’s and Chris Champion’s works on the decline of British Canada, Bryan Palmer’s work on Canadian identity in the 1960s, Matthew Hayday’s analysis of nationalism in Canada Day celebrations, and Stéphane Kelly’s analysis of William Lyon Mackenzie King’s and Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s efforts to shape Canadian nationalism and political culture, all provide useful insights into how Canada changed in the postwar period.24 There is a growing literature on commemorations of major anniversaries in the Canadian context, some of which are considered in this volume. H.V. Nelles’s award-winning work The Art of Nation-Building: Pageantry and Spectacle at Quebec’s Tercentenary effectively was a turning point in the development of Canadian studies of major anniversaries and commemorations.25 One might also point to Ronald Rudin’s studies of the Quebec tercentenary and commemoration in Acadia; Alan Gordon’s work on commemoration and living history museums; the edited collection by Michel Bock, Anne Gilbert, and Joseph-Yvon Thériault on francophone Canadian commemoration and memory; James Opp’s work on the Golden Anniversaries of the creation of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1955; and Peter Pope’s The Many Landfalls of John Cabot.26 The commemoration of Confederation has not attracted a great deal of attention. There have been a few articles published on the Diamond Jubilee of 1927 (most notably by Robert Cupido who also contributes to this volume), but there is curiously no comprehensive book-length scholarly treatment of Canada’s Centennial.27 The 1967 Centennial is now attracting greater scholarly attention, but Peter H. Aykroyd’s The Anniversary Compulsion, a more popular treatment by one of the Centennial’s chief organizers, remains important.28 Gary Miedema’s For Canada’s Sake: Public Religion, Centennial Celebrations, and the Re-making of Canada in the 1960s used the 1967 Centennial primarily as a means to examine changes in religiosity in Canada.29 Canada 125 was examined through the lens of multiculturalism and Indigenous concerns by Eva Mackey in her The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada.30 This volume takes the growing literature on commemoration, anniversaries, and symbols in new and interesting directions. The scholarship on provincial anniversaries, particularly in terms of commemorative anniversaries outside of Quebec, and local participation in national commemorative moments, remains quite limited. Many of the chapters in this collection turn to those areas of interest and will

12  Raymond B. Blake and Matthew Hayday

thus make a major contribution by enriching the limited scholarship on those key commemorative moments. The essays included here present an analysis of how identities crystalized during particular anniversaries and commemorative events. This book follows a largely chronological approach, beginning with the example of New Brunswick in the 1880s, where Loyalists and Acadians forged their own identities as part of the Canadian ones. Also in the late-nineteenth century, Canada witnessed one of the first major efforts towards a distinctive Canadian flag, a symbol of nationhood that is omnipresent at commemorative events and national celebrations. Moving along to the twentieth century, as hostilities escalated in Europe, ultimately descending into four years of war, Canadians and Americans planned to celebrate a century of Anglo-American peace that was, ironically, derailed by the war. The book then turns to the major megaanniversaries of Confederation: the Diamond Jubilee of 1927 and the Centennial in 1967. These chapters explore how these major anniversary celebrations provided ways for various actors and participants to define and celebrate their country. They demonstrate the breadth of activities that can be associated with a major commemoration, which in the case of commemorating Confederation, ranged from dealing with bilingualism and bilingualism, the role of foreign policy initiatives in the commemoration, and how local public recreation works and museum policy also played a role. Several of the essays emphasize how provincial identities factored into a larger Canadian framework. These chapters allow readers to see how these celebrations, the actors organizing them, and the conceptions of the nation, have changed significantly over the years. The authors included here interrogate those acts of public commemoration and explore how mega-commemorations and anniversaries have been represented and narrated. They also show that commemoration is active because it not only allows citizens to feel that they belong to the nation, but also it attempts to articulate what their belonging entails. Such moments are designed to enhance the emotional attachment of citizens to their country and also to ­redefine and strengthen what it is that brought the various peoples within the country together in the first place. National identities usually express a loyalty to the state and express a sense of belonging to it. The first chapter by Bourque, Huskins, Marquis, and Richard offers an analysis of how uprooted communities in New Brunswick celebrated important centennials in the 1880s. This chapter analyses the Loyalist Centennial in 1883 and three Conventions nationales acadiennes between

Introduction 13

1881 and 1890 through what they term the lens of “peripheral nationalism,” a framework applied to subnational groups that exist within a nation state that create their unique cultural and historical symbols and narratives to ensure their own social cohesion and identity. The Loyalists and Acadians in New Brunswick lacked specific geographical territories or centralized governments and state infrastructures to support their nationalist aspirations. Both ethnic groups had to rely, instead, on a shared past, shared values, and shared goals for the future to sustain social cohesion and a sense of national and collective identity. By treating those two groups in a comparative framework as coexisting peripheral “nations,” or collectives, the authors offer a new way of understanding current cultural politics in New Brunswick, Canada’s only officially bilingual province. Bourque and his colleagues found different national identities forged by the two groups that share the same space, where tensions continue to persist over language rights, job opportunities, and political power. What they uncover is that both groups have expressed their identities through celebration and commemoration, but the tensions that continue to exist between them are rooted in linguistic and economic and political inequalities that are a product of the different identities forged in the late nineteenth century. As the Loyalists celebrated their past British connections in 1883, they also believed they embodied the spirit of the new Canadian confederation as well as a continued membership in the British Empire. The Acadians constructed their identity and the Acadian narrative around their upheaval in the late eighteenth century – which became their anchor to the past and the collective identity necessary to sustain their distinct identity into the future. The collective Acadian identity forged through a variety of symbols and narratives at the Conventions nationales acadiennes continues to anchor Acadian identity, but the Loyalists have lost much of their political and ideological capital in modern Canada. The history of those two groups provides considerable insight into their different historical paths and how each negotiated identities in the shadow of their former enemies. While the Acadians and the Loyalists were asserting their identities in late nineteenth-century New Brunswick, other Canadians were engaged in a debate about a new and distinct flag for Canada that many hoped would transcend local particularities to forge a sense of common identity. Peter Price dispels the notion that Canada’s flag controversy began in the 1960s and he reminds us that the national debate about the best way to make manifest the national identity of Canada through

14  Raymond B. Blake and Matthew Hayday

symbols, or what Michael Billig has called banal nationalism, has a very long history in Canada, even if that earlier debate did not occur in the hallowed halls of the Canadian Parliament.31 The primary focus of the 1895 flag debate began in the Week magazine, one of the most popular periodicals in Canada at the time, where Sandford Fleming’s design with a white star on a British Red Ensign was proposed as the new Canadian flag. National flags are perhaps the key component of a nation’s material culture, and the 1895 proposal generated as much acrimony and debate as did the Pearson proposal in the 1960s. Nevertheless, the flag, an important symbol of national identity, was presented as an antidote to disunity at a time when the country was experiencing a profound period of conflict around language rights in schools, imperialism, and growing provincialism – a time when the future of Canada was far from certain. Price maintains that the 1895 debate exposed the country’s uncertainty over its national identity even if it was not about the state attempting to represent itself to its population. It was rather a case of civil society finding ways to emblemize the inchoate and difficult sense of national identity, although those involved found there was no agreement on what flag would best represent Canada. There was some support for the maple leaf as distinctively Canadian, but it would take nearly another seventy years before elected officials became involved and Canada got its new flag after another protracted and acrimonious debate. Some anniversary celebrations and commemorative efforts never live up to their hype, for a variety of reasons. Of course, the best example of this is the fiftieth anniversary of Confederation that occurred in the midst of the First World War. This meant that there was little celebrating the Golden Jubilee of Confederation, and those events that were staged were sombre affairs. Another casualty of the Great War was the Anglo-American Peace Centenary that was to celebrate a hundred years of peaceful diplomatic relations from 1814 to 1914 between Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. Brandon Dimmel shows that the celebrations to mark the hundredth anniversary of the end of the War of 1812 in 1814 purposely avoided battle commemorations and focused on peace as Europe was then quickly descending into armed conflict. Not only does that approach signify a marked difference to how the Canadian government has recently commemorated the bicentenary of the War of 1812, but Dimmel also contends that the promoters of the Peace Centenary sanitized and simplified controversial topics in Canadian-American relations and obscured the history between the

Introduction 15

two countries for a political purpose, an approach that has commonalities with other commemorative events. The Peace Centenary was designed in part to demonstrate to world leaders how those countries with an Anglo-Saxon heritage – Britain, the United States, and Canada – had succeeded in securing peace for a century. Of course, such claims ignored the bloodshed and horror of the American Civil War and other conflicts, notably with Indigenous peoples, but the leaders of the Peace Centenary, most of whom came from civil society, as did those who sought a new Canadian flag discussed in Price’s chapter, saw a great purpose in promoting the illusion of peace among three pre-eminent white Anglo-Saxon nations that really wanted to celebrate their racial superiority. The event was intended to celebrate the strong economic and political ties between three rapidly industrializing nations. Mega-commemorations are particularly useful for state elites to attempt to deal with difficult junctures as they provide an opportunity to restore the equilibrium that was believed to have existed at some earlier period. Robert Cupido has revised his seminal article on the Dominion Jubilee of Confederation in 1927, first published almost two decades ago.32 Here he explores the relationship between the public commemoration of 1867 and the construction of social and political identity through a case study of the historical pageants that were so important in the celebrations in 1927. The Liberal nationalist elites in Ottawa that planned the celebrations to promote a particular nationbuilding agenda were unable to control the public use of the past at the local level or ensure that the master narrative of Canada’s development was received in officially approved ways. Local authorities used the historical pageants to define and celebrate their communities’ links to the past, present, and future, and not only defined in their own terms their relationship to the larger nation, but also demonstrated that local communities were the public guardians of their collective memory and historical traditions. Still, Cupido claims the official liberal agenda of national unity and social and political cohesion was advanced in 1927 because the commemorative moment allowed differences and disagreements to be freely represented and expressed. Cupido offers a valuable lesson for those who participate in the commemorative space: allow diverse groups that make up a nation state to address each other across the boundaries of difference. Robert Talbot addresses perhaps more directly the attempt by state elites to deal with dissension and conflict within a polity through commemoration. In his contribution, he recalls the notions of diversity

16  Raymond B. Blake and Matthew Hayday

articulated by George-Étienne Cartier, one of the key Fathers of Confederation and a long-time political ally of John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, which made it possible for Quebec to join with the English-speaking colonies to create Canada. Cartier had said during the Confederation Debates that the new union created a "political nationality," but it did not create a single identity for the country. French-speaking Quebec had good reason to fear the English-speaking majority, but the two ethnic groups coexisted reasonably well until the issue of conscription in 1917 set Quebec apart from the rest of Canada and framed new identities for French-speaking Canadians. Ottawa politicians and bureaucrats seized upon the sixtieth anniversary of Confederation in 1927 as an opportunity for a modest attempt to emphasize the bilingual and bicultural nature of Canada that had been a hallmark of Confederation since 1867. This contributed to the anglophone-­francophone rapprochement that was already underway in Canada. The National Executive Committee planning the anniversary celebrations had co-presidents, co-vice-presidents, co-chairs, and co-secretaries (one English-speaking and the other French-speaking), produced a bilingual postage stamp, and made all celebratory events in Ottawa bilingual, including the Dominion Day festivities which were broadcast nationwide. Talbot notes that, although bilingualism only came into force in the 1970s and the initiatives in 1927 were modest, they represented an attempt to create a civic nationalism based on bilingualism that recognized the cultural diversity that Cartier had insisted was Canada’s real strength. As with most mega-commemorations in Canada, concerns about national unity were front and centre in 1927. The rest of the chapters in this book deal primarily with Canada’s 1967 Centennial, the “Centennial decade” more broadly, and address how various local and regional groups responded to the anniversaries examined. There is considerable paradox in many mega-­ commemorations as all of them have a national imperative, which in many cases is frequently supplanted by local and regional parochialism. There emerges from those notions not only the reality of national differences and regional distinctions, but also the strengthening of them. Collectively, these chapters demonstrate that local communities and leaders of particular groups, such as Scouts Canada, have their own interests that often take priority, even when monies are made available to encourage citizens and their local governments to participate in national celebrations.

Introduction 17

Yet, as Helen Davies shows in her contribution, the organizers of the 1967 Centennial celebrations wanted nothing more from ordinary citizens than that they celebrate in any way they thought appropriate. Organizers encouraged grassroots participation and were flexible in what they regarded as contributing to the national celebrations. What they wanted were programs and initiatives designed to maximize the participation of Canadians in a variety of events, but also the involvement of Canadians at the grassroots level in planning and implementing projects as varied as the construction of a UFO landing pad at St Paul, Alberta or a project to knit Centennial toques. The organizers also reached out to a variety of groups, including those representing youth, women, Indigenous peoples, and ethnic communities, providing space for all and encouraging even marginalized groups to narrate their stories and shape a new lived experience in the future. Organizers did not have a single rigid vision for the 1967 celebrations; their only imperative, Davies contends, was participation. She suggests that if there is a lesson for any commemorative moment, it is that organizers should approach an event with the simple goal to encourage active citizenship participation and allow citizens to participate in the ways that they themselves believe reflect their interests and commitment to Canada. Commemorating important anniversaries can be an effective way to mobilize citizens, and allowing citizens to participate in their own ways just might instil a feeling of national pride and lead to greater social cohesion. On one level, Meaghan Beaton’s emphasis on the power of community organizers in Cape Breton to seize control and direct the final form of their island’s Centennial project, the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum, supports Davies’s assertion. Beaton’s analysis of the Cape Breton experience reveals that prominent local figures had the power to redefine the 1967 Centennial message and make it conform to communityspecific needs and identities. Yet, on another, they demonstrate that national identity is primarily cultural and not political. The promoters of the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum believed that it was critical at a time of national commemoration to discover (or rediscover) the triumphant tragedies that have marked the contribution of miners to the development of Canada. As such, Cape Bretoners were not ignoring the national message but merely tailoring it to their history and narrative as Canadians, representing, as Bodnar suggests, an intersection of official and unofficial commemorative activities with sometimes unexpected outcomes. National identities and sentiments were

18  Raymond B. Blake and Matthew Hayday

strengthened by drawing the diverse elements of the nation together, even if the Miners’ Museum became linked to state-coordinated tourism in Nova Scotia and a reimagination of industrial Cape Breton as a cultural destination. Moreover, both the Centennial Commission of Canada and the federal government had promised that 1967 would be an opportune time to attack the country’s “cultural poverty gap” and the construction of museums that captured the local, provincial, and, yes, the national histories of Canada all became critical components of a renewed federal cultural policy agenda for the Centennial. Christopher Los also shows how local communities responded to the monies that Ottawa provided to generate a national spirit around the Centennial of Confederation and contribute to fostering the growth of Canada’s cultural identity. The federal government provided each municipality in Canada with $1 for each resident to be spent on projects that would capture the national-building spirit; the provinces agreed to match federal funding, allowing municipalities to build Centennial projects by contributing only a third of the cost. Los refutes the assertion by such scholars as Jonathan Vance and Ryan Edwardson that Ottawa’s Centennial spending in the provinces brought the country together through a network of cultural institutions, such as performing arts halls and theatres.33 He concedes that this might have happened with a small number of Centennial projects, but only a very few of the approximately twenty-three hundred projects funded through federal-provincial support under the Centennial Grants Program could be considered cultural. His important argument challenges the notion that the 1967 Centennial promoted a national culture, even though he admits that recreational projects – of which there were nearly fifteen hundred built leading to 1967 – nevertheless contributed to the nationbuilding project. Like others in the volume, Los shows that there was a redefinition of the federal government’s Centennial message at the local level as many municipalities directed Centennial Grant Program funds to projects that had more to do with localized urban planning and addressing the unique concerns and pressures faced by local communities in 1960s Canada than they did with celebrations of one hundred years of Confederation. Not just municipalities and regional communities attempted to turn the 1967 commemorations of the Centennial to their advantage, as Ted Cogan and James Trepanier demonstrate in their chapters. Cogan provides a case study of two programs of cultural activities – the Centennial International Development Programme and Challenge

Introduction 19

for Change/Société Nouvelle – that operated on the margins of the Centennial celebrations, but each provides an intriguing example of the wide diversity of messages disseminated by and through the Centennial in communities across the country. Both were very much tied to the promise that Davies found in the Centennial to make Canada a better place, to engage with civil society, and make space for all in the celebrations. Cogan found that both the CIDP and the CfC/ SN believed that they were shaping the Canadian national identity even if they were far removed from the pageants and expositions that most Canadians associated with the celebrations. The Centennial International Development Programme, with its focus on raising the profile in Canada of contributing more to foreign aid, believed that if Canadians became more concerned with poverty and underdevelopment in the developing world, it would be the best gift that Canada could give to the world in its Centennial year. Challenge for Change/ Société Nouvelle was concerned with the disenfranchised at home, and it hoped that through filmmaking it could empower Canadians by giving them the tools to discuss and advocate for their own needs. Those involved with the two organizations – primarily civil servants – believed that they could use monies provided by the state for Centennial ­celebrations to realize fundamental social change at home and throughout the world. They, too, participated in the reimagining of what it meant to be Canadian. Cogan’s chapter underscores the complexity of commemoration and identity negotiations during the 1967 Centennial, while Trepanier’s contribution also shows that those who participated in the celebrations where not simply asserting Canadian nationalism and promoting a specific national identity. Trepanier turns the lens on the Scouting movement in Canada in the 1960s and considers the shifts and continuities in the conceptualization of the civic education of boys and how these matters were played out in the Centennial celebrations. By focusing on Scouting’s national leaders, he found they were ambivalent about the government’s request to repeat the commemorative ceremonies that Scouts had performed in 1927. In the 1960s, Scouting was concerned primarily with declining enrolment, especially in the senior-level programs, and it was less engaged with questions of Canadian national identity than it was with Scouting’s future in the Canadian community. When Scouts did participate in the Centennial celebrations, notably, with the Fathers of Confederation graves project and the Centennial Commission’s Youth Travel Exchange Program,

20  Raymond B. Blake and Matthew Hayday

Scouting’s leaders in the national executive integrated, adapted, and challenged the Centennial messages to suit their own priorities. Funds from the federal government were too “alluring,” Trepanier insists, for the Scouting executive to pass up, but once received those federal funds were diverted to locally defined purposes. Robyn Schwarz turns her attention to what many consider the centrepiece of Canada’s Centennial celebrations, Expo 67 (although, ironically, Expo was not under the authority of the federal Centennial Commission), but situates the 1967 world exhibition within the broader issue of the relationship between Canada and the United States. She considers Canadian advertising of Expo and the Centennial celebrations to Americans, and the construction of the US pavilion at the Montreal exposition. Schwarz notes the incongruence in Canadian advertising to Americans that presented the country as anti-modern, noting that Americans were told they would find in Canada remnants of old Europe in rural French villages in Quebec and evidence of the Scottish Highlands in Nova Scotia, for instance. When, however, they arrived in Canada, especially in Montreal – the site of Expo 67 – what Americans encountered was a vibrant, youthful, and modern city far from the anti-modern images depicted in the tourist brochures. Schwarz’s chapter also uses the example of the how the Americans prepared their exhibits for their pavilion at Expo to show that the Americans were sensitive to not offending Canada in its Centennial year. As that particular episode demonstrates, the United States paid particular attention to Canada’s sensibilities and adhered to the theme Canada had adopted by downplaying American jingoism and militarism in Montreal. The Americans even dropped their plans to include a hockey exhibit – as 1967 was the final year of the six-team National Hockey League – after expending considerable time and effort to include a hockey theme in the national narrative they wanted displayed at Expo. As Schwarz observes, what would Canadians think if the Americans promoted hockey as their sport? The Americans used the pretext of limited space to drop the hockey exhibit and downplayed a sense of nationalist fervour in favour of a narrative that embraced the theme of Expo – “Man and His World” – and worked hard to present Canada and the United States as equal cultural partners in 1967. The final chapter returns to the provincial motif that opened the volume and to Bodnar’s theme that public memory often emerges from an intersection of official and vernacular culture expressions. Matthew McRae’s contribution explores the connection between commemoration

Introduction 21

and the promotion of tourism in Prince Edward Island. He shows how between 1964, which marked the hundredth anniversary of the Charlottetown Conference, and 1973, the centennial of PEI’s entry into Confederation, there was an attempt to reconstruct the island province as the birthplace of Canada and as a national shrine of Confederation. McRae shows how the Island and its economy were being transformed as traditional industries, such as agriculture and the fisheries, were replaced by tourism; however, many in the province resisted those impulses and attempted to create a counter-narrative to present PEI as more than a tourist attraction. Commemoration, Contestation, and Reinvention of the Nation Political leaders and state bureaucracies have long promoted acts of commemoration and anniversaries to encourage national unity and social cohesion. Such events are usually seen as occasions to minimize and manage ethnic, linguistic, class, and regional conflicts. The promotion of national unity and social cohesion is a deliberate act of public policy, and while all states and their leaders surely consider the promotion of both as a priority at all times, they are also acutely aware of the opportunities that anniversaries and special commemorative moments offer to them to try and mould particular values that they believe the nation holds dear – or that they want the nation to embrace. Such occasions offer tailor-made opportunities to initiate policies to encourage nation-building activities and gain mass acquiescence for particular notions of national identity. As the chapters in this book demonstrate, however, the nation state can rarely, if ever, fully manipulate the nature of political discourse about national identities. Although the state invests heavily – with both talent and money – in commemorative activities, the public and grassroots organizations are rarely buying what the state has to offer wholesale. As the contributors to this volume convincingly argue, the idea of Canada and the construction of the Canadian national identity are fluid and constantly being reinvented – if not at the official level, then certainly in the minds of those individuals and groups that constitute the nation. This has often focused attention away from the state to interest group activity and to individual rational actors as they pursue their own objectives within the broader pantomime of national identity. Canada’s national identity is not necessarily played out in the struggle between biculturalism and multiculturalism, nor between municipal

22

Raymond B. Blake and Matthew Hayday

or provincial or national priorities, nor between modernists and antimodernists, nor between Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people, where there are never clear winners and losers. It is all of these together, and, collectively, they all contribute to the mental construction of nationalism. There are multiple interests in all celebrations of anniversaries, in all acts of commemoration, in all symbols, and as the contributors in this volume show, it is clear that multiple, diverse, and complex meanings have come from each anniversary and each commemorative event that Canadians have celebrated in the past 150 years. Collectively, they have all contributed to the making of Canada and its national identities, even if Canadians do not all share one set of collectiveself-understandings. NOTES 1 “The One Hundred Plaques Across Canada Initiative,” http://www.uccla .ca/media.htm. 2 Charles Maier, “A Surfeit of Memory? Reflections on History, Melancholy and Denial,” History and Memory 5, 2 (1993): 136–52. 3 Jay Winter, Remembering War: The Great War between Memory and History in the 20th Century (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), see, especially Chapter 8, “Grand Illusions: War, Film and Collective Memory,” 183–200. 4 Ibid., 279. 5 John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). 6 Hans Kohn, The Idea of Nationalism: A Study in Its Origins and Background (New York: Collier, 1944), and Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1991 [1983]). 7 Walker Connor, Ethnonationalism: The Quest for Understanding (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). 8 Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983). 9 Eric Hobsbawm and Terrence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), 2. 10 Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay, Questions of Cultural Identity (London: Sage, 1996). 11 For a good comparative analysis of national identities, see Roland Vogt, Wayne Cristaudo, and Andrea Leutzsch, eds., European National Identities: Elements, Transitions, Conflicts (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2014).

Introduction 23 12 Anthony Smith: “The Origins of Nations,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 12, 3 (1989): 349–56; The Ethnic Revival (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); and National Identity (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1991). 13 Anthony Smith, Nationalism and Modernism (London: Routledge, 1998), 155. 14 Ibid., 187. 15 Anderson, Imagined Communities. 16 Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, translated by Arthur Goldhammer, English-language edition edited and with a foreword by Lawrence D. Kritzman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). 17 A.R.M. Lower, Colony to Nation: A History of Canada (Toronto: Longmans, 1946). 18 Ryan Edwardson, Canadian Content: Culture and the Quest for Nationhood (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008). 19 Paul Litt, The Muses, the Masses, and the Massey Commission (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992). 20 Stephen Azzi, Walter Gordon and the Rise of Canadian Nationalism (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999). 21 Philip Resnick, The European Roots of Canadian Identity (Peterborough, ON: Broadview, 2005). 22 Keith Banting, "Social Citizenship and the Multicultural State," in Alain C. Cairns et al., eds., Citizenship, Diversity, and Pluralism (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999), 108–36; Janine Brodie, “Citizenship and Solidarity: Reflections on the Canadian Way,” Citizenship Studies 6, 4 (2002): 377–94. 23 Will Kymlicka, Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Charles Taylor, Reconciling the Solitudes: Essays on Canadian Federalism and Nationalism (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993); Michael Ignatieff, Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism (Toronto: Penguin, 1993) and The Rights Revolution (Concord, ON: Anansi, 2000). 24 C.P. Champion, The Strange Demise of British Canada: The Liberals and Canadian Nationalism, 1964–68 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010); Matthew Hayday, “Variety Show as National Identity: CBC Television and Dominion Day Celebrations, 1958–80,” in Gene Allen and Daniel Robinson, eds., Communicating in Canada’s Past: Essays in Media History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 168–93; José E. Igartua, The Other Quiet Revolution: National Identities in English Canada, 1945–1971 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006); Stéphane Kelly, Les Fins du Canada selon

24  Raymond B. Blake and Matthew Hayday Macdonald, Laurier, Mackenzie King et Trudeau (Montreal: Boréal, 2001); Bryan Palmer, Canada’s 1960s: The Ironies of Identity in a Rebellious Era (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009). 25 H.V. Nelles, The Art of Nation-Building: Pageantry and Spectacle at Quebec’s Tercentenary (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999). 26 Ronald Rudin, Remembering and Forgetting in Acadie: A Historian’s Journey through Public Memory (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009); Ronald Rudin, Founding Fathers: The Celebration of Champlain and Laval in the Streets of Quebec, 1878–1908 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003); Alan Gordon, Making Public Pasts: The Contested Terrain of Montreal’s Public Memories, 1891–1930 (Montreal and Kingston: ­McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001); Alan Gordon, The Hero and the Historians: Historiography and the Uses of Jacques Cartier (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010); Alan Gordon, Time Travel: Tourism and the Rise of the Living History Museum in Mid-Twentieth-Century Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016); James Opp, “Prairie Commemorations and the Nation: The Golden Jubilees of Alberta and Saskatchewan, 1955,” in Norman Hillmer and Adam Chapnick, eds., Canadas of the Mind: The Making and Unmaking of Canadian Nationalism in the Twentieth Century (Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 2007), 214–33; Michel Bock, Anne Gilbert, and Joseph-Yvon Thériault, Entre lieux et mémoire: L’inscription de la francophonie canadienne dans la durée (Ottawa: Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 2009); Peter Pope, The Many Landfalls of John Cabot (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997). 27 For examples of Cupido’s work, see: “‘The Puerilities of the National Complex’: English Canada, the Empire, and the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation,” in Andrew Nurse and Raymond B. Blake, eds., Beyond National Dreams: Essays on Canadian Citizenship and Nationalism (Toronto: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 2009), 81–110, and “The Medium, the Message and the Modern: The Jubilee Broadcast of 1927,” International Journal of Canadian Studies 26 (Fall 2002): 101–23. 28 Peter H. Aykroyd, The Anniversary Compulsion: Canada’s Centennial Celebrations, a Model Mega-Anniversary (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1992). 29 Gary Miedema, For Canada’s Sake: Public Religion, Centennial Celebrations and the Re-making of Canada in the 1960s (Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 2005). 30 Eva Mackey, The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002). 31 Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism (London: Sage, 1995).

Introduction 25 32 Robert Cupido, “Appropriating the Past: Pageants, Politics, and the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 9 (1998): 155–86. 33 Jonathan Vance, A History of Canadian Culture (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2009); Ryan Edwardson, Canadian Content: Culture and the Quest for Nationhood (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008).

1  National Symbols and Commemorations: Analysing the Loyalist Centennial and the Conventions nationales acadiennes in New Brunswick in the 1880s deni s bourque , b on n ie h us k i n s , g r eg marquis , an d ch an tal r i c h a r d Anglophone and francophone elites in New Brunswick engaged in significant acts of collective identity formation in the 1880s in the form of the 1883 Loyalist Centennial and the Conventions nationales acadiennes of 1881, 1884, and 1890. Such events are useful arenas for the examination of collective, national, and subnational identities. As the introduction to this volume suggests, commemorations allow participants to feel like they belong to a particular group or collective, and they also provide a means to articulate what their belonging entails. Scholars like Pierre Nora have argued that the orchestrators of commemorations also frequently use the events to make connections between the past and present.1 Examining Loyalist and Acadian commemorations helps us to understand the current cultural politics of New Brunswick, as well as the national and imperial identities forged by both groups. Anglophones and Acadians share the same space in New Brunswick, but not always happily. Although New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province in Canada, tensions persist over such issues as language rights, job opportunities, and political power. These tensions are rooted in linguistic, economic, and political inequalities, but they are also a product of the different identities negotiated by anglophones and Acadians over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Not immune to the spirit of nation building in the Victorian period, both linguistic communities negotiated their identities in the context of “similar Western European cultural models, in which religion and state formation figured prominently.” Each group was also obliged to “reconstruct communities and identities within the shadows of their former enemies.”2 This chapter explores identity formation through the lens of “peripheral nationalism,” a framework that is applied to subnational groups

National Symbols and Commemorations  27

lacking specific geographical territories or centralized governments and that cannot rely on political or geographical realities to buttress their sense of collective identity.3 Such groups tend to create cultural and historical symbols and narratives to ensure social cohesion and contribute to the national identity. Anne-Marie Thiesse argues that there are certain preconditions that must be met for the formation of Western European forms of nation and national identity: the identification of founding ancestors; a storyline that establishes the continuity of the nation through the vicissitudes of history (in other words, a national narrative); a gallery of heroes; cultural and historical monuments; places embedded in collective memory; and symbols of shared history and collective identity.4 Over the course of the nineteenth century, Acadians met many of these preconditions and used various conventions to publicly articulate a coherent and comprehensive identity for the first time. Anglophones did not create a distinct ethnic-religious identity in the same way as the Acadians did, as their identity had been fractured since the arrival of the Loyalists in the 1780s. But they did use many of the same building blocks to construct a different sort of national narrative. Like anglophones elsewhere in Canada in the 1880s, anglophone elites in New Brunswick negotiated an integrative identity that linked Loyalist ancestry to Canadian nationhood and membership in the British Empire. Anglophone celebrants in Saint John negotiated a “local identity which represented their various parts and the larger whole” as occurred in other Canadian cities.5 There are discrete literatures examining the evolution of Loyalist mythology in New Brunswick and the formation of Acadian identity, but few studies that compare the two. This case study, which emanates from a pilot project entitled “Vocabularies of Cultural Identity: Developing a Model for the ComputerAssisted Analysis of Bilingual Corpora,” engages in textual analysis as its central methodology.6 Initially, two multidisciplinary teams analysed printed sermons and speeches associated with the National Acadian conventions and the Loyalist Centennial: the francophone team analysed thirty-four speeches and sermons published in two French-­ language newspapers (L’Évangéline and Le Moniteur acadien), while the anglophone team studied forty speeches and sermons published in three English-language newspapers (Daily Evening News, Saint John Globe, and Daily Telegraph). Each team analysed their respective texts and extricated significant words, using the computer program Hyperbase to assess their context. They then composed a series of themes

28  Bourque, Huskins, Marquis, and Richard

related to national identity. Words were coded using the software program Sphinx, which allowed us to measure the frequency and relative weight of each theme in relation to the others. Insight was also gained by engaging in a morphosyntactic analysis, focusing on the use of personal pronouns and verb tenses.7 Acadians and Loyalists in New Brunswick: Historical Context Despite contentious relations between Acadians and anglophones in nineteenth-and twentieth-century New Brunswick, it is interesting to note that their ancestors shared a “similar and parallel history.”8 Both Acadians and Loyalists had found themselves on the losing side of power struggles in the eighteenth century, and were subsequently uprooted, separated from families and loved ones, and resettled in diasporic communities around the globe. Acadians had been tossed back and forth between competing interests since the first French settlement at Île Sainte-Croix in 1604. In 1713, the British took possession of the territory, but Acadians remained caught in the crosshairs of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48) and the Seven Years War (1756–63). Finally, a majority of Acadians (approx. 11,000 of 14,000) found themselves forcibly removed from their lands by the British in the expulsions of 1755–62. Many died on board ship and were poor and sick when they arrived in various ports in the American colonies and Great Britain. Their later wanderings would eventually lead them to Canada, Îles de la Madeleine, St-Pierre, the West Indies, France, and the Falkland Islands.9 A large number of “Loyalists,” a group we will loosely define as those who (for a variety of reasons) found themselves on the losing side of the American Revolution (1776–83), also had to leave their homes and find refuge in such places as Florida, the Bahamas, England, and Africa. Of the seventy-five thousand who were uprooted in the American colonies, approximately thirty thousand ended up in Nova Scotia; of that number, fourteen thousand would eventually settle in New Brunswick. Like the Acadians, Loyalists faced illness, death, and other challenges, such as inefficient and sometimes corrupt land-granting systems, shortages of supplies, and internal conflicts and unrest.10 Despite these parallels, the two uprooted populations embarked upon different trajectories by the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Acadians were officially permitted to return to the Maritimes in 1763, but the few who did so found their former lands

National Symbols and Commemorations  29

occupied by New England Planters, people encouraged by the British government to settle in Nova Scotia after the expulsion of the Acadians, and immigrants from Great Britain. Thus, they were relegated to marginal areas such as the northeastern shore of present-day New Brunswick, where they turned to fishing, farming, and other economic activities. By 1800, there were approximately eight thousand Acadians in New Brunswick, but their numbers grew significantly due to a high fertility rate. By the 1870s, there were some seventy thousand Acadians in the Maritimes, half of them in New Brunswick. Acadians comprised 24 per cent of the population of New Brunswick by 1901, replacing the Irish as the largest Roman Catholic group.11 By the 1860s, Acadians had also entered a period of cultural efflorescence linked to three major events in Acadie: the founding of their first postsecondary institution, Collège Saint-Joseph, in 1864; the creation of the first French-language newspaper, Le Moniteur acadien, in 1867; and the serialization of Pamphile Le May’s translation of Evangeline in this paper the same year, which is probably where most Acadians would have read it for the first time.12 Loyalist newcomers to the Maritimes initially swamped existing First Nations, Acadian, and Planter populations in the region. Elite refugees such as Edward Winslow expressed an interest in creating in New Brunswick a genteel society that would be the envy of the American states. Within a generation, however, most elites had abandoned their “Loyalist dreams,” lacking the resources to sustain them.13 Nonetheless, prominent Loyalists and their descendants would dominate political, military, and legal affairs in New Brunswick well into the early twentieth century. We must remember, however, that it is historically inaccurate to speak of “the Loyalists” as a socially, politically, or economically homogeneous group. A number of the elite founders of the colony were New Englanders, but most Loyalist refugees hailed from the mid-Atlantic colonies (a fact unknown to nineteenth-century antiquarians and commemorators). The Loyalist refugees represented a cross-section of colonial society, with the typical family being headed by a farmer or artisan. Up to 10 per cent of the refugees were African Americans, either slaves or free blacks. Some of the refugees had served in provincial or Loyalist military units and had fought in the Revolutionary War. According to historian David Bell, Loyalists in Saint John re-enacted revolutionary-era tensions during the first provincial election in New Brunswick in 1785, which indicates that the Loyalists were far from united in their political views.14

30  Bourque, Huskins, Marquis, and Richard

Although many communities in anglophone New Brunswick traced their origins to the Loyalists, and many political, economic, and social leaders were of Loyalist descent, by the Confederation era there were no culturally self-aware or organized Loyalists in New Brunswick like there were Acadians or Irish Catholics. Although Saint John, the neighbouring town of Portland (annexed to the larger city in 1889), and the surrounding county were overwhelmingly anglophone, the community was fractured on religious lines, with the Protestant majority in ascendancy well into the twentieth century. Class was also a major source of division, with artisans and skilled workers enjoying economic and social advantages over unskilled workers. Many residents of the Saint John area, according to the censuses of 1871, 1881, and 1891, were either British immigrants or the children of at least one immigrant parent.15 Scripted and Unscripted Observances: The Loyalist Centennial Commemorations and the Conventions nationales acadiennes The Loyalist Centennial and the National Acadian conventions were both orchestrated by cultural elites, although anglophones had more economic and political power in the province than did their Acadian counterparts. In terms of celebratory planning, there is little evidence of collaboration between them until later in the twentieth century, when Acadian communities donated financial support to the de Monts–Champlain tercentenary celebrations in Saint John in 1904, and when the statue of Champlain was dedicated in Queen Square in 1910.16 But these were not “Loyalist” history commemorations, even if the organizers and dominant participants included key promoters of the history of Loyalist Saint John. Because Loyalist descendants were over-represented in the ranks of the elite in the late nineteenth century, it has been argued that the organizers of the Centennial celebrations used Saint John’s “Loyalist heritage and tradition to justify their positions and retain control of the urban population.”17 The commemorative watch night service held at Centenary Queen’s Square Church in Saint John on 18 May 1883 featured speeches by such dignitaries as Chief Justice John Campbell Allen, Judge Charles N. Skinner, Lieutenant Governor R.D. Wilmot, and Reverend Duncan D. Currie, chair of the Saint John District of the Methodist Conference of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Many of the Centennial commemoration’s luminaries were Loyalist descendants. Non-Loyalist elites, however,

National Symbols and Commemorations  31

also appropriated Loyalist history for their own ends. J.W. Lawrence, a Scottish manufacturer, undertaker, politician, and founding member of the New Brunswick Historical Society (NBHS), coordinated two presentations on Loyalist history at Centenary Queen’s Square Church and at the Mechanics Institute, at which he lauded the Loyalists for their sacrifices and contributions to British and Canadian society.18 Lawrence’s membership in the NBHS is significant. The burgeoning fields of antiquarian history and genealogy generated an interest in Loyalist history, which was promoted by the society. Founded in 1874, the Historical Society’s objective was to promote public history that would balance commemorations in the United States of the American Revolutionary War. In other words, the NBHS was to present “a vision of local and provincial history in which the Loyalists dominated.”19 Although the demographic impact of the Loyalists had waned by the 1880s, having Loyalist ancestry remained a status symbol, much like being a Mayflower descendant in the United States.20 By the 1930s, it was de rigueur for residents of New Brunswick and Ontario to prove through genealogical research that they were entitled to the honorific “United Empire Loyalist.” Moreover, Loyalist history was the only form of anglophone public history celebrated in the province in the late nineteenth century, showing the power of Loyalist tradition. Although by mid-century Irish Catholics outnumbered Loyalist descendants in Saint John, they did not engage in “overt historical commemoration” until the eightieth anniversary of the Irish potato famine, in 1927, when they placed a Celtic cross on Partridge Island, a former quarantine station.21 For their part, Acadian leaders engaged in the “creation of tradition” in the 1880s, choosing Acadian national symbols at their conventions in Memramcook (1881), Miscouche (1884), and Pointe-de-l’Église (1890). After attending a Convention nationale des Canadiens français sponsored by the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste in Quebec in 1880, a small group of influential and educated Acadian men organized their own congress the following year. At the first National Acadian Convention, in Memramcook, approximately half of the orators were priests, including Marcel François Richard who was to become known for his promotion of agriculture and colonization. The secular speakers and supporters of the conventions were mostly political or public figures, such as Judge Pierre-Amand Landry and Senator Pascal Poirier, and Valentin Landry and Ferdinand Robidoux, the owners of the two prominent French-­ language newspapers, L’Évangéline and Le Moniteur acadien.22

32  Bourque, Huskins, Marquis, and Richard

It is difficult to discern the degree to which these efforts to construct collective identity percolated beyond the confines of the cultural elite. Approximately five thousand Acadians attended the first convention in 1881, and the other two gatherings were also well attended and attracted a great deal of public attention. Although all delegates may not have had the same degree of influence – women, for example, were rarely mentioned except in functions related to food service – Acadians from all three Maritime provinces were present at the conventions. In fact, the newspapers published detailed accounts of representatives from each Acadian village and town travelling to the conventions as this was presumably an important responsibility. Similarly, during the Loyalist festivities, “civic and provincial elites gathered at the city’s public venues and churches to deliver … rarified orations on the importance of the Loyalists,” while the masses cavorted at a series of spectacles common to other nineteenth-century commemorations, including torchlight parades, processions of firemen, fireworks and sporting events, and a re-enactment of the landing of the Loyalists.23 Accounts of the Acadian and Loyalist celebrations were circulated to larger audiences in print in French- and English-language newspapers, in the Loyalists’ Centennial Souvenir pamphlet produced in 1887,24 and in a book on the first three Conventions nationales acadiennes published in 1907.25 Insight into participation from below may be gained by analysing the Centennial procession organized by two community groups in Saint John – the Polymorphians and the Calithumpians. Although no extant membership lists have been found for the latter group in Saint John, they were probably male and working-class in composition, as they were elsewhere in Canada at this time. Calithumpians had their roots in the charivari tradition and used their parades to mock and mimic, and often revelled in the outrageous and the fantastical.26 The other group – the Saint John Polymorphians (for whom we do have a membership list for 1883) – was more respectable, being comprised primarily of well-to-do artisans and lower middle–class clerks and business owners. They led off the parade with a series of Loyalist tableaux: “Sloop King George,” “Log Cabin,” “Bridal Party of Ye Olden Time,” and “Emigrant Train.” While the Polymorphian participants exhibited fairly decorous behaviour, there was an element of gender inversion, with the female roles in the Log Cabin and Bridal Party being played by men, including the roles of bride and bridesmaid. The Calithumpian performers trailed along behind the Polymorphians and featured a rowdy ­“anti-uniformity” of costume and character. Their “Old Time

National Symbols and Commemorations  33

Carriage” (the only reference to the Loyalist history) was followed by characters of all kinds, white men dressed up as First Nations on horseback, and a two-headed giantess driven by a monkey. This more rowdy and discordant display resembled the “Thanksgiving menagerie” held in Toronto in 1882. The processions of the Polymorphians and Calithumpians are a good reminder that when the “commemorative heft comes from below,” it often introduces an element of unpredictability to the festivities, and produces less scripted performances than the official version of the commemorations.27 It is also interesting to note that Acadians eventually embraced charivari influences in their adoption of the tintamarre in the 1950s.28 The Creation of Collective Narratives: Heroes, History, Progress, and Tourism Acadian and anglophone elites used the 1883 Loyalist Centennial and the Acadian conventions from 1881 to 1890 to construct collective narratives for their respective audiences. One important aspect of these narratives was the identification of the group’s founding ancestors. Antiquarians and communities of all stripes in the late Victorian era wished to celebrate the pioneer era of settlement. In the 1883 Centennial, the re-enactment of the landing of the Loyalists served as a symbolic marker of the arrival of the “founders” of the province, despite the existence of many earlier groups, Acadians included. A textual analysis of the sermons and speeches delivered during the Centennial commemorations reveals that orators revered the founding Loyalists for their steadfastness and determination: their ancestors were constructed as active participants by using words such as “choice,” “active,” and “brave.” The portrayal of the Loyalists as heroes and founders resembles much nineteenth-century nationalist history with its emphasis on “triumph (physical, moral, political, economic) [and] ‘liberty.’”29 Speakers at the Loyalist events also used third person plural when referring to the Loyalists to the exclusion of a first person plural “we,” reflecting a perceived distance between themselves and their ancestors. This is reflected in the following excerpt from a Centennial speech: “The most conspicuous among [the recently arrived Loyalists] were men of high character and stern principle, for which they had periled life and sacrificed property and possibilities, by most men held dear. They had passed through one of the great struggles of history.”30 Anglophones, in other words, did not identify as Loyalists per se, due to the passage

34  Bourque, Huskins, Marquis, and Richard

of time, and their fractured identities, but used them to construct a suitable historical narrative. Acadians also reflected on the courage, determination, and heroism of their ancestors during the founding of Acadia and during the expulsions. This is particularly evident in Pierre-Amand Landry’s opening speech at the first National Acadian Convention in 1891: “History teaches us that our fathers, when they arrived in Acadie, possessed all the qualities required to ensure success and happiness in their lives: their courage in adversity, their patience in trying times, their devotion and heroism in defending everything they held dear, do not contradict this historical fact.”31 Moreover, a close reading of the speeches delivered during these meetings suggests that Acadian orators perceived their ancestors to be both heroes and victims, by using words such as “larmes [tears], infortune [misfortune], persécutés [persecuted], abandon [abandonment], isolement [isolation], misère [misery]” along with “grand [great], digne [worthy], noble [noble], courage [courage], persévérance [perseverance].”32 The Acadian narrative articulated during the conventions presented a collective identity heavily dependent on a shared traumatic past of upheaval and exile, and expressed by an inclusive nous (we) typical of nationalist discourse. Past events – the historical narrative necessary to the creation of a national identity – were being relived collectively to reinforce a sacred past: “The spoliation of 1755 left us disseminated and wandering without resources. Through hard work, patience, and perseverance, and with the help of a strong faith inherited from our fathers, we succeeded in overcoming this utter devastation. Thanks to an extraordinary frugality, we have been able to retake a bit of the land that was stolen from us from our conquerors.”33 Unlike the Loyalist commemorators, who constructed an historical narrative about their ancestors that they themselves did not inhabit, Acadian speakers included both themselves (“we succeeded”) and their ancestors (“left us disseminated”) in a nous that shifted from the past to the present. Similarly, the present tense was sometimes used by Acadian speakers to refer to past sufferings: “Acadie herself is a pile of ruins, PortRoyal is destroyed, the villages are burned, the farmers and merchants ruined.”34 The linguist Patrick Charaudeau refers to this use of the present as a “generic present” that designates an action as “not necessarily being realized at the same moment as the speaker is talking,” but that “acquires a pantemporal” (all times) value.” In other words, references to the past as expressed in these speeches seemed to function on

National Symbols and Commemorations  35

a mythical level as a narrative of beginnings or as a founding myth.35 Unlike the anglophones, who revered their ancestors from a distance, Acadians identified personally with their ancestors, and they used the generic present to “ritualize the story of [their] creation.”36 Acadian and Loyalist commemorations were Janus-faced, looking simultaneously to the past and the future. Centennial orators often linked the accomplishments of the Loyalists to economic and material progress: almost 30 per cent of the words and concepts used in the Centennial speeches and sermons refer in some way to progress and the future, usually cast as material, industrial, and commercial advancements: “One hundred years ago, a company of men devoted to king and country, landed upon the present site of the City of Saint John. It was then a bleak and rocky shore. It is today the home of a progressive and energetic people. We may learn of our progress during the century by the evidences around us, in these buildings …We are rich in the products of the field, the forest, the mine, and the fisheries.”37 Moreover, the Loyalist festivities in May 1883 were followed later that year by a Centennial exhibition, which displayed specimens of material progress. It is also interesting to note that business interests, politicians, journalists, and other cultural producers in Saint John reflected a concern with material progress by using the history of the Loyalists as a vehicle of tourism and civic boosterism. In this sense, the Loyalist Centennial of 1883 was a highly modern moment. One thinks of more recent commemorations such as the PEI celebrations of the Centennial of the Charlottetown Conference and of PEI’s entry into Confederation, discussed by Matthew McRae in this volume, and the Cape Breton project for Canada’s Centennial, described herein by Meaghan Beaton, which also used related observances to promote tourism and the arts. As William Jones notes, the 1883 Loyalist celebration in New Brunswick followed a period of economic and social crisis that included a depression, a devastating fire in Saint John in 1877, and outmigration. Merchants who decorated their stores in May 1883 expected much from tourists who would reach the city via steamship and railway. Hotels and boarding houses were full of visitors from the rest of the province and from Nova Scotia.38 Although the Conventions nationales acadiennes were festive, attracting thousands of attendees, they were not engineered as tourism attractions. Typically, they began with an opening sermon, a very significant moment for the participants. Catholic masses were also held to commemorate the conventions. The sermons and speeches that emanated

36  Bourque, Huskins, Marquis, and Richard

from these events articulated a more nuanced concept of progress than that expressed in Loyalist Centennial orations. The dominance of the Roman Catholic clergy in Acadia and Quebec in the late nineteenth century generated a “messianic” ideology, most prominent in Quebec, that encouraged a return to traditional social and religious values and to the practice of agriculture and colonization; this was, in a sense, a return to the past. On the other hand, Judge Pierre-Amand Landry and Philéas Bourgeois held a more modern view that favoured the integration of the Acadian people into all walks of life. Bourgeois, an educator, insisted that Acadians must prepare their youth to fill all the commercial and industrial positions of the day: “Draughtsmanship, architecture, civil engineering, everything which is linked to commerce, finance, manufacturing, to the intimate details of our domestic economy, all these things must be the object of our attention, of our care. Our colleges, our academies of commerce, our convents, at last our rural schools, will prepare those who have been assigned to them to the ordinary practice of the different spheres of commerce, industry, and domestic economy.”39 Bourgeois’s comments should be understood as a concern for collective survival and integration into society, rather than a preoccupation with Victorian material progress. Most of the Acadian elite desired greater political power for their people and dreamed of a true equality between the Acadians and their English-speaking counterparts. Thanks to the efforts of the Acadian elite, some social progress was made especially at the educational and political levels. The National Acadian conventions were meant to have an enduring effect upon Acadian society. In this vein, Pierre-Amand Landry portrayed Acadia as an “ailing body which needed to be nursed back to health.”40 Identity Formation during the Loyalist Centennial (18 May) and the Fête nationale (le 15 août) The first cohort of Acadian elite, trained at Collège Saint-Joseph, and guided by the French historian and benefactor, Edme Rameau de SaintPère, drew up a plan for the rebirth of Acadie, which unfolded during the various conventions. The conventions gave Acadians the opportunity, for the first time, to articulate and construct their identity boldly and openly. This was accomplished in part by adopting national symbols such as a national holiday (l’Assomption, or Feast of the Assumption, 15 August), an Acadian flag (the French tricolour with a yellow star signifying devotion to the Pope and to the Virgin Mary), a patron

National Symbols and Commemorations  37

saint (Our Lady of the Assumption), and a national hymn (“Ave Maris Stella”). They also created the Société Nationale l’Assomption, a patriotic association, which galvanized Acadian interests in many ways. The organization would eventually become the Société Nationale de l’Acadie, which is still in existence today. Acadians actively debated whether Acadian identity should remain distinct or amalgamate with other French-speaking peoples. This debate became most cogent and antagonistic when discussing the Acadian national holiday at the first convention in 1881. Those supportive of celebrating la Saint-Jean Baptiste, the national holiday of French Canadians, were striving to express solidarity with the French-speaking and Catholic residents of the Province of Quebec in order to strengthen the ethnic, linguistic, and religious bonds that united them. Partisans of l’Assomption wished to maintain an Acadian identity separate from Quebec, however, arguing that Acadians had a distinct history that shaped their character. As speaker after speaker took the podium during several hours of debate, passionate and dramatic tirades revealed underlying differences, even conflict. One of the most captivating speeches on the choice of a national holiday was delivered by Reverend Stanislas J. Doucet, who posited that Acadians should choose their own holiday to ensure their survival as a people: There is one more thing, gentlemen, that we must not forget if we wish to make a choice that is well-suited to our nationality. That is the very idea of nationality. We wish to choose a national holiday, don’t we? Well, let’s choose one that is distinctive to our nationality, one that our people will not share with any other nation, not even one as dear and sympathetic to ours as is the French-Canadian nation. The conservation of our nationality, that is the most important thing … Let us have our very own holiday, like our brothers in [French-] Canada have theirs.41

Similarly, Monsigneur Marcel-François Richard argued that Acadians formed a distinct people with their own past and future (a “peuple distinct, ayant une histoire à part et une destinée à remplir”), and thus they should choose a truly Acadian holiday and patron saint. He asserted that the choice of la Saint-Jean-Baptiste would lead to the annihilation of the Acadian people: We have been called here by the organizers of this Acadian convention to “affirm our existence as a people” and to take the necessary means to

38  Bourque, Huskins, Marquis, and Richard conserve our nationality ... all nations have their own patron saints ... and it is by these means that they maintained a national identity ... Will the Acadian people be the only nation to ignore its own existence and will they consent to be forever erased from the list of nations?42

On the other side of the debate, Philias Bourgeois, supporter of la Saint-Jean Baptiste, warned against the dangers of Acadians isolating themselves from other French-speaking populations. He suggested that it would be a mistake for Acadians to fool themselves into thinking they could survive without the help of French-Canadians, who were more numerous, stronger, and more advanced than Acadians in every way. Furthermore, he claimed that creating a distinct Acadian holiday would be foolish and presumptuous.43 In the end, partisans of a distinct Acadian holiday won over the majority of participants at the convention. Throughout the debates, a discourse of nation and nationalism was articulated for the first time on a public stage, as delegates adopted national symbols and articulated a religious, ethnic, and linguistic identity for Acadians that was distinct from other francophone populations. As the speeches and national symbols were disseminated through the printed word, Acadians were finally becoming aware of their collective identity. To justify the choice of a distinctly Acadian national holiday, several speakers attempted to define the group’s distinctive qualities. Sir Hector-Louis Langevin, a distinguished member of Sir John A. Macdonald’s cabinet and then his Quebec lieutenant, insisted that Acadian identity was founded primarily on the French language and the Catholic faith: “you will not form a separate race, you will not remain the Acadian people, unless you remain French and Catholic.” According to Reverend Doucet, however, “a distinct national character can eventually be formed despite a common language, religion or origin.” This distinct national character, he argued, was shaped by specific events and circumstances over the course of three centuries: Would you like to know, gentlemen, what it is that distinguishes the humble Acadian people from all other people of the world, even the FrenchCanadian people? It is because the circumstances that surround its origin and its existence are different from those that shaped the national character of other people. Examine its history and you will discover the tale of those circumstances. It is the violent vicissitudes of its existence, along with its long isolation from France and Canada, that shaped its national

National Symbols and Commemorations  39 physiognomy, and revealed it to be a people distinct from other people that surround it.44

Anglophone celebrants did not construct a distinct ethnic, linguistic, or religious identity during the 1883 Centennial; rather, they fêted the Loyalists for their ideological and political capital. For the Confederation generation, Loyalists embodied Canada’s national spirit that drove the expansion of the young Dominion from the Atlantic to the Pacific by 1871. Canadian nationalism was blended, by the late Victorian era, with support for an expanded role within the British Empire, with the Loyalists being recast as early proponents of Imperial federation. Both Liberal and Conservative appropriations of the past linked Canada’s system of parliamentary democracy and English common law to material and social progress. For Liberals, the Loyalists, by refusing to give up on the First British Empire, were early advocates of constitutional monarchy and British parliamentary government, the only true source of liberty in the world. For Conservatives, the Loyalists, or at least their elites, were defenders of a more deferential political and social order. This imperial and national identity in Saint John and New Brunswick was essentially a Caucasian identity. Although “black Loyalists” established a series of settlements throughout the Maritime region, they were not explicitly integrated into the Loyalist/national/imperial narrative. The only glimpse of partial recognition was the participation of local black residents in a tree-planting ceremony in Queen Square in Saint John on Arbour Day in 1883. The participants were not, however, positioned as descendants of the Loyalists, but rather as a “national group.” Trees were planted in “memory of Africa” and various influential black citizens, as well as “prominent members of the Acadian community.”45 It is surprising to some that the Loyalist tradition by the 1880s was not always in opposition to its “other,” the United States. Despite the fact that the Loyalists had been losers in a civil war, whose new colony was threatened again by American republicanism in 1812, it is difficult to describe the population of Saint John in the 1880s as uniformly “anti-American.” Economic and cultural ties with the United States were strong, and many New Brunswickers emigrated to or worked for short periods south of the border. In addition, many aspects of American society, politics, and history, including revolutionary heroes such as George Washington, were widely admired. By the 1880s, a number of economic and political leaders were advocating not only a return to free trade with the United States, but “commercial union,” the policy

40  Bourque, Huskins, Marquis, and Richard

1.1  Loyalist Centennial. Used with Permission of the Provincial ­Archives of New Brunswick, P338-138.

of the national Liberal Party that supported a customs union between the two nations and the dismantling of Canada’s protectionist National Policy via-à-vis the United States. Although certain local promoters of Loyalist tradition, such as the journalist and historian James Hannay, were bitterly anti-American,46 many others within the elite were either selective in their anti-Americanism or supportive of improved relations between the United States and Britain and its colonies. This ambivalence towards the Americans was evident during the 1883 Centennial festivities. On the evening preceding the landing of the Loyalists at Market Slip, members of the elite, including the American consul, organized a commemorative meeting that included speeches, prayers, and songs. Speakers at the gathering balanced praise for the patriotism of the Loyalists with an understanding of why their

National Symbols and Commemorations  41

American brethren had been compelled to rebel. Subsequent festivities during the Centennial communicated alternative narratives. Following the landing of the Loyalists, re-enactors approached a group of friendly First Nations (who were really white residents in costume) in a re-­enactment of “first contact.” In the historical record, we know that the loyal refugees of 1783 were not the first group of European or even American arrivals to encounter First Nations at the mouth of the Saint John River. Rather, Loyalists were met by a well-established British garrison stationed at Fort Howe, and Planters from New England, who had been residing in the region for two decades. Moreover, the Polymorphians presented another version of this historical narrative. In their procession, several participants wore uniforms resembling the 104th Regiment, famous for marching from New Brunswick to take part in the defence of Upper Canada during the War of 1812. This costumed regiment reinforced the so-called militia myth, which portrays the Americans as aggressors and colonial volunteers as the heroes who saved the day.47 Clearly, Americans were portrayed in many different ways and occupied various interpretive spaces during the Loyalist Centennial. It has been established that the Acadians used their conventions to delineate a distinctive national identity, yet it is important to note that they were remarkably well aware of the fact that they were not functioning within a political void. They demonstrated, on the contrary, an acute sense of the political realities of the day, and the need to appease national and imperial interests. Acadian organizers invited prominent members of both the French-Canadian and New Brunswick political elites to the first convention, at which both Sir Hector-Louis Langevin, and J.P Rhéaume, president of the Société Saint-Jean Baptiste de Québec, delivered speeches. In later years, Canadian prime ministers Wilfrid Laurier and William Lyon Mackenzie King also attended conventions (1900 and 1927, respectively) as did the prime minister of the United Kingdom, Stanley Baldwin, who gave a speech in 1927. At the conventions, Acadians were also quick to affirm their allegiance to their Sovereign and to the British Empire, and to insist that they had an important role to play in the newly formed Canadian Confederation, as did the anglophones at their festivities. In 1881, Acadian political astuteness was further demonstrated by the fact that the president of the first convention, Pierre-Amand Landry, chose, at their request, to deliver a speech in English to the anglophone people present. Landry was quick to dispel any misapprehensions that they may have had concerning the loyalty of the Acadian people:

42  Bourque, Huskins, Marquis, and Richard A true interpretation of the enthusiasm which you have witnessed since yesterday … would convince you, our fellow-citizens speaking the English language, that we have met for no disloyal purpose … Nothing has been uttered or even thought that did not breathe a spirit of loyalty and of fellowship … This convention will give us new courage … And be assured, gentlemen, it will not have diminished our loyalty to our Sovereign and to our Institutions, our attachment to our system of government, our respect for the laws of our country and our love and regard for you, our neighbours and brethren.48

It should also be noted that at all Acadian gatherings the singing of “Ave Maris Stella” was always accompanied by “God Save the Queen.” But, unlike anglophone celebrants, who enthusiastically appropriated national and imperial identities, Acadians paid obeisance to the same in the interests of maintaining useful political alliances. A theme common to both groups’ sense of collective identity was their self-identification as God’s chosen people. Marc Lescarbot, in his 1609 publication Histoire de la Nouvelle-France, compared Acadie to an earthly paradise and a promised land: “[Acadie] is similar to the land God promised his people through Moses, saying: ‘The Lord thy God will have you enter a good land, a land of streams, fountains and canyons … a land where you will not eat your bread in dearth, where you will lack of nothing.’”49 Exiled Loyalists were compared to uprooted Israelites in a Centennial sermon in Trinity Church in Saint John. This was not unusual in English Canada. Protestant church leaders in Ontario, in their Thanksgiving Day sermons, frequently articulated a connection between Protestantism and patriotism, by portraying Canada as a Promised Land, and Canadians as a “chosen people.”50 In New Brunswick, the involvement of Protestant clergy and Roman Catholic priests in commemorations and significant national meetings reveals their influence not only as religious leaders but as cultural producers. For Acadian and Loyalist commemorators, collective identity formation in the 1880s was not only grounded in religion but in place. Much of the impetus for the Acadian festivities emanated from Memramcook in southeastern New Brunswick, where the first convention was held. Of the twenty-three speakers at the three conventions discussed in this chapter, roughly half were natives of this region of New Brunswick, with a high concentration from the Memramcook area. This is undoubtedly due to the presence of the Collège Saint-Joseph; nearly

National Symbols and Commemorations  43

all the orators at the conventions were either directly involved in the Collège or had studied there. As Chantal Richard et al. have argued, “Having a college in the community undoubtedly allowed a disproportionate number of Acadians living in this area to have access to a higher education and to become influential figures among the Acadian elite of this period.”51 Memramcook was also significant in the context of Acadian history, for it was the only pre-expulsion community resettled by Acadians upon their return, and the point from which much of the settlement of New Brunswick’s eastern shore by Acadians would afterwards occur. The Loyalist Centennial was explicitly grounded in the city of Saint John. This made sense, as the first Loyalist fleets in New Brunswick arrived in the port city, which was subsequently incorporated in 1785. Many Loyalists moved from Saint John to their free land grants throughout the province. The choice of Saint John, however, as the central location for the 1883 celebrations embodied the previously articulated focus of the Centennial on material progress. Saint John was known to many as “the Liverpool of North America,” and frequently used its communal celebrations to mark the city’s commercial and industrial successes: a massive trades procession marked the turning of the sod of the European and North American Railway in 1853; and during the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1860, the royal guest and his entourage were escorted across the city’s Suspension Bridge (a symbol of technological progress), and rode the European and North American railway to Fredericton. They also visited a sawmill where they were shown how to manufacture deals.52 Did the organizers and participants of the Loyalist Centennial and the National Acadian conventions memorialize their events? Acadians established no major material memorials in 1881, 1884, or 1890. This is partially because Acadian national identity formation was in its formative stages at this time. Acadian memorials of the 1880s were more symbolic than material, such as the national symbols adopted at the events, and the records of the speeches, which were published in 1907. Material memorials would not emerge until later, with the rebuilding of the church at Grand Pré – the site of the deportation in Longfellow’s Evangeline – which began in 1922, the year after a convention nationale was held there. Moreover, during the Pointe-de-l’Église convention in 1890, the delegates travelled to Port Royal, where Pascal Poirier presented a historical conference atop the ruins of the old fort where Acadia was founded.

44  Bourque, Huskins, Marquis, and Richard

Memorials to the Loyalists reinforced once again the Centennial’s focus on material progress. Several fountains were dedicated to the Loyalists in Saint John. On 18 May, after a parade of firemen processed to Indiantown (a site on the Saint John River in neighbouring Portland), a fountain was dedicated to the Loyalists and to the donor family’s son. The previous year, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty Against Animals had dedicated a functional water fountain in memory of the Loyalists at Market Square, close to the landing site of 1783. Two other drinking fountains were erected in the port city: one at Haymarket Square donated by the Polymorphians, and a more elaborate fountain at King Square courtesy of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Aside from the fountains, no major monuments or civic buildings were constructed in memory of the Loyalists in the 1880s. The New Brunswick Museum, a provincial facility that opened in Saint John in 1933, the sesquicentennial of the founding of the Loyalist province, would partially serve this role decades later.53 The New Brunswick Historical Society did commit to one commemorative project: the restoration of the Old Burial Ground east of King Square that contained the graves of many Loyalist settlers. As previously mentioned, descendants of the Loyalists, church congregations, occupational groups, and members of the province’s black and Acadian minorities also planted trees in Queen Square in honour of the city’s Loyalist founders during Arbour Day in 1883.54 It is interesting to note that the tree plantings and fountains, the restoration of the Loyalist burial ground, and the establishment of the museum in 1933 were not explicitly related to Loyalist history, but reflected other Victorian priorities: temperance, animal welfare, civic beautification, and the promotion of education. Legacy For many years after the 1883 Centennial, Loyalist Day (18 May) was celebrated in the Saint John area and for a time it was a school holiday. By the 1970s it was the inspiration for a community festival that once again attempted to attract residents and tourists to downtown businesses with events such as re-enactments, parades, concerts, outdoor markets, and beer gardens. Like the Centennial, the festival was light on history and heavy on fun and entertainment. It became, for a few years, something akin to a St Patrick’s Day phenomenon, wherein everyone could become a Loyalist for a day. The New Brunswick Historical Society acquired the 1825 Merritt House in 1959, which is a National

National Symbols and Commemorations  45

Historical Site and still runs as the Loyalist House Museum. The Loyalists were once again fêted during the 1980s on the occasion of the bicentennial of the landing of the Loyalists and of the formation of the province of New Brunswick. At this time, there was a revival of academic interest in the Loyalists with the establishment at the University of New Brunswick of the Loyalist Studies program and The Loyalist Collection at the Harriet Irving Library.55 Despite these resurgences of interest, the Loyalists have lost much of their political and ideological capital over the course of the twentieth century. The reality is much different for New Brunswick’s Acadians. The choice of an Acadian Day at the first Convention nationale acadienne in 1881 left a lasting legacy throughout Acadian towns and villages, as did the Acadian flag chosen in 1884. Although 15 August has been largely secularized since the nineteenth century, and is not usually referred to as l’Assomption anymore, this day continues to be celebrated widely. Some Acadian towns like Caraquet have built an entire infrastructure around a two-week-long festival leading up to the 15 August holiday. The flag is flown before city halls and government offices, but the celebration has also transcended its official status to be embraced by popular culture. The Tricolore étoilé is painted on everything from lobster traps to utility poles and is raised to the singing of “Ave Maris Stella” every 15 August. The symbols put in place during the Acadian National conventions and the narratives surrounding them certainly have had a significant impact in the creation of a distinct Acadian identity. Conclusion Loyalists and Acadians both were members of uprooted populations that resettled in New Brunswick in the late eighteenth century. Both experienced subsequent challenges to the formation of their collective identities. Acadians were forced to (re)claim their sense of identity after the expulsions, while Loyalists, a heterogeneous population from the start, would see further fracturing of their identity as the Loyalist influence waned in the province. Loyalists and their descendants, as well as Acadians, lacked their own geographical territories and state infrastructures and thus created their own national symbols and historical narratives to promote cohesion and a more unified identity. Because Acadians were a “predetermined nation” in the sense that they had pre-existing linguistic, religious, and cultural commonalities, they were better prepared to create an identity as a distinctive people.

46  Bourque, Huskins, Marquis, and Richard

This articulation of national identity took a comprehensive and public form during the national conventions in Memramcook, Miscouche, and Pointe-de-l’Église. The organizers of the Loyalist Centennial used some of the same ingredients of national identity formation – such as the promotion of founding ancestors, embedding certain places in collective memory, creating symbols and national narratives, and memorializing the events – but produced a different type of identity. The historical narratives negotiated by both groups overlapped, in terms of their parallel focus on upheaval and suffering, but from there they differ: Acadians embraced and relived their traumatic uprooting as a central symbol of their distinctiveness, along with their linguistic, religious, and cultural commonalities, while anglophones commemorated Loyalist history to better integrate themselves into a larger story of Canadian nationhood, British imperialism, continental union, and Victorian progress. NOTES 1 Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past (New York: ­Columbia University Press, 1996). 2 Chantal Richard, Ann Brown, Margaret Conrad, Gwendolyn Davies, Bonnie Huskins, and Sylvia Kasparian, “Markers of Collective Identity in Loyalist and Acadian Speeches of the 1880s: A Comparative Analysis,” Journal of New Brunswick Studies 4 (2013): 13–30. 3 Alfonzo Pérez-Agote, “Thèses sur l’arbitraire de l’être collectif national,” in Wanda Dressler, Gabriel Gatti, and Alfonso Pérez-Agote, eds., Les nouveaux repères de l’identité collective en Europe (Paris: Harmattan, 1999), 19–32. 4 This is our translation of Anne-Marie Thiesse, “Des fictions créatices: Les identités nationales,” Romantisme 30, 110 (2000­­–04): 52. 5 See Gillian I. Leitch, “Claiming the Streets: Negotiating National Identities in Montreal Parades, 1840–1880,” in Matthew Hayday and Raymond B. Blake, eds., Celebrating Canada: Holidays, National Days, and the Crafting of Identities (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016), 29–53. 6 This pilot project, spearheaded by Chantal Richard, received a SSHRCC Image, Text, and Technology grant (2010–13). The research continues in “Vocabularies of Identity II: The Evolution of Collective Identity in Acadian and Loyalist Texts Published in New Brunswick Newspapers from 1880– 1939,”which received a SSHRCC Insight Grant in 2013. 7 For more details, see Richard et al., “Markers of Collective Identity.”

National Symbols and Commemorations  47 8 Ibid., 15. 9 Naomi Griffiths, “Acadians in Exile: The Experiences of the Acadians in the British Seaports,” Acadiensis 4, 1 (1974): 67–84; Jean-François Mouhot, Les réfugiés acadiens en France, 1758–1785 (Quebec: Septentrion, 2009), 41–2; Muriel K. Roy, “Démographie et démolinguistique en Acadie, 1871–1991,” in Jean Daigle, ed., L’Acadie des Maritimes (Moncton: Chaire d’études acadiennes, 1993), 141–206; Stephen A. White, “The True Number of Acadians,” in Ronnie-Gilles LeBlanc, ed., Du Grand Dérangement à la Déportation: Nouvelles perspectives historiques (Moncton: Chaire d’études acadiennes, 2005), 21–56. 10 Maya Jasanoff, Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World (New York: Knopf, 2011); D.G. Bell, Early Loyalist Saint John: The Origin of New Brunswick Politics, 1783–1786 (Fredericton: New Ireland Press, 1983); Anne Gorman Condon, The Loyalist Dream for New Brunswick: The Envy of the American States (Fredericton: New Ireland Press, 1984); Esther Clark Wright, The Loyalists of New Brunswick (Fredericton: Author, 1955). 11 Margaret Conrad and J.K. Hiller, Atlantic Canada: A History, 2nd ed. (Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press, 2010), 90, 157–8. 12 Étienne Catta, Le Révérend Père Camille Lefebvre et la renaissance acadienne, vols. 1–3 (Saint-Joseph, NB: Province acadienne des Pères de Sainte-Croix), 1983. 13 Richard et al., “Markers of Collective Identity,” 15. 14 William Nelson, The American Tory (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961); D.G. Bell, Loyalist Rebellion in New Brunswick: A Defining Conflict for Canada’s Political Culture (Halifax: Formac, 2013); Thomas B. Allen, Tories: Fighting for the King in America’s First Civil War (New York: Harper, 2010). 15 Greg Marquis, “Saint John as an Immigrant City, 1851–1951,” Atlantic Metropolis Centre, Working Paper No. 30 (2010); the authors would like to thank Greg Marquis for making this paper available. Thomas William Acheson, Saint John: The Making of a Colonial Urban Community (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985), 113. 16 Greg Marquis, “Celebrating Champlain in the Loyalist City: Saint John, 1904–10,” Acadiensis 33, 2 (2004): 27–43. 17 William S. Jones, “Loyalist City: The Imposition of the Loyalist Image in Saint John, New Brunswick, 1883–1983” (MA thesis, Department of History, 2011), 7. 18 Richard et al., “Markers of Collective Identity,” 17. For a general discussion of Centennial festivities, see Jones, “Loyalist City,” 33–5; Marquis, “Commemorating the Loyalists in the Loyalist City: Saint John, New Brunswick, 1883–1934,” Urban History Review, 33, 1 (2004), 26–8; and Huskins, “Public Celebrations in Victorian Saint John and Halifax” (PhD dissertation, Department of History, Dalhousie University, 1992), 202, 232.

48  Bourque, Huskins, Marquis, and Richard 1 9 Marquis, “Commemorating the Loyalists,” 24. 20 Richard et al.,“Markers of Collective Identity,” 16. 21 Marquis, “Commemorating the Loyalists,” 29. For discussion of the Loyalist tradition in New Brunswick, see Murray Barkley, “The Loyalist Tradition in New Brunswick,” Acadiensis 4, 2 (1975), 3–45. 22 For discussion of Acadian elites in New Brunswick, see Sheila Andrew, The Development of Elites in Acadian New Brunswick (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996). Also see Richard et al., “Markers of Collective Identity,” 18–19; Ferdinand Robidoux, Conventions nationales des Acadiens, vol. 1 (Shédiac: Presses du Moniteur acadien, 1907), ix. 23 Richard et al., “Markers of Collective Identity,” 17–18. Leitch, “Claiming the Streets,” and Peter A. Stevens, “‘Righteousness Exalteth the Nation’: Religion, Nationalism, and Thanksgiving Day in Ontario, 1859–1914,” in Hayday and Blake, eds., Celebrating Canada, vol. 1, 54–82. Hayday and Blake also discuss various forms of celebration in the Victorian age. 24 Loyalists’ Centennial Souvenir, New Brunswick Historical Society (Saint John: J.A. McMillan, 1887). 25 Robidoux, Conventions nationales des Acadiens; Richard et al., “Markers of Collective Identity,” 19; Denis Bourque and Chantal Richard, Les conventions nationales acadiennes, vol. 1, 1881–1890 (Moncton: Institut d’études acadiennes, 2013). 26 Craig Heron and Steven Penfold, The Workers’ Festival: A History of Labour Day in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005); Bryan D. Palmer, “Discordant Music: Charivaris and Whitecapping in NineteenthCentury North America,” Labour/Le Travailleur 3 (1978): 5–62. 27 This discussion is based on chapter 6 of Huskins, “Public Celebrations in Victorian Saint John and Halifax.” The phrase “commemorative heft … from below” is attributed to Peter Ackroyd during the roundtable on Active History: Part 1; see http://activehistory.ca/2014/10/history-slam-episodefifty-four-celebrating-canada-part-1/. 28 Ethnologist Ronald Labelle points out that the charivari tradition was also present in Acadian society prior to the first known occurrence of a tintamarre in 1955. However, the 15 August tintamarre did not become widespread until the 1970s. Ronald Labelle, “Tintamarre, une nouvelle ‘tradition’ en Acadie,” Encyclopédie du patrimoine culturel de l’Amérique française, http://www .ameriquefrancaise.org/fr/article-102/Tintamarre,_une_nouvelle_%C2%AB_ tradition_%C2%BB_en_Acadie.html#.WZ2Itj7yipo, consulted on 23 Aug. 2017. 29 Marquis, “Commemorating the Loyalists,” 24. 30 “The Event We Celebrate,” Daily Evening News (St John), 17 May 1883.

National Symbols and Commemorations  49 31 Our translation of the original French: “L’histoire nous enseigne que nos pères en arrivant sur les bords de l'Acadie possédaient toutes les qualités requises pour assurer le succès et le bonheur dans cette vie: leur ­courage dans les difficultés, leur patience dans l'épreuve, leur dévouement et l'héroïsme à défendre ce qui leur était cher, sont loin de donner le démenti à l'histoire.” Pierre-Amand Landry, 1881, in Bourque and Richard, Les conventions nationales acadiennes, 114. 32 Richard et al., “Markers of Collective Identity,” 20. 33 Our translation of the original French: “La spoliation de 1755 nous laissait disséminés et errants, sans ressources. À force de travail, de patience et de persévérance et aidés de la foi vive dont nous avons hérité de nos pères, nous avons réussi à sortir de ce dénuement complet. Par une frugalité extraordinaire nous avons pu nous emparer d'un peu du sol que nous avaient dérobé nos vainqueurs.” Landry, 1881, in Bourque and Richard, Les conventions nationales acadiennes, 118. 34 Our translation of the original French: “L'Acadie elle-même n'est qu'un monceau de ruines, Port-Royal est détruit, les villages sont incendiés, les cultivateurs et les négociants ruinés.” Pascal Poirier, 1890, in ibid., 179. 35 Patrick Charaudeau, Grammaire du sens et de l’expression (Paris: Hachette, 1992), 453; Richard et al., “Markers of Collective Identity,” 26; Richard, “Le récit de la Déportation.” 36 Richard et al., “Markers of Collective Identity,” 27. 37 “The Exhibition!” Saint John Globe, 1 Oct. 1883. 38 See Jones, “Loyalist City,” chapter 1. 39 Our translation of the original French: “Le dessin, l’architecture, le génie civil, tout ce qui se rattache au commerce, aux finances, aux exploitations manufacturières, aux détails intimes de l’économie domestique, tout cela doit être l’objet de notre attention, de nos soins. Nos collèges, nos académies commerciales, nos couvents, enfin nos écoles de campagne, prépareront donc ceux ou celles qui leur sont confiés à la pratique ordinaire des différentes sphères du commerce, de l’industrie et de l’économie domestique.” Philéas Bourgeois, 1881, in Bourque and Richard, Les conventions nationales acadiennes, 205. 40 Landry, 1881, in ibid., 118. 41 Our translation of the original French: “Il est une autre chose, messieurs, qu’il ne faut pas perdre de vue si nous tenons à faire un choix qui convienne à notre nationalité. C’est l’idée même de nationalité. Nous voulons faire choix d’une fête nationale, n’est-ce pas ? Eh bien, choisissons-en une qui soit distinctive de notre nationalité, une que notre peuple ne partagera avec aucun autre peuple, fût-il encore plus cher et plus sympathique au

50  Bourque, Huskins, Marquis, and Richard nôtre que ne l’est le peuple canadien. La conservation de notre nationalité, voilà le point important … Ayons notre fête à nous, comme nos frères du Canada ont la leur.” S.J. Doucet, 1881, in ibid., 135. 42 Our translation of the original French: “Nous sommes convoqués ici par les organisateurs de cette convention acadienne pour ‘affirmer notre existence comme peuple’ et prendre les moyens de conserver notre nationalité ... tous les peuples ont leur patron particulier ... et par ce moyen on a conservé son identité nationale ... Le peuple acadien serait-il le seul à méconnaître son existence nationale, et consentira-t-il à s’effacer pour jamais de la liste des peuples?” M.F. Richard, 1881, in ibid., 148. 43 Bourque and Richard, Les conventions nationales acadiennes, 168. 44 Our translation of the original French: “Voulez-vous savoir, messieurs, ce qui fait que le petit peuple acadien se distingue de tous les peuples de la terre, sans même excepter le peuple canadien? C’est parce que les circonstances qui se rattachent à son origine et qui ont entouré son existence sont différentes de celles qui ont formé le caractère national des autres peuples. Ouvrez son histoire et vous y trouverez le récit de ces circonstances. Ce sont les vicissitudes orageuses de son existence, jointes à son long isolement de la France et du Canada, qui ont formé sa physionomie nationale et qui le font reconnaître comme un peuple distinct au milieu de tous les peuples qui l’entourent.” Doucet, 1881, in ibid., 136. 45 Jones, “Loyalist City,” 42. 46 Marquis, “War without End: James Hannay Confronts the American Revolution,” paper presented at the 20th Atlantic Canada Studies Conference, St Thomas University and the University of New Brunswick, 1 May 2014. 47 For a recent publication on the 104th Regiment, see John R. Grodzinski, The 104th (New Brunswick) Regiment of Foot in the War of 1812 (Fredericton: Goose Lane & NBMHS, 2014). 48 Landry, 1881, in Bourque and Richard, Les conventions nationales acadiennes, 183. 49 Our translation of the original French: “[L’Acadie] est semblable à la terre que Dieu promettoit à son peuple par la bouche de Moyse, disant : ‘Le Seigneur ton Dieu te va faire entrer en un bon païs, païs de torrens d’eau, de fonteines et abymes … païs où tu ne mangerais point le pain en disette, auquel rien ne te défaudra.’” Marc Lescarbot, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France. Contenant les navigations, découvertes, & habitations faites par les François ès Indes Occidentales & Nouvelle-France souz l’avoeu et authorité de noz Rois Tres-Chrétiens, & Les diverses fortunes d’iceux en l’exécution de ces choses, depuis cent ans jusques à hui. En quoi est comprise l’Histoire Morale, Naturelle, et Géographique de ladite province: Avec les Tables & Figures d’icelle, nouvelle édition (Paris: Tross, 1612 [1609]), 523.

National Symbols and Commemorations  51 5 0 See Stevens, “Righteousness Exalteth the Nation,” 76. 51 Richard et al., “Markers of Collective Identity,” 18–19. 52 Ian Walter Radforth, Royal Spectacle: The 1860 Visit of the Prince of Wales to Canada and the United States (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004); Huskins, “A Tale of Two Cities: Boosterism and the Imagination of Community during the Visit of the Prince of Wales to Saint John and Halifax in 1860," Urban History Review 28, 1 (1999): 31–46; David Parsons, "City, Colony and Empire: A Cultural Analysis of New Brunswick During the 1860 Royal Tour” (MA thesis, Department of History, University of New Brunswick, 2007). 53 Jones, “Loyalist City,” 38–9; Marquis, “Commemorating the Loyalists,” 27–8. 54 Loyalists’ Centennial Souvenir; Daily Evening News (St John), 4 Oct. 1883. 55 See chapters 3 and 4 in Jones, “Loyalist City.” For an overview of the formation of the Loyalist Collection, see http: //loyalist.lib.unb.ca/overview, consulted 9 Nov. 2017, and http: //www.loyalistresearchnet.org/node/15, consulted 9 Nov. 2017.

2 Emblemizing Canada in the Flag Debate of 1895 peter pr ic e

The absence of flags on the streets of Hamilton, Ontario, on Dominion Day in 1895 unsettled one Spectator reader who wrote to the newspaper to complain that “I did not note a single flag on a private house.”1 Similarly, the Toronto Globe observed that the centre of that city “was a forest of bare poles.”2 According to these accounts, displaying the flag was the most conspicuous way of celebrating Canada, and the empty flagpoles and unadorned homes therefore reflected a concerning paucity of national patriotism. It was difficult to rally around a common Canadian flag given the logistical complication that Canada did not have a distinctive and universally acknowledged flag. In the summer of 1895 the issue of Canada’s flag became a focus of controversy and national attention, as newspapers debated the kind of flag that Canadians should adopt as their own distinguishing emblem. It was the first sustained national flag debate in Canada, and it anticipated many of the issues and problems that would confront later generations of Canadians who sought to emblemize national identity in the flag. Holidays and commemorations are typically visual spectacles, celebrations clothed in colours that express identity and character. It is difficult to think about the various celebrations examined in these volumes without visualizing a variegated parade of flags marking the occasion, whether the sea of red and while on Parliament Hill on Canada Day or the blue and white of Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day in Quebec. Flags are powerful symbols of national identities, so omnipresent and pervasive that, as Michael Biling notes, they have become features of the “banal nationalism” of everyday life.3 This chapter examines this key component of the material culture of national celebrations and argues that while flags were becoming increasingly central in national celebrations

Canada in the Flag Debate of 1895   53

and holidays in the late nineteenth century, the design of a new Canadian flag elicited much disagreement that would remain unresolved for another six decades. The debate in 1895 over a new flag for Canada reflected a fundamental uncertainty about the status of Canada in the decades following Confederation. In those years, the meaning of the new political jurisdiction that was created by political leaders in British North America in 1867 was the subject of much argument and confusion in the pages of the Canadian press. Many people wondered how the diverse parts of the Dominion would conform together and whether it could or should be considered a new “nation.” The political future of Canada was similarly uncertain and frequent discussion of greater continental union, imperial federation, and independence added to the sense that the status of the new Dominion was tenuous. Debate about the flag echoed many of these issues. Should the new flag include representation of each province, or should it have one symbol that united them? Should it include representation of both French and English Canadians? Should it conform to a common pattern of flags from different parts of the British Empire? How could the flag best distinguish Canada from the United States? The flag debate captured much of the division on these questions and conveyed in symbolic dimensions much of the uncertainty of Canada’s identity at the turn of the twentieth century. This chapter examines the debate about the adoption of a new Canadian flag in the pages of the press in the summer of 1895, after the popular Toronto weekly magazine the Week published a widely discussed proposal for a new flag featuring a seven-pointed star. Some newspapers endorsed the design, but many others rejected it, insisting instead on a flag featuring a maple leaf. The 1895 flag debate highlights how the topic of a distinctive Canadian flag was an issue of considerable debate and controversy in Canada long before the more famous flag debate of the 1960s that led to the adoption of the modern maple leaf flag that is discussed by Helen Davies here in chapter 6. It also highlights how the issue of a national flag invited readers to think about Canada and how they believed it could best be celebrated with a representational emblem, especially at a time that was particularly marked by political controversy. Most of the contributors to the debate examined here felt that Canada needed a new flag, and different ideas of what that flag should look like were proposed. Unlike the later tendency, however, of politicians at various levels of government to strategically deploy flags to bolster

54  Peter Price

2.1  The proposed Canadian flag. Public domain.

particular ideas or positions, no politicians or government officials publicly intervened in the discussion of a Canadian flag in 1895, nor did the flag become a subject of parliamentary debate. Correspondence from the Ministry of Marine, which was responsible for the flag, indicates that the department was aware of the debate in the press regarding a new flag, and numerous letters to the department reveal the confusion about the status and design of the Canadian Red Ensign.4 Despite this, however, the Canadian government made no official move to develop a new and distinctive flag. The debate examined here was not about the Canadian state representing itself to its population and to the world; rather, it was more so a case of people in civil society

Canada in the Flag Debate of 1895   55

finding ways to emblemize the inchoate and difficult sense of Canadian identity. Reflecting on the flag debate, one contributor remarked, “The numerous letters to the press, and the various devices submitted for approval” showed that “the spirit of true patriotism is awakening; the people are exhibiting an interest in questions that relate to the common weal.”5 The 1895 flag debate provided symbolic dimensions of the wider debate about the meaning of loyalty and patriotism in Canada, reflecting in heraldic form various ideas about Canadian nationality. The Flag in Canada before 1965 The adoption of a unique flag for Canada was the result of a gradual development. In the early decades of Confederation, it was difficult to find an emblem or symbol for a flag that would be common to the diverse Canadian political jurisdiction. Even in the initial debates on Confederation, Henri Joly, a Parti rouge member of the Canadian Legislative Assembly for Lotbinière who opposed colonial union, sarcastically mused that the emblem for the new state should be a rainbow. Each colour would represent “the diversity of races, religions, sentiments and interests in the different parts of the Confederation,” but “by its lack of consistence – an image without substance – the rainbow would represent aptly the solidity of our Confederation.”6 Much has changed since then; Joly later became a federalist, serving as premier of Quebec and lieutenant governor of British Columbia, and a rainbow flag like the one he proposed later became the symbol of the gay rights movement in the twentieth century. Yet, the fundamental problem that Joly expressed regarding the difficulty of finding an emblem that could reflect a diverse and expansive state like Canada endured in the years following Confederation. The problem of encompassing diverse regions and people in a single emblem attracted debate with no easy resolution. In Canada, the “flag debate” most often refers to the heated political and public debate surrounding the adoption of the Maple Leaf flag in the 1960s. In his important work on national identity in English Canada in the mid-twentieth century, José Igartua points to the adoption of the new flag as “the pivotal moment in the abandonment of British symbolism.”7 C.P. Champion has criticized this characterization of the flag debate, insisting that the struggle “was not between Britishness and Canadianness, but between different interpretations of Canadianism.”8 Both accounts, however, make clear that the adoption of a new flag in

56  Peter Price

1965 marked a significant turning point in representations of Canadian identity. Yet, debate about the Canadian flag did not emerge suddenly in the mid-twentieth century, nor were many of the key elements of that debate the product of a new sense of identity in Canada. Instead, the debate that led to the adoption of the Maple Leaf flag was just one manifestation of a much longer debate recurrent since the nineteenth century. Alistair B. Fraser has noted that, in the years before 1965, “there were many contenders for the honour of becoming the national flag of Canada.”9 Forrest D. Pass has also highlighted how the decision to fly either the Red Ensign or the Union Jack in British Columbia schools became a heated debate between Canadian nationalists and imperialists in the early twentieth century. More than an emblem of identity, he argues, the flags “became tools with which various interest groups ritualized their claims of authority over public schooling.”10 As this suggests, the matter of determining the appropriate flag to use in Canada was a particularly potent issue of controversy. Recognition of an official Canadian flag before 1965 was a generally complicated and largely unsettled process. The Canadian Red Ensign was approved for use on Canadian sea vessels in 1892, but the British Union Flag continued to be the standard flag used on land in Canada.11 There was initially some confusion about the status of the Canadian ensign, evident in cases like the Emma S., a Canadian vessel that British authorities told in 1895 to remove the flag. This particular incident helped motivate John S. Ewart, a prominent advocate of Canadian independence, to stress that the Red Ensign was the “only flag authorized for distinctive Canadian use.”12 Although Champion and Pass point out that the Red Ensign had become the preferred flag of Canadian autonomists or nationalists by the early twentieth century, the flag debate of 1895 is interesting because no single contributor in the press examined here suggested maintaining the Red Ensign as the official flag.13 All contributors, whether imperialists or autonomists, agreed that the flag needed to change to something simpler and more distinctive and unique to Canada. Most of the proposals maintained the ensign design with the Union Jack in the upper left corner, but updated with a new Canadian emblem. Reflecting the dominance of British identity in Canada in the late nineteenth century, very few people explicitly suggested removing the Union Jack from the Canadian flag. Despite the later nostalgia for the Canadian Red Ensign, it is important to note that it was not initially a widely popular or particularly

Canada in the Flag Debate of 1895   57

admired flag. Its design was cumbersome and difficult to discern. The fly of the flag featured a crest containing the arms of each province, which, after the addition of Manitoba, British Columbia, and Prince Edward Island to Confederation, had become an increasingly complicated design. Calls to simplify the crest or adopt an entirely new flag attempted to solve this problem by creating a more official and more discernible national flag, and suggestions for a new flag appeared periodically in the Canadian press. The Globe called for a Royal Commission to find the “most acceptable design” for the flag, and the Victoria Daily Colonist mused that an order-in-council might be passed to recognize a new and different flag.14 The Miner, from Nelson, British Columbia, called it “a crowd of little pictures utterly indistinguishable at a distance and therefore perfectly useless on a flag.”15 In an earlier discussion of national emblems in 1894, Spencer Howell commented that the Red Ensign flag was too intricate to be described, being a “collection of things horticultural, zoological, piscatorial, and nautical.”16 If the purpose of a flag was to emblemize national unity “appropriate to the country and the people,” as Howell suggested, then it was obvious to many that the Canadian flag needed to be changed. The place of flags in celebrations, commemorative events, and holidays changed considerably in the late nineteenth century. Flags had traditionally been associated with marine vessels, used to signify a ship’s nationality. Yet, as civic education, patriotism, and the promotion of “citizenship” became more prominent through efforts like the founding of Empire Day, so too did discussion of flag flying.17 As the previous chapter by Bourque et al. observes, the Acadian community of New Brunswick adopted its flag as a national symbol at the Conventions nationales of the 1880s. In English-speaking Canada, a popular collection of patriotic songs and poems published in 1891, for example, was titled Raise the Flag.18 Patriotism became generally understood as an important aspect of public education, and the flag became a powerful way of demonstrating different understandings of identification with and loyalty to Canada. University of Toronto president Daniel Wilson, writing in the children’s periodical the Young Canadian in 1890, argued for the creation of a new and distinctively Canadian flag, inviting young readers to imagine a new flag that would be “calculated to awaken Canadian sympathies if it met our eyes in other lands.”19 Of course, attention to the flag as an instrument of patriotism was not unique to Canada. Stuart McConnell observes that the 1890s was also a key decade in the popularization of the national flag in the United States.20

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The sense, then, that Canadians needed to more visibly fly the flag became common by the end of the century. For example, when attending a children’s entertainment event at a public school in Montreal in 1890, Cara Berford Evans was disappointed to see that among the flags and banners that “festooned” the room, there was no Canadian flag to be seen. Writing to the Week to express her disappointment, she added, “We cannot expect our children to love and serve enthusiastically any mere abstraction. There must be a tangible reality around which their affections shall cluster.”21 For Evans, it was important that Canadian flags be displayed on such occasions so that people, and children in particular, would be reminded of their loyalty to the “nation” that the flag symbolized. Remarking on this theme that same year, editors of the Halifax-based Critic magazine suggested Nova Scotians “emulate Ontario in the matter of loyalty to the Canadian Flag,” noting that it was hoisted by schools there on important national anniversaries, as a matter of “practical Canadianism.”22 Far from “banal” visual backdrops, flags were increasingly understood to be integral to the celebration of national holidays and instrumental in the construction of national patriotism. Beyond the perceived need to conspicuously display the flag to further “Canadianism,” understanding what exactly that flag ought to be became a more central issue of debate. The Other Flag Debate: Proposals for a New Flag in 1895 The cover of the 31 May 1895 edition of the Week magazine attracted much attention. In a rare colour illustration, it displayed a proposal for a new Canadian flag that featured a Red Ensign with a seven-pointed white star in the fly. The flag was designed by Sandford Fleming, an engineer who had gained prominence for his role in constructing the transcontinental railway and his invention of worldwide standard time zones. The flag proposal attracted considerable notice and reaction from readers of the Week and newspapers across Canada. Commenting on the extensive discussion on adopting a new flag, the Toronto Globe declared, “There can be no more inspiring theme than the flag.” “By all means,” it continued, “let us have a national flag controversy for the hot months.”23 What followed over the summer of 1895 was a debate that captured the attention of readers of the Week and numerous newspapers from cities across Canada. Fleming likely did not anticipate the volume of debate that his letter to the Week would generate in 1895. In the Week alone, the issue prompted

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thirty-seven published articles, letters, and editorials, as well as three rare colour front-page illustrations. It became the most sustained topic of correspondence in the magazine’s history, eliciting feedback and discussion rarely seen in the pages of Canadian magazines. The editor noted that many other letters were received but owing to space limitations, only a selection could be published.24 The Week was a popular Toronto-based weekly magazine that contained editorial comments on current events and contributed articles on a wide range of social, political, scientific, and philosophical issues of the day, as well as short fiction, poetry, and music. Its subtitle described itself as a “Journal for Men and Women” and was sold for ten cents a copy or three dollars per year for subscribers. Exact subscription rates are difficult to determine, but it was one of the leading household magazines in Canada at the end of the nineteenth century.25 Beyond the Week, the issue of the flag prompted by Fleming’s proposal spread to newspapers across the country. In August of 1895, for example, the Montreal Witness commented that it “is constantly receiving suggestions for the new Canadian flag.”26 The topic of the Canadian flag emerged in the Week at a time of considerable political controversy in Canada. In December 1894, Canada’s Prime Minister John Thompson died suddenly while in London to be knighted by Queen Victoria, and the senior Cabinet minister Senator Mackenzie Bowell was appointed in his place. The Manitoba school question dominated headlines throughout the year, and the new prime minister struggled to find an effective resolution to that problem.27 The controversy, which centred on the Manitoba government’s decision to revoke public funding for Catholic schooling in the province, stirred considerable controversy that raised concerns about the viability of French in Canada outside of Quebec.28 Negotiations to convince Newfoundland to join Confederation failed that spring, and the uncertainty about the nature of federalism and the conflict between the provincial and federal governments continued to capture attention.29 Fears of annexationist agitation and the continuation of vague appeals for imperial federation added to the sense that the status of Canada in 1895 and its political future were incredibly uncertain and clouded with persistent pessimism. Against this backdrop, the debate about creating a new flag for Canada offered an antidote to the sense of disunity, but it also mirrored many of the issues that seemed to form fracture lines in the new Dominion. Fleming’s first letter to the Week proposed “adding some emblem to the British flag to distinguish it when flying at the masthead of a Canadian

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vessel or, elsewhere, as a distinctive mark of our political position in the Empire.” After noting the popularity of the beaver and the maple leaf as symbols of Canada, Fleming proposed that, instead, “a single large white star, with points representing each Province radiating from a common centre” be placed in the fly of the Red Ensign. The star design, representing the North Star, “would be a symbol of unity, and would represent the ‘many’ combined in ‘one.’”30 In addition to the debate in the Week, newspapers across the country took notice of Fleming’s proposal. The Portage La Prairie Weekly Review and the Lethbridge News both reprinted the flag superimposed over their front pages.31 The Toronto Globe commented on the “beautiful colored sketch” and later featured a poem called “The White Star” in honour of the flag design.32 The Halifax Herald and the Manitoba Free Press also ran editorials endorsing Fleming’s design.33 Yet, while Fleming’s proposal for a white star flag attracted much attention, many readers wrote to the Week to express concern about using a star as a symbol for Canada. The most common and forceful criticism was that the star too closely paralleled the symbol of the republican United States. In fact, antagonism to considering a supposedly republican symbol for the flag was intense enough that, by September, the editor of the Week announced that he had “received many threatening letters on the subject demanding the withdrawal of the star.”34 Anxiety in Canada about American influence and the possibility of annexation was particularly heightened in 1895, only four years after the prominent promoter of continental union Goldwin Smith published Canada and the Canadian Question, a book that stirred considerable controversy.35 Given this context, the idea of making a symbol that so closely reflected the emblem of American republicanism was especially unpopular. One particularly vocal opponent of the star was Edward Marion Chadwick, a Toronto lawyer and expert in heraldry, who reminded readers that the star had long been a symbol of republicanism, as “it was adopted as the badge of the Republic formed by William Lyon ­MacKenzie [sic] on Navy Island in 1838.”36 Chadwick also pointed out that the American press had commented on Fleming’s star flag proposal, perceiving it to be “a step towards republicanism and annexation.”37 Another writer suggested that the single star flag was too similar to the “Lone Star” flag of Texas and some South American republics.38 A different reader suggested that a star might be made more acceptable by surmounting it with a crown, while another suggested that modifying the star into a sun might make it more connected to the British Empire.39 Henry Spencer Howell suggested the star “lacks the element

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of a thoroughly Canadian significance.”40 The Spectator was one of the most vocal critics of the star emblem. Equating it with unstable republican government, it wrote, “Almost every little one-horse revolutionary republic in the western continent has Sandford Fleming’s star on its flag.”41 Clearly, from the reaction to Fleming’s flag proposal, any new Canadian emblem needed to be sufficiently distinct from the United States and republicanism. Concerns that the star would convey closer Canadian affiliation with its republican neighbour were not entirely unfounded. The Toronto Daily Mail and Empire quoted the Philadelphia Record’s positive review of Fleming’s flag proposal, which suggested that Canada “cannot do a more delightful thing than adopt the seven-pointed star as the Northern Star of America,” adding that “one day it will undoubtedly be added, seven points and all, to the Star Spangled Banner.”42 With this unexpected and no doubt unwanted intervention into the Canadian flag debate, the Record likely did more to deter interest in Fleming’s star than any article in the Canadian press. Contributors to the debate were consciously guided by a need to ensure that Canada’s connection to the British Empire and the Crown were reflected in the flag. Ironically, despite its attachment to republicanism, Fleming chose the star because he intended it to be a symbol of imperial unity, suggesting that other colonies might adopt similar emblems to create a common imperial flag motif, pointing specifically to the example of the Australian Southern Cross flag.43 Reflecting on the extensive aversion to the star, he wrote to the Week to detail the many precedents for the use of the star in British history dating back to the Norman Conquest.44 Although the beaver was sometimes mentioned as a suitable emblem for Canada, the most common alternative to the star was the maple leaf. In the issue of the Week that followed Fleming’s initial letter, Samuel M. Baylis suggested that a maple leaf be used in place of a star, adding that it was “more typical, original, and appropriate as an emblem for Canada.”45 In June, the Canadian Club of Hamilton officially endorsed a proposal for a Red Ensign with a green maple leaf on a white disc in the fly, which the Week displayed on the cover of its 20 September issue. According to Howell, who helped design the flag, every “civilized land” in the world associated the maple leaf with Canada, and Chadwick later added that it “will be recognized and generally accepted as Canadian.”46 It was true that the maple leaf had become a fairly popular symbol in Canada, especially after Alexander Muir’s song “The Maple Leaf

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Forever” appeared in 1867.47 In a letter to the Manitoba Free Press, one reader claimed, “No emblem is more highly prized amongst loyal Canadians than the maple leaf … the inborn and undying motto of all trueblooded, patriotic ‘Canucks’ is ‘The Maple Leaf For Ever.’”48 The maple leaf seemed to suggest a natural and distinctively Canadian identity. The benefit of a maple leaf, some commented, was that it was simple and easily discernible.49 The Saint John Daily Sun called the maple leaf “distinct, simple, and characteristic.”50 French-language newspapers were largely supportive of using the maple leaf as the national emblem of Canada. La Presse agreed that the maple leaf was universally recognized, and La Minerve stated that it would be most happy to see the adoption of the maple leaf, which had support from all sides.51 Le Moniteur acadien, commenting on the growing clamour for a new flag, added that the maple leaf was widely accepted to be the best emblem for Canada.52 Although the maple leaf design received strong approval from the press across Canada, like the star it also received strong criticism. Sandford Fleming rejected the notion that the maple leaf could represent Canada because it was indigenous to Ontario and therefore “would represent Ontario only.” Colouring the maple leaf yellow or red, he added, would denote “decay and the near end of a brief existence.”53 Fleming later sent a letter that quoted an article from the Halifax Herald at length, which dissented “from a proposal which ignores our own cherished emblem and would force us to accept that of another province as the national emblem on the flag of the Dominion.”54 The Halifax Herald was particularly hostile to the maple leaf, claiming that “it represents nothing that we can think of.”55 In a large front-page feature article on the subject of the flag, it described the maple leaf as a provincial emblem of Ontario, similar to the fleur de lys in Quebec or the mayflower in Nova Scotia.56 Among contributions to the flag debate, the sense that the flag needed to include an emblem that was recognized by Canadians in different regions and by people in other parts of the world as uniquely Canadian was the primary concern. An important issue in the debate over the star and maple leaf designs hinged on whether a national emblem should include representation of each constituent province. Canadian politics in the late nineteenth century was dominated by attempts to clarify the new federal system of government, notably in efforts like the provincial rights movement to secure greater autonomy for provinces from the centralized federal government.57 These were largely legal and political questions, but their implications spilled over into the flag debate, particularly in reactions

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to the idea that each province should be separately represented on the national flag. Bruce Hicks has examined how the debate about the “compact theory” of Confederation manifested in heraldic designs of the coat of arms and the great seal of Canada.58 Although Hicks suggests that the provincial representation on these devices indicates the dominance of the understanding of Confederation as a compact between separate provinces, the public debate about the flag was more divided. In his original letter, Fleming noted that a new point could easily be added to the star as new provinces entered Confederation, which seemed important given the belief that Newfoundland would imminently join Canada and the Northwest Territories would be divided up into new provinces.59 Advocates of the star design favoured the fact that each point would represent a province, showing a sense of federal unity. Approving Fleming’s design, George Monro Grant, principal of Queen’s University in Kingston, argued, “We have a common name … but we are also a Confederation. The star with as many points as there are Provinces, surely symbolizes our unity and manifoldness.”60 Another writer who preferred the maple leaf emblem suggested that seeds be added to the base of the leaf “for the fitting representation of the provinces,” while another suggested adding stars to represent each province on the maple leaf flag.61 The Halifax Herald supported the star emblem in part because it symbolized the “idea of federal unity,” allowing “each man [to] recognize in this flag that one segment of the starry emblem [that] represents his province.”62 According to these perspectives, the Canadian flag needed to represent not just a Canadian nation, but also its constituent provinces. Others, however, argued that the emblem of the flag needed to emphasize the central unity of Canada. Numerous English-Canadian nationalists at the time believed that strong provincial identities would weaken the national unity of Canada and looked with suspicion and apprehension at what many called a growing sense of “provincialism” in Canada. In this context, then, it was important to some that a new Canadian flag emphasize a centralized emblem rather than one that explicitly represented different provinces. George Hodgins, a prolific author and civil servant, claimed, “It would be more appropriate to withdraw the distinctive and strictly provincial badges and to introduce a fitting and permanent national emblem.”63 E.M. Chadwick also stressed this point, countering proposals for provincial recognition on the flag by stating, “All suggestions which contemplate a mark for each province, changing from time to time as occasion may arise, are

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objectionable. Our provinces are not separate states, but parts of one state, and the sooner we get down to recognizing ourselves as all one, an indivisible unit from Atlantic to Pacific, the better it will be for us.”64 The controversy about the nature of federalism and the relationship of the provinces to a Canadian nationality was not confined to judicial and constitutional debate. For Chadwick and others who opposed the star flag, a primary objective of a new Canadian flag was to emblemize the position of Canada as a unique and united nationality. In addition to debate about whether provinces should be represented on the flag, a number of writers suggested that the flag should explicitly include representation of both French and English Canadians. Like the issue of provincial representation on the flag, this echoed contemporary political debate about the nature of Confederation and whether Canada was, in effect, an equal compact between French and English people. A number of English Canadians supported adding French representation to the Canadian flag with varying degrees of enthusiasm. For example, Hamilton imperialist and Empire Day founder Clementine Fessenden suggested that the addition of a “fleur-de-lis would be most pleasing to our Lower Canadian people,” and the Halifax Herald stated that without a lily to represent French Canada, the flag would be “wholly inadequate and unrepresentative.”65 Chadwick, promoting the use of the maple leaf, stressed its common use by both French and English Canadians.66 William Norris, desiring a flag “that will animate patriotism and destroy everything that prevents the growth of that sentiment,” suggested that the French tricolour be added to the British Union Jack on the Canadian flag in order to signify the two founding nations.67 “The French Canadian people,” he wrote, “are also entitled to representation on the flag, and to have their sentiment respected and acknowledged.” A barrister from Woodstock, Ontario, Norris was a controversial figure because of his outspoken support for Canadian independence, which he outlined in various publications and articles in the 1870s and 1880s.68 In distinct contrast to many of his contemporaries who believed that future political development lay in the direction of greater imperial consolidation, Norris advocated complete constitutional sovereignty, as well as the recognition of bilingualism in Canada. Indeed, as early as 1880, he had called for the adoption of a new Canadian flag that would include French-Canadian representation.69 Norris’s contribution to the flag debate echoed his position on Canadian autonomy and his effort to promote a distinct Canadian nationalism that was separate from the Empire.

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Norris’s worry about the prevalence of the French tricolour flag in Quebec echoed other concerns about the large absence of a “national” flag in that province. In a letter printed in the Toronto Mail and Empire, Colin Campbell, a retired naval clerk, proposed a simplified crest for the flag that featured, among other symbols, a fleur-de-lys to represent French Canadians. He hoped that “recognition being thus distinctly accorded to their nationality, they might see fit to substitute this new composite flag for the tricolor of France, which is now so profusely displayed, and may perhaps be a possible source of discord and danger in the future.”70 Adding that the Acadians of Nova Scotia had recently adopted the tricolour for regular use, Campbell, hoped that a new distinctive Canadian flag would enjoin French Canadians to adopt a “native” symbol over a “foreign” one.71 These suggestions for the inclusion of French-Canadian representation on the flag were not always appreciated or even taken seriously. A letter in the Hamilton Spectator suggested that the new flag combine the French tricolour and the British Union Jack, arguing, “This blending of British and French flags cannot fail to gratify our French Canadian compatriots and win their support in bringing about its adoption and general use.”72 In response, the newspaper editor wrote that the suggestion “must be intended for a joke,” adding, “Canada is a British country – not French – and the flag of British territories must be the British flag.”73 The Spectator had announced on numerous occasions its support for using the maple leaf as the national emblem of Canada.74 All of the suggestions for a new flag maintained some form of British representation, but the idea that the new flag should also contain an emblem to represent French Canadians was less widely held and more controversial. Conclusion Looking back on the flag debate a year later, Carter Troop, who in 1895 had been the managing editor of the Week, remarked, “Are we never to have an end to the controversy as to the form and colour of our Canadian flag?” Instead of reaching a climax or resolution, the debate in the Week and in newspapers across Canada in 1895 only furthered the sense that Canada’s Red Ensign, featuring a shield with provincial arms, was a temporary device to be used until something more suitable could be agreed upon. Troop argued that flags, to be sincerely and genuinely admired, needed to be born out of some definitive moment. “No turmoil of popular feelings exists in Canada today,” he wrote, “and until

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some intense emotion shall stir the Canadian people to their very hearts, shall cause for sacrifices of wealth and blood in a national cause, we shall never have a truly national flag.” Until then, he added, “this unsightly menagerie” would suffice to be the flag of Canada.75 Even though it did not produce a new flag, the 1895 debate about the Canadian flag is significant because it illustrates in particularly clear terms how different people understood the identity of the Dominion of Canada at a time when its meaning and future development were far from certain. The flag debate of 1895 also highlights how numerous writers in the press looked to the “national” flag as a way of instilling among citizens a sense of loyalty to Canada. Although the particular design for a new Canadian flag was not resolved, the objective that people should use the flag prominently in the celebration of holidays was widely recognized. In its Dominion Day issue, for example, the Daily Mail and Empire insisted, “Every loyal Canadian who has a flag should fly it, no matter what opinion he may hold as to the advisability of the changing of the design.”76 The debate about the flag illustrated in practical terms the relevance and importance of ideas of loyalty and patriotism for many in Canada, like George Hodgins who argued that his advocacy for a new flag was “a legitimate expression of loyal sentiment,” marking the flag as a rallying point for varying understandings of Canadian identity.77 For those who contributed to the flag debate, this was not only a means of representing an emerging sense of Canadian identity, but it also made the flag an important basis of the conspicuous celebration of Canada. NOTES 1 “Canadian,” “Letter to the Editor: Dominion Day,” Hamilton Spectator, 2 July 1895. 2 “The Day We Honor,” Globe, 2 July 1895. 3 Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism (London: Sage, 1995). 4 Library and Archives Canada, RG 12, Department of Marine fonds, vol. 1419. 5 H. Spencer Howell, Week 12 (20 Sept. 1895): 1024. All references from the Week are from vol. 12, unless otherwise noted. 6 Canada, Parliamentary Debates on the Subject of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces (Quebec: Hunter, Rose, 1865), 20 Feb. 1865, 354. 7 José E. Igartua, The Other Quiet Revolution: National Identities in English Canada, 1945–71 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006), 165. See also Lorraine

Canada in the Flag Debate of 1895   67 Coops, “‘One Flag, One Throne, One Empire:’ The IODE, the Great Flag Debate, and the End of Empire,” in Phillip Buckner, ed., Canada and the End of Empire (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2005), 251–71; Gregory A. Johnson, “The Last Gasp of Empire: The 1964 Flag Debate Revisited,” in ibid., 232–50. 8 C.P. Champion, “A Very British Coup: Canadianism, Quebec, and Ethnicity in the Flag Debate, 1964–65,” Journal of Canadian Studies 40, 3 (2006): 77. 9 Alistair B. Fraser, “A Canadian Flag for Canada,” Journal of Canadian Studies 25, 4 (1990–1): 73. 10 Forrest D. Pass, “‘Something Occult in the Science of Flag-Flying’: School Flags and Educational Authority in Early Twentieth-Century Canada,” Canadian Historical Review 95, 3 (2014): 323. 11 J.R. Baldwin, “The First Flag of the Canadian Merchant Marine,” Canadian Historical Review 47, 2 (1966): 136–45. 12 John S. Ewart, “The Canadian Flag,” in The Kingdom of Canada: Imperial Federation, the Colonial Conferences, the Alaska Boundary, and Other Essays (Toronto: Morang, 1908), 70. 13 Champion, “A Very British Coup,” 75–6; Pass, “‘Something Occult,’” 324–7. 14 “Notes and Comments,” Globe, 6 July 1895; “Notes,” Daily Colonist, 22 June 1895. 15 “Notes and Comments,” The Miner, 18 Oct. 1895. 16 H. Spencer Howell, “Emblems and Their Significance,” Canadian Magazine 2, 6 (1894): 505. 17 This included efforts to create a more “national” education curriculum; see Lorna McLean, “Education, Identity, and Citizenship in Early Modern Canada,” Journal of Canadian Studies 41, 1 (2007): 5–30. 18 Raise the Flag and Other Patriotic Canadian Songs and Poems (Toronto: Rose, 1891). 19 Sir Daniel Wilson, “Our Canadian Flag,” Young Canadian (1890): 4. 20 Stuart McConnell, “Reading the Flag: A Reconsideration of the Patriotic Cults of the 1890s,” in John Bodnar, ed., Bonds of Affection: Americans Define Their Patriotism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 102–19. 21 Erol Gervase, “Correspondence – Where Was Canada?” Week 7, 8 (24 Jan. 1890,) 122. “Erol Gervase” was Evans’s pseudonym. 22 “Editorial Notes,” Critic 7, 52 (26 Dec. 1890): 1. Earlier that year, George Denison and George Parkin had lobbied the Ontario minister of education, George Ross, to order the flag to be flown in schools across the province; Carman Miller, Painting the Map Red: Canada and the South African War, 1899–1902 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993), 5–6.

68  Peter Price 2 3 “The New Flag,” Globe, 10 June 1895. 24 “The Canadian Flag,” Week (28 June 1895): 723. 25 N. Merrill Distad, “Canada,” in J. Don Vann and Rosemary T. VanArsdel, eds., Periodicals of Queen Victoria’s Empire: An Exploration (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 93. 26 “Flag of Canada,” Witness, 6 Aug. 1895. 27 On the political controversy surrounding school rights in Manitoba, see Lovell Clark, The Manitoba School Question: Majority Rule or Minority Rights? (Toronto: Copp Clark, 1968). 28 A.I. Silver, The French Canadian Idea of Confederation, 1864–1900, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 180–217. 29 On the 1895 Confederation negotiations with Newfoundland, see James K. Hiller, “The 1895 Newfoundland-Canada Confederation Negotiations: A Re-consideration,” Acadiensis 40, 2 (2011): 94–111. 30 Sandford Fleming, “The Canadian Flag,” Week (31 May 1895): 639. 31 Weekly Review (27 June 1895); Lethbridge News, 28 June 1895. 32 “The Canadian Flag,” Globe, 31 May 1895; William Wye Smith, “The White Star,” Globe, 29 June 1895. 33 “A Canadian Flag,” Manitoba Free Press, 7 June 1895; “The Canadian Flag,” Herald (Halifax), 5 June 1895. 34 “The Canadian Flag,” Week (20 Sept. 1895): 1011. 35 On Canadian views of the United States, see Damien-Claude Bélanger, Prejudice and Pride: Canadian Intellectuals Confront the United States, 1891– 1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011); Carl Berger, A Sense of Power: Studies in the Ideas of Canadian Imperialism, 1867–1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970), 153–76. 36 E.M. Chadwick, “The Canadian Flag,” Week (14 June 1895): 684. Chadwick held an avid interest in heraldry, expressed most obviously in his pamphlet, which traced its history and customs; Ye Arminger (Toronto: s.n., 1901). 37 E.M. Chadwick, Week (28 June 1895): 733. 38 George S. Hodgins, Week (21 June 1895): 711. The comparison to the Texas flag was repeated by William Norris, Week (28 June 1895): 734. 39 R.G. Edwards, Week (2 Aug. 1895), 856; R.W. Geary, Week (15 Nov. 1895): 1220. 40 H. Spencer Howell, “Canada’s National Emblem,” Daily Mail and Empire, 8 June 1895. 41 “Current Topics,” Spectator, 2 July 1895. 42 “Editorial Notes,” Daily Mail and Empire, 25 June 1895. 43 Fleming, in 1901 and 1902, respectively; the star motif was informally used in Australian and New Zealand colonies throughout the nineteenth century.

Canada in the Flag Debate of 1895   69 4 4 Fleming, Week (4 Oct. 1895): 1071. 45 Baylis, Week (7 June 1895): 664. 46 H. Spencer Howell, Week (21 June 1895): 710; E.M. Chadwick, Week (7 June 1895): 664. 47 George Hodgins pointed to “The Maple Leaf Forever” as evidence of its popularity as a national emblem; “The Canadian Flag,” Globe, 8 June 1895. 48 Broadley Wadge, “Communications – That Canadian Flag?” Manitoba Free Press, 21 June 1895. 49 F. De La Vigne, “Our National Emblem,” Daily Mail and Empire, 15 June 1895. 50 “Editorial Notes,” Daily Sun (Saint John), 13 July 1895. 51 “Le Drapeau,” La Presse, 5 July 1895. 52 Moniteur Acadien, 16 July 1895. 53 Fleming, Week (28 June 1895): 732. This criticism anticipated a common criticism of the maple leaf design proposed in the 1960s. 54 Fleming, Week (27 Sept. 1895): 1049. Chadwick, one of the strongest supporters of the maple leaf, wrote in the following week’s issue to disagree with the assertion that Nova Scotians did not recognize it as a “national” symbol; Week (5 Oct. 1895): 1071. 55 “The Canadian Flag,” Herald (Halifax), 5 June 1895. 56 “Canada’s National Flag,” Herald (Halifax), 10 Aug. 1895. 57 For an overview of debates and controversies in early Canadian federalism, see Garth Stevenson, Ex Uno Plures: Federal-Provincial Relations in Canada, 1867–1896 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993). 58 Bruce M. Hicks, “Use of Non-Traditional Evidence: A Case Study Using Heraldry to Examine Competing Theories for Canada’s Confederation,” British Journal of Canadian Studies 23, 1 (2010): 87–117. 59 This sense that the number of Canadian provinces would expand, making the crest with provincial arms more complicated, was common. The Lethbridge News, for example, pointed to the recent negotiations with Newfoundland to join Confederation as an indication that the flag must eventually change, “the sooner the better,” “The Canadian Flag,” 5 June 1895. 60 G.M. Grant, Week (14 June 1895): 684. 61 R. Holmes, Week (12 July 1895): 782; E. Merrill, “The Canadian Flag,” Daily Mail and Empire, 22 June 1895. 62 “Canada’s National Flag,” Herald (Halifax), 10 Aug. 1895. 63 George S. Hodgins, Week (21 June 1895): 711. 64 E.M. Chadwick, Week (19 July 1895): 809. 65 C. Fessenden, Week (30 Aug. 1895): 953; “The Canadian Flag,” Herald (Halifax), 5 June 1895.

70  Peter Price 6 6 Chadwick, Week (5 July 1895): 760. 67 William Norris, Week (28 July 1895): 734. The Windsor Evening Record reprinted Norris’s letter, calling it a “clever idea;” “Current Topics,” 28 July 1895. Norris was particularly concerned by the prevalence of the use of the French flag in Quebec. Looking back on the issue a year later, another writer reaffirmed that French Canadian “loyalty” warranted a French symbol, like the fleur-de-lys, on the flag; Richard J. Wicksteed, “The Flag for Canada,” Week 13, 44 (25 Sept. 1896), 1049. This was rejected by another reader who wished for a “thoroughly British-Canadian flag”; D.B. Read, “Something about Flags,” Week 13, 46 (9 Oct. 1896): 1092. 68 See, e.g., The Canadian Question (Montreal: Lovell, 1875); Norris, “Practical Principles of Canadian Nationalism,” Canadian Monthly and National Review 13, 4 (1878): 358. 69 William Norris, “Canadian Nationality: A Present-Day Plea,” Rose-Belford’s Canadian Monthly and National Review 4 (Feb. 1880): 117. 70 “The Canadian Ensign – Suggested Design for the Flag of Our Country,” Daily Mail and Empire, 1 June 1895. Campbell raised the issue of officially recognizing a national flag earlier in “The Flag of Our Country,” in ­Canadian Almanac 1894 (Toronto: Copp, Clark, 1893), 195–204. 71 The Acadian flag, the French tricolour with a yellow star in the upper left corner, was adopted in 1884. The use of the tricolour added to worries in English Canada of the common use of what some saw as a “foreign” flag. On the adoption of the Acadian flag, see Perry Biddiscombe, “‘Le Tricolore et l’étoile’: The Origin of the Acadian National Flag, 1867–1912,” Acadiensis 20, 1 (1990): 120–47. 72 J.B., “The Canadian Flag,” Hamilton Spectator, 15 June 1895. For a similar suggestion, see W.D. Andrews, “The Canadian Flag,” Montreal Weekly Witness (25 July 1895). 73 “The Maple Leaf,” Hamilton Spectator, 15 June 1895. 74 “The Maple Leaf,” Hamilton Spectator, 1 June 1895; “Current Topics,” Hamilton Spectator, 17 June 1895; “Fleming’s Flag,” Hamilton Spectator, 1 July 1895. 75 Carter Troop, “Editorial Topics – The Canadian Flag,” Trinity University Review 9, 9–10 (1896): 93–4. 76 “Editorial Notes,” Daily Mail and Empire, 1 July 1895. 77 George S. Hodgins, Week (20 Sept. 1895): 1018.

3 Children of a Common Mother: The Rise and Fall of the Anglo-American Peace Centenary br an don dimme l

The 1914 Anglo-American Peace Centenary was a celebration of a hundred years of cordial relations between Great Britain, the United States, and Canada. The movement involved plans for the construction of international bridges, tunnels, and memorials. Elementary school students were to read of valiant efforts by diplomats to maintain the peace in revised textbooks. Ultimately, the First World War would drastically reduce the scope of the Peace Centenary, which is, presumably, why so little has been written about it in the years since.1 Nevertheless, this movement represented one of the most visible illustrations of the Great Rapprochement, a period of restorative Anglo-American relations lasting from 1895 to 1915.2 And while the Peace Centenary’s principal theme was the maintenance of peace, those behind the movement were motivated by other, equally pressing concerns in these countries, including race and immigration. The goal of this chapter is to examine why the Anglo-American Peace Centenary emerged when it did, who were the individuals behind it, what kinds of events were involved, and how the idea was received in various parts of Canada. It finds that opinions of the movement varied across the country, with support being greatest in places where interaction with Americans was most frequent and friendly. The period immediately prior to the First World War, on the surface at least, seems like a strange time for a Canadian celebration of AngloAmerican relations. It had been only a decade since US President Theodore Roosevelt had convinced British members of a tri-national review panel that the Americans’ claim to the Alaska Panhandle was stronger than Canada’s, blocking the Great White North’s access to the north Pacific.3 Historians like Jack Granatstein have shown that Canadians’

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bitterness over this decision lingered for years and eventually helped Robert Borden’s Conservative Party win the 1911 federal election by convincing Canadians that the Liberals’ proposed free trade policy with the United States would lead to Canada’s economic and political annexation by its southern neighbour. But this was hardly a new or even radical claim: in fact, it had been the central platform of long-time Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, who in the late nineteenth century had repeatedly warned his countrymen against sidling up next to slick Uncle Sam.4 According to the historian Richard Preston, these enduring tensions meant Canadian military authorities continued to prepare for an incursion from the south, however unlikely, on the eve of the First World War.5 Of course, the Anglo-American Peace Centenary was hardly the only commemorative event to present a very selective and highly politicized vision of Canada’s past. In a later chapter, Robert Talbot reveals how the federal government attempted to use the 1927 Dominion Day celebration to repair French-English relations a decade following the divisive Conscription Crisis of 1917. The result: bilingualism and biculturalism figured prominently in the nation’s Dominion Day exercises, even those held in English Canada, where the British connection remained a defining part of daily life. In short, it was a hopeful, almost surreal vision for a country that would not make a serious effort at embracing bilingualism and biculturalism for another fifty years. The most famous (or perhaps infamous) example of Canadian “nostalging” may have been Quebec’s tercentenary, which took place in 1908 and weighed heavily on the minds of those political elites – including Wilfrid Laurier and Mackenzie King – who eventually formed the Canadian Peace Centenary Committee. As the historian H.V. Nelles has shown, there were many conflicting visions of what the Quebec tercentenary should represent and how the nation’s troubled relationships – French-English or white-Indigenous – should be put on display for the world to see. As storm clouds gathered over Europe, those behind the tercentenary hoped its success would help stabilize the nation, a goal that also figured prominently in planning for the Anglo-American Peace Centenary several years later. But in neither case was there a single objective or result; instead, interpretations of both events – from the planning stage to execution and finally memory – varied widely.6 In a way, the Anglo-American Peace Centenary was about examining how Canada figured into the world order – a difficult task given that only a few decades had passed since Confederation. Several other

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authors in this collection, including Ted Cogan, Peter Price, and Denis Bourque et al., examine how Canada’s place in the world was explored through the lens of various commemorative events, from the flag debate of 1895 to the Centennial celebrations of 1967. Like these events, the Anglo-American Peace Centenary gave Canadians a chance to reflect on their place on the international stage, and particularly in relation to the Anglo-Saxon world’s two pre-eminent superpowers. And, in the end, the answers Canadians provided were anything but uniform. How can we explain these varying interpretations of the past? The answer is anything but simple. In a way, they are based on contemporary experiences and pressing social, economic, and political issues. John Bodnar has shown that American commemoration exercises changed over time, particularly as the state’s power and influence grew after the First World War. But even during the latter half of the twentieth century the commemoration of an event was hardly uniform, with interpretations of the Civil War Centennial or American Revolution Bicentennial varying from place to place. Meanwhile, celebrations associated with annual events – like the Fourth of July – were also reinvented from year to year, depending on contemporary social and political issues.7 The constant reinvention of holidays and historical events is examined in detail by Matthew Hayday in his research on Dominion Day (after 1982, Canada Day) events, which shifted from being highly militarized and steeped in British traditions during the period immediately following the Second World War to proceedings that focused more attention on the arts, and especially musical talent, during the 1980s and 1990s.8 Reinvention is also a theme in Teresa Iacobelli’s examination of Armistice Day (later, Remembrance Day) events, in which organizers at all levels were bombarded by demands from a range of influential groups; for example, business leaders resisted the idea of attaching commemorative events to 11 November, which might occasionally fall on a busy and profitable Saturday, while veterans’ organizations insisted that a single date on the calendar be reserved, even if the day of the week varied each year.9 Both Hayday and Iacobelli reveal that the meaning associated with national holidays varied widely from place to place and constantly changed as time progressed. What sets the Anglo-American Peace Centenary apart from Dominion Day, Armistice Day, or the American Revolution Bicentennial exercises is that the Peace Centenary, for all intents and purposes, never lived up to the hype. It was, like so many other important and meaningful people, events, ideas, and movements, a casualty of the First

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World War. But it remains significant because its organization reveals a great deal about how Canadians in different parts of the country interpreted relations between the rising republic to the south and their fledgling Dominion, where, as Mike Benbough-Jackson suggests in the companion volume, people showed more affection for the British Empire than did many actual residents of the United Kingdom.10 It also says something about the way Canadian, American, and British political and business leaders felt about the changing racial demographics of their respective nations in the early twentieth century. Finally, an examination of the Anglo-American Peace Centenary reveals how festival organizers sanitized and simplified controversial topics: in this case, the history of Canadian-American relations. Origins of the Anglo-American Peace Centenary Although the federal election of 1911 revealed that many Canadians were leery of establishing closer ties with the United States, it was impossible to deny that Canadian-American frictions were subsiding in the years leading up to the First World War. During the Great Rapprochement, the United States and Britain engaged in their most friendly relations since before the Revolutionary War. The historian Edward P. Kohn finds that both countries had their reasons for maintaining peace across the North Atlantic: Washington sought British support for the US claim on the Alaskan boundary and the Monroe Doctrine, which declared the Americas off-limits to European colonization. Britain, meanwhile, sought America’s tacit support for its war in South Africa. The Alaskan resolution suggests that the Great Rapprochement was less fruitful for Canada, but the era did discourage a revival of the Manifest Destinyinspired sabre-rattling of the previous century, making an invasion across the forty-ninth parallel less and less likely.11 The Anglo-American Peace Centenary was very much a product of this somewhat awkward, though generally peaceful, trinational relationship. The idea was hatched not in the Oval Office nor on the grounds of 10 Downing Street or in Ottawa but at a summer resort in scenic upstate New York.12 For decades American politicians, business leaders, and lawyers had gathered at serene Lake Mohonk for an annual conference that focused on matters of arbitration. When these meetings started in the late nineteenth century, American political and business leaders primarily discussed pressing domestic issues, from Amerindian land claims to the education of African Americans in the racially

The Anglo-American Peace Centenary  75

fractured South. However, as a new century dawned, several new topics of discussion emerged. In a period of unprecedented immigration, Lake Mohonk visitors talked at length about America’s changing racial demographics. For the mostly white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant men participating in these conferences, the influx of European Catholics – or worse, visible minorities from Asia and Africa – spelled trouble for the rising US republic. The American government would respond in the first decade of the twentieth century by implementing unprecedented immigration controls at its land borders. These controls would restrict the cross-border movement of the poor, criminals, the physically and mentally ill, and undesirable racial groups (particularly Asians). In justifying this action, the US leaders pointed to Social Darwinism (or the idea that races exist in a hierarchy) and the mostly cordial relationship between three predominantly white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant nations: the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. Canada’s first delegate to the Lake Mohonk conferences was Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament Oliver Howland, who in 1904 proposed the establishment of an international court for the settlement of all disputes between English-speaking nations. This, Howland believed, would show the non-English-speaking world how to reach an agreement without resorting to violence.13 The Anglo-American Peace Centenary was essentially a grand extension of this idea that Britons, Americans, and Canadians were world leaders by virtue of their Anglo-Saxon heritage. In this way, it was less about emphasizing the importance of world peace than improving diplomatic links between three predominantly white, English-speaking nations that faced similar economic, political, and social problems in the early twentieth century. Emerging at Lake Mohonk in 1910, the Peace Centenary was a private movement that did not officially involve state governments but did include a number of prominent politicians. There were essentially two major elements to the project: first, an educational campaign that would see to the funding of lectureships, scholarships, and the publication of textbooks celebrating peace among Anglo-­ Saxons.14 All levels of education were to be involved, from elementary schools to major universities. The second part of the Peace Centenary concerned the construction of numerous monuments in Britain, Canada, and the United States, many of them at locations along the international boundary. Both parts of the project were to be completed by mid-1915, a hundred years after the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812.15

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The idea for the Peace Centenary came courtesy of New York financier John Aikman Stewart, who served as president of the United States Trust Company for forty years in the late nineteenth century. It was a role that brought Stewart into frequent contact with some of the country’s wealthiest and most influential figures, including Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, and William Rockefeller.16 These same powerful American businessmen served to benefit from improved relations with the British Empire in the early twentieth century. In 1910, the focus of much of the American business community was on reciprocity with the Dominion of Canada, and Stewart’s thinking may have been that a celebration of peaceful ties between the United States and the British Empire would weaken opposition to free trade north of the forty-ninth parallel.17 The Peace Centenary would also help to further buttress relations between Washington and London, permitting the expansion of transatlantic trade.18 Goals of the Peace Centenary But those behind the Anglo-American Peace Centenary were not solely interested in extending economic relations between Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. Race was also a key motivator for the predominantly white, English-speaking, and Protestant organizers at a time when topics like eugenics, polygenism, and miscegenation dominated social and political discourse.19 This was the era that saw the introduction of North America’s first immigration apparatuses; by 1908, both the United States and Canada had placed federal agents at popular land border crossing points from sea to sea.20 Of particular concern at the time were immigrants from China, Japan, and India, whose distinct lifestyles were deemed a legitimate threat to Anglo-Saxon economic and cultural domination of the continent.21 As Peter Ward has outlined, whites on both sides of the forty-ninth parallel were very open about their racial prejudices and specifically their disdain for the Chinese.22 By the time American delegates began discussing the idea of a Peace Centenary with their British and Canadian counterparts, in 1911, both the United States and Canada had virtually halted the arrival of Chinese newcomers with the implementation of highly restrictive immigration legislation.23 As the historian Patricia Roy has noted in her study of racial relations in British Columbia, “Asians were convenient scapegoats in the conflict between capital and labour which seemed endemic in the province’s staple industries.”24

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The racial connotations of the Peace Centenary were embraced by prominent figures in both Britain and the United States. In his book Winning the West, former US President and honorary chairman of the American Peace Centenary Committee, Theodore Roosevelt, referred to the Amerindian people as “savages,” characterized them as a lawless race, and insisted that their displacement by superior Anglo-Saxons was merely a matter of human progress.25 Few appreciated this idea of Anglo-Saxon superiority more than the chair of the British Committee, Earl Grey. As governor general of Canada from 1904 to 1911, Grey helped to facilitate negotiations over boundary water and fishing disputes between the United States and Canada, and improving relations between Washington and Ottawa following the Alaska Boundary ­Dispute.26 When he was approached about participating in the Peace Centenary in 1911, Grey jumped at the opportunity. At all times the idea of Anglo-Saxon superiority was a major part of his participation; in fact, Grey’s most symbolic suggestion may have been a proposal to demolish the Crystal Palace, replacing it with a massive monument dedicated to Anglo-Saxon racial unity.27 In a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Robert Borden, Grey insisted that such a monument “500 years hence, will appeal to all men of British and American descent,” and would remind these men “of the greatness and of the boldness of execution of Britishers in the early days of King George V.”28 This was not a significant departure from the attitude Grey brought to a leading role in preserving the Plains of Abraham battle site while serving as Canada’s governor general; for Grey, the event was a celebration of Britain bringing French Canadians into the imperial fold following the defeat of Montcalm’s forces in September 1759. It was Grey’s profound belief that the event benefited the French as much as the English.29 By the summer of 1911, both the British and the Americans were fully engaged in planning for the Peace Centenary celebration. That fall, Stewart finally proposed Canadian participation to senator and Montreal businessman, Raoul Dandurand. Eventually, the matter of discerning public interest in the movement was taken up by Sir Joseph Pope, undersecretary of Canada’s nascent Department of External Affairs. After first consulting London on the matter – par for the course in a country whose autonomy remained in a form of constitutional purgatory – Pope reached out to some of the Dominion’s most influential political, economic, and cultural figures for their input.30 Pope found reception to the idea was mixed. Least favourable to the plan was Rufus Shorey Neville, a successful lawyer and an executive

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member of both the Toronto-based Empire Club of Canada and the United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Ontario.31 In a December 1911 letter to Borden, Pope related Neville’s insistence that there were “many prominent people … who would not have anything to do with any scheme that involved co-operation with the United States in any shape or form.” According to Pope, Neville also felt holding an event commemorating the War of 1812 that involved Canadians and Americans shaking hands would be “distasteful,” and he asserted that his friend and long-time Ontario premier, Sir James P. Whitney, shared his views.32 Given that Whitney had, in 1909, told a friend that Americans suffered from an “abnormal mental condition,” it is unlikely the Conservative leader would have chastised Neville for speaking on his behalf.33 Rather than commemorating a century of peace with the Americans, Neville said he and his colleagues favoured a celebration of the successful defence of Canada during the War of 1812. Under this alternative scheme, King George V would be invited to visit the country, where he would participate in events at Niagara Falls, Chateauguay, and Toronto – all of them important War of 1812 battle sites. To “fire” imperial good feeling in the Maritimes, which remained largely isolated from the war, events would be held to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the acquisition of Nova Scotia by Britain in 1713. When asked by Pope if he felt such events would be “incompatible” with the Peace Centenary celebration, Neville said “not necessarily,” although he suggested that the gentlemen in his social circle of powerful Toronto-based politicians and businessmen were unlikely to contribute time and money to both projects.34 Canadian Opposition to the Peace Centenary Given the historical context of the Peace Centenary’s origins, Canadian opposition to the project is not particularly surprising. In Quebec, French Canadians had long viewed proud proclamations of AngloSaxon unity, which left little room for the inclusion of French-speaking Roman Catholics, with a critical eye.35 It is also unlikely that the Central and Eastern European immigrants who made their way to Canada’s growing metropolitan centres and the “Last Best West” in the early twentieth century strongly identified with this element of the Peace Centenary movement. There were also concerns about whether or not the period 1814 to 1914 was really peaceful at all; technically, Britain

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and the United States had not entered a state of war, but there were more than a few diplomatic disasters that served to alienate Canadians from their American counterparts. Some of these ugly episodes, including the 1903 Alaska Boundary decision, continued to shape Canadian opinions of their southern neighbours. The source for most anti-Americanism in 1911 was reciprocity. Early that year, a free trade agreement had been successfully brokered between the incumbent Liberal Party under Wilfrid Laurier and the William Howard Taft administration. The deal passed easily through the US Congress and needed only approval from the Canadian people, in the form of a federal election, before it could be ratified. However, central Canadian manufacturers, who had for decades profited from high tariffs on US imports, bitterly fought the measure. The most virulent opposition came from a syndicate of Ontario businessmen known as the “Toronto Eighteen,” who threw their support behind Conservative Party leader Robert Borden in the election. Together, the Conservatives and Toronto business elites successfully convinced Canadians that reciprocity with the Americans would sever the British connection, lead to Canada’s economic domination, and, eventually, its political annexation. It was a bold theory but an easy sell after House of Representatives Speaker James “Champ” Clark proudly announced his belief that free trade was the first step towards “the day when the American flag will float over every square foot of the British North American possessions clear to the North Pole.”36 With the United States providing such potent political ammunition, the Conservatives won the election, Borden became prime minister, and reciprocity was defeated.37 For those who celebrated the British connection, Clark’s comment proved that even ninety-eight years after the Treaty of Ghent’s ratification, Uncle Sam was not to be trusted.38 Here again was proof that Manifest Destiny was alive and well, and that the United States continued to covet Canadian land and resources. In Toronto, a city that had been sacked during the War of 1812 and where British-born peoples represented almost one-third of the total population in 1911, it is little surprise that there was considerable opposition to cooperating with the Americans “in any shape or form.”39 And there were still other reasons for opposing the Anglo-American Peace Centenary in 1911. Radical labourers in Britain voiced their concern that the movement was part of a conspiracy on behalf of world leaders to incite war with Germany. Such an event, some labour leaders speculated, would lead to a spike in industrial production, lining

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the wallets of industrialists (like American Peace Centenary executive member Andrew Carnegie) and placing pressure on labourers to perform their patriotic duties, no matter the working conditions. In short, it was believed the Peace Centenary was the first step towards an international conflict that would give business leaders the tools necessary to crush labour opposition once and for all.40 The Voice, a weekly newspaper published by Winnipeg’s Trades and Labour Council, was also sceptical of the Peace Centenary, pointing out that the Canadian government was “preparing to celebrate the centenary of peace by boosting militia expenditure up to $12,000,000.”41 Canadians and Americans of German extraction also opposed the Peace Centenary, viewing it as an attempt by the British to lure the United States into a military alliance against their homeland.42 To address these concerns, the Brandon Daily Sun suggested that “Germany should participate in the peace celebration of 1914, and that France should also be invited to rejoice with Britain and the United States in the celebration of the most notable centenary that is likely to occur in our time.” The Sun correctly pointed out that 1914 was the hundredth anniversary of the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, an event that featured Prussia and Britain fighting alongside one another. In considering these facts, the Sun concluded that, since it had been “much more than a hundred years since Englishmen and Germans have fought,” Germany should play an important role in organizing the Peace Centenary.43 Unfortunately, the suggestion fell on deaf ears. In Ottawa, officials like Joseph Pope acknowledged that many Canadians felt uneasy about participating in a peace celebration with the United States. However, Pope believed that ultimately Canada should participate in the Peace Centenary movement, for two reasons: first, turning down participation could be seen as insulting by the many powerful political and business figures in the American Peace Centenary Committee.44 Even if Canadians were not yet ready for reciprocity, they certainly did not want to deter Americans from investing in Canada’s growing economy, and particularly its embryonic manufacturing sector (by 1914, there were 454 American branch plants operating in Canada).45 Second, the British had agreed to participate, effectively mollifying the proud, imperialist stance taken against the movement by men like Neville and Whitney.46 As a result, the Canadian Peace Centenary Association was formed in June 1912. Like the American and British committees, it included a number of prominent public figures: its chairman was Toronto-based financier Sir Edmund Walker (ironically,

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a leading member of the Toronto Eighteen), while its general committee included world-renowned engineer Sandford Fleming, Leader of the Opposition Wilfrid Laurier, and future prime minister, Mackenzie King.47 Although officially remaining outside the movement, then Prime Minister Robert Borden publicly showed his support for the association’s activities on several occasions.48 Plans for the Peace Centenary Although reactions to Canada’s decision to participate in the AngloAmerican Peace Centenary were not overwhelmingly positive, there were many Canadians who welcomed the news. Because they stood to benefit from the erection of attractive and useful monuments and memorials, and because their interaction with extranational neighbours was a part of their day-to-day lives, many residents of Canadian border communities embraced the Peace Centenary idea. At White Rock, British Columbia, which shares the international boundary with Blaine, Washington, MPP Frank J. MacKenzie proposed the construction of a massive “Peace Arch,” which would have one foot planted in US soil, the other in Canadian territory.49 Across the border, residents of Blaine and members of the Washington State legislature expressed their support for the project.50 In fact, in the years that followed, the people of these communities also suggested the construction of a memorial highway between this section of the international boundary and that dividing Sumas, Washington, from Huntingdon, British Columbia. Called the “Peace Highway,” it was to run directly along the border, with the international boundary effectively bisecting each half of the roadway.51 Even more ambitious than designs for binational peace arches and highways were plans for the completion of a memorial park in Niagara Falls, Ontario, along with the construction of three international bridges spanning the Niagara River (one at the Lake Erie end, one at Niagara Falls, and another near Lake Ontario).52 To celebrate the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent, in 1915 the Falls were to be illuminated with glowing, colourful lights as a symbol of the peaceful diplomatic state existing between the two countries.53 Given Niagara’s popularity as a tourist destination for Americans and Canadians alike, from the beginning this region was to be at the heart of the Peace Centenary celebration.54 A bridge was also planned for the Detroit River, linking the growing automotive metropolis with its Canadian neighbour, Windsor, Ontario.

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By late 1911, plans for such a structure had been laid out by New York architects, who envisioned a viaduct reminiscent of England’s London Bridge. There were also discussions of completing a Windsor-Detroit tunnel underneath the river. Specifically, organizers and architects planned to build the tunnel from Windsor to Belle Isle in the Detroit River, with the viaduct stretching from there to the American shore. This meant that anyone wishing to cross the river by automobile from Windsor would enter the tunnel, surface at Belle Isle, and then take the memorial bridge to Detroit.55 For decades such structures had been desired in these cities, although previous endeavours had all met with failure.56 Residents of Windsor would certainly have benefited enormously from such plans, given that approximately twenty-five hundred city residents worked across the river, while a number of Windsor companies, such as Ford Canada, were largely dependent on their Detroitbased parent firms for designs, materials, and managing personnel.57 However, Windsorites were initially not sure what to think of the Peace Centenary, since the construction of a tunnel and bridge appeared outlandishly expensive.58 Given these fears, Windsor Mayor Henry Clay suggested celebrating the Peace Centenary with “a carnival that would approach or surpass the famous Mardi Gras at New Orleans” and by building a memorial roadway along the river.59 Winding its way through Windsor and the surrounding municipalities to Fort Malden in nearby Amherstburg, local politicians suggested the roadway would draw thousands of tourists to both Windsor and Essex County.60 Support for the memorial roadway did not, however, extinguish interest in the bridge and tunnel, so long as substantial external funding could be secured.61 In the northeast, the ideal place for a major celebration of the AngloAmerican Peace Centenary appeared to be the Ferry Point Bridge spanning the St Croix River and linking the small lumbering communities of St Stephen, New Brunswick, and Calais, Maine. At least, that was the opinion of St Stephen’s Saint Croix Courier, which suggested constructing a massive arch over top of the bridge. In addition, the Courier suggested that the “fleets of Great Britain and the United States could ride peacefully at anchor in the St Croix Harbor and the towns along the shores could gather here to welcome the President and the Governor General and other distinguished men.” The Courier’s editor felt the surrounding St Croix Valley – a territorial pocket containing St Stephen, Calais, and several other Canadian and American communities – deserved to

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be at the heart of any peace celebration because, unlike the Niagara and Detroit frontiers, the New Brunswick–Maine border had remained at peace during the War of 1812 (in fact, local legend states that during the war the people of St Stephen gave their entire gunpowder supply to Calais so that the American town could produce fireworks for a Fourth of July celebration).62 Given this fact, it seemed reasonable to make the St Croix River a focal point for any Peace Centenary celebration.63 Seeing the movement as an opportunity to bring thousands of tourist dollars to the immediate area, the Courier encouraged St Stephen residents to “talk it up.”64 But not all events revolved around the construction of bridges, tunnels, and archways at the international boundary. The movement also included an educational element that would involve the revision of Canadian and American school textbooks so that they might highlight peaceful rather than quarrelsome moments in North American history.65 According to E.H. Scammell, organizing secretary of the Canadian Peace Centenary Association, this represented the most important part of the movement because “the peace of the next hundred years [will] depend on the children of today.”66 Scammell also saw this part of the Peace Centenary as a way to clear up the “many misconceptions still existing between Canada and the States,” leading to more cordial relations between the two countries. The Peace Centenary’s “educational propaganda,” as it was often called, would also involve the funding of essay prizes and scholarships for high school and university students as well as professors and journalists, all being encouraged to research and write on the subject of Anglo-American relations.67 Although schools across the continent would be invited to participate in the Peace Centenary’s educational agenda, institutions located near the international boundary were to receive special attention. After meeting at Mackinac Island, Michigan, in July 1914, the members of the various participating committees determined “that a study course on the subject of peace be instituted at once in boundary line cities and towns” and that in situations where American and Canadian towns faced one another across the border, such as at Detroit and Windsor, “it is recommended that a joint committee have charge of the arrangements.”68 In the United States there was much support for the erection of statues dedicated to historical British and American public figures, including Queen Victoria and George Washington.69 American Peace Centenary Committee members also proposed the construction of a memorial highway that would connect New York City in the east

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with Chicago in the west, the route running across the Niagara River, through Southwestern Ontario to Windsor, over the Detroit River and then on to Illinois. The total length of such a route was approximately 1,500 kilometres, a very ambitious project in a world where only the wealthiest people owned cars.70 Finally, there was also support for the construction of a museum of arts in New York City dedicated to the Peace Centenary.71 There were also ambitious plans for celebrations across the Atlantic. Ghent, the Belgian city where the famous treaty ending the War of 1812 had been signed on 24 December 1814, was to host a number of celebrations in 1914 and 1915. Organizers planned to restore the old Carthusian Convent where the treaty was signed, as well as the banquet hall in the Hotel de Ville, where British and American plenipotentiaries mingled afterwards.72 A similar restoration project was planned for Sulgrave Manor in Northamptonshire, the ancestral home of the Washington family.73 The idea was to turn the manor into a site of pilgrimage for Americans visiting Britain, presumably because doing so would, in some way, mute the true meaning of the Revolutionary War: the violent dispatch of rule by monarch and the establishment of an independent American republic.74 This was but one of the many ironies associated with a movement that was, from the time of its foundation onwards, highly contradictory. First, few of the founding members of the American, British, or Canadian committees were legitimate pacifists. When war emerged in 1914, few of these men would dismiss participation in the conflict; in the American case, visible proponents of military preparedness included Peace Centenary Committee members Roosevelt and Joseph Hodges Choate, former US ambassador to Britain. Second, to suggest that, after 1814, Anglo-American relations had been wholly harmonious ignored the serious tensions associated with the Patriot Wars of 1838, the Aroostook War of 1839, the US Civil War, the Fenian Raids of 1866, and the Venezuelan Boundary Dispute of 1895. Even a proposed official song for the movement featured a liberal cleansing of the political and cultural significance of the violent Revolutionary War. Called “The Two Flags,” and presented to the Canadian Peace Centenary Association by Assistant Deputy Minister of the Interior Joseph Côté in 1913, the song’s first stanza reads: For right and justice the flag of Britain Ever unfurled its folds;

The Anglo-American Peace Centenary  85 For peace and freedom it waved o’er Albion, Shielding its warriors bold. On the wings of light flew the triple Cross To the land of the free; The Union Jack became the Stars and Stripes The flag of liberty.75

In essence, Côté’s song suggests that American independence came naturally and with the full blessing of its former Motherland. But this manipulation of history was apparently what the powerful people behind the Anglo-American Peace Centenary wanted to see, as the “The Two Flags” was well received by both British and American officials.76 The Peace Centenary and the Great War In the summer of 1914, many of the ambitious plans associated with the Anglo-American Peace Centenary were steadily moving ahead.77 However, the late June assassination of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the AustroHungarian throne, changed everything. In the weeks that followed, threats led to ultimatums, ultimatums to mobilization, mobilization to declarations of war. By early August, most of Europe and much of the world was preparing for the conflict and, in many cases, joyously so; it would be more than a year before casualty lists served to deflate the war hysteria of late summer 1914.78 Because the Allies often insisted the Great War had been foisted upon them by autocratic Germany, initially there were efforts to keep the Peace Centenary moving forward. Both Borden and Laurier supported the continuation of Peace Centenary organizing, arguing that such a celebration had become even more important than before. Harry Shaw Perris, the secretary of the British committee, urged all three organizations to “go forward with our celebration preparations,” and the Americans, who remained committed to an official policy of neutrality until April 1917, wholeheartedly agreed.79 “If there was reason for holding a celebration over the historic fact of a century of peace, there is doubly the reason for celebrating peace in the light of the awful war in which Europe is engaged,” John A. Stewart said. But even if the long, uninterrupted peace between Britain and the United States carried on into the autumn of 1914, war with Germany served to halt planning for the Anglo-American Peace Centenary. By the following spring, Britain and its dominions were fully engaged with

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the enemy in the trenches of Europe. In these countries, peace would not be had without total victory, meaning there was neither the time nor the resources necessary to carry forward with the ambitious Peace Centenary celebrations.80 Furthermore, for most Canadians and Britons, the martial atmosphere of late 1914 hardly meshed with the pacifist rhetoric associated with the Peace Centenary.81 For example, in his summary of the driving principles behind the Peace Centenary movement, British-born author and lecturer Oliver Bainbridge wrote in mid-1914, “The truest patriotism shows itself more in times of peace than in times of war, more in the preventing of war than in the display of heroism on the battlefield, more in the handling of agricultural implements and of industrial tools than in the skilful handling of weapons of war.”82 As the people of Great Britain and Canada prepared to make unprecedented sacrifices in defence of the Empire, this idea that one could be both a pacifist and a patriot became completely incompatible with the kind of rhetoric espoused by newspaper editors, clergymen, and government officials on a daily basis in most communities. Locally, the outbreak of war had an enormous impact on plans to celebrate the Peace Centenary. In White Rock, plans to build a giant Peace Arch were put on hold, replaced in February 1915 by the unveiling of a small plaque at the international boundary, which read: February 16, 1815, Declaration Ratified February 16, 1915, Still in Force The British Empire and The United States Cousin Canuck and Uncle Sam Two Nations great and free, Trusting, O Lord; in Thee; Strong to Defend the right, Pledged never more to fight.83

In Windsor, plans to construct a viaduct and tunnel were also delayed, while similar disappointments came to the people of Niagara Falls and St Stephen, who saw their hopes for memorial parks, bridges, and archways dashed by the war. In their place were simpler and smaller events, much narrower in scope. Many churches across Canada held ceremonies commemorating the century of peace in February 1915, a hundred years after the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent.84 Schools and city councils in Canada and the United States were encouraged to exchange flags and messages of goodwill with communities of the same name (such as Brandon, Manitoba, and Brandon, Missouri). Even this scheme, however, encountered roadblocks, primarily as a result

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of German-American opposition to the Peace Centenary in American cities.85 Because the United States remained committed to a policy of neutrality, and US officials feared that participating in cross-border celebrations of peace with a British dominion would upset citizens of German or Austro-Hungarian heritage, even some of these simple yet symbolic gestures were cancelled.86 The years of planning for the Anglo-American Peace Centenary were not, however, a total loss. The cooperation of influential British, Canadian, and American businessmen and politicians prior to the outbreak of war almost certainly had an impact on American sympathies after August 1914. Granted, the United States remained neutral for nearly three years, but over that time it supplied the Allies with an enormous amount of war materiel.87 Furthermore, the US decision to enter on the side of the Allies in April 1917 was likely influenced by the kinds of relationships forged and enhanced during the Peace Centenary planning process. At a special meeting of Peace Centenary officials in Toronto in September 1915, American Peace Centenary Committee member and former US ambassador to Britain Joseph Hodges Choate proclaimed his personal belief that if the United States declared war on Germany and joined the Allies, “nineteen-twentieths” of the American population would support such an action.88 Following the war, Scammell would tell Joseph Pope, “The work done by the Canadian Peace Centenary Association prior to the war, while it did not reach the fruition anticipated, had a marked effect during the early days of the struggle in the United States which was then supposedly neutral. In fact, it would hardly be an exaggeration to state that no organization had more influence in moulding public opinion in the United States than the American Peace Centenary Committee with which the Canadian Association has all through acted in close harmony.”89 In the period following the Armistice in November 1918, there were efforts to revive some of the movement’s original projects. For example, the end of the war saw to the resurrection of plans for a DetroitWindsor tunnel, but this time the idea was to make it a binational war memorial rather than a monument commemorating a century of peace between Canada and the United States. Unfortunately, funding troubles prevented such a project from moving forward, and not until 1930 was the tunnel finally completed.90 As for the people of British Columbia and Washington, they did build their Peace Arch after the war, and it maintained much of the racial sentiment associated with the Peace Centenary. With inscriptions reading

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3.1  Peace Arch near White Rock, British Columbia. From the White Rock Museum and Archives.

The Anglo-American Peace Centenary  89

“Brethren Dwelling Together in Unity” and “Children of a Common Mother,” the sixty-seven-foot cement and reinforced steel structure was unveiled in September 1921. It was built next to the international boundary, just as British Columbia MPP Frank Mackenzie had first suggested in 1913.91 Today, the Peace Arch is surrounded by the manicured lawns and gardens of Peace Arch Park, grounds that are in turn flanked by Canadian and US customs and immigration buildings. As a result, most people catch a glimpse of the massive structure and its surroundings from their idling automobiles. Conclusion The Anglo-American Peace Centenary was a product of the Great Rapprochement era of Anglo-American relations in the early twentieth century. In this way, it was less a celebration of peace than an extension of political and economic ties between three rapidly industrializing nations. The Peace Centenary featured many of the most prominent public figures of the day, few of whom could be considered pacifists in the traditional sense of the term. Indeed, when war erupted in 1914, the Peace Centenary movement became a tool used by Britons, Canadians, and Americans alike to push the neutral United States towards the Allied side. If they were not necessarily interested in maintaining world peace, the members of the various Peace Centenary committees certainly were devoted to making a statement about race. This hardly cosmopolitan group of men saw an opportunity to reconcile differences between the world’s pre-eminent Anglo-Saxon nations, and they believed this would lead to a new age for mankind.92 These Anglo-Saxon “Children of a Common Mother” also shared concerns about immigration from Asia and Southern and Eastern Europe in the early twentieth century. As these newcomers funnelled into the streets of the continent’s major cities and vied for room in highly unstable economies, both countries reacted by imposing restrictive immigration legislation that gave federal inspectors located at the international boundary the right to refuse entry to those of “undesirable” backgrounds. If the rise of a visible federal presence at the Canada-US border was the official response to concerns over immigration in the early years of the twentieth century, then the Anglo-American Peace Centenary was a less formal attempt to make clear that English-speaking, Protestant peoples were still very much in control of North America and fully intent on maintaining that power in the years to come.

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For many Canadians, the Anglo-American Peace Centenary was interpreted in still different ways. In some circles of Anglophile Toronto, it was an offensive gesture that trammelled on the graves of fallen British redcoats and Canadian militiamen. In Brandon, Manitoba, a community located at the heart of the “Last Best West,” it was an opportunity to re-establish good relations between Britain and Germany. And the Peace Centenary was interpreted in a still different fashion by people in communities along the international boundary, where peaceful relations with Americans were part of many residents’ day-to-day lives. Here, the wounds of the War of 1812 had, in many cases, long been healed by the regular transnational activity of locals who established social and economic networks that transcended the dividing line. For these people the Peace Centenary was a welcome idea, and it certainly helped that many of these communities, including Niagara Falls, St Stephen, White Rock, and Windsor, stood to benefit from the construction of unique and in some cases very useful commemorative structures. NOTES 1 Aside from T.G. Otte’s chapter “The Shrine at Sulgrave,” in Melanie Hall’s edited book Towards World Heritage: International Origins of the Preservation Movement, 1870–1930 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011), 111–38, this chapter relies almost entirely upon primary research. 2 According to the historian Bradford Perkins, the peaceful resolution of the Venezuela Boundary Dispute in 1895, followed by British support for the United States in the Spanish-American War and American support for the British in the Boer War, led to a significant decline in Anglophobia in the United States before 1914. Bradford Perkins, The Great Rapprochement: England and the United States, 1895–1914 (New York: Atheneum, 1968). 3 David G. Haglund and Tudor Onea, “Victory without Triumph: Theodore Roosevelt, Honour, and the Alaska Panhandle Boundary Dispute,” Diplomacy and Statecraft 19, 1 (2008), 1–37. 4 For more on anti-Americanism in Canadian history, see Jack Granatstein, Yankee Go Home?: Canadians and Anti-Americanism (Toronto: HarperCollins, 1996). 5 Richard Preston, The Defence of the Undefended Border: Planning for War in North America, 1867–1939 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1977), 181. 6 H.V. Nelles, The Art of Nation-Building: Pageantry and Spectacle at Quebec’s Tercentenary (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999).

The Anglo-American Peace Centenary  91 7 John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991). 8 Matthew Hayday, “Canada’s Day: Inventing a Tradition, Defining a Culture,” in Matthew Hayday and Raymond B. Blake, eds., Celebrating Canada, vol.1, Holidays, National Days, and the Crafting of Identities (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016), 274–305. 9 Teresa Iacobelli, “From Armistice to Remembrance: The Continuing Evolution of Remembrance Day in Canada,” in Hayday and Blake, Celebrating Canada, 171–90. 10 Mike Benbough-Jackson, “Dominion Day in Britain, 1900–1919.” in Hayday and Blake, Celebrating Canada, 220–43. 11 A fine example of that sabre-rattling is US presidential candidate James Polk’s 1844 campaign slogan “54–40 or Fight!” in reference to American claims that the Canada-US western boundary should run far north of the 49th parallel. Edward Kohn, This Kindred People: Canadian-American Relations and the Anglo-Saxon Idea, 1895–1903 (Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 2004). 12 Otte, “The Shrine at Sulgrave,” 113. 13 Howland later became a member of the Canadian Peace Centenary Association. Donald M. Page, “Canada as the Exponent of North American Idealism,” American Review of Canadian Studies 3, 2 (1973): 30–46; “Premier Borden and the Peace Centenary,” Globe, 12 Aug. 1912. 14 Frank H. Severance, “The Centenary of Peace, in Relation to the Region of the Niagara and the Great Lakes,” in Peace Episodes on the Niagara (Buffalo: Buffalo Historical Society, 1914), 164. 15 “Organizing Secretary for Peace Centenary,” Globe, 28 June 1913; “Peace Hath Her Victories Not Less Renowned than War,” Saint Croix Courier, 21 May 1914. 16 Carnegie would eventually serve on the American Peace Centenary Committee as its honorary vice chairman. “John A. Stewart, 100, Recalls Fire of ’35,” New York Times, 27 Aug. 1922; Oliver Bainbridge, The Lesson of the AngloAmerican Peace Centenary (London: Heath, Cranton & Ouseley, 1914), 144. 17 It was understood that reciprocity would benefit American manufacturers by allowing them to acquire Canadian natural resources, which could be converted into manufactured goods subsequently shipped north of the border. See Kendrick A. Clements, “Manifest Destiny and Canadian Reciprocity in 1911,” Pacific Historical Review 42, 1 (1973): 32–52. 18 Otte, “The Shrine at Sulgrave,” 117. 19 Kohn, This Kindred People, 3.

92  Brandon Dimmel 20 See Marian Smith, “The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) at the U.S.-Canadian Border, 1893–1993: An Overview of Issues and Topics,” Michigan Historical Review 26, 2 (2000): 127–47. 21 See Seema Sohi, “Race, Surveillance and Indian Anticolonialism in the Transnational Western U.S.-Canadian Borderlands,” Journal of American History 28, 2 (2011): 420–36; Jean Barman, The West beyond the West: A History of British Columbia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 134–5; John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860– 1925, 170 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1955). 22 Peter Ward, White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy toward Orientals in British Columbia (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002), 3. 23 Canada introduced head taxes, so that by 1903 it cost a Chinese man $500 to enter British Columbia. South of the border the United States introduced moratoriums on Chinese immigration in 1882, 1892, and 1902. Valerie Knowles, Strangers at Our Gates: Canadian Immigration and Immigration Policy, 1540–2006 (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2006), 71–3; “Our Documents – Chinese Exclusion Act (1882),” accessed 2 Apr. 2012, http://www .ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=47. 24 Patricia Roy, A White Man’s Province: British Columbia Politicians and Chinese and Japanese Immigrants, 1858–1914, 267 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1989). 25 Theodore Roosevelt, Episodes from “The Winning of the West,” 1769–1807 (New York: Putnam’s, 1900), 57; Kohn, This Kindred People, 3. 26 Peter Neary, “Grey, Bryce and the Settlement of Canadian-American Differences, 1905–1911,” Canadian Historical Review 49, 4 (1968): 257–80. 27 Otte, “The Shrine at Sulgrave,” 119–20. 28 Ibid., 119. 29 H.V. Nelles, The Art of Nation-Building: Pageantry and Spectacle at Quebec’s Tercentenary (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 88–9. 30 Otte, “The Shrine at Sulgrave,” 116. 31 “History of the UELAC,” United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada, accessed 20 June 2012, http://www.uelac.org/UELAC-history/UELACPetitioners.php. 32 During his time in public life, Whitney was always keen on helping to maintain a close relationship between Britain and Canada. Seeing reciprocity as a threat to this link, Whitney played a key role in defeating free trade with the Americans in 1911. Joseph Pope to Sir Robert Borden, Ottawa, 2 Dec. 1911, Library and Archives Canada (LAC), RG 25, vol. 1116, no. 1255; Charles W. Humphries, “Honest Enough to Be Bold”: The Life and Times of Sir James Pliny Whitney (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985), 180–97.

The Anglo-American Peace Centenary  93 3 3 Humphries, “Honest Enough to Be Bold,” 191. 34 For his part, Pope told Borden that Neville’s plan appeared “hostile” to the Peace Centenary movement. Pope to Borden, 2 Dec. 1911. “Centenary Celebration,” Globe, 28 July 1910. 35 Kohn, This Kindred People, 10, 55. 36 “Premier Laurier Smiles,” New York Times, 15 Feb. 1911; John Herd Thompson and Stephen J. Randall, Canada and the United States: Ambivalent Allies (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994), 90. 37 Granatstein, Yankee Go Home?, 58–9. 38 Whitney believed that the reciprocity deal was part of the “unmistakable desire” of the United States to “bring about political union.” Humphries, “Honest Enough to Be Bold,” 190. 39 According to the 1911 Census, 28.5% of Torontonians were born in the British Isles. Fifth Census of Canada 1911: Religions, Origins, Birthplace, Citizenship, Literacy and Infirmities, by Provinces, Districts, and Sub-Districts, vol. 2, Table XVI (Ottawa: C.H. Parmlee, 1913), 391. 40 “Flays Peace Mission,” El Paso Herald, 10 May 1913. 41 “Editorial Notes,” Voice, 22 Aug. 1913. 42 “Munsterberg Rouses German Government,” Globe, 12 May 1913. 43 “Good-Will to Germany,” Brandon Daily Sun, 17 Jan. 1912. 44 Pope came to this conclusion upon consulting Senator Raoul Dandurand, financier Edmund Walker, lumber magnate George Perley, and lawyer Alexandre Lacoste. Otte, “The Shrine at Sulgrave,” 116. 45 Although American investment in the Canadian economy paled by comparison to investment from Britain in 1910, the trend was clearly towards closer economic relations across the 49th parallel. In 1900, British capital accounted for 85 percent of foreign investment in Canada’s economy, with US capital comprising just 15%. Ten years later, however, American investment had increased to 20%, while British investments had declined to roughly 75%. By 1920, the two would be nearly dead-even in their support of Canadian economic growth. Gregory P. Marchildon, “From Pax Britannica to Pax Americana and Beyond,” Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Science 538 (1995): 151–68; David Roberts, In the Shadow of Detroit: Gordon M. McGregor, Ford of Canada, and Motoropolis (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2006), 4. 46 Using imperial ties as a way to justify opposition to the Peace Centenary would have become particularly difficult after King George V himself voiced his support for the movement in April 1913. “King Approves of Celebration,” Brandon Daily Sun, 25 Apr. 1913. 47 Bainbridge, The Lesson of the Anglo-American Peace Centenary, 144; “Committees for Peace Centenary,” Globe, 6 June 1912.

94  Brandon Dimmel 48 “Premier Borden and the Peace Centenary,” Globe, 12 Aug. 1912; “The Peace Centenary and the War,” Saint Croix Courier, 3 Dec. 1914. 49 “On Day of Centenary,” British Columbian, 6 May 1913. 50 “Blaine Prepares for Lasting Sign,” British Columbian, 1 July 1913. 51 Ultimately, security concerns during the war led to the cancellation of this project. “International Boundary Road,” British Columbian, 20 July 1915; “Matsqui Favors International Road,” British Columbian, 27 June, 1916; “Endorse Peace Highway,” Blaine Journal, 20 July 1917. 52 John A. Stewart to Hon. James Bryce, 18 Dec. 1911, LAC, RG 25, vol. 1116, no. 1255; Bainbridge, The Lesson of the Anglo-American Peace Centenary, 24. 53 Peace: The Illumination of Niagara Falls (Publisher Unknown, 1915), accessed 20 Mar. 2012, http://archive.org/details/peaceilluminatio00slsnuoft, 13. 54 “Discuss Peace Centenary,” New York Times, 11 Aug. 1912; “Premier Borden and the Peace Centenary,” Globe, 12 Aug. 1912. 55 Stewart to Bryce, 18 Dec. 1911; “Peace Festival Marked by Arches,” Spokesman-Review, 8 May 1913; “Worldwide Celebration of the Centenary of Peace,” New York Times, 31 Dec. 1911. 56 For example, construction of a railway tunnel in 1871 was abandoned after a pocket of sulphur gas was breached, killing two workers. “The Fleetway – An Exhibition of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel,” accessed 22 Mar. 2012, http://projects.windsorpubliclibrary.com/digi/fleetway/histo .php?lang=en&story=1. 57 “Residents of Windsor Must Pay Income Tax in Detroit,” Windsor Evening Record, 30 June 1914; Roberts, In the Shadow of Detroit, 88. 58 The Windsor Evening Record newspaper noted that such plans were treated “lightly” because funding was by no means certain. “Subway as Peace Memorial,” Windsor Evening Record, 31 July 1914. 59 “Delegates to Peace Convention to Leave Monday,” Windsor Evening Record, 16 July 1914. 60 “Peace Memorial,” Windsor Evening Record, 23 Dec. 1912. 61 By early 1912, $8 million in bills of appropriation associated with the Peace Centenary were before Congress and state legislatures. “Windsor Men Join Peace Centenary Association,” Windsor Evening Record, 3 July 1914; Bainbridge, The Lesson of the Anglo-American Peace Centenary, 118. 62 Ronald Rees, Historic St Croix: St Stephen, Calais (Halifax: Nimbus, 2003), xiii; Harold Davis, An International Community on the St Croix, 1604–1930 (Orono: University of Maine Press, 1950), 304. 63 Though the Ferry Point Bridge was never officially mentioned as a possible site for a peace monument, records show the various associations expressed interest in erecting a memorial at “an easternmost point.” Given

The Anglo-American Peace Centenary  95 the geographical location of St Stephen and Calais, and their unique transnational history, it is likely they would have been selected for a monument had the Anglo-American Peace Centenary not been so negatively affected by the First World War. “Peace Arches on Highways,” British Columbian, 23 Nov. 1913. 64 Editorial, Saint Croix Courier, 21 May 1914. 65 “Celebrate Peace, Not Military Fame,” Windsor Evening Record, 23 July 1914. 66 “Windsor to Participate in International Peace Centenary Celebration,” Windsor Evening Record, 8 July 1914. 67 “Organizing Secretary for Peace Centenary,” Globe, 28 June 1913; “The Canadian Peace Centenary,” Cariboo Observer, 27 June 1914. 68 “Celebrate Peace, Not Military Fame,” Windsor Evening Record, 23 July 1914. 69 Bainbridge, The Lesson of the Anglo-American Peace Centenary, 24. 70 “Worldwide Celebration of the Centenary of Peace,” New York Times, 31 Dec. 1911. 71 Bainbridge, The Lesson of the Anglo-American Peace Centenary, 24. 72 “Many to Celebrate Peace Centenary,” Brandon Daily Sun, 28 Sept. 1912. 73 Originally known as the Wessingtons, records show the Washington family first acquired the manor in 1180 AD. “Early Years – Sulgrave Manor, Northamptonshire,” accessed 22 Mar. 2012, https://www.sulgravemanor .org.uk/about-us/a-brief-history. 74 This was also part of a wider American obsession with the first President in the period following the Civil War. Otte, “The Shrine at Sulgrave,” 115. 75 J.A. Côté to Joseph Pope, 16 Dec. 1913, LAC, RG 25, vol. 1136, no. 1351. 76 Sir Cecil Spring-Rice to Joseph Pope, 27 Jan. 1914, and L. Harcourt to Joseph Pope, 12 Feb. 1914, ibid. 77 “Ambitious Scheme for Peace Centenary,” Globe, 20 June 1914. 78 For more on Canadian reactions to the British declaration of war, see Robert Rutherdale, Hometown Horizons: Local Responses to Canada’s Great War (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004), 46–87; Jim Blanchard, Winnipeg’s Great War: A City Comes of Age (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2010), 9–23; Ian Hugh Maclean Miller, Our Glory and Our Grief: Torontonians and the Great War (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 15–16. 79 “The Peace Centenary Association,” Globe, 1 Dec. 1914. 80 Attempts to broker a peace were repeatedly met with criticism in most parts of Canada. The best example may be that of Henry Ford, who protested the war publicly after 1915. Despite being a beloved figure in Windsor, Ontario, where he opened a major automotive production facility in 1904, Ford’s pacifism was severely criticized in local clergy sermons and the press. Roberts, In the Shadow of Detroit, 130–2.

96  Brandon Dimmel 81 On 6 Aug. 1914, the Globe proclaimed that the war would give Canadians an opportunity to “prove ourselves worthy of our breed and of the imperishable traditions of our people.” “United, Calm, and Resolute,” Globe, 6 Aug. 1914. 82 Bainbridge, The Lesson of the Anglo-American Peace Centenary, 60. 83 “One Hundred Years of Peace,” Semiahmoo Gazette, 16 Feb. 1915. 84 “St Paul’s Presbyterian Church,” and “First Methodist Church,” Brandon Daily Sun, 13 Feb. 1915. 85 “Busy Session of City Council Is Expected Tonight,” Brandon Daily Sun, 15 Feb. 1915. 86 “To Exchange Flags in Celebration of Peace Centenary,” Brandon Daily Sun, 13 May 1915. 87 By April 1917 Britain had an overdraft in the United States of more than $350 million and was spending $75 million each week on military equipment and other supplies. Hew Strachan, The First World War (London: Penguin, 2003), 228. 88 Pamphlet, “Special convocation held on Sept. 28th, 1915 by the University of Toronto to confer the honorary degree of LL.D. on members of the American Peace Centenary Committee,” LAC, RG 25, vol. 1136, no. 31. 89 E.H. Scammell to Joseph Pope, 9 Nov. 1921, ibid., vol. 1303, no. 1488. 90 Jonathan Vance, Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning and the First World War (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997), 208. 91 Marie Arbuckle et al., A Symbol of Our Heritage, the Old Fir Tree: Blaine Centennial History, 1884–1984 (Blaine: Blaine Centennial Committee, 1984), 25. 92 Robert Bond, “The Old Year and the New,” Evening Telegram, 2 Jan. 1918.

4 Competing Pasts, Multiple Identities: The Diamond Jubilee of Confederation and the Politics of Commemoration1 rober t c up ido

Prime Minister Mackenzie King had no doubts about the significance of the occasion. As he expressed it in his diary: “To see it was like Heaven itself coming near to earth, as if we were entering on a higher and loftier experience than ever before … as if God were bringing to a crowning fruition grandfather’s work of nation-building in Canada. It was like the triumph of nationhood, this sixtieth anniversary of Confederation, the beginning of a new epoch in our history … We have at last a country of our own which is a nation.”2 On 1 July 1927, enormous holiday crowds poured into the streets, squares, and public parks of cities and towns throughout the Dominion to take part in a remarkably varied program of civic processions, historical pageants, commemorative ceremonies, military tattoos, outdoor concerts, community picnics, athletic competitions, and thanksgiving services; even the remotest frontier settlements managed to organize a baseball tournament or “patriotic demonstration” to mark the day.3 The massive and apparently spontaneous popular response to the nationwide celebrations in honour of the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation surpassed the most optimistic expectations of its official promoters. The people of Canada, exulted George Graham the chairman of the national organizing committee, “joined whole-heartedly and unanimously on July 1, in the celebration of the country’s birth and delighted on that day to proclaim themselves Canadians.”4 Ten years earlier, more pressing concerns had derailed the national celebration of the first major commemorative milestone in the brief history of the Dominion. The Golden Jubilee of Confederation in 1917 happened to coincide with the fourth year of the Great War, when the fortunes of the Allied Powers were at their lowest ebb. Canadians had

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been discouraged from organizing an inappropriately festive celebration of the Golden Jubilee by “their single-minded concentration on the soul-challenging struggle to win the war and maintain their national existence.”5 Only the capture of Vimy Ridge by the Canadian Corps in April – a tactically brilliant but strategically meaningless victory within the larger failure of the Battle of Arras – relieved the pervasive atmosphere of crisis. The country, riven by the increasingly bitter controversy over the issue of conscription, was not in a celebratory mood, and the anniversary was allowed to pass in most communities without fanfare or public observances. Patriotic resolutions were passed in the House of Commons and a number of provincial legislatures; a handful of souvenir books and commemorative histories of the Confederation era were published;6 and a brief, sombre ceremony was held on Parliament Hill, focused on Canada’s proud sacrifices in defence of the Empire and its unshaken determination to see the struggle through to final victory. The social and political transformations of the ensuing decade ensured that the Diamond Jubilee would be invested with meanings that could not have been apprehended in 1917. The celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation in 1927 represented the most ambitious attempt by the Dominion government, in the first sixty years of its existence, to foster social and political unity, inculcate notions of civic loyalty and obligation, and stimulate the growth of “national feeling” through the use of public commemorative ritual.7 Nationalist elites, however, could not base their calls for a new “all-Canadian” nationality on emotive appeals to a common ancestry, a shared language, or other “primordial” bonds. How, then, were they to cultivate a sense of allegiance to a recently created nation state, not yet fully emerged from its colonial status, of limited sovereignty and disputed legitimacy, and riven by sectional, linguistic, regional, religious, and ethnic fault-lines? The challenge lay in making abstract notions of common citizenship and national identity meaningful and attractive to groups – clerical nationalists in Quebec, Ontario Orangemen, the immigrant communities of the Prairie West – whose sense of collective identity rested on what the cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz has described as the “gross actualities” of race, language, religion, locality, and other markers of collective belonging. They could hardly be expected to welcome any nation-building initiative that threatened their cherished “specific and familiar identifications,” either by submerging them within the “culturally undifferentiated mass” of a modern, rational civic order, or far worse, through forced assimilation to a

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rival ethnic, racial, or linguistic community – a prospect that nourished the fears and resentments of both the Loyal Orange Association and Action canadien-français.8 Bill 65, passed by the House of Commons on 17 February 1927, incorporated a National Committee of “representative Canadians,” consisting mainly of prominent politicians, businessmen, and senior bureaucrats with ties to the two main political parties, to coordinate the Jubilee celebrations.9 Its mandate was “to carry out the necessary arrangements for an effective celebration of the 60th anniversary of the formation of the Dominion of Canada,” and to dispose of an initial parliamentary grant of $250,000. The committee also proclaimed 2 July, which fell on a Saturday, a public holiday, and designated Sunday, 3 July, as a National Day of Thanksgiving. The actual day-to-day preparations for the Jubilee, however, were carried out by a much smaller and more homogeneous Executive Committee, comprised of senior civil servants, academics, and business figures based in Ottawa, and chaired by George Graham, a Liberal Senator and long-time associate of Mackenzie King, as well as a leading figure in the Canadian Club movement. There were also a number of technical subcommittees that managed to recruit, on a voluntary basis, dozens of experts from industry, the universities, and the professions, most of whom were also active in Liberal and service club circles.10 The Diamond Jubilee was optimistically conceived by its national organizers as a kind of bilingual love feast,11 which would help to dissolve the remaining sources of mutual ill will between French and English Canada, deflect and mollify regional discontents, incorporate a burgeoning immigrant population into the mainstream of national life, and exorcize the bogeys of labour and agrarian radicalism. Canada’s nationalist elites, like those of nineteenth-century European states, sought to buttress the legitimacy of the “large-scale solidarity”12 of the nation through rituals of commemoration – those varied social practices through which a society’s sense of the past, its collective memory,13 is formed and maintained over time.14 Major national commemorations like the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation reveal the principles of selection that determine which version of a country’s past will be remembered and preserved; how such principles vary over time in response to changing historical circumstances; and whose interests they serve. The study of commemoration and collective memory, therefore, is closely bound up with the issue of identity.15 Collectivities, no less than individuals, are shaped by the stories they tell about

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themselves, by their storehouse of memories. These shared memories are the glue that holds social groups together, that form them as communities, and imbue them with a common purpose. In the absence of these shared didactic narratives about the origins of the community, its myths and traditions, the seminal events in its past, the exploits of exemplary ancestors, its glorious victories and tragic defeats, there can be no common identity. Group identities, in other words, are constituted by memory, which forges the links between past and present, the individual and the group, and unites them in the task of building a common future: for “communities of memory are also communities of hope.”16 It is not surprising, therefore, that the modern nation state, anxious to overcome its multiplicity of competing interests and identities, has devoted so much effort to the construction and control of its past; to exploiting the integrative effects of collective memory in order to strengthen social cohesion, inculcate values and beliefs that support the status quo, legitimize new institutions and relations of authority, and ensure the hegemony of the state and its political elites. The main vehicle for the achievement of this crucial and formidable task has been the “symbols, rituals and technologies” of commemoration, conceived as an “active, creative process” that seeks to impose a particular interpretation of the past through forms of collective representation; a past that is deliberately shaped, manipulated, invented, reinvented, and suppressed, in accordance with the values and ideologies of the dominant culture.17 The Diamond Jubilee of Confederation presented an auspicious opportunity for the renewal and restructuring of Canada’s collective memory. By 1927, the country had apparently recovered from the traumas of the Great War and its aftermath – the bitter sectional conflicts over conscription and French-language education that threatened to tear the country apart, the postwar recession and its unprecedented labour turmoil – and seemed to be entering a new phase of economic expansion and prosperity. Canada’s wartime exploits and sacrifices, and crucial contribution to the Allied victory, had boosted her international status and prestige. Canada had been rewarded with an enhanced role on the world stage, symbolized above all by her seat at the League of Nations, while a flurry of constitutional milestones in the 1920s had ended with the recognition of Canada’s autonomy and equality within the British Empire and looked forward to the eventual achievement of full independence. The Dominion, it seemed, had embarked on a new

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era of nation building that would finally fulfil the promise of Confederation. The Diamond Jubilee represented for many nationalists Canada’s coming of age as a modern, democratic, industrial state, a full-fledged member of “the comity of nations.” In 1927, this opportunity to construct a new “master narrative” of Canada’s past in conformity with the social and political developments of the postwar years was seized by nationalist elites determined to consolidate and legitimize a liberal vision of Canadian nationhood. The commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of Confederation would give birth to a “a new nationality,” based on an unequivocal faith in material progress and capitalist development; the equal partnership of the “two founding races”; full autonomy from Great Britain; and a new conception of undifferentiated citizenship based on the civil, political, and social rights guaranteed by the modern constitutional state.18 But in Canada the reach of liberal nationalist elites turned out to exceed their grasp. The pan-Canadian nationalists in Ottawa were unable to control the public use of the past at the local level or ensure that their highly tendentious master narrative of Canadian history was received in officially approved ways. A critical analysis of the historical representations that played such a large role in the 1927 Diamond Jubilee celebrations reveals the ambiguities and paradoxes of Canadian nationalism between the wars, and more specifically, demonstrates how a nationwide commemorative festival intended to stimulate the growth of a unified national consciousness also provided an opportunity for asserting competing sources of group loyalty and identity within Canadian society that, paradoxically, became more entrenched and politically charged in the face of official attempts to transcend them. Sixty Years of Canadian Progress: The Rebooting of Canada’s Collective Memory In the 1920s, pride in Canada’s material progress since 1867 and political coming of age was accompanied by a great deal of handwringing over the perceived lack of any corresponding advance in the development of a genuine national consciousness. Through a series of legislative enactments, international treaties, and imperial conferences, Canada had, by 1927, achieved the status of a virtually autonomous state: a status underwritten by her wartime exploits and accelerated economic development. Mere formal autonomy, however, was hardly synonymous with authentic nationhood, which neither stock markets nor statutes

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could confer. Nationalists lamented the stubborn persistence of narrow, parochial allegiances and perspectives, the ascendancy of acquisitive over spiritual values, and the survival of religious bigotry and racial antipathies. “Canadians,” fumed Graham Spry in March 1927, “are too strongly influenced by the parish pump. We have great difficulty in elevating our politics above local issues, local needs.”19 The historian W. Stewart Wallace claimed to detect within the last generation the stirrings of an authentic Canadian national feeling, but he described it as “still young and … still growing,” with “its eyes set on the mountaintops of promise rather than the valley of achievement.”20 Canada, complained Lorne Pierce, editor of the Ryerson Press and a leading literary nationalist, remained a patchwork “of small communities separated by immense distances, working out their destinies as best they can … burdened with undigested groups of foreign peoples clinging tenaciously to their speech and customs.” Canada lacked the most basic symbolic attributes of a separate national existence, having “no distinctive flag, no generally accepted national song, no epic saga.”21 Not even, Pierce might have added, a proper national holiday. Nationalists in the 1920s pointed out that Dominion Day was observed “with comparatively little patriotic demonstration” or acknowledgment of its significance as “a prideful factor in nation-building.”22 Before 1927, Dominion Day had been haphazardly and indifferently observed. It was eclipsed in much of English Canada by Victoria Day, which since the middle of the nineteenth century had helped to constitute and legitimize a British North American identity based on the traditional props of Monarchy and Empire. In Quebec, the increasingly elaborate ceremonies and spectacles connected with the Feast of St John the Baptist – declared a provincial statutory holiday and officially designated “la Fête nationale” in 1925 – affirmed the cultural autonomy and exceptionalism of French-Canadian society. Throughout most of the Maritime provinces, local natal days, commemorating founders and pioneers and the historical continuity of individual communities, took precedence over 1 July, which tended to be ignored altogether or marked by symbolic protests, such as the flying of flags at half-mast as a token of public mourning, the ostentatious refusal to suspend normal business activity, and the wearing of black armbands.23 Dominion Day was unable to evoke a common national consciousness powerful enough to transcend the local, sectional, and supranational loyalties generated by competing festivals. Far from serving as an occasion for patriotic ceremonial and public rejoicing, it had been

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given over in most parts of Canada to popular leisure activities. Marking the unofficial opening of the summer holiday season, the first of July was traditionally observed with neighbourhood and community picnics, organized by ratepayers’ associations, trade unions, fraternal societies, churches, employers, and so on.24 In the larger centres, those with the means to do so escaped by private automobile or special excursion trains into the countryside, to nearby resorts or provincial parks; while for those who remained in the city amateur baseball games, boating regattas and other sporting events, outdoor band concerts, and amusement parks like Sunnyside and Scarborough Beach on the Toronto waterfront were the main attractions. Community singing, folk dancing, and baby shows became popular additions to Dominion Day programs in the 1920s. Some nationalists placed the blame on the unromantic, pacific nature of Confederation, which “was achieved without any fierce struggle.”25 Constitutional regimes founded upon debate, negotiation, and consensus did not generate promising material for commemorative purposes. The events leading up to Confederation lacked a clear sense of national purpose, offered little scope for heroic actions and gestures that lent themselves to founding myths, and included unedifying episodes of intrigue, manipulation, and betrayal. In 1927, the ambivalent, provisional nature of the Confederation pact and the bitter sectional conflicts of the ensuing decades posed a difficult challenge for nationalists hoping to elevate Dominion Day into a Canadian version of the Fourth of July – a great national festival devoted to patriotic rituals rather than a publicly sanctioned occasion for private recreation. It was widely assumed in nationalist circles that a “vigorous, virile patriotism” could only be founded on a common stock of memories and traditions; in other words, on a shared history. Published meditations on the role of history in the formation of national identity proliferated during the run-up to the Diamond Jubilee. According to Professor Norman Rogers of Queen’s University, “The purpose of the study of history was nothing less than the cultivation of patriotism as the foundation of national unity and a motivation for active citizenship.” The essential factor in the creation of national consciousness was “the possession of an inheritance of common traditions, achievements and ideals, transmitted through one generation to the next through history.” For Rogers, a country’s history was nothing less than the “crucible of the character of its people,” and the “struggles and victories of other

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days” were a “perennial source of inspiration to meet the challenge of immediate needs.”26 History, according to a particularly sententious newspaper editorial on the purposes of the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation, was “no quaint finished epitaph chiselled in a dead dialect … but the whole experience of the past brought into vital contact with the present, so that it becomes for us a moral object lesson and a directing principle teaching us how to adapt ourselves to the immediate problems of our own age.” Above all, knowledge of our history inspires us with a sense of “common kinship … in the mighty heritage which has been bequeathed by the virtues and heroic labours of those who have gone before.” It is a source of “patriotic fellowship and ideal citizenship … the full fruition of the national spirit,” capable of stirring people to “high endeavors” through the memory of “noble deeds done in the past.”27 Here then lay an explanation for the failure of Canadians to develop a shared collective identity and achieve the elusive goal of national unity. It was generally admitted that Canadians were woefully ignorant of their own history, allegedly knowing “less about the splendors of their own story than any other people of similar culture.”28 The Gradgrinds in charge of the education system in Canada were failing in the task of “instilling their students with pride in their native land” and a “higher national ideal.”29 If children were not taught to respect and admire those qualities of moral and intellectual greatness possessed by “the highest characters which have appeared among their fellow countrymen … they would inevitably succumb to the worship of pugilists and film stars.”30 The Anglican bishop of Ontario, addressing a special Jubilee Synod, perceived “a great need for an informed historical sense,” while the Montreal Gazette arraigned the average citizen for having such a “dim and faint notion of Canada’s wondrous past.”31 The Diamond Jubilee of Confederation presented an opportunity to reinvent Dominion Day as a solemn national patriotic festival aimed at nurturing a unified collective memory. The Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire looked forward to the Jubilee as an occasion for celebrating “not with thoughtless revelry and fireworks … but with careful consideration of the history of Canada.”32 The year of the Diamond Jubilee witnessed a growing agitation, spearheaded by groups like the IODE and the Association of Canadian Clubs, “to place the colour, romance and fascination of Canada’s story in the front rank of the school curriculum.”33 By awakening the historical imagination of children, the

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Jubilee would, it was hoped, stimulate “wholehearted devotion to the service of their country.”34 This widely held belief in the efficacy of the past as a school of civic virtue became one of the most familiar tropes of Jubilee discourse. In 1927, history was taken seriously as an indispensable tool for nation building, both by the state and by key constituencies in civil society. These views on the salutary effects of history and the primarily didactic purpose of the Diamond Jubilee were fully endorsed by federal organizers. In early April, the Executive Committee formed two subcommittees to deal with the historical and publicity aspects of the celebration. Drawing on the services of prominent scholars, journalists, and advertising executives, such as Hector Charlesworth, George Herbert Wrong, and M.O. Hammond, they were responsible for producing historical background materials in both official languages and in a variety of formats, including film, for distribution to newspapers and magazines, radio stations, schools, churches, libraries, service clubs, and local Jubilee committees. A.G. Doughty, the Dominion Archivist and chairman of the Historical Sub-committee, attached particular importance to making the history of Canada “significant and real” for schoolchildren.35 But what were the most effective means for arousing a popular interest in “Canada’s fascinating story” and communicating its lessons to both native-born Canadians and recently arrived immigrants? How could young people be induced to develop an “historically founded patriotism” in “a jazz-mad age?”36 In the 1920s, a favourite expedient for releasing “the latent interest of the public in departed things,” endorsed by both national and local promoters of the Diamond Jubilee, was the historical pageant. Lorne Pierce referred to the “well-known usefulness of historical pageants in teaching history,” especially in the lower grades, where they “enable boys and girls to gain most in character, understanding and enjoyment.”37 By “dressing the past in veritable clothes” and creating “living pictures” of past events, pageants made history seem “more significant and real.”38 The modern historical pageant, properly conceived and executed, consisted of “dramatic or epic narrative episodes chosen from the events of history and prepared for representation either in dialogue and action or by pantomime, the whole usually arranged in chronological order.”39 The genre was revived and redefined around the turn of the century by Louis Napoleon Parker who, beginning with the Sherbourne pageant of 1905, staged a series of spectacles commemorating the medieval origins of various English communities. It was soon exported to the

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United States where, shedding its original, explicitly anti-modern orientation, the pageant form was championed by the Progressive movement as a weapon in its struggle against trusts and monopolies and the dehumanizing effects of industrial civilization. Reformers viewed pageantry as a vital moral and creative force in civic life, capable of regenerating a sense of community and fostering a more participatory democracy through the “educated involvement of ordinary citizens” in cultural life. Somewhat naively extolled as an “art of the people, by the people and for the people,” the historical pageant rapidly became institutionalized through the creation of a number of university programs providing training in this new form of community theatre, and the establishment of the American Pageant Association in 1913.40 Canada did not lag far behind: “Canada and particularly Quebec did not escape the pageant fever that, little by little, spread to the remotest regions.”41 The earliest and certainly the most spectacular Canadian manifestation of modern secular pageantry occurred in Quebec City in 1908, only three years after Parker’s inaugural effort. Over six successive nights, an extraordinarily lavish pageant devoted to the history of New France from Cartier to the Conquest was staged on the Plains of Abraham, with a cast of over three thousand elaborately costumed local residents. It formed the centrepiece of the celebrations marking the tercentenary of the founding of Quebec by Champlain and set the aesthetic standard for all subsequent efforts to employ pageantry for nation-building ends.42 The creators of Canadian pageants borrowed performative elements from both the British and American models, including the use of choral singing, orchestral music, pantomime, poetry, tableaux vivants, and interpretive dancing. They were usually designed to be mounted outdoors in a prominent public space and depended, in the case of more ambitious efforts, on wide community involvement in both production and performance, with local volunteer committees responsible for publicity, costumes, fundraising, stage design, set and float construction, and historical research. Processional pageants, consisting of floats representing important scenes in tableau form – much like a medieval “wagon-staged” passion play – and contingents of costumed marchers, allowed for a higher degree of community participation and were especially popular in Canada during the Diamond Jubilee year.43 The historical pageant may have shed its self-consciously democratic trimmings when it was transplanted to Canada from the United States. In 1927, however, the promoters and organizers of Diamond Jubilee pageants

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firmly believed, like their American counterparts, in the positive moral, educational, and political value of their creations. In April, the National Executive accordingly issued a booklet of General Suggestions for the Guidance of Committees in Charge of Local Celebrations that, among other directives, strongly advocated the use of processions and parades as a means of bringing together the entire community in “a great outdoor gathering.” Historical pageants were touted as the best means of “stimulating interest and enthusiasm among all sections of the community … and directing the hearts and minds of the people to Canada – what she has done in the past and what we hope to make of her in the future.”44 These worthy intentions, however, begged some crucial questions. Exactly what episodes from Canada’s complex and contentious past were most likely to achieve these results? And how were they to be represented? How could history be exploited for nation-building purposes in a newly sovereign state handicapped by “differences of race and creed” and a “variety and multiplicity of local needs,” containing “two or more subordinate nationalisms,” each with its own jealously guarded collective memories and mythologies?45 W. Stewart Wallace alluded to this difficulty in his influential tract, The Growth of Canadian National Feeling, originally published in 1920 and expanded and reissued in honour of the Diamond Jubilee. In the absence of a “common language, common religion and common historical traditions,” Canadian nationalism, unlike its Old World paradigm, was forced to draw much of its inspiration from the future rather than the past. The most important factor in the continued existence and growth of an “all-­Canadian national feeling,” argued Wallace, was the cultivation of common hopes and possibilities, founded on the “sheet-anchor” of the Confederation compromise and the acquisition of the “Great West.”46 Liberal elites at the federal level held a similar view of the genealogy of Canadian nationality. Largely ignoring the early centuries of discovery and settlement, the Historical and Publicity subcommittees chose to focus on the events and personalities of the Confederation period and the subsequent expansion and progress of the Dominion. They churned out articles, monographs, booklets, speeches, radio programs, press releases, and illustrated prints on such subjects as the British North America Act, the lives of the Fathers of Confederation, the growth of modern industry, developments in education, technological invention, the completion of the transcontinental railroad, the 1926 Imperial Conference, Vimy Ridge (but surprisingly little on any other aspect of the

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Great War), the new Parliament Buildings, the writing of “O Canada,” and so on.47 They described the profound structural changes of the previous half-century – rapid industrialization, explosive urban growth, mass immigration – in the most positive, celebratory terms, with no suggestion of the negative side effects that frequently accompanied them. They constructed a relentlessly upbeat, Panglossian narrative of Canada’s “peaceful and orderly” political, economic, and social development since 1867.48 And it was this highly selective, unapologetically liberal version of the Canadian nation-building project that the panCanadian nationalists on the Executive Committee especially wished to commemorate during the Diamond Jubilee year. In furtherance of their plans, a Pageants Sub-committee was created in early April, headed by A.G. Doughty, which was responsible for collecting and arranging appropriate historical materials and developing guidelines for local organizers “to stimulate them to undertake this graphic and concrete method of portraying great events in our past.”49 Doughty’s committee issued a booklet, showing how floats and tableaux appropriate to the occasion might be easily prepared by communities with limited means. The detailed illustrations, prepared by J.B. Lagacé, a prominent Montreal artist and sculptor also noted for the design of elaborate chars allégoriques for the annual Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day parades, were supplemented by a brief sketch of Canadian history, written by Doughty, highlighting significant historical events that the Executive Committee deemed suitable for inclusion in Jubilee pageants.50 The pageantry handbook provided a template for local commemorations, consisting of highly selective, officially approved representations of Canada’s past, present, and future. They included an allegorical personification of the Spirit of Progress, portrayed by a young woman in pseudo-Grecian costume, surrounded by emblems of modern industrial and agricultural production. A series of tableaux depicted Canada’s natural resources – her “vast forests,” “inexhaustible” fishery, and limitless grain fields – while more recent technological advances were represented by another vaguely classical female figure festooned with hydro wires and sitting under a lamp post, symbolizing the wonders of electricity.51 Modernization was therefore celebrated, but in sanitized, often archaic fancy dress. Doughty and his colleagues ignored, for example, the contributions of the labour movement to the development of Canada, despite the token presence of Tom Moore, the politically moderate and pragmatic president of the Trades and Labour Congress,

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4.1  “Electricity: Canada finds in the harnessing of her streams an unlimited source of power to drive her factories and light her homes.” From Suggestions for Historical Pageants, 37.

on the National Executive Committee. All forms of organized labour, even the respectable craft unionism represented by Moore, implied the persistence of class division and conflict, which federal organizers were reluctant to acknowledge in the context of a national celebration affirming the achievement of social harmony and political unity. Lagacé’s pièce de résistance was an elaborate allegory of Confederation, eschewing historically accurate impersonations of Macdonald and Cartier and the other Fathers – a collection of unprepossessing middle-aged white men in rumpled black suits – in favour of ten nubile young women in fluttering draperies and maple garlands representing Canada and the provinces.52 Even the modernizing bureaucrats and entrepreneurs on the Executive Committee recognized that the prosaic history of the preceding six decades did not furnish ideal materials for the inculcation of a new

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4.2  Diamond Jubilee of Confederation Parade, 1 July 1927, Portage Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba. From Archives of Manitoba.

national spirit. They therefore included several exemplary founders, visionaries, and trailblazers from the more heroic pre-Confederation past – Cartier, Champlain, La Vérendrye, Mackenzie – who could lend themselves to a selective official narrative of discovery, settlement, westward expansion, and inevitable progress towards nationhood. The mammoth historical pageant mounted in Ottawa on 1 July faithfully reproduced this official historical narrative; not a surprising outcome, since the procession, intended as the centrepiece of the climactic national Jubilee program, was largely designed and organized by members of the Pageants Sub-committee with Lagacé himself supervising the construction of the floats. The finished product, consisting of

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thirty-one tableaux mounted on flatbed trucks, accompanied by several thousand costumed marchers, amounted to a kind of visual, symbolic text that communicated in concrete, readily apprehended images, the liberal ideology of official nationalism during the Jubilee year. A number of floats celebrated such milestones of modernization as the telephone, credited with joining thousands of scattered settlements into a single interdependent community; the evolution of electric lighting, “carrying us in imagination from the remote farm to the heart of the busy city”; and the “Spirit of Progress” that since Confederation had presided over the dramatic growth of industry and agriculture.53 Another significant feature of the Ottawa pageant was the inclusion of images conveying the benign and expanding role of the state in Canadian society. The Department of the Interior sponsored a float depicting its historic role in providing land for settlers, exploring and surveying new districts, and – a recent extension of its mandate – administering national parks. The Office of the Postmaster-General contributed a scene entitled “Postal Progress,” illustrating the development of the mail service from its origins in New France in the early eighteenth century. Other floats reenacted the laying of the cornerstone of the original Parliament Buildings by the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, in 1860; the presentation of the British North America Act by Queen Victoria to delegates of the four original provinces in 1867; and the extension of Canadian sovereignty to the Far North, with its tableau of the intrepid Captain Bernier of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (playing himself) formally taking possession of the Arctic Islands in 1909.54 The politically sensitive, yet unavoidable subject of the Great War was discreetly and ingeniously addressed by a generic float, notably lacking in militaristic trappings, innocuously entitled “Canada’s D ­ efenders.”55 The float featured four soldiers and sailors “in the characteristic uniforms of different periods, from New France to the present time.” It revealed the determination of federal organizers – acutely sensitive to Quebec’s barely diminished sense of grievance over the Conscription Crisis – to downplay if not altogether suppress the memory of the Great War, while at the same time acknowledging the proud martial traditions of the French-Canadian race and its historical contributions to the nation-building project. In 1927, much of Canada was swept by pageant fever. The pageant handbook published by the National Executive proved to be unexpectedly popular, with the Manitoba Jubilee Committee urgently requesting two thousand additional copies in early June to meet the demand

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from community organizers and schools. Graham noted that “moving pageants” were being staged in all the large cities on the first of July, noting with satisfaction that “this was the first time in our history that work of this kind on such a scale was conceived and carried out entirely by the people of Canada themselves.”56 Yet, perhaps the most striking aspect of this popular enthusiasm for historical pageantry and commemoration was the extent to which local pageants deviated from the historical themes and representations sanctioned by the National Committee, despite the wide circulation of official Jubilee guidelines, directives, circular letters, suggested programs, and so on. Participants and spectators in different parts of the country often incorporated their own beliefs and values about the right ordering of social and political life, and frequently, their own alternative memories of Canada’s past into local Jubilee celebrations, recasting the national imaginary enshrined in official commemorative rituals, for their own purposes. Many of them rejected definitions of the nation based on an unhyphenated Canadianism, which by itself was too arid and abstract to provide a basis for a secure sense of identity, especially in a period of rapid and disruptive change. Something resembling a popular national consciousness had undoubtedly begun to flower in the 1920s, which helps to account for the enthusiastic response to the Diamond Jubilee in every part of the Dominion. But this newly awakened national consciousness did not trump all the other, “vernacular” group identities by which Canadians defined themselves in 1927. It had to be mediated by the less abstract, more concrete and immediate particularities of ethnicity, language, gender, class, and locality. The Diamond Jubilee of Confederation suggests that different social groups could only express their attachment to the nation state through the cultural filter of their vernacular identities.57 A distinctive sense of Canadian nationality – the Holy Grail of Jubilee organizers – could only acquire substance and meaning by incorporating, not transcending, these partial identifications, formed out of older and more intimate associations than the nation state. The Canadian Forum perceptively pointed to the fragmented, “curiously sectional character” of the nationalism that in 1927 was being incubated “in social clubs, at the meetings of farmers’ organisations, in artistic and literary circles, and labour conventions,” with “the nationalism of the Prairie Provinces being opposed at many points to the nationalism of the industrial East.”58 During the Jubilee year, these jostling, competing sources of collective identity were staked out and reinforced through

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historical representations that did not always fit the official, liberal, pan-Canadian template of the past. Local Heroes: The Diamond Jubilee and the Representation of Regional Identity Federal organizers of the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation repeatedly stressed the importance of focusing local celebrations on national themes, which were calculated to “inspire confidence in, love for and devotion to the country as a whole.” It was devoutly hoped that the Jubilee would “quicken the National Soul” and encourage the flowering of a “robust, self-reliant National Spirit without which no country can ever attain real greatness.”59 Many provincial and local committees, however, chose to place a more regional spin on the commemoration of the Diamond Jubilee. The Saskatchewan Provincial Committee, for example, proposed to “trace the development of the West from the early days by way of pageants,” which were to include “early settlers in the costume of the day, Mounties, cowboys, Indians, pioneers, ox-carts, covered wagons … and various nationalities … in colourful costumes depicting the part they played in the development of the province.” “Pageants,” insisted one committee member, “should be specifically of a western character and typical of those things that had assisted in the building up of the country.”60 In Manitoba the Provincial Jubilee Committee prepared its own booklet “of floats and pageantry peculiar to Manitoba since Confederation.”61 In western Canada the Jubilee was transformed in many localities into a regional festival commemorating the achievements of early pioneers and the subsequent dynamic growth of the Prairie Provinces. The enormous processional pageant that wound through the downtown streets of Winnipeg on 1 July included 175 floats, divided into thematic sections – Historical, Industrial, Civic, and so on – that were intended to “embrace all features of city life.” The patriotism of the organizers and participants was avowedly local, concerned with commemorating important events “from the early days of Manitoba” to the present. It highlighted the arrival of French explorers and fur traders in the eighteenth century, the founding of the Red River Settlement, the coming of the railroad, the achievement of provincial status and incorporation into the Dominion – with, startlingly, no allusion to either Riel or the Métis. It then went on to trace the “progress of civic enterprise

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and services,” and the “advancement of trade and industry” in Winnipeg and the surrounding districts.62 Neither Cartier nor Champlain, the two supreme historical icons of both pan-Canadian and Quebec nationalists, figured in the Winnipeg pageant. Apart from representations of La Vérendrye and the French fur traders and missionaries who reached the Prairies in the middle of the eighteenth century, there were no references to the history of New France or, indeed, to any events or personalities, apart from the Fathers of Confederation, associated with Central and Eastern Canada. The intense localism of Winnipeg’s “pageant parade” was hardly surprising, given the decision to recycle many of the floats created for the city’s highly successful fiftieth birthday celebrations of 1924. Three years later, Winnipeg’s Diamond Jubilee Committee was content to offer a rerun, on a somewhat grander scale, of the earlier civic commemoration.63 Their unwillingness to invest the Jubilee of Confederation with a distinct national significance, and unreflective willingness to resurrect themes and motifs more appropriate to a strictly local commemoration, reveal the extent to which they misunderstood the directives of the National Committee. Despite the nationalist credentials of committee members like J.W. Dafoe, publisher of the Free Press, the Winnipeg celebration remained above all an expression of Western Canadian pride and chauvinism, rooted in the desire to advertise the unlimited potential of the region, in defiance of the gathering signs of stagnation and decline. Solidarity without Consensus? Montreal and the Hybrid Fête of 1927 The localism of Quebec’s response to the Diamond Jubilee was a product of indifference and, in some cases, of outright opposition to the official meanings of the event. The excitement and enthusiasm with which much of English Canada anticipated the Jubilee was notably lacking in Quebec, thanks in part to nationalist groups like L’Action canadienfrançais, which directed its members “to shun the celebrations since in eight out of nine provinces the Francophone minority has obtained only the most meagre and grudging tolerance.”64 Louis-Alexandre Taschereau, the Liberal premier, did not appoint a provincial committee until the first week of June, despite constant prodding by the National Executive, which feared that Quebec would not make “a creditable showing.”65 A generic program of civic ceremonial, including special

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masses, military parades, and the decoration of monuments, was hastily cobbled together for Quebec City, but many smaller communities in the province appeared to ignore the Jubilee altogether in favour of the annual Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day celebration.66 Eugène L’Heureux, the publisher and editor of Le Progrès du Saguenay, an influential regional newspaper based in Chicoutimi, excused the apathy of his compatriots as a justified reaction to the “complete ignorance, wounding contempt and at times blatant hostility” of English Canada for everything French Canadian. Among other injuries and grievances, L’Heureux cited Ontario’s refusal to repeal its notorious Regulation XVII, which denied its francophone citizens the right to be taught in their maternal language in the public school system; the inability of English-Canadians to acknowledge Confederation as a pact made between two equal parties, “leaving each element the right to develop according to its religion, language and culture”; and the tendency of the English majority to treat French Canadians as “immigrants in their own country.” In order for the Jubilee to succeed in Quebec, “his people would have to forget a great deal.”67 In Montreal, however, fears that time was too short to organize a “fitting” celebration were allayed by the simple expedient of combining the Diamond Jubilee and the Fête nationale into a single hybrid patriotic festival. Montreal’s Jubilee celebrations were organized by a hastily assembled “citizens’ committee” of civic leaders, in close collaboration with the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal. By conflating the two antithetical commemorations of 24 June and 1 July, however, the Montreal Committee unintentionally exposed the peculiar ambiguities of national identity for French Canadians. It was far from obvious, for example, at least to an outside observer, which patrie the crowds of francophone Montrealers were celebrating and honouring when they took to the streets and parks of the city during the ten days of “varied and grandiose public events,” which began with “a huge historical procession” on 24 June and ended with a “day of thanksgiving” on 3 July.68 The Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste, for example, insisted that the traditional procession, which included massed contingents of all local sections and an image of le petit saint Jean, had to take place on 24 June, Quebec’s national day, instead of 1 July. However, they obligingly included a note in their program, announcing that in 1927, “Montreal’s celebration of the Feast of Saint John the Baptist would form part of the programme of festivities in honour of the sixtieth anniversary of Confederation.”69 And the organizers of the Fête nationale chose a theme,

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“Four Centuries of History 1497 to 1927,” that might equally well have applied to both occasions. However, apart from allegorical representations of Confederation, Economic Life, The Blessings of Electrical Power, and Prosperity, virtually all the floats related exclusively to the history of Quebec or Montreal. Nearly half of the forty floats dealt with the exploration and settlement of New France, including the landing of Cartier at Stadacona, Champlain at Quebec, the founding of Montreal by de Maisonneuve, the iron forges at St Maurice, scenes of everyday life on the seigneury, and so on. The section of the parade relating to the history of Quebec after the Conquest prudently confined itself to uncontentious events such as the opening of the first elected assembly in Lower Canada in 1792 and the building of the Lachine Canal, while suppressing any reference to the patriotes of 1837. There were the inevitable nostalgic evocations of habitant culture – making maple sugar in “le bon temps vieux,” “le jeu de dames au village,” etc. But there were also a surprising number of floats marking local milestones of material and technological progress: the development of Montreal’s street railway system, the establishment of the first steam-driven spinning mill, the coming of the automobile, a modern telephone exchange. There were, however, very few images with any connection to broad national themes, and no references whatever to historical events in other provinces.70 The 1927 défilé, together with other Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day processions of the interwar period, challenge the persistent stereotype of Quebec before the Quiet Revolution as a society defined mainly in terms of ancestor worship, an obscurantist religious faith, and a mythologized preindustrial past. In 1927, the province’s nationalist elites were willing to celebrate both the vanished glories of the ancien regime and the benefits of modernization. But it was only the progress and modernization of French-Canadian society that was being represented to the more than 150,000 spectators who lined Sherbrooke Street on the afternoon of 24 June to observe the hybrid fête of the Jubilee year. Later in the afternoon, all forty-seven sections of the local Saint-JeanBaptiste Society assembled, with thousands of schoolchildren, around the base of the Cartier monument in Jeanne Mance Park for “a great Jubilee demonstration,” featuring speeches by Henri Bourassa and other luminaries, massed bands and choirs, and the singing of “chants patriotiques”; all the ritual ingredients, in other words, of a typical manifestation of 24 June. The main attraction was Bourassa who, having been invited to speak by the General Council of the Society, had

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accepted only on condition that he was allowed free rein to proclaim “the truth about our history and our society as it appears to me.”71 Bourassa’s tour de force of analysis, invective, and passion presented a qualified defence of Confederation, arguing that, with all its shortcomings, it remained “an imperfect yet acceptable political ­arrangement.”72 Its future survival, however, was far from assured, and would depend on the fulfilment of three conditions: the termination of Canada’s remaining ties to the British Empire; the recognition by the English majority of the dualistic nature of the Canadian nation and the restoration of the historical and constitutional protections previously afforded to the French language; and finally, the re-establishment of a more stable balance in the Canadian economy between industry and agriculture. Bourassa’s tone was severe and categorical, eschewing the bland euphemisms and pious evasions that distinguished most Jubilee oratory. And he ended by inviting the huge crowd to join him in reciting a powerful nationalist variation of the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father,” he intoned, “who art in Heaven … thy will be done on our Canadian soil as it is in heaven … give us your bread, the bread of peace … but deliver us from evil so that your providential designs for us and for all peoples may be fully accomplished.”73 To which tens of thousands of voices solemnly responded in unison: “Amen.” It was an electrifying performance, staged in a profoundly symbolic setting, in the open air on a “radiant” summer day, with the statue of George-Étienne Cartier and the great cross on the summit of Mount Royal as a backdrop. And, as he had anticipated, Bourassa’s “examen du conscience” did cause a great deal of offence in certain quarters – both anglophone and francophone – for exposing the fault-lines running just below the surface of Montreal’s supposedly harmonious Jubilee celebration. But the cracks in the façade of ritualized solidarity opened up by Bourassa in the afternoon were once again papered over by the evening portion of the program. Yet another remarkably lavish historical spectacle – “Canadian History in Pageant,” described as a “glittering, gorgeous gala event incorporating song, dance and story” – was presented in the same location in front of forty thousand spectators from both language groups under the auspices of the Montreal IODE. Consisting of “seven inspiring episodes,” “fifteen patriotic tableaux,” and “ten appropriate ballets,” the pageant portrayed key episodes in the lives of Jacques Cartier and Samuel de Champlain, interspersed with dozens of “terpsichorean creations,” from Iroquois war dances to stately minuets at the French court, in addition to patriotic songs, intricate marches and

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drills, “military evolutions,” and “a number of startling surprises.” The entire production was written, directed, and choreographed by Frank Norman, Sr, a prominent local dance instructor and pageant master, and performed by twelve hundred “loyal native sons and daughters,” including forty Mohawks from Kahnawake. Misleadingly described as “symbolic of Canada’s Diamond Jubilee and sixty years of Confederation” (its avowed purpose, according to the souvenir program, was to transport onlookers back to a time “when Canada was still the Red Man’s undisputed territory”), the pageant had first been performed back in May, where it ran for seven nights at the Princess Theatre in honour of Empire Day.74 Like the earlier défilé, it performed double duty, as a didactic representation of the past that could serve the commemorative needs of both “founding races.” The ability of Montreal’s hybrid procession to cross the city’s social and linguistic divide was assisted by the growing convergence between the collective memories of Canada’s two “founding peoples.” Organizers of the 1927 fête ensured that most of the notable “firsts” represented in the procession – the earliest postal service, legislative assembly, railroad, steamship, cotton mill, and so on – were connected in some way with Quebec, conveniently enabling them to serve as symbols of either Canadian or canadien achievement. So, for example, while both English and French Montrealers acknowledged George-Étienne Cartier as a hero, the former insisted on commemorating him primarily as a loyal British imperialist and Macdonald’s loyal Quebec lieutenant, the latter as a French-Canadian patriot, “one of the most remarkable products of his race,” the “selfless defender of his people and his province.”75 Both linguistic communities claimed the maple leaf and the beaver as symbols of cultural identity and adopted “O Canada” (albeit with two radically different sets of lyrics) as a kind of unofficial national anthem. The leading figures of the heroic age of New France – above all Cartier and Champlain – were venerated in Quebec as the founders and most exemplary products of a unique French and Catholic civilization that had yet to fulfil its historic destiny on the North American continent; while for English-Canadian imperialists they had always represented intrepid pathfinders from a romantic, almost mythical past whose daring exploits prepared the way for the providential triumph of the British Empire in 1759. The considerable overlap between the historical icons of English and French Canada helped to sustain the appearance of consensus and unanimity during the Jubilee year, lending credibility to the claims of official pan-Canadian nationalism that, despite their

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long history of political and religious conflict, the two “founding races” of the Dominion had finally arrived at a (more or less) common sense of nationality. Quebec francophones were tacitly allowed to accept the nation state as simply an extension of their beloved patrie, a political and economic framework for preserving “the faith and the traditions of their ancestors”76; ­leaving their English-speaking neighbours free to imagine the history and traditions of French Canada as merely a stage in the pleasantly picturesque infancy of the Dominion. The ambiguous and multivocal rituals of Montreal’s hybrid celebration, which brought the members of both linguistic communities into the streets in their hundreds of thousands, allowed francophones to submerge the painful memories associated with Confederation and its aftermath in the glorious history of la patrie canadienne-française, and at the same time provided anglophones with the comfortable illusion that their French-speaking fellow citizens were as contented with the outcome of the last sixty years of forced marriage as they were. David Kertzer has questioned the ability of ritual to create genuine consensus in polarized societies. He argues, instead, that political rituals are most effective in forging solidarity in the absence of any consensus on the “constitutive principles” that define a sense of national identity and belonging.77 It was arguably the sense of solidarity generated by the shared, bicultural rituals of the Fête nationale and the Diamond Jubilee – with their striking “polyphony of voices, overlapping and criss-crossing, contradictory and ambiguous, opposing, affirming and negotiating their views of nation”78 – that in 1927 contributed to a discernible thaw, though falling well short of the perfect concord proclaimed by national organizers, in relations between French and English Canada, and a new, more durable modus vivendi. The Empire Strikes Back: English Canada and the Ambivalences of National Belonging In 1927, many English-speaking Canadians were decidedly ambivalent about the idea of progress extolled by the liberal nationalists on the Executive Committee. They expressed anxiety about the social, cultural, and moral consequences of modernity, even as they enjoyed its undoubted material benefits. Middle-class anglophone organizations like the National Council of Women, the IODE, and the Native Sons of Canada urged their members to honour the achievements of the

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Fathers of Confederation and demonstrate their loyalty and patriotism by playing a leading role in commemorating the birth of the Dominion. At the same time, however, they were issuing dire warnings about “the immigration menace” and the “tremendous world-wide race problem”; the growing threat of the “feeble-minded” and the “sub-normal”; the pernicious effects of imported American magazines, comic books, “Negro” music, popular dances, and Hollywood movies; the destructive impact of rampant materialism and growing sexual permissiveness on family life and the moral health of Canadian youth; the sinister influence of Communist propaganda, especially on ignorant and gullible foreigners not yet assimilated to British notions of civic virtue and political liberty.79 So it is not surprising that the past many of them chose to commemorate in 1927 offered an escape from the pressures and strains of modern life into a simpler, pre-modern world of oldfashioned heroism, unambiguous moral virtue, and fortitude. In many English-­Canadian Jubilee pageants, Confederation was not the starting point of a nation-building narrative that charted the inexorable ascent of the new Dominion since 1867, but a kind of epilogue to a series of representations glorifying Canada’s remote colonial past. Representations of the “heroic age” of Canadian history also served as a sublimation of imperialist sentiments that, if openly expressed in the context of a national commemoration, might have seemed tactless, even unpatriotic. Many English Canadians remained bitterly opposed to Mackenzie King’s nationalist initiatives: his rebuff to Great Britain during the Chanak Crisis, his assertion of Canada’s autonomy at the 1926 Imperial Conference, the opening of a Canadian legation in Washington, the abortive attempts to introduce a new national flag were all cited as damning evidence of the Liberal government’s “separationist” agenda, culminating in complete independence from Britain and the break-up of the Empire. In the 1920s, Toronto’s dominant cultural identity and primary political allegiances were shaped by the Irish Protestant origins of the majority of its overwhelmingly anglophone population. The city combined the fierce tribal loyalties of Ulster with the conservative political values of the Loyalist tradition, which was still a formidable force in Ontario in the interwar years, to produce a British ethnic nationalism that was buttressed by a deeply felt commonality of culture, a common history, and by the belief in a common destiny.80 In 1927, that destiny was still conceived in imperial rather than national terms. Trailing behind it centuries of glorious history and clouds of sentimental associations,

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the British Empire was a more vivid reality in the “Queen City” than any putative Canadian nation. Drawing on a richer and more familiar stock of memories, myths, traditions, and symbols, this “imagined community” of “Greater Britain” still formed for many Torontonians in 1927 the key boundary marker of their collective identity, binding them more closely to their compatriots in the other white Dominions than to many of their naturalized fellow citizens. The antipathy of many conservative anglophones towards the panCanadian nationalism of liberal elites was reflected during the Diamond Jubilee year in frequent expressions of faith in the evolution of the British Empire towards ever closer unity; an insistence on retaining “God Save the King” as the national anthem, against the growing popularity and acceptance of “O Canada” – a “religious hymn that glorified the papal spirit,” according to the Orange Sentinel; and in an interpretation of Confederation as an epochal event in imperial, as opposed to national history.81 Confederation, explained the national president of the IODE, was actually an inspired scheme for strengthening and perfecting imperial unity, for “cementing the tie that bound Canada together as an integral part of the Empire” (emphasis added).82 The Official Souvenir Programme of Toronto’s Jubilee celebrations contained a revealing confession of faith by the mayor, Thomas Foster, a staunch Conservative and Orangeman: “We love our City, we honour our King and we are proud of our membership in the British Empire.”83 The absence of “Nation” from this trinity is telling. British-Canadian ambivalence about the nation during the Jubilee year was epitomized by G. Howard Ferguson, the Conservative premier of Ontario, who insisted on the primacy of the imperial theme at a banquet organized by the Toronto Council of Women to honour the surviving daughters of the Fathers of Confederation. He delivered a “vigorous” (and, given the venue, deliberately provocative) defence of the imperialist faith, declaring that “a united Empire must be a united Canada’s only worthwhile goal.” In a thinly veiled rebuke to Mackenzie King and other Liberal “autonomists,” Ferguson suggested that “instead of exhibiting our own petty vanity about the position we are occupying, we should be thinking only of improving our British position.” He deplored the current tendency to “indulge in the puerilities of the National Complex” and the attempts being made to turn the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation into “a solely self-regarding celebration.”84 During the frequently acrimonious debate over Bill 65, Thomas L. Church, Toronto’s long-standing Conservative Member of

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Parliament, insisted that there was no desire for a Jubilee celebration among his constituents, who he claimed were far more preoccupied with the economic problems facing the country as a result of Liberal mismanagement; and went so far as to suggest that the Jubilee was a partisan plot, “hatched by a lot of Canadian Clubs” and a Liberal government primarily interested in celebrating its recent electoral victory at the taxpayer’s expense. According to Church, “the only occasion on which you can get a decent parade in Toronto is July 12,” when fifteen thousand people would happily turn out to proclaim their attachment to their British Protestant heritage. But every other pretext for staging a patriotic celebration, including Dominion Day, “was invariably a failure.”85 Church represented the anxious, pessimistic face of British-­Canadian conservatism during the interwar years, which was deeply (and rightly) sceptical of Liberal assurances that the country was entering a new era of prosperity. Dismissing government claims of full employment and rising wage rates, it insisted that the unprecedented boom extolled by Liberal ministers and their corporate allies was an illusion, a confidence trick that benefited a corrupt minority. Only “American millionaires who have been allowed to plunder and exploit our natural resources” would have any interest in celebrating Confederation, which in any case, “was hardly a shining success.”86 These anxieties, regrets, and imperialist rearguard actions contributed, in certain parts of English Canada, to a prevailing mood of what the American historian Michael Kammen has described as “nostalgic modernism,” defined as “a commitment to and a suspicion of modernity.”87 Church’s confident prediction that Toronto would spurn the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation was not borne out by events. The Toronto celebrations did, however, demonstrate an uneasy symbiotic relationship between imperialist nostalgia and capitalist modernity that shaped British-Canadian responses to the Jubilee. In Toronto, the highlight of the Dominion Day observances was a mammoth “moving historical pageant,” over four miles long, consisting of thirty-five lavishly decorated floats and eight thousand marchers, which was viewed by over 120,000 people.88 It was, in the words of one reporter, “undoubtedly the finest thing of the kind that Toronto has ever seen.” This rapturous response was echoed by all sections of the local press, including the normally more jaundiced intellectuals of the Canadian Forum. “There was never witnessed another parade in Canada,” declared its drama critic Fred Jacob, “which could boast the same artistic

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oneness, the same uniformity of ideas, colour and feeling … All the ­tableaux on the floats were worked out along similar lines … ­possessing sufficient continuity to produce a crescendo of emotion.”89 Jacob failed to notice, however, the absence of references to the most cherished themes of the National Jubilee Committee : the achievements of the Fathers of Confederation, Canada’s economic and technological development since 1867, the milestones on the road to full sovereignty and nationhood – those central, “epoch-making events” that according to federal organizers and publicists the Diamond Jubilee was supposed to commemorate and proselytize. The Toronto pageant emphasized, instead, the exploits of local founders and pioneers, and scenes from a romanticized pre-Confederation past. The highly theatrical floats and tableaux, arranged in chronological order, began with “Indians roaming the forests in unchallenged freedom,” Norsemen “daring the unknown of Nova Scotia’s shores,” and Cabot setting out from Bristol. They went on to represent the usual assortment of iconic figures from the French period, such as Cartier, Champlain, Madeleine de Verchères, Dollard at the Long Sault, and Wolfe at Quebec; followed by episodes of provincial and local history, including the establishment of Fort Rouille, the coming of the Loyalists, the founding of the town of York by Simcoe, Laura Secord (without her cow) eavesdropping on the American officers, Egerton Ryerson addressing a Methodist camp meeting, and rustic portrayals of pioneer life. But, astonishingly, there were no representations of the Fathers of Confederation or any allusions to the events leading up to 1867. The only reference to the Great War was a sombre float entitled “The Veterans” – a late addition to the parade, included at the insistence of local Legion branches90 – featuring survivors of the Fenian Raids, the Northwest Rebellion, the Boer War, and the Canadian Expeditionary Force grouped between two cenotaphs, symbols of sacrifice and mourning that deliberately avoided making any redemptive links between Canada’s military exploits and nation building. The only representation of modern industry consisted of a rather obscure allegorical float contributed by the Canadian Manufacturers’ Association depicting “the birth of the machine.”91 In 1927, the past that seemed worthy of commemoration in Canada’s most modern and dynamic metropolis was mythical and pre-industrial, populated by daring explorers, intrepid coureurs de bois, noble savages, valiant redcoats, and sturdy settlers. All the developments that flowed from the creation of the Dominion – industrial revolution, territorial expansion, mass immigration, rapid urbanization, growing political

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autonomy – threatened a collective identity shaped by a more distant past and were therefore ignored. Toronto’s ambitious Diamond Jubilee pageant reveals, despite the prevailing mood of public euphoria on 1 July, an underlying sense of uneasiness about the mixed fruits of the past “sixty years of Canadian progress.” Yet, many of the same people who enthusiastically applauded the Toronto pageant in the afternoon and danced Irish jigs and Scottish reels in local parks in the evening were also saving for a down payment on a new Model A Ford, investing in the stock market, and looking forward to the release of the latest Chaplin film. And later in the summer, they flocked in unprecedented numbers to the Canadian National Exhibition, that “throbbing, pulsating epitome of twentieth century progress.”92 An attachment to the “romance of Canadian history,” like their cherished rites of royalty and empire, provided reassurance and compensation, putting the more disturbing aspects of contemporary life into perspective. It did not signify a reaction against modernization, so much as its necessary by-product, providing a temporary refuge from current anxieties and the comforting illusion of continuity with an exemplary heroic past. Like the classical goddesses symbolizing modern industry in the Ottawa pageant and the living exhibits of habitant craftsmen and Aboriginals in their “powwow regalia” at the CNE,93 it served, among other purposes, to make the new and strange acceptable by associating it with the old and familiar.94 Whose Sixty Years of Progress? The Diamond Jubilee and the Gender of Nation Builders Many local programs did not so much exclude references to the modern world and post-Confederation Canada as veil them in fancy dress. The indispensable contributions of women to local Diamond Jubilee celebrations offer a case in point. Before the First World War, women had played a mainly passive and decorative role in civic celebrations, their participation typically limited to personifying the spirit of the community or morally uplifting abstractions like Temperance, Virtue, Peace, and Plenty. Despite the advances made by women in the intervening years – in the political sphere, the workplace, higher education – they remained confined to this largely passive role in the forms of commemoration devised by the National Committee. There were only a handful of passing references to women in the hundreds of historical articles distributed to newspapers and magazines. As we have seen,

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Lagacé and his colleagues on the Pageants Sub-committee could only visualize women as symbolic representations of national identity, as in the case of “Miss Canada” or “Britannia,” or more incongruously, as personifications of industry, natural resources, and other attributes of national development. They might also be included in generic scenes of domestic or agricultural labour. But there were no representations of modern women as suffrage campaigners, temperance leaders, teachers, social workers, telegraph operators, retail clerks, or workers assuming an independent role outside the home. The idea of progress extolled by official nationalism, narrowly defined in terms of industrial development, technological innovation, and constitutional milestones, had no place for the social and political emancipation of women since 1867.95 Through their extensive networks of voluntary associations, however, middle-class women were able to carve out a distinctive public role in the early twentieth century, as guardians of collective memory and community identity, in such fields as heritage preservation, local history, and genealogy. In 1927, the active involvement in civic commemoration of the IODE, the National Council of Women, and a host of other patriotic, historical, genealogical, and charitable organizations helped to invest the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation with a range of gendered meanings that were largely absent in the official template of commemoration. Women from a variety of occupational backgrounds – teachers, journalists, novelists, librarians – wrote a number of historical and religious pageant scripts during the Jubilee year, which were performed in classrooms and church halls throughout the country. Many of these productions, directed specifically at children, emphasized a number of themes, such as the threat of militarism and war, the need for international cooperation through the League of Nations, and the evils of alcohol, which in 1927 lay well beyond the purview of official nationalism.96 Clubwomen were appointed to key positions on local Jubilee committees and in many centres, such as Peterborough, Welland, Owen Sound, Westminster, and Renfrew, were wholly responsible for mounting historical pageants and processions.97 It is no coincidence that tributes to women as nation builders figured more prominently in many of these commemorations. In Medicine Hat, the Diamond Jubilee parade was led by a float representing the “Mothers of Confederation to remind Canadians of the part played by women in building up the Dominion.”98 Historical pageants in Toronto, Victoria, and other centres featured representations of Canadian heroines – Madeleine de Verchères,

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Madame La Tour, Evangeline, Jeanne Mance, Laura Secord – who were endowed with an iconic status previously reserved for male explorers, soldiers, politicians, and “captains of industry.” This represented an advance over Miss Canada and the Goddess of Hydro-electric Power. But there were few opportunities for inserting the still unfolding story of women’s emancipation in the post-Confederation era. In Toronto, the Council of Women convened a special Diamond Jubilee Committee in February to co-ordinate the participation of their members and affiliated organizations, proposing “to demonstrate the history of female work in some way.”99 The Toronto pageant, however, with its focus on the pre-Confederation period, precluded any reference to the work of modern emancipated women and the Local Council’s Jubilee Committee had to be content with sponsoring floats of Laura Secord and a handful of other token exemplary women from the colonial past. Such constraints did not trouble the Toronto chapters of the IODE which, like their Montreal counterparts, demonstrated little interest in Confederation and its sequel, preferring, for commemorative purposes, to rely on more colourful and dramatic episodes and personalities from the colonial era. Their implicitly imperialist construction of the Diamond Jubilee, which privileged epic narratives of exploration, war, and conquest over the mundane realities of modern state formation, found expression in an extraordinary historical pageant produced by the combined Toronto chapters of the IODE, in which virtually all the parts, from Cartier and Champlain to John A. Macdonald, were played by six hundred, bearded and bewigged cross-dressing Daughters of the Empire.100 Written by Amy Sternburg, a young IODE member active in local theatre circles, it was staged at Massey Hall on three successive nights in the last week of June, selling out for every performance and garnering respectful notices from the city’s leading drama critics. The social connections and financial resources of IODE members enabled them to secure the services of the Hart House Players and Orchestra, and a professional theatre director and choreographer.101 All but two of the pageant’s seven main segments related to the period before 1800 and included such stock scenes as Jacques Cartier, surrounded by “wondering Indians,” claiming Canada for the French King, Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham, the arrival of the Loyalists, and the opening of the first Parliament of Upper Canada at York. These dramatic episodes were interspersed with static tableaux of the Order of Good Cheer, the doomed Henry Hudson and his son adrift in a rowboat, Madeleine de Verchères rallying the defenders of the besieged fort,

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Jesuits preaching to the Huron, Mackenzie at the Pacific, the first survey of the Town of York, Laura Secord and Captain FitzGibbon, and finally, the Fathers of Confederation as portrayed in Harris’s famous collective portrait of the delegates to the Quebec Conference. The grande finale consisted of a ballet symbolically representing the characteristics of the nine provinces “as individual units and parts of the whole.” It ended with a matronly Britannia leading a bashful, maidenly Miss Canada onto the stage, where they were joined by the other cast members and assorted Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, military cadets, and Mounties for a stirring rendering of “God Save the King.”102 In Ontario, organized middle-class women were by 1927 deeply involved in the civic life of their communities. The unapologetically conservative and imperialist Daughters of the Empire no less than the liberal and nationalist members of the Canadian Club movement eagerly participated in the commemorative rituals of the Diamond Jubilee. But apart from highlighting the exploits of a few exceptional heroines like Laura Secord and Madeleine de Verchères, Canadian women in 1927 devoted most of their talents to celebrating the nationbuilding achievements of men. Crashing the Party: “New Canadians” and the Representation of Ethnicity in 1927 The National Jubilee Committee insisted, in its exhortations to provincial organizers, that “the foreign-born settlers in Canada,” particularly those in the West, should be fully included in local celebrations, in order to “direct their thoughts to Canada and to their duties, responsibilities and privileges as prospective Canadian citizens.”103 The ultimate purpose was not to showcase the cultural diversity that immigrants had introduced into Canadian society, although local committees might wish to include recent arrivals in their native costumes to lend a “touch of colour” to the proceedings. Far from insisting on a multicultural celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation, the principal lesson to be conveyed by the participation of “New Canadians” was the desirability and inevitability of assimilation, of the absorption of their particular ethnic identities into a common Canadian nationality, however vaguely defined. A handful of visionaries, like J. Murray Gibbon, the publicity director of the Canadian Pacific Railway, may have looked forward to the transformation of Canada into a genuine mosaic, in which ethnic minorities would be permitted and even encouraged

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to preserve aspects of their traditional cultures and contribute to the emergence of a new national type incorporating the best features of the many different peoples that had arrived since 1867. Most panCanadian nationalists, however, opted for a Canadian version of the American “melting pot,” which required immigrants to “cast off their European skin, never to resume it.”104 And in order to drive the lesson home, the National Committee strongly recommended that Jubilee pageants, in districts with a significant foreign population, include a float containing a group of adult immigrants wearing their traditional national costume, with “their children before them clothed as modern young Canadians”,105 an image that implied the optimistic expectation of a smooth, painless entry, without struggle, without hardship, rejection, and discrimination, into mainstream society. For Winnipeg’s remarkably diverse immigrant communities, the Diamond Jubilee unintentionally provided a state-sanctioned opportunity for “communal self-discovery.” The enormous Dominion Day pageant that had so unconcernedly flouted the guidelines of the National Committee presented a moving microcosm of the entire community. Its most conspicuous and novel feature, however, was the large number of entries sponsored by and representing the various ethnic groups of Winnipeg, which up to this time had been largely confined, geographically and politically, to the margins of civic life. The two hundred members of the Winnipeg Diamond Jubilee Committee, composed of the usual, socially exclusive assortment of anglophone city officials, local business leaders, clergymen, Rotarians, and clubwomen, without a single representative of the city’s largely Eastern European immigrant neighbourhoods, were initially uncertain about the best means of facilitating the inclusion of New Canadians in the municipal celebrations. A delegation of officers from various ethnic associations approached the committee with a proposal, which was readily accepted, to contribute a number of floats to the Jubilee pageant and organize, at their own expense, an evening program of entertainment at Assiniboine Park to which all city residents would be invited.106 These “foreign-speaking” contingents constituted a kind of ­countercommemoration that subverted official narratives of the rise of a modern industrial society peopled by a new breed of undifferentiated citizens by flaunting their traditional national cultures and ethnic identities. Twenty different nationalities were represented in the “patriotic section” of the parade, which included women and children in peasant costumes singing folk songs in their native languages and floats showcasing the contributions of immigrants to the early settlement of

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Manitoba, as well as “stirring scenes and events in the histories of their respective countries.”107 This unscripted, unprecedented public display of Winnipeg’s multicultural identity was followed later in the evening by an elaborate ritual performance in Assiniboine Park, which symbolically affirmed the possibility of “Canadianization.” It consisted of an impressive tableau vivant of “Canada standing in the midst of the races she has gathered to be her people.” Boys and girls “gay in the colours of many lands” stood grouped around a benign and protective matriarchal figure, dressed in white fur and crowned with scarlet maple leaves, played by Mrs G.K. Gainsford, a granddaughter of John A. Macdonald, and sang “O Canada,” “The Maple Leaf Forever,” and “God Save the King.’108 It provided the reassuring spectacle of young immigrants gratefully accepting their adopted country’s Anglo-Saxon cultural inheritance, heralding the fusion of their various ethnic identities in a new undifferentiated Canadian nationality. In 1927, however, the formation of this eagerly anticipated new nationality remained in the realm of wishful thinking, in the absence of a common national culture – constructed out of such key markers of identity as a shared language, history, and religion – to give it substance and also given the more potent emotive power and visceral appeal of competing group identities and allegiances. Winnipeg’s Diamond Jubilee pageant may have offered simplified, stereotyped representations of ethnicity, purged of any trace of hardship or trauma, and characterized mainly by quaint traditional folkways. Yet, these representations, while calculated to reassure and appeal to the dominant society, at a time when memories of the General Strike and the fear of “foreign agitators” and Bolshevism that accompanied it were still fresh, also reflected the way in which most ethnic communities preferred to display themselves in the public sphere. The Ukrainians, who formed the largest and most conspicuous immigrant community in Manitoba – the “loudest, most vigorous and best organized,” according to one historian – symbolized, for many contemporary observers, the policy of mass immigration initiated by Clifford Sifton in the early years of the century.109 On the one hand, most of the Ukrainian community’s members were committed to their adopted country, despite being stigmatized as undesirable aliens and subjected to discrimination. Ukrainians achieved success in a variety of occupational fields from farming to the professions. They demonstrated their loyalty to King and Country at every opportunity, during public holidays, coronations, royal visits, and other ceremonial occasions. But a sense

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of belonging was hardly synonymous with assimilation, and Ukrainians of every political tendency demonstrated a determination to maintain their transplanted national culture. During the interwar years, the Prairie Provinces witnessed a remarkable proliferation of Ukrainian dance and theatre troupes, mandolin orchestras, sports clubs, folklore societies, cultural festivals – usually associated with Shevchenko, their great national poet – newspapers and publishing houses, and most significantly, privately financed heritage schools to ensure that the second generation of Ukrainian Canadians retained their ancestral language.110 The unchaperoned participation of Ukrainians and other immigrant groups in Winnipeg’s Diamond Jubilee program signalled their implicit rejection of the policy of Canadianization pursued by all levels of the state and incorporated into the plans of the National Committee. In proclaiming their contributions to the settlement and development of Canada, Ukrainians were pressing their claim to be recognized as nation builders, alongside the British Loyalists and French habitants, and like the members of the two “founding races,” to be Canadian on their own terms. Reappropriating an Embattled Past: Indigenous People and the Diamond Jubilee Indigenous people also expressed a strong desire to participate in the events of the Diamond Jubilee year. Band councils sent a steady stream of letters and petitions to local Indian agents and Ottawa, requesting permission and funds to celebrate the Jubilee on their reserves.111 The Department of Indian Affairs initially refused to provide money for such “unproductive” purposes.112 After some debate, however, and over the objections of DIA officials, the National Committee decided to permit Indigenous people living on federal reserves, rather than incur the expense of organizing their own celebrations, to join in the festivities of neighbouring communities. The impulse of official nationalism to seek legitimation by mobilizing the consent of all groups within Canadian society took precedence over the DIA’s qualms. It was “highly desirable,” announced the committee, “that as many First Canadians as possible take a prominent part in the observance of the Jubilee.”113 How can this eagerness on the part of Indigenous people to join the rest of the country in commemorating the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation be explained? Far from conferring any benefits, Confederation had inaugurated a policy of “increasing interference, attempted political control and coercive efforts to transform [them] culturally and economically.”114

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The year of the Jubilee itself saw the passing of the notorious revision to the Indian Act, making it illegal to raise or grant funds for the pursuit of land claims. In other words, it is not clear, what the Indigenous people of Canada had to celebrate in 1927. Some of them may have entertained the hope that their demonstrations of patriotism might lead to the recognition of disputed rights and the repeal of noxious regulations. If so, such hopes would prove illusory. Other motives, however, connected to the survival of their traditional cultures, may have been more salient. For Indigenous people, the price of admission to the new, pan-­ Canadian “imagined community” heralded by the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation was the abandonment of their traditional Aboriginal culture, viewed by progressive nationalists as an inevitably doomed relic of a vanished past, an obstacle to the development of those skills and habits of discipline and self-reliance required by a modern capitalist society. It might, with the aid of ethnologists, safely be revived for special ceremonial occasions like the visit of the Prince of Wales or the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, as a kind of living historical artifact, prized for its educational value in whetting the appetite of the rising generation for the study of history, but otherwise traditional Aboriginal culture had no place in contemporary society. In a number of communities, local Indian agents and missionary teachers tried to ensure that the participation in Jubilee programs conformed to this official assimilationist agenda. The highlight of the Dominion Day observances in Cardston, Alberta, for example, was a processional pageant featuring residents of the nearby Blood Reserve, contrasting their former “primitive, nomadic way of life” with their newfound identities as industrious modern farmers. The pageant opened with scenes of “Indian Braves in Full Regalia” and “Indians in Traditional Costume, Mounted and with Travois,” followed by “The Modern Indian in Wagons, Buggies and Automobiles.” The “Pageant of the Indian Past, Present and Future,” performed by pupils of St Paul’s Residential School, conveyed a similar blunt message of enforced acculturation, with its enactment of how, under the tutelage of the Church of England Missionary Society, Aboriginal children were “casting away the things which typified their old barbarous life” and abandoning “their weird and uncertain conception of divinity for the Church and organized Christian benevolence of their white brothers.”115 In Kenora, the Indian agent allowed reserves under his jurisdiction to participate in municipal celebrations “on condition that in addition to having Indians in costume, the Committee should also contrive the

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presence of Indians in modern clothing to show advancement.”116 A notably ambitious pageant produced in St Boniface on 2 July re-enacted the arrival of “the gallant soldier and adventurer La Vérendrye” in 1734. Described as “the most elaborate pageant of any town or city in western Canada,” it was written and directed by Father Deschambault, a local priest and schoolteacher. Staged on the banks of the Red River, it depicted the landing of La Vérendrye, accompanied by a contingent of priests and nuns, and his meeting with “the friendly Indians,” portrayed by “forty redskins with their squaws and papooses brought in from Shoal Lake especially for the occasion.” After an extended parley, the Aboriginal performers, to the delight of the huge crowd of spectators, staged “an authentic pow-wow to the beat of the tom-tom to assure their good fellowship.”117 The La Vérendrye pageant ended somewhat improbably with the chief offering to “divide the vast expanse of land with the white men if only the great black robes might be brought into their midst and baptize them into the faith.”118 These pageant scripts undoubtedly devalued traditional Indigenous culture by treating it simply as a quaint relic of a largely vanished past, reduced to a popular form of entertainment for the delectation of white communities. But how effective were they in communicating the desirability of assimilation and “advancement” to their intended audience? Many press reports describe how both white and Aboriginal spectators responded with particular warmth and enthusiasm to those representations of “primitive” traditional culture that the Department of Indian Affairs was most concerned to suppress. Arguably, the main, wholly unintended significance of the Diamond Jubilee for Indigenous peoples throughout the Dominion was the golden opportunity it presented to resurrect and revivify the very cultural practices that in the 1920s federal government officials were determined to stamp out. Many communities eagerly embraced the suggestion to include nearby reserves in their Jubilee plans, sidelining Indian agents who usually found their authority overruled by senior civil servants on the Executive Committee. To the dismay of Indian agents engaged in an ongoing battle with young activists to enforce the DIA’s ban on traditional dances, local Jubilee committees were unwilling to impose any restrictions on the participation of Indigenous performers, who represented an unfailingly popular source of spectacle that guaranteed the success of any community event and could be counted on to attract freespending tourists.119 Hundreds of towns and settlements in Western Canada and Northern Ontario exploited their proximity to reserves by

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inviting band members to perform powwows and ceremonial dances, compete in lacrosse matches, demonstrate traditional handicrafts, and take part in parades, pageants, and historical re-enactments.120 For Canadians seeking a respite from the increasing uniformity and accelerating pace of modern life, “Indians in full regalia” served as therapeutic emblems of a “lost past, nostalgically perceived and romantically constructed.”121 Relegated to the role of generic, exotic Others, Indigenous people were forced to follow scripts they had no part in creating, which suppressed any reference to the dispossessions, cruelties, and injustices they had endured at the hands of Europeans. Wrenched out of their original context and performed for the entertainment of uncomprehending white audiences, their dances and powwows may not have represented “meaningful enactments, materializations and realizations” of traditional Indigenous culture,122 and they may even have helped to perpetuate crude racial stereotypes in the minds of white onlookers. But this must have seemed an acceptable price to pay for the opportunity, handed to Indigenous people on a platter by their oppressors and seized with alacrity, to frustrate the assimilationist agenda of the Department of Indian Affairs and guarantee some measure of survival to their embattled cultural inheritance. Conclusion: The Diamond Jubilee of Confederation and the Uses of Ambiguity The sheer, unexpected magnitude of the nationwide popular response to the Diamond Jubilee accounted for the elation of Mackenzie King and other representatives of official nationalism, and led both organizers and participants to equate the minimal consent to the established order implied by mere attendance at public rituals with a social and political consensus that did not, in fact, exist in 1927. The tensions of the 1920s, “a difficult and conflicted period of transition” to modernity and nationhood, may have been obscured by the striking “collective effervescences” of that Dominion Day weekend. But they could clearly be detected in the heterodox and even subversive forms of commemoration that were devised at the local level. Broadly speaking, the hundreds of historical pageants and processions that were produced to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation embodied two very different constructions of Canadian nationhood. The commemorative strategies of Western regionalists, unrepentant imperialists, aggrieved French Canadians, marginalized

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immigrants, and oppressed Aboriginals seemed to prefigure the nation as merely the sum of its increasingly diverse parts: a pluralist accretion of particularisms, a mosaic of distinctive traditions, memories, myths, and identities transmitted from one generation to another, defined by such terms as heritage or patrimoine. Pan-Canadian nationalists, however, conceived of the Diamond Jubilee as a vehicle for submerging these outdated particularisms in the “new nationality” whose seeds had been planted in 1867. The collective rituals of the Diamond Jubilee year reveal a curious dialectical relationship between these two contrasting conceptions of nationhood, as various social groups resisted the hegemonic claims of a state-sponsored liberal nationalism by more forcefully asserting their claims to an anterior, less totalizing identity.123 The National Committee clearly failed to realize its original explicit aims, to the extent that the commemorative rites of the Diamond Jubilee remained stubbornly multivocal, incorporating multiple narratives of the past that ordinary Canadians believed were most worth remembering and, as a result, strengthening rather than weakening the older solidarities underpinned by such memories. Many historical representations of the Jubilee year defined a sense of national belonging through the prism of more deeply rooted and familiar communities of identity, by remembering and celebrating pioneer ancestors, ethnic heroes, and other cherished symbols of local and vernacular cultures. According to cultural anthropologists, collective rituals can empower those who may at first be controlled by them. The Diamond Jubilee of Confederation unintentionally provided civic time and space for various groups in Canadian society to define and publicly display the multiplicity of symbolic frameworks through which they experienced the nation state. In the process, they succeeded in frustrating the aspirations of pan-Canadian nationalists, incidentally revealing the limits of official commemoration as an instrument of elite domination and control.124 But the liberal agenda of national unity and social and political cohesion was nevertheless advanced in 1927, despite the absence of consensus about what it meant to be Canadian in the twentieth century. For it turned out that social and political solidarity was not strengthened by resolving or suppressing disagreements about what the nation stood for, but by allowing them to be freely represented and expressed; by inviting all the diverse groups that made up Canadian society to gather together in the metaphorical public square created by the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation and “to address each other across the boundaries of difference.”125

The Diamond Jubilee of Confederation  135 NOTES 1 An earlier version of this chapter appeared as Robert Cupido, “Appropriating the Past: Pageants, Politics and the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 9 (1998): 155–86. 2 King goes on to lament with characteristic self-loathing: “I alone was unworthy.” William Lyon Mackenzie King, The Mackenzie King Diaries 1893–1931 (transcript) (Toronto: UTP, 1973), 3 July 1927. 3 Canada, Executive Committee of the National Committee for the Celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation, Report of Executive Committee, National Diamond Jubilee of Confederation (Ottawa: F.A. Acland, 1928), 9–10, 13–59. 4 Ibid., 10. 5 Minutes of National Executive Committee, 17 Mar. 1927, Library and Archives Canada (LAC), RG 6 D3, Canada, Secretary of State, National Committee for the Celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation Corp. 6 For example, George M. Wrong et al., The Federation of Canada: Four Lectures (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1917); Saskatchewan Department of Education, Canada’s Golden Jubilee of Confederation 1867–1917 (Regina: Author, 1917); Ontario Department of Education, Jubilee of Confederation 1867–1917 Empire Day Wednesday May 23rd 1917 (Toronto: Author, 1917); John Blue et al., The Jubilee of Confederation 1867–1917 (Edmonton: J.W. Jeffery, 1917); Canadian Club of Vancouver, Jubilee of Confederation Commemoration 1867–1917, Monday July 2nd 1917 (Vancouver: Author, 1917). 7 Since the original version of this article appeared in 1998, the outpouring of monographs, articles, and theses in both English and French exploring different aspects of collective memory in Canada, from an impressive variety of methodological and theoretical perspectives, has increased to the point that only a representative sample of recent works that I have found particularly relevant to the relationship between commemoration and national and other group identities can be cited here: Colin M. Coates and Cecilia Morgan, Heroines and History: Representations of Madeleine de Verchères and Laura Secord (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002); Helen Davies, “The Politics of Participation: A Study of Canada’s Centennial Celebration” (PhD dissertation, University of Manitoba, 1999); Anne Gilbert, Michel Bock, and Joseph Yvon Thériault, eds., Entre lieux et mémoire: L’inscription de la francophonie canadienne dans la durée (Ottawa: Les Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 2009), especially the contributions of Patrice Groulx, Geneviève Lapointe, and Matthew Hayday; Alan Gordon, The Hero and the Historians: Historiography and the Uses of Jacques Cartier (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010); Alan Gordon, M ­ aking Public

136  Robert Cupido Pasts: The Contested Terrain of Montreal’s Public Memories, 1891–1930 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001); Patrice Groulx, Pièges de la mémoire: Dollard des Ormeaux, les Amérindiens et nous (Gatineau, QC: Vents d’Ouest, 1998); Patrice Groulx, La marche des morts illustres: Benjamin Sulte, l’histoire et la commémoration (Gatineau: Vents d’Ouest, 2008); Peter T. Hodgins, “The Canadian Dream-Work: History, Myth and Nostalgia in the Heritage Minutes” (PhD dissertation, Carleton University, 2003); Jocelyn Létourneau, A History for the Future: Rewriting Memory and Identity in Quebec (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004); Ian McKay and Robin Bates, In the Province of History: The Making of the Public Past in Twentieth-Century Nova Scotia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010); Cecilia Morgan, Creating Colonial Pasts: History, Memory, and Commemoration in Southern Ontario 1860–1980 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015); Cecilia Morgan, History, Heritage, and Memory 1850s–1990s (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016); Nicole Neatby and Peter Hodgins, eds., Settling and Unsettling Memories: Essays in Canadian Public History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012); H.V. Nelles, The Art of Nation-Building: Pageantry and Spectacle at Quebec’s Tercentenary (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999); James S. Opp and John Walsh, eds., Placing Memory and Remembering Place in Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010); Ian Radforth, Royal Spectacle: The 1860 Visit of the Prince of Wales to Canada and the United States (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004); Ronald Rudin, Founding Fathers: The Celebration of Champlain and Laval in the Streets of Quebec, 1878–1908 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003); Ronald Rudin, Remembering and Forgetting in Acadie: A Historian’s Journey through Public Memory (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009); Ruth Sandwell, ed., To the Past: History Education, Public Memory, and Citizenship in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006). 8 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 258–60. 9 The genesis of the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation and the key role played by nationalist elites associated with the Liberal Party and the Canadian Club movement in promoting the project and securing the support of the King government, is described more fully in Robert Talbot’s contribution to this volume. 10 See Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 15 Feb. 1927, 349–51; 17 Feb. 1927, 409–13; see also Report of the Executive Committee, National Diamond Jubilee. Robert Talbot’s essay herein on the promotion of bilingualism and biculturalism by Jubilee organizers provides a more detailed analysis of the composition of the National Committee, especially in terms of its deliberate balancing of anglophone and francophone members.

The Diamond Jubilee of Confederation  137 11 Talbot’s essay in this volume provides a detailed and illuminating account of the many initiatives undertaken by federal organizers in their determination to mount a fully bilingual and bicultural celebration, at least at the national level, and provide a practical demonstration of the equality of the two linguistic communities within Confederation. 12 The phrase was coined by Ernest Renan, in his classic essay “What Is a Nation?” (1882). Jeffrey K. Olick, Vared Vinitzky-Seroussi, and Daniel Levy, eds., The Collective Memory Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 83. 13 The term was originally coined by Maurice Halbwachs, in his seminal 1925 study The Collective Memory (New York: Harper & Row, 1980). Both the concept and the methodology adopted by students of collective memory have been criticized from various disciplinary perspectives for their alleged lack of rigour and consistency. Much work undoubtedly remains to be done in clarifying conceptual issues – the field of memory studies is relatively speaking still in its infancy. But the extraordinarily rich body of scholarship that has already been generated by students of collective memory, in Canada and internationally, is arguably its own validation. For an invaluable recent survey of the field, see Olick et al., The Collective Memory Reader. 14 For a recent authoritative survey of the entire field of “social memory studies,” see the introduction to Olick et al., The Collective Memory Reader. 15 For an especially lucid discussion of the relationship between collective memory and identity, see John Gillis’s introduction to John Gillis, ed., Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 3–26. 16 Judith M. Green, Deep Democracy: Community, Diversity and Transformation (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), 153. 17 Olick et al., introduction to The Collective Memory Reader, 21. 18 There is an obvious relationship between the nation-building agenda of the nationalist elites responsible for the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation and Ian McKay’s hermeneutic concept of the “Liberal Order Framework” for the study of modern Canadian history. Ian McKay, “The Liberal Order Framework: A Prospectus for a Reconnaissance of Canadian History,” Canadian Historical Review 81 (2000): 617–45. In retrospect, the Diamond Jubilee can be conceived as a key milestone in the consolidation and legitimation of the “Long Liberal Revolution” that, according to McKay, defines the dominant current of Canadian history from the 1840s to the 1940s. However, I would argue that the Diamond Jubilee reveals just how precarious and contested the hegemony of these liberal elites and their modernist project still remained in the early decades of the twentieth century and,

138  Robert Cupido conversely, how persistent and potent remained the influence of older, traditional ideological discourses, such as the “Loyalist Order Framework” analysed by Jerry Bannister in his “Canada as Counter-­Revolution: The Loyalist Order Framework in Canadian History 1750–1840,” in JeanFrançois Constant and Michel Ducharme, eds., Liberalism and Hegemony: Debating the Canadian Liberal Revolution (Toronto: UTP, 2009), 98–146. 19 Graham Spry, Passion and Conviction: The Letters of Graham Spry, edited by Rose Potvin, (Regina: University of Regina, Canadian Plains Research Centre, 1992), 46–50. 20 W. Stewart Wallace, The Growth of Canadian National Feeling (Toronto: Macmillan, 1927), 2, 41, 78. 21 Lorne Pierce, New History for Old (Sackville, NB: Mount Allison University, 1931), 14–15. 22 The First Canadian Historical Congress and the Willingdon Foundation: A Short Discussion about the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation and Certain Commemorative Proposals Arising Therefrom (Oshawa: [s.n.], [1927]), 3. 23 The Report of the Duncan Commission, King’s belated and ultimately inadequate response to the Maritime Rights Movement, was submitted in September 1926, with several of its key provisions implemented during the Jubilee year. Its timely concessions on freight rates, Dominion subsidies, transportation policy, and other long-standing grievances created a temporary mood of optimism in the region, inducing many communities to set aside their resentments and celebrate the Diamond Jubilee as a harbinger of a renewed Confederation and better economic times to come. Among the impoverished inshore fishing villages of Nova Scotia, however, Dominion Day remained an occasion for bitter collective protest; as in Canso where, on 1 July 1927, an extraordinary mass “indignation” meeting was held in the town square to ask what Confederation had done for Atlantic coast fishermen. The widely publicized demonstration was one of the key episodes in the founding of the Antigonish Co-operative Movement. David Frank, “Class and Region, Resistance and Accommodation,” in E.R. Forbes and D.A. Muise, eds., The Atlantic Provinces in Confederation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 241, 258–61; M.M. Cody, Masters of Their Own Destiny (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1939), 10–11. 24 For an evocative fictional account of a Dominion Day community picnic in Manitoba in the 1880s, see Nellie McClung, A Clearing in the West (Toronto: Thomas Allen, 1935), 104–12. 25 The First Canadian Historical Congress, 2. 26 Norman Rogers, “Our History in Our Schools,” The Busy East (June 1927): 21–3.

The Diamond Jubilee of Confederation  139 2 7 Montreal Gazette, 21 May 1927, 8. 28 The First Canadian Historical Congress, 2. 29 Rogers, “Our History in Our Schools,” 21. 30 Ibid., 23. 31 Montreal Gazette, 18 May 1927, 4; 21 May 1927, 8. 32 Echoes (Mar. 1927): 6. 33 Manitoba Free Press, 21 Sept. 1927, 10. 34 Echoes (Mar. 1927): 37. 35 Report of Executive Committee, 66–8. 36 The First Canadian Historical Congress, 14. 37 Pierce, New History for Old, 67. 38 The First Canadian Historical Congress, 14; Echoes (Mar. 1927): 28. 39 Mary Porter Beegle, Community Drama and Pageantry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1916), 13. 40 For a comprehensive history of the American pageant movement, see David Glassberg, American Historical Pageantry (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993). 41 “Le Canada, plus particulièrement le Québec, n’échappent pas à la fièvre des pageants qui, peu à peu, gagne les régions le plus éloignées.” Rémi Tourangeau and Marcel Fortin, “Le Phénomène des Pageants au Québec,” Histoire du Théàtre au Canada 7 (Fall 1986): 220. 42 Nelles, The Art of Nation-Building. Nelles shows how the event generated conflict between French-Canadian nationalists and anglophone imperialists, who both tried to appropriate Quebec’s “heroic age” for their own political purposes. 43 Proponents of pageantry generally did not favour the processional type, which tended to degenerate into a mere parade of civic organizations if participants could not be persuaded to wear historical costumes, or, even worse, might be tainted by commercialism – “the local milk wagon covered with red, white and blue bunting.” Beegle, Community Drama, 40–1. 44 Canada, Executive Committee of the National Committee for the Celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation, General Suggestions for the Guidance of Committees in Charge of Local Celebrations (Ottawa: F.A. Acland, [1927]), 5–6. 45 Wallace, The Growth of Canadian National Feeling, 78, 82. 46 Ibid., 41–2, 80. 47 Report of Executive Committee, 67–8; Confederation and After: Sixty Years of Canadian Progress: A Series of Biographical Sketches and Historical Articles (Ottawa: F.A. Acland, 1928). 48 It was epitomized and popularized by the potted history of the postConfederation period compiled for the Historical Sub-committee by the

140  Robert Cupido Dominion Bureau of Statistics. R.H. Coats, ed., Sixty Years of Canadian Progress, 1867–­1927 (Ottawa: F.A. Acland, 1927), of which 200,000 copies (!) were published and distributed during the first half of 1927. 49 Report of Executive Committee, 8. 50 Canada, Executive Committee of the National Committee for the Celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation, Suggestions for Historical Pageants, Floats and Tableaux … for the Guidance of Local Committees … General Sketch of Canadian History with Special Reference to the Confederation Period (Ottawa: F.A. Acland, 1927). 51 Ibid., 37. 52 Ibid., 40. 53 Unnumbered file, Diamond Jubilee Pageant Ottawa, LAC, RG 6, D3, vol. 445; ibid., vol. 459, unnumbered file, Various Jubilee Projects and Celebrations. 54 Ibid. 55 Unnumbered file, Various Jubilee Projects and Celebrations, ibid., vol. 459. 56 Report of the Executive Committee, 10. 57 For an influential study of the distinction between “official” and “vernacular” discourses of commemoration in an American context, see John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992). 58 Canadian Forum (Apr. 1927): 195. 59 Minutes of Mtg of National Executive Committee, 22 Mar. 1927, LAC, RG 6, D3, vol. 445, file 3. 60 Woods to Cowan, 30 May 1927, ibid., vol. 447, file 9. 61 Thomas Boyd circular letter, May 1927, ibid., vol. 448, file 20. 62 Ibid. 63 The Picture Collection of the Provincial Archives of Manitoba contains extensive files of images relating to both commemorations. A comparison of the photographs of the 1924 Golden Jubilee parade – e.g., those catalogued as Events 24/1–29 and Foote 368, 370–74 – with the pictures of the 1927 pageant in the Peter Macadam Collection, nos. 226–49, reveals a striking degree of overlap between the two events. 64 “de bouder les fêtes puisque dans huit provinces sur neuf, les minorités françaises n’obtiennent qu’une chiche tolerance.” Robert Rumilly, Henri Bourassa (Montreal: Chantecler, 1954), 699. 65 Minutes of Mtg of National Executive Committee, 28 Apr. 1927, LAC, RG 6, D3, vol. 445, file 2. 66 Benoit to Désy, 8 June 1927, ibid., vol. 448, file 2. 67 L’Heureux to Graham, 17 May 1927, ibid., vol. 454, file “Committee Lists, etc.”

The Diamond Jubilee of Confederation  141 68 “démonstrations variées et grandioses … un grand défilé historique … et un jour d’action de grâces.” Le Devoir, 23 June 1927, 1; Montreal Gazette, 21 May 1927, 4. 69 “à Montréal la célébration de le Saint Jean Baptiste era partie au programme des fêtes du soixantenaire de la Confedération.” Programme-­ Souvenir, 24 juin 1927 (Montreal: Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste, 1927), [2]. 70 Le Devoir, 23 June 1927, 1; Montreal Gazette, 21 May 1927, 4. 71 “la vérité historique et sociale, telle qu’elle m’apparaît.” He warned his hosts that many people were likely to be offended by his remarks, “même parmi vos amis.” To which Alfred Bernier, the secretary of the Society, had perhaps too readily replied: “C’est justement ce que nous voulons.” Robert Rumilly, Histoire de la Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal (Montreal: L’Aurore, 1975), 341. 72 “ une regime imparfait mais acceptable.” Le Devoir, 2 July 1927. 73 “Notre père, qui êtes aux cieux … que votre volonté soit fait sur notre terre canadienne comme au ciel … donnez-nous notre pain … le pain de la paix … mais délivrez-nous du mal, afin que s’accomplissent entièrement vos desseins providentiels sur nous et sur tous les peuples.” Le Devoir, 2 July 1927, 1; Rumilly, Histoire de la Société, 342. 74 Montreal Gazette, 21 May 1927, 10; 2 July 1927, 10; Echoes (June 1927): 47. 75 “le protecteur désinteressé de ses compatriotes et de sa province.”Action Catholique, 5 July 1927, 3. 76 “la foi et les traditions des ancêtres.” Programme-Souvenir, 24 juin 1927 (Montreal: Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste, 1927), [2]. 77 David I. Kertzer, Ritual, Politics and Power (New Haven. CT: Yale University Press, 1988), 66. 78 Prasenjit Duara, “Historicizing National Identity or Who Imagines What and When,” in Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, eds., Becoming National: A Reader (New York: OUP, 1996), 162. 79 For example, the October 1927 issue of Echoes, the official organ of the IODE, contains, besides reports on the contributions of local chapters to Diamond Jubilee celebrations in their communities, a hysterical report on the menace posed by non-British immigrants, ending with the sober revelation that “only one out of seven inhabitants of the British Empire is white!” Echoes (Oct. 1927): 15, 31–3. See also, National Council of Women of Canada (NCWC), Yearbook 1928 (Toronto: Author, 1928). 80 David Pearson, The Politics of Ethnicity in Settler Societies (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 75. Eric Kaufmann, “Dominant Ethnicity: From Background to Foreground,” in E. Kaufmann, ed., Rethinking Ethnicity: Majority Groups and Dominant Minorities (London: Routledge, 2004), 1–12.

142  Robert Cupido 8 1 Orange Sentinel, 27 Aug. 1927, 1. 82 Echoes (Dec. 1926): 6. Emphasis added. 83 Official Diamond Jubilee Souvenir Program City of Toronto, City of Toronto Archives (CTA), box 27, file 9: Pamphlet Collection, 11. 84 Toronto Star, 30 June 1927, 1. 85 Canada, Parliament, House of Commons, Debates 1926–27, 27 Feb. 1927, 415. 86 Ibid., 414. 87 Michael Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory (New York: Vintage, 1991), 301, 343. 88 Toronto Star, 2 July 1927; Fred Jacob, “The Stage,” Canadian Forum (Sept. 1927): 385–6; Report of Executive Committee, 41–2. 89 Canadian Forum (Sept. 1927): 385–6. 90 Minutes of Meetings, 27 May 1927, CTA, RG 200, box 1, book 2, Special Committee Re Diamond Jubilee of Confederation. 91 Toronto Star, 2 July 1927, 1–4; Report of Executive Committee, 41–2. 92 Toronto Star Weekly, 13 Aug. 1927, 11. 93 Ibid., 3. 94 Ferguson’s ardent imperialism, for example, did not prevent him from embracing the economic and technological by-products of modernity, and calling, in his 1927 Empire Day address, for “the best scientific brains in the community … to apply themselves to the development of industry and agriculture” – a program that would have held little appeal for an earlier generation of imperialists. Program for Empire Day, LAC, RG 6, D3, vol. 455, file: “Booklets,” 55, 57. 95 For a nuanced analysis of the gendered nature of national Jubilee celebrations, focusing on the very different representations of men and women in pageants, souvenir books, advertisements, and other cultural texts, see Jane Nicholas, “Gendering the Jubilee: Gender and Modernity in the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation Celebrations, 1927,” Canadian Historical Review 90, 2 (2009): 247–74. Nicholas demonstrates how the marginalization and even erasure of Canadian women from the official Jubilee narrative of progress towards modernity constructed by nationalist elites in 1927 was, thanks to the inherent ambiguity of commemoration, never complete. 96 Published pageants include True Davidson, Canada in Song and Story (Toronto: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1927); Nellie Medd, The Crowning of Canada: A Jubilee of Confederation Pageant (Exeter, ON: [s.n.], [1927]); Minnie Harvey Williams, The Romance of Canada: An Historical Pageant Suitable for Churches, Patriotic Societies, Community and Club Entertainments (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1927); Mrs H.J. Keith, Canada Her Friends and Future: A Pageant Celebrating Canada’s Jubilee 1927 (Winnipeg: [s.n.], 1927). The majority of these pageants were not separately published in book form, but appeared in magazines and Jubilee programs, or were privately circulated.

The Diamond Jubilee of Confederation  143 97 NCWC, Yearbook 1928, 115–37. 98 Ibid., 120. 99 Ibid., 118. 100 For a highly suggestive gender analysis of this pageant, which argues that commemoration provided women with an opportunity to insert themselves into the public sphere as defenders of civic values and ideologies that advanced a modern emancipatory agenda even when it was placed in the service of a reactionary political project, see Allana C. Lundgren, “Amy Sternberg’s Historical Pageant (1927): The Performance of IODE Ideology during Canada’s Diamond Jubilee,” Theatre Research In Canada 32, 1 (2011): 1–29. 101 Saturday Night (11 June 1927): 44. 102 Ibid.; Toronto Star, 24 June 1927, 8. 103 Cowan to Kerr, 23 May 1927, and Kerr to Cowan, 19 May 1927, LAC, RG 6 D3, vol. 448, file 20. 104 Lawrence Levine, The Unpredictable Past (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 193. 105 Cowan to Kerr, 23 May 1927. 106 Dafoe to Scammell, 21 May 1927, LAC, RG 6, D3, vol. 447, file 19; Manitoba Free Press, 7 May 1927, clipping in LAC, RG 6, D3, vol. 447, file 9. 107 Manitoba Free Press, 2 July 1927, 10; Report of Executive Committee, 24–6. 108 Manitoba Free Press, 2 July 1927, 2. 109 Barry Ferguson, “British-Canadian Intellectuals, Ukrainian Immigrants, and Canadian National Identity,” in Lubomyr Luciuk and Stella Hryniuk, eds., Canada’s Ukrainians: Negotiating an Identity (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 308. 110 Ibid., 314–15; Ol’ha Woycenko, “Community Organizations,” in Manoply R. Lupal, ed., A Heritage in Transition: Essays in the History of Ukrainians in Canada (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1982), 173–94; Orest Subtelny, Ukrainians in North America: An Illustrated History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 118–77. 111 Edwards to Scott, 19 May 1927; Lomas to Scott, 18 May 1927; Acoose to Scott, undated; Powless to Scott, 23 May 1927, LAC, RG 10, Records of the Department of Indian Affairs, vol. 6816, file 486-5-7, part 1. 112 Mackenzie to Lomas, 30 May 1927, ibid. 113 Montreal Gazette, 5 May 1927, 4. 114 J.R. Miller, Canada and the Aboriginal People 1867–1927 (Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association, 1997), 23. 115 Souvenir and Official Program Diamond Jubilee of Confederation 1867–1927 June 30 to July 3, 1927, Cardston, Alberta, Canada (Cardston: [s.n.], 1927), 3, 14–15.

144  Robert Cupido 116 Edwards to Scott, 19 May 1927. 117 Manitoba Free Press, 2 July 1927, 6. 118 Ibid., 4 July 1927, 4. 119 For example, Graham to Stewart, 21 May 1927; Moore to Scott, 27 Apr. 1927, LAC, RG 10, vol. 6816, file 486-5-7, part 1. 120 For example, Diamond Jubilee Celebration … Parry Sound, Friday July 1, 1927 … Come and See How the Natives Appeared One Hundred Years Ago!!! [broadside poster], ibid. 121 Gillis, Commemorations, 10. 122 Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, 114. 123 Forty years on, the celebration of Canada’s Centennial, discussed in this volume from a variety of perspectives in essays by Helen Davies, Robin Schwarz, Ted Cogan, and James Trepanier, arguably represented, among many other things, the apotheosis of this liberal, pan-Canadian vision of Canadian nationhood on the eve of its decline in the face of new demands for recognition and inclusion from the margins. By 1967, however, liberal nationalists had, consciously or otherwise, absorbed the lessons of the Diamond Jubilee. Helen Davies, in her contribution to this volume, shows how the Centennial was, to an even greater extent than the Diamond Jubilee, a multivocal commemoration. The national Centennial Commission adopted a more or less laissez-faire attitude towards local celebrations and initiatives. But, whereas in 1927 federal organizers were forced to allow the intrusion of alternative memories and identities into official commemorative discourse out of necessity, in order to preserve the fragile appearance of consensus, forty years later a more confident and optimistic political elite was willing to embrace a measure of difference and diversity as a positive virtue. 124 Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 193–6, 204–22; Steven Lukes, “Political Ritual and Social Integration,” Sociology 9, 2 (1975): 291–305; Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 50–3, 63–4. 125 Richard Sennett, “Disturbing Memories,” in Patricia Fara and Karalyn Patterson, eds., Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 14.

5 Bilingualism and Biculturalism at the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation, 19271 rober t j. tal b ot

The fiftieth anniversary of Confederation in 1917 was something of a missed opportunity, as the Great War and the smouldered ruins of Parliament, destroyed in a fire the year before, had not left people in a very celebratory mood.2 To be sure, the government did mark the occasion in Ottawa with a series of military marches, and the troops observed the anniversary overseas, but these events were more evocative of imperial solidarity than national unity.3 Indeed, while Canadian soldiers were fighting to preserve “civilization” in Europe, at home anglophones and francophones had become bitterly divided over conscription and the status of the French language outside Quebec: 1 July 1917 was not an overly happy Dominion Day. Ten years later, the federal government organized a special celebration for the sixtieth anniversary, the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation.4 This time, the emphasis would be on national unity. For the postwar civil society elites who were worried about Canadian unity, the sixtieth anniversary presented a tremendous opportunity – a “second chance” to articulate the values and history that bound Canadians together.5 As Robert Cupido explains in the previous chapter and as Mary Vipond and Maria Tippett have pointed out in their respective works, the organizers of the 1927 celebrations in Ottawa attempted to promote a more modern, progressive, and inclusive Canada, emphasizing the country’s embrace of new technologies, its vast economic potential, and even its cultural diversity.6 Bilingualism and biculturalism7 also informed the July 1927 celebrations on Parliament Hill. British- and French-Canadian music was performed, speeches alternated between French and English, and the celebrations were broadcast nationwide via radio in both languages.

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The rhetoric of biculturalism was not confined to the capital. In Montreal, featured speaker Henri Bourassa preached mutual respect between anglophones and francophones, and even Toronto’s Dominion Day parade included floats honouring Canada’s French heritage.8 The newspapers were smitten. The government even printed a special series of bilingual postage stamps. At a glance, the cultural dualism of July 1927 might seem ephemeral, even anomalous. Conscription was over, but French-Catholic education rights continued to be suppressed outside Quebec, and even at the federal level the status of the French language remained highly contested. Many British and French Canadians remained more interested in their respective racial identities than in any kind of shared national story. What, then, to make of it all? This chapter attempts to set the apparent bilingualism and biculturalism of the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation within the context of broader developments in the relationship between anglophones and francophones during the interwar period. It begins by looking at the state of cross-cultural relations in the lead-up to the anniversary, how bilingualism made it onto the agenda early on, and what the organizers hoped to achieve. Second, it attempts to establish how far the organizers were prepared to apply cultural dualism during the planning and promotion of the July 1927 celebrations. Third, it examines the extent of the cultural dualist message on 1 July and how it was projected to and received by the public and media. Finally, it briefly considers the impact of the Diamond Jubilee after 1927. This chapter argues that the modest bilingualism and biculturalism at Ottawa’s sixtieth anniversary of Confederation celebrations resulted from and contributed to a broader process of anglophone-francophone rapprochement that was already underway. The State of Cross-Cultural Relations and the Adoption of the Bilingual Principle for the Diamond Jubilee Celebrations in Ottawa Prior to 1914, many British and French Canadians looked to their common membership in a cosmopolitan and pluralistic British Empire as the basis for a shared national identity.9 The Conscription Crisis, however, turned francophones off imperialism for good, and contributed to a deep scepticism of anglophones in general. The war’s end and a series of “bonne-ententiste” initiatives aimed at promoting cross-­ cultural understanding improved relations somewhat, but national

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unity remained a major source of anxiety for the postwar elites.10 They recognized that a different basis for shared citizenship would have to be established – one that revitalized George-Étienne Cartier’s “political nationality” and the old “two founding nations” thesis of Canadian history. Many French Canadians believed, however, that British Canadians had rejected the idea of “two founding nations,” and with good reason.11 For decades, provincial governments had been rolling back the education rights of francophones outside Quebec – most contentiously in 1912 in Ontario, when the hated Regulation XVII had defunded Frenchlanguage schools. The status of French was also in doubt at the federal level. The British North America Act had officially guaranteed the use of French in Parliament and in the federal courts, but the language of the civil service had never been formally established. During and after the First World War, the proportion of French-speaking public servants dropped significantly. The wartime Cabinet of Conservative Prime Minister Robert Borden had virtually no representation from French Canada, meaning fewer francophone patronage appointments.12 Moreover, Borden’s reforms of the civil service in 1918 demanded that new employees be hired under a merit system based on English-language skills – French was not required, even for federal jobs in Quebec.13 Nowhere was this more grating than at the post office, where Canadians were most likely to interact with the federal government. The issue flared up during a debate in the House of Commons over a motion from Liberal backbencher P.A. Séguin on 2 March 1927 to give preferential treatment to bilingual candidates for federal civil service jobs. “In the largest French city in the world after Paris and Marseilles,” complained Henri Bourassa, “I have myself been told by a customs officer in the post office, when I asked in French for some information, [that] ‘this is an English country’... That is the way I was answered in a public office in the city of Montreal!”14 Séguin’s motion never came to a vote, but it sparked a vigorous and symbolic debate over whether or not Canada was a bilingual and bicultural country – a debate that would help set the tone for the upcoming Diamond Jubilee. French-Canadian MPs like Séguin and Bourassa and even a few sympathetic anglophones insisted that the equality of French and English should be formally recognized, at least federally. English and French were irrefutably “the two official languages of Canada,” argued the Liberal MP for Sherbrooke, Charles B. Howard: “Our ancestors came from two great countries ... so why should not

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this government take the same stand in connection with civil service employees?”15 For his part, Bourassa argued that bilingualism was necessary for national unity – to prevent French-Canadian isolation within Quebec, and to foster a distinct national identity: “We must make this country bilingual as much as we can in order to preserve it as a country different from the American republic.”16 Federal bilingualism had been at the very heart of the Confederation compromise of 1867, Bourassa continued, “conceived by [John A.] Macdonald and maintained as long as Macdonald lived.”17 Conservative British-Canadian imperialists like J.P. Edwards and Horatio Hocken, meanwhile, argued vehemently that French should be strictly confined to the terms of the British North America Act. Lacking any sense of irony, Hocken warned that federal bilingualism would discriminate against unilingual anglophones, complained that French already enjoyed too many privileges, and made the spurious claim that francophones were overrepresented in the civil service. Even in Quebec, he continued, federal employees should not be “compelled to speak the two languages.”18 Directing his comments at Bourassa, Edwards insisted that “all the races [should] regard the English language as the distinctive mark of our common citizenship here in Canada.”19 For Edwards and Hocken, English-unilingualism, and not bilingualism, was the best means to achieve national cohesion. It was in the context of this ongoing debate that the committee for organizing the Diamond Jubilee celebrations would first convene and make the conscious decision to promote, as the committee put it, “the frank recognition of the equality of the two languages.”20 Civil society leaders and cultural enthusiasts had been calling for a sixtieth anniversary celebration for some time.21 The influential Canadian Chamber of Commerce also lent its support – then as now, as Matthew McRae demonstrates in his chapter, patriotism was good for business.22 The most active lobby came from the nationalistic Association of Canadian Clubs.23 In 1926, ACC Chairman C.G. Gowan instructed the association secretary, Graham Spry, to present a proposal to Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. Of mixed British and French ancestry, Spry was a strong advocate of anglophone-francophone rapprochement in the wake of the wartime national unity crisis. The ACC proposed a three-day celebration, with the major events of 1 July on Parliament Hill to be broadcast coast-to-coast via radio – a national first.24 For King, the decision to go ahead would have been a political nobrainer. Promoting national unity and harmony via the Diamond Jubilee

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suited Liberal interests, given that much of the Party’s electoral base was in French Canada, and that King had decided in late 1925 to come out against Regulation XVII – outside Quebec, anglophone-francophone animosity tended to favour the Conservatives.25 Promoting Canadian identity via the Diamond Jubilee would also suit Liberal interests in light of the government’s assertion of Canadian autonomy during and after the King-Byng affair and the Balfour Declaration of 1926. In February 1927, King helped draft a bill to establish an independent organizing committee of parliamentarians and prominent citizens for marking the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation. The proposed committee included an Executive Committee and a number of subcommittees, and was charged with the tasks of planning a large celebration for Ottawa and helping coordinate events across the country, including pageants, parades, speeches, musical performances, and the awarding of commemorative medals and ribbons by local dignitaries. King would not be directly involved in the planning stage; he insisted that the specifics be left to the organizers themselves. With the backing of the opposition parties, the government secured a swift passage of the bill.26 Perhaps in an effort to avoid controversy, the official objectives of the coming celebrations were left ambiguous: the bill stated only that the celebrations would seek to “‘develop a robust Canadian spirit and ... a profounder national unity.’”27 When the organizing committee first convened, on 16 March, several members insisted that, whatever shape the celebrations might take, they should not be overly militaristic. Instead, the committee wanted the emphasis to be on “Canada’s desire for peace,” its history, and its pioneers (including women), and the contributions of its different regions and peoples through the use of pageantry, poetry, scholarship, folk songs, literary contests, and educational work. For the Diamond Jubilee organizers, perhaps, the horrors and the sectional divisions wrought by 1914–1918 were too recent, too familiar, and too painful to make the war a focal point of the celebrations. Celebrating diversity, culture, and history instead of conflict and a martial heritage, they concluded, provided the best means to achieve a “profounder national unity.”28 For a number of the organizers, acknowledging Canada’s cultural duality was integral to the overall theme of national unity, peace, and harmony. “Recognising that one of the chief functions of the celebration was to promote a spirit of unity in Canada,” explained Executive Committee Chairman George P. Graham, “[we] decided that, as far as

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possible, programs should be carried out and publications should be issued in the two official languages.”29 This resulted in part from the makeup of the overall organizing committee itself. Cabinet had been anxious to ensure that French and British Canadians be well represented.30 The committee was presided over by anglophone and francophone co-presidents, co-vice-presidents, and co-secretaries. Influential francophone statesmen on the executive included the likes of Charles Marcil, Lomer Gouin, Georges Garneau, and Rodolphe Lemieux.31 The latter three had all been involved in the bonne entente movement.32 For his part, Marcil had presided over the Séguin motion debates as Acting Speaker of the House of Commons.33 Jean Désy, one of the Executive Committee co-secretaries, would also play a highly influential role in determining bicultural content for the celebrations. Désy was a former law and history professor from Laval who had been recruited to the Department of External Affairs by Undersecretary of State O.D. Skelton, another strong Canadian nationalist and advocate of rapprochement.34 The Executive Committee also included a number of anglophones who favoured accommodation of Canada’s French fact for the sake of national unity. This included the ACC’s own C.G. Cowan (co-secretary alongside Désy), former Liberal MP and Cabinet Minister Herbert Meredith Marler, an Anglo-Quebecer, Trades and Labour Congress President Tom Moore, and the committee’s influential chairman, the Liberal Senator George P. Graham.35 Graham had served in both the Laurier and King cabinets and as a Member of Parliament had represented largely Franco-Ontarian ridings. As Graham explained, “The frank recognition of the equality of the two languages” was long overdue, and the sixtieth anniversary of Confederation created an opportunity to provide that recognition.36 For his part, Skelton headed the interdepartmental committee established to help coordinate public service efforts with those of the organizing committee.37 The organizers wasted little time in addressing the language question. On 19 March, they agreed to use a bilingual seal for all official documentation.38 The Executive Committee also adopted a bilingual motto for the celebrations, “Canada Our Country / Canada Notre Patrie,” to be used in publications and in schools.39 The bilingual principle was established more clearly on 25 March with a proposal from Marler and Moore for commemorative bilingual postage stamps.40 (Before 1927, stamps had been printed almost exclusively in English.41) Marler and Moore asserted that Confederation had “clearly” intended to bring about “unity throughout the Dominion and in particular between the

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two races speaking respectively the English and French languages” and that bilingual stamps would be “a means of encouraging such unity.”42 In light of the recently debated Séguin motion, using postage stamps to promote unofficial “official” bilingualism made sense. The post office was the most prominent public space for interaction between citizens and the federal government, and it was also where many civil service jobs were located. Someone being told, as Bourassa had been, that the Dominion of Canada was, in both law and in practice, a unilingual English country would need only point to an everyday postage stamp, issued by the federal government, to assert otherwise. The Executive Committee adopted the proposal unanimously.43 Cowan and Désy forwarded it to the prime minister and to Postmaster General Peter Veniot, seeking approval. King left the matter to Veniot.44 As an Acadian, Veniot was enthusiastic about the idea of using bilingual postage stamps to convey Canadian bilingualism beyond the borders of Quebec. The decision to issue bilingual postage stamps for the Diamond Jubilee was not without controversy. After reading about it in the papers, J.W. Edwards confronted Veniot in the House of Commons and demanded to know whether the bilingual stamps were “to be confined to the year 1927.”45 Veniot pointed out that he was simply meeting the wishes “unanimously adopted by that committee.” As to the long-term implications, Veniot was elusive – it remained “a matter for consideration.”46 Unsettled by the possibility that additional recognition of bilingualism might soon follow, a sarcastic Edwards put the question directly to the prime minister, asking “whether the government has any intention in further commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of confederation [with] a bilingual flag?”47 (As Peter Price shows in his chapter, the bicultural flag question had been around for decades.) Conservative MP George Perley, who was on the Diamond Jubilee organizing committee and had been present at the 25 March meeting, was also wary of the slippery slope towards official bilingualism. Perley asserted that “the general opinion was that the stamps to be issued might take some special form for this year [alone],” and that the stamps would only use words that were “common to both French and English.”48 Veniot pointed out, correctly, that the resolution had allowed for either common words or for French and English words. He placated Perley by promising to look into the matter, and the debate ended there, at least for the time being.49 Within a few weeks, King received over a dozen letters from disgruntled British Canadians who were convinced that bilingual postage

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stamps would open the floodgates to a bilingual federal government and bureaucracy. “Pardon me,” wrote one, “but being a staunch British Canadian subject I rather fear our great country will soon be dominated by our French Canadian friends, unless our British Canadian members of Parliament put on the brakes, as I notice in the Press they are after a Bilingual postage stamp.”50 King left the matter to Cowan, whose letter of reply to the complainants was as terse as it was unapologetic: “The attitude of this Committee, which is composed of representative men and women of both nationalities and all creeds, is [that] Confederation was intended to further ... the promotion of unity throughout the Dominion and in particular between the two races speaking respectively the English and French languages.”51 If the naysayers didn’t like it, that was their problem. Moreover, the angry Orangists, all from Ontario, did not represent the whole; for its part, the Ontario government ordered a set of the special stamps for preservation in the provincial archives.52 In addition to being bilingual, the 1927 postage series commemorated Canada’s history of cross-cultural political collaboration. It included stamps depicting Laurier and Macdonald, and Baldwin and Lafontaine, and individual portraits of Macdonald, McGee, George-Étienne Cartier, and Laurier. The 1927 series also included a bilingual reprint of an English-unilingual stamp that had been commissioned for the fiftieth anniversary of Confederation depicting Robert Harris’s famous painting, The Fathers of Confederation (1884).53 Interestingly, Cowan rejected a request for a stamp commemorating the United Empire Loyalists because “this is a celebration in honour of the Confederating of the Provinces” and not “the coming of the early settlers.” He hoped, however, that UEL chapters would “throw their whole energies into making this celebration count for ... the cultivation of a united National sentiment from one end of the country to the other.”54 Bilingualism and Biculturalism in Practice: Planning and Promoting the Diamond Jubilee Postage stamps were not the only means through which the Diamond Jubilee organizers promoted Canadian biculturalism. The question of designating a national song, for instance, emerged early on, when organizers agreed that both “‘God Save the King’ and ‘O Canada’ [should] form part of all programmes.”55 Originally a French-­Canadian anthem, “O Canada” had already been gaining in popularity among

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anglophones, but it lacked official English lyrics and had yet to supplant the far more ethnocentric “The Maple Leaf Forever.”56 The Diamond Jubilee provided just the opportunity to informally give “O Canada” “the position of a National Anthem” for francophones and anglophones alike.57 With the French lyrics already well established, the Executive Committee settled upon a uniform version of English lyrics, had them published in the newspapers, and instructed local organizers to include the anthem in their programs.58 The committee also produced an official songbook featuring “O Canada” and “God Save the King,” and decided that a proposed film on Confederation should conclude with “the throwing of ‘O Canada’ on the screen and the request for all the audience to rise and sing.”59 Organizers were intent on generating interest in the national celebrations among francophones and anglophones alike in the lead-up to 1 July. As the Publicity Sub-committee reported, “The service throughout was strictly bilingual in character, in every detail.”60 Organizers communicated with the French and English newspapers on a regular basis and established a Broadcasting Sub-committee to liaise with French and English radio stations to get the word out.61 Bilingual radio spots went out weekly, featuring guest speakers who discussed the meaning of Confederation.62 “Canada ... belongs to us as co-­inheritors,” declared featured radio guest Sir George Foster, speaking in French. “Our ancestors from the two great European races – the British race and the French race – discovered it and explored it and together they and their descendants organized it and developed it … in a spirit of close and brotherly collaboration.”63 From early on, the Broadcasting Subcommittee made plans to ensure equal representation for anglophone and francophone musical acts for the 1 July radio programming.64 The Executive Committee also commissioned memorial plaques for the childhood homes of Canada’s best-loved anglophone and francophone prime ministers, John A. Macdonald and Wilfrid Laurier.65 One of the biggest initiatives was a series of contests for best prose, poetry, or newspaper editorial relating to Confederation, along with student essay and oratory contests on Canadian history.66 Submissions could be made in either language, and successful competitors received a medal featuring the words “Canada Confederation” and “1867–1927” (the unilingual “Canadian Confederation” having been rejected by the executive). A similar medal was produced for general distribution,67 and some two million medals were reportedly handed out to ceremony participants.68 On balance, the contests reflected the organizers’ goal of

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using history to foster national unity and a stronger sense of Canadian identity.69 The Historical Sub-committee also helped make Canada’s bicultural heritage a major theme. The subcommittee included an equal number of anglophones and francophones, and several prominent ­historians.70 A number of them were well-known advocates of crosscultural accommodation, like Thomas Chapais, who preached “liberality and ­tolerance”;71 Lawrence Burpee, who hoped to “‘bring together in more perfect harmony the two great races that constitute the Canadian ­people’”;72 Arthur Doughty, who called for a shared national historical narrative that incorporated both Canada’s French and British heritage;73 and Gustave Lanctot, who argued that Canada’s greatness was owing to the combined historical contributions of its two principal cultural-linguistic communities.74 The Historical and Medals sub-committees, led by Executive Committee Co-Secretary Jean Désy, were tasked with preparing “general suggestions” booklets for local organizers to follow.75 To draw up the parade float designs, they commissioned Montreal artist J.B. Lagacé – the same artist who had been hired by Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day organizers in Quebec.76 Conspicuously absent from the parade float designs were the war heroes – people like Montcalm, Wolfe, Brock, and Dollard. The emphasis was on nation builders, not conflict. Although one historical float was distinctly British (entitled “The Landing of the Loyalists”), four others conveyed a history wherein every region of Canada had been discovered and founded by francophones. (First Nations, when depicted at all, played a secondary role.) Champlain was “The Discoverer of Ontario,” de Monts had brought about “The Founding of Acadia,” and “The Discovery of the Canadian West” had been achieved by La Vérendrye. The place of honour was reserved for Jacques Cartier’s “Discovery of Canada.”77 Interestingly, the committees rejected a proposal to depict John Cabot and “the discovery of Canada by the English.”78 In addition to its booklets for local organizers, the Historical Subcommittee produced a handbook (in English and in French) and a bilingual commemorative book for participants, highlighting Canada’s bicultural heritage.79 Nearly two hundred thousand copies were distributed altogether, and the handbook was used “extensively by school children ... public speakers and by newspaper writers.”80 The books provided a sanitized version of Canada’s political history that emphasized the equal contributions of the French and British regimes and of

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5.1  The prominent Quebec artist Jean-Baptiste Lagacé’s design for a float entitled "Confederation." From a brochure on historical ­pageants ­published by the National Committee of the Diamond Jubilee of C ­ onfederation for the use of local organizers.

francophone and anglophone statesmen. “The influence of the mother countries, France and England, on the development of Canada cannot be overlooked,” the authors explained.81 They portrayed the country’s evolution towards self-government as a gradual, organic process, in which the change from French to British rule was not a break so much as a natural transition. (Unsurprisingly, Aboriginal systems of governance were overlooked entirely.) The French regime had “opened up what is now the Dominion to the knowledge of the civilised world and persists today in some of our most notable institutions.”82 The Quebec Act of 1774 was “the French Canadians’ Charter,” protecting their religion and civil law.83 Representative government, established in 1791, had been the result of the combined efforts of both “French-Canadians

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as well as British-born.”84 Responsible government and the restoration of French as an “official language” had been the product of “friendship [between] La Fontaine and Baldwin.”85 Confederation itself had been achieved by the “Cartier-Macdonald ministry,” and so on.86 For post-Confederation constitutional history, the authors emphasized the development of the country’s autonomy under Prime Minister Mackenzie King and Justice Minister Ernest Lapointe.87 The Historical Sub-committee also produced 140 history articles for distribution in French and English to newspapers across the country.88 Cowan and Désy ensured that the articles conformed to their preferred version of Canadian history. They flagged one submission, a summary history of Canada, for not making “reference to the voyages of Jacques Cartier and to the early French settlements in Acadia.” Cowan also felt that the piece’s preoccupation with the country’s recent military history was “rather out of proportion.” Instead, Cowan argued, more should be said of Canada’s newfound autonomy and of “the increasing emphasis that is being placed on national unity, and to the slow but sure growth of Canadian national sentiment.”89 Although the organizers of the Diamond Jubilee attempted to promote bilingualism and biculturalism, there were limits to how far they could push things. Sometimes the challenge was logistical – such as delays in translating material. Putting bilingualism into practice required, well, some practice. Sometimes, it was a fear of controversy. Cowan’s proposal to use a bilingual motto on commemorative plaques in schools, for instance, met with some concern. Instead, the Executive Committee decided that “the motto on the plaque should be ‘Canada Our Country’ on those for the English speaking schools and ‘Canada Notre Patrie’ for the French speaking schools.”90 The bilingualism principle encountered another stumbling block over a specially commissioned ten-minute silent film “depicting Confederation scenes.”91 Initially, organizers planned for bilingual subtitles. A private film distributor, however, warned that this might lead to grumblings among some theatre owners. With Dominion Day fast approaching, the Publicity Sub-committee resolved that “while unanimously recognising the desirability of adhering to well-established precedent in respect to the equality of status as between the two official languages of Canada,” it would distribute bilingual copies of the film in Quebec and unilingual English copies elsewhere.92 This, they felt, was “according to the usual practice now obtaining,” and necessary because of “exceptional circumstances.”93 In short, while bilingualism was deemed politically

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safe in Quebec, it was still considered too risky elsewhere. When the decision was brought to the attention of the Executive Committee, Désy and Marcil “took exception.”94 They “emphasised the fact that the principle of bilingualism as already laid down by the Committee should be carried out in all circumstances, and that its application should not be restricted to the Province of Quebec.”95 The committee reached a solution that proposed to “preserve the principle of equality of both languages” – not only in Quebec, but throughout Canada – by issuing three versions of the film: bilingual, English, and French. The “official film” would be bilingual, but “if requested, copies may be provided with captions in the French language only or in the English language only.”96 In this way, the organizers rather ingeniously avoided risking a controversy and the delimitation of Canadian bilingualism along strict provincial lines. Still, it remained to be seen how things would play out on the big day. Bilingualism and Biculturalism on 1 July 1927 By all accounts, the Diamond Jubilee celebrations on Parliament Hill were a success. Some sixty thousand locals and visitors congregated on the Hill and on nearby balconies – for a city of just over a hundred thousand, it was no small feat. The promotional efforts had paid off. In addition to onlookers and passers-by, organized groups of veterans, Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, high-school cadets, and ten thousand schoolchildren were also in attendance.97 The focal point of celebrations was a large podium at the foot of the new Peace Tower, where a series of speeches and musical and theatrical performances took place. Mackenzie King noted with satisfaction during the unveiling of the new tower that the carillon bell’s inscription was “in both English and French, doubly significant when one recalls the association of the two peoples in the great war and in our country’s story.”98 Events began at noon, shortly after the tower bells rang out the hour, and opened with a performance of “O Canada,” “The Maple Leaf Forever,” and “God Save the King.” With that, a coordinated series of church bells, factory whistles, canon fire, and cheers from the crowd signalled the sixtieth anniversary of Confederation. The Toronto Globe’s correspondent was especially struck by the carillon’s rendition of “O Canada,” which he proudly told readers was “your National Anthem.”99 The Parliament Hill celebrations reflected a diversity of messages – loyalty to the Crown and Empire, devotion to God, Canada’s economic

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and technological progress, the achievement of self-government and autonomy, the country’s natural beauty – but bilingualism and biculturalism featured high on the list. Moreover, they were central to the new civic nationalism that organizers hoped would prove more accessible to Canadians.100 All announcements were made in both languages, and the list of speakers alternated between English and French. Events from Parliament Hill were broadcast nationwide via radio and cohosted by anglophone and francophone announcers who read from a detailed script in-between speeches and performances so as to translate, summarize, and describe events for people listening at home and at public gatherings.101 The speeches opened with Governor General Willingdon’s bilingual address celebrating the country’s diversity and Canadians’ remarkable ability to share a common “devotion to the land of their birth or adoption.”102 Lord Willingdon emphasized the historical British and French partnership, in particular, for having made Canada possible: “Our citizens of British and French origin, who have been mainly responsible for the development of this country in past years, can join together with pride and gratitude to pay a tribute to the memory of those early pioneers ... explorers, soldiers and statesmen of our two races, who, with splendid courage and clear-sighted wisdom, laid the foundations of our national life.”103 In his speech, the prime minister referred to Confederation and the coming together of “the two great races that were to develop settlement and government in our midst” as the fulfilment of a prophecy laid down by the early explorers.104 Pride of place went to Samuel de Champlain, whose founding of Quebec in 1608, King explained, marked “that day [when] our Canada ... was born.”105 While acknowledging the wars in which France and Britain had fought for control of the continent, King insisted that Canadians had long since adopted a “spirit which has made our nation; a spirit which, in preserving the heroisms, has buried the animosities of the races which have shaped its destiny.”106 Conservative Senator and historian Thomas Chapais, speaking in French, emphasized francophone-anglophone unity, and called upon Canadians to embrace the new civic nationalism, based on shared Christian values, a shared history, and a common attachment to the land.107 The chair of the Diamond Jubilee Executive Committee, George Graham, closed by declaring, “Never before in the history of Canada has there been such a unity of thought, such a oneness of purpose regarding the future of our country,” and he called upon young people to “develop a true citizenship.”108

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The musical performances on 1 July also reflected the bicultural theme. Thousands of Ottawa schoolchildren sang “O Canada” in unison, in both French and English, followed by English and French renditions of “Canada My Home.”109 Performances of songs like “Land of Hope and Glory” and “God Save the King” alternated with such pieces as “Vive la Canadienne” and “Un Canadien errant.” Interestingly, performers of “The Maple Leaf Forever” omitted the song’s opening reference to “Wolfe, the dauntless hero” conquering New France for the British.110 For lighter fare, the French-Canadian Bytown Troubadours dressed up as voyageurs and performed lively versions of the most “‘characteristic’” of habitant songs.111 The University of Toronto Hart House String Quartet also played French-Canadian folk songs, arranged by AngloCanadian composers, and deemed a “patriotic” performance by organizers.112 This was not simply a callous Anglo-Canadian appropriation of French-Canadian culture. Francophone organizers, in particular, had hoped to use the Diamond Jubilee to provide greater exposure for both Anglo-Canadians and French Canadians to each other’s cultures and perspectives.113 If Canadian biculturalism was an important theme on Parliament Hill, it also marked local celebrations, albeit to varying degrees. Then as now, as Ted Cogan demonstrates in his chapter on the Centennial celebrations, 1 July could mean different things, or serve different ends, for different people. Still, some local organizers for the Diamond Jubilee appear to have made use of Ottawa’s guidelines, including the pageantry suggestions. At Toronto, 140,000 spectators witnessed pageants, flotillas, and military parades that emphasized Canada’s past, its present prosperity, and its growing prominence within the British Empire.114 The “mammoth display” included several parade floats that covered Canada’s and Ontario’s French heritage, with titles like “Jacques Cartier at Hochelaga,” “Étienne Brûlé,” “The Trial of Brébeuf,” “Champlain at Caracouha,” “Dollard at Long Sault,” and “Old Fort Rouillé,” alongside such standard British-Canadian fare as “The Death of Wolfe,” “The Arrival of the Loyalists,” and “Laura Secord.”115 The depiction of Jacques Cartier, in particular, explained the Toronto Globe, was “a tableau of great historical significance.”116 For some Torontonians, at least, Canada’s French past was a part of their history, too. In Halifax, the historical pageant also opened with Jacques Cartier’s “discovery” of Canada, and it was followed by a somewhat anachronistic re-creation of the encounter between Wolfe and Montcalm – instead of fighting, the two generals “saluted and shook hands.”117 At Victoria, the

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15,000 assembled also witnessed “a gorgeous pageant, a living panorama of Canada’s history from the earliest days,” in which some 2,000 local schoolchildren participated, and listened to a “massed choir of 1,000 voices” sing “Canada’s national anthem ... in two languages.”118 In Winnipeg, where the 50,000 in attendance were treated to a military parade and a pageant of 175 floats, including “every imaginable phase of Canada’s history and progress” alongside the traditional costume, music, and dance of its growing ethnocultural communities, the emphasis was on cultural diversity in general more so than ­biculturalism.119 Nevertheless, organizers made a point of decorating the local La Vérendrye and Cartier monuments among others. In neighbouring St Boniface, the landing of La Vérendrye and the arrival of Bishop Taché were re-enacted, and Manitoba Premier John Bracken partook in a ceremony honouring Simone Landry, “winner of the patriotic oratorical contest for the Dominion,” which “fittingly closed the day’s celebration in which both English and French co-operated as one people.”120 At Quebec, organizers were careful to include Protestant clergy alongside Catholic figures in the ceremonies.121 In Montreal, meanwhile, speakers Henri Bourassa and Father Olivier Maurault emphasized “the absolute equality that the Fathers of Confederation had envisioned for the two great races that make up this country,” and expressed hope that the rest of the country might uphold these values towards the francophone minorities.122 They encouraged French Canadians to look beyond Quebec’s borders, reminding them of George-Étienne Cartier’s vision for a Canada “a mari usque ad mare.”123 Bourassa also took care, of course, to rail against imperialism. Regional particularities notwithstanding, the transcontinental broadcast of the Parliament Hill ceremonies helped ensure that the national message was conveyed across the country. In over two hundred communities, from Halifax to Victoria, organizers set up openair broadcasts on loudspeakers in parks and public spaces. These were apparently well attended by audiences enraptured by the modern miracle of transcontinental radio.124 In Montreal alone, an estimated twenty thousand assembled around the George-Étienne Cartier monument in Jeanne Mance Park to listen to the huge amplifiers broadcasting from Ottawa.125 The audience was particularly pleased with Governor General Willingdon’s bilingual speech, rewarding it with “‘great and long applause.’”126 Throughout the country, many of those who might have missed the radio broadcast would doubtless have heard about it from family and friends, or read about it in the newspapers.

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Newspaper coverage of the Confederation celebrations was extensive and overwhelmingly positive, and conveyed the bicultural message to varying degrees. The Halifax Chronicle described a “patriotic scene such as the [national] capital had never witnessed before,” and reprinted the prime minister’s speech on the front page.127 The French-language speeches had been especially captivating, according to the ­Chronicle, “the greatest event of the afternoon.”128 The Manitoba Free-Press described in detail the “brilliant pageant at Ottawa,” along with Winnipeg’s own “patriotic pageant of progress,” and ran large pictures of the parade floats depicting, among others, Manitoba’s English, French, Irish, Greek, Polish, Icelandic, and Norwegian influences. St Boniface, too, the paper wrote, gave a great showing with historical floats and patriotic musical selections “in both French and English.”129 Montreal’s La Presse declared the Ottawa ceremonies “an unprecedented success,” noted with satisfaction that their content had been “mixed and bilingual,”130 and remarked upon the “national unity” that Montreal’s own “grandiose homage ... to the memory of the Fathers of Confederation” had evoked.131 Ottawa-Hull’s Le Droit also remarked upon the bilingual and bicultural nature of the ceremonies on Parliament Hill. “The tremendous crowd made up … above all of French Canadians and British Canadians, sang with sincerity the glories of their shared homeland,” it wrote. The children’s choirs, especially, had provided “a memorable example of brotherhood, uniting to sing the national anthems in the two languages.”132 The message of the day, the paper declared, was “unity and bonne entente.”133 The Toronto Globe also took note of the bilingualism of the Ottawa proceedings. “Anthems in the language of the two great races were broadcast to the world,” it proudly reported.134 It went even further in emphasizing national unity between English and French, East and West: Not since Jacques Cartier and his adventurous mariners landed on the picturesque shores of the St Lawrence has such harmony prevailed. In old Quebec, where the momentous [Confederation] conference of sixty years ago was held, English voices are lost amid those of the people who still speak the language of France. On the Western plains are heard the tongues of many races, but from the Ancient Capital – the Sentinel City of the St Lawrence – and from the far-flung outposts of the prairies come reports of happy relations and pride in the Dominion ... On the morning of the Diamond Jubilee, the vision of the Fathers of Confederation has been realized.135

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After the Diamond Jubilee Despite the enthusiasm of the Toronto Globe, the pomp and pageantry of the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation did not solve all of the country’s problems. Still, the events of 1 July 1927 had a lasting effect on more than a few Canadians. For some, the Diamond Jubilee provided a first encounter with Canada’s French heritage. “Canada’s history was a part history of France,” explained Prime Minister Mackenzie King. “Many a citizen of our Dominion has learned this fact for the first time.”136 In the weeks that followed, the organizing committee was flooded with over thirty thousand congratulatory letters and telegrams from across the country. One writer from Windsor, Ontario, hoped the national radio broadcast would “‘foster a better national spirit and love of country.’” A priest from Lauzon, Quebec, wrote in to state, “‘Your programmes were especially pleasing owing to their bilingual nature.’”137 The prime minister was certainly convinced that the Diamond Jubilee would have a lasting impact. Speaking in Toronto two months later, King declared that the celebrations had given Canadians “a new pride in their national heritage, and above all, a consciousness in larger measure of national unity.”138 George Graham, writing in the Diamond Jubilee Executive Committee’s final report a year later, “felt that old differences have been healed and prejudices have been dispelled by the bilingual nature of the celebration and by the frank recognition of the equality of the two languages.”139 In his remarkable account of the Quebec tercentenary of 1908, H.V. Nelles concluded that the celebrations of that year had failed to make a lasting positive impact on national unity. “Despite the elaborate public effort at remembering,” Nelles explained, “the country gradually forgot the tercentenary and whatever meanings it might have had. Public memory, so theatrical, intense, vivid, and spectacular, vanished in the gusts of controversy.”140 Would the same fate befall the pomp and pageantry of 1927? What lasting effects, if any, did the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation have as far as bilingualism was concerned? The Diamond Jubilee is best understood within the context of other developments. Moreover, the bilingualism of the celebrations in Ottawa was politically possible because attitudes towards Canada’s French fact were already beginning to change among some Anglo-Canadians. In the wake of the national unity crises of 1917–18, concerned members of civil society, including both anglophones and francophones, had begun lobbying for greater recognition of Canada’s cultural duality, especially

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in Ontario. In late 1927 – only a few months after the Diamond Jubilee celebrations – they successfully pressured the provincial government into restoring French-language education rights for Franco-Ontarians.141 At the federal level, bilingualism advocates within the Liberal Party and the bureaucracy decided to use the Diamond Jubilee celebrations as a springboard for change, beginning with the post office. For his part, the prime minister was initially a big fan of the bilingual Diamond Jubilee postage stamps and the “historical message” that they conveyed.142 Like many, however, King had assumed that the stamps would be a one-off. He was wrong. As far as Postmaster-General Veniot was concerned, 1927 had created a precedent, and he made bilingual postage stamps the established norm from then on. J.P. Edwards and Horatio Hocken’s worst nightmare had come true: Canada was headed down the slippery slope to official bilingualism! In June 1929, with an election on the horizon, King worried that the stamps might leave Liberals susceptible to an “anti-French & anti-Catholic agitation.” He suggested to Cabinet that the bilingual postage stamps be scaled back.143 The Frenchspeaking ministers, led by Veniot and Ernest Lapointe, threatened to revolt. King was taken aback: “The French members are very sensitive on this on the one hand & very resentful of criticism, also very pressing in their demands.”144 Veniot and Lapointe gained the support of sympathetic Anglo-Canadian members of King’s inner circle, including O.D. Skelton and P.J.A. Cardin. King brought the issue up a month later, urging Veniot to print at least some unilingual postage stamps “so that it could not be said [that] all stamps were bilingual.”145 For Veniot, that was the whole point: English and French must be seen as the two, equal languages of the federal government. King, worried about possible political fallout in Western Canada, confronted the “rather obstinate” Veniot one final time in early September 1929, accompanied by his leading Saskatchewan minister, Charles Dunning. Veniot remained unmoved.146 King would not press the matter again. A few weeks later, the world’s economy plunged into depression and the prime minister’s attention was drawn to more urgent matters – bilingual postage stamps became a fait accompli. From a twenty-first century perspective, the Diamond Jubilee’s introduction of bilingual postage stamps was a modest achievement, but for the supporters of federal bilingualism at the time, it was significant. By 1920, few places in the country were without mail service.147 As such, Canadians from across the country who might not have had any contact with the other official language would now come into day-to-day

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contact with this example of Canadian biculturalism. For younger Canadians, bilingual stamps would become as ubiquitous (and innocuous) as the bilingual cereal boxes of later generations of Canadian children. The stamps signalled to Canadians rich, middling, and even poor that their government placed a certain priority on federal bilingualism. The residual effects of the Diamond Jubilee did not end there. The postage stamp victory only intensified demands for a more functionally bilingual federal public service. French-Canadian ministers like Ernest Lapointe and Raoul Dandurand, and sympathetic Anglo-Canadian bureaucrats like O.D. Skelton, attempted to hire more francophones and improve French-language service.148 In 1934, the federal government established an official Bureau for Translations to improve quality control and access to services in French. Federal bilingualism received another boost in 1935 when the Supreme Court of Canada recognized the “equal authenticity” of both the English and French versions of federal laws and statutes.149 In another modest symbolic victory, Lapointe arranged for civil servants’ oath of allegiance to be taken in either language – the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society saw this as affirming “‘the principle of official bilingualism in the federal government.’”150 In 1936, Lapointe and King introduced a bill for bilingual currency. Conveniently, the prime minister invoked the precedent of bilingual postage! Every Liberal MP, including an overwhelming majority of the country’s anglophone MPs, voted in favour of the bill.151 Two years later, the Liberals amended the Civil Service Act to require that French-speakers be hired for front-line service positions in French-speaking localities (or English-speakers in English localities, as the case may be) – a primary objective of the 1927 Séguin motion.152 This was the first formal recognition of bilingualism in the hiring of federal civil servants since Confederation.153 Conclusion The cultural dualism of the celebrations of the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation belonged to something bigger. Along with Ontario’s restoration of French-language education and the additional steps taken by the federal government towards bilingualism, this dualism revealed just how far attitudes had begun to change among some anglophones. For francophones, the bilingual postage stamps and currency, in particular, generated optimism that federal services, jobs, and Anglo-­Canadians in general were finally opening up to them.154 Nevertheless, others remained sceptical.155 At the very least, it was an important symbolic

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measure against the image of an English Canada with a begrudgingly recognized, territorially confined French Quebec. Every Canadian, from every province and territory, could now use bilingual stamps and bilingual currency in their day-to-day lives, thanks, at least in part, to the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation. The bilingualism and biculturalism of the Diamond Jubilee developed organically. It was not an official objective of the initial legislation, nor was it explicitly adopted by the Executive Committee until later on. Instead, implementation was gradual, often deliberate, and even surreptitious – with a bilingual official seal and motto, with bilingual postage stamps, in the official promotional material and publications, and the assertion of a shared national history, and in the program planning for 1 July. To be sure, there were limits to what the organizers could accomplish. Cultural dualism resonated more with some Canadians than with others, and it manifested differently in different parts of the country. All in all, though, the efforts of the supporters of bilingualism and biculturalism encountered less resistance than might have been expected at a time when sectional identities remained strong. As it turned out, most of the organizers, much of the press, and elements of the public proved sympathetic – or simply ambivalent – to the message. There was some opposition, but the overwhelming groundswell of British-Canadian outrage that Prime Minister Mackenzie King had feared in the wake of bilingual postage never fully materialized. The Official Languages Act it was not, but in practice, the celebrations of the Diamond Jubilee became a pilot project in “unofficial official” bilingualism. The Jubilee set modest precedents towards a more functionally bilingual federal public service that are familiar to us today. In as far as possible, organizers projected an image of official Canadian bilingualism, and they quashed suggestions that bilingual services should be confined to one province (Quebec). They also adopted a policy of equal access to services; in all cases, they attempted to allow for the equal promotion of and the equal opportunity to participate in the federally sponsored celebrations in French and in English. It was a format that would not have been unfamiliar to the Canada Day organizers of the Pearson and Trudeau eras and of the Centennial, in particular, (discussed in Helen Davies’s chapter), who also emphasized official bilingualism in an effort to appeal to francophones and anglophones alike.156 Commemoration is inherently political. This is nothing new. Canadian governments continue to use major anniversaries of events like Confederation to assert a message of cross-cultural harmony when it

166  Robert J. Talbot

suits the times and their interests. The cultural dualism of 1927 was itself a product of the growing postwar acknowledgment that relations between francophones and anglophones had to improve in a meaningful way for the sake of national unity, and from the Liberals’ perspective, for the sake of the Party. That being said, the organizers and participants who were “Celebrating Canada” in 1927 did not all want for sincerity. As several of the contributors to this volume remind us, pomp, pageantry, and symbolism matter a great deal to people – they allow us to feel connected to a broader, imagined community. The community that organizers of the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation imagined, and that many participants experienced, to varying degrees, on 1 July 1927, was that of a bilingual and bicultural Canada. NOTES 1 This study was completed with the financial support of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada postdoctoral fellowship. 2 See the unpublished history of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations (n.d.), 1, Library and Archives Canada (LAC), RG 6, D3, Diamond Jubilee of Confederation, vol. 445, file 1 (hereafter “Unpublished History”). 3 See Mike Benbough-Jackson’s chapter, “Dominion Day in Britain, 1900– 1919,” in Matthew Hayday and Raymond B. Blake, eds., Celebrating Canada, vol. 1, Holidays, National Days and the Crafting of Ideas (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016), 220–43. 4 As Matthew Hayday explains in his chapter, “Canada’s Day: Inventing a Tradition, Defining a Culture,” in Hayday and Blake, Celebrating Canada, 274–305, it was only in the late 1950s and early 1960s that the federal government began organizing annual Dominion Day festivities, in part out of a concern over francophone discontent. 5 “Unpublished History,” 1. 6 See Robert Cupido: “Sixty Years of Canadian Progress: The Diamond Jubilee and the Politics of Commemoration,” in Caroline Andrew, Will Straw, and J.-Yvon Thériault, eds., Canadian Identity: Region, Country, Nation (Montreal: Association for Canadian Studies, 1988), 19–33; “Appropriating the Past: Pageants, Politics, and the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 9, 1 (1998): 155–86; “The Medium, the Message and the Modern: The Jubilee Broadcast of 1927,” International Journal of Canadian Studies 26 (Fall 2002): 108; and see Mary Vipond, Listening In: The First Decade of Canadian Broadcasting, 1922–1932 (Montreal and

Bilingualism and Biculturalism  167 Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1992), 207; Maria Tippett, Making Culture: English-Canadian Institutions and the Arts before the Massey Commission (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 77. 7 The two concepts were mutually reinforcing. Although “bilingualism,” or the assertion of the equality of the French and English languages, requires less explanation, “biculturalism” is used somewhat liberally here. For the purposes of the present chapter, biculturalism refers to the symbolic acknowledgment of Canada’s historic and contemporary cultural duality (the “two founding nations” thesis). 8 “Examen de conscience national au parc Jeanne Mance,” Le Devoir, 2 July 1927; M.E. James, “Jubilant Message of Glorious Music,” Globe, 2 July 1927. 9 Joel Belliveau and Marcel Martel, “‘One Flag, One Throne, One Empire?’ Espousing and Replacing Empire Day in French Canada, 1899–1952,” in Hayday and Blake, Celebrating Canada, 125–48. 10 See Robert Talbot, “Une réconciliation insaisissable: Le mouvement de la bonne entente,” Mens: Revue d’histoire intellectuelle de l’Amérique française 8, 1 (2007): 67–125. 11 See Arthur Silver, The French-Canadian Idea of Confederation, 1864–1900 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), 18. 12 Christopher Beattie et al., Bureaucratic Careers: Anglophones and Francophones in the Canadian Public Service, Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (Ottawa: Information Canada, 1972), 3–5. 13 J.E. Hodgetts, The Canadian Public Service: A Physiology of Government, 1867–1970 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), 33. 14 Canada, House of Commons Debates (hereafter Debates), vol. CLXXV, 2 Mar. 1927, 827. 15 Ibid., 814–15. 16 Ibid., 826. 17 Ibid., 822. 18 Ibid., 819. 19 Ibid., 829. 20 Canada, Report of the Executive Committee – National Diamond Jubilee of Confederation (Ottawa: F.A. Acland, 1928), 12. 21 Tippett, Making Culture, 77. 22 Policy declaration, 1926, 6–7, LAC, MG28 III62 Canadian Chamber of Commerce, vol. 17, file: “Policy Declarations, 1926–1948.” 23 “Unpublished History.” 24 See Earnest Austin Weir, The Struggle for National Broadcasting in Canada (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1965), 118; Report of the Executive ­Committee, 4.

168  Robert J. Talbot 25 Diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King, 30 Dec. 1925, LAC, MG26 J13, William Lyon Mackenzie King (hereafter WLMK Diaries), accessed 23 Apr. 2014, http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/king/indexe.html. 26 See WLMK Diaries, entries for 7, 12, 15–17 Feb. 1927; Debates, vol. CLXXV, 17 Feb. 1927, 409–22. 27 In Cupido, “The Medium, the Message and the Modern,” 108. 28 Minutes of the National Committee, 16 Mar. and 1 Apr. 1927, in “Unpublished History.” 29 Report of the Executive Committee, 5. 30 Debates, vol. CLXXV, 17 Feb. 1927, 409–22. 31 Report of the Executive Committee, 3. 32 See Talbot “Une réconciliation insaisissable,” 80–1, 123. 33 See Debates, vol. CLXXV, 2 Mar. 1927, 822. 34 Norman Hillmer, “National Independence and the National Interest: O.D. Skelton’s Department of External Affairs in the 1920s,” in Greg Donaghy and Michael K. Carroll, eds., In the National Interest: Canadian Foreign Policy and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1909–2009, 15 (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2011). 35 See Report of the Executive Committee, 60. 36 Ibid., 12. 37 Minutes of the Executive Committee, 25 Mar. 1927, in “Unpublished History.” 38 Ibid., 19 Mar. 1927. 39 Ibid., 13 Apr. 1927. 40 Ibid., 25 Mar. 1927. 41 Victor Seary, A Postage Stamp History of Canada, 11 (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1972); Winthrop Boggs, The Postage Stamps and Postal History of Canada (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Chambers Publishing, 1945), 425. 42 Ibid. The organizing committee in Ottawa does not appear to have received requests to use other languages, but some local celebrations did reflect a broader ethnocultural diversity. 43 See Minutes of the Executive Committee, 29 Mar. 1927. 44 See L.C. Moyer to C.G. Cowan, 4 Apr. 1927, LAC, RG 6, D3, vol. 447, file 14. 45 Debates, vol. CLXXVI, 6 Apr. 1927, 1959. 46 Ibid. 47 King, in classic fashion, replied cheekily that “‘Bilingual flag’ is a contradiction in terms.” Ibid. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid., 1960.

Bilingualism and Biculturalism  169 50 John T. Morrison to William Lyon Mackenzie King, 23 Apr. 1927, LAC, RG 6, D3, vol. 447, file 14. 51 C.G. Cowan to John T. Morrison, 29 Apr. 1927, in ibid. 52 See T.W. Quayle to Alexander Fraser, 16 July 1927, in ibid. 53 Seary, A Postage Stamp History, 55, 79, 82, 85; Boggs, Postage Stamps and Postal History, 426. 54 C.G. Cowan to W.J. Boehem, 30 Apr. 1927, LAC, RG 6, D3, vol. 447, file 14. 55 Minutes of the Executive Committee, 30 Mar. 1927. 56 See Arthur Hawkes, The Birthright: A Search for the Canadian Canadian and the Larger Loyalty (Toronto: J.M. Dent, 1919), 185–6. In 1924, the ACC made it its official anthem; see “Unpublished History,” 1. 57 Report of the Executive Committee, 5. 58 Minutes of the Executive Committee, 13 Apr. 1927. 59 Ibid., 30 Mar. 1927. 60 “Report of the Publicity Committee,” in Report of the Executive Committee, 72. 61 Minutes of the Executive Committee, 1 Apr. 1927. 62 See Cowan to Tom Moore, 14 May 1927, Cowan to George Foster, 28 May 1927, and Désy to Aurélien Bélanger, 10 June 1927, LAC, RG 6, D3, vol. 456, file: “Miscellaneous Correspondence.” 63 “Le Canada ... nous appartient en notre qualité de cohéritiers. Nos ancêtres des deux grandes races européennes – la race britannique et la race française – l’ont découvert et l’ont exploré et ensemble ceux-ci et leurs descendants l’ont organisé et développé ... dans un esprit d’étroite et fraternelle collaboration.” Transcript, 2 June 1927, LAC, RG 6, D3, vol. 446, file 7. 64 Minutes of the Executive Committee, 21 Apr. 1927; Cowan to G.H. Parkes, 26 Apr. 1927, LAC, RG 6, D3, vol. 456, file: “Miscellaneous Correspondence.” 65 Minutes of the Executive Committee, 13 Apr. 1927. 66 “Unpublished History,” 3–6. 67 Minutes of the Executive Committee, 22 Mar. 1927. 68 Ibid., 11 May 1927. 69 Ibid., 30 Mar. 1927. 70 Report of the Executive Committee, 61. 71 Thomas Chapais, “La Province de Québec et la minorité anglaise,” La Nouvelle France XV, 4 (1916): 145–64. 72 In Donald A. Wright, The Professionalization of History in English Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 66. 73 See Danielle Lacasse and Antonio Lechasseur, Les Archives nationales du Canada, 1872–1997 (Ottawa: La Société historique du Canada, 1997), 6, 9;

170  Robert J. Talbot J.C. Bracq, L’évolution du Canada français (Montreal: Librairie Beauchemin, 1927), 292. 74 See Gustave Lanctot, Le Canada d’hier et aujourd’hui (Montreal: Albert Lévesque, 1934), 8–9, 71. 75 Although local organizers operated autonomously, they apparently made great use of the material being forwarded to them from Ottawa. The booklets were “very popular” – some 20,000 copies in English and 5,000 copies in French were printed. “Unpublished History,” 6. See also Minutes of the Executive Committee, 21 Apr. 1927; Report of the Executive Committee, 8, 56, 66. 76 See Minutes of the Executive Committee, 13 Apr. 1927; Victor Morin to Jean Désy, 31 Mar. 1927, LAC, RG 6, D3, vol. 446, file 6. 77 See Canada, Diamond Jubilee of Confederation: Suggestions for historical pageants, floats and tableaux (with illustrations in colour) for the guidance of local committees (Ottawa: Executive Committee of the National Committee for the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation, 1927), 4, 21, 24, 41, 44. 78 Minutes of the Executive Committee, 21 Apr. 1927. 79 “Historical Committee Report,” in Report of the Executive Committee, 66. 80 Report of the Executive Committee, 8. 81 William Smith, The Evolution of Government in Canada (Ottawa: National Committee of the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation, 1928), 22. 82 R.H. Coats, ed., Sixty Years of Canadian Progress, 1867–1927 (Ottawa: National Committee of the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation, 1927), 3. 83 Smith, The Evolution of Government in Canada, 70. 84 Ibid., 74. 85 Ibid., 192. 86 Ibid., 198; Coats, Sixty Years of Canadian Progress, 3–6. 87 Coats, Sixty Years, 22–5. 88 See “Publicity Committee Report,” in Report of the Executive Committee, 72; Various correspondence, Mar.–June 1927, LAC, RG 6, D3, vol. 446, file 6. 89 C.G. Cowan to Lawrence Burpee, 28 Apr. 1927, LAC, RG 6, D3, vol. 446, file 6. 90 Minutes of the Executive Committee, 21 Apr. 1927. 91 Ibid., 11 May 1927. 92 Ibid., 26 May 1927. 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid. 95 Ibid. 96 Ibid. 97 See Cupido, “The Medium, the Message and the Modern,” 107; Canada, Sixth Census of Canada, 1921, vol. I (Ottawa: F.A. Acland, 1924), 542.

Bilingualism and Biculturalism  171 98 In Report of the Executive Committee, 80.   99 James, “Jubilant Message of Glorious Music.” 100 See “Unpublished History,” 6–9. 101 Cupido, “The Medium, the Message and the Modern,” 107. 102 In Report of the Executive Committee, 83. 103 In “Canada’s Story of Achievement,” Globe, 2 July 1927. 104 In Report of the Executive Committee, 87. 105 In ibid. 106 In ibid. 107 In ibid., 86. 108 In ibid., 96. 109 Tippett, Making Culture, 77. 110 Cupido, “The Medium, the Message and the Modern,” 108. 111 Ibid., 112. 112 Report of the Executive Committee, 100. See also Tippett, Making Culture, 77. 113 “‘Avec les chansons anglaises [et] ces bons vieux refrains canadiens [français],’” explained Rodolphe Lemieux, “‘le grand festival aurait un cachet vraiment national.’” In Cupido, “The Medium, the Message and the Modern,” 112. 114 Cupido, “The Medium, the Message and the Modern,” 117–18. 115 “Ontario Report,” in Report of the Executive Committee, 41–2. 116 “Toronto Rejoices on Canada’s Sixtieth Birthday,” Globe, 2 July 1927. 117 “Elaborate Pageant Opens,” Halifax Chronicle, 2 July 1927. 118 “British Columbia Report,” in Report of the Executive Committee, 15–16. 119 “Manitoba Report,” in Report of the Executive Committee, 19–27. See also Robert Cupido, “Public Commemoration and Ethnocultural Assertion: Winnipeg Celebrates the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation,” Urban History Review 38, 2 (2010): 67–74. 120 “Manitoba Report,” 25. 121 “Quebec Report,” in Report of the Executive Committee, 56. 122 “Examen de conscience national au parc Jeanne Mance.” (Translation.) 123 Ibid. 124 Several of the local organizing committees reported this. See, e.g., “Manitoba Report,” 24; Weir, The Struggle for National Broadcasting, 48. 125 “Examen de conscience national au parc Jeanne Mance.” 126 Cupido, “The Medium, the Message and the Modern,” 116–17. 127 “Canada Celebrated from Ocean to Ocean,” Halifax Chronicle, 2 July 1927. 128 “Radio Was Big Feature,” Halifax Chronicle, 2 July 1927. 129 “St Boniface Stages Brilliant Pageant,” Manitoba Free-Press, 2 July 1927. 130 “De Royales Manifestations à Ottawa,” La Presse, 2 July 1927. (Translation.)

172  Robert J. Talbot 131 “Hommage Grandiose,” La Presse, 2 July 1927. (Translation.) 132 “Cérémonie splendide dans l’après-midi,” Le Droit, 2 July 1927. (Translation.) 133 “La Confédération Commémorée avec Grandeur,” Le Droit, 2 July 1927. (Translation.) The Ottawa Journal also highlighted the national unity message of the prime minister and governor general. See “Capital Is Centre of Greatest Canadian Fête,” Ottawa Morning Journal, 1 July 1927. 134 William Marchington, “Thousands at Ottawa Attend Great Pageant to Observe Jubilee,” Globe, 2 July 1927. 135 William Marchington, “From Ocean Unto Ocean Canadians Link Hands in Pride of Their Country,” Globe, 1 July 1927. 136 In Report of the Executive Committee, 50. 137 In Cupido, “The Medium, the Message and the Modern,” 112–13. (Translation.) 138 William Lyon Mackenzie King, Message of the Carillon (London: Macmillan, 1927), 73. 139 Report of the Executive Committee, 11–12. 140 H.V. Nelles, The Art of Nation-Building: The Tercentenary Celebrations of Quebec (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 316. 141 See Robert Choquette, Language and Religion: A History of English-French Conflict in Ontario (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1975), 229–36; Gaétan Gervais, “Le Règlement XVII (1912–1927),” Revue du Nouvel Ontario 18 (1996): 175–86; Talbot, “Une réconciliation insaisissable,” 89–103. 142 King, The Message of the Carillon, 74. 143 WLMK Diaries, 17 June 1929. See also entries for 18 June and 16 July 1929. 144 Ibid., 17 June 1929. 145 Ibid., 16 July 1929. 146 Ibid., 11 Sept. 1929. 147 Chantal Amyot and John Willis, Country Post: Rural Postal Service in Canada, 1880 to 1945 (Ottawa: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2003), 40. 148 Albeit with limited success owing to Depression-era austerity. Beattie et al., Bureaucratic Careers, 7. 149 See Michel Bastarache et al., The Law of Bilingual Interpretation (Markham, ON: Lexis Nexis, 2008), 17. 150 In Lita-Rose Betcherman, Ernest Lapointe: Mackenzie King’s Great Quebec Lieutenant (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 216. (Translation.) 151 “Bilingual Bank Notes Approved by Vote 160-43,” Globe, 17 June 1936. 152 In Hodgetts, The Canadian Public Service, 37. 153 See Beattie et al., Bureaucratic Careers, 8.

Bilingualism and Biculturalism  173 154 “Dans le domaine fédéral, le bilinguisme réalisa de grands progrès. Les Canadiens ... avaient obtenu les timbres-poste et la monnaie bilingues.” Michel Brunet, La présence anglaise et les Québécois (Montreal: Intouchables, 2009), 261–2. 155 See Ramsay Cook and Michael Behiels, The Essential Laurendeau (Toronto: Copp Clarke, 1976), 62. 156 See also Matthew Hayday, “La francophonie canadienne, le bilinguisme et l’identité canadienne dans les célébrations de la fête du Canada,” in Anne Gilbert et al., eds., Entre lieux et mémoire: L’inscription de la francophonie canadienne dans la durée (Ottawa: Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 2009), 93–115.

6  Canada’s Centennial Experience h elen davie s

The primary and most general function of the festival is to renounce and then to announce culture, to renew periodically the life stream of a community by creating new energy, and to give sanction to its institutions. Alesandro Falassi, Time Out of Time: Essays on the Festival

In 1967, Canadians marked Canada’s one hundredth anniversary of Confederation with enthusiasm and genuine pride, celebrating in extraordinary numbers. Two and a half million Canadians visited the Confederation Train in sixty-three communities and for thousands of schoolchildren, unable to travel to Montreal for Expo 67, or too young to take part in the youth exchange program, this would be their most lasting impression of the Centennial year. Thousands of people also participated in the many officially organized national events, and even more Canadians took part in local, grassroots activities. Encouraged by government organizers to celebrate Centennial in their own particular fashion, Canadians expressed their national pride in personal and sometimes eccentric ways. They created Centennial hair-dos, participated in neighbourhood beautification projects, knit Centennial toques, held dances, sponsored sports tournaments, hosted youth exchange programs, organized parades, held conferences, and presented historical re-enactments like the Centennial Voyageur Canoe Pageant. Those who were children at the time remember Bobby Gimby’s song “Ca-na-da!” fondly, and now, as adults, often spontaneously sing the lyrics when it is referenced in conversation. Others, perhaps not surprisingly, recollect the 1967 International and Universal Exposition or, as it was known to visitors, Expo 67, and for countless Canadians,

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6.1  Bobby Gimby, songwriter of “Ca-na-da!,” in a Canada Day parade during the Centennial Celebrations. From Malak/Library and Archives Canada 67-600, 1968-074 NPC.

the two events, Centennial and Expo, remain synonymous. For many Canadians, travelling to Montreal for the first time, Expo 67 was the highlight of their year. Feeling buoyed and adventurous, with their Expo Passport in hand, they “visited” the world. Writing on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Expo 67 and Centennial, journalist Alanna Mitchell observed, “it seems a long ago time now, but there was a moment, a shining moment, when Canada felt good about itself,”1 and according to writers Geoff Pevere and Greig Dymond, “It was probably the most fun the country ever had doing something it was told to do.”2 Everyone was invited to the Centennial celebration, and as if to emphasize the point, the residents of one northern Alberta community, Saint Paul, constructed a UFO landing pad, just in case. The UFO landing pad survives, and fifty years after Centennial, it is apparent that the national event continues to evoke lasting memories and endures in the minds of Canadians who took part

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in the year-long festivities. Whether it was participating in Expo 67, a youth exchange program, or attending a travelling exhibit, many Canadians experienced the Centennial year as a defining moment, and it is evident that Centennial has had a lasting impact. Initially planned as an occasion to commemorate the past and reaffirm national pride, Canada’s Centennial year evolved into something much more. Although conceding there were tensions between Canadians, in his book 1967: The Last Good Year, Pierre Berton characterizes 1967 as “a special year – a vintage year … a turning-point year,” and declares that it signalled a zenith of Canadian optimism.3 Officials had little time to plan and prepare for an event of such considerable magnitude, yet the success of Centennial was a remarkable accomplishment.4 Solid official support of the national event was a critical factor, to be sure, but in the final analysis, it was Canadians themselves who, participating in exceptional numbers, ensured Centennial was a memorable event. Marvelling at the extraordinary level of public involvement, one participant remarked, “Something intangible happened. All sorts of barriers between people – social religious, and so on – seemed to break down when people started working on ... Centennial projects.”5 A feeling of optimism and confidence in the future typified the Centennial year, and fifty years later, Centennial continues to figure prominently in the minds of many Canadians. That these memories endure in the collective consciousness of a particular demographic of the Canadian public is clear; why this should be the case is perhaps less evident. What is evident to scholars of largescale celebrations and public spectacle, however, is that these megaevents, as American cultural theorist William M. Johnston has written, “meet deeply seated needs for regularity within the flow of time”6 and presuppose a historical continuity that, in turn, suggests cultural cohesion and political stability. Commemorations like Centennial are necessary for people to impose structure on their lives and, in the words of cultural scholar Nico H. Frijda, “bring order in to the amorphous flow of time,” thereby helping to “define an individual’s location in the temporary continuity.”7 Commemoration also gives licence for citizens to come together, collectively, and redefine membership with the larger group.8 On a national level, the cult of anniversaries and resulting model of historical tradition helps “governments and businesses … cultivate [a sense] of national identity.”9 Given this view, it is hardly surprising that Johnston advises governments to capitalize on the effectiveness of

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national anniversaries and celebrations to define and foster national identity because, in his view, they are simply the best tool available to governments wanting to promote national sovereignty.10 Much has changed in the five decades since Centennial, and Canadian society has experienced an unprecedented number of socioeconomic and demographic shifts, including massive urbanization and technological innovation. There is also a markedly different sensibility than that encountered by organizers in the 1960s. Fifty years later, citizens regularly express cynicism about large pan-national events, particularly when they appear to be orchestrated by government. As Matthew Hayday writes in “Fireworks, Folk-dancing, and Fostering a National Identity: The Politics of Canada Day,” “’[o]fficial’ versions of the past, promoted by governments and elites, are often contested by mass audiences or individual actors in commemorative ceremonies.”11 Never more has this been the case than in this age of immediate “opinions” regularly transmitted by an individual to hundreds of thousands of followers on varied social media platforms; disaffection can go viral and have an immediate impact on an initiative and influence public support. Although mega-events like Centennial, and annual national celebrations like Canada Day can be highly orchestrated and reflect the preoccupations and priorities of the governing administration, they can also serve as effective vehicles to mobilize citizens and promote a sense of connection and instil feelings of national pride and greater social cohesion. There are learnings to be gleaned from the 1967 Centennial experience for organizers planning future major, national celebrations. Organizers can draw from the Centennial example as they look to plan and implement successful events that serve to unify diverse communities and weave together what are often disparate threads into a shared narrative. Organizers of the 1967 Centennial were acutely aware of the challenge of producing a successful, inclusive event that would tell a sufficiently compelling, unifying national story and, in so doing, serve to generate sufficient excitement and interest that might inspire Canadians to participate and, ideally, organize their own, local celebratory events. As José E. Igartua points out in The Other Quiet Revolution, “[By] 1966, expressions of doubt about Canadian identity grew more forceful … [and on] the occasion of Dominion Day, the Globe & Mail reiterated Canadians’ lack of nationhood.”12 The Globe claimed that “Canada’s crisis of ­identity … [was evident] in the hearts of ordinary Canadians,”13 and the Toronto Daily Star suggested that there was an “apparent lack of national

178  Helen Davies

culture.”14 According to one Canadian historian, “The country, instead of slipping quietly into the respectable stability befitting a centenarian, was having another identity crisis.”15 The Centennial celebration, as with most national mega-events, served as a vehicle for Canadians to rally, and along with commemorating the past, it could provide an important occasion to take stock, as together, Canadians could build on past success, and prepare for an even brighter future. The tone may have seemed unpromising in the year leading up to the national event, and public support nominal, but in fact Centennial had been on the minds of some Canadians as early as 1956.16 In a memo to the president of the Canadian Citizenship Council (CCC), the executive director, John P. Kidd, proposed that the council advance a $5,000 grant towards “exploratory planning of adequate national and local celebrations of centennial year 1967,” noting that “ten years in advance is not too soon.”17 Later, in the spring of 1957, at the annual meeting of the Canadian Association for Adult Education (CAAE), Dr Freda Waldon, chief librarian of the Hamilton Public Library and former president of the Canadian Library Association, reminded members that the hundredth anniversary of Confederation was only ten short years away.18 Remarking there was little time left, Waldon observed it would pose a challenge to plan and organize a national event of such magnitude and recommended the issue be given immediate consideration. Recognizing action was required, directors of the Canadian Association for Adult Education agreed to enter into discussions with representatives from other organizations. Subsequently, the CCC, joining forces with the CAAE, hosted a conference in Toronto to consider how to proceed with planning. The one-day conference, attended by thirty-five delegates representing thirty-two primarily non-governmental organizations, functioned largely as a brainstorming session, and participants were “urged … to let their imagination run riot.”19 Following a series of “idea sessions,” participants announced that Centennial offered Canadians a unique opportunity to “with the utmost sincerity and humility … determine where Canada is going as a nation and a people.”20 Delegates recommended eliminating discriminatory immigration restrictions, developing a “Bill of Rights” as part of the Constitution and implementing legislation “to do away with delegated arbitrary powers of Ministers, civil servants, special boards and commissions.”21 As well, participants recommended that the Citizenship Council and the Association for Adult Education develop an “inventory of what organizations” were

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doing in preparation for Centennial and present the results at a conference arranged for early in 1960.22 At the second conference, delegates were invited to “[move] a few steps forward from where [they] had left off”23 and develop more specific Centennial plans. Organizers reported that 16 per cent of the groups polled “indicated they had already made some progress in planning” and that “an additional twenty eight percent reported that the matter would be placed before their board or Annual Convention at their next meeting.”24 This information was, no doubt, reassuring to conference organizers who had, by this time, invested considerable time and effort in promoting the Centennial message. At the second meeting, delegates also considered a range of issues as to why and what Canadians should celebrate during the Centennial year. Participants claimed plans should be “both large … and small scale” and that “spontaneity should not be discouraged.”25 According to some delegates, success required “people at the grass roots be involved, not only as spectators and participants in events, but as far as possible, in the planning and execution also.”26 Other people suggested that plans “should involve children, to help them develop a sense of patriotism”27 and that “the Centenary should provide opportunities for new Canadians, as well as native born, to learn about Canada’s history.”28 Finally, delegates declared, “Centenary should provide opportunities of great variety to extend and strengthen good relationships between French-speaking and English-speaking Canada.”29 At the close of the conference, organizers agreed that a national nongovernmental body should be created to help stimulate ideas and provide information and assistance for groups preparing for the national anniversary. By May 1960, the Canadian Centenary Council was formed with the mandate to “stimulate interest in appropriate observances and celebrations of the anniversary of Confederation … act as a national clearing-house and information centre and … provide planning facilities and services,”30 working with government and other bodies. The latter direction proved to be more of a challenge. In November 1959, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker had reassured Canadians that planning for Centennial would “start without delay,” and would highlight “achievements of the past and … an even greater future.”31 Four months later, Solicitor General Leon Balcer attended the Centenary Council’s February 1960 meeting; while his remarks were long on praise for the council, they were short on specifics about how the government itself was preparing for 1967. Council members were

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encouraged to hear that Mr Diefenbaker was “deeply interested” in Centennial and felt that the council was “starting on the right foot.”32 Delegates were also pleased to hear that, prior to the council meeting, representatives of the federal and provincial governments had met to discuss planning for Centennial.33 However, when questioned as to whether the federal-provincial committee was permanent, Balcer was evasive, responding that “future needs and events might make for some changes in the present structure.”34 He reassured council members, however, that the joint federal-provincial committee welcomed ideas and suggestions from organizations like the Centennial Council, and congratulated delegates on their initiative. Soon after, the Conservatives provided $25,000 in financial assistance to the newly formed Canadian Centenary Council. A promising beginning, but it was not until fall of the following year that the Conservatives finally introduced legislation respecting the observance of the Centennial of Confederation. Speaking in the House of Commons in September 1961, Prime Minister Diefenbaker moved a resolution to “provide for the constitution of a corporation to be called the national centennial administration.”35 In addition to the Centennial Administration, which would “assume responsibility for the planning and execution of programs,”36 Diefenbaker reported the legislation would also make provision for a National Conference on the Centennial which, unlike the administrative body, would function as a “forum where the centennial [could] be viewed and discussed as a whole by government and non-governmental representatives.”37 The Act Respecting the Observance of the Centennial of Confederation in Canada received Royal Assent on 29 September 1961. The National Conference on the Centennial of Confederation, a “virtual clone of the Canadian Centenary Council,”38 was formally convened in 1962. However, as an advisory body with no real authority to make or implement decisions, it was not particularly effective and was a source of frustration to some Centenary Council appointees who, eager to work cooperatively with the government, were troubled by what they perceived to be government inaction. Calling on the government to establish a commission to oversee the planning and implementation of the Centennial, the Canadian Association of Adult Education maintained that “the Centennial [would] not reach its full potential unless some central agency, representative of the entire nation, [could] encourage every citizen and every community to mobilize its resources of imagination, talent and funds to make the Centennial a living memorial for everyone in the community.”39

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The 1961 Centennial Act provided for the appointment of a National Centennial Administration that was instructed to “promote interest in, and to plan and implement programmes and projects relating to the Centennial of Confederation in Canada.”40 This was just the sort of governmental body that the Centenary Council supported. Unfortunately, in the beginning, little substantial action was taken to prepare for the historic milestone, and much to the chagrin of council members, planning in the early stages proceeded very slowly. As envisioned by supporters and government officials alike, Centennial would be one of the most ambitious celebrations ever organized by the government, and therefore, it demanded considerable organization. This, of course, took time, something supporters felt was in short supply. By the close of 1962, no commission positions had been staffed, and official government planning was far from comprehensive. As Centennial year approached, there was growing concern that not enough was being done to ensure that it would be a success. Eventually, in 1963, John Fisher, a figure well known to many Canadians, given the CBC’s John Fisher Report, was appointed commissioner.41 Still, delegates to the 1963 Centenary Council conference expressed concern about the apparent lack of planning. An article in the Montreal Gazette quoted Tom Paterson, founder of the Stratford Festival and a Centenary Council delegate, as saying that “the planning for Canada’s 100th birthday was not a case of too little too late, [but] a case of nothing too late.”42 It is perhaps not surprising that Centennial was considered such a low priority by the Conservative government, as 1967 seemed far off and, with the exception of the enthusiasm demonstrated by the Centenary Council, ambivalence seemed to typify the mood of the public. Having introduced the bill respecting the observance of the Centennial and appointed a commissioner, it is likely the Conservatives considered that they had taken the first necessary steps and demonstrated their commitment to the project. Reflecting on the matter later, one Centennial official suggested, “The federal administration at the time … had no strong motivation to set up a structure for a celebration that would take place when they might no longer be in office.”43 Moreover, the government was preoccupied with more immediate political concerns. Following a non-confidence vote in the House of Commons in February 1963, and an ensuing general election that April, the Conservatives were replaced with a Liberal minority government. In an effort to bolster public support, strengthen national unity, thwart an emerging Quebec separatist agenda, and improve federal/provincial relations,

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the new government led by Lester B. Pearson began a “forceful blast in a … Canadianization of public symbols … much of it brought forward in anticipation of the Centennial of Dominion.”44 It was evident that the Centennial served as a convenient tool, providing the new government a vehicle to promote the Liberal message of unity and national identity. Convinced that national unity was “the major question facing Canada,”45 Pearson pledged to protect the Confederation, and in an effort to articulate a strong vision of Canadian identity and reinforce national unity, the Liberals aspired to provide Canadians with powerful national symbols that reflected a new nationalism.46 The first emblem to come under serious scrutiny was the Canadian flag. The flag debate began in the House of Commons in June 1964 and continued to 11 September 1964, when finally it was decided that a committee would be struck to review the matter and report back in six weeks. The objective was to have a new flag by Christmas 1964. The subject was extremely controversial among Members of Parliament, but debate was not limited to the House, as people across the country held meetings to discuss the proposed change. Opponents were fearful that replacing the Red Ensign with a new flag would undermine the national spirit. The most common “charge against the … [government’s] … flag project was that it repudiated Canada’s history and destroyed symbols of Canadian nationhood.”47 The flag debate was highly polarized between people who maintained Canada’s symbols should be British and those who asserted they should reflect a uniquely Canadian identity.48 The latter, responding to changing immigration patterns, argued new Canadians were increasingly of non-British heritage and were, therefore, unlikely to hold any great loyalty to the British Crown.49 Consequently, they believed it was crucial to have national symbols that appealed to the broadest range of the Canadian public. Pearson, as well, “was convinced that Canada had to have national symbols of its own and that gestures had to be offered to French-speaking Québécois and to those new Canadians who had come from central and southern Europe and from Asia.”50 Recognizing that symbols play an important role in uniting people to support a common cause, Pearson shrewdly exploited the national symbol and in his memoirs recalls how, for him, “the flag was part of a deliberate design to strengthen national unity.”51 Speaking to the National Convention of the Royal Canadian Legion, Pearson explained that, in his view, it was time “for Canadian to unfurl a flag that is truly distinctive and truly national in character … a flag of the future which honours

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also the past.”52 Opponents, however, were not convinced, arguing that by removing the Union Jack from the flag, Canadians were opting to sever colonial ties with Great Britain, an intolerable proposition for Diefenbaker and the Conservatives. By the close of the year, however, the debate was over, as Pearson imposed closure to end debate on the flag in Parliament. The Maple Leaf was adopted 163 to 78, with one Liberal, one NDP, and three Social Credit MPs joining Diefenbaker’s party in opposition. Meantime, Centennial officials were actively designing a new national symbol. Realizing the power of symbols to unite people and instil a sense of national attachment, planners were eager to capitalize on the opportunity to develop a symbol that was uniquely Canadian and associated with Centennial celebrations. According to Peter Aykroyd, the Centennial Commission’s director of public relations, “There was very little to publicize in 1963 and 1964.”53 So, Commissioner Fisher, travelling the country in an effort to generate excitement and enthusiasm for the national event, was challenged to find topics to talk about. Fisher struck on the idea of sponsoring a competition to design the Centennial symbol and invited anyone 12 years old and over to submit a design for consideration by 1 July 1964. The winner would receive an all-expensespaid tour of Canada. Worried that the publicity stunt might fail, Aykroyd convinced Fisher to open up the competition to Canadian graphic designers, as well as students specializing in graphic design and Canadian commercial firms in the field. The competition closed on 10 April 1964, with 325 artists having submitted 496 designs. Adjudicating the entries “on the basis of their suitability as symbols of the Centennial of Confederation, competence of design and execution, and originality of concept, in that order,”54 the jury succeeded in making a shortlist of thirty and then selected three prize winners. In their report, the jury wrote, “The one selected for first prize was most likely to be understood and accepted by Canadians of all ages and backgrounds.”55 After considerable discussion, the commission’s board of directors decided that they would register all three finalists as trademarks under the Trademarks Act and that “the three prizes be paid on the basis of the jury’s decision.”56 But instead of approving the jury’s first choice, the board selected the second-place winner, a design of the three “Cs” of the Centennial Commission with a maple leaf in the centre. Cabinet, however, still embroiled in the flag debate, rejected the symbol. So, armed with a budget of $5,000, Peter Aykroyd was charged with the duty of developing a symbol. First he approached Alan Fleming, who had designed the

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CN logo, but the price exceeded the commission’s budget. Persevering, Aykroyd then went to the advertising firm of Cooper and Beatty, which advised him that a “pleasing and [decorative] symbol is more likely to give pleasure than a serious or formal solution, [as it is] less likely to meet with public disapproval … or cause offense or be misunderstood.”57 The project was made more difficult by the fact that the symbol had to satisfy several requirements. From a technical point of view, it had to be suitable for reproduction in all sizes and mediums, as well as in colour and in black and white. As a symbolic device, the logo could “not suggest Centennial of Canada, as distinct from Centennial of Confederation,” and it had to be bilingual.58 When considering potential elements of the symbol, the firm recommended that, in light of the continuing debate over the proposed new flag, it would be prudent to avoid symbols closely connected with the flag. In particular, they suggested that unless officially adopted as the national symbol, the maple leaf –still the centre of controversy – should be avoided. However, at a subsequent meeting with representatives from the advertising agency, Secretary of State Maurice Lamontagne, Commissioner John Fisher, and Peter Aykroyd agreed that the maple leaf could be used to symbolize Canada. Eventually, a 24-year-old designer named Stuart Ash produced two designs. One was a stylized maple leaf, the other a flower motif with petals. In November 1964, the commission executive committee endorsed the stylized maple leaf, the symbol was ratified by the National Conference of the Centennial later that month, and Cabinet subsequently approved the design. The Centennial symbol, a stylized maple leaf made up of eleven equilateral triangles representing the ten provinces and the Canadian north, was designed “as an aid in promotion of the Centennial,” and the commission encouraged “the widest possible use of the Symbol in all its various forms.”59 A press conference was held on 19 January 1965 to introduce the logo to the Canadian public, only twenty-seven days before the Canadian flag became official. Although the Centennial Commission now had an official symbol, it had yet to agree on a specific theme. By 1965, the commission had adopted a list of Centennial events that had, in large part, been developed as a result of the early Centenary Council’s “idea sessions,” but organizers had not developed a central theme. In September 1964, Centennial Commission Secretary Claude Gauthier had written to John Fisher recommending the commission clarify its mission. Satisfied that the commission was

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6.2  “This is the Centennial Symbol. What does it mean? What does it mean to you?” From Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1984-4-1491.

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promoting interest in Centennial planning among government and private organizations while continuing to work on a program of projects, Gauthier expressed concern that staff had “not yet developed one single major project which [had] captivated the imagination of the Canadian population and through which [the Commission] could be adequately identified.”60 Gauthier, speculating on how best to achieve greater recognition, suggested several approaches. He argued that the commission could undertake greater publicity of existing programs or it could develop a new approach or project that would lead to greater integration of members from ethnic groups into the larger Canadian community. Alternatively, the commission could focus on the Liberal vision of national unity, as expressed through their policy of cooperative federalism.61 Gauthier favoured a fourth choice, improving communication among Canadians through a program of interprovincial travel by all Canadians, which he described as a “Knowledge Exchange.” The commission secretary was not the only staff person disturbed by the commission’s lack of direction. Jean-Pierre Houle, at the Public Relations and Information Branch, addressed the issue in a report titled “In Search of a Theme,” written in the fall of 1964. Asking why and what Canadians should celebrate, Houle recommended that the Centennial Commission promote Canadian history in general and the work of the Fathers of Confederation in particular.62 He argued that the promotion, aimed at “Mr Everybody,” would deliver what Canadians were in greatest need of, namely, “a feeling of belonging to a historical past.”63 He advised the Commission “retain the services of historians of demonstrated ability and skilled writers … to prepare texts and scripts”64 to be used on radio, television, and in the print media. Senior officials, however, were not convinced that it was in the national interest to emphasize the historical past, uncertain that could appeal to a collective national memory. There was some concern that an event focused on the historical commemoration of a political act could weaken the social fabric of the country, amplify local and regional disparities, and revive long-standing constitutional disputes. By the early 1960s, provinces across the country had come to share the view that the British North America Act and Confederation were overdue for reform. So it is perhaps not surprising that organizers decided that Centennial “should not reflect merely Confederation itself, or its period,”65 but instead should celebrate a range of Canadian accomplishments, as well as a variety of lived experiences and stories; this was a

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view supported in principle in a Centenary Council discussion paper for a workshop on Centennial and its social aspects. The author and convenor, Bernard Ostry, advised that, above all, organizers should not “emphasize celebrations of past achievements or talk too much of rededication to the idea of Confederation.”66 According to Ostry, the aim “should be to continue to build a community with diverse interests,” for this, in his view, was “the distinctive and real quality of Canada.”67 The Centennial Commission expanded this objective to include a celebration of continuity and a commitment to making the country work. To this end, speaking at a public engagement, one official urged Canadians not to consider that “the birth of [the] country was in any way a finished fact.”68 To illustrate his point, he declared that “just as the birth of a child is the beginning of a long, and arduous struggle to maturity, so the birth of [Canada] was the first step in a difficult and laborious march [towards] … maturity in the family of nations.”69 Maintaining that, while during this period of growth and transition, Canadians were “prepared to consider any accommodations, any compromise, any rearrangement inside the House of Canada,” they were “determined that the house itself must stand firm and inviolate.”70 Centennial, he claimed, offered Canadians an opportunity to look back at the past, but “not from any base desire to glory in our past accomplishments,” but rather to turn to history as a “measuring rod” for the future.71 History, frequently contentious and often the source of disagreement, turned out to be too problematic. Rather than focus on commemorating the past, the commission elected, instead, to emphasize the promise of a bright and prosperous future. With this approach, organizers believed they could appeal to the broadest section of Canadian society, and thereby achieve their goal of maximum participation. Centennial Commission officials believed that the year-long celebration should not focus solely on the past or the political act of Confederation72; they did not, however, want to promote a “formless jumble of individual projects.”73 Early in the planning stages, organizers acknowledged that “the official side of the centennial programme should not dominate to the point where grass-roots participation is hampered, but rather … the official organization would aim to stimulate and facilitate … grass-roots activity.”74 The view was that Centennial should be a “time of national stocktaking and rededication for the future … [and] … should have a strong all-Canadian flavour, but should also have important provincial and local aspects.”75 Commission officials recommended that every citizen should be involved and agreed that, while the historical significance

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of Centennial was important, the celebration should not reflect merely Confederation itself. In the early planning stages, there was continuing discussion as to what types of events were appropriate for a national anniversary. In his opening statements at the second National Conference of representatives and organizations planning for Centennial, Dr J. Roby Kidd told participants that they needed to “decide if … Centenary is for every person.”76 Kidd, who was the executive director of the Canadian Citizenship Council, informed delegates that, if this was the case, “some forms of celebrating are not likely to please all of us, [and] they will not equally satisfy our feelings about what is good taste,” but he argued, “is this a Centenary for Canada’s citizens, or just those who have good taste?”77 Both the council and the commission concluded it was a celebration for all Canadians, with particular attention given to involving young people. As plans for the national event unfolded, organizers agreed that its success depended on the involvement of Canada’s youth. Consequently, many programs and events were designed with a view to attracting Canada’s young people. The Youth Travel Exchange Program, designed for students 15 years or older, was a Centennial Commission success story, with more than twelve thousand Centennial travellers taking advantage of the program. In addition to the youth exchange program, the commission collaborated with several recreational and health organizations to develop an athletic awards program that was administered in cooperation with provincial education authorities. The most successful component of the program was the section designed for schoolchildren. Comprised of three compulsory and three optional events, the program allowed students to win gold, silver, or bronze crests or red shields in recognition of their physical ability; by the close of Centennial year, “gold, silver and bronze crests and Red Shields were awarded to the 5 ½ million students aged six to eight who participated.”78 Perhaps the most popular “youth event” organized by officials, however, was the Confederation Train and Caravan, a project that was first considered by John Kidd. Although it was the single most expensive project undertaken by the Centennial Commission,79 it was also the most successful, with attendance numbers far exceeding commission estimates. Two and a half million Canadians visited the train in sixty-three communities, and six and a half million people are estimated to have visited the caravan. Along with the big-budget provincial/federal grant programs, Confederation Train and Caravan, and the youth exchange, the Centennial

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Commission supported several other significant projects. Festival Canada, a national initiative, operated semi-independently of the commission, organized national tours of celebrated Canadian artists, introducing performers like Les Feux-Follets, Don Messer and His Islanders, the National Ballet of Canada, and singers Gordon Lightfoot and Ian and Sylvia Tyson to Canadians across the country. For people who enjoyed the pomp and circumstance of military-style productions, there was the RCMP Musical Ride or the Department of Defence Military Tattoo. The National Gallery hosted a visual arts program, and numerous folk festivals were held across the nation, in addition to provincial and municipally sponsored arts and culture events. The commission organized splashy events, too, like the Son et lumière show in the national capital on Parliament Hill. Based on a European model of historical pageants using historical buildings as backdrops, the spectacle was viewed from an eighty-seat amphitheatre at Nepean Point Park. For the historically minded, there was the Centennial Voyageur Canoe Pageant. Nine provinces and the Yukon Territory fielded crews, who left on 24 May from Rocky Mountain House in Alberta. The crews stopped at ninety communities and, after paddling 3,283 miles, arrived at Expo 67 in Montreal on 4 September, with the Manitoba team winning the prize purse. In addition to these events, the Centennial Commission also authorized several National Film Board films and television productions and administered a publications program that saw some 23,000 books donated to 451 libraries across the country. It was a comprehensive program of events and initiatives. The Centennial Commission understood that the 1960s was a decade of social transformation with the emergence of a strong youth culture, growing women’s movement, and an evolving relationship between Indigenous peoples and other Canadians, coupled with increased immigration. New voices surfaced and contributed to the national dialogue, leading to a greater diversity of perspectives, lived experiences, and stories to tell. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that the Centennial Commission developed a program that encouraged the widest possible range of public participation. Officials acknowledged that such an approach might result in some unconventional Centennial projects, but they were of the view that the benefits outweighed the potential risks as the likely outcome was broad and active participation. From the commission’s viewpoint, the most feared response to the Centennial year would have been indifference from the Canadian public. Appreciating the complexity of the task of mobilizing Canadians, organizers did their best to ensure

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6.3  “What can I do for Centennial?”: Knit a Sweater, Travel Canada, Plant a Tree.” From Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1984-4-1446 Centennial Commission.

that Canadians were presented with a wide array of opportunities to take part in and express their commitment to Canada. They could attend official events hosted throughout the year or, if they wanted to play a more active role, they could join forces with neighbours and organize a community event. If they preferred to express their pride privately, people were invited to undertake personal projects, too. Whether that meant building a UFO landing pad, racing a bathtub from Nanaimo to Vancouver, or designing a Centennial hairdo, was of little consequence. The Centennial Commission asked only one thing of Canadians: that they get involved and do something to commemorate Centennial. By not limiting how people should celebrate or, for that matter, what they should celebrate, planners encouraged Canadians to express their enthusiasm, national pride, and lived experience in whatever way was most significant to them. This approach was, no doubt, unsettling for some. In retrospect, however, worries over perceived risks were not borne out by experience. Although there were occasions during the Centennial year when Canadians did disagree or at least shared different perspectives and opinions, it could be argued that this served to enrich the Centennial experience for many Canadians. For example, the Indians of Canada pavilion at Expo 67 invited visitors to reflect on the Indigenous experience, presenting a vision that was decidedly different from the idealized and often narrow, stereotypical views that many Canadians held. Writing about the Indians of Canada pavilion, Myra

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Rutherford and Jim Miller suggest that “the form and content of First Nations’ involvement in the creation of the Indian Pavilion at Expo 67, and their general participation in the festivities … was unique and unprecedented.”80 In March of 1966, likely in response to questions in the House of Commons about the level of representation of Indigenous culture and society at Expo 67, the federal government issued a press release announcing that there would be an Indians of Canada pavilion. Andrew Tanahokate Delisle, a Mohawk and former elected grand chief of the Kahnawake First Nation, was appointed commissioner of the pavilion and charged with the responsibility of providing visitors with a frank depiction of Indigenous life in Canada. The result was a controversial exhibit with many displays highlighting past injustices endured by Indigenous people. For example, upon entering the exhibit, visitors encountered a sign that read: “When the white man came we welcomed him with love, we sheltered him, fed him and led him through the forest. Many Indians feel our fathers were betrayed.”81 Presenting a more complex vision of Indigenous culture and society, messages were scattered throughout the exhibit that challenged accepted stereotypes, showing that “contemporary Indians were not just trappers, farmers and fishermen, but … also lawyers, teachers, politicians and doctors.”82 Several exhibits, critical of Canada’s treatment of Indigenous people, pointed to how, through government mechanisms like the residential school system, Indigenous people had been compelled to abandon their culture and assimilate. The pavilion presented a contested story of Canada and revealed the inherent tensions involved in anyone attempting to promote a grand, unifying national narrative. Not all Canadians interpreted the Centennial of Confederation as an occasion for celebration, but as an opportunity to reflect on injustice, discrimination, and to consider how to chart a new path forward, based on respect and full citizenship. With his speech, “Lament for Confederation,” Chief Dan George of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation addressed thirty-five thousand people gathered for the Centennial celebration at Empire Stadium in Vancouver, British Columbia. He presented a lived experience of the years since Confederation that emphasized the exclusion of Aboriginal people and the damage caused by government policies of cultural assimilation: “in the long hundred years since the white man came, I have seen my freedom disappear like the salmon going mysteriously out to sea. The white man’s strange customs which I could not understand pressed down upon me until I could no longer breathe. When I fought to protect my

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land and my home, I was called a savage. When I neither understood nor welcomed this way of life, I was called lazy. When I tried to rule my people, I was stripped of my authority.”83 Many Indigenous Canadians viewed the act of Confederation as one that had threatened and undermined pre-existing vibrant, thriving societies and cultures; for them, celebration was not what came to mind. Although the Indians of Canada pavilion was controversial, challenged accepted views, and was regarded by some as too political, the exhibit was also recognized and celebrated for its honest, uncompromising portrayal of harsh realities faced every day by Canada’s Indigenous people. Functioning as a consciousness-raising exercise, the pavilion served notice that Indigenous people expected to participate actively in making decisions that shaped their future and spoke to the idea of a new relationship where the “‘happily ever after’ fantasy was replaced, perhaps only temporarily, by a new discourse which was more fitting for the age.”84 This shifting discourse was characteristic of the sociopolitical change also underway in Quebec, where it was being radically transformed by the Quiet Revolution. Quebec nationalism was on the rise, and the separatist cause was publicly profiled and actively promoted by supporters. From the beginning, the Centennial Commission faced, somewhat irresolutely, the question of Quebec and the problem of generating excitement for an event that many Quebecers, like Canada’s Indigenous people, it was feared, viewed at best with ambivalence. A report prepared for, the Commission’s advertising firm in Quebec, appeared to verify this concern. It found that many respondents, particularly urban and semi-urban Quebecers were confused about the meaning of the anniversary. To the delight of the Centennial Commission, however, the great majority of the people polled thought Confederation was a historically significant event, with 54 per cent responding that they thought Centennial of it was an occasion to manifest national loyalty. An exception to the findings, however, was with urban males between the ages of 15 and 34. They were more sympathetic to the separatist platform. Similarly disturbing to federal officials were statistics indicating only 17 per cent of the respondents thought Centennial provided an opportunity to strengthen Anglo-Franco Canadian relations, and only 15 per cent thought it was an occasion to get to know other Canadians better, a central objective of Centennial. Moreover, while three-quarters of the people polled responded that they intended

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to visit Expo 67, nearly half were undecided about participating in or attending other planned Centennial events. Like many other Canadians, before 1967, Quebecers were largely indifferent to the idea of a national anniversary. The mood, a complex mix of ambivalence and growing resentment, was captured in a book, My Country? Canada or Quebec?, by Quebec author Solange Chaput-Rolland. Initially, Chaput-Rolland and Gwethalyn Graham had secured funding under the Centennial Publications Program to co-author a book that would continue work first begun in their joint effort, Dear Enemies. The book, described as a dialogue between the two friends, one francophone and the other anglophone, served to validate the bicultural fact of Canada and placed the issue front and centre. Soon after submitting their application, however, Graham was diagnosed with cancer and in August 1965, Chaput-Rolland advised the Commission that, as her coauthor was unwell, she would have to find someone to take her friend’s place. Sadly, Graham died a month later. Chaput-Rolland decided to continue the project alone. Described as a “daily diary reflecting impressions of Canada as seen by a French Canadian,”85 the book explored relations between French- and English-speaking Canada. Chaput-Rolland travelled from coast to coast, talking with fellow Canadians, learning about the Canadian experience. Conceding that due to “the limits of [her] Centennial grant, and because of … family obligations,” it would “be impossible for [her] to pass an exhaustive judgement on Canada,86 only eight days into her cross-Canada tour, Chaput-Rolland declared that her country was “decidedly Quebec.” Her conclusion was driven largely by what she believed was English Canada’s indifference to Quebec’s problems. Writing that she had “lost confidence in English Canada’s open mindedness,” Chaput-Rolland observed that while it was “easy for the other provinces to accuse Quebec of narrow nationalism,” they were no better, each believing their view was correct and above reproach.87 Perhaps in an effort to offer a more inclusive, tolerant alternative to the separatist model, Chaput-Rolland wrote about “solidarity” rather than national unity. Whereas the latter implied political and cultural assimilation, the former suggested a more complementary relationship, with English and French Canada working together as equal partners. Fortunately for the Centennial Commission, her vision of future French-English relations did not subvert federal policy. In fact, the government could point to new initiatives like the Royal Commission on

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Biculturalism and Bilingualism as proof of their commitment to forging a new partnership with Quebec. Chaput-Rolland’s review of the planned national celebration was, however, mixed. Remarking that she thought it was “rather foolish to imagine that because we … sing O Canada for 365 days in 1967, we will, the next year, all become big loving brothers,”88 she did not suggest an outright boycott and, while her book was not the resounding approval the commission had hoped for, organizers, eager to present a unified front and have Quebec participate, happily accepted any support, no matter how qualified. Worries over political divergence were not the only issue that concerned Centennial organizers. Just as important was their concern that government-sponsored grassroots events would be overshadowed by the year’s mega-event, Expo 67. For example, after a Member of Parliament suggested that Expo was the “focal point of Canada’s centenary celebrations,”89 government official T.H. Taylor wrote to advise then Secretary of State Judy LaMarsh that there was an “urgency to bring the centennial out from under the shadow of Expo 67.”90 He suggested that when “people talk[ed] about Expo to the exclusion of the centennial,”91 it had an adverse effect on the national celebration.” It proved to be a continuing challenge for commission staff, who, while keen to find a way for Quebec to participate and celebrate, were sensitive to the possibility that the success of Expo might eclipse the Centennial Commission’s events. Their fears were not completely unfounded, as Expo did garner the lion’s share of media coverage, with the international press, in particular, covering the event extensively. This helped to blur the distinction between the events for many Canadians, with few people appreciating that two separate organizations were responsible for each initiative. Given, however, that the exposition generated a great deal of interest and excitement, particularly in the host province, concerns about Expo’s drawing power evaporated as the year progressed. By the end of the year, it was clear that the Centennial celebrations had benefited from the excitement that Expo 67 generated, as the positive and regular press coverage of the World’s Fair inspired may Canadians to get involved and participate in events locally and regionally. With its ultra-modern displays and predominately optimistic message, Expo captured the imagination of exhibitors and visitors alike. The sheltered archipelago in the middle of the St Lawrence River, seemed, for a brief period, to exemplify the possibilities of a new, ideal world where people from many countries and cultures, speaking a multitude of languages

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united to celebrate the accomplishments of humanity. The Expo world was innovative, positive, and full of promise. One major event of that year did, however, have negative reverberations, and it was, at least indirectly connected with Expo. Heads of state of all the countries exhibiting at the fair were formally invited to visit, and French President Charles de Gaulle, accepted. Even before his arrival, his visit instilled anxiety among organizers, as the general, always a controversial public figure, was renowned for his unpredictable manner. According to historian John English, “Pearson was ‘apprehensive’ about a de Gaulle visit, but since invitations had to be sent to all heads of state, little could be done.”92 The “de Gaulle visit was unwanted, but necessary,”93 and officials believed that cancelling the planned visit could be highly provocative. Further complicating the situation was the fact that the Quebec government had also extended an invitation to the general. In his study The Gaullist Attack on Canada, 1967–1997, John F. Bosher claims that, prior to 1967, “Charles de Gaulle and his government were gathering information and strengthening ties with Quebec.”94 Moreover, Bosher suggests that when de Gaulle accepted Premier Daniel Johnson’s invitation to attend Expo, he “saw the journey as an opportunity to assist the nationalist movements of Quebec.”95 In his book With Friends Like These: Entangled Nationalisms and the Canada-Quebec-France Triangle, 1944–1970, David Meren notes that “the French President had played a significant personal role in planning the visit.”96 According to Bosher, de Gaulle was aware of the historical significance of the anniversary year for Canada and, astutely exploiting the powerful tools of symbolism and spectacle, designed his visit to emphasize the FrancoQuebec bond. He travelled across the Atlantic “in a warship named Le Colbert, after the minister of Louis XIV who had presided over the first great French migration to Canada,97 and prior to arriving in Quebec, he visited the French islands of St Pierre and Miquelon. Had de Gaulle flown to Canada, he would have had to land first in Newfoundland, as the island airstrips were too small. According to Bosher, however, de Gaulle “wanted to avoid all the English-speaking parts of Canada, such as Newfoundland.”98 De Gaulle’s visit was characterized as a “kind of historic, almost imperial voyage,” and he took every opportunity to “suggest that Quebec was still French.”99 Arriving in Quebec City, de Gaulle was afforded a welcome worthy of a national hero and celebrated as a respected and honoured guest, and as if to emphasize the special relationship between France and Quebec, the Johnson government declared a public holiday.

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There is ongoing debate as to whether de Gaulle deliberately planned to utter his famously provocative “Vive le Quebec libre!” or whether, swept up in the moment, he simply expressed an unscripted statement. Increasingly, however, scholars maintain that the remark was premeditated. David Meren submits, “For his part, de Gaulle was determined to use the occasion to highlight the cultural links uniting France and Quebec; English Canada and, by extension, Ottawa, were distant secondary considerations. Conscious of the weight of history, de Gaulle had recalled how he had felt himself ‘an instrument of fate’ at the time of the Liberation; so, too, did he now see himself as history’s agent.”100 Moreover, his “remarks during his stay … were replete with reference to cultural solidarity between France and Quebec, going as far as to intimate that French Canadians were members of a transatlantic French nation acting to counter American cultural power and promote the French fact in North America and around the world.”101 In French circles, “the trip was conceived … as providing a boost to the cause of Quebec self-determination.”102 More than an historical footnote, Meren states that de Gaulle’s words from the balcony in Montreal at the Place Jacques-Cartier sent “shockwaves which reached into homes throughout Quebec, where the reaction was as varied as opinions regarding the province’s political destiny; they reached a Canadian populace increasingly anxious about the country’s future even as they celebrated the past; they reached across the Atlantic to France, where they provoked reactions from derision to joy; they circled the globe. De Gaulle had just dramatically drawn world attention to the debate raging over Quebec’s future, laying bare Canada’s unity crisis.”103 But not all Quebecers embraced de Gaulle’s message, with some Quebec nationalists dismissing the paternalistic tone.104 The incident demonstrates the difficulty of managing national events like Centennial and ensuring all events unfold as planned. The controversy did have an unintended “positive” impact, as many Canadians took the opportunity to speak out and rebuke the French president. The federal government reportedly received nearly a thousand telegrams by the evening of the incident, as Canadians rallied in defence of their country, demonstrating a strong sense of pride. Meren writes, It was Jean Drapeau, Montreal’s Francophile mayor, who perhaps best captured the complexities of the debate surrounding francophone Quebec’s identity. In remarks at a luncheon that he hosted the day after de Gaulle’s

Canada’s Centennial Experience  197 cri du balcon, Drapeau acknowledged the affinities of history and culture between France and Quebec but asserted that French Canada’s roots were planted deep in Canadian soil. Drapeau’s wish was that, “with France’s assistance,” French Canada would be able to contribute to the betterment of Canada as a whole. In the weeks that followed, a poll showed that it was the mayor’s response to de Gaulle’s actions that received the greatest level of support from Quebecers.105

No doubt the federal administration would have found Drapeau’s remarks somewhat reassuring, as it spoke to a stronger, not divided, Canada. Although the press covered the de Gaulle story for several days, in the end, the remarks did not dampen public enthusiasm for either Expo or Centennial. Canadians continued to celebrate across the country. Centennial confirmed that not everyone believed they were members of the “imagined” community of Canada. It is unlikely, however, that officials would have regarded this as a significant setback. Officials confronted a considerable challenges as they worked to design a national celebration that articulated a vision of cultural cohesion and political stability during a period of considerable social and political transformation. Recognizing that managed events like Centennial can help strengthen national identity, as well as play a crucial role in building a sense of shared aspirations, officials were adamant that everyone would be invited to the celebration. Even if some people may have chosen to participate, rather than celebrate, the event from the perspective of organizers was still successful, as it provided an opportunity for citizens to think about what it meant to be Canadian, and consider the future of the country. Staged national events like the Centennial of Confederation play a vital role in imparting a sense of a shared national identity, “reminding [participants] of their connection, mythical or otherwise, to past traditions,”106 thereby authenticating what is largely an invented idea of a unified nation. Invented because, according to Benedict Anderson, the theory of one, unifying national identity is illusory at best, given that “the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.”107 Nonetheless, national celebrations help facilitate feelings of unity, no matter how deceptive, because in the imagined community “the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship.”108 The resulting equalizing effect emphasizes

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common, shared experiences: “These major events allowed those in control to shape images of the nation and to determine the criteria of acceptable Canadian representations.”109 Matthew Hayday offers a similar interpretation. In exploring how, since 1958, governments of the day, have used the 1 July celebration, especially, to foster and promote a particular view of national identity. Hayday writes, “Political and bureaucratic considerations shaped the vision of the nation that is celebrated and the format of these events. The constant re-examination and re-evaluation of this highly symbolic national anniversary reflect a national identity that remained in flux and a succession of governments that grappled with celebrating a country that lacked a revolutionary history and was divided among prominent regional, linguistic, and ethnic cleavages.”110 Celebrations like Centennial are, according to the sociologist Frank E. Manning, “an important, often crucial means through which people proclaim their identity and fashion their sense of purpose.”111 As a type of participatory cultural performance, such celebrations provide tangible expression to what is largely an abstract idea; celebrations help define a sense of community spirit, and thereby intensify identification with the community. At a national level, celebrations provide governments a convenient vehicle for promoting “[the] official myth of community solidarity.”112 The scale and magnitude of the Centennial year was unlike anything faced by organizers of previous national events in Canada. Nevertheless, like the politicians and bureaucrats before them, organizers wrestled with the challenge of staging an event that balanced a multitude of political and social interests, as well as a contested historical narrative, with a view to strengthen connections, or forging new ones, to position Canada and Canadians for success well in to the next hundred years. Centennial organizers designed events that afforded Canadians an opportunity to talk to each other, exchange ideas, and learn about one another and thereby cultivate a sense of shared experience or appreciate what made them different. In this way, Centennial served as a platform for Canadians to better understand that there was no one, singular, “authentic” Canadian experience. As a ceremonial occasion, Centennial commemorated an historic event, but it was also an expression of hope for many Canadians. Centennial and Expo 67, served as a catalyst that saw many Canadians join together for a brief period of time, launching the country into what promised to be an exciting and prosperous future. The year-long program of events refocused Canadians at a time when, according to one observer, the collective identity of Canadian mainstream society was

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increasingly under “attack.”113 Given the abstract nature of the occasion, organizers believed it was important to frame Centennial in a way that was tangible and meaningful for Canadians who may have felt detached or alienated from a distant historical event. Therefore, it made sense to adopt a strategy that encouraged Canadians to celebrate the anniversary in their own particular way. Organizers focused on generating interest and active involvement in planning at the grassroots level in order to motivate Canadians to plan, host, and attend Centennial activities. Applying principles of inclusivity and flexibility, organizers navigated numerous interests and agendas and found a path forward. Espousing a somewhat idealized view of national cultural harmony and tolerance, most official programs imparted a familiar, reassuring concept of the Canadian identity. Although Canadians had licence to express their pride in an idiosyncratic and irreverent fashion, the prevailing message was one that emphasized unity over division. Whether that meant organizing a Centennial “biffy parade,” hosting a neighbourhood beautification initiative or a sports event was of little consequence. As envisioned years earlier by members of the Canadian Citizenship Council and the Canadian Association for Adult Education, events were both large and small scale and ran the spectrum of “good taste” to just good fun. Canadians planned and executed numerous successful, often fairly spontaneous events, and as at any good party, guests blew off a “little steam.” In a carnivalesque environment, they poked fun at themselves and their neighbours and, in some instances, strengthened existing relationships, and through initiatives like the youth exchange program, forged new ones, all while not “rocking the boat” too much. Having adopted an official, national framework, with overarching goals, endorsed by the governing administration, the Centennial Commission of Canada did not, however, impose a single, rigid vision of the “what” and “how” of celebration and commemoration. The only imperative was participation, and experience teaches that events like Centennial are most successful when they provide a platform that allows for active engagement that gives expression to a wide array of perspectives. As a result, the invitation to join in the Centennial celebration was sent to everyone, with few caveats. Drawing on the analogy of a large, extended family gathering, there was always a risk that someone would crash the Centennial party, perhaps celebrate a bit too enthusiastically, share too much, or inadvertently offend another “family member,” but it was a risk organizers were willing to take. Centennial was a year-long birthday bash, complete with cakes, balloons, and

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presents, as well as a catchy birthday song, that fired the imagination of many Canadians who, for a brief moment, seemed united by a shared outpouring of national pride, and “throughout the year 1967, all across Canada, people ‘got the spirit.’” Commissioner John Fisher, emphasizing the importance of the national anniversary of Canadian Confederation, maintained in a 1963 Maclean’s article, that “if ... [Canada] were not having a centennial, we would have to invent one.”114 Principles of participation and inclusivity remain important today as organizers and communities turn their minds to planning major, national events. In the intervening decades between 1967 and 2017, however, with evolving citizen expectations, there has been a shift from participation to an ever increasing expectation of active engagement, as citizens, not always satisfied with just showing up and participating, and cautious about the potential manipulation of large-scale, national events, now look for opportunities to shape, contribute meaningfully to, and influence events that are perceived to have a direct impact on them. The principle of engagement is certainly not a new concept and was part of the public consciousness during the 1960s, as there was a growing movement that advocated for greater involvement in decisionmaking. Given the increased emphasis, however, on community-based decision-making models that stress partnership and collaboration, coupled with the unprecedented growth in and immediacy of new technologies, opportunities for involvement in planning, coordinating, and implementing national events will serve as predictors of success, as people look for opportunities to express and share their own particular lived experiences and perspectives. People want to celebrate what is important to them as individuals and communities, whether virtual or communities of interest or communities of practice. Recognizing that national milestones are critical for reflection, reconnection, and rededication to a greater sense of purpose, drawing on the experience of Centennial, future organizers can frame national events as a catalyst, using them as a vehicle to launch a dialogue about what it means to belong. It also affords an opportunity to share and connect. New technologies present the potential for a level of active involvement and exchange far-reaching and far richer than that imagined or hoped for by the Centennial Commission. Drawing on the lessons learned from Canada’s Centennial, future organizers can develop an approach that supports active citizen engagement and meaningful involvement, providing space where individuals and communities can tell and share their stories and shape a new lived experience.

Canada’s Centennial Experience  201 NOTES 1 Alanna Mitchell, Globe and Mail, quoted in G. Pevere and G. Dymond, Mondo Canuck: A Canadian Pop Culture Odyssey (Scarborough, ON: Prentice Hall, 1977), 50. 2 Ibid. 3 Pierre Berton, 1967: The Last Good Year (Toronto: Doubleday, 1997), 15. 4 Although non-governmental organizations started planning for Centennial year as early as 1959, the government was slow to formalize a plan of action. An Act Representing the Observance of the Centennial of Confederation in Canada received Royal Assent on 29 September 1961, but the Commission did not begin its work in earnest until early 1963, when Commissioner John Fisher began to staff key positions. 5 Maclean’s, Dec. 1967, 89–90. 6 William M. Johnston, Celebrations: The Cult of Anniversaries in Europe and the United States Today (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1991), xi. 7 Nico H. Frijda, “Commemorating,” in James W. Pennebaker et al., eds., Collective Memory of Political Events: Social Psychological Perspectives (Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997), 108. 8 Ibid. 9 Johnston, Celebrations, 39. Johnston defines national identity as a “shared sense of distinctiveness, as it has unfolded in a nation state’s history.” 10 Ibid., 7. 11 Matthew Hayday, “Fireworks, Folk-dancing, and Fostering a National Identity: The Politics of Canada Day,” Canadian Historical Review 91, 2 (2010): 290. 12 José E. Igartua, The Other Quiet Revolution: National Identities in English Canada, 1945–71 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006), 167. 13 “The Vital Human Ingredient,” Globe and Mail, 21 Dec. 1966, quoted in ibid. 14 “After 99 Years, a Weekend to Celebrate,” Toronto Daily Star, 2 July 1966, quoted in ibid. 15 Ramsey Cook, “Federalism, Nationalism, and the Canadian Nation State,” in The Maple Leaf Forever: Essays on Nationalism and Politics in Canada (Toronto: Macmillan, 1977), 23. 16 When the bill to establish the National Centennial Administration was introduced in Parliament in 1961, Mr Herridge, New Democractic Party of Canada (NDP) member for Kootney West, remarked that the “first time it was brought to the attention of any large group was at the Ontario provincial convention of the C.C.F. in 1950.” Herridge noted that Stanley Knowles, the honourable member for Winnipeg North, “placed on the order paper a resolution dealing with [the] subject,” and the item was

202  Helen Davies reintroduced several times. Herridge then read the lengthy resolution to the House, for the record. Hansard, 18 Sept. 1961, 8470. 17 John P. Kidd, Memo to the President, 11 Sept. 1956, Library and Archives Canada (LAC), Records of the Canadian Citizenship Council, MG 28, I85, vol. 14, file: Kidd, John P. – Memos to President of CCC, 1956–1959. 18 Letter from H.M. Wallis to Norman Mackenzie, 24 Sept. 1965, LAC, MG 31, D21, vol. 1, book 6: H.M. Wallis Papers, vol. 9. 19 “Planning Ahead for Canada’s Centenary: Report of One Day Conference of May 6th, 1959,” 1, LAC, MG 28, I85, vol. 29, file: Canadian Centenary Council (1958–1960). 20 Ibid., 3–4. 21 Ibid. Interestingly, the agenda developed by the CAAE and the CCC was not ultimately adopted by the federal Centennial Commission. Instead, the government chose to downplay overtly political messages. 22 Ibid., 6. 23 “Planning Ahead for Canada’s Centenary: Feb. 11–12, 1960,” 14, LAC, MG 31, D21, vol. 1, file: Canadian Centenary Council, 1959–1960. 24 Ibid. It is noteworthy, however, that at the time of the conference only 67 surveys out of 275 had been returned. 25 Ibid., 14. 26 Ibid., 15. 27 Ibid., 14. 28 Ibid., 13. 29 Ibid. 30 CCC, “The Development of Goals & Functions,” draft 11 Feb. 1966, LAC, MG 31, D21, vol. 10, file: CCC Papers, Jan.–May 1966 – notes for discussion of the role and functions of the CCC. 31 Ottawa Citizen, 24 Nov. 1959. 32 “Planning Ahead for Canada’s Centenary: Feb. 11–12, 1960,” 13. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 Hansard, 18 Sept. 1961, 8465. 36 Ibid., 8467. 37 Ibid. 38 Peter Aykroyd, The Anniversary Compulsion: Canada’s Centennial Celebrations, a Model Mega-Anniversary (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1993), 45. Many Centenary Council members were appointed to the Conference. 39 Hansard, 30 Mar. 1960, 458. 40 An Act Respecting the Observance of the Centennial of Confederation in Canada.

Canada’s Centennial Experience  203 41 Fisher was named a special assistant to Prime Minister Diefenbaker and given the task of writing speeches for the prime minister. It was an interim position, as Fisher was waiting for the Order-in-Council to pass appointing him chairman of the newly established Centennial Commission. Aykroyd, The Anniversary Compulsion, 49. 42 James Ferrabee, “Lack of Planning,” Montreal Gazette, 20 Apr. 1963. 43 Aykroyd, The Anniversary Compulsion, 42. 44 Igartua, The Other Quiet Revolution, 5. 45 Lester B. Pearson, Mike: The Memoirs of the Right Honourable Lester B. Pearson, vol. 3, 1857–1968 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 239. 46 J.L. Granatstein, Canada 1957–1967: The Years of Uncertainty and Innovation (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1986), 200–2. 47 Blair Fraser, The Search for Identity: Canada, 1945–1967 (New York: Doubleday, 1967), 234. 48 Ibid. 49 J.M. Bumstead, “The Birthday Party,” The Beaver (Apr.–May 1996): 6. 50 Granatstein, Canada 1957–67, 201. 51 Pearson, Mike, vol. 3, 270. 52 Ibid., 272. 53 Aykroyd, The Anniversary Compulsion, 91. 54 Memo: Official Symbol to Represent the Centennial of Confederation, 28 June 1964, LAC, RG 69, Records of the Canadian Centennial Commission, vol. 373, file 4-3: Cabinet Papers. 55 Ibid. 56 Aykroyd, The Anniversary Compulsion, 94. 57 “A statement of objectives and parameters relating to the design of a symbol for the Centenary of Confederation,” 27 Oct. 1962, LAC, RG 69, vol. 353, file 130-2 (vol. 2). 58 Ibid. 59 Centennial Commission, Centennial Symbol, Graphics Manual: Manuel de l’Emblème du Centenaire (Ottawa : Queen’s Printer, 1965), 1. 60 Memo to J. Fisher from M. Claude Gauthier, 25 Sept. 1964, LAC, RG 69, vol. 408, file: Centennial Theme. 61 Ibid. 62 J.P. Houle, Director, P.R. & Information Branch, “In Search of a Theme,” 12 Oct. 1964, ibid. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid. 65 Memo to Cabinet, National Centennial Administration, 23 July, 1963, LAC, RG 69, vol. 373, file 4-3: Cabinet Papers.

204  Helen Davies 66 Memo to Dr Geoffrey C. Andrew from B. Ostry, 10 Apr. 1963, LAC, MG 28, I70, vol. 3, file 27: Third AGM, Working Papers. 67 Ibid. 68 LAC, RG 69, vol. 540, file: Mr Batten, Speaking Engagements. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid. 72 Memo to Andrew from Ostry, 10 Apr. 1963. 73 Memorandum to Cabinet: Canada’s Centennial – Proposed Meeting with Provinces, February 21 and 22; Administrative & Financial Aspects of Canada’s Centennial, 20 Jan. 1961, LAC, Cabinet document 24/ 61 H-1-8(b). 74 Ibid., 3. 75 Memo to Cabinet, 23 July 1963, Re: National Centennial Administration (Confidential), LAC, RG 69, vol. 373, file: 4-3: Cabinet Papers. 76 “Planning Ahead for Canada’s Centenary: Report of the Second Conference, Feb., 11–12, 1960,” LAC, MG 31, D21, vol. 1, book 6, Wallis Papers, Canadian Centenary Council, 1959–60. 77 Ibid. 78 Aykroyd, The Anniversary Compulsion, 129. 79 Combined, the Confederation Train and Caravan cost $47,903,784. Helen Davis, “The Politics of Participation: A Study of Canada’s Centennial Celebration” (PhD dissertation, University of Manitoba, 1999), 76. 80 Myra Rutherdale and Jim Miller, “‘It’s Our Country’: First Nations’ Participation in the Indian Pavilion at Expo 67,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 17, 2 (2006): 150. 81 Todd Lamirande, “Expo 67 Revisited: Indian Pavilion Faces Canadians with Cold Truth,” First Perspectives 6 (July 1997): 14. 82 Ibid. 83 http://www.canadahistory.com/sections/documents/Native/docschiefdangeorge.htm, Dan George, “Lament for Confederation,” 1967. The “Lament” ends with: I shall see our young braves and our chiefs sitting in the houses of law and government, ruling and being ruled by the knowledge and freedoms of our great land. So shall we shatter the barriers of our isolation. So shall the next hundred years be the greatest in the proud history of our tribes and nations. 84 Ibid.

Canada’s Centennial Experience  205 85 Letter to Mrs Doris Anderson, Editor, from Angela Burke, P.R., Womens’ Program, CCC, 22 Aug. 1966, LAC, RG 69, vol. 549, file: Chatelaine Magazine. 86 Solange Chaput-Rolland, My Country, Canada or Quebec? (Toronto: Macmillan, 1966), 16. 87 Ibid., 80. 88 Ibid., 73. 89 Letter from Thomas H. Taylor to Secretary of State LaMarsh, 17 June 1967, LAC, RG 69, vol. 354, file 130-2. 90 Ibid. 91 Ibid. 92 John English, The Worldly Years: The Life of Lester Pearson, vol. 2, 1949–1972 (Toronto: Knopf, 1992), 327. 93 Ibid., 331. 94 J.F. Bosher, The Guallist Attack on Canada, 1967–1997 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999), 38. 95 Ibid. 96 David Meren, With Friends Like These: Entangled Nationalisms and the Canada-Quebec-France Triangle, 1944–1970 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2015), 100. 97 Bosher, The Guallist Attack on Canada, 39. 98 Ibid. 99 Ibid. 100 Meren, With Friends Like These, 100. 101 Ibid. 102 Ibid., 114. 103 Ibid., 3. 104 Ibid., 102. 105 Ibid., citing Dale Thomson, Vive le Québec libre (Toronto: Deneau, 1988). 106 Robert Rutherdale, “Canada’s August Festival: Communities, Liminality, and Social Memory,” Canadian Historical Review 77 (June 1996): 226. 107 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991), 6. 108 Ibid., 7. 109 Rutherdale and Miller, “‘It’s Our Country,’” 149. 110 Matthew Hayday, "Fireworks, Folk-dancing, and Fostering a National Identity: The Politics of Canada Day," Canadian Historical Review 91, 2 (2010): 313. 111 Frank E. Manning, The Celebration of Society: Perspectives on Contemporary Cultural Performances (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Press, 1987), x.

206  Helen Davies 112 Lloyd Warner, The Living and the Dead, as quoted in Aykroyd, The Anniversary Compulsion, 5–6. 113 Aykroyd, The Anniversary Compulsion, 40. 114 John Fisher, “If the Centennial Is almost here, Can John Fisher Be far Behind?” Maclean’s, 18 May 1963, 1.

7 A “Labor of Love in a Community Spirit”: The Cape Breton Miners’ Museum and the Remaking of Historical Consciousness meag h an e l iz ab e t h b e at on

The museum is more than a tourist attraction. It is a vital part of the community. Cape Breton Miners’ Museum Curator, Aaron Ramonovsky, 19691

On 31 July 1967, Judy LaMarsh, Canada’s secretary of state, stood in front of a large crowd gathered in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, to officially open the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum. The heavy rains earlier that morning did not dissuade the thousands who had assembled that afternoon to celebrate one of Canada’s most exciting and original local Centennial initiatives. “The Cape Breton Miners’ Museum … is alone in its class,” LaMarsh remarked during her public address, further stating that there was “no other like it in Canada.”2 The project was, without a doubt, a spectacular achievement. Constructed under the auspices of the Federal-Provincial Centennial Grants Program, the museum memorialized the Cape Breton coal industry and featured exhibits about miners’ lives, their communities, and their work underground. It displayed artifacts and presented historical information about trade unions, technical equipment, geology, and coal companies. The museum also offered tourists the opportunity to descend into the Ocean Deeps Colliery, a former working coal mine. Led by retired Cape Breton miners, visitors caught a fleeting glimpse of life underground. “This must be a hazardous way to make a living,” LaMarsh proclaimed after visiting the colliery during the opening day’s events, commenting, “I wouldn’t want to work in a coal mine.”3 Not surprisingly, this tour became one of the project’s most popular attractions. The building itself was also captivating. Constructed at Glace Bay’s Quarry Point, the rugged Atlantic Ocean provided a dramatic backdrop for the museum’s

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commanding architecture. The project’s unique and interactive presentation of the history of coal mining, coupled with its half-million dollar price tag, made the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum one of the country’s pre-­eminent and most expensive memorials erected in celebration of a hundred years of Confederation. The Cape Breton Miners’ Museum opened during an intense period of public debate about the faltering and highly unstable coal and steel industries that had served as Cape Breton’s economic engine for over eighty years. The museum’s emergence during this time of deindustrialization signalled an important moment for the island. From its proposal as a Centennial project in 1962 until its opening in 1967, organizers shrewdly positioned the Miners’ Museum as a response to this turbulent industrial upheaval and situated the project as an integral component of the island’s revitalization. The project was branded as an initiative that also diversified the area’s economic base through the reimagination of industrial Cape Breton as a cultural destination by placing the project within Nova Scotia’s burgeoning and increasingly state-coordinated tourism strategy. The museum, then, became a potent symbol of Cape Breton’s postwar social and cultural transition that ultimately represented the island’s shifting economy and identity and, in many ways, exemplified a larger development strategy that redefined the region. The history of the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum also reveals how Centennial projects extended the possibilities of the Centennial Grants Program. It demonstrates how state funds could be successfully diverted into cultural capital initiatives that became much more than a simple commemorative exercise. In many instances, projects constructed under the CGP modernized and revitalized communities. Although Centennial Grants Program projects fundamentally transformed Canada’s cultural landscape, little attention has been paid to their histories. A handful of studies have focused on larger, national initiatives, for example, the Voyageur Canoe Pageant,4 the Yukon Alpine Centennial Expedition,5 and of course, on Expo 67.6 Gary Miedema’s work on Canada’s 1967 Centennial celebrations argues that the state and spiritual leaders used public religion to foster cultural and political stability, bolster national unity, and express a version of Canadian national identity rooted in the idea of unity through diversity.7 Few studies have considered the impact of community infrastructure developments and local activities as part of the larger Centennial narrative. This is changing, however, with work by scholars such as Christopher

The Cape Breton Miners’ Museum   209

7.1  Cape Breton Miners’ Museum, Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. From the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum.

Los, whose chapter in this collection considers how for 1967 community initiatives were driven by local imperatives. His work on the local Centennial project in Niagara Falls argues that CGP projects were “predominantly designed and selected within localized frameworks of development and were based on site-specific needs, realities, and conceptualizations of urban space” (238). Community initiatives such as those under CGP auspices had a profound effect on community development, and incorporating their history offers a new way to assess the impact of celebrations like Canada’s Centennial. Nova Scotia, like all other provinces, took advantage of lucrative government grant schemes that funded cultural capital projects and activities that revitalized communities. Many communities saw the possibilities offered through the Centennial Grants Program as crucial growth opportunities that were unlikely to be offered again anytime soon.

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For Glace Bay, the Centennial Grants Program played a key role in the redevelopment of industrial Cape Breton, helping to rebrand the region as a cultural destination and diversify and expand its economic base. The CGP project did so by moving the community away from its dependence on a resource extraction economy to an increased reliance on tourism as an economic driver. In this way, the Centennial programming and its attendant funding gave the Glace Bay community the opportunity to construct a local museological and archival project that safeguarded and showcased the town’s history as one of Canada’s most significant industrial centres. Centennial programming not only presented infrastructure development opportunities for many areas, but in some cases also allowed communities the opportunity for reinvention. This was certainly the case for Glace Bay, which during the 1960s was in the midst of the painful process of deindustrialization. The Cape Breton Miners’ Museum attempted to offer a solution, if only a partial solution, to the faltering coal industry and the gradual closure of the area’s coal mines. The project emerged as a powerful example of a grassroots response to a community’s commemoration of its history and experiences. Just as important, the history of the Miners’ Museum reveals critical issues about the dynamics of the memorialization process, including how and why communities choose to commemorate. Local industrial Cape Breton actors used 1967 programming in order to achieve particular social, cultural, and economic objectives for the area. Yet, at the same time, this history exposes regional conflict over infrastructure development priorities, and how the museum and the commemorative process emerged as a contested terrain where competing notions of identity and community played out at the local level. Canada’s Centennial organizers emphasized the importance of local participation in the celebrations, and devised a wide range of programming to facilitate community involvement in the year’s festivities. Directing events at the federal level was the National Centennial Commission (Centennial Commission), the federal Crown corporation tasked with overseeing the national celebrations. The Centennial Commission coordinated an astonishing number of events to ensure all citizens had the opportunity to commemorate the occasion, as Helen Davies demonstrates in the previous chapter. This included everything from supporting local infrastructure projects to facilitating chances to experience national programming through such initiatives as the Confederation Train and Caravans, Youth Travel, Centennial athletics events, and Festival Canada. This lofty ambition to provide Canadians

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with access to programming was a key component of the Centennial Commission’s mandate. One of the organization’s guiding principles was “to ensure, as far as possible, that every community in Canada would have some opportunity to share in the 1967 celebrations.”8 The Centennial Commission accomplished this goal, in part, through the Centennial Grants Program. One of the organization’s most successful and celebrated cultural policy initiatives, the CGP was, unquestionably, one of the most enduring legacies of the 1967 celebrations. Administered through the Federal-Provincial Grants Branch, one of the Centennial Commission’s seven organizational directorates charged with planning and administration for the year’s festivities, the CGP supported community-initiated memorial projects “of a lasting nature” that added “something of value” to the country that “might never be realized in the ordinary course of events.”9 The program funnelled $88 million into the construction of 2,301 infrastructure projects across the country that included museums, swimming pools, parks, libraries, performance spaces, and community centres.10 These initiatives transformed Canada’s cultural landscape, and became “permanent benefit[s] and reminder[s]” of 1967. The CGP worked on a shared $1 per capita funding basis between the federal and provincial governments, and a local sponsoring body, referred to as the initiating agency, which was usually a municipality or community group.11 Initiating agencies were responsible for securing one-third of the project’s funding costs, and guaranteeing its viability post-1967. The Centennial Commission was adamant that the program could not be used for municipal works such as street improvements, cemeteries, fire halls, or other developments deemed to be “contrary to the spirit” of the program. Rather, undertakings had to be of a “historical, educational, cultural or recreational nature,” that were of “benefit to all the people,” and “in keeping with the spirit of celebrating an anniversary.”12 Nova Scotia received $756,000 in federal per capita monies, an amount matched by the province, which brought total state funding under the program to $1,512,000.13 Thirtysix CGP projects were constructed across the province with these funds. Centennial Grants Program projects became lasting reminders of the state’s role in capital infrastructure planning and development. Memorial projects were branded with a plaque that was adorned with the Centennial symbol – eleven triangles that represented each province and territory, arranged in a stylized pattern resembling a maple leaf – whose purpose, in part, was to “place a strong visual emphasis on the forward looking spirit of the centennial itself.”14 Plaques were

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permanent reminders that projects were cooperative undertakings, but also underscored the role that communities played in steering the celebrations. Initiated at the local level, Centennial Grants Program projects emerged as important mechanisms through which communities determined their own needs and directed government funding into initiatives that responded to those local needs. To be sure, these proposed projects had to receive stamps of approval from the Centennial Commission and the federal and provincial governments. So long as they met the CGP’s conditions, however, projects were likely to be approved by state bodies that were reluctant to play a heavy hand in dictating local initiatives. The Cape Breton Miners’ Museum exemplified how a Centennial Grants Program project, as a community-driven initiative, became a powerful response to local needs. The museum was a perfect fit for a town whose history was defined by coal mining. For Glace Bay, the CGP provided a unique opportunity for reinvention; the town parlayed its history of resource extraction into a museological project that memorialized this very history. During the 1960s when the protracted deindustrialization process left the community with few employment alternatives outside of the coal sector, the Miners’ Museum symbolized the area’s turn towards tourism and increased emphasis on heritage and cultural attractions. Although coal mining in Cape Breton dates back to 1720, it wasn’t until 1893 when financier Henry Whitney secured a ninety-nine-year lease for rights to Nova Scotia’s coal reserves that the industry experienced phenomenal growth.15 Whitney’s Dominion Coal Company quickly became a powerful force controlling vast reserves and employing thousands as demand for coal skyrocketed.16 With an estimated one billion tons in reserves,17 Cape Breton’s coalfields were at the centre of the region’s industrialization as the Maritimes’ age of “wood, wind, and water” waned and was replaced by an era of “coal, steam, and iron” at the turn of the century.18 Nowhere was the industry’s impact as evident as it was in Cape Breton where coal, in addition to Sydney’s flourishing steel plant, opened by Whitney in 1901, secured the island’s reputation as “one of Canada’s most promising industrial frontiers.”19 Glace Bay was the island’s largest coal town. Workers arrived there in droves seeking employment in the collieries, and the town’s population soared from 6,945 in 1901 to 16,562 by 1911.20 This rapid expansion came at a considerable cost. The Dominion Coal Company, Glace Bay’s primary employer, exerted such tremendous power that the Canadian

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Mining Journal reported in 1908 that “everybody in Glace Bay is either the servant of the Coal Company, or the servant of the servant of the Coal Company.” David Frank notes that the town “embodied the physical bleakness and social dependency of the early-twentieth-century company town.”21 As the century wore on, intense labour conflicts erupted in industrial Cape Breton’s coal and steel sectors amid rapid market changes. Coal companies pointed to weak markets to justify substandard wages and the imposition of cost-cutting measures on the backs of workers.22 Despite remedial solutions offered by the 1926 Royal Commission on the Coal Mining Industry in Nova Scotia and the 1934 Nova Scotia Royal Commission, Provincial Economic Inquiry (Jones Commission), shifting markets and labour unrest continued to hinder production. The state buoyed the industry through subsidies. In 1946, the Royal Commission on Coal noted that a hundred thousand Nova Scotians depended on coal production as their means of support, and made the dire prediction of “social and economic dislocation” should state support cease.23 Similarly, in 1958, the Royal Commission on Canada’s Economic Prospects noted that Cape Breton’s dearth of alternative employment necessitated continued subsidies to keep the sector afloat.24 Two more investigations into Cape Breton’s coal industry followed: in 1960, the Royal Commission on Coal, and in 1966, J.R. Donald’s The Cape Breton Coal Problem, observed that changes to the industry had to be made, as mounting extraction costs, declining employment, competition from alternative energy sources, and increasing reliance on subsidies had a profoundly harmful effect on the region.25 The statistics were startling. Coal and steel production employed 26 per cent of the island’s workforce and one-third of wage earners in Sydney and Glace Bay.26 Changes would be challenging given coal’s profound economic, cultural, and social ties to the island’s communities. The 1960 report by the Royal Commission on Coal noted that the industry’s “roots in the soil of the Island are very deep,”27 while Donald’s 1966 report recognized that coal mining, was a “way of life” with “traditions and emotions” that were likely to “befog and obscure the issues and the remedies”28 to the sector’s profound problems. Both reports warned that industrial Cape Breton’s primary reliance on an extractive industry was a dangerous state of affairs. Alternative industries – such as expanding the island’s tourism sector – had to be introduced to provide a balanced workforce, and offset the impending crisis that would be brought

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about by the inevitable mine closures.29 These reports focused on Cape Breton’s coal industry generally, but problems wrought by the sector in Glace Bay, in particular, were the focus of an urban renewal study published in 1966 that condemned the town’s municipal planning or, more precisely, the lack thereof. The report’s author Norman Pearson, together with Canadian-British Engineering Consultants, criticized Glace Bay’s volatile economy as a result of coal operations, noting that decades of industrialization had produced “incalculable” damage to the community and its residents: Mining companies do what they must to produce and sell coal and keep a good financial position and beyond that they may do something indicating acceptance of social responsibility, but usually little more than society expects or requires. And the sad truth of Canadian industrialization is that our society has expected little and required little. We are still a largely undirected society, and pay scant attention to the human consequences of the industrial process … the present state of places like Glace Bay is a standing rebuke to Canadian society … to the planner, there can be no doubt that all parts of our urban and industrial society are entitled to a national minimum of civilized life.30

Looking like a “waste-lands” with “the typical devastated appearance of a mining community,” Glace Bay had a “peculiar and distinct visual character,” defined by dismal living conditions and little infrastructure to foster cultural pursuits.31 Urban renewal, Pearson and colleagues predicted, would be a complex process that could only be realized with state assistance.32 Tourism played an important role in Nova Scotia’s economic plans after the Second World War, and Glace Bay residents, no doubt influenced by those 1960s reports on the coal industry, foresaw an opportunity to become part of this expanding sector and diversify the local economy. Not surprisingly, they looked towards what they knew best – coal – as a source of inspiration. A museum memorializing the coal industry was a logical decision for a community whose history was defined by its connection to coal. Although in 1959 an unsuccessful proposal had been made to the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada to establish a site in Glace Bay honouring the country’s coal mining industry,33 it wasn’t until the 1962 announcement of the Centennial Grants Program that the museum proposal gained the traction, monies, and leadership needed to move forward.

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Leading the charge was Nina Cohen, a respected community volunteer, activist, and philanthropist, recognized locally and nationally for her social reform work.34 Cohen was a founding member of Cape Breton County’s United Appeal and the local Red Cross Society’s Women’s Auxiliary, and she held executive positions with the Cape Breton Tourist Association and Sydney’s Business and Professional Women’s Club. She served as national president of Canada’s Hadassah-Wizo from 1960 to 1964, and worked with the Canadian Jewish Congress’s War Orphan Placement Service. Cohen remains best known, however, for her work spearheading the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum. At first glance, it would seem that Cohen, an upper-middleclass Jewish woman, was an unlikely candidate to advocate for the working class and hold the labour banner in 1960s Cape Breton. She was an improbable contender to become the Miners’ Museum’s most effective advocate. Yet, growing up in Glace Bay, Nina Cohen had a long-standing connection to the island’s miners, and was deeply affected by their difficult lives. This legitimized her work representing miners. Cohen’s parents devoted considerable time to local charitable causes, instilling in her the importance of social activism. What left an indelible impression on her, however, was her mother’s work as a labour activist, organizing coal miners during the violent strikes of the 1920s. There was no better way to honour these workers, she believed, than through a museum devoted to telling their stories. Cohen’s experience in representing coal miners also reveals the ways in which community dynamics function across the intersections between class and gender. Relating a 1965 conversation she had with Abbie Lane, chair of Nova Scotia’s Centenary Celebration Committee, Cohen acknowledged her unusual position representing miners: “You know you don’t think of a woman doing this for miners which is such a masculine and you know rugged occupation and I had never been down a mine and I have long fingernails and … they don’t go together.”35 Cohen was certainly aware of her unique position working on this project. She also noted those initial widely held “suspicions” of miners, who questioned whether she should lead the project, although these objections certainly faded over time. Further, Cohen’s social capital, established through years of activism across Cape Breton, translated into significant clout, bolstering her ability to rally citizens – and convince them to open their pocketbooks – in support of the project. This work secured Nina Cohen’s reputation as one of Harold A. Logan’s “dreamers and planners” and the leader of

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a “core of local elites” that ensured the museum’s success (see the next chapter, by Christopher Los). But why was a miners’ museum such an obvious project for the area? Until the late 1950s, there was little museological experience in Cape Breton. Baddeck’s Alexander Graham Bell Museum opened its doors in 1956, and major reconstruction of the Fortress of Louisbourg began in 1961.36 Yet, with virtually no other museological experience on the island, a community museum was a new venture. There were likely several reasons that it was seen as an ideal project. The 1959 proposal to the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada had garnered considerable public support. Further, recommendations from those state reports in the 1960s that Cape Breton expand its tourism industry were fresh in the community’s mind. In many ways, then, the initial groundwork had already been laid. Yet, Cohen identified another compelling reason why a mining museum was a logical undertaking. She remarked that it was an ideal project to fill a gap in Canadian history, observing that during the 1960s “the miners were never mentioned in … any of the [country’s] social history.” A public museum dedicated to their work addressed this glaring omission. Miners lived a “life of sacrifice,” and Cohen could think of no better way to honour them than through a memorial that told their stories.37 Cohen started organizing within days of the launch of the Centennial Grants Program. At a January 1963 planning meeting she gathered members of the public, politicians, media, and representatives from the coal, tourism, and business sectors, all of whom came out to support the proposal of a miners’ museum as a local Centennial project. Cohen told attendees that the museum would be an important cultural site that told the history of coal miners and their communities, and it would also serve as an archive to preserve artifacts and safeguard workers’ stories. Museum practicalities were already being contemplated. Potential exhibits were proposed, capital costs were discussed, and architectural plans were considered during the meeting.38 Although the project would be situated in Glace Bay, its success depended on the cooperation of all local mining communities. It was imperative, local Member of the Legislative Assembly Michael MacDonald remarked, that the whole region come together to support the initiative. The museum was conceived as a local grassroots cultural infrastructure project whose exhibits and stories reflected the area’s experiences in the coal sector; it was also, however, a strategic initiative to diversify and broaden the local economy. The Cape Breton Tourist Association’s Bert MacLeod

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noted that establishing an attraction in the heart of industrial Cape Breton would increase visitor traffic and serve as an important counterbalance to those tourist sites located outside the industrial communities.39 Nevertheless, the project was first and foremost a reflection of the community’s desire to honour those workers whose history had defined the region. “The proposal is not for a mines museum,” a Cape Breton Post editorial reported about the meeting and the project’s mandate, “but specifically for a miners’ museum – an institution honouring in perpetuity the men who work in the deeps – in bringing the coal up into the light of day.”40 Buoyed by the community’s enthusiastic response, Nina Cohen and her organizing team set to work on making the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum an official Centennial Grants Program project. To help write the proposal, Cohen enlisted the help of Lauchlan “Lauchie” D. Currie,41 a Nova Scotia Supreme Court justice and a powerful former Liberal Member of the Legislative Assembly for Glace Bay, whose portfolio had included serving as minister of mines under the revered Premier Angus L. Macdonald. Currie and Macdonald were close friends of Cohen and her family. Indeed, Cohen and her husband Harry were very politically active and had long been closely associated with the Liberals.42 She no doubt recruited Currie in the hopes that his association with the museum would help secure 1967 funding. In the spring of 1963, the proposal was submitted to Nova Scotia’s Centenary Celebration Committee, the provincial group charged with vetting and recommending projects to the provincial and federal government, and to the federal Centennial Commission, for CGP funding.43 Notwithstanding their speedy submission, Cohen and her team had to wait until November 1964 when the Centenary Committee announced which projects it was recommending to the Nova Scotia government to receive CGP monies. Organizers were ecstatic to learn that the museum proposal had received the provincial committee’s stamp of approval, and that it was on its way to becoming an official CGP project.44 Although the Nova Scotia Centenary Committee’s blessing was a critical step, several hurdles remained. Notably, organizers still had to satisfy the provincial and federal governments, and the federal Centennial Commission, that they could raise their one-third share of costs and that the museum was sustainable post-1967 before the project could be anointed an official CGP project. With capital construction costs pegged at $426,000, Cohen and her team had to raise $142,000, in addition to operational reserves in order to guarantee the museum’s long-term

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viability without reliance on state monies.45 Hoping to get a head start on raising these funds, organizers of the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum launched their fundraising campaign in December 1964. They set their sights high with a goal of $250,000, an amount that would cover capital costs and guarantee the museum’s first two years of operations.46 Organizers knew that they had their work cut out for them. Asking citizens who lived in an economically unstable region to contribute capital towards a museum was a difficult proposition. They carefully positioned their campaign by underscoring the important role that a museum would play in the community by responding to local needs. To legitimize and strengthen their work and the fundraising campaign, Nina Cohen and her team formalized their association by establishing the Cape Breton Miners’ Foundation under provincial legislation in March 1964. The foundation’s mandate included promoting the culture and history of Cape Breton’s coal mining communities, and providing work for unemployed miners, their families, and ­pensioners – aims that were reflected in the group’s fundraising campaign.47 Although the project had yet to receive final approval for funding, as early as June 1964, Cohen lobbied the Nova Scotia government for monies over and above those available through the Centennial Grants Program. Arguing that the museum deserved a place within Nova Scotia’s burgeoning network of museums to ensure that system had representation across the region, she vigorously petitioned Premier Robert L. Stanfield for additional government funding.48 Stanfield supported the project, but he refused the request, noting that he wanted to preclude the appearance of favouritism, and further, that committing additional government funds was “wholly contrary” to the terms of the Centennial Grants Program.49 Nevertheless, the Cape Breton Miners’ Foundation proved very adept at procuring community donations, thanks to a well-executed public relations campaign. Brochures were produced, appeals splashed across newspapers, corporate sponsorships solicited, and municipal governments lobbied as supporters worked tirelessly to ensure the museum was never far from the public spotlight. Fundraising headquarters opened in downtown Sydney, and an aggressive fundraising campaign followed. One eye-catching public appeal appearing in newspapers across the province featured a hand-drawn picture of a coal miner and noted that the museum was a “labor of love in a community spirit” and a “long over-due memorial” to the region’s miners.50 A corporate fundraising drive emphasized the museum’s historical

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and educational value. Reminding potential donors of the tenth anniversary of the 1956 Springhill disaster, the campaign underscored the country’s debt to the mining industry’s workers and the importance of memorializing the “bravery of thousands of coal miners.”51 Recognizing the potential positive impact that the museum would have on the community, Glace Bay officials stepped forward to do their part. Town council made a one-time donation of $15,000, provided another $5,000 annually for three years, and granted the museum tax-exempt status for its first five years of operation.52 Donations rolled in, and by August 1965, organizers had raised $152,000.53 Although short of the foundation’s $250,000 goal, this sum was enough to satisfy the Nova Scotia government that the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum was viable and that the remaining funds would be procured. The province forwarded the project’s application to Ottawa, and in December 1965, both the federal government and the Centennial Commission approved the proposal for the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum, officially anointing it a Centennial Grants Program project.54 The groundbreaking ceremony signalled the beginning of the museum’s construction, although the journey towards this moment was not without its problems. In November 1964, a firestorm of controversy was ignited when the Nova Scotia Centenary Celebration Committee announced that the Miners’ Museum was Cape Breton County’s only official Centennial Grants Program project. Local municipal governments and politicians protested that the museum dominated valuable 1967 resources by funnelling the county’s per capita funding into one area to the detriment of other potential projects. Following a heated council meeting, Sydney’s Mayor Russell Urquhart criticized the Centenary Committee’s decision to select the museum over Sydney’s proposed sports arena, and vowed to take the matter up with the premier. Centenary Committee Chair Abbie Lane added fuel to the fire when she publicly blamed the city’s actions as the reason behind its project’s rejection, citing its late application for Centennial grant monies coupled with its earlier endorsement of the Glace Bay project. Alderman A.X. MacDonald remarked that while municipal council had, indeed, endorsed the Miners’ Museum in principle, it should not be the county’s only 1967 project. Others offered more temperate responses. Alderman Hughie D. MacDonald urged fellow councillors not to “condemn” the museum, but countered that the Centenary Committee should have considered applications from all of Cape Breton County’s communities.55

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Others questioned whether the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum was even an appropriate 1967 project. The Cape Breton Post initially characterized the selection of the museum as a “surprising development” that was met with a “lukewarm response.” The museum’s location and its high cost were sure to court controversy, and the editorial questioned whether the museum would even be an appealing tourist attraction at all. A war monument or some other “practical” undertaking that better served the community would have been a much more suitable selection.56 Criticism, however, was scaled back in the following days when the newspaper reminded readers of the museum’s important objectives and that critical changes to the industry were signalling dramatic changes for industrial Cape Breton communities: “Most of us are too close to the coal industry to see its changing facets in farsighted perspectives. To some it’s the old, sad story of familiarity breeding contempt. People of the future will see it in another light – the light in which discarded implements and objects become rare and rate as antiques.”57 Others withheld endorsements and badly needed monetary gifts. As late as February 1965, the Town of Sydney Mines refused to support the project, arguing that the Cape Breton Miners’ Foundation had engaged in a “highly organized and high pressure campaign” to win the provincial Centenary Committee’s approval.58 Although the town, much like Sydney, had earlier supported the museum in principle, it did not believe that its endorsement would jeopardize proposals from other communities.59 Strangely, criticism was not confined to Cape Breton. The Antigonish Casket argued that the museum was impractical, that CGP funds were better spent elsewhere, and it even went so far as to suggest that a new Centenary Committee be struck to reassess project applications. It was “hardly reasonable,” the newspaper noted, to fund such an initiative in a county that was “practically destitute of the cultural and recreational facilities which would be normal for an industrial area of its size.”60 For the Casket, a museum, apparently, did not constitute a “cultural” or “recreational” undertaking. The backlash against the opponents was swift. One Cape Breton Post editorial defended the work of the Cape Breton Miners’ Foundation to secure 1967 funding. The museum would serve as “a constant reminder of the men and women whose toil was the very basis of the lively nature of [the island’s] communities” and predicted that, in time, citizens would recognize its important historical value. Coal was “the very foundation” of the area’s economy and its cultural identity, and it was only appropriate that a Centennial project reflect the industry’s role

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in shaping the region.61 Cape Bretoners also jumped to the museum’s defence. Claude Richardson, a Sydney native practising law in Montreal, alluded to divisions within the industrial community, observing that “we may have differences of racial origin, religious denomination, political affiliation, but generally the things that divide us are of much less importance than the many, many things that unite us and give us a common interest and concern.”62 Prominent local business leader Harvey Webber, who succeeded Nina Cohen as the foundation’s chair, applauded the Centenary Committee’s decision, noting that the museum was a “lasting link” to coal miners’ histories, and an “outstanding” and “imaginative educational tourist attraction” that would “draw tourists further into Cape Breton and lengthen their stay on our Island.”63 The Cape Breton Highlander denounced those municipal governments that refused to back the project, insisting that this was the “latest evidence” of the island’s “blindness and backwardness.” The newspaper condemned Sydney and Cape Breton County councils, in particular, and remarked that their competing proposals proved to be “too little too late.” Museum organizers had “done their homework well” and presented the province’s Centenary Committee with a comprehensive proposal. It should have come as no surprise, then, that Glace Bay’s project had been chosen. The Highlander pleaded for Cape Bretoners to appreciate the importance of the initiative for the entire island, and urged all citizens, councils, and businesses to wholeheartedly give their support. Residents were colourfully encouraged to tell their local politicians to “cut out the stupid clap trap and get solidly behind the Miners’ Museum.”64 Speaking about the controversy, United Mine Workers District President Bill Marsh remarked that the political storm surrounding the selection of the museum had heightened feelings of disunity between industrial Cape Breton communities and that the “tendency to fight among ourselves is crucifying our chances of prosperity.”65 These objections faded over time. By March 1965, Sydney, Sydney Mines, North Sydney, Glace Bay, Louisbourg, and New Waterford city councils had thrown both support and funds towards the museum. District 26 of the United Mine Workers International, the Sydney Business and Professional Women’s Club, the Cape Breton Tourist Association, and the boards of Trade for Sydney, Sydney Mines, and New Waterford also gave their endorsement. Donald MacDonald, secretary of the Canadian Labour Congress and a Sydney native, stated that it was “a matter of keen regret” that the legacy of Canadian coal miners

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had yet to be memorialized and that his group was pleased that miners’ contributions to the national economy and the Canadian labour movement were being recognized. There was “universal respect and admiration accorded the very term ‘Cape Breton Miner,’” the CLC’s secretary remarked, noting that the project was a fitting tribute to their work.66 Organizers quickly forged ahead with construction plans. In December 1965, the Dominion Coal Company deeded its Quarry Point property to the Cape Breton Miners’ Foundation for the museum.67 The conveyance included the rights to remove and sell coal as part of the fundraising efforts. An estimated four thousand tons were subsequently extracted from the mine and sold at $10 per ton.68 Construction began in May 1966 with a groundbreaking ceremony to mark the occasion. Leopold LeRoux, a 99-year-old retired miner, turned the first sod at the site while dignitaries and the press stood by.69 Pieces of earth taken from Nova Scotia’s coal mining communities were deposited in the soil to “make the museum a truly representative Centennial project.”70 When the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum opened on 31 July 1967, celebrations were held throughout Glace Bay to mark the occasion. The day began with ten thousand people congregated along the town’s streets for a parade featuring a girls’ pipe band and fifty floats competing for prizes in categories that included the most historical, dramatic, and humorous entries.71 Festivities then moved to Quarry Point for the official opening of the museum. Speeches were offered from a veritable who’s who of dignitaries who had travelled to Glace Bay for the event, including Centennial Commissioner John Fisher, Nova Scotia’s lieutenant governor and Glace Bay native, Henry Poole MacKeen, Premier Stanfield, and Secretary of State Judy LaMarsh, all of whom paid tribute to the history of Cape Breton coal mining and the industry’s workers, and the community’s efforts to see the museum become a reality. As one of Canada’s most unique Centennial Grants Program projects, it is not surprising that the ceremony attracted such a bevy of dignitaries.72 In the wake of the devastating reports that wrestled with the coal industry’s problems after the Second World War, state officials were likely keen to capitalize on this unparalleled publicity opportunity to be seen supporting positive efforts to revitalize the local economy and generate alternative employment initiatives. The crowd was entertained by the Men of the Deeps, a choir of retired Cape Breton coal miners founded in 1966 in conjunction with the museum (and discussed further below). Nova Scotian, Canadian, and Centennial flags were unfurled, Richard A. Donahoe uncovered the

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Centennial plaque that adorned all local 1967 projects, and M ­ acKeen cut the museum’s ribbon.73 The ceremonies then moved indoors where United Mine Workers International President W.A. Boyle dedicated the memorial to workers who had lost their lives in service to the industry.74 Dignitaries were offered VIP tours that included a visit to the Ocean Deeps Colliery. The doors were then thrown open to the public who flocked to catch a glimpse of the new facility heralded as an incredible achievement for the town.75 The museum had amassed an impressive collection. Organizers had reached out to Cape Breton’s mining towns to collect donations to ensure that exhibits reflected coal communities’ diverse experiences. Photographs of workers and the mines adorned the museum’s walls. A rainforest display revealed coal’s geological origins, and a large map pinpointed North America’s reserve sites. Displays included tools used on the job, and even mining equipment worn by Lieutenant Governor MacKeen’s father, who had worked in the Caledonia Colliery.76 A prominent United Mine Workers sign greeted visitors as they made their way to a display devoted to the role that unions played in the industry and in workers’ lives. The building included a theatre for performances by the Men of the Deeps, and a gift shop featuring handicrafts made by local miners who had sustained injuries working in the pit. The museum’s collection reflected the vital role that the Cape Breton mining community played in local heritage production. The collection spoke to the importance of giving space to local voices and experiences, and to the ways in which the project was guided by community mandates. Yet, at the same time, the museum demonstrated how a commemorative project that was driven by local interests also existed as a testament to a national commemorative event. Nevertheless, while the project was partly constructed with government funds to mark Canada’s Centennial, the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum was largely framed as a space that memorialized the area’s history of coal mining with planning and content driven by local dictates. The opening ceremonies attracted a great deal of media coverage that praised the museum as one of Canada’s outstanding Centennial initiatives.77 Yet, the project was also a powerful symbol of Cape Breton’s postwar economic, social, and cultural transformation. The slow process of phasing out the island’s coal industry had forced citizens and the state to look towards viable alternative employment opportunities. Supporters of the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum heralded the project as an integral component of the island’s growing tourism sector that could

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temper job losses in the coal and steel industries. Taken together, these initiatives signalled the rapid expansion of a lucrative tourism industry during the latter half of the twentieth century. The Miners’ Museum, however, not only bridged the gap between the island’s historical reliance on the coal and steel sectors and its future as a cultural destination, but it also fit within Nova Scotia’s economic strategy. Since the 1930s, the state had invested millions into the tourism sector in order to attract visitors to the region, as is vividly illustrated by Ian McKay’s work on Nova Scotia’s folk culture.78 By the 1960s, tourism was undeniably a critical component of the province’s economy. Between 1962 and 1967, Nova Scotia’s spending on promotional campaigns had increased by an astounding 200 per cent. In 1966 alone, the province welcomed 750,000 visitors who spent $54 million. Wanting to ensure that it was poised to reap the economic benefits accompanying the much anticipated visitor influx during Canada’s Centennial year, the Nova Scotia government spent $1.2 million on provincial information services and travel bureaus to welcome visitors.79 Museum organizers played on the province’s dedication to developing tourism attractions as a critical element of the project’s proposal. Although the site was first and foremost a memorial to coal miners, it was also to be vehicle that expanded the island’s tourism base and a key cultural infrastructure piece in the region’s revitalization strategy. The Cape Breton Miners’ Museum was expected to piggyback on recent heritage projects such as the Fortress of Louisbourg and the Alexander Graham Bell Museum. The Fortress of Louisbourg alone was expected to attract upwards of 250,000 visitors annually, and Glace Bay anticipated welcoming 100,000 of these tourists to its museum. Travellers on North Sydney ferries bound for Newfoundland were expected to boost those numbers, as would the Fleur de Lis Trail development and Mira’s new camping site that would encourage visitors to extend their stays.80 Cape Breton Miners’ Foundation Vice-President Norman Lynk predicted that all of Cape Breton would reap the benefits. During a 1965 presentation to Sydney’s city council, Lynk provided a snapshot of anticipated visitor activity, estimating that tourists who stayed an extra day in the area to visit the museum would pump an additional two million dollars into the local economy.81 Other Maritime provinces were also attuned to the tourism industry’s potential as a long-term economic development strategy. As Matthew McRae argues in his contribution to this collection, Prince Edward Island’s 1964 Centennial of the Charlottetown Conference celebrations marked a turning point in

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that province’s approach to its tourism industry. Following the success of the celebrations, PEI’s planners became fully committed to establishing tourism as an essential pillar for that province’s economic development. Indeed, the 1964 celebrations “had proven that careful planning and investment could have a positive economic effect, and had also laid the groundwork for a birthplace myth-centred tourist ethos among the Island’s population.” The result was that tourism boosters “were now thinking in longer, more systemic terms about tourism” as the booming industry became more entrenched within the Island’s culture (this volume, 356). Despite the obvious tourism advantages of the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum, a cultural site about the social history of the coal mining industry was a difficult proposition in 1960s Cape Breton. Coal mining was an active, albeit dramatically contracted and struggling enterprise. The project’s goal to memorialize the sector through a museological project and stories of workers and their communities preserved in a heritage attraction was, for many, tantamount to acknowledging the industry’s inevitable demise. This was a troubled and unsettling proposition for many. Although the Royal Commission on Coal and Donald’s 1966 report, The Cape Breton Coal Problem, decisively concluded that operations could not and should not continue, this was a hard pill for the community to swallow. This situation was exacerbated by the language used by museum supporters, who frequently spoke about the goal to “preserve,” “safeguard,” and “save” miners’ stories before it was too late. Judy LaMarsh underscored this conflict during the museum’s opening ceremonies when she spoke about the vital role that the mining industry continued to play in Cape Breton, stating, “It is something which continues to breathe and which still contributes to the economic life of this area, this province and this country.”82 While she praised the project for preserving coal miners’ stories, LaMarsh’s address also reflected the government’s reluctance to insert the proverbial final nail in the industry’s coffin, revealing the fine line the federal state walked when it came to Cape Breton coal. Not surprisingly, museum organizers frequently spoke about the urgency to save stories of workers and their communities to ensure that these histories were protected and presented to the public. “The Cape Breton miner is no ordinary man,” Nina Cohen remarked in 1965, “his story has a heartbeat. It should not be allowed to die and it could die in our own time.”83 The public and the media latched on to similar descriptors. Harvey Webber remarked that workers’ legacies would “soon be forgotten if not preserved in some

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permanent form.”84 The media also drew stark images of a dying industry and the impact that the project had on the community. “One by one our mines may be closed, and so end an era,” Elizabeth Hiscott wrote for the Atlantic Advocate, noting, “To men who died in the coal mines the Miners’ Museum is a monument. To loved ones surviving them it may be an association with sad memories. But to Cape Bretoners generally it is a source of pride.”85 The site of the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum commemorated an industry that had seen its share of disasters, labour unrest, and the painful process of deindustrialization over the previous few decades. The museum captured these memories and narratives within its walls, and it became a site that straddled several museological categories. The project celebrated and preserved the history of coal miners as individuals, their collective struggles, and their representation through unions and as part of a larger working-class community. In so doing, the museum challenged the popular images of the Nova Scotia “Folk.” Herb Wyile argues that coal miners disrupted traditional characterizations of the innocent and uncomplicated “Folk” characters as discussed by Ian McKay. Coal miners did not fit seamlessly into the “folk paradigm,” as those labouring in other resource sectors such as lumbering, fishing, and farming tended to do. Rather, mining, with “its history of labour turbulence, its much more palpable capitalist relations, and its much more obvious physical rigours presents greater obstacles to the celebration of the figure of the independent petty producer of Folk mythology.” In contrast, those popularized “Folk” characters “efface both the industrial capitalist contexts of labour in Nova Scotia, instead creating idealized images of independent, pre-modern toil close to the elements.” The coal mining industry, with its dangerous working conditions and long history of labour conflict, disrupted those well known provincial personas.86 Further challenging those Folk ideals was the fact that the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum was unquestionably a site of dark tourism, also known as “thanatourism,” a space defined by death and tragedy.87 The industry’s dangers were a critical component of the museum’s larger narrative. Exhibits included stories of mining explosions, strikes, violence, and difficulties faced by mining communities. Death, injury, and struggle, it seemed, were front and centre at every turn. Such a display was intentional. Nina Cohen noted during the museum’s early planning stages that exhibits had to acknowledge the realities such as “the bravery of draeggermen who descended into the mine after an

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explosion, with death lurking in every footstep, unmindful of personal safety in the desire to save the life of a buddy.”88 From the sale of crafts made by paraplegic miners to stories of mining accidents, there was no escape from or glossing over the hazards faced by workers each time they descended into the pit. Although the museum captured various aspects of coal mining’s history through its exhibits, Nina Cohen set her sights on another cultural initiative to safeguard workers’ and community stories. In 1966, after hearing about a Welsh coal miners’ choir, Cohen along with St Francis Xavier University’s Jack O’Donnell and New Waterford miner and church choir singer Myles MacDonald founded the Men of the Deeps. Comprised of retired coal miners, the choir recounted stories of workers’ lives, their communities, and labour struggles through song.89 Established under the umbrella of the Miners’ Folk Society, the choir’s mandate was “collecting material for a permanent record of the life and traditions of the Cape Breton coal miner.”90 To help compile traditional coal mining songs for the choir’s repertoire, Cohen approached renowned Nova Scotia folklorist Helen Creighton for assistance; however, they uncovered only a handful of traditional pieces between them. To counter this dearth, the Cape Breton Miners’ Foundation launched a juried contest to solicit both traditional and original material from the public for inclusion in the choir’s catalogue.91 “Don’t confine yourself to major events for subject material,” Creighton advised budding composers, adding that “folk music and song is a record of happenings and everyday people.”92 The competition generated a bevy of submissions that were judged by a panel of prominent Nova Scotians that included Creighton, Lieutenant-Governor Harry MacKeen and his wife Alice, and Justice Lauchie Currie. Selected songs were incorporated into the group’s songbook, singers were assembled, and the group was quickly on its way. The choir was an instant hit. Following its sold-out debut at Sydney’s Vogue Theatre in November 1966, the group went on to give six highly acclaimed performances at Montreal’s Expo 67.93 For locals, the Miners’ Museum was a critical step in easing Cape Breton’s economy from one traditionally dependent on the extractive coal industry to one that was increasingly receptive to a burgeoning cultural industry. For tourists, it was an exciting attraction with captivating exhibits and tours of a former working coal mine, luring them into industrial Cape Breton for a unique museological experience. The museum was, without a doubt, a resounding success. Visitors flocked to the facility in droves, making it one of Nova Scotia’s

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most popular Centennial attractions. By October 1967, over 25,000 visitors had toured the facility since opening its doors to the public that July.94 The museum continues to operate and welcome tourists to its site in Glace Bay. Although visitor numbers have declined over the past several years – the museum welcomed 17,991 visitors during its 2008–09 season and 13,722 during its 2013–14 season95 – the institution remains a vital component of the island’s tourism sector. The most recent statistics compiled by the Nova Scotia government reveal that in 2010 the province’s tourism industry generated $2 billion in revenues, with $230 million of those revenues generated in Cape Breton alone.96 Tying the project to larger themes of community, commemoration, and regional economic development, the Miners’ Museum became a powerful symbol of hope and revitalization for industrial Cape Breton, and symbolized Glace Bay’s perseverance, and its determination to transform and reimagine itself. In 1968, a year after the museum’s opening, the coal mining industry was more precarious than ever. That year, the federal government’s Cape Breton Development Corporation assumed Dominion Coal’s assets in an effort to phase out coal production. In a similar move, the provincial government created the Sydney Steel Corporation, which took over the assets of the struggling steel plant. In a 1982 interview, Nina Cohen spoke about the unique opportunity given to the Glace Bay community through the Centennial Grants Program to develop important cultural infrastructure and set a different course for the area. Cohen also remarked that although she felt “very guilty” that the Miners’ Museum had secured all of Cape Breton County’s Centennial funding, she nevertheless knew that the project provided long-term benefits for the entire island.97 Early objections about all of Cape Breton County’s CGP funds being directed into one project eventually faded into the background as the project was accepted across the island. These protests were, in many ways, tempered by the museum’s efforts to ensure that exhibits represented mining communities across the island, and captured a particular way of life for Cape Bretoners, one that many saw coming to an abrupt end. Nevertheless, the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum became an integral component of Glace Bay’s cultural development. Edwin Payn, who frequently wrote about the project, noted that “a museum that only embalms the past would not involve the community as this one does.” Curator Aaron Ramonovsky noted that, while the project obviously had an important

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museological mandate, the building had also emerged as an important “community centre-cum-theatre-cum-art gallery,” remarking that “the museum is more than a tourist attraction. It is a vital part of the community” where “we are trying to expose people to theatre and art as much as possible.”98 Nina Cohen was unquestionably a key to the project’s success. Her phenomenal ability to persuade supporters to open their pocketbooks and manoeuvre the political landscape made her one of the undertaking’s most valuable assets. Cohen’s political connections opened many doors and, arguably, helped her gain access to certain levels of political power not necessarily open to everyone. In this regard, as an advocate for the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum, her social capital translated into significant clout. Whether it was soliciting Justice Lauchie Currie’s help in drafting the museum’s proposal to the provincial Centenary Committee or assembling a high-profile panel to vet folk song submissions for the Men of the Deeps repertoire, Cohen’s ability to garner support for the museum can be as much attributed to her position as an important Cape Breton community volunteer as it was to her political connections. Even faced with a long-standing Tory provincial government, with the arrival of Stanfield in 1956, Cohen accessed the halls of privilege and attracted significant political, community, and media support behind the museum. The Cape Breton Miners’ Museum had obvious importance to industrial Cape Breton; it was also, however, a pioneer in Canada’s museological circles. As a Centennial project driven by local mandates, the museum became a prototype of how memorial projects could be used to bring community voices to the fore. During the 1960s there were few, if any, major museums devoted to community interests and framed by local experiences. The Cape Breton Miners’ Museum emerged as a model of how to involve a community in heritage production, and how local modes of production could be harnessed in particular ways. Everything from the museum’s mandate to memorialize the work and lives of miners’ and their communities, to its efforts to draw artifacts from all of Cape Breton’s coal mining areas, reflected local experiences. Further, one of the project’s most important legacies was that it empowered the community to control the museological narrative and its representations within the public history sphere. Projects such as the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum also helped to tackle what many perceived to be Canada’s “cultural poverty” during the 1960s. In the lead-up to the Centennial year, Canada’s

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Secretary of State Maurice Lamontagne frequently spoke about the need to develop infrastructure that provided citizens with increased and improved access to artistic, educational, and cultural activities. Canadian culture, he remarked, required “protection against impoverishment and stimulus to improvement” in order to create optimal conditions for a thriving and engaged population.99 Although citizens had an important role to play through their patronage of, and participation in, cultural activities, the state, the minister argued, had a particular responsibility to ensure not only that cultural institutions existed and were safeguarded, but that a supportive environment allowed them to flourish. The Centennial Grants Program accomplished just that. The initiative funded thousands of cultural infrastructure projects across the country that, in one way or another, addressed Lamontagne’s plea to alleviate cultural poverty. By responding to community needs, the CGP became a potent way for Centennial organizers to encourage grassroots participation in the year’s festivities. Implemented under the guise of a national celebration, commemorative projects also became highly politicized mechanisms that tackled regional economic disparities, as in the case of the Miners’ Museum. As a Centennial Grants Program project, the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum is part of the larger legacy of Canada’s Centennial celebrations. Just as important, however, the museum became a powerful example of how communities used commemorative programming to achieve local goals that reflected an urgent need to preserve a particular aspect of local identity and culture for both future generations and tourists alike. NOTES 1 Ed Payn, “The Centre of Showbiz at Glace Bay Is the Miners’ Museum,” Star Weekly, 23 Aug. 1969. 2 “Miners’ Museum Officially Opened – LaMarsh Says C.B. Centennial Project Unique,” Cape Breton Post, 1 Aug. 1967. 3 Ibid. 4 Misao Dean, “The Centennial Voyageur Pageant as Historical Re-­ enactment,” Journal of Canadian Studies 40, 3 (2006): 43–67. 5 PearlAnn Reichwein, “Expedition Yukon 1967: Centennial and the Politics of Mountaineering in Kluane,” Canadian Historical Review 92, 3 (2011): 481–514.

The Cape Breton Miners’ Museum   231 6 See, e.g., several recent publications such as John Lownsbrough, The Best Place to Be: Expo 67 and Its Time (Toronto: Allan Lane, 2012); Rhona Richman Kenneally and Johanne Sloan, eds., Expo 67: Not Just a Souvenir (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010); André Jansson, “Encapsulations: The Production of a Future Gaze at Montreal’s Expo 67,” Space and Culture 10, 4 (2007): 418–36; Myra Rutherdale and Jim Miller, “‘It’s Our Country’: First Nations’ Participation in the Indian Pavilion at Expo 67,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 17, 2 (2006): 148–73. 7 Gary Miedema, For Canada’s Sake: Public Religion, Centennial Celebrations, and the Re-making of Canada in the 1960s (Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 2005). 8 Centennial Commission of Canada (CCC), Centennial Commission Annual Report 1965–1966 (Ottawa: Author, 1966), 5. 9 CCC, Second Annual Report of the Centennial Commission for the Fiscal Year 1963-1964 (Ottawa: Author, 1964), 12; CCC bulletin, no. 2, Nov. 1965, Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management (hereafter NSARM), RG 10 Attorney General Department, series E: Miscellaneous, vol. 114: Canada’s Centennial-Press Releases II. 10 “Proceedings of Third Meeting of the National Committee on the Centennial,” Annex “A,” memorandum, 6 Oct. 1961, NSARM, RG 10, series E, Miscellaneous, vol. 129: Canada’s Centennial – Youth Travel Program. Available per capita funds were based on the population of the province or territory population on 1 June 1963. See “Agreement between National Centennial Administration and the Government of the Province of Nova Scotia for Centennial Projects,” 21 Oct. 1963, Library and Archives Canada (LAC), RG 69, Centennial Commission, vol. 983, file: National Centennial Fund (Nova Scotia) – Administrative Accounts; section 1(b) set noted that for funding purposes Nova Scotia’s population was 756,000. 11 CCC, Third Annual Report of the Centennial Commission for the Fiscal Year 1964–1965 (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1965), 28–9. 12 Press release, 25 Nov. 1964, LAC, RG 69, vol. 407. 13 Using the Bank of Canada’s 2016 inflation calculator, this totals just over $10,831,728. Bank of Canada, Inflation Calculator, http://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/ (accessed 11 Mar. 2016). 14 A.B. Stoddard to A.W. Churchill, 7 Aug. 1967, NSARM, RG 10, series E, vol. 167, Centennial grants, Approved, Correspondence, Financial statements, etc., Halifax. 15 Paul MacEwan, Miners and Steelworkers: Labour in Cape Breton (Toronto: Samuel Stevens Hakkert, 1976); David Frank, “The Cape Breton Coal Industry and the Rise and Fall of the British Empire Steel Corporation,”

232  Meaghan Elizabeth Beaton Acadiensis 7, 1 (1977): 6; and David Frank, J.B. McLachlan: A Biography (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1999), 93. 16 Colin Howell, “The 1900s: Industry, Urbanization, and Reform,” in E.R. Forbes and D.A. Muise, eds., The Atlantic Provinces in Confederation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 172. 17 Frank, “The Cape Breton Coal Industry,” 6. 18 Frank, J.B. McLachlan, 46–7. 19 David Frank, “Tradition and Culture in the Cape Breton Mining Community in the Early Twentieth Century,” in Ken Donovan, ed., Cape Breton at 200: Historical Essays in Honour of the Island’s Bicentennial, 1785–1985 (Sydney, NS: University College of Cape Breton Press, 1985), 203. 20 Frank, J.B. McLachlan, 92–3. 21 Canadian Mining Journal, quoted in Frank, J.B. McLachlan, 93. 22 On labour conflict in Cape Breton’s coalfields, see Ian McKay, “Strikes in the Maritimes, 1901–1914,” in David Frank and Gregory S. Kealey, eds., Labour and Working-Class History in Atlantic Canada: A Reader (St John’s: Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1995), 190–232; Frank, J.B. McLachlan, 201–2; David Frank, “The 1920s: Class and Region, Resistance and Accommodation,” in Forbes and Muise, The Atlantic Provinces in Confederation, 245; Michael Earle, “‘Down with Hitler and Silby Barrett’: The Cape Breton Miners’ Slowdown Strike of 1941,” in Michael Earle, ed., Workers and the State in Twentieth-Century Nova Scotia (Fredericton: Gorsebrook Research Institute of Atlantic Canada Studies by Acadiensis Press, 1989), 116; Frank, “The Cape Breton Coal Industry.” 23 Canada, Report of the Royal Commission on Coal, 1946 (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1947), 582. 24 Canada, Royal Commission on Canada’s Economic Prospects (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1958); MacEwan, Miners and Steelworkers, 309; Margaret Conrad, “The ‘Atlantic Revolution’ of the 1950s,” in Berkeley Fleming, ed., Beyond Anger and Longing: Community and Development in Atlantic Canada (Sackville: Centre for Canadian Studies and Acadiensis Press, 1988), 78–9; and Meaghan Beaton and Del Muise, “The Canso Causeway: Tartan Tourism, Industrial Development, and the Promise of Progress for Cape Breton,” Acadiensis 37, 2 (2008): 65–6. 25 For a detailed discussion of these reports, see Beaton and Muise, “The Canso Causeway,” 65–7; and Meaghan Beaton, “‘I Sold It as an Industry as much as Anything Else’: Nina Cohen, the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum and Canada’s 1967 Centennial Celebrations,” Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society 13 (2010): 43–5.

The Cape Breton Miners’ Museum   233 2 6 J.R. Donald, The Cape Breton Coal Problem (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1966), 1–4. 27 Canada, Royal Commission on Coal, 1960 (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1960), quoted in MacEwan, Miners and Steelworkers, 309. 28 Donald, The Cape Breton Coal Problem, vii. 29 Royal Commission on Coal, 1960, 46–8. 30 Norman Pearson and Canadian-British Engineering Consultants, Town of Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Urban Renewal Study (Halifax: n.p., 1966), foreword and 1; Beaton, “‘I Sold It as an Industry,’” 43–5. 31 On company homes in Cape Breton, see Richard MacKinnon, “Making a House a Home: Company Housing in Cape Breton Island,” Material History Review 47 (Spring 1998): 46–56. 32 Pearson et al., Town of Glace Bay, foreword, 2–5, and 9. 33 Beaton, “‘I Sold It as an Industry,’” 45–6. 34 On Cohen’s work with the museum, see Beaton, “‘I Sold It as an Industry.’” 35 Nina Cohen, interview by Gary Lipshutz, place unknown, 1982, Beaton Institutes, T-2058. 36 Terry MacLean, Louisbourg Heritage: From Ruins to Reconstruction (Sydney, NS: University College of Cape Breton Press, 1995). 37 Cohen, interview by Lipshutz. 38 “First Meeting of Miner’s Museum,” 3 Jan. 1963, NSARM, MG 1, vol. 1847, folder 8. 39 Ibid.; “Museum Plans Discussed, Many Ideas Find Support for Project,” Cape Breton Post, 4 Jan. 1963. 40 “Touching the Heart of the Plan,” Cape Breton Post, 5 Jan. 1963 (original emphasis). 41 “Mrs Nina Cohen Recalls Events Leading to Construction of the Miners’ Museum,” Cape Breton Post, 3 July 1982. 42 Cohen’s papers at Library and Archives Canada evidence her long-­ standing connections to Canada’s Liberal Party. See LAC, MG 30, C152, vol. 1, for various correspondence with Liberals. 43 Confederation Centenary Celebration Committee minutes, 28 May 1963, NSARM, MG 1, vol. 1847. 44 Confederation Centenary Celebration Committee minutes, 13 Nov. 1964, ibid., vol. 1479. 45 “Agreement between National Centennial Administration and the Government of the Province of Nova Scotia”; “Nova Scotia Federal-Provincial Centennial Grants Program,” n.d., NSARM, RG 10, series E, vol. 246, Project reports and progress, 1967–68. 46 “$250,000 Campaign Objective,” Cape Breton Post, 31 Dec. 1964; and “Campaign Opens,” Cape Breton Post, 25 Jan. 1965.

234  Meaghan Elizabeth Beaton 4 7 An Act to Incorporate the Cape Breton Miners Foundation, RSNS 1964, c. 63. 48 Cohen to Stanfield, 28 Aug. 1964, NSARM, RG 100, vol. 6, file 12-8. 49 Stanfield to Cohen, 21 Sept. 1964, ibid. 50 “A Personal Message to the Citizens of Cape Breton,” Cape Breton Post, 1 Feb. 1965; “Message Issued by Chair,” Cape Breton Post, 22 Feb. 1965. 51 Unaddressed letter, n.d., NSARM, RG 10, series E, vol. 166, Centennial grants, Approved, Correspondence, financial statements, etc., Glace Bay, file II. 52 “5-Year Tax Exemption for Museum,” Cape Breton Post, 11 Jan. 1966. 53 “Big Boost to Museum Fund,” Chronicle-Herald, 22 July 1965; “Museum Drive at $152,000 – Near Objective,” Cape Breton Post, 20 Aug. 1965. 54 “Province Approves Miners’ Museum,” Chronicle-Herald, 26 Aug. 1965; “Federal Provincial Centennial Grants Application Form for Project N.S. 23,” various dates: 31 Aug., 3 Sept., and 7 Dec. 1965, NSARM, RG 10, series E, vol. 165, file I. See also Hanson to Cohen, 13 Dec. 1965, ibid.; “Approve Museum Grants,” Chronicle-Herald, 17 Dec. 1965. 55 “Museum Project Generates New Heat – Urquhart Irked – Rejection Blamed on Aldermen,” Cape Breton Post, 19 Nov. 1964; “Museum Project Blasted by Council – Feud Sizzles – Somebody Led Down Garden Path: Mayor,” Cape Breton Post, 20 Nov. 1964; “Crabby Corner,” Cape Breton Post, 19 Dec. 1964. 56 “Lukewarm Reception,” Cape Breton Post, 21 Nov. 1964. 57 “Cape Breton Miners’ Museum,” Cape Breton Post, 25 Nov. 1964. 58 “Won’t Endorse Museum Project,” Chronicle-Herald, 18 Feb. 1965; “Museum Project Reaction Cool,” Cape Breton Post, 13 Feb. 1965. 59 “Statement by Council,” Cape Breton Post, 17 Feb. 1965. 60 “Centennial Grants,” Antigonish Casket, 26 Nov. 1964. 61 “Lest We Forget,” Cape Breton Post, 27 Nov. 1964. 62 “Collective Effort for Museum Urged,” Cape Breton Post, 5 Jan. 1965. 63 “People’s Forum,” Cape Breton Post, 24 Nov. 1964. 64 “Centennial Project: Out with the Stupid Clap Trap,” Cape Breton Highlander, 24 Feb. 1965. 65 “United Appeal Is Commended – By UMW Head,” Cape Breton Post, 12 Mar. 1965. 66 “Union Leader Endorses C.B. Miners Museum,” Cape Breton Post, 16 July 1965. 67 “Museum Site Is Donated,” Cape Breton Post, 7 Dec. 1965. 68 H.S. Haslam to Cohen, 8 Oct. 1965, and Cohen to Haslam, 11 Aug. 1965, NSARM, RG 10, series E, vol. 165, file I; “Coal Available at Ocean Deeps,” Cape Breton Post, 7 Dec. 1966.

The Cape Breton Miners’ Museum   235 69 “Veteran Miner to Turn Sod at Museum Site,” Chronicle-Herald, 11 May 1966; NCC bulletin no. 12, 24 June 1966, NSARM, RG 10, series E, vol. 114. 70 Press release, 26 May 1966, ibid., vol. 115, Canadian Centennial press releases, Nova Scotia Centennial Projects. 71 “Impressive Floats Feature Big Parade,” Cape Breton Post, 1 Aug. 1967. 72 Wallace to Bill Neville, 30 May 1967, LAC, RG 69, vol. 774. 73 “MacKeen Says Miners’ Museum World Project,” Chronicle Herald, 1 Aug. 1967. 74 “Miners’ Museum Officially Opened – LaMarsh Says.” 75 “MacKeen Says Miners’ Museum World Project.” 76 “Tourists Flocking to the Miners’ Museum,” Cape Breton Post, 26 Aug. 1967. 77 See, e.g., Elizabeth J. Hiscott, “A Lasting Monument,” Atlantic Advocate 57, 12 (1967): 19; “Glace Bay Centennial Project Is Tribute to World’s Coal Miners,” Ship & Shore News, Sept. 1967; and “Miners’ Museum Officially Opened – LaMarsh Says.” 78 Ian McKay, Quest of the Folk: Antimodernism and Cultural Selection in Twentieth-Century Nova Scotia (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994); Ian McKay, “History and the Tourist Gaze: Politics and Commemoration in Nova Scotia, 1935–1964,” Acadiensis 22, 2 (1993): 102–38; and Ian McKay, “Tartanism Triumphant: The Construction of Scottishness in Nova Scotia, 1933–1945,” Acadiensis 21, 2 (1992): 5–47. 79 “Nova Scotia Looks Ahead to Million-Visitor Year,” Financial Post, 6 July 1967. 80 D. Shadbolt, Untitled report, Aug. 1964, NSARM, RG 100, vol. 6, file 12-8. 81 “Ask Council for Donation – Miners Museum,” Cape Breton Post, 5 Feb. 1965. 82 “Glace Bay Centennial Project Is Tribute to World’s Coal Miners.” 83 Cited in Edwin Payn, “Miners’ Museum,” Atlantic Advocate 56, 3 (1965): 49 (original emphasis). 84 Cited in “People’s Forum.” 85 Hiscott, “A Lasting Monument,” 19. 86 Herb Wyile, Anne of Tim Hortons: Globalization and the Reshaping of Atlantic Canada Literature (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 2011), 55–7. 87 On thanatourism and the 1992 Westray disaster, see Peter Thompson, “Tourism and the Extractive Gaze on Leo MacKay’s Foord St” (paper presented to the Association of Canadian Studies, Dublin, Ireland, 11 May 2012). 88 Roger Guimond, “A Mining Museum for Nova Scotia!” Mining in Canada 38, 5 (1965): 10–11. 89 Richard MacKinnon, “Protest Song and Verse in Cape Breton Island,” Ethnologies 30, 2 (2008): 34. On the Men of the Deeps, see Allister MacGillivray,

236  Meaghan Elizabeth Beaton Diamonds in the Rough: 25 Years with the Men of the Deeps (Sydney, NS: Men of the Deeps Music, 1991); Allister MacGillivray, The Men of the Deeps: The Continuing Saga (New Waterford, NS: Men of the Deeps Music, 2000); and John C. O’Donnell, “And Now the Fields Are Green”: A Collection of Coal Mining Songs in Canada (Sydney, NS: University College of Cape Breton Press, 1992). On miners’ choir traditions in British communities, see Gareth Williams, Valleys of Song: Music and Society in Wales, 1840–1919 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1998). 90 Press release, 31 July 1967, NSARM, RG 43, Atlantic Pavilion of Expo 1967, vol. 2. 91 John C. O’Donnell, The Men of the Deeps Melody Collection (Waterloo: Waterloo Music Company, 1975), preface. 92 “Famed Folklorist Assists Society in Search for Miners’ Songs & Stories,” Cape Breton Highlander, 9 Mar. 1966. 93 “Men of the Deeps – An Impressive Debut,” Cape Breton Post, 3 Nov. 1966; Press release, 31 July 1967. 94 “25,000 Visit Miners Museum – Since July,” Cape Breton Post, 11 Oct. 1967. 95 Personal communication, Mary Pat Mombourquette, executive director, Cape Breton Miners’ Museum, 12 Nov. 2014. 96 Nova Scotia Tourism Agency, “Nova Scotia Tourism Industry Facts,” 2013, 2, https://tourismns.ca/sites/default/files/page_documents/ industryfacts2010-11final_0.pdf (accessed 11 Sept. 2017). 97 Cohen, interview by Lipshutz. 98 Payn, “The Centre of Showbiz at Glace Bay Is the Miners’ Museum.” 99 “Students Must Fight Canada’s Cultural Poverty and Help Mould Canada’s National Identity,” Canadian High News 25, 5 (1965): 20.

8 Federal Funding, Local Priorities: Urban Planning and Ontario’s Municipal Centennial Projects c hr istophe r l os

When the new Centennial Square on Queen Street in downtown Niagara Falls was opened as the city’s official Centennial project on 1 July 1967, keynote speaker and prominent community-member Harold A. Logan told the gathered crowd that the square was “the first step of a mighty project.” Two-thirds of the funding for the $100,000 “modern urban park” had come from the federal and provincial governments. Yet, the site’s significance to the city was trumpeted above all. “The dreamers and planners of our day,” explained Logan, “see not only this square, but an impressive City Hall at the head of the square and an entire block set aside as a beautiful municipal park. They see the blighted areas ... replaced by a variety of other structures which will be a credit to our community.”1 Logan’s prose demonstrated the importance of the Centennial project to local city planners, who foresaw major redevelopment of the neighbourhood around the square in the years to come. His speech indicated a clear desire on the part of city leaders to connect the city’s Centennial project with future plans for locally driven development and renewal. Such development would be carefully managed by a core of local elites – Logan’s “dreamers and planners” – and his mention of their future home in city hall, at the head of the city’s Centennial Square, was a firm declaration of the site’s significance in ensuring centralized municipal control over future urban growth. Logan’s remarks were also significant in their exclusion of wider ideas of nation building that are typically assumed to permeate anything related to state-directed development during Canada’s festive Centennial year. Centennial Square in Niagara Falls was one of almost 2,300 statefunded Centennial projects selected and constructed by municipal

238  Christopher Los

governments across the country. Funded by all three levels of government, these projects represent one of the most prolific public building schemes undertaken in Canadian history. Despite the Centennial Grants Program (CGP) being a federal-provincial joint program, the provincial governments predominantly handled its administration. Municipalities received $1 per resident from each level of government, up to a maximum of 66.6 per cent of the total cost of a project. The standard historical narrative claims that municipal leaders, overflowing with the Centennial spirit, seized upon the program as an opportunity to construct lasting cultural and artistic monuments to the Centennial of Confederation in their communities. Certainly the CGP was accompanied by a large amount of nation-building rhetoric from federal and provincial politicians, and this rhetoric has received significant attention from historians. This chapter, however, seeks to present an alternative perspective, as does the previous one by Meaghan Beaton, by examining the reception of the CGP at the local level, specifically within the Province of Ontario. In Ontario, 773 CGP projects were created, more than any other province in terms of number (the next closest province was Saskatchewan with 475 projects) and cost ($26 million, almost 30% of the entire nationwide investment in the grants program).2 Once the historical microscope is focused on the local setting, it becomes clear that the nation-building narrative proffered as the motivation for the Centennial Grants Program was not a high priority at the municipal level. Many of the state-sanctioned municipal projects erected in commemoration of Canada’s Centennial were predominantly designed and selected within localized frameworks of development and were based on site-specific needs, realities, and conceptualizations of urban space. In some municipalities this meant explicitly integrating the Centennial project into long-term urban renewal frameworks targeting individual neighbourhoods, while in others it meant responding to suburban growth and increasing demand for public services. Regardless of the key driving factors in individual municipalities, each Centennial project had more to do with localized urban planning regimes than it did with Centennial celebrations as such. Plans were framed within the wider realities of urban life in 1960s Canada, as a growing population, car culture, increased suburbanization, and the need for increased recreational space pushed city planners into new territory. Previous historians have attempted to place the CGP projects within all-encompassing Centennial-era discourses of nation building and cultural development.3 Jonathan Vance and Ryan Edwardson have both

Urban Planning and Ontario’s Centennial Projects  239

situated the CGP within a wider desire on the part of the federal government to foster a national Canadian culture through the creation of artistic space. Vance, for instance, working from the definition of culture as a synonym for the arts, sees the CGP projects as a clear attempt by the federal government to lay down a network of performing arts halls and theatres across the country.4 He argues that the CGP projects “were all about bringing Canadians together through the arts.”5 Edwardson frames the grants projects in a similar way when he argues that the string of cultural buildings constructed in preparation for Centennial year “literally cemented national existence and gave nation-building narratives the sort of presence that came with stone and steel.”6 For Edwardson, the Centennial Grants Program proved that Canada was “a modern and progressive nation” that was making cultural activities more accessible.7 This conclusion holds when a small number of major CGP projects are examined, but this chapter argues that a more focused analysis tells a different story. The vast majority of CGP projects placed the emphasis on recreation rather than the performing arts. Of the 2,300 projects realized across the country, 524 were parks, 520 were recreational structures, 428 were community centres, and 137 were libraries.8 Arts-based cultural structures were minimal by comparison, as only 67 museums and art galleries were built and only five theatres or performing arts centres.9 In Ontario, provincial statistics also demonstrate that the province’s municipal planners spent far more on new city halls, parks, and civic centres than they did on new theatres and performing arts halls (see table 8.1). Culture and recreation were not mutually exclusive to federal policymakers. In seeking to foster a national identity, creating both cultural and recreational space would have been complimentary means to the same end. In her discussion of recreation in Ontario after the Second World War, Shirley Tillotson sees the development of recreation as intimately connected with the nation-building process and its liberal ideals. Tillotson argues that the postwar push for publicly controlled recreation “represented a serious attempt, in light of the political theory of its day, to put into practice an ideal of a liberal participatory democracy.”10 Among policymakers of the time, explicit connections between recreation and culture were commonplace.11 Much like how culturally oriented projects could help create and foster a national identity through the arts, projects that were recreational in nature could help create responsible democratic citizens within active and integrated

240  Christopher Los 8.1  Ontario Centennial Projects by Type, 15 Dec. 1966 Category

Total (no.)

Per cent of Approved projects by Ontario

Approved by Ottawa

Withdrawn

Municipal building complexes Library buildings Museums and pioneer villages Historic sites Historical books Cemetery works, memorials, and monuments Fire halls, police halls, work garages Recreational Facilities Swimming pools Community halls/complexes Arenas/stadia Improvements to rec facilities Park and playground development Miscellaneous* TOTAL

172 90 37 7 20 19

18 9 4 1 2 2

101 62 29 2 19 2

100 61 28 2 18 2

59 22 5 4  – 16

35

3

3

1

31

31 128 42 49 342

3 14 5 4 33

22 84 29 28 279

21 83 28 26 270

7 31 5 10 45

24 996

2 100

13 673

11 651

8 243

Source: Archives of Ontario, RG 19-125, B229627, Municipal Centennial Grants Program Records, Centennial Grants Programme Category Report, 15 Dec. 1966. * Miscellaneous includes cultural centres, conservatories, street lighting, homes for the aged, observation and lookout towers, etc.

communities. Such ideas recognized the growing perception of recreation as a public service. They also suggest that federal policymakers in the run-up to the Centennial may have seen recreation and the performing arts as two sides of the same nation-building cultural coin. Local leaders had certain priorities in mind when they designed and selected their Centennial projects. This chapter scrutinizes the two midsized Ontario municipalities of Niagara Falls and Sault Ste Marie, both of which constructed fairly impressive structures under the Centennial Grants Program. In addition, both cities’ CGP projects represent the recreational emphasis placed on the program by local leaders, as opposed to the “national culture” theme emphasized by Vance and Edwardson. Despite the focus on these two cities, this chapter’s conclusions can be extended to communities across the province.12 Lasting cultural monuments were not a major legacy of the Centennial Grants Program. Indeed, in a great many municipalities, the practical limit of population size prevented communities from constructing

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Centennial projects of any major cultural significance. Of Ontario’s 928 municipalities in 1966, 762 had populations under 5,000.13 With grant amounts tied to population, such municipalities were seriously restrained by the amount of CGP money they could potentially receive. Port Stanley spent $972 on a new Centennial clock and thermometer in its municipal building. Tyendinaga Township built a Centennial boat launch ramp.14 These projects demonstrate the community-centred nature of the Centennial Grants Program and the powerful influence of local leaders in directing the form of their respective communities’ Centennial projects. They also reveal the interaction between the federal government’s wider nation-building Centennial message and its reception and redefinition at the local level. The nation-building narratives of the Centennial year have received significant attention from historians – a trend that continues in this volume. Historians acknowledge that the state took advantage of the significance of 1967 to transmit carefully crafted messages of an inclusive, pluralistic, and tolerant national identity in an effort to reach out to as many Canadians as possible.15 Canada’s federal government treated the Centennial as a year-long birthday party that culminated in the World’s Fair in Montreal, attended by an estimated fifty million people, underscoring the significance of citizen participation in making Centennial celebrations a success.16 Indeed, newly imagined constructions of Canada as an inclusive and tolerant entity were vital to ensuring mass participation in Centennial events. As Helen Davies explains elsewhere in this book, the Centennial was about reimagining the nation in terms that avoided a monolithic meta-narrative and opting, instead, for an inclusive and open-ended definition of national identity. One-off events such as parades, concerts, and conferences were but part of such policies; the thousands of permanent Centennial projects built across the country were also meant to embody these themes. These permanent monuments to the Centennial would take the form of interactive recreational and cultural structures. As official Centennial projects, they could effectively connect local conceptualizations of community and identity with wider nation-building narratives. This chapter seeks to explain how these policy objectives were interpreted and applied when they reached the desks of municipal officials. Numerous studies within the literature of commemoration provide examples of the interaction between top-down discourses and reactions to them at the local level. These studies generally argue that the perception, interpretation, and reimagination of broader discourses among

242  Christopher Los

individuals and communities often produce unique and unexpected cultural outcomes. As H.V. Nelles reminds us in his study of Quebec’s tercentenary, hegemony is not asserted; it is negotiated between citizens and elites. This negotiation forms the backbone of collective identity creation, and it can often lead to analogous and unexpected hybrids (or even outright rejections) of identity neither planned nor predicted by planners or policymakers.17 In his analysis of Canada in the 1960s, Bryan Palmer argues that the excitement that had accompanied the Centennial celebrations quickly imploded amid a fractured cultural reality that failed to accurately reflect constructed national ideals.18 Eva Mackey’s work on Canada 125 draws similar conclusions regarding the effects of federally directed nation-building narratives on the actual communities within which they were interpreted and redefined. Mackey argues that federal policies of multiculturalism had the unintended effect of constructing a dominant white, unmarked core culture that excluded cultural “others” who failed to match its commitment to the nation-building project.19 Within this volume, a number of chapters adopt a similar approach in the context of Canada’s Centennial. Meaghan Beaton emphasizes the power of community organizers in Cape Breton to seize control and direct the final form of their island’s Centennial project, the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum. Beaton’s analysis of the Cape Breton experience reveals that prominent local figures had the power to redefine the Centennial message and make it conform to community-specific needs and identities. Matthew McRae highlights the ability of Centennial planners in Prince Edward Island to focus their Centennial plans on a localized objective – improving the province’s tourist industry. These authors effectively demonstrate how various actors redefined and recreated the Centennial message on their own terms. Ted Cogan, in the following chapter, examines the cultural activities taking place on the margins of Centennial celebrations. His work provides an intriguing example of the wide diversity of messages disseminated by and through the Centennial in communities across the country. In line with the trend established by these authors, this chapter seeks to situate the Centennial projects within the space between official, federally directed nation-building objectives and the far more localized frameworks that governed municipal planners in 1960s Canada. The Centennial represented a major federal investment in nation building, but other levels of government were also major players in the process of Centennial policy administration, especially with regards to the

Urban Planning and Ontario’s Centennial Projects  243

Centennial Grants Program projects. Indeed, the federal government’s role in the CGP’s actual implementation was minimal. The projects themselves represent a unique historical interaction between abstract federal nation-building directives, provincial bureaucracy, and local planning regimes driven by contemporary ideas of urban development. A full discussion of how the Centennial Grants Program developed requires focus on the program’s administration at the provincial and local levels, rather than only the federal level.20 By focusing the analysis on these levels, it becomes clear that fostering national identity through impressive cultural projects was not the primary motivation of municipal leaders. They were motivated by a desire to address the unique concerns and pressures faced by their communities in 1960s Canada. A Provincial and Municipal Program, Not a Federal One The Centennial Grants Program was announced in late 1963. Its goal was the construction of Centennial projects in each of Canada’s municipalities. Ottawa contributed $1 per person in each community (based on 1963 population statistics), provided the province and the municipality at least matched the federal grant. Municipalities were not limited in how much they could spend as long as their project provided a lasting monument to the Centennial and was recreational or cultural in nature. The CGP sought the creation of state-sponsored public space in every community in Canada. Altogether, the CGP produced over 2,300 Centennial projects in communities across the country, at a total estimated cost of over $88 million.21 The grants program was almost certainly predominantly perceived as a provincial and local program rather than a federal one. The federal contribution constituted a small portion of the total expenditures, only $16.5 million.22 The provinces committed slightly more, but the major expenditures were made at the local level, where municipalities maxed out their grants and invested additional dollars of their own. Sixty per cent of the CGP’s funding came from the local level.23 Federal grants were always welcome, but the relatively small federal contribution to the projects may have helped diminish the perceived connections between the program and the wider Centennial celebrations for both local planners and local residents. This was reinforced within the process of the program’s administration, which flowed through the provincial government. With

244  Christopher Los

municipalities under provincial jurisdiction, the federal government’s authority in overseeing the CGP was significantly diminished. Both Ottawa and Queen’s Park needed to approve the final form of the projects in Ontario, but in practice, Ottawa acted largely as a rubber stamp for projects already approved by the province. By mid-­December 1966, with most of the grant money pledged, 996 applications had been made to the province but only 673 had been forwarded to Ottawa. Of those, 651 were approved federally.24 This meant that within the province almost 30 per cent of applications were rejected, but federally the total was closer to 4 per cent. Such statistics emphasize the fact that the CGP was predominantly controlled at the provincial level. In those rare cases when Ottawa opposed certain projects after they had been approved in Toronto, it often upset the province enough to step in and cover the federal portion of the grant, rather than allow Ottawa the satisfaction of a veto. In one such case, five Ontario municipalities received provincial approval to construct fire halls as Centennial projects, only to have Ottawa request that they be reconsidered. The provincial Cabinet committee discussed the issue and affirmed its decision to support the applications.25 Ottawa refused funding on the grounds that the projects were inappropriate to the Centennial spirit, and the province paid the federal government’s share on its own.26 Such cases certainly reinforced provincial jurisdiction over municipal affairs, and Ottawa had no willingness to circumvent such channels. A federal policy statement of March 1964 explained that municipalities that had their applications rejected at the provincial level should not be appealing the decision to the federal Centennial Commission.27 In the end, despite the nation-building rhetoric that federal policymakers espoused regarding the Centennial Grants Program, the most important decisions were taken locally and provincially. Ottawa signed the cheques, but provinces and municipalities did all the heavy lifting when it came to implementing the program. This is not to suggest that Ottawa was blind to the machinations of local politicians. There is a strong case to be made that the federal government’s approach to the CGP was consistent with its attitude towards municipalities in other areas. Undoubtedly, the federal government’s willingness to fund local development was a part of the growing investment being made in urban renewal projects by Ottawa in the 1960s. Major federal funds were made available to cities seeking to reconstruct and modernize themselves. Dramatic urban renewal plans left few stones unturned, and proposed everything from traffic regulation changes and zoning

Urban Planning and Ontario’s Centennial Projects  245

reform to specially designed urban complexes and major demolition and redevelopment proposals. Urban renewal took off during the mid1960s and resulted in major changes to urban landscapes.28 In this area, as well, the funding was federal, but the heavy lifting was done locally. The sweeping forces of urban renewal petered out almost as quickly as they had appeared. By the end of the decade, the concept of urban renewal was heavily criticized as creating more problems than it had solved. Urban renewal had envisioned major changes to the physical landscape of cities, but critics argued that the effects on social landscapes had been entirely overlooked.29 The 1969 annual report of Ontario’s Department of Municipal Affairs called the scrapping of urban renewal “the end of an era.”30 Nonetheless, urban renewal schemes certainly left a lasting mark on cities across Canada, and subsequent development in many urban areas remained centred on the plans that were drawn up by mid-decade renewalists.31 The fact that the Centennial projects were constructed during this tremendous explosion of activity in the field of urban planning certainly warrants historical consideration. Urban Renewal and the Centennial Grants Program: Cases in Point Long-term urban planning and urban renewal plans were major considerations behind Centennial project selections. One prominent example of this was visible in Niagara Falls, a city faced with a number of significant challenges in the mid-1960s. Although historically Niagara Falls had a strong manufacturing sector, by 1965 many industries were in decline and were expected to play a decreasing role in the city’s economic development.32 The needs of a growing permanent population were pushing against tourist-driven economic demands. Citizens were often vocal about the lack of parkland in the city that was not crowded with tourists every summer.33 The mid-1960s saw Niagara Falls adamantly take up the cause of urban renewal in an attempt to bring about carefully managed development that accommodated the tourist economy as well as the recreational needs of the permanent local population. When it came to selecting a Centennial project in early 1964, the city committee charged with the task considered a number of options, including a fire hall, a community centre, a civic centre complex, or a landscaping of the downtown area. The civic complex was an intriguing idea and was particularly favoured by one prominent alderman, Robert Keighan. The plan would involve the development of a

246  Christopher Los

complex of buildings in the downtown Queen Street area to anchor the city’s municipal government offices. Keighan saw the development of a civic centre complex as the first step in the renewal of the blighted downtown area. If using the Centennial grant as the first injection of funds into a localized urban development scheme seemed contrary to the “Centennial spirit,” Keighan didn’t seem to mind. Much like other municipalities, Niagara Falls was already on the urban renewal bandwagon. The city had commissioned a detailed urban renewal study in 1961 and was expecting it to be completed by the end of 1964. Before the city had selected its official Centennial project or even received its urban renewal report, Keighan was connecting the dots between the CGP money and redevelopment of the downtown area. The civic centre project, paid for with the Centennial grant, would be the catalyst for all of it.34 At the end of 1964, Keighan became mayor of Niagara Falls. The renewal report was not completed prior to the deadline for selecting a Centennial project. The report was expected to recommend a dramatic and permanent reconfiguration of the downtown landscape. City council ultimately decided not to construct a new development project in the downtown area without first receiving the urban renewal report. Instead, it announced that the CGP project for Niagara Falls would be a seventy-nine-acre wilderness park well outside the downtown area.35 The idea proved decidedly unpopular, and city council was forced to return to the drawing board amid accusations of inflated land values and cronyism.36 Luckily for Mayor Keighan, however, the timing of the scandal could not have been more advantageous. Just as it became necessary to reconsider the city’s Centennial project, the anticipated urban renewal report finally arrived. The report proposed dramatic changes to the city’s landscape. The authors encouraged reform through the “rationalization and intensification of the utilization of space” throughout the municipality.37 Few stones were left unturned: sixteen districts within the city were singled out as being in need of attention. Recommendations were made for everything from spot removal of dilapidated structures to reorganization of traffic arteries to “more rational re-grouping” of land uses, particularly towards industrial areas.38 The report also urged the city to recognize the need for a new civic centre complex, or a place where future needs and functions of the community could be “foreseen, guided and controlled, so that the short and long-term results may produce orderliness, efficiency, economy and a measure of aesthetic quality.”39 The

Urban Planning and Ontario’s Centennial Projects  247

report recommended that the first priority of these massive citywide plans lie with the Queen Street area and the central business district, which would rejuvenate the area economically. The plan included the proposed new civic centre as a high priority.40 Queen Street itself would be closed to traffic and become a pedestrian mall. The road closure would be accommodated by a new ring road which would be constructed to encircle the downtown area.41 The report and its proposals embodied the principles of mid-1960s urban development, and it was now in the hands of a mayor who believed passionately in the significance of such concepts. Keighan was captivated, and it was no surprise that the number one priority of the urban renewal report became the city’s Centennial project.42 Just as Keighan advocated from the start, the city’s Centennial Square was to be flanked by future civic administration buildings, in line with the urban renewal report’s recommendations.43 Owing to its significant size, the square could also be touted as new recreational space. At the groundbreaking ceremony in August of the following year, Keighan told the small gathering that the project was “predominantly centennial,” but added enthusiastically that it was “the kickoff point for greater things to come.”44 Centennial Square in Niagara Falls was not designed to foster national identity through arts and culture. It was chosen because municipal politicians, recognizing their highly localized needs and agendas, sought to kick-start a major citywide redevelopment plan designed to solve the community’s economic and social problems. Urban blight, economic shifts, and a lack of adequate recreational space were the major concerns of local planners. Urban renewal was a centralized doctrine of urban management that would enable leaders to solve those problems. The first step was constructing a centralized power base, the headquarters from which the future development of the city could be managed. This was the number one priority of the urban renewal report. Unsurprisingly, construction of a civic square promptly became the city’s Centennial project. One noble attempt was made by city council to add a cultural element to Centennial Square, although it was quickly and forcefully rejected by local citizens. On 12 October 1966, as the square was nearing completion, it was announced that a $20,000 work of abstract art entitled Niagara Dialogue ’67 by Toronto sculptor Augustin Filipovic would adorn the square. Within days of the announcement there was an intense public outcry over the sculpture’s appearance and cost. H. Gale, a local

248  Christopher Los

resident, wrote to the editor of the Niagara Falls Review that “if, in their idiotic reasoning, valuable publicity is to be gained by an expensive display of our council’s stupidity, I suggest it would be far cheaper, and just as effective, to have the full daily collection of the entire city’s garbage dumped methodically into the square.”45 Within a week of the sculpture’s announcement, the massive public outcry brought about the cancellation of the work. Any connection between the Niagara Falls Centennial Square and the lofty cultural ambitions of the federal government died with it. The Niagara Falls project was a decidedly local endeavour, driven by the needs and desires of local planners, and it was entirely divorced from any nation-building agenda. Niagara Falls was not an exception – local planning in general and urban renewal in particular represented absolutely vital parts of the mindset that local politicians and bureaucrats had when they considered how to spend their Centennial grants. Arts and culture were, at best, secondary considerations. The story of Sault Ste Marie’s Centennial project cannot be separated from that city’s wider urban renewal plans either. In the early 1960s, conditions were ripe for city planners to undertake urban renewal efforts. Sault Ste Marie was in the midst of a major housing boom, with 55 per cent of the homes in the city having been built in the period 1949–61.46 In 1964, the city amalgamated with two surrounding townships, Korah and Tarentorus, which raised the population by over 60 per cent to 70,000 from its previous level of 44,000.47 The population growth was expected to continue for the foreseeable future, with estimates placing the city’s population at 103,000 by 1980.48 In addition, the industrial developments that existed along the city’s downtown waterfront (which ran parallel to the city’s central business district) were not only visually unappealing, but also prevented recreational use of the waterfront area. The amalgamation brought demands for better recreational services and downtown/waterfront regeneration. In 1963, in line with earlier recommendations, city council chose to target the waterfront area for immediate renewal, and the city’s Centennial project was quickly and powerfully integrated into wider regeneration plans. In 1959, much earlier than Niagara Falls, the city commissioned an urban renewal report. It was completed in 1961. The document’s recommendations guided municipal planners for the rest of the decade and beyond. The report considered the city’s sprawling pattern of residential growth as “wasteful” and thought it to be “exhibiting the symptoms of an unhealthy organism.”49 The report condemned the city’s

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waterfront as an area in need of major renewal, owing to the “blighted riverfront, with its oil tanks, coal, sand and gravel yards, and obsolete industrial buildings.”50 The central business area, right next to the city’s downtown waterfront, was labelled an at-risk region.51 The report went on to make major recommendations with regards to the waterfront and central business district. Calling these areas “the economic and cultural focal point of the Algoma Region,” the report called for the rezoning and demolition of the industrial properties along the riverfront, and their replacement with residential and commercial properties. It also situated a new enlarged civic centre and city hall near Clergue Park, a small recreational area at the water’s edge. The downtown area was to be completely revamped and most residents and businesses in the area relocated. Significantly, the report designated an area in the downtown core for a new cultural centre, to include a new library. Indeed, the report made specific mention of the need for a new library building to be constructed as part of the redevelopment program.52 As Mark Taylor has argued, the 1961 urban renewal report was only the first in a series of waterfront redevelopment proposals for Sault Ste Marie.53 Taylor argues that the report’s recommendations were too farreaching to have been implemented fully, especially as the plan made no suggestion as to how waterfront businesses and downtown residents would be compensated for relocating.54 For the most part, plans to regenerate the waterfront or to replace the central library saw little movement until 1963. When discussions resumed, the plans for a new central library appeared alongside new waterfront regeneration plans, which included a new city hall. The announcement of the Centennial Grants Program provided a significant impetus for city planners to return to the principles of the urban renewal report. City planners may not have implemented the 1961 renewal report’s proposals exactly as they were described, but the framework for downtown and riverfront development was nonetheless set in place long before the CGP was announced. In January 1963, the city’s library board received formal permission from city council to look into necessary arrangements needed for the construction of a new central library. Later that month, K.G. Booth, the board’s chairman, sent out a memo to interested architectural firms asking for preliminary estimates for a new central library building.55 On 1 April, Booth returned to city council to present the results of the board’s efforts. Within forty-five minutes Booth had convinced council that the time had finally come to build the new central library that had been

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recommended since the urban renewal report was published in 1961. In fact, city council went beyond merely endorsing a new library – it also passed a resolution pledging that the building be opened by Centennial year.56 Mayor James McIntyre even went so far as to suggest that the library could become the city’s official Centennial project under the expected Centennial Grants Program, with a grant of $140,000 helping to offset the cost (now estimated to be as high as $750,000).57 City council made no decision regarding the library’s location other than to suggest that it needed to be well located in the central shopping area, precisely the location recommended by the urban renewal report.58 In mid-1963, after committing to the library project, city council began pursuing more practical plans for waterfront regeneration. In January 1964 (the same month that council received the detailed outlines of the CGP), it studied an alternate waterfront regeneration plan prepared by city planner Ron Nino. The new proposal was slightly more realistic than the 1961 urban renewal report’s plan, but just as ambitious. It called for an expansion of downtown waterfront property by partially filling in the river, thus enlarging Clergue Park. The new land could then be used to construct a new civic centre and city hall as well as the new library.59 The plan also included buying up industrial property and selling it to housing developers – a condition necessary for urban renewal funding.60 Mayor McIntyre clearly favoured the plan, and emphasized the need to establish a site for the new library.61 City council debated the issue on 31 January and heartily endorsed the proposal for an enlarged Clergue Park that would include a new central library to be constructed as the city’s Centennial project. The newly reclaimed waterfront land allowed for a new city hall in the near future, and it would also see new high-rise residential buildings.62 The library was thus seen as the first of a series of wider waterfront redevelopment projects. When asked by the Sault Star what the library meant for the surrounding area, Mayor McIntyre made clear the connection between the parallel issues of building a new library, regenerating the waterfront, and constructing a new civic centre. “If we don’t redevelop,” he concluded, “the blight on the waterfront area will only be increased. The need for these civic buildings is not going to go away, but rather will continue to grow.”63 A few days later the Sault Star editorial board also endorsed the waterfront regeneration plans that began with the Centennial library. “The choice of a library as a centennial project is a worthy one,” they wrote. “The new library can and should become the starting point for the construction of a civic centre complex

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of buildings which will provide the city with a focal point and be a source of pride.” The Star editorial clearly understood the library as only one small piece of a much larger redevelopment scheme. Aware that the overall waterfront regeneration proposal would take years, the Star nonetheless recognized the importance of getting the ball rolling: “The library can mark the start. It should be planned and sited with the idea in mind that it will be only the first of a group of buildings which will be the headquarters of Sault Ste Marie’s government.”64 Much like Niagara Falls did shortly thereafter, Sault Ste Marie’s local leaders were able to connect the themes of centralized planning, urban renewal, and local development with the cold hard cash provided by the Centennial Grants Program. With the waterfront renewal scheme for Clergue Park endorsed, the library board spent the rest of the year finalizing its plans for the new building. Construction proceeded smoothly, and the building was ready in mid-1966. The library was certainly an impressive structure – at $750,000 it was one of the province’s more expensive Centennial projects, and of the ninety libraries built in Ontario as CGP projects, it was also the largest. The library saw two separate ceremonies marking its completion – the first in July 1966, a predominantly local affair, and a second in June of 1967 officially “christening” the library as the city’s Centennial project. The July 1966 ceremony was well attended by the public, with the Star describing the event as comparable to a Broadway show.65 Official invitations called the structure the “new central library.”66 Crowds poured in to inspect the building, with the Star reporting numerous positive comments from onlookers and visitors.67 Little mention was made of the building’s status as a Centennial project, although there was mention of the urgent need to undertake the next step of waterfront regeneration plans and build a new city hall now that the library was completed. Alderman Peter King and Mayor Alex Harry mused about the possibility of holding the next council meeting in the library’s boardroom – King remarked that “it might do a lot about getting a new city hall.”68 In contrast to the library’s public opening in 1966, the June 1967 ceremony was labelled as the Centennial library’s “official dedication,” and it was attended by local, provincial, and federal representatives. A Centennial plaque was unveiled and placed directly beside the cornerstone (which read 1966).69 The coverage of the event was not as enthusiastic as it had been when the library was first opened – perhaps

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understandably given that Sault residents had already been enjoying their new library for a year. A few days later, the Centennial celebrations held in the city for Dominion Day kicked off. They were a huge success, but the library was not featured in them. A Centennial parade did not even pass by it.70 The two opening ceremonies demonstrate quite effectively the contrast between the library as a local development project, on the one hand, and a national cultural monument, on the other. The project was conceived, selected, planned, and constructed within the framework of the city’s 1961 urban renewal report, which recommended major changes to the city’s waterfront and downtown core. Much like Centennial Square in Niagara Falls, the library was meant to act as the starting point for other major changes in Sault Ste Marie. Once again, local development priorities trumped a desire to establish a fitting memorial to the role Ontario played in the development of the nation. Sault Ste Marie’s Centennial Library was more a monument to the city’s aggressive mid-1960s planning regime than anything else. A new city hall and civic centre opened in 1975, and today’s Sault waterfront features extensive green space alongside several residential and commercial complexes. Far from being a worthy monument to Confederation, Sault Ste Marie’s Centennial Library was merely the beginning of a decade of local waterfront redevelopment. Conclusion The village of Tecumseh, Ontario, had a special guest open its new Centennial swimming pool on Dominion Day in 1967. Paul Martin, Canada’s minister of foreign affairs, showed up at the ceremony in a bathing suit. “I always carry a swimsuit,” he said, shortly before jumping into the town’s $60,000 Centennial project.71 Martin’s leap embodied the ambitious goals of federal planners when they created the Centennial Grants Program. It was a federal push into local recreation and culture; a program meant to create lasting memorials to the excitement of Centennial year. The structures, it was hoped, would provide space for communities to come together as part of a wider nation-building project. Much like the foreign affairs minister himself, however, the Centennial message was quickly submerged within locally directed development plans. The 1960s were big years for municipal planners in Canada. Municipal boundaries were changing due to various amalgamations and

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annexations, while residential neighbourhoods were expanding outwards from city centres, leaving downtown areas void of investment and prone to deterioration. The doctrine of urban renewal, a powerful planning tool, emerged amid these general trends as a counter to unrestrained and uncontrolled growth as well as a solution to problems of urban deterioration. Municipal leaders were heavily involved in ambitious renewal plans for their respective cities. With the financial assistance of the federal and provincial governments, they took control of development plans in ways that municipal councils had never done before. Urban renewal reports and their subsequent recommendations appeared at different times throughout the decade – Sault Ste Marie in 1961, Niagara Falls in 1965, and elsewhere even later. Yet, renewal recommendations guided city planners for many years to come. Not surprisingly, funding programs offering municipalities the opportunity to construct major projects in the form of Centennial projects were easily integrated into wider urban renewal plans in cities where such plans already existed. In Niagara Falls, major Queen Street regeneration was recommended as a priority within the 1965 report, and within months of the report’s arrival city planners were eagerly announcing the construction of a new Centennial civic square as the first step. In Sault Ste Marie, waterfront regeneration was pushed forward as the initial stage of the citywide renewal effort, and the city’s Centennial Library was labelled the first step in a series of major renewal projects that soon followed. The projects displayed a desire on the part of municipal leaders to situate their new structures so as to send a powerful message of centralized control over municipal development. In Niagara Falls and Sault Ste Marie, this meant placing their Centennial projects where they expected to build new city halls in the near future. In Niagara Falls the location sought to emphasize the role of city hall in controlling further downtown regeneration efforts, with the civic centre overlooking Queen Street. In Sault Ste Marie the city hall was eventually built at the water’s edge, the pinnacle of the wider waterfront renewal plans. Most importantly, few cities spent much time and effort selecting Centennial projects that either sought to advance Canadian culture or stand as worthy memorials to Canada’s hundredth birthday. The fate of the Niagara Falls abstract statue, Niagara Dialogue ’67, speaks volumes about the disconnection between national culture and the municipal Centennial projects. Federal Centennial planners may have seen the

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Centennial Grants Program as an opportunity to expand the country’s artistic and cultural infrastructure and create a network of performing arts and theatre halls across the country, but leaders from both Niagara Falls and Sault Ste Marie had other motivations when they went about selecting a Centennial project. In the words of Lynne Marks, this trend can likely be extended, albeit cautiously, to other municipalities across the province, and indeed, across the country.72 Provincial and national statistics demonstrate that municipal planners built far more city halls and civic centres than they did theatres and performing arts halls.73 Simply put, municipal leaders did not primarily see their Centennial projects as related to Centennial year events, but rather they saw them as part of long-term development plans. In the era of professionalized urban planning, when large amounts of federal and provincial dollars were flowing to municipalities to undertake major regeneration projects, it makes sense that municipal leaders treated the Centennial Grants Program in the same light. After all, projects built under the CGP existed far beyond Centennial year. Yet, there was certainly room within the Centennial’s plethora of themes and ideas to accommodate the CGP. The structures that the program produced were meant to form a lasting part of the communities in which they were built. The CGP embodied the forward-looking spirit of Canada’s Centennial. The projects reinforced the importance of building for the future and planning for it in new and exciting ways. In this sense the CGP was largely consistent with Centennial messages being conveyed elsewhere. There are examples of municipalities making the effort to memorialize the Centennial in a manner more consistent with the themes of art and culture. Toronto’s official Centennial project was the St Lawrence Centre for the Performing Arts, and London’s was Centennial Hall, an impressive theatre. Numerous municipal proposals were also rejected for failing to adhere to the spirit of the program. Queen’s Park had no difficulties in rejecting the application for Hibbert Township’s proposed municipal parking lot as a CGP project.74 Exceptions could certainly made if conditions were right – Vespra Township, for example, north of Barrie, had the good fortune of operating its government offices out of a building constructed in 1867, and its proposed office renovation as its CGP project was quickly approved for funding.75 Nonetheless, statistics and specific case studies indicate that the structures built under the Centennial Grants Program were only incidentally connected to the concepts of high art and culture. Instead, they were structures planned and constructed within specific localized

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frameworks designed by municipal leaders who sought to control and manage urban growth and development. Far from being monuments to Canada’s hundredth birthday, the Centennial Grants Program produced municipal structures that far more accurately embodied the principles of 1960s urban planning – principles of efficiency, centralization, and modernity. NOTES 1 “The First Step of a Mighty Project,” Niagara Falls Review, 3 July 1967. 2 Centennial Commission, “Facts about Centennial,” 1967, Archives of Ontario (AO), RG-19-125, Municipal Centennial Grants Program Records, B229628. 3 See the insights of Peter Aykroyd, director of special projects for the Centennial Commission, who touts the program’s success in creating cultural space across the country. Peter Aykroyd, The Anniversary Compulsion: Canada’s Centennial Celebrations, a Model Mega-Anniversary (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1992), 75–88. 4 Jonathan Vance, A History of Canadian Culture (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2009), 378. 5 Jonathan Vance, Building Canada: People and Projects that Shaped the Nation (Toronto: Penguin, 2006), 147. 6 Ryan Edwardson, Canadian Content: Culture and the Quest for Nationhood (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 116–17. 7 Ibid., 117. 8 Centennial Commission, “Facts about Centennial.” 9 Ibid. 10 Shirley Tillotson, The Public at Play: Gender and the Politics of Recreation in Post-War Ontario (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 5. 11 See Elsie McFarland, The Development of Public Recreation in Canada (Toronto: Canadian Parks and Recreation Association, 1970), 1. 12 This chapter is a shortened version of the author’s master’s research, “National Funding, Local Priorities: Urban Planning and the Municipal Centennial Projects of Guelph, Niagara Falls and Sault Ste Marie” (University of Guelph, 2010). A greater discussion of the provincial elements of the program can be found there. 13 “Suggested Alternatives to Grant Formulas,” 27 Oct. 1966, AO, RG 19-125, B229629. 14 “Report on the Centennial Grants Programme, Report 3,” 11 Nov. 1965, ibid.

256  Christopher Los 15 Gary Miedema, For Canada’s Sake: Public Religion, Centennial Celebrations, and the Re-making of Canada in the 1960s (Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 2005), 201. 16 For an example of community input at Expo ’67, see Myra Rutherdale and Jim Miller, “‘It’s Our Country’: First Nations’ Participation in the Indian Pavilion at Expo 67,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 17, 2 (2006): 148–73. For a detailed examination of Expo 67, see The Best Place to Be: Expo 67 and Its Time (Toronto: Allen Lane, 2012). The work of Robyn Schwarz elsewhere in this volume also provides an insightful analysis of Expo’s place in North American history. 17 H.V. Nelles, The Art of Nation-Building: Pageantry and Spectacle at Quebec’s Tercentenary (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 229. 18 Bryan D. Palmer, Canada’s 1960s: The Ironies of Identity in a Rebellious Era (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 419–29. 19 Eva Mackey, The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 153. 20 There are several examples of prominent state-centred analyses of this type. For an analysis of how nation-building conceptions and policymaking interacted within planning for Canada Day festivities at the federal level, see Matthew Hayday, “Fireworks, Folk-dancing, and Fostering a National Identity: The Politics of Canada Day,” Canadian Historical Review 21 (June 2010): 287–314. Utilizing a regional approach. Forrest Pass has recently demonstrated the efforts put forth in connecting British Columbia’s regional identity with the wider Canadian identity by provincial commemorative planners for the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation in 1927. See his “Pacific Dominion: British Columbia and the Making of Canadian Nationalism, 1858–1958,” and particularly chapter 8: “Wholly a British Columbia Affair” (PhD dissertation, University of Western Ontario, 2009), 382–446. 21 In 1967 dollars – the equivalent of about $632 million in 2016. 22 Centennial Commission, “Facts about Centennial.” 23 Ibid. 24 “Centennial Grants Programme Category Report,” 15 Dec. 1966, AO, RG-19-125, B229627. 25 Boozer to Aykroyd, 23 Oct., ibid. 26 Cabinet Centennial Committee Minutes, 12 Mar. 1965, ibid. 27 Centennial Commission to Centennial Advisory Committee, Mar. 1964, AO, RG 19-151, Records of the Secretary of the Centennial Advisory Committee, Correspondence with Centennial Advisory Committee, B236812. 28 For works focused on urban renewal, see Eric Avila and Mark Rose, “Race, Culture, Politics, and Urban Renewal,” Journal of Urban History 35 (2009);

Urban Planning and Ontario’s Centennial Projects  257 Lloyd Axworthy, “The Task Force on Housing and Urban Development: A Study of Democratic Decision-Making in Canada” (PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 1972); John Bacher, Keeping to the Marketplace: The Evolution of Canadian Housing Policy (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993); Kevin Brushett, “Blots on the Face of the City: The Politics of Slum Housing and Urban Renewal in Toronto, 1940–1970” (PhD dissertation, Queen’s University, 2001). 29 “Urban Renewal Policies and Procedures,” Apr. 1969, University of Guelph Archives, Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto, Inner City Renewal Committee. 30 Ontario Department of Municipal Affairs, Annual Report (Toronto: Author, 1969), 9. 31 Michael J. Broadway, “Winter City Downtown Revitalization Plans: An Analysis of Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg,” Winter Cities 20 (2001): 15, cited in Max Foran, “1967: Embracing the Future ... at Arm’s Length,” in Michael Payne, Donald Wetherell, and Catherine Cavanaugh, eds., Alberta Formed, Alberta Transformed, vol. 2 (Edmonton and Calgary: University of Calgary Press and University of Alberta Press, 2005), 629. Also see Margaret Rockwell, “The Facelift and the Wrecking Ball: Urban Renewal and Hamilton’s Queen Street West,” Urban History Review 37 (2009): 53–61. 32 City of Niagara Falls, “Niagara Falls Urban Renewal Report” (Niagara Falls: Georges Potvin & Associates, 1965), 11. 33 “1,300 Name Petition Opposes Park Project,” Niagara Falls Review, 6 Apr. 1965. 34 “See Value in Lions Senior Citizen’s Project,” Niagara Falls Review, 9 Oct. 1964. 35 “City Buys Niagara Twp. Site Abutting QEW, Park Land,” Niagara Falls Review, 16 Mar. 1965. 36 “1,300 Name Petition Opposes Park Project.” 37 “Niagara Falls Urban Renewal Report,” 13, 20. 38 Ibid., 50. 39 Ibid., 19. 40 Ibid., 25. 41 Ibid., 34. 42 “Sunken Park Project Approved by Council,” Niagara Falls Review, 13 July 1965. 43 “Niagara Falls Urban Renewal Report,” 34–5. 44 “Ground Broken on Centennial Square,” Niagara Falls Review, 8 Aug. 1966. 45 Anonymous, letter to the editor, Niagara Falls Review, 15 Oct. 1966. 46 City of Sault Ste Marie, “Rebuilding a City: The Urban Renewal of Greater Sault Ste Marie,” Urban Renewal Report prepared by E.G. Faludi, 1961, 10, Sault Ste Marie Public Library Archives (SSMPLA).

258  Christopher Los 4 7 City of Sault Ste Marie, “Municipal Handbook – 1966,” 12, SSMPLA. 48 City of Sault Ste Marie, “Rebuilding a City,” 5. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid., 6. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid., 89. 53 Mark Taylor, Plans and Implementation of Sault Ste Marie Riverfront Development (London: University of Western Ontario, 1984); Sault Ste Marie Public Library, Local History Collection. 54 Ibid., 19. 55 K.M. Clarke, “Sault Ste Marie Public Library Board, Physical Requirements for New Main Public Library,” Jan. 1963, SSMPLA, Box 16, file 7. 56 “New Library for Sault to Be Opened in 1967,” Sault Star, 2 Apr. 1963. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid. 59 “City Council to Debate Waterfront Plan,” Sault Star, 29 Jan. 1964. 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid. 62 “Library as City’s Centennial Project,” Sault Star, 31 Jan. 1964. 63 Ibid. 64 Editorial, Sault Star, 4 Feb. 1964. 65 “Library Opening Just Like First Night,” Sault Star, 28 July 1966. 66 “Official Invitation, Opening of New Central Library, 1966,” SSMPLA, Box 16, file 3. 67 “Library Opening Just Like First Night.” 68 Ibid. 69 “Library Plaques Unveiled at Centennial Dedication,” Sault Star, 26 June 1967. 70 “Centennial Bash Came Off as Scheduled: Roaring Fun,” Sault Star, 3 July 1967. 71 “Centennial Projects Opened,” Sault Star, 5 July 1967. 72 Lynne Marks, Revivals and Roller Rinks: Religion, Leisure, and Identity in Late-Nineteenth-Century Small-Town Ontario, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997) 20. 73 Centennial Commission, “Facts about Centennial.” 74 Cabinet Centennial Committee Minutes, 12 Nov. 1964. 75 “Report on the Centennial Grants Programme, Report 3.”

9  Alternative Identities: The 1967 Centennial and the Campaign for a Better Canada ted c og an

On 29 August 1967, “a husky band of bandana clad voyageurs” stepped out of their canoes into Ottawa’s Britannia Park, taking a brief break from retracing the journeys of Canada’s earliest explorers to meet with thousands of eager spectators.1 Such images of historical recreation, spectacle, and pageantry dominate the popular memory of Canada’s Centennial celebrations, and they are fertile ground for discussion of the history of Canadian identity. At the same time as these oarsmen were stepping ashore, volunteers across the country were organizing walkathons to raise money for the underdeveloped world, and filmmakers were attempting to stimulate intercommunity dialogue about poverty and disenfranchisement on a remote island off the coast of Newfoundland. Indeed, building a better Canada was an important theme in the Centennial year, promoted most prominently through the creation of the Order of Canada, whose motto, desiderantes meliorem patrium, can be translated as “they desire a better country.”2 When, however, historians have looked at the intersections between commemoration and identity, they have tended to ignore the volunteers and filmmakers who sought to use the Centennial to reshape Canadian identity in a more charitable and equitable mould and thereby build a better country. One can easily understand why. The pageants and expositions that fill the pages of many monographs on anniversaries and holidays are such fertile ground for discussion of identity that it is easy to leave the margins for another day. However, in the case of the Canada’s Centennial celebrations, there were powerful things occurring on these margins. What follows is an exploration of these margins in the form of a case study of two programs that existed on the periphery of the Centennial: the Centennial International Development Programme

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and Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle. CIDP was a fundraising initiative that encouraged Canadians to donate towards a “birthday gift” that the nation was to offer the underdeveloped world in its Centennial year. Proponents hoped this initiative would raise the profile of foreign aid in Canada, and cause Canadians to look outward and embrace global generosity as a national ideal. Challenge for Change/ Société Nouvelle was a participatory filmmaking project that sought to empower some of Canada’s most disenfranchised groups by giving them the tools to discuss and advocate for their needs. As part of the Pearson government’s broader “War on Poverty,” organizers hoped that CfC/SN would produce strategies for economic development and strengthen the unity of the country.3 This chapter contends that the successes of these programs owe much to the convergence of a unique set of circumstances around the Centennial of Confederation. They benefited first from the fact that the Centennial occurred at a time when the role of government in Canadian society was expanding and changing, and when public servants were becoming more numerous and influential. The increased involvement of the government in Canadian society, combined with the government’s desire to partner more fully with civil society in the pursuit of its goals, created the space on the margins in which CIDP and CfC/ SN operated. The Centennial International Development Programme and Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle were both also aided by the favourable funding climate created by the Centennial. In addition, these programs benefited from the fact that the hundredth anniversary of Confederation coincided with a time in which both the government and the public were taking a keen interest in issues of poverty, economic development, and citizen engagement both at home and abroad. Finally, the Centennial, as a commemorative event, provided an opening through which these programs could influence Canadians’ conceptions of their national identity. These programs were by no means the only ones that benefited from this unique set of circumstances. They were, however, chosen because they encapsulate a variety of approaches to administration, program delivery, and national identity that are broadly representative. The Centennial International Development Programme was a Crown corporation administered as a direct extension of government through the federal Centennial Commission. Its staff comprised many individuals who had or would go on to have significant careers in the civil service, but at least until problems arose, CIDP was afforded a fair degree of

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autonomy. By contrast, Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle was supervised by a very interventionist interdepartmental committee, although its day-to-day functions and the entirety of its output was largely the responsibility of National Film Board filmmakers, who operated at a greater distance from government than the staff of CIDP. In terms of program delivery, CIDP focused on reaching the largest number of Canadians possible, whereas CfC/SN chose to focus in depth on numerous small groups in the hopes that all Canadians could find some part of themselves in the narratives the program presented. Similarly, while CIDP tried to shape Canadian identity on a national and international level, CfC/SN sought to examine and reform Canadian identity at the community level. Despite the unique contributions that the Centennial International Development Programme and Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle made to the Centennial, these programs figure only occasionally in the extant historical literature, and very little if at all in the historiography of Canadian commemoration. What follows is an attempt to partially fill this gap by looking at how the Centennial influenced the origins of the Centennial International Development Programme and Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle, how these programs negotiated their way into the identity-shaping space of 1967, and the theoretical and concrete approaches they took to shaping identity. A brief evaluation of the successes and shortcomings of both programs follows by way of conclusions. Origins: Civil Service, Centennial Funding, and Complimentary Narratives Interestingly, the Centennial International Development Programme can trace its roots to another commemoration, the International Cooperation Year. This year was a United Nations initiative to celebrate its twentieth anniversary, in 1965, by encouraging member nations to promote the cause of international cooperation to their citizenry. The impetus for connecting International Cooperation Year with the Centennial was threefold. First, Dr J. Roby Kidd and other leaders of ICY in Canada were inspired by the UN’s use of its anniversary to further one of its key identity-shaping goals. As a result, they hoped to launch a similar program as part of Canada’s Centennial celebrations. Writing to John Fisher, head of the Centennial Commission, Kidd posited that “if Canada gives the leadership it can and should give during International

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Co-operation Year in 1965, it will also be possible for Canadians to honour themselves and serve needy people everywhere at the time of our national birthday in 1967.”4 Kidd and his allies hoped to raise $10 million to fund projects in the underdeveloped world as a sort of “birthday gift” from Canada.5 For its part, the Centennial Commission believed it shared a common interest with International Cooperation Year in promoting Canada’s image on the global stage. There was also a belief that Kidd’s proposal offered the Centennial Commission a chance to reach an audience in the underdeveloped world, and to add a dimension of collective generosity that its programming currently lacked. The second reason for the partnership was that much of Canada’s ICY programming was delivered independently of the federal government through the Overseas Institute of Canada and other civil society organizations, and these groups needed funding for staff.6 The Centennial possessed both staff they could loan out for the year and a rich budget out of which they could provide a small measure of assistance to International Cooperation Year, or at least that is how the ICY leaders viewed it. Maurice Lamontagne, the secretary of state responsible for the Centennial at the time, had a very different view of things: he felt the international focus of ICY dictated that External Affairs should pick up the tab.7 Deadlock on the issue persisted for months. It was ultimately support and leadership from outside the Centennial Commission that nudged the partnership forward. Secretary of State for External Affairs Paul Martin was an early supporter of the partnership, and although his department declined to provide funding, it did offer the reassurances the Centennial Commission’s board desired in order to approve a partnership with ICY.8 Finally, the Centennial Commission also faced pressure from the public to look outwards in 1967. Writing on behalf of the Coady Institute, a well-known centre for community development education, the Right Reverend F.J. Smythe suggested that the Centennial celebrations should “focus attention on the outgoing, constructive aspects of Canada’s relations with the world abroad, and point the way to a broadening of our country’s contribution to world peace and prosperity.”9 These views were echoed by a broad array of Canadians.10 Accordingly, the partnership between International Cooperation Year and the Centennial was formalized at the first meeting of the CIDP board of directors, in February 1966.11 Originally, the program was only to have three staff members, with the Overseas Institute of Canada accepting compensation in return for directly assuming the remainder of the

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administrative burden. As CIDP’s focus shifted, however, the role of the OIC was scaled back and its own head count grew. At the end of 1967, the Centennial International Development Programme employed thirtythree people, including ten staff seconded from the Centennial Commission. CIDP’s administration was to be initially funded through a $200,000 seed grant from the commission, and it was intended that this was to be supplemented by outside funds as the program gained momentum.12 As a result of a significant shift in focus, however, these outside funds never materialized. Originally, CIDP was to be oriented around fundraising through a direct mail campaign, the sale of seals, and canvassing at major events such as Expo 67 and the Canadian National Exhibition. Organizers hoped that the sheer size of the campaign would help spark a national discussion about the place of international development in Canadian society. As a result of this focus, initially CIDP most valued the participation of large businesses and civil society organizations whose expertise it could leverage to mount a successful fundraising campaign. This focus was reflected in the make-up of CIDP’s board, which was chaired by the head of the Canadian Welfare Council, Reuben Baetz, and comprised primarily leaders of major religious groups, large civil society organizations such as UNICEF and the YMCA, labour unions, and university administrators.13 After problems emerged with the fundraising-oriented approach, CIDP was substantially reformed and its efforts refocused towards information dissemination and youth engagement through a series of community-based teach-ins and locally organized walkathons. Under this new model, individual Canadians, and especially youth, became CIDP’s target audience, and the influence of the national leaders on the board of directors was significantly diminished. Organizers hoped that this new focus on grassroots engagement would better enable CIDP to instil in Canadians an interest in, awareness of, and commitment to international development. The origins of Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle exist further afield in the margins of the Centennial than CIDP’s. Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle never received Centennial funding, and its films were not featured heavily during the Centennial celebrations. The CfC/SN program was a financial and administrative partnership between the National Film Board and several government ministries whose mandates touched upon citizenship, public welfare, and economic development. The bureaucratic roots of the two programs do, however, share many similarities. As with the Centennial International Development

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Programme, the Centennial itself served as an important catalyst in the formation of a partnership between public servants and outsiders, in this case the National Film Board. In the years leading up to the Centennial, the output of the NFB increased dramatically, mostly in the form of contract pieces for other government entities. On the whole, the NFB’s artistic staff loathed making these films, but they also represented a substantial portion of the NFB’s revenue stream, and abandoning them would have involved substantial cutbacks.14 For their part, many departments in the federal government also had negative perceptions of the contract program, being of the view that the NFB often took too much artistic licence with their requests. If contract work was going to continue, both sides required a new and more fruitful partnership. At the same time, both public servants and filmmakers realized that the celebratory tone of the Centennial did not capture the experiences of all Canadians. Since 1965, the federal government had become increasingly interested in tackling issues of poverty and economic development in Canada and, more importantly for the purposes of this chapter, it became very interested in making sure that Canadians knew action was being taken. To this end, it co-opted much of the language of US President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty and started programs such as the Company of Young Canadians and the Area Development Agency in an effort to reach the grassroots with its message.15 For its part, the NFB’s filmmakers felt that the films that were heavily promoted during the Centennial, such as Labyrinth and Helicopter Canada, failed to adequately fulfil the NFB’s mandate to “interpret Canada to Canadians and to other nations.”16 These were films about national triumphs and majesty, and while they were well received, NFB staff felt there was also a need for films that inspired action and offered a window into national problems. Speaking to the NFB, Julian Biggs, director of English production, said, “Canada wants films which could be put to active use – films which can provoke action and could be used in a wide range of community activities from teaching, to combatting local pollution problems, from family life discussion to studies of Canada’s changing role in the world, and to local participation in campaigns against poverty.”17 With this in mind, in April 1967, the Special Planning Secretariat of the Privy Council that was in charge of Canada’s War on Poverty struck the first Interdepartmental Committee on Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle and authorized the NFB to engage in a two-year experimental program focusing on poverty and economic development. The

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program initially struggled to secure funding, with only the NFB and the Department of Manpower and Immigration willing to commit funds. Eventually, a budget of $520,000 was secured for CfC/SN in the Centennial year, most of which was provided by the NFB.18 Despite securing funding, however, the program lacked a dedicated staff; its administrative support came from the Privy Council, and the National Film Board managed the production of the films. The program was also burdened with the unfavourable legacy of past attempts to make films about poverty and economic development. In 1965, Gordon Robertson, then Clerk of the Privy Council, commissioned a film on poverty from the NFB. The Things I Cannot Change was produced within a year, and although it was one of the most widely viewed NFB films of the period and was initially well received, it was consistently criticized by both public servants and key figures within the NFB.19 The members of the Bailey family, whose impoverished lives were the central object of the cinema verité–style of the film, were ostracized by their community after the release of The Things I Cannot Change, and as the film was not narrated it offered few concrete lessons. The film’s intended audience was primarily affluent Canadians, and its goal was to make them aware of the poverty within their midst and inspire them to take action. The film did little, however, to empower Canada’s most disenfranchised groups, explore new avenues for economic development, or promote national unity. These were the stated aims of Canada’s War on Poverty, and if they were to be achieved in part through film, a different approach was clearly needed. In a manner similar to CIDP, Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle responded by refocusing its efforts towards the grassroots. The principle audience for CfC/SN’s films became the disenfranchised themselves. CfC/SN sought to organically inspire a national discussion about poverty by building awareness and encouraging dialogue about solutions at the community level. On the surface, then, the origins of Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle seem far removed from those of CIDP. The Centennial International Development Programme was, after all, directly sponsored by the Centennial Commission, whereas Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle was only partially a reaction to the narrative of Canada that prevailed during the Centennial. Just beyond the surface, however, there were also significant similarities. Both CIDP and CfC/SN can trace their origins variously to the Canadian civil service, the Centennial and the favourable funding climate it helped to encourage, as well

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as the political climate in which it existed, although in this regard these two programs are not unique. The prominent role of public servants in shaping Canadian identity has been underscored in recent work by Paul Litt, Ryan Edwardson, and Matthew Hayday, among others. Litt emphasizes the success of public servants attached to the Massey Commission in gaining support for their conception of Canadian identity despite consulting very few “ordinary” Canadians.20 Edwardson explores how government officials worked to replace ethnic privilege with progressive values as one of the hallmarks of Canadian national identity.21 Similarly, in his work on Canada Day, Hayday argues that politicians and civil servants frequently crafted “holiday celebrations that supported their conceptions of what Canada should be.”22 This chapter builds on this literature in two ways. First, it explores identity formation from the perspective of public servants whose principle functions were far removed from nation building. This is important because during Canada’s 1960s nation building and national unity were broad franchises. The hundredth anniversary of Confederation created an appetite on the part of government to expand its support of identitydefining initiatives. Politicians may not have had CIDP and CfC/SN in mind when they funded this expansion, but the reality that they were managed mostly by committees of public servants created the opportunity to do much more on the margins. Significant projects obviously required support at the political level, but programs the size of CIDP and CfC/SN only required public servants to get their equals to see their proposals as valuable. Neither CIDP nor CfC/SN were initially approved by Cabinet, nor did Cabinet exercise significant oversight over either program.23 Second, although the aforementioned authors argue that interest groups and the public played a limited role in guiding the nation-building efforts of public servants, this analysis will show the significant role that partnerships with civil society organizations and the general public played in the development of both CIDP and CfC/SN. Indeed, the cooperation that fostered the growth of these programs is another key similarity in their origin narratives. In the case of both the Centennial International Development Programme and Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle, cooperation existed on three levels: within the government bureaucracy, between the government and other expert groups, and between these two entities and the general public. In the case of CIDP, it was the much delayed partnership between the Centennial Commission and External Affairs that finally secured funding for the program. For Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle,

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it was a much broader partnership between the NFB and eleven other departments and agencies that got the program off the ground.24 In both cases, the programs were also defined by partnerships with other expert groups. For CIDP, this initially included the Overseas Institute of Canada, but later this expanded to include other civil society organizations such as OXFAM and Canadian University Services Overseas (CUSO). Similarly, the form of Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle was initially defined by one group, its filmmakers, but later it came to be defined by the many organizations the program partnered with to make films.25 Finally, because both programs aimed to shape national identity, their connections with the Canadian public were also critical. In both cases, these connections operated on two planes. First, both programs sought direct engagement with the public, whether through fundraising drives, filmmaking, or small-scale seminars operated by personnel connected to the programs. Both programs also sought a second, ripple effect engagement when those with whom they had directly engaged canvassed for money, were seen on film, or discussed what they had learned in seminars with other Canadians. This analysis also builds on the increasingly prevalent discussion of the extent to which available funding influences the emergence of commemorative projects. As Gary Miedema reveals in his discussion of the rise and fall of the Canadian Interfaith Conference, when the federal government was both a key architect and sole financer of an “independent” Centennial initiative, it could exercise a degree of control that was unsettling to that initiative’s leaders.26 However, as Peter Aykroyd notes in his colourful book on the Centennial, there was no shortage of outside groups who nonetheless tried to put a “Centennial spin” on their efforts in order to secure funding.27 Most were turned away, but as various other authors in this collection have noted, provincial governments (McRae), municipalities (Beaton and Los), and civil society groups (Trepanier) were significant beneficiaries of government funding and experienced minimal federal oversight after their projects were approved. This chapter expands on this work by looking at the government as more than a singular entity. Canada’s Centennial occurred in an era of the proliferation of independent and quasi-independent boards, Crown corporations, and commissions. Although the government may have spoken with one voice, through Cabinet, its expansion meant its various appendages were seldom of one mind. This created opportunities for peripheral groups within the federal government, including the Centennial International Development Programme and Challenge for

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Change/Société Nouvelle, to advance their own Centennial narratives as long as they did not conflict too heavily with the voice of Cabinet. In the case of both CIDP and CfC/SN not only did their Centennial narratives not directly conflict with the predominant celebratory narrative, but they also complimented narratives about poverty and economic development put forth by Cabinet and other Centennial programs. In securing support for their initiatives, the leaders of both CIDP and CfC/SN no doubt benefited from the federal government’s declaration of a War on Poverty two years prior to the Centennial. They also benefited from the fact that their approach to tackling these issues complimented the government’s own efforts. Similar to the government’s Company of Young Canadians initiative, CIDP placed a strong emphasis on engaging youth in finding solutions for poverty. Both CIDP and CfC/SN also placed a strong emphasis on community-­oriented discussions of economic development as the government itself was doing through its regional development programing.28 In securing broader support for their initiatives, the leaders of CIDP and CfC/SN benefited from the fact that Canadians welcomed the Centennial being used for these purposes, at least implicitly. Groups as diverse as coal miners in Cape Breton (see Beaton, this volume) and the Canadian Ethnic Press Federation looked to leverage the Centennial to pursue their own long-term goals. Furthermore, as Beaton, Los, and McRae all demonstrate in their discussions of Centennial grants in this volume, economic development was front of mind in many communities seeking Centennial funding. Broadly speaking, the leaders of the Centennial International Development Programme and Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle were also aided in the pursuit of their goals by the long-standing tradition of promoting charity and social equality during commemorative events. In his study of American Independence Day celebrations, Len Travers argues that including charity in commemorative events is an extension of the long tradition of offering charity as part of religious commemorations.29 Likewise, in his study of Quebec’s tercentenary, H.V. Nelles reveals that the promotion of social equality has had a long, if often dubious, place in commemorative celebrations. Nelles uses the example of a showpiece pageant that claimed to “draw rich and poor into a closer, working relationship” but in practice “made stars out of lawyers, doctors, their wives and daughters” to demonstrate that although the promotion of social equality during commemorative events can be prominent, it is often empty.30

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Negotiating Entry The origins of the Centennial International Development Programme and Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle are far from being as neat and convenient as a fortuitous confluence of tradition, bureaucratic and public support, funding, and complimentary narratives might suggest. The leaders of both CIDP and CfC/SN, and their civil society partners may have shared some of the government’s goals; however, they were also seeking to influence the way Canadians characterized their shared identity in a way that favoured their own interests. Shaping Canadian identity was a project in which the government invested significant capital during the Centennial year, and accordingly, it was a space over which it held some influence. Since both CIDP and CfC/SN were wards of the federal government, and since they lacked significant non-­ governmental funding, the leaders of CIDP and CfC/SN were obliged to negotiate with the government for entry into its identity-shaping space. CIDP’s negotiation began with an approach by Roby Kidd, who required funding for the International Cooperation Year initiatives he was leading and felt that the Centennial Commission was a good fit as both organizations sought to enhance Canada’s reputation in the world. Kidd’s approach emphasized that ICY and the Centennial Commission were similar organizations pursuing similar goals and faced similar challenges. He made clear that failure to fund International Cooperation Year would be detrimental to their shared pursuits and would require ICY to engage in fundraising that may well “jeopardize the fund-raising activities” of Canadian success stories like CUSO. Kidd also emphasized that ICYs programs were “studied and planned” and with funding would produce both immediate positive effects and long-term impacts that would set the stage for a strong push for international cooperation during the Centennial year.31 Unfortunately for Kidd, Maurice Lamontagne, the secretary of state responsible for the Centennial at the time, had a much different view of the landscape and felt the international focus of ICY required that the Department of External Affairs be responsible for appropriating any funding or at the very least approve any relationship between the federal government and ICY.32 To be clear, External Affairs was not uninterested in partnering with ICY and the Centennial in a project of this nature. Indeed, External Affairs Minister Paul Martin expressed his support for the initiative early on saying, “I am anxious to do all we can to ensure that Canada plays a good role.”33 Concern, however, was

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also expressed that such a partnership would not reinforce the foreign aid policy agenda of External Affairs in a useful way. One must note, when interpreting External Affairs mixed support for this partnership that significant debates were occurring within the department about whether or not it would offer core funding to an ever-expanding number of development non-governmental organizations on a consistent basis. During the same time period that Lamontagne was looking to External Affairs for direction on ICY, Martin met with the executive director of CUSO, Bill McWhiney, to express his support for the organization and his concerns about government funding. Martin feared that if External Affairs offered financial support to CUSO or other similar groups, it could be “accused of discrimination against other voluntary groups working in this field.”34 This context illuminates hesitation at External Affairs to show support for the ICY–Centennial partnership, as such a partnership would have made it difficult to justify denying other NGOs a chance at government financing. On 19 January 1965, the Centennial Commission finally received a response from Under Secretary of State for External Affairs Granville Steele stating that, although External had concerns about the untested nature of International Cooperation Year and preferred not to engage in a Centennial partnership with an “outside agency,” it was, nevertheless, “desirable from all points of view that a centennial project of this nature should be conducted.”35 The External Affairs imprimatur allowed the Centennial-ICY partnership to move forward, but ICY’s success in negotiating entry into the government’s identity-shaping space also owed a great deal to the persistence of both Kidd and his supporters in government during months of deadlock. In spite of its resistance to partnering with ICY directly, the success of ICY can also be attributed to External Affairs increasing desire to work with NGOs to strengthen Canadians’ interest in foreign aid. That mere months after Steele assented to the ICY partnership CUSO received its first grant from External Affairs is clear evidence that this was, indeed, the case. Despite the interest of Lamontagne and Martin, both prominent members of Pearson’s Cabinet, public servants rather than government ministers provided most of the momentum behind the Centennial International Development Programme. In fact, CIDP received very little attention from Cabinet beyond formally approving its seed grant in December 1966.36 The minimal consequence of this approval, and Cabinet’s detachment from CIDP, is demonstrated by the fact that the initial approval and disbursement of the seed grant predated Cabinet’s

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approval by more than a year and a half. The decision to support the ICY partnership was made by the Management Committee of the Centennial Commission in March 1965 without any discussion of the need to consult Cabinet. Furthermore, at the same time Cabinet approved the CIDP grant, it also approved additional funding to cover the postage for CIDP’s direct mail appeal even though that appeal was in the process of being cancelled.37 The success of the International Cooperation Year in 1965 certainly paved the way for CIDP’s entry into the government’s identity-shaping space; nevertheless, significant problems with key initiatives the following year meant that this negotiation was far from over. The Centennial International Development Programme had negotiated entry on the premise that it would “(a) inform the Canadian public at large of the needs of underdeveloped countries; (b) encourage their broad participation in this special Centennial programme; [and] (c) urge Canadians to participate in and contribute generously to service, professional and voluntary organizations now operating in the field of international assistance.”38 These were goals that the government, CIDP’s leaders, and the nongovernmental agencies that supported them all shared. On the eve of the Centennial, however, little progress had been made towards these shared objectives. In the period between February 1966, when CIDP’s work began, and December that year, CIDP raised no money for its “birthday gift.” Furthermore, CIDP engaged in no public relations activities, made almost no effort to secure support from major donors, and its efforts to connect with other organizations interested in fostering a more globally generous Canada were minimal. In addition, both of the major initiatives that CIDP staff had been planning were deemed non-viable. A high-profile fundraising campaign on the grounds of Expo 67 was scuttled because Expo staff did not feel fundraising was a fit with their program, and a direct appeal to be mailed to all Canadians was shelved because the program did not have adequate funds for the postage.39 The public servants whose cooperation had spawned the CIDP program were understandably not impressed with this record. Neither the Centennial Commission nor External Affairs had any interest in being associated with a failed initiative, but both still saw value in the program. Corrective action needed to be taken. In a meeting of the Centennial Executive Committee in December 1966, CIDP’s plans were described as having “very little possibility of success,” and answers were demanded of the program’s director, Muriel Jacobson.40 She

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replied with a progress report that described the activities of CIDP in detail and made explicit note of any point at which a Centennial Commission official, committee, or board expressed approval of CIDP’s work.41 This progress report also contained a myriad of excuses for why further progress had not been made – ranging from an Air Canada strike to a change in banking laws. The Centennial Commission’s board of directors dismissed the report saying, “The results achieved so far are despairingly short of the objectives.”42 CIDP’s failure to make progress towards its shared goals sparked a renegotiation and reaffirmation of the terms on which it would access the government’s identity-shaping space. In a clear demonstration of its control of the space and the influence of civil servants, the government, through the Centennial Commission, froze CIDP’s funding and unilaterally amended its founding documents to emphasize its role in shaping a public narrative about foreign aid.43 For its part, the Centennial International Development Programme signalled its willingness to recommit to the terms of its negotiated entry in two ways. First, CIDP would do this through a swift and unchallenged change in leadership. Officially, Jacobson was recalled full-time to her duties at the United Nations, although her private correspondence reveals that she resigned from CIDP.44 Jacobsen was replaced by J. Duncan Edmonds, a loyal Liberal, handpicked by the government, who had previously been executive assistant to Paul Martin. Second, the new leaders of CIDP submitted a revised prospectus in which they both acknowledged the will of the government and agreed to “an extensive revision of the CIDP programme.”45 First among their new objectives was a commitment to “working within the broad context of the Canadian Centennial Celebrations … to increase substantially public awareness in Canada of our obligations and opportunities to participate in international development.”46 Their prominent commitment to this objective also represented a clear reaffirmation of the terms on which CIDP could access the government’s identity-shaping space. With this new commitment in place, the Centennial Commission’s board of directors met again on New Year’s Eve 1966 and expressed the view that CIDP was well on its way to formulating an actionable program.47 The early years of Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle were marked by a similar, if less dramatic, negotiation of the identity landscape. Early in its life, the program was hindered by significant problems negotiating the funding, control, and subject matter ground

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rules that would permit CfC/SN access to the government’s identityshaping space. In many ways, these problems were predictable, as the National Film Board’s proposal was predicated upon “the firm support of the S.P.S. [Special Planning Secretariat] of the Privy Council office, fresh funds through them to carry out some of these proposals, and the development of a new type of sponsor relationship, with close cooperation on a high-policy level and with responsibility given to the Board for carrying out agreed-on policies.”48 In reality, the CfC/SN program received none of these things. The Privy Council’s approach can best be described as enthusiastic but not action-oriented or supportive. No fresh funds were made available, it was communications staff not policymakers who were assigned to work on the program, and exactly who had responsibility for carrying out agreed upon policies was unclear. In this climate of uncertainty, the first hurdle to be overcome was financing. By the dawn of the Centennial year, the federal government was facing unfavourable economic indicators and departmental budgets were under pressure. This combined with the fact that the emergence of Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle straddled the beginning of a new government fiscal year made securing funding a challenge. Of the original eleven departments and agency partners, only Manpower and Immigration promised monies for the program’s first year, and until 1969, the National Film Board was often left funding up to three-­ quarters of what was supposed to be an equal partnership.49 Problems with negotiating an agreement on financing were compounded by the fact that the civil servants who represented the departments and agencies on the organizing committee were often communications personnel, many of whom had mixed experiences with the National Film Board in the past. It was the consensus of the interdepartmental committee that the NFB’s habit of using its “creative imagination” to fulfil specific department requests was hindering CfC/ SN’s ability to attract financial partners.50 This relationship was further strained by an overt power struggle as the NFB continued to assert that CfC/SN was always predicated on the NFB having autonomy over program content.51 This assertion created considerable worry among departmental public servants, who feared that the interests of their department would not be reflected in the National Film Board’s programming or, worse, that the portrayal of their department in Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle material would lead to political difficulties. These fears were not entirely alleviated by early CfC/SN productions such as Pow Wow at

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Duck Lake, a short film about First Nations and Métis issues that opened with a song proclaiming that the freedom of Aboriginal groups was “only a shadow” of its former self. Departmental officials described the film as unbalanced, criticized the statistics it employed as misleading, and questioned the credentials of the experts consulted.52 Similar concerns were expressed about other films that explored controversial topics, with one departmental representative even going so far as to say that releasing a film about pioneering American community organizer Saul Alinsky was a “vote for anarchy in this country.”53 Like the Centennial International Development Programme, Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle faced substantial administrative challenges early on in its mandate and lost the confidence of many of its departmental and agency backers.54 CfC/SN, however, differs significantly from CIDP in that it was able to produce and distribute forty films while the terms of its entry were still very much being negotiated. It also differs in the extent to which Cabinet was engaged with the program, although again, like CIDP, CfC/SN was initially approved and funded without direct Cabinet involvement. In the face of stalled negotiations, the leaders of CfC/SN turned to the Cabinet for a definitive ruling, writing that “it is now vital to improve administrative processes and to clarify the responsibilities of participating departments and the NFB.”55 Responsibility for this situation was given to the Cabinet Committee on Social Policy and Cultural Affairs, which imposed an agreement between the partner departments and agencies and the National Film Board. The agreement enshrined the principle of equal funding, established a minimum $100,000 contribution, and guaranteed representation on the interdepartmental committee only to those entities that provided funding for a period of five years.56 This by no means solved all of the issues that faced Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle, but the proceedings of the interdepartmental committee were noticeably more productive, amicable, and focused after the Cabinet intervention, indicating that CfC/SN had indeed successfully negotiated its way into the government’s identity-shaping space.57 Through this process of negotiation what the leaders of both the Centennial International Development Programme and Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle came to realize was that, although the government had expressed interest in and given tacit approval of the priorities embodied in both their programs, this was not a blank cheque that they could spend as they pleased. The government had priorities

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of its own, and these priorities would have to be deferred to if CIDP and CfC/SN wanted to effectively operate in the identity-shaping space the government controlled. The new and experimental nature of both programs meant that what form this deference would take had to be negotiated. 1967: A Unique Time to Contribute The rocky beginnings that faced both the Centennial International Development Programme and Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle did not inhibit their ability to inform and contribute to processes of identity formation in Canada’s Centennial year. Some of the credit for their success can be given to the confluence of a unique set of circumstances surrounding the Centennial that favoured their initiatives. Credit, however, must also be given to the leaders of these programs who recognized these opportunities and rallied a variety of partners around a clear vision. The 1967 Centennial celebrations offered the leaders of CIDP and CfC/SN a unique opportunity to pursue their goal of transforming Canada into a better version of itself through support for the disenfranchised at home and abroad. In laying out his vision for the Centennial International Development Programme, Duncan Edmonds wrote to senior public servants that the purpose of the program was “to add a meaningful outward looking non-material dimension to our Centennial celebrations, thereby making a contribution to the sense of purpose for Canada entering her second century.”58 In a similar way, when looking at the contributions of Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle in 1967, NFB Commissioner Hugo MacPherson spoke with immediacy about the need for CfC/SN’s “co-operative attack on problems facing Canada” and its significance as a “Canadian first” that would be a model for poverty alleviation worldwide.59 In addition to realizing that an opportunity had presented itself, both the civil society and public service leaders of CIDP and CfC/SN were also clear as to the substance of the contribution they wanted to make both to Canadian identity and to Canada more broadly. There may have been protracted negotiation over execution, but basic principles were never an issue, again underscoring the strength of public service– civil society partnerships. As early as 1964, the civil society architects of what would become the Centennial International Development Programme stated that

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CIDP’s work “will be important not only for the assistance Canada can provide to developing countries but because this is an activity of common concern at home, and therefore one around which harmony can be advanced.”60 This idea, that CIDP existed both to aid the underdeveloped world now, and to unite Canadians around the idea of strengthening this commitment in the future, remained the guiding principle of the program even through the substantial upheaval of late 1966. The memorandum that initially established CIDP was predicated on this two-pronged approach of urging Canadians to contribute now and ensuring that they were empowered to remain involved with the cause.61 This approach was also adopted by Duncan Edmonds when he took charge of the program. Writing of CIDP’s purpose on the eve of the Centennial, Edmonds said it was “to encourage Canadians to increase their support for … international development and international relief programs … [and to] stimulate Canadians to recognize their responsibilities as citizens of the world.”62 The senior civil servants who oversaw CIDP echoed this sentiment. In their view, CIDP had a threefold purpose: first, to inform Canadians about the underdeveloped world; second, to encourage them to participate in the short-term Centennial initiative; and third, to urge them to engage in the long term with organizations involved in the field of international development.63 The leaders of CIDP saw a clear connection between shaping Canadian identity and heightening Canadian support for development funding. This template was echoed at Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle. At the beginning of their proposal for the program, producers at the National Film Board explicitly expressed that the intention of the program was “to provoke fundamental social changes; anything less would be palliative, a poultice.” Like their compatriots at CIDP, they also placed great value in engaging with Canadians, stating that they want CfC/SN to be a “rallying-point and focus for the concerns of others interested in this field” and that its basic concept is the use of film to “improve communications” between Canadians. They also echoed CIDP’s goal of permanency, saying that the success of CfC/SN can be measured in part by the extent to which it evolves into a “selfperpetuating, self-help system.”64 This vision of Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle was also held by the public servants involved in running the program. This was evidenced by their description of the program to Cabinet, which stated that CfC/SN was “an experimental program of communication, the purpose of which is to accelerate understanding and acceptance of the need for

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constructive change in contemporary society.”65 These public servants underlined the role they hoped the program would play in shaping Canadians’ sense of themselves. Speaking in the Centennial year, one member of the interdepartmental committee stated that “Canada belongs to each of us” and that the broad-based approach of CfC/SN was positive because all Canadians ought to be concerned about the plight of the nation’s poor.66 Indeed, throughout the genesis and reform of CfC/SN, there was a strong focus on national values and the manner in which they would be shaped by the films produced.67 Furthermore, there was a consistent desire on the part of the interdepartmental committee to avoid any approach that would portray poverty as a regional or ethnic issue and therefore threaten its uptake as a national priority. This desire was especially prevalent when there was any discussion of dividing the focus of the program along French/English lines. The committee repeatedly indicated that it viewed any such division as a threat to the ability of the program to promote meaningful national dialogue and understanding.68 The key role that civil servants hoped that Challenge for Change/ Société Nouvelle would play in shaping Canadian identity was perhaps made most explicit during an interdepartmental committee brainstorming session on future program priorities. During this exercise, value systems were considered in the same breath as community housing, national priorities were discussed alongside rural poverty, and national unity was examined alongside welfare rights. In the eyes of the committee members, the success of CfC/SN depended just as much on educating Canadians about economic development and poverty issues as it did on getting Canadians to adopt generosity towards their less fortunate neighbours as a national ideal.69 Shaping Identity in Theory and Practice In the eyes of the leaders of the Centennial International Development Programme and Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle there was a danger in raising awareness about poverty, whether it be domestic or international, without an accompanying shift in national identity. As one of the original proponents of CfC/SN put it in proposing the program, “An affluent society does not like to be reminded of its sores.”70 Indeed, people usually tend to ignore them, a phenomenon that scholars of genocide and psychology refer to as “psychic numbing,” the tendency of human beings to fail to experience affect for large anonymous groups of people, no matter the gravity of their plight.71

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9.1 Float from Winnipeg’s Grant Park High School participating in a Centennial parade. Through the Centennial International Development Programme’s Miles for Millions marches, Grant Park students led efforts to raise $10,000 to rebuild a Columbian school destroyed in an earthquake. Photograph: untitled – from the Centennial International Development Programme © Government of Canada. Reproduced with the permission of Library and Archives Canada (2016). Source: Library and Archives Canada/Centennial Commission fonds/vol. 823/e011065941.

The leaders of both the Centennial International Development Programme and Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle sought to overcome this phenomenon by inserting their priorities into what, Benedict Anderson terms, the “deep horizontal comradeship” at the core of the imagined community that forms the modern nation. Anderson argues that this comradeship is built on imagined linkages between consumers of knowledge and, by extension, that in order to insert your priority into the nation’s collective understanding of itself members of the

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nation must be visibly reassured that their imagined community is also sharing in these ideas.72 For its part, the Centennial International Development Programme attempted the insertion of its priority of embracing global generosity into the nation’s collective understanding of itself by getting Canadians to participate in programs that also embraced this ideal. In essence, CIDP sought to create a critical mass of Canadians who actively supported the idea of global generosity so that when other Canadians encountered opportunities to engage with the idea of global generosity they would be reassured that this is something that “Canadians do” and respond favourably. In concrete terms, this effort took the form of both an information program and a youth program. The foundation of the information program was a speakers’ bureau and a series of community teach-ins, where CIDP staff and partner civil society organizations conducted day-long sessions on international development. The youth program, however, was by far the more significant half of the effort. At its core was the popular Miles for Millions walkathon. The walkathon was a gruelling, often thirty-mile, trek for which participants collected pledges at a set rate per mile. The walk was designed to encourage empathy with those in underdeveloped countries who often had to walk long distances to access food, water, and essential services. Importantly for leaders of CIDP, the walk was also a space where they could educate young people about international development and through them educate their parents and the adult community as a whole. These efforts were multiplied by the fact that CIDP, and Miles for Millions in particular, received strong and largely positive coverage in the media.73 The program was also praised by many eminent Canadians, including Prime Minister Pearson, who described the Centennial International Development Programme as "the most imaginative Centennial project to date."74 Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle approached the process of inserting its goal of promoting equality for some of Canada’s most disenfranchised groups into the nation’s collective understanding of itself from a slightly different angle. As the causes of domestic poverty are complex, variable, and the product of the lived experience of many diverse members of the nation, a series of carbon copy shared national experiences would not have worked in the manner they did for CIDP. A series of general films on poverty would not have functioned because Canadians knew what domestic poverty looked like, and they knew

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that it looked much different in Toronto than it did on Fogo Island. No broad film could possibly have covered all these permutations of poverty and reassured Canadians that their imagined community was sharing in the ideas put forth in the film. Some significant portion of the community would inevitably have been left out. What CfC/SN aimed to do instead was to get finite groups, whether they were geographical, ethnic, or some combination of these and other categories, to use film as a means to come to a consensus on the causes of their disenfranchisement, on possible solutions, and to seek comment from those who were empowered to bring about those solutions. Not all films were to be relevant to all Canadians, but it was hoped that a substantial catalogue of films would enable Canadians to find value in some facet of the program or use the methods of the program to create something in which they could find value. This approach served to better reassure Canadians that their imagined community was sharing in the ideas put forth by Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle and to respond more favourably to the program’s priorities than general films would have. This approach took many forms over the life of the Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle program, from films about urban poverty, to First Nations film crews, through to the extensive use of videotape to promote community dialogue. In the Centennial year, nine films were completed and another eleven were in production or preproduction. Of those films completed in the Centennial year, five dealt with First Nations poverty (Pikangikum, Indian Dialogue, Elliot Lake, Powwow at Duck Lake, and Encounter with Saul Alinsky – Part 2: Rama Indian Reserve), and one each dealt with rural poverty (Madawaska Valley), urban poverty (Halifax Neighbourhood Center Project), race (Encounter at Kwacha House), and community organization (Encounter with Saul Alinsky – Part 1: CYC Toronto). The films varied widely in their approach from engaging with a specific group and their economic development initiatives, as was the case with the bushmen featured in Madawaska Valley, to providing an artist’s interpretation of poverty in a First Nations reserve (Pikangikum), to providing training films for the Company of Young Canadians (Encounter with Saul Alinsky – Part 1: CYC Toronto). In the Centennial year, however, and perhaps for the Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle program as a whole, the defining undertaking was the Fogo Island Project. The Newfoundland Project, as it was originally called, consisted of twenty-seven films about the challenges facing the population of the 200 square kilometre island.75 The project was informed by “the belief that a prime prerequisite for social

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change in an increasingly segmented society is the increase of communication links between those affected by poverty, and others, and that the medium of film, both its production and utilization is one of the most powerful and effective means of enabling such communications to grow.”76 Fogo Island was chosen because it worked well as a microcosm. It had a diversity of problems, representative of broader society that the provincial government and residents were just beginning to address. Furthermore, as an island made up of ten villages, it also allowed filmmakers to explore issues of intercommunity communication.77 Colin Low, the producer of the Fogo Island films, very clearly adopted the CfC/SN leaders’ vision of first uniting finite communities around a consensus on the causes of their disenfranchisement and then using the critical mass of these experiences to build a cannon that would have broader national appeal. The films reveal that Low’s first priority was to involve the whole community in the process of identifying and remedying the causes of their disenfranchisement. Secondary in nature was the hope that, when the films were viewed by Canadians in other communities, they would promote a greater understanding of the causes of poverty and spark some desire for action. In sum, Low shot twenty hours of film that was later edited down to five hours and distributed as an initial set of twenty-three shorts.78 The films quickly gained notoriety in the economic development community and received a strong reception when they were screened across Canada. Although Mike Lewis’s experience with the Fogo films was hardly typical, it speaks to their potential to engage Canadians. On seeing one of the films for the first time, Lewis writes, “I vividly remember watching the National Film Board documentary of Fogo Island’s development process. I was inspired by the way 5,000 islanders thumbed their collective nose at then premier Joey Smallwood and his plans to ‘rationalize’ the settlement of rural Newfoundland. It also struck a very personal chord. At the time I was a 17-year-old fully engaged in my first community development process, far from my home in Calgary on an island even smaller than Fogo.”79 The “Fogo Process” also gained international acclaim. Soon after the films came out, the process and Low were seconded by the US Office of Economic Opportunity for its own War on Poverty. This marked the first time “that experts of another country had been used by the United States in combating its own problem of domestic poverty,” according to the OEO officer responsible for the program.80

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Evaluating Success That both the Centennial International Development Programme and Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle were acclaimed does not, however, give any indication of how effective they were in achieving their goals. In one sense, the success of these programs is not measurable; it is not possible to definitively trace shifts in how a nation conceives of itself over short periods of time. Nonetheless, it is possible to look at the extent to which these programs were able to engage Canadians and what became of that engagement and thereby gain some insight into their performance. At the end of 1967, enthusiasm for the Centennial International Development Programme was so high that there was talk of extending CIDP’s mandate beyond that year. This talk quickly gave way to financial pragmatism and a discussion of the reality that the program suffered from significant administrative shortcomings and came far short of its initial goal of raising $10 million. CIDP raised a total of some $1,192,000 from over ninety-nine thousand marchers. It is undeniable that the program failed to meet key targets; however, CIDP succeeded in engaging over four million Canadians in its programming on some level, fully one fifth of the population of the country.81 CIDP jumpstarted Miles for Millions, which saw its participation rate quadruple in the subsequent two years while raising over $20 million for the underdeveloped world in its first five years.82 The Centennial International Development Programme engaged Canadians with the cause of global generosity on the eve of dramatic growth in foreign aid spending and private giving.83 This engagement coincided with increased interest in non-governmental organizations both on the part of the government and the public. In the context of its direct contributions to promoting the ideal of global generosity, the subsequent contributions CIDP helped to spawn, and given the growth in the international development sector that followed, it is tenable that CIDP operated in concert with other forces to elevate the position of global generosity in Canadians’ collective understanding of themselves. Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle had a much longer history than the Centennial International Development Programme, continuing to produce material for more than a decade. In that time, over two hundred films were made, involving most every region of Canada and covering a range of topics just as diverse.84 By 1975, however, the program had become routine, the experimentation that had captured the

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minds of public servants, filmmakers, and viewers was gone, and many of CfC/SN’s later films went undistributed. In 1980, the same austerity agenda that had threatened to end the CfC/SN program before it began in 1967 ushered in its quiet demise.85 Assessments of the legacy of Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle are mixed. Many academics argue that the CfC/SN program did not go far enough in its challenging of the status quo. They posit that most of the films essentially functioned like The Things I Cannot Change in that they presented a spectacle of disenfranchisement. They argue that the subjects of the films may have been far more involved in the filmmaking process than the Bailey family was but this does not mean they had true agency, the end result being that Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle did more to enshrine poverty as an immutable reality of the nation than to promote empowering the disenfranchised as a Canadian ideal.86 There is some validity to these criticisms. Those who were involved with the program, however, recall it in somewhat of a different light. Looking back to the example of Fogo Island, after the films were completed thirty-five screenings were held over nine weeks with a total attendance of forty-five hundred viewers, this on an island with a population of only five thousand. Granted this does not account for repeat attendees but it still demonstrates the extent to which the project engaged the community. In concrete terms, the project helped to spawn the development of a shipbuilding co-op and the island’s first unified central high school. It also encouraged the government of Newfoundland and Labrador to take action towards some of the islanders’ concerns, and it even produced a commitment that a government minister would participate in follow-up filming in order to keep the process of communication going.87 Indeed, the impact on Challenge for Change/ Société Nouvelle was so profound that when being interviewed for an article on the island in the early 1990s Fogo Islanders still credited the program for improvements in their conditions.88 The Fogo Island Project was clearly a special case, but it serves well to illustrate what Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle achieved to varying degrees with many of it projects. This does not discredit the criticism that the program’s output was at times sensational, nor does it mute the consensus of many former CfC/SN filmmakers that the program suffered from a lack of focus and outcome-oriented goals.89 The critical mass of the program, however, and the specific experience of Fogo Island combine to demonstrate that Challenge for Change/Société

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Nouvelle had the ability to engage people with issues of poverty and economic development on the local, national, and international levels to positive effect. Conclusion What this chapter aims to have demonstrated is that processes of identity formation in Canada’s Centennial year were not informed solely by the pageants and expositions that dotted the Canadian landscape. There was a space, created by the growth of government and the rising influence of the public service, at the margins of the Centennial celebrations for groups such as the Centennial International Development Programme and Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle to make separate and self-interested forays into the realm of identity formation in order to campaign for a better Canada. The entrance of these groups into this realm had to be negotiated, and these negotiations were often challenging, but the rewards of capacity and legitimacy were well worth it. Furthermore, although these negotiations often had an impact on the function of these initiatives, they did little to impact their form. Their goals remained consistent, and the programs they offered to the public in 1967 clearly demonstrated their desire to achieve them. It is impossible to say whether CIDP or CfC/SN helped to create better Canada or if they were successful in reshaping Canadian identity along more charitable and egalitarian lines. What can be said, however, is that these programs collectively engaged millions of Canadians with the cause of economic development, both domestic and international, in a time and in a context when they were actively reimaging what it meant to be Canadian. NOTES 1 Kirk Smith, “Canadian Voyageurs Reach City,” Ottawa Citizen, 30 Aug. 1967. 2 Christopher McCreary, The Order of Canada: Its Origins, History, and Development (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 184–5. The motto is based on a quote from the Bible (Hebrews 11:16). 3 Canada, Parliament, Senate, Debates, 26th Parliament, 3rd Session, vol. 1, 5 Apr. 1965, 2 (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer and Controller of Stationery, 1965).

Alternative Identities  285 4 J.R. Kidd to John Fisher, 2 Sept. 1964, Library and Archives Canada (LAC), RG 69, Records of the Centennial Commission of Canada, vol. 366, file 130-29. Kidd was chairman of International Cooperation Year (Canada), in addition to being a pioneer in the field of adult education in Canada and founder of the Overseas Book Centre (now the Canadian Organization for Development through Education) and the Overseas Institute of Canada (now the Canadian Council for International Co-operation). 5 W.H. Neville to The Minister, 10 Feb. 1966, ibid. 6 Kidd to Fisher, 2 Sept. 1964. 7 Maurice Lamontagne to Dr Kidd, 10 Sept. 1964, LAC, RG 69, vol. 366, file 130-29. 8 Paul Martin to Maurice Lamontagne, 1 May 1964, ibid. 9 R.J. Smythe to Maurice Lamontagne, 19 Aug. 1964, LAC, RG 69, vol. 353, file 130-2 vol. 4. 10 See, e.g., Kathleen Grant to David Groos, 30 Apr. 1965, ibid. “Suggestions Received from Various Sources as Possible Projects for Canada’s Centennial Observances,” 18 Sept. 1961, LAC, RG 69, vol. 388, file: First Mtg of the Board of Directors. 11 Minutes of Mtg of Board of Directors, 17 Feb. 1966, LAC, RG 69, vol. 822. CIDP was not formally incorporated until later in 1966 as a result of the lengthy legal due diligence involved in the incorporation process. 12 Minutes of Mtg of Board of Directors. 31 Mar. 1966, ibid. 13 The Canadian Welfare Council later became the Canadian Council on Social Development and should not be confused with the National Council of Welfare, which was shuttered as a result of federal funding cuts in 2012. 14 Gary Evans, In the National Interest: A Chronicle of the National Film Board of Canada from 1949 to 1989 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 115. 15 Gareth Davies, “Understanding the War on Poverty: The Advantages of a Canadian Perspective,” Journal of Policy History 9, 4 (1997): 425–49. 16 National Film Act, RS, c. N-7, s. 9. Labyrinth was shown in a purpose built building at Expo 67 and was intended to evoke the progress and triumph of humankind. Helicopter Canada provided a narrated journey across the nation’s ten provinces and was sponsored by the Centennial Commission. 17 Mtg of the NFB, 3 Feb. 1967, LAC, RG 53, Records of the National Film Board, Microfilm reel T-12781. 18 The NFB provided $400,000 of the 1967–68 budget. The budget fell to $425,000 the following year as a result of fiscal restraint and prolonged funding negotiations but rose to over $1.5 million by 1970–71. Minutes of the Fifth Mtg of the Interdepartmental Committee on Challenge for Change (ICCC), 5 Dec. 1967, LAC, RG 6, Records of the Department of the

286  Ted Cogan Secretary of State of Canada, vol. 22, file 1-11-4-2, vol. 1. Financial Resource Statement, 31 Jan. 1971, ibid., file 1-11-4-2, vol. 7. 19 Brenda Longfellow, “The Things I Cannot Change: A Revisionary Reading,” in Thomas Waugh, Ezra Winton, and Michael Brendan Baker, eds., Challenge for Change: Activist Documentary at the National Film Board of Canada (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010), 149. 20 Paul Litt, The Muses, the Masses, and the Massey Commission (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 40. 21 Ryan Edwardson, Canadian Content: Culture and the Quest for Nationhood (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 24. 22 Matthew Hayday, “Fireworks, Folk-dancing, and Fostering a National Identity: The Politics of Canada Day,” Canadian Historical Review 91, 2 (2010): 292. Original emphasis. 23 Both programs were the subject of Cabinet discussion later in their lifespan when they faced financial and administrative issues. 24 Minutes of the First Mtg of the ICCC, 11 Apr. 1967, LAC, RG 6, vol. 22, file 1-14/2, vol. 1. These departments and agencies were the Special Planning Secretariat of the Privy Council (the group tasked with executing the government’s War on Poverty): Agriculture; Area Development Agency; Agricultural Rehabilitation and Development Agency; Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation; Company of Young Canadians; Fisheries; Indian Affairs and Northern Development; Labour; Manpower and Immigration; and National Health and Welfare. 25 It is true that the filmmakers were government employees, but neither they nor other government departments considered them to be civil servants in the traditional sense. 26 Gary R. Miedema, For Canada’s Sake: Public Religion, Centennial Celebrations, the Re-making of Canada in the 1960s (Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 2005), 65–88. 27 Peter H. Aykroyd, The Anniversary Compulsion: Canada’s Centennial Celebration, a Model Mega-Anniversary (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1992), 108. 28 These efforts began in the Diefenbaker years under the auspices of the Agriculture Rehabilitation and Development Act (1960) and continue today in the form of six federal Regional Development Agencies that cover the entirety of Canada. 29 Len Travers, Celebrating the Fourth: Independence Day and the Rites of Nationalism in the Early Republic (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), 119. 30 H.V. Nelles, The Art of Nation-Building: Pageantry and Spectacle at Quebec’s Tercentenary (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 157. 31 Kidd to Fisher, 2 Sept. 1964.

Alternative Identities  287 3 2 Lamontagne to Kidd, 10 Sept. 1964. 33 Martin to Lamontagne, 1 May 1964. 34 Memo to File Re: Peace Corps, 25 Feb. 1965, LAC, MG32, B12, Paul Joseph James Martin Fonds, vol. 234, file 89-1. 35 Granville Steele to Maurice Lamontagne, 19 Jan. 1965, LAC, RG 69, vol. 366, file 130-29. 36 Record of Cabinet Decision, 22 Dec. 1966, LAC, RG 69, vol. 380, file: Cabinet – Record of Cabinet Decision. 37 “Revised Prospectus,” 29 Dec. 1966, LAC, RG 69, vol. 822, Centennial International Development Programme (CIDP). 38 Board of Directors Minutes (CIDP), 17 Feb. 1966, ibid. 39 “Progress Report to the Centennial Commission,” 12 Dec. 1966, LAC, RG 69, vol. 528, file: PR&I – Centennial International Development Fund. 40 Minutes of the Sixteenth Mtg of the Executive Committee, 2 Dec. 1966, LAC, RG 69, vol. 393, file: Executive Committee Minutes, 2 Dec. 1966 – Ottawa. Jacobson was also Canada’s representative to the UN Committee for Refugees and had previously been national director of Canada’s World Refugee Year programming. 41 “Progress Report to the Centennial Commission,” 12 Dec. 1966. 42 Minutes of the Sixteenth Mtg of the Executive Committee, 2 Dec. 1966. 43 Board of Directors Minutes 19 Dec. 1966, LAC, RG 69, vol. 389, file: Board of Directors Minutes Dec. 19/66 Ottawa. 44 Muriel Jacobson to Miss Mae Laduke, 1 Mar. 1967, LAC, RG 69, vol. 820. 45 “Revised Prospectus,” 29 Dec. 1966. 46 Ibid. 47 Board of Directors Minutes, 31 Dec. 1966. 48 “Challenge for Change Proposal for an Action-Programme of Film Activities in the Area of Poverty,” undated, LAC, RG 6, vol. 22, file 1-1-4/2, vol. 1. 49 Minutes of the First ICCC Mtg, 11 Apr. 1967. 50 Minutes of the Third Mtg of the ICCC, Report of the Sub-Committee on Financing and Membership, 17 Oct. 1967, LAC, RG 6, vol. 22, file 1-11-4/2, vol. 1. 51 Conflict was particularly intense between Frank Spiller, the NFB’s director of production, and Dr T. Philbrook, ARDA’s chief of social development. 52 Minutes of the Fourth Mtg of the ICCC, 21 Nov. 1967, LAC, RG 6, vol. 22, file 1-11-4/2, vol. 1. 53 Minutes of the Ninth Mtg of the ICCC, 4/5 July 1968, ibid. 54 Minutes of the Mtg of the ICCC, 12 Sept. 1969, ibid. 55 “Il est aujourd’hui nécessaire de perfectionner les mécanismes administratifs et de clarifier les responsabilités des ministères participants et de l’O.N.F.,” Memoire pour le Cabinet 6/22/69, 11 June 1969, ibid.

288  Ted Cogan 56 Memo from Henry Hindley to Mr Léger Re: Challenge for Change/Société nouvelle (CfC/SN), 29 July 1969, ibid. “Report to the Members of the Cabinet Committee on Social Policy and Cultural Affairs,” 21 July 1969, ibid. 57 This was largely the result of the fact that many of the most vocal bureaucratic opponents of CfC/SN were from departments that provided no funding for the program. Financing, however, remained a problem area throughout the program’s existence. Austerity meant that experimental programs were not a high departmental priority, and although the Cabinet ruling required departments to fund half of CfC/SN, it did not require the Treasury Board to take this into account when producing its estimates, which meant that proponents of the program were still forced to be creative in finding money to fund it. 58 “Revised Prospectus,” 29 Dec. 1966. 59 Minutes of the Ninth Mtg of the ICCC, 4 July 1968. 60 J.R. Kidd to M. Lamontagne, 18 Nov. 1964, LAC, RG 69, vol. 366, file 130-29. 61 Memorandum of Agreement, 22 July 1965, LAC, RG 69, vol. 528, file: PR&I – Centennial International Development Fund. G. Gauthier to W.A. Teager, 7 July 1966, ibid. 62 “Revised Prospectus,” 29 Dec. 1966. 63 Centennial Commission Executive Committee Minutes of Mtg, 2 Dec. 1966. 64 “Challenge for Change: Proposal for an Action-Programme of Film Activities in the Area of Poverty.” Cheminement idéologique du programme Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle, 17 Dec. 1969, LAC, RG 6, vol. 22, file 1-11-4/2, vol. 3. 65 “Report to the Members of the Cabinet Committee on Social Policy and Cultural Affairs,” 21 July 1969. 66 Minutes of the Sixth Mtg of the ICCC, 20 Dec. 1967, LAC, RG 6, vol. 22, file 1-11-4/2, vol. 1. 67 Minutes of the ICCC, 5 Mar. 1968, ibid. 68 Minutes of the ICCC, 20 Mar., 23 Apr., 25 Sept. 1970, and 22 Jan. 1971, ibid., vols. 22 and 23, file 1-11-4/2, vols. 3, 6, and 7. 69 Minutes of the ICCC, 13 May 1970, ibid., vol. 22, file 1-11-4/2, vol. 4. 70 “Challenge for Change Proposal for an Action-Programme of Film Activities in the Area of Poverty.” 71 Paul Slovic, “‘If I Look at the Mass I Will Never Act’: Psychic Numbing and Genocide,” Judgment and Decision Making 2, 2 (2007): 79–95. 72 Benedict R. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 2006 [1983]). 73 See, e.g., Canadian Press, “Thousands Participate in Miles for Millions,” Ottawa Citizen, 3 Nov. 1967; “Ontario on March to Aid Humanity,” Globe

Alternative Identities  289 and Mail, 6 Nov. 1967; “OXFAM Parade to Aid World’s Hungry,” Montreal Gazette, 16 Nov. 1967; “World Weekend Coming,” Gazette (St Albert, AB), 25 Oct. 1967. 74 “Progress Report of the CIDP,” 18 Apr. 1967, LAC, RG 69, vol. 820. 75 Waugh et al., Challenge for Change, 510. 76 “The Fogo Process,” undated, LAC, R5667, Colin Low Fonds, vol. 163, file: Fogo Island Project 1967. 77 “Fogo Island Film and Community Development Project,” May 1968, LAC, R5667, vol. 163, file: Fogo Island Project 1967–1989. 78 Ibid. 79 Mike Lewis, “Living on the Edge,” Making Waves 17, 4 (2006): 2. 80 “From a Tiny Canadian Island: A Voice for the Silent Man,” Canada Today (May 1970): 5–8. 81 Memorandum Regarding Future Arrangements for Dynamic Programming Using the Resources and Experience of the Overseas Institute of Canada and the CIDP, Oct. 1967, LAC, RG 69, vol. 820. 82 Tamara Myers, “Blistered and Bleeding, Tired and Determined: Visual Representations of Children and Youth in the Miles for Millions Walkathon,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 22, 1 (2011): 250–1. 83 David R Morrison, Aid and Ebb Tide: A History of CIDA and Canadian Development Assistance (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1998), 68–70. 84 This includes translations and films that make up one part of a broader series. Waugh et al., Challenge for Change, 453–512. 85 Evans, In the International Interest, 175–6. 86 Zoe Druick, “‘Ambiguous Identities’ and the Representation of Everyday Life: Notes toward a New History of Production Policies at the National Film Board of Canada,” Canadian Issues 20 (1998): 125–37. Janine Marchessault, “Reflections on the Dispossessed: Video and the ‘Challenge for Change’ Experiment,” Screen 36, 2 (1995): 131–46. 87 “The Fogo Process,” undated. 88 Michael Clugston, “Outport Revival: Co-operation Saved Fogo Islanders from Having to Abandon Their Homes,” Canadian Geographic (Dec. 1991): 50–61. 89 See, e.g., Colin Low, “Grierson and Challenge for Change,”and Dan Driscoll, “Can We Evaluate Challenge for Change?”16–23 and 66–9, respectively, in Waugh et al., Challenge for Change.

10  “Fit for Citizenship”: Scouting and the Centennial Celebrations of 1967 james tr e pan ie r

On 1 July 1967, Wolf Cubs, Boy Scouts, and Rovers gathered with local government officials, religious leaders, family members, and the public at thirty-seven gravesites across the country to honour the Fathers of Confederation as part of the ceremonies marking Canada’s Centennial.1 Before descendants of the Fathers and other dignitaries placed wreaths on the graves, a local Boy Scout read a rather lengthy address that lauded the achievement of Canada’s “founding fathers” and summarized Canada’s political and social growth over the previous century. Its closing lines invited those in attendance to reflect on the legacy of the Fathers of Confederation and reminded the audience that they, the youth of 1967, would be future “fathers” of the country: As we measure the challenges already met and yet to come we see ample scope for the courage, labour, enterprise, character, patience, and loyalty which national growth and spirit demand. The Fathers of Confederation to whose vision and achievements we now pay tribute had these qualities in abundance and we owe them a lasting gratitude. They built Canada in the confident hope that succeeding generations would continue the example they set and the work they began. Indeed if the Fathers of 1867 could speak to us now they would probably tell us that we are now the Fathers of our nation and that her future is entrusted to our keeping for a little while. Let us therefore strengthen and preserve Canada’s heritage and pass it on with honour.2

Were these the inspired words of a patriotic teenager? Although they may have been said with feeling, they were, in fact, composed by political scientist Frank McKinnon, the principal of Prince of Wales College

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in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. The ceremony was an important part of the Boy Scouts of Canada’s participation in the Centennial celebrations of 1967. From the local troop level to the National Executive for the English-speaking Canadian Boy Scouts, a variety of activities were debated, planned, and carried out in order to get Canadian boys between the ages of nine and seventeen in Cubs, Scouts, and Rovers involved in the Centennial. Scouting’s national leaders had more on their minds than commemorating the past; they were preoccupied with maintaining Scouting’s position as one of the country’s largest youth movements. In spite of the demographic bulge created by the baby boom, Scouting in the 1960s grappled with a long-standing challenge of declining enrolment in its senior-level programs for teenage boys. Scouting’s leadership was in the midst of weighing new program aims and reforms while it considered plans for the Centennial celebrations. Ambitions for the Centennial and Scouting’s future were thus often intertwined in the minds of Scouting’s leadership. Discussions about Centennial activities within Scouting’s National Council focused less on wider questions of Canadian identity and nationalism and more on which activities would reaffirm the movement’s presence in the public eye while maintaining the interest of Canadian boys. This chapter uses Scouting’s national-level engagement in the Centennial celebrations to consider the connections between the commemorative culture of the 1960s and the history of youth and childhood, more specifically, boyhoods and masculinities. Children and youth were simultaneously important target audiences as well as key actors and rhetorical devices in the patriotic discourse of the many celebrations held during Canada’s “last good year.”3 Scouting’s national leadership sought to capitalize on the educational and symbolic potential of youth participating in the Centennial celebrations, but not always for the same reasons as the federal government. I use two examples of Centennial participation – Scouting’s participation in the federal Centennial Commission’s Youth Travel Exchange Program and the Fathers of Confederation graves project – to consider how the “official” commemorative and educational aims of the Centennial Commission expressed in these projects were interpreted, adapted, or challenged by Scouting’s national leadership. Scouting’s national leadership struck a much different attitude towards commemoration and youth education in 1967 compared with their involvement in national commemoration ceremonies during the 1927 Diamond Jubilee of Confederation. The division within

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Scouting’s national executive over the educational merits of a commemorative project like restoring and decorating the graves of the Fathers of Confederation and even the federal youth exchange program reflect their wider concerns with Scouting’s continued relevance to youth of the 1960s. Although some within the organization were reluctant to take up Centennial projects that might distract them from the task of renewal, the appeal of federal funds and a potentially prime place on the national commemorative stage proved irresistible. In this regard, this chapter echoes a trend identified by Christopher Los, Ted Cogan, and Meaghan Beaton in their contributions to this volume: federal funding was an alluring prospect for many civic organizations in their commemorative planning, but the objectives of that funding were often challenged, questioned, or diverted for more locally defined purposes. Once the projects got underway, some sceptics within Scouting’s leadership grew frustrated with the lack of government support or public interest in their projects. They even questioned whether the time and money invested in these efforts had any meaningful impact on the boys involved. Scouting’s theme for Centennial year, “Fit for Citizenship,” can thus be seen as a question for debate rather than an assertion of nationalism: just what kind of activities were fit to teach boys about Canadian identity? What kind of government and public attention was appropriate for a commemoration befitting the legacy of the Fathers of Confederation? Could these efforts have any meaningful influence on Canada’s boys, the assumed leaders of the future? Canadian nationalists and political leaders have long connected concerns about youth and children with the future of the nation and as symbols of nation building and as the building blocks of the state.4 In her study of the rise of adolescent culture in the interwar period, Cynthia Comacchio argues that children and youth were portrayed as “developing citizens in a developing nation, beings intent on self-formation and precious maturity in a Canada pursuing much the same goals.”5 This trend continued well into the period after the Second World War. Youth movements such as the Girl Guides and Boy Scouts were important sites of such nation building through and by youth and children. Scholarship on youth movements in French- and English-speaking Canada, in particular the Girl Guide and Boy Scout movements, has expanded recently to consider questions of transnational imperial identities, the connections between gender and national identities, colonial processes, and racialized conceptions of childhood.6

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Of particular interest when considering Scouting’s participation in Canada’s Centennial activities is the broader connection between masculinity and national identities.7 In his study of the construction of postwar Ontario boyhoods, Christopher J. Greig notes that authorities felt that “the traditional sources of ‘normal’ masculine role modelling – f­amily, school, church, community – could not be counted upon” in the age of the atomic bomb and modern consumption.8 Like others who have studied the transition to peace and stability in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Greig argues that the long years of social, economic, and cultural instability brought on by the Depression and Second World War created an almost overwhelming desire for some form of return to normalcy and peace and a return to more “traditional” gender norms and family life.9 Boys were the object of special concern because national prosperity and citizenship continued to be interpreted through a gendered set of expectations. Greig submits that while there were also concerns about reasserting or renewing girlhood through organizations like the Girl Guides and other spaces of socialization, boys came under particular scrutiny because of their assumed role as future leaders: The citizen-leader of the future, like that of the past, was gender defined. Citizenship was male by nature. In contrast, girls were expected and encouraged to adopt a “special kind” of citizenship characterized by their innate maternalism. In this brave new postwar world, active public citizenship continued to be depicted largely as a male duty, a duty best learned in boyhood. An “appropriate” boyhood in the postwar period became, if nothing else, a metaphor for the survival of the nation, but a nation whose survival was contingent on male dominance in the historic patriarchal manner.10

Christopher Dummitt similarly contends that masculinity held symbolic and coercive power precisely because of its ties to modern citizenship. “As is so often the case in the history of masculinity,” Dummitt argues, “men’s gendered identities were equated not with themselves as men but with a larger, seemingly ungendered category – in this case, the nation.”11 The Boy Scout movement continued to tie boyhood to citizenship in its own activities in the 1960s, although Scouting’s participation in Centennial activities was tempered by a broader concern that it was losing touch with modern boys. Scouting’s participation in Centennial activities brings to light important, but often neglected participants in commemoration: children and

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youth. Canadian historians of commemoration and national myth-­ making have carefully considered how religious leaders, First Nations communities, and others participated in, or were excluded from, national, provincial, and local commemorations and celebrations.12 Youth and child involvement in commemorative activity remains relatively unexplored in contemporary Canadian historiography.13 This study follows in the footsteps of broader international historiography that considers how and why children and youth, particularly boys, were marshalled for public pageantry and commemoration.14 It builds on this scholarship by arguing that youth organizations that participated in commemorative activities need to be considered as actors with their own objectives in the larger negotiation between official and more grassroots, or “vernacular” identities inherent to all commemorative activity.15 Canada’s Centennial celebrations provide a unique case study of the clash between “official” commemorative objectives and those of various stakeholders. L.B. Kuffert argues that Centennial planners struggled to reconcile traditional forms of commemoration and pageantry with more active, participatory, and popular forms of celebration that a modern, mass consumerist society demanded.16 Some of this tension in the commemorative process was offset by the futuristic and internationalist bent of the Expo celebrations in Montreal, where a “technological utopianism” shaped both the messaging and experience for many.17 The Boy Scouts of Canada were an enthusiastic participant at Expo 67, managing a volunteer “Service Corps” of Scout volunteers from Canada and the United States as well as helping with the design and construction of an International Scouting pavilion.18 Canadian Scouting did make important contributions to Expo ’67, but it did not do so under the same nation-building umbrella as its other Centennial activities and thus is not considered in this study. The contributions to this collection by Meaghan Beaton, Ted Cogan, Helen Davies, and Christopher Los reveal the multivocal nature of the national conversation that led up to Canada’s Centennial celebrations and build on a growing body of literature that considers the place of religion, ethnicity, gender, class, and region as complicating factors in the Centennial celebrations.19 Scouting’s leadership brought its own perspective of what commemorative activities would be appropriate for its young members, a perspective that could mesh or clash with federal objectives. The movement’s struggles throughout the 1960s to retain Canadian teenage boys informed their considerations of what forms of commemoration were most suitable for boys; the subsequent

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debate divided the executive between those who wanted to find activities that were interesting to boys and those who continued to support the movement’s traditional role of marshalling boys for national commemorative purposes during Canada’s Centennial year. Before analysing Scouting’s activities during the Centennial, some background on the structure of Canadian Scouting would be helpful in explaining this chapter’s focus on English-speaking Canadian Scouting. I refer to English-speaking Canadian Scouting because, until the 1960s, the Boy Scout movement in Canada was divided between the Boy Scout Association of Canada and La Fédération des Scouts catholiques de la Province de Québec (which became the Boy Scouts of Canada and Les Scouts catholiques du Canada, respectively, in 1961). Outside of Quebec, French-Canadian Catholic Scouts had initially been welcomed in the Boy Scout movement and were provided some materials in French. A push from French-Canadian Scout leaders in Ottawa, Saint-Boniface, and the Maritimes eventually resulted in the Fédération incorporating French-Canadian Catholic Scouts outside the Province of Quebec.20 Thus, in the 1960s, the Boy Scouts of Canada represented primarily English-speaking Scout troops.21 The Scouting movement in 1967 faced the ongoing challenge of attracting and keeping teenage boys in its ranks, despite its general membership strength. Doug Owram has argued that the decline in the number of boys progressing through the ranks of Scouting from Cubs to Scouts to Rovers was symptomatic of a more independent baby-boom generation of adolescents for whom Scouting held little interest and who therefore often dropped out after the obligatory childhood passage through Cubs.22 In the late 1960s, however, their membership was still impressive; with over 250,000 youth involved in the various levels of the movement, it encompassed roughly 15 per cent of the Canadian population that was of Scouting age (Cubs, Scouts, and Rovers).23 It remained to be seen, however, how it would adapt to the challenge of declining senior membership it faced in the 1960s. The Canadian Centennial celebrations provide a focal point for those considerations. Publicity or Engagement: Planning for 1967 Canadian Scouting’s National Council got an early start to Centennial planning, creating a special commission in February 1960 to study the issue.24 Throughout the early 1960s, internal discussions of activities the Scouts could organize focused on strengthening the movement, rather

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than on how Scouting could contribute to the Centennial party. Most early brainstorming for Centennial activities focused on increasing membership. Others suggested giving the boys more opportunities for international travel through exchange programs with Scouts in South and Central America.25 In the spring of 1965, as preparations for the Centennial started to accelerate, Scouting’s Programming Director J.L. MacGregor assessed the state of Centennial planning. Although he endorsed use of the theme “Fit For Citizenship” for Scouting’s involvement and encouraged capitalizing on any government funds that may be made available to youth associations, MacGregor worried about spending valuable resources and energy on Centennial events instead of focusing on renewing Scouting: At a time when Scouting is facing a critical period in its evolution and when increasing demands are being placed on its available resources – manpower, time, finances, etc., we can ill afford to devote resources to activities solely for the purpose of publicity ... As an agency that emphasizes Citizenship, Scouting can make more of a valid contribution. The reason for Scouting’s existence, and the contribution that it has to offer to Canada, is the provision of a healthy, appealing program designed to assist boys in their growth to useful, contributing members of society. What better contribution can Scouting make to the Centennial than to strengthen and give new direction to program and make its availability to all boys a reality? Rather than look on Centennial celebrations as a series of “Special events,” it is suggested that the Centennial provides Scouting with the unique opportunity to focus its attention on this meaningful contribution to Canadian society.26

MacGregor then went on to propose a number of initiatives that would focus on strengthening the movement through recruitment, fundraising, and updating training for leaders. Participation in official Centennial Commission activities should, MacGregor emphasized, aim to supplement gaps in funding or improve Scouting’s ability to offer program experiences to boys.27 Other members of the National Council were also considering some of Scouting’s core principles. The very ability of Scouting to inspire the qualities of leadership and self-reliance in boys was debated in June 1965 by the Program and Uniform Subcommittee of the National Council as part of a broader study of possible reforms. The subcommittee

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wrangled with the issue of whether their adult leaders and Scouting’s program formed the character of boys or whether they had to choose to do so for themselves. This nuanced interpretation reflected a shift from the programmatic pedagogy of “learning by doing” and mimicking leaders and male role models built into previous incarnations of Scouting’s program. For instance, an adult-directed learning model continued to dominate the 1964 version of the Policy, Organization and Rules of Canadian Scouting, where Rule 1 reads: “The aim of the Boy Scouts of Canada is to develop good citizenship among boys by forming their character; training them in habits of observation, obedience and selfreliance; inculcating loyalty and thoughtfulness for others; teaching them services useful to the public and handicrafts useful to themselves; and promoting their physical, mental and spiritual development.”28 The subcommittee trimmed this mission statement, which had remained largely unaltered since Scouting’s incorporation in Canada in 1914, in a proposed new clause that reflected the committee’s view of the shift in attitudes about youth education: “The aim of the Boy Scouts of Canada is to help boys to develop as resourceful and responsible members of the community by providing opportunities for their mental, physical, social and spiritual development.”29 Even though the National Council did not adopt the motion until a number of years later, its consideration by the National Council reveals a growing concern with the future of Scouting and its relevance to youth.30 Modern Nation Building: Centennial Projects for Youth Throughout the early 1960s, Scouting’s National Council sent a representative to the various meetings of the Canadian Citizenship Council. The Citizenship Council eventually expanded into the Canadian Centenary Council, an amalgamation of service, education, and citizenship associations. Following a number of high-profile, yet unfunded, conferences on the topic of Centennial planning across Canada, in 1961 the Diefenbaker government passed the Act Respecting the Observance of the Centennial of Confederation in Canada, which created the National Centennial Administration. Renamed the Centennial Commission in 1963, this government agency became the planner, organizer, and backer of many local, provincial, and federal Centennial projects. In addition to planning large-scale pageants and shows like the Centennial Caravan, Centennial Canoe Pageant, and various cultural infrastructure projects, the commission, led by Commissioner John Wiggins

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Fisher, actively sought to engage as many Canadians as possible in Centennial activities. The costs of these activities were absorbed largely by the federally funded commission.31 One of the first Centennial programs to get off the ground was the Youth Travel Exchange Program. Started in 1964, the program sought to provide youth with “first-hand knowledge of the educational, industrial, political and cultural development of a part of Canada outside of their own home province,” by funding group youth exchanges and subsidizing youth associations that organized exchanges in various parts of the country. By the fall of 1967, over twelve thousand Canadian youth and their escorts had travelled under the program.32 In November 1965, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration John Nicholson spoke to a national Conference on Youth Travel and Exchange Programmes in the Voluntary Sector about the potential of the exchange program. His speech energetically connected its patriotic aims with nation-building projects of the past: One hundred years ago, the Fathers of Confederation placed their faith in a trans-continental railroad as a chief means of welding all the communities in British North America into one strong nation. Later, a trans-Canada radio network was conceived for very much the same reason. A National Film Board was created and given as its chief mission “the interpretation of Canada to Canadians.” The trans-continental air travel and microwave systems have also contributed to strengthening the bonds of Canadian society. The most recent and at the same time the most dynamic development in this field of national communications, is the Travel and Exchange Programme which you are meeting today to discuss.33

Similar to what the historian Robert Cupido has labelled “technological nationalism” in radio broadcasts of national celebrations during Canada’s Diamond Jubilee, the Pearson government promoted youth travel as a modern means of nation building using trains, planes, and buses to create a physical experience of unity in the minds of Canadian youth.34 The program, however, was not simply a nation-building project by adults for the education of youth. On top of funding adult-led youth associations and their travel exchanges, Nicholson highlighted a new emphasis in the Youth Travel Exchange Program of funding “youth-led organizations”: “There was a time when it was considered very proper to say ‘the youth of today will be the leaders of tomorrow.’ This is no longer a

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suitable citation, for today’s youth are today’s citizens, eager and able to work at all levels of society. They are an immediate source of talent and energy, full of promise for tomorrow it is true, but ready and available to the country today. It is important that we remember this.”35 Scouting, although not one of these “youth-led organizations” singled out for praise by Nicholson, participated in three of the program’s four years of operation. In 1965, the Scouts embarked on their first year of funded exchanges. The criteria used to select 60 Scouts from across the country, and in all future years of the program, included the boy’s religious observance, “character and personality,” his ability to express himself, and considerations of whether he would otherwise have had the chance to travel such a distance.36 In their three years of participation in the program, the Scouts sent 290 boys on exchange.37 Although there were occasional administrative difficulties associated with arranging travel for the boys, the program generally caused few headaches for Scouting’s leadership. Some leaders questioned whether or not “a boy understands the purpose of the exchange,” while others wondered if the benefits given to a relatively small number of Scouts merited all the time and effort that went into organizing the program.38 Many of the reports that the boys were to fill out upon the end of their travels were left largely blank, with only sparse descriptions of their experiences. This likely heightened Scouting’s leaders’ questioning of the value of the program. Scouting’s leaders viewed the funding for travel exchanges as desirable, but their general frustration with the level of work involved for the small number of boys who participated reflects a simmering ambivalence, bordering on frustration, with government Centennial planning. Frustrations would mount even further with the work to mark and decorate the graves of the Fathers of Confederation on Dominion Day. “Representatives of the Nation”: The Fathers of Confederation Graves Projects As federal planners set out to consider possible commemorations, festivals, and legacy projects for the Centennial, they deemed only a few commemorative activities from previous anniversaries of ­Confederation worth repeating. One such precedent was the Boy Scouts’ efforts to repair and decorate the graves of the Fathers of Confederation for the Diamond Jubilee of 1927. A federal government committee led the organization of the national 1927 Diamond Jubilee celebrations,

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although it was created mere months before many celebrations were to be held.39 Jubilee organizers identified the Fathers of Confederation as being worthy of commemoration in that year’s celebrations, but they left the organizing of ceremonies to local authorities. Upon discovering the fragmented planning of the project, national Scout Commissioner James W. Robertson wrote the federal organizing committee to suggest that the Scouts could take on responsibility for the project throughout the Dominion.40 The Boy Scouts published their own souvenir booklet and program for the ceremonies to assist local Scoutmasters in their efforts.41 It indicated that Scout troops should be in a horseshoe formation facing the burial place, with flags grouped around the tombstone. The ceremony followed a strict order of events, starting with the singing of “O Canada,” the reciting of the Lord’s Prayer, a reading of the roll of the Fathers of Confederation, and then an address from the historical material on the specific Father published by the Diamond Jubilee Committee. After Scouts were called to salute, all wreaths would be laid at the grave. The ceremony finished with the reciting of the Scout Promise, a moment of silence, and finally the singing of “God Save the King.” Following the ceremonies, Scouting’s leaders proudly boasted that they had been the “official representatives of the nation. Rarely has so important an act of national remembrance been assigned to a volunteer organization.”42 In 1927, the Executive Commissioner of the Boy Scouts wrote Jubilee organizers to suggest that Scouting manage the graves project; forty years later it was federal organizers that requested that the Scouts repeat that service.43 Like in 1927, the focus was to be on sprucing up and decorating of the graves for 1 July national ceremonies. This time, however, the Scouts were to be responsible for the Order of Ceremonies, composing speeches for the event, and repairing the graves. The Centennial Commission provided financial assistance for travel costs for the descendants and family members to attend the ceremony as well as for materials for the ceremony. No permanent arrangement for the care of the graves was made under the commission’s proposal.44 Shortly after the agreement to organize the gravesite ceremonies, Centennial Commissioner Fisher heaped praise on the Scouts as exemplars of the national level of organization and energy that was needed for the Centennial: “Canadians must ‘Be Prepared’; prepared and ready to mark in a fitting and joyous manner, our one hundredth anniversary year of Confederation. And it goes without saying that Boy Scouts will play a leading part in Centennial activities because such programs are

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10.1  Scouts placing wreaths at the grave of William Macdougall and Hewitt Bernard, Fathers of Confederation, in Beechwood Cemetery, Ottawa, 1 July 1927. Source: Library and Archives Canada, PA-027559.

so much involved with the very things in which Scouts like to share, and in which they serve so efficiently.”45 Fisher lauded Scouts’ ongoing work in repairing and marking the graves, remarking that in 1927 the Scouts had organized “solemn and impressive ceremonies when most of the youth of Canada was engaged in fun-making and watching more exciting spectacles marking the Diamond Jubilee Dominion Day.”46 He left unanswered the natural question of just what other Canadian youth would be doing while the Scouts performed similar service in 1967.

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Despite the worries of some of Scouting’s leaders like J.L. MacGregor that Centennial fever might distract Scouting from crucial reform efforts to expand the movement, Scouting’s National Commissioner agreed to the Centennial Commission’s proposal as a national service project for the boys. This time, however, there was little of the enthusiasm about being asked to be “the official representatives of the nation” as had existed in 1927. Indeed, as planning and organization for the 1 July ceremonies proceeded, some Scout leaders expressed frustration with the Centennial Commission and the federal government’s refusal to take more responsibility for both the costs of the project and its failure to guarantee that the graves would not be neglected after the close of Centennial year. Aware of the limited ability of local Scout troops to repair and clean up gravesites without proper funding, the Boy Scouts National Council urged Scout leaders to exercise restraint in clean-up efforts, recommending that local troops avoid “an amateurish effort” at repairing the graves. Instead, they suggested, local Scout troops should work with other local groups concerned with upkeep to raise funds for ongoing care of the graves.47 This cautious approach frustrated various provincial Scouting leaders, who often heard complaints from the descendants about the lamentable state of the graves or found the graves themselves in a pitiable state. Their frustrations reached the National Council as local leaders complained that, at a time when “Centennial monies are flowing like water,” it was unfair to expect the Scouts to manage “an administrative problem which rightfully belongs to the appropriate government ­committee.”48 Their criticisms reflected a shift in attitudes about the role of the state in commemoration and heritage conservation. All the National Council could offer in reply to these complaints were the reasons given to them by Centennial Commission officials – that the care of the graves remained under the authority of the descendants of the Fathers – and that the commission itself was likely to be disbanded after the Centennial. They did note, however, that they had been contacted by the Canadian Historic Sites Division of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and that they had “shown an interest in our project ... Perhaps, one day, arrangement may be made for an historical division of [the] federal government to take over the graves as national shrines, but so far this hasn’t happened.”49 By 1 July 1967, the federal government had finally committed itself to the repair and perpetual care of the graves, a fact proudly announced on the back of the Scouts’ Order of Ceremonies for the 1 July

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commemorations.50 The actual ceremony differed little from its predecessor. This time, however, a universal address was read by a Scout at the gravesite, instead of the prepared texts on each relevant Father of Confederation read at the ceremonies of 1927. The address, written by political scientist Frank McKinnon, by request of the Boy Scouts National Council, paid homage both to the Fathers and to the diversity of contemporary Canadian society. This diversity, however, was largely steeped in geographical terms rather than ethnic or cultural ones: Socially we are a varied society – speaking several languages, worshipping in a number of religions, and following different customs. In addition, the hardy Newfoundlanders and the canny Maritimers bring to our culture the heritage of the sea, of the rolling hills, and of quiet pastures. From Quebec come the Gallic charms and arts of a way of life extending back to the beginnings of Canada and nurtured by the rich and lovely valley of the St Lawrence. From the Great Lakes to the far North come the bursting energies and many talents of Ontario’s people – fitting guardians of the very heart of Canada. From the Prairies come the spirit and work of a people accustomed to the vision afforded by vast space and broad horizons. And is there any Canadian who, on visiting British Columbia, can restrain his pride in the rugged beauty and enormous potential of our Pacific province which is reflected in its people and in the wonders they have performed in a relatively short time? This variety among citizens is one of the great features of Canada, for an overly-standardized and inbred nation is often a weak one, while a nation with a variety of interests and outlooks is strong because in the long run it draws the best from different traditions and viewpoints.51

Although it embraced the language of diversity, McKinnon’s speech portrayed Canada’s mosaic as inextricably linked to geography, rather than to the various cultural components of her social fabric. If the organization of the ceremonies, preparation, and repair work done at the site of many of the graves was extensive, many Scouting leaders lamented that public attention to the actual ceremonies was not. Most of the newspaper clippings included in the National Council’s files on the ceremonies were short items simply describing the ceremony, often with a photo of the event. There was, however, a more pronounced, and positive, reaction to the government’s earlier announcement about protecting the graves for the future. Headlines like “Here Lies a Neglected Father,” “Canada Has Forgotten Moulders

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of History,” or “Founding Fathers’ Graves ‘a Shame,’” revealed the sad state of the graves in order to highlight the recent government announcement of its intention to mark and care for them.52 In Ontario, Scouting leaders complained that newspapers “practically ignored the event,” and that public awareness of and participation in the ceremonies was “practically non-existent.”53 The protection of the graves was good news, but many local Scout leaders also felt that their efforts in planning and holding the ceremonies had received short shrift. Many leaders on the National Council in Ottawa were no doubt relieved to hear of the federal government’s intention to care for the graves, freeing them of the work the graves project had presented. Indeed, one member of the council continued to follow the file in the years after the Centennial. Assistant Director of Administrative Services Patrick Evans acted as the main national organizer for the ceremonies throughout 1966 and 1967. Evans also served on the board of directors of the Gatineau Historical Society and took a personal interest in the graves. After the completion of Centennial celebrations, he ensured that Scouting’s records of the graves project were donated to the Public Archives in Ottawa and, in 1970, wrote to archival officials to follow up on the state of the graves. As Matthew Hayday points out, the federal government was reluctant to sustain funding for national commemoration and celebration in the wake of the Centennial celebrations.54 Evans lamented the decay of the graves between the Jubilee and the Centennial, writing, “The country through its Federal Government had thought so little of the burial sites of the Fathers of Confederation that practically nothing had been done to perpetuate the care of these graves.” Evans insisted on details about how the government had followed up on its commitment to care for the graves after the recent ceremonies.55 His letter, forwarded to the National and Historical Parks Branch at Indian Affairs and Northern Development, received a quick response from the program’s national director, John J. Nichol, who reassured Evans that the government was, indeed, working on plaques for the graves and heaped praise on the Scouts: “Your inquiry is evidence of the continuing interest of the Boy Scouts of Canada in national affairs. It is pleasant to recall through your letter the fine work they have done over the years in preserving this important part of our national story. As a result of the efforts in 1967, our Department is now committed to the marking of these graves and their care in perpetuity.”56 Evans expressed some relief in this response, noting with pride that it was the efforts of the Scouts, both in 1927 and 1967, that had

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been “the cause of the nation, through its governmental departments, finally deciding to preserve for future generations so important a portion of Canadian history.”57 For at least one member of the Boys Scouts National Council, the grave projects had been a success. In spite of Evans’s enthusiasm and passion for the project, Scouting’s National Council had reluctantly taken on a project that many in 1967 felt should have been organized by the government itself. Within the National Council and at various provincial levels there was frustration with the amount of work involved and in the lack of both government and public support for their efforts to restore the graves of the Fathers of Confederation. Nowhere in the National Council’s records was there any discussion of the boys’ own impressions of the ceremonies themselves or of what they took away from them. Indeed, nothing within the ceremonies was left to the boys to plan for themselves – the speeches, rituals, and proceedings were all choreographed and written by adults with Cubs and Scouts serving as spectators or actors in a set piece. Tellingly, a decade later Scouting’s Director of Public Relations Bob Milks nixed a proposal from a Toronto Scout leader to make commemorating and decorating the graves of the Fathers an annual event. Milks argued that there were “many problems” with the proposal, including a lack of public interest. Pointing to recent poorly attended Remembrance Day ceremonies, where “the participants outnumber the viewers,” Milks argued for other forms of citizenship building for Scouts: “It seems to me that our concern should be to develop a ‘feeling’ for Canada, an interest in our heritage. A visit to the graves would fit into a series of activities which could be used to help develop this interest, such as visits to ‘pioneer’ or historical villages, retracing routes of voyageurs and explorers and visits to museums and other sources of historical records. In such a case it would be of more interest to Scouts than a ‘ceremony’ for which Scouts were recruited. They might be bored with the whole idea of such a ceremony.”58 The emphasis on a more involved, interactive form of learning, one based on gaining a self-directed sense of national history and identity was clearly gaining favour within Scouting’s leadership. In addition to increased emphasis on self-directed learning, there was also a noted emphasis in Milks’s recommendation on using existing institutions like museums and pioneer villages. History education and heritage preservation, then, was to be left to others, preferably the state and other professionals. In light of the debates within the National Council about the general mission of the Scouts and the movement’s ability to impart values of citizenship and service to boys in the mid-1960s, one can see

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that the issue of what role youth were to play in this pedagogical debate was still to be resolved within Scouting’s adult leadership. Conclusion The Centennial preparations exposed the struggle of the Boy Scouts of Canada to reconcile the traditional aims of Scouting – the development of citizenship, loyalty, self-reliance, and the value of service – with what they increasingly saw as the changing interests of youth. Debates within the committees of the National Council in Ottawa focused on shifting the movement’s philosophy of boys’ education from one that saw boys as vessels waiting to be directed and taught – through experiential­ learning – to responding to the modern needs and interests of individual youth by allowing for more initiative from the boys themselves. Scout leaders wrestled with the dilemma of whether a boy could truly be led to understand the meaning of many of the activities Scouting used to teach youth about citizenship and service. Although hundreds of Scouts were given the opportunity to travel to other parts of the country through the Centennial Commission’s Youth Travel Exchange Program, little record exists of the impact these weeks spent in another province had on participants. Scouting leaders, increasingly aware of this, wondered about the usefulness of a program that required so much coordination and energy with little tangible result. The Fathers of Confederation graves project also challenged Scout leaders to reflect on the pedagogical values of adultinspired and -coordinated commemorative ceremonies in which Scouts and Cubs served as actors in ceremonies written by adults. The national identity that these activities sought to build was never challenged by Scouting’s leadership, but their effectiveness was. The federal Centennial Commission had approached the Scouts about repeating their 1927 commemoration activities, seeking to enlist them to perform what even they admitted was a rather dull activity that would not normally interest youth. The commission, seeking to revive what they saw as a useful exercise in 1927, assumed the Scouts would enthusiastically take up the cause. Scouting’s leaders, however, had changed in outlook since 1927. They reacted both as nationalists and as concerned youth educators. On the one hand, they were critical of the government for its failure to adequately protect these historic sites or promote the commemorative ceremonies, while on the other, some Scout leaders, concerned with the interest levels of their boys, even questioned the relevancy of such activity to Canadian youth. Their

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concerns did not match the Centennial Commission’s assumptions about what Scouting could do. Even in the context of Scouts’ participation in the Youth Travel Exchange Program, government and commission officials separated traditional adult-led youth associations like the Scouts from what they increasingly identified as the future of the youth movement – associations directed and formed by youth themselves. Scouting’s leadership was aware of these changes, and some Scout leaders’ initial reluctance to revive projects like the Jubilee-inspired gravesites’ project later turned to general frustration with the government for failing to provide support for their endeavours when there were other pressing issues at hand (like a noted decline in membership at the senior levels). The government sought to enlist youth movements like the Scouts in its nation-building activities; however, one cannot assume that the goals of the leaders of youth movements matched those of the state. If the Centennial theme for Scouts was “Fit for Citizenship,” exactly how that sense of citizenship could best be imparted to Cubs and Scouts through commemoration and Centennial celebrations was clearly up for debate. NOTES 1 The list of Fathers of Confederation also included all those who had attended either the Charlottetown, Quebec City, or London conferences. John A. Macdonald’s Secretary Hewitt Bernard, who acted as the recording secretary at the Charlottetown Conference of 1864, was also included. It had grown from 35 to 37 to include the two representatives from Newfoundland who had attended the Charlottetown Conference. 2 “The Ceremony of Decorating the Graves of the Fathers of Confederation: A Joint Centennial Project of the Boy Scouts of Canada and the Centennial Commission,” 1 July 1967, Library and Archives Canada (LAC), MG 28 I73, Boy Scouts of Canada, vol. 34, Centennial Celebrations, 1967. 3 Pierre Berton coined this term to describe the Canadian nationalist fervour of 1967. Pierre Berton, 1967: The Last Good Year (Toronto: Doubleday, 1997). 4 See, e.g., Carol Payne, “A Land of Youth: Nationhood and the Image of the Child in the National Film Board of Canada’s Still Photography Division,” in Loren Lerner, ed., Depicting Canada’s Children (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2009), 85–107; Neil Sutherland, Children in English-­Canadian Society: Framing the 20th-Century Consensus (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2000); Cynthia Comacchio, The Dominion of Youth: Adolescence and the

308  James Trepanier Making of Modern Canada (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006); Mary Louise Adams, The Trouble with Normal: Postwar Youth and the Making of Heterosexuality (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997); Dominique Marshall, translated by Nicola Doone Danby, The Social Origins of the Welfare State: Quebec Families, Compulsory Education, and Family Allowances, 1940–1955 (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006). For a transnational treatment of the national child, see Karen Dubinsky, Babies without Borders: Adoption and Migration across the Americas (New York: New York University Press, 2010); Tarah Brookfield, Cold War Comforts: Canadian Women, Child Safety, and Global Insecurity (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2012). 5 Comacchio, Dominion of Youth, 214. 6 Louise Bienvenue, Quand la jeunesse entre en scène: L’Action catholique avant la Révolution tranquille (Montreal: Boréal, 2003); Kristine Alexander, “The Girl Guide Movement and Imperial Internationalism in the 1920s and 1930s,” Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 2, 1 (2009): 37–63; Mary Jane McCallum, “To Make Good Canadians: Girl Guiding in Indian Residential Schools” (master’s thesis, Trent University, 2002); Patricia Dirks, “Canada’s Boys – An Imperial or National Asset? Responses to Baden-Powell’s Boy Scout Movement in Pre-War Canada,” in Phillip Buckner and R. Douglas Francis, eds., Canada and the British World: Culture, Migration, and Identity (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006), 111–28; Mark Moss, Manliness and Militarism: Educating Young Boys in Ontario for War (Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press, 2001); Robert H. MacDonald, Sons of the Empire: The Frontier and the Boy Scout Movement, 1890–1918 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993); Christopher J. Greig, Ontario Boys: Masculinity and the Idea of Boyhood in Postwar Ontario, 1945–1960 (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2014). 7 For more on the gendered discourses of citizenship and masculinity in Canada after the Second World War, see Christopher Dummitt, The Manly Modern: Masculinity in Postwar Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007); Greig, Ontario Boys. 8 Ibid., x. 9 Ibid., 9–16. For more on postwar social and cultural life and concerns over children, families, and social stability, see Joy Parr, Domestic Goods: The Material, the Moral, and the Economic in the Postwar Years (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999); Adams, The Trouble with Normal; Doug Owram, Born at the Right Time: A History of the Baby-Boom Generation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996); Reginald Whitaker and Gary Marcuse, Cold War Canada: The Making of a National Insecurity State, 1945–1967 (Toronto: U ­ niversity of Toronto Press, 1994); Mona Gleason, Normalizing the Ideal: Psychology, Schooling and the Family in Postwar Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999).

Scouting and the Centennial Celebrations of 1967   309 1 0 Greig, Ontario Boys, x–xi. 11 Dummitt, The Manly Modern, 30. 12 Key works include H.V. Nelles, The Art of Nation-Building: Pageantry and Spectacle at Quebec’s Tercentenary (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999); Ronald Rudin, Founding Fathers: The Celebration of Champlain and Laval in the Streets of Quebec, 1878–1908 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003); Colin M. Coates and Cecilia Morgan, Heroines and History: Representations of Madeleine de Verchères and Laura Secord (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002); Norman Knowles, Inventing the Loyalists: The Ontario Loyalist Tradition and the Creation of Usable Pasts (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997); Patrice Groulx, Pièges de la mémoire: Dollard des Ormeaux, les Amérindiens et nous (Hull: Vents d’Ouest, 1998); Jane Nicholas, “Gendering the Jubilee: Gender and Modernity in the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation, 1927,” Canadian Historical Review 90, 2 (2009): 247–74. 13 One significant exception is Robert Stamp, “Empire Day in the Schools of Ontario: The Training of Young Imperialists,” Journal of Canadian Studies 8, 3 (1973): 32–42. 14 Simon Sleight, “‘For the Sake of Effect’: Youth on Display and the Politics of Performance,” History Australia 6, 3 (2009): 71.1–71.22; Donna T. Haverty-Stacke, “‘Boys Are the Backbone of Our Nation’: The Cultural Politics of Youth Parades in Urban America,” Prospects 29 (2005): 563–94. 15 Nelles, The Art of Nation-Building, 229; John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 13–14. 16 L.B. Kuffert, A Great Duty: Canadian Responses to Modern Life and Mass Culture, 1939–1967 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003), 217–20, 226–9. 17 Ibid., 229–32. 18 Minutes, Scout Expo 67 Committee, 4 Oct. 1967, LAC, MG28, I73, vol. 36, file 2: Expo ’67. 19 See Gary R. Miedema, For Canada’s Sake: Public Religion, Centennial Celebrations, and the Re-making of Canada in the 1960s (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005); Myra Rutherdale and Jim Miller, “‘It’s Our Country’: First Nations’ Participation in the Indian Pavilion at Expo 67,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 17, 2 (2006): 148–73; Misao Dean, “The Centennial Voyageur Canoe Pageant as Historical Re-enactment,” Journal of Canadian Studies 40, 3 (2006): 43–67; PearlAnn Reichwein, “Expedition Yukon 1967: Centennial and the Politics of Mountaineering in Kluane,” Canadian Historical Review 92, 3 (2011): 481–514; Helen Davies, “The Politics of Participation: A Study of Canada’s C ­ entennial

310  James Trepanier ­ elebration” (PhD dissertation, University of Manitoba, 1999); Kevin BrushC ett, “Making Shit Disturbers: The Selection and Training of the Company of Young Canadians Volunteers, 1965–1970,” in M. Athena Palaeologu, ed., The Sixties in Canada: A Turbulent and Creative Decade (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2009), 246–69; Ryan Edwardson, Canadian Content: Culture and the Quest for Nationhood (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008). 20 Pierre Savard, “Affrontement de nationalismes aux origines du scoutisme canadien-français,” Mémoires de la Société Royale du Canada 17 (1979): 41–56; James Trepanier, “Building Boys, Building Canada: The Boy Scout Movement in Canada, 1908–1970” (PhD dissertation, York University, Toronto, 2015), 123–63. 21 La Fédération had little to no involvement in Centennial planning, although they were partners with the Boy Scouts of Canada at Expo. 22 Owram, Born at the Right Time, 101–3. 23 Figure cited from John Meisel and Vincent Lemieux, Ethnic Relations in Canadian Voluntary Associations, 30 (Ottawa: Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism – Documents, no. 13, 1972). Meisel and Lemieux also studied a variety of other “national” associations in Canada, including university students’ associations, medical associations, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Federation of Mayors and Municipalities, and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. Although Owram’s own calculation is much lower (8% in 1967), his figure is based on a tally of only boys of Scouting age, as opposed to the full range of Scouting’s age cohorts. Owram, Born at the Right Time, 103. 24 Canadian Scouting Commission on Planning for the 1967 Centennial Celebrations, n.d., LAC, MG28, I73, vol. 31, Centennial Celebrations, 1960. 25 Ibid. Judging by correspondence on this issue, it does not appear that the idea of exchanges with Central and South American Scouts persisted as a goal for the National Council beyond this initial suggestion. 26 J.L. MacGregor to all N.H.Q. Staff, Memo – Re: Centennial Celebration, 22 Mar. 1965, LAC, MG28, I73, vol. 32, Centennial Celebrations, 1965. Original emphasis. 27 Ibid. 28 Boy Scouts of Canada, Policy, Organization and Rules (Ottawa: Author, National Council, 1964). 29 Cited in Meisel and Lemieux, Ethnic Relations, 45. 30 Meisel and Lemieux note that this revision was not adopted until the 1970s. Ibid., 343. 31 Peter H. Aykroyd, The Anniversary Compulsion: Canada’s Centennial Celebration, a Model Mega-Anniversary (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1992), 44–60, 197.

Scouting and the Centennial Celebrations of 1967   311 For more on the creation of the Commission, see Miedema, Celebrating Canada, 68–71. 32 Aykroyd, The Anniversary Compulsion, 143–6; Davies, “The Politics of Participation,” 75. 33 “An Address by the Hon. John R. Nicholson, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, to the Conference on Youth Travel and Exchange Programmes in the Voluntary Sector,” Ottawa, 17 Nov. 1965, LAC, MG28, I73, vol. 32, Centennial Celebrations, 1965. 34 Cupido develops the concept of technological nationalism in “The Medium, The Message, and the Modern: The Jubilee Broadcast of 1927,” International Journal of Canadian Studies 26 (2002): 101–23. See also Maurice Charland, “Technological Nationalism,” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 10, 1–2 (1986): 196–220; Matthew Hayday, “Variety Show as National Identity: CBC Television and Dominion Day Celebrations, 1958–1980,” in Gene Allen and Daniel J. Robinson, eds., Communicating in Canada’s Past: Essays in Media History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 168–93. 35 “An Address by the Hon. John R. Nicholson …,” 17 Nov. 1965. 36 “Guidelines to Councils on the 1965 Travel and Exchange Program,” LAC, MG28, I73, vol. 32, Centennial Celebrations, 1965. 37 Compiled from correspondence on the planning of the exchange throughout 1965–67. There is little in the record to indicate who these boys were, or how representative of the wider Canadian population they might have been. 38 “Nova Scotia Centennial Travel and Exchange Report,” 1967, and Quebec HQ to National HQ, 3 Jan. 1968, LAC, MG28, I73, vol. 34, Centennial Celebrations, 1968. 39 See Robert Cupido, “Appropriating the Past: Pageants, Politics and the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association (1998): 155–7, and his chapter in this volume. 40 J.W. Robertson to C.G. Cowan, 6 May 1927, LAC, RG 6, D3, Diamond Jubilee Corporation, vol. 447, file 17. For more on the planning for gravesite ceremonies, see Yves Y. Pelletier, “The Old Chieftain’s New Image: Shaping the Public Memory of Sir John A. Macdonald in Ontario and Quebec, 1891–1967” (PhD dissertation, Queen’s University, 2010), 137–41. 41 “Procedure for the Ceremony for the Decoration of the Graves of the Fathers of Confederation, 1927,” LAC, MG28, I73, vol. 31, Centennial Celebrations, “Diamond Jubilee of Confederation.” The booklet has four pages, which includes the delineation of the ceremony as well as the words to “O Canada” and “God Save the King.”

312  James Trepanier 4 2 Ibid.; The Scout Leader 5, 1 (1927): 3. 43 Unsigned internal memo, 19 Jan. 1964, LAC, MG28, I73, vol. 31, Centennial Celebrations, 1964. 44 André LeBlanc, Project Officer, Historical Projects Division, Centennial Commission, to John MacGregor, Director of Programme Services, Boy Scouts of Canada, 3 July 1964, ibid. 45 “Address by the Commissioner, Mr John Fisher, to the 51st National Meeting, National Council Boy Scouts of Canada,” 7 May 1965, ibid., vol. 32, Centennial Celebrations, 1965. 46 Ibid. 47 “Decoration of the Graves of the Fathers of Confederation,” Bulletin 2, May 1966, ibid., Centennial Celebrations, 1966. 48 Ontario Provincial Council to Evans, 20 Dec. 1966, and Nova Scotia Provincial Executive to National Headquarters, 13 July 1966, ibid. 49 Evans to Ontario Provincial Council, 28 Dec. 1966, ibid. 50 “The Ceremony of Decorating the Graves of the Fathers of Confederation: A Joint Centennial Project of the Boy Scouts of Canada and the Centennial Commission,” 1 July, 1967. The Scouts had received little notice of this change, at least through what is available in their own archives. 51 Ibid. 52 For a collection of newspaper clippings about the graves of the Fathers of Confederation from 1967, see LAC, MG28, I73, vol. 34, Centennial Celebrations – Fathers of Confederation Graves Project. 53 “Report on the Ceremonies held at the gravesites of the Fathers of Confederation – Greater Toronto Region, n.d., and Ontario HQ to National HQ, 25 July 1967, LAC, MG28, I73, vol. 34, Centennial Celebrations, 1967. A “Scouter” is an adult Scout troop leader. 54 Matthew Hayday, “Canada’s Day: Inventing a Tradition, Defining a Culture,” in Matthew Hayday and Raymond B. Blake, eds., Celebrating Canada, vol. 1, Holidays, National Days, and the Crafting of Identities (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016), 286–90. 55 Evans to Public Archives of Canada, 15 May 1970, LAC, MG28, I73, vol. 34, Centennial Celebrations, 1970, 1975–76, 1978. 56 John J. Nichol to Evans, 22 June 1970, ibid. 57 Evans to Nichol, 30 June 1970, ibid. 58 Internal Memo: Bob Milks, Director of Public Relations, to J.P. Ross, 13 Apr. 1978, ibid.

11  A Continental Centennial: Situating Expo 67 within the Canadian-American Relationship robyn e. s ch warz

Canada and the United States are often described as having a unique relationship. They share the world’s longest undefended border, rely on one another for trade and security, and have similar cultures and values. Yet, within Canada, there has always been a sense that the United States poses a threat to its national identity and cultural sovereignty. Canadian intellectuals, as early as 1891 with Goldwin Smith’s Canada and the Canadian Question, worried about the Canadian-American relationship. Imperialists and French-Canadian nationalists in the first part of the twentieth century felt threatened by American mass culture.1 They believed a stronger connection with the United States would erode Canada’s traditional values. Canadian intellectuals continued to express these fears during the interwar years, believing that American consumerism threatened Canada’s cultural development and would impair critical thinking in Canadian society.2 After the Second World War, intellectual elites parlayed these fears into policy through state intervention in Canadian culture. Among the better known of these interventions was the Royal Commission on the National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences, chaired by Vincent Massey. Louis St Laurent’s government ordered the Massey Commission in 1949 to investigate the state of arts and culture in Canada. A nationalist ideology that wanted to affirm Canada’s distinctiveness from the United States drove the commission to support alternatives to mass culture.3 The success of George Grant’s Lament for a Nation (1965) demonstrates the endurance of the lingering concerns about American influence in the 1960s. Grant saw the defeat of John Diefenbaker’s government in 1963 as the end of traditional Canadian values and the triumph of American influence in Canada. Questions of Canadian

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nationalism were intricately linked to Canada’s relationship with the United States. Historians traditionally have used political and economic approaches to understand how the Canadian-American relationship evolved in the twentieth century. Scholars such as J.L. Granatstein, Robert Bothwell, Stephen Azzi, and Norman Hillmer, among many, point to the unevenness of the relationship between the two countries within analyses of Canada’s broader foreign policy.4 In For Better or For Worse: Canadian and the United States into the Twenty-First Century, Hillmer and Granatstein argue that continued tension between conflict and cooperation marked the Canadian-American relationship throughout the twentieth century.5 Similarly, John Herd Thompson and Stephen J. Randall’s Canada and the United States: Ambivalent Allies argues that the CanadaUS relationship can best be understood within the context of America’s role in the world, even as the two countries fostered a bilateral relationship after the First World War based on shared economic interests and international goals.6 Both of these surveys focused on how the two countries interacted through a variety of institutions, while highlighting the disparity in power that existed between the two. More recently, historians have turned to cultural approaches to understand the Canadian-American relationship. Rather than focusing on institutional interactions between the two countries, DamienClaude Bélanger’s Prejudice and Pride examines Canadian intellectuals writing about the United States in the first part of the twentieth century to show that American and Canadian elites held different understandings of modernity. Belanger’s approach is particularly important because his analysis integrates French-Canadian understandings of the Canadian-American relationship, an aspect that is missing in many earlier accounts of that relationship.7 Similarly, L.B. Kuffert’s A Great Duty: Canadian Responses to Modern Life and Mass Culture, 1939–1967 weaves the historiography of the Canadian-American relationship into his discussion of Canadian culture in the period after the Second World War.8 Ryan Edwardson, who examines how the Canadian government’s relationship with culture changed from the 1920s until the end of the 1980s in his Canadian Content: Culture and the Quest for Nationhood, suggests that the process of “Canadianization” was driven by a desire to distinguish Canada from the United States.9 Regardless of approach, historians of the Canadian-American relationship collectively demonstrate that American mass culture preoccupied Canada throughout the twentieth century. They show how

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the Canadian-American relationship has been marked by tensions around specific events, and how it was reflected in concerns over the development of Canadian nationalism. Canada feared the behemoth that was the United States, but Americans rarely considered Canada and its interests. The literature shows that the United States thought little about Canada, even if Canadian intellectuals worried constantly that the United States posed a threat to Canada’s cultural existence. The scholarship to date focuses primarily on Canadian responses to the United States and rarely the other way around. Seymour Martin Lipset’s Continental Divide: The Values and Institutions of the United States and Canada remains one of a few works by American scholars to address the question of Canadian nationalism.10 There has been little consideration of how the United States projected its identity to Canada, but that is the subject of this chapter. Expo 67, the international exhibition that took place in Montreal during Canada’s Centennial year, offers a unique opportunity to explore how Canada and the United States interacted with each other in a cultural context. The few historians who have turned their attention to how the United States prepared its pavilion at Expo 67 clearly place it within the context of the Cold War. Rebecca Dalvesco views the US pavilion as a product of, and a distraction from, the American War in Vietnam.11 John Lownsbrough’s The Best Place to Be: Expo 67 and Its Time adopts a similar framework and interprets the American and Soviet pavilions as presenting two competing depictions of the space age. The Soviet pavilion was “all business and heavy on the technological prowess,” while the United States offered “a more playful attitude.”12 Lownsbrough’s analysis stresses the influence of cultural competition between these two superpowers in shaping the US pavilion’s exhibits. When he turns to President Lyndon Johnson’s short visit to Expo 67, Lownsbrough places the exchange squarely within the existing political interpretation of the Canadian-American relationship.13 By focusing on the interaction at the fair between heads of state, Lownsbrough ignores how the two countries mutually projected their respective national identities to each other through Expo 67. By contributing an exhibit to Expo, the United States actively participated in Canada’s Centennial celebration. The fair’s location in Canada actively influenced the exhibits that American planners chose for their pavilion. Examining the US pavilion at Expo as a facet of the dynamics of the Canadian-American relationship demonstrates that the United States Information Agency planners saw the exhibition as Canadian

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rather than as an international one. The United States constructed an exhibit that played into Expo 67’s “Man and His World” theme, and avoided any overtly patriotic propaganda. It projected its identity to appeal to Canadian visitors and to share in the exhibition’s playful atmosphere. Similarly, when Canada advertised Expo 67 in the United States, it emphasized the importance of the exhibition as an exercise in projecting Canadian identity rather than promoting the international exhibition itself. Canadian advertisements presented American visitors with a modern, creative country, while the United States sought to participate in Canada’s Centennial without being overtly nationalistic. Expo 67 allowed the two neighbours to try to challenge and change their perceived understandings of one another. Nationalism versus Universalism: The Themes of the 1967 World Exhibition The United States, along with Great Britain, was among the first countries that the Canadian Corporation for the 1967 World Exhibition invited to contribute to Expo 67. Americans participated in Expo 67 as both presenters and visitors.14 Of the fifty million people who came to Montreal during this six-month celebration, approximately 45 per cent were Americans.15 Visitors flocked to the US pavilion, a geodesic dome designed by R. Buckminster Fuller, and it became one of the most popular pavilions at the exhibition. The pavilion received mixed reviews, however, from the American press. The Pittsburgh Press complained that the American exhibit drew “more controversy and criticism than any other” at the fair.16 The US pavilion’s exhibits, which included spaceships, movie stars, and children’s games, showed a softer side of American culture.17 Why would the United States, which consistently projected its identity as strong and powerful throughout the Cold War era, represent itself in this way? International exhibitions have traditionally been sites where politics and culture combined. For most of the nineteenth century, fairs functioned as sites of imperialism. Beginning with London’s 1851 Great Exhibition, world’s fairs have allowed different countries to display their latest technology and products in a single location. Victorianera exhibitions functioned as imperial identity-building exercises, and imperialists used exhibitions to “naturalize” the empire for the British public and the global community.18 Imperialists attempted to convey at exhibitions the importance of the imperial project to the public by displaying goods and people from all parts of the British Empire.

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11.1  United States of America Pavilion and view of the monorail at Expo 67. From Department of Public Relations, Expo 67, R869239E, DAPDCAP571417.

International exhibitions, therefore, became incredibly nationalistic. World’s fair historian Robert Rydell argues that exhibitions at the turn of the twentieth century affirmed national identities by allowing countries to present narratives of national progress compared to the rest of the world.19 Hosting an exhibition also functioned as an exercise that allowed cities to be recognized internationally. International exhibitions after the First World War emphasized modernity. American exhibitions in the interwar years leading to the 1939 New York World’s Fair presented futuristic displays and the very

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best of American technology and culture. They were designed to come to terms with American modernity, and created spaces that represented a utopian vision of what the future would be.20 After 1945, international exhibitions became sites of cultural exchange and reflected the culture of the Cold War. Although they no longer acted as exercises of imperialism, they continued to be nationalistic in nature. The 1958 Brussels Exposition, for instance, featured American and Soviet pavilions that sought to propagandize their rival political systems.21 When in 1962 the Bureau of International Expositions granted Canada the right to host Expo 67, the imperialist themes that dominated international exhibitions for the first part of the twentieth century had dissipated, but Brussels demonstrated that countries like the United States and the Soviet Union still utilized international exhibitions for their own political aims. Canadian planners needed to update the world fair narrative to reflect postwar realities. Expo 67, although not under the authority of the federal Centennial Commission, was nevertheless one of the most significant parts of Canada’s Centennial celebrations in 1967, taking place in Montreal from 27 April until 29 October. Awarded to Canada after the Soviet Union withdrew its initial bid, Expo 67 gave Canadians access to world class entertainment and allowed Canada to showcase itself to the world. Throughout the exposition planning process, the Canadian Corporation for the 1967 World Exhibition (CCWE) focused on making Expo a premier international showcase. Expo 67’s connection with the Centennial also made it an important event for showcasing Canadian identity and for other nations to present themselves to Canada. The CCWE sought to design Expo 67 so that it fit into and reflected the broader legacy of international exhibitions. It selected Expo 67’s theme to capture the universality of the human experience. In doing so, Canadian planners consciously understood what they viewed as both the positives and negatives of the legacies of past world’s fairs. They drew inspiration from past exhibitions that highlighted humankind’s achievements, but sought to downplay the nationalism associated with earlier exhibitions. The CCWE’s board of directors solicited input from elite members of Canadian society in order to come up with and implement a theme that could fit with these goals. Early in the Expo 67 planning process, a conference at the Seigniory Club in Montebello, Quebec, developed the “Terre des Hommes,” or “Man and his World,” theme over three days of meetings from Tuesday, 21 May to Saturday, 25 May 1963 . Among those invited to the conference were intellectuals such as

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Dr Claude T. Bissell, president of the University of Toronto; businessmen, including Wilfred N. Hall, president of Dominion Tar and Chemical Co; prominent members of the City of Montreal, such as Claude Robillard, Montreal’s urban planner, and author Gabrielle Roy.22 The CCWE invited both French- and English-speaking Canadians. The group drew Expo 67’s theme from the Antoine de Saint-­Exupéry book Terre des Hommes,” which Gabrielle Roy described as a novel that forces one to ponder on the need for human solidarity and the ultimate interconnectivity of the human experience on earth.23 The Montebello Conference attendees created a series of thematic documents, and subsequently gave them to the CCWE’s board of directors as a guide. The documents stated that the entire exhibition should reflect “the primacy given to human values and aspirations in the theme ‘Terre des Hommes.’”24 The conference attendees intended the theme to be neutral and inclusive; by selecting a phrase that referred to mankind, rather than nationhood or individuals, the Montebello Conference participants wanted to ensure that all nations participated as equals in Expo 67.25 The Montebello Conference attendees also provided specific directions to Expo planners for implementing the “Man and His World” theme in Expo 67’s exhibits. Thematic pavilions would be one of the major ways to develop ideas within the “Man and His World” concept. Expo 67 became the first international exhibition to have a number of pavilions specifically devoted to highlighting its theme, with collaborative contributions from multiple participating countries.26 This area in the exposition would feature exhibits highlighting humanity’s relationship with earth and space titled Man the Explorer, sculptures and paintings to communicate Man the Creator, different resources to show Man the Producer, an area demonstrating the evolution of human society through the ages titled Man in the Community, a medical area titled Man and his Health, and finally, an area to illustrate man’s self-­ sufficiency titled Man the Provider.27 Elements of the theme would also be incorporated into national pavilions, with Canada leading the way as the host nation.28 “Man and His World” was to encompass all parts of the Expo 67 experience for visitors. “Man and His World” can be seen in many ways to be a universal theme, befitting an international exhibition. In reporting on the Montebello Conference on 7 June 1963, CCWE board member Lucien Piché told the board of directors that the idea of “Man and His World” was created to “do away with the usual scheme of World Exhibitions by attempting to persuade countries to participate in a more extensive

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manner to a decentralization of their national characteristics and by soliciting their participation in the main pavilions.”29 The idea that the Montreal exhibition could move past the overt nationalism that had been a central part of past world’s fairs set Expo 67 on a different path. The CCWE sought to make decisions and have other countries participate in the exhibition without being nationalistic. Expo 67’s theme made no direct reference to Canada’s Centennial or Canadian nationalism. The development of such universalism, however, was unquestionably tied to the exhibition’s location in Canada. The desire of the Canadian Corporation for the 1967 World Exhibition to be inclusive and to counter overt nationalism can be seen as an extension of a particular version of Canadian values. Robert Wright suggests, in Virtual Sovereignty, that Canadians are ambivalently nationalistic. He argues that Canadians share a passion about their country, but are wary of displaying overt patriotism.30 The “Man and His World” theme constructed Canada as unnationalistic and inclusive, and it also minimized the commercial aspects of the exposition. The CCWE board also discussed having an area for “economically weak countries” at Expo 67, as they could not afford their own pavilions but should also a part of the exhibition theme. The CCWE eventually facilitated the participation of these countries by constructing a pavilion for their collective exhibits.31 This area became known as Africa Place, which hosted fifteen different countries that had recently gained independence from colonial rule. Any nation could participate in Expo 67, regardless of economic status, and all were urged to do so. These principles contrasted with the commercialism that the United States promoted at the 1964–65 New York World’s Fair.32 Canada’s Expo planners separated the exhibition from the influence of the United States in developing its theme, while still understanding that the United States would be involved as both a participant and spectator. The CCWE board officially adopted the “Man and His World” theme on 14 June 1963.33 Advertising Expo 67 to Americans Despite having clear directions for the implementation of Expo 67’s universalist theme, advertising to the United States pitched the international exhibition as distinctly Canadian and as an integral part of Canada’s Centennial celebrations. The Centennial Commission of Canada and the Canadian Corporation for the 1967 World Exhibition both advertised Expo 67 in the United States.34 This collaboration highlights

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the transformation that Expo 67’s narrative underwent between its design and implementation phase and its six-month showcase. The “Man and His World” theme remained central to Expo 67’s overall narrative, but through its advertising Expo inserted a broader projection of Canada’s Centennial identity into the event. The CCWE’s board of directors began discussing advertising to foreign participants as early as July 1963, when it decided that a sketch of the site would be sent to participating countries and distributed throughout Canada.35 Publicity in the United States increased as Expo 67 grew closer. The New York Post’s Canadian representative, Arthur B. Carveth, wrote to the Expo planners on 17 August 1966 to discuss advertising in the months leading up to the exhibition. He stated that the Post regarded Expo and the Canadian Centennial as “the biggest travel story of the year ahead.”36 The CCWE and the Centennial Commission of Canada collaborated to target Americans with a specific image of Canada and of Expo 67, through which the public in the United States would make their final judgment on Canada’s exhibition. The CCWE and the Canadian Government Travel Bureau jointly placed a special magazine advertising section in Reader’s Digest in November 1966. Written by American journalist James H. Winchester and titled “Why We’re Going to Canada in 67,” the spread highlighted Expo’s relationship with Canada’s Centennial celebration. It was the largest advertisement ever placed by Canada in the American version of the split-run magazine.37 Winchester wrote that he could easily “get enthusiastic about Canada” because of its size and “grandeur.” Specifically targeting misconceptions about Canada to entice the American traveller to make the trip north in 1967, Winchester pointed out that Canada has a lot to offer because its heritage is unique and different from that of the United States. He described the country as having a “special Canadian flavor.” The advertisement showcased Canada’s varied history and provinces, as well as its affordable prices for American vacationers. After listing a number of Centennial-related events by region, the article featured a four-page piece on Expo 67, underlining the various activities Americans could take part in if they visited. ­Winchester argued that Canada’s one hundredth birthday should excite Americans because Canadians were bringing in the world to celebrate through Expo 67.38 The Reader’s Digest advertisement also invited American tourists to Canada to escape to a more innocent past by constructing Canada as an anti-modern antithesis to the United States. Winchester compared parts

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of Canada to “rural France or highland Scotland.” Constructing Canada as an alternative to modernity was not unique to these advertisements, of course. Ian McKay, for instance, develops the construction of Canadian identity as a romanticized substitute to urban life in The Quest for the Folk: Anti-Modernism and Cultural Selection in Twentieth-Century Nova Scotia. McKay contends cultural figures like Helen Creighton imagined Nova Scotia as an alternative to modern life through the development of the idea of “the Folk” in the early part of the twentieth century.39 Creighton and other cultural producers in Nova Scotia constructed “the Folk” as the “romantic antithesis to everything they disliked about modern urban and industrial life.”40 Although McKay’s argument centres on the Maritimes, the imposition of an anti-modern cultural identity can also be seen in the way that the CCWE and the Centennial Commission depicted Canada in their advertisements to American tourists. The Reader’s Digest advertisements’ simplified vision of Canada and its history makes it seem approachable, yet different from the United States. Americans would be able to visit Canada, escape, and take part in a romanticized version of North America. The advertisement constructs a traditional, almost pastoral vision of Canada for its readers at a time when the country was changing profoundly and becoming more multicultural. Canada was becoming more multicultural in terms of its population, but this was not yet fully depicted in the government’s portrayal of the country and its identity. Moreover, Expo 67’s location in Montreal would contradict any constructed identity of Canada as antimodern, once Americans arrived to take in the festivities. Winchester’s Reader’s Digest advertisement, therefore, constructed Expo 67 as distinctly Canadian to the American audience. The exhibition acted as the jewel of Canada’s Centennial celebration, and most other Centennial events taking place all over the country were simply listed as companionships to the main event. Americans across the country could take part in regionally accessible activities, but none of them were given the same attention as Expo 67. The ad also stressed the idea that Expo 67 was the first universal category exhibition in North America, describing it as “more than just a fair.” Expo 67 would include a “whole world of wonderful things” in honour of Canada’s hundredth birthday.41 To the American visitor, Expo 67 represented both an element of Canada’s Centennial and an opportunity to take in a worldclass exhibition. Although the planners’ originally intended not to stress the fact that Expo was happening in Canada’s Centennial year, and therefore had a connection to Canadian nationalism and its political

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history, advertisements aimed at the American audience did precisely that. Promotion of Expo also occurred on the Today Show several times during July 1967, further reflecting the effort put into advertising in the United States by the Canadian publicity team.42 Americans would view Expo 67 as more of a Canadian than an international event because of these advertisements. Given the advertising directed at American visitors, how did the reality of Expo live up to the expectations of those who came in 1967? Once they reached Montreal, the Canada that greeted Americans both affirmed and contradicted the identity that was portrayed in the advertising. Nicole Neatby has shown that American travellers who visited Quebec prior to the 1960s anticipated being greeted by a traditional society because of the province’s Catholic traditions and French culture.43 Once they arrived in Quebec, however, Americans saw what they wanted to see and their expectations, rather than reality, shaped their reactions.44 Canadian advertising certainly influenced the expectations of many Americans visiting Expo 67. They saw Expo 67 as a wonder to behold, but reporters like Ada Louise Huxtable, writing for the New York Times, used language that evoked a romanticized past. She described the Expo site as two islands at “a point in the St Lawrence River laced with canals and pools,” which would give way to “a potential fairyland when those cold Canadian air masses [stopped] massing, the last snow melts on the riverbanks, and the pinched, frozen flowers bloom.” The report painted a picture of the fairgrounds as something out of a storybook. Huxtable also praised Expo 67’s “substance and style,” but through her language she clearly reinforced the idea of Canada as an alternative to the United States.45 Once American visitors arrived at the exhibition, it became clear that Expo 67 warranted its description as the highlight of Canada’s Centennial year. Chicago Tribune writer Kermit Holt praised the Canadian pavilions in particular for their “creativity” in telling the story of all aspects of Canadian life, and he encouraged visitors to spend an entire morning in the Canada section on Île Notre-Dame because it “[bubbled] with youth and gayety.”46 Other descriptions of Expo 67 by American visitors affirmed the idea that the fair celebrated the best of Canadian life. At the end of October, when the Washington Post looked back on Expo 67’s six-month run, journalist Marquis Childs called the “birthday party” a “glorious success,” one that was truly international in scale with a high level of excellence in its execution.47 Expo 67 showed American visitors that Canadians were creative and youthful, challenging the idea that Canada, and Quebec in particular, was anti-modern.

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Expo 67 changed Montreal and helped it challenge the anti-modern construction of Canada present in the advertising for the Centennial. Expo 67’s host city impressed American visitors with its modern, world-class facilities. Unlike the 1964–65 New York World’s Fair before it, Expo 67 lived up to expectations as the American press reported that they encountered a new, vibrant Montreal. During the Prohibition era, the city had a reputation as a base for gangsters.48 In the 1940s and 1950s, corruption plagued Montreal’s city council, and it became known for its tolerance of illegal activities.49 Expo 67 transformed Montreal, both physically through the addition of new streets, hotels, the building of Expo’s site in the centre of the St Lawrence River, and the subway, as well as in spirit through the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the exhibition. Reporting for the Chicago Tribune, Richard Joseph stated that his son, who had been raised in New York, was more impressed with the city of Montreal than with Expo 67. He commented that Montreal’s new subway acted as a “marvel of functional art” and that the city would soon surpass other world cities with its excellence.50 Los Angeles Times reporter Cecil Smith wrote that Montreal “[glowed] with pride” because of the changes that the fair inspired. The exhibition site, widened streets, and new freeways and bridges gave Montreal a much-needed makeover.51 Anti-modern advertising might have attracted visitors to Canada, but once Americans arrived at Expo 67 they encountered a youthful, cosmopolitan, and technologically progressive Canada. Canadian advertisers lured Americans with promises of a romanticized “Old World,” but the exhibition showed them the best of new technology and infrastructure. Expo 67 challenged any traditional expectations that American visitors had before coming to Canada. The US Pavilion: Projecting Creative (Kinder) America Americans did not attend Expo 67 only as visitors. The US pavilion at Expo 67 and its depiction of American identity was also influenced by the specific parameters that Canada laid out during its Centennial year. The US pavilion exhibits further demonstrate the influence of Expo 67’s location in Canada on how countries presented their national identities at the exhibition. The importance of the Canadian-American relationship influenced the United States Information Agency, which planned and executed the US pavilion, when it constructed America’s national narrative for Expo. The American government created the USIA to tell “America’s story to the world.”52 After 1945, the US government

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decided that it needed to maintain its wartime propaganda apparatus to assist in the implementation of its postwar foreign policy.53 Multiple branches of the US government initially shared this task, until President Dwight Eisenhower formally created the USIA in 1953 to unify and organize American information abroad.54 The USIA became an important cultural part of the American communist containment strategy. Prior to Expo 67, the USIA set up various displays – both small and large – of American culture and technology around the world, so that visitors could experience first-hand America’s cultural superiority to communism. The USIA also functioned to reassure Americans that the United States was working for a better world. By constructing a particular image of American culture, the USIA fought the cultural Cold War both at home and abroad.55 For instance, the USIA assisted the US State Department in planning the 1958 Brussels World Exposition.56 The USIA took complete charge of an American pavilion at an international exhibition for the first time with Expo 67. The USIA planners chose the theme of “Creative America” for the US pavilion at Expo 67. The US ambassador to Canada, W. Walton Butterworth, stated that the United States was going to construct a pavilion worthy of the challenging “Man and His World” theme, and it would be a “symbol of the deep respect” that the United States held for C­anada.57 The USIA planners made all the decisions in regards to the pavilion. They considered several exhibit ideas that would be narrowed into a final presentation, and they worked within the constraints set out by the Canadian planners through the theme of “Man and His World.” The American planners recognized the exhibition was not going to tolerate wholly commercial and nationalistic exhibits.58 The USIA understood that it had to construct its exhibits within the parameters of Expo 67’s narrative. Canadians would be one of the primary audiences for the pavilion, and the USIA did not want to appear out of place at Canada’s celebration. Correspondence between CCWE Director of Exhibitions Pierre de Bellefeuille and USIA Coordinating Officer John Slocum, in December 1964, show that the CCWE sent the Americans suggestions for how to incorporate the theme into their pavilion design. “Creative America,” nonetheless, supported exhibits which would illustrate “notable American accomplishments and breakthroughs in the arts, space, and technology,” thus fulfilling the aims of USIA.59 The USIA settled on “Creative America” early in its planning process and outlined many of the exhibits that would eventually end up in the pavilion in a 1965 progress report. Although there is no specific

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reference to “Man and His World” in these documents, it is clear that the Americans understood the narrative the Canadians were trying to construct. The progress report first described the “Lunar Exhibit,” which included “a visualization of the projected 1970 US Apollo flight” so that guests could see real pieces of the US space experience. The report also outlined the “Fine Arts Exhibit,” which would feature “current trends in American painting.” The USIA would newly commission all works in this area of the pavilion, and they would be displayed for the first time at Expo 67. The “New Technology Exhibit” would include objects chosen to display “technical and innovative excellence,” such as “new computer technology” and “breakthroughs in communications and transportation.” Finally, the “American Heritage Exhibit” would display early inventions, arts and crafts, and equipment.60 All selections suggest that the United States worked to avoid a commercialized and overly nationalistic pavilion; the USIA wanted to highlight America’s industrial innovation by including the best of American technology and culture. The USIA’s third semi-annual progress report, of 31 December 1966, further outlined plans for the American pavilion exhibits. Chief of Design and Operations Jack Masey held most of the responsibility for the exhibit choices. Masey’s involvement with USIA began as it was being conceived in 1951, and he took part in planning a number of other exhibits for the United States such as the 1961–65 US travelling exhibition in the Soviet Union.61 In the report, the USIA defined how each exhibit contributed to the theme “Creative America.”62 The American Heritage exhibit evolved into “the American Spirit,” which the report described as “a series of smaller satellite exhibits each containing outstanding examples of craftsmanship which reflect certain historical and contemporary aspects of America.” It included displays of American Indian adornment, inventions, cowboy outfits, dolls, political campaign memorabilia, and folk art. The other areas of the exhibit also evolved from their initial designs to include four areas in addition to the American Spirit exhibit of objects that represented history and life in the United States – Destination Moon, a collection of pieces from the NASA space program; American Painting Now, “a collection of contemporary paintings depicting new and experimental trends currently in evidence in American painting”; and the American Cinema, an area displaying the best of Hollywood and the film Children’s Games, a threescreen film presentation that showed a variety of games such as “jump rope,” “follow the leader,” and “hide and seek.” Once the USIA decided

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on the exhibit content, they handed the design for the pavilion structure and interior to Buckminster Fuller and his Massachusetts architectural firm, the Cambridge Seven. The pavilion structure captured the modern architecture that other buildings at Expo such as Habitat 67 also evoked. Masey subsequently arranged the actual exhibit pieces, striving to fit the US pavilion within the overall “Man and His World” theme that the CCWE sought to create. The American Spirit exhibit best illustrates the influence of the Canadian-American relationship on the US pavilion. Rather than ­ attempting to create a display that would demonstrate American strength and superiority to the Soviet Union, the USIA assembled objects representative of broader aspects of American culture. In order to decide what would be included in this area of the pavilion, Jack Masey wrote to people and institutions from all across America to ask for their contributions.63 For example, he borrowed from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology the Nunivak Island kayak for the folk art aspect of the American Spirit section. Masey believed that the item had “inherent beauty” as well as being symbolically representative of “early American craftsmanship.”64 Although, for logistical reasons, the kayak did not end up in the US pavilion, the exchange demonstrates the manner in which Masey considered many items for this part of the pavilion exhibits. The objects chosen came from all areas of the United States. For the Cowboy display, they borrowed items from California and Oklahoma. The hats came from all across the country: New York, Washington, DC, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, Georgia, Minnesota, California, and Florida.65 All of these objects would come together to create the American Spirit narrative. The American Spirit exhibit consisted of nine small areas with different kinds of American objects. The official description of the exhibit stated that it included political memorabilia dating from the Lincoln period, Puerto Rican and New Mexico antiques, American Indian jewelry and personal ornaments, a collection of personal decoys, early American dolls, and nine large Folk Art objects, all from museums or private collections.66 The hat exhibit featured hats from the American Red Cross, from the forest industry, from the Boy Scouts of America, and from a number of professional sports teams such as the Atlanta Braves and the Houston Astros. Like the US pavilion as a whole, the hat collection represented a broad range of American occupations and lifestyles. One area contained cowboy hardware, such as spurs and stirrups. The USIA displayed Raggedy Anne dolls, as well as inventions

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from the American home such as sewing machines, mouse traps, and meat grinders.67 American Indian headdresses hung above the exhibit area. This area of the US pavilion clearly sought to give Expo 67’s visitors a broad understanding of the lives of different Americans. It also portrayed the everyday United States to Canadian visitors. Rather than seeking to outdo any sort of Canadian nationalism that might be at play through Canada’s Centennial and Expo 67, constructing a fun American identity through the pavilion allowed the United States to participate in, rather than compete with, Canada’s celebration. The items that Masey did not include among the final exhibits also shed some light on how the Canadian-American relationship influenced the US pavilion at Expo 67. One of the displays that did not make it into the America Spirit exhibit’s final design was a cooperative venture with the National Hockey League. Masey wrote to NHL President Clarence Campbell on 11 April 1966 asking for support to develop a hockey exhibit. The NHL was expanding from six teams to twelve in the 1967–8 season, and Masey thought it would be the perfect opportunity to advertise the change to Expo 67’s audience. Masey asked Campbell for a set of each of the twelve team jerseys to display, and he inquired if they could have the Stanley Cup; he also hoped to honour past members of the NHL All-Star teams. Masey noted that the planners saw hockey to be of interest to both Canadians and Americans and that it exemplified “the spirit of mutual understanding and cooperation between the two countries.”68 USIA believed that Canadians and Americans participated in and enjoyed hockey together. Further to this, Masey’s assistant, Patricia R. Ezell, asked for a number of other items from Campbell on 24 June 1966. By 12 July, however, Masey wrote Campbell to regretfully inform him that he had cancelled the ice hockey exhibit because of the lack of space within the pavilion.69 There would be no hockey exhibit in the US pavilion at Expo 67. The cancellation of the NHL exhibit, which was close to completion at the time that Masey wrote Campbell in July, suggests that the limitation of space was not the motivating factor in USIA’s decision. A better explanation is that the United States was sensitive to Canadian concerns. Americans were certainly aware of the anti-American discourse reverberating throughout Canada in the 1960s and led by Canadian intellectuals such as George Grant, who continually expressed fears that the United States would destroy Canada’s cultural uniqueness. Moreover, Americans would have also understood that hockey consistently occupied a “central position in Canadian culture as [a] national icon.”70

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Having a hockey exhibit in the US pavilion at Canada’s Centennial celebration would likely upset the many Canadians visiting Expo 67. To Canadians, hockey was their national game, and the lack of space excuse provided Masey with a credible explanation for not including hockey in the US pavilion. Even so, such an explanation does not match the reality of the American Spirit exhibit’s final design or how these records appear in USIA archives. Although Masey would have no doubt wanted to do the hockey exhibit the justice it deserved, he could have sacrificed others parts of the exhibit to make room for the NHL. He might have dropped the Raggedy Anne dolls or hats in the US pavilion’s final design, but chose not to. Yet, the correspondence with the NHL stands apart from other records on this section of the pavilion. Masey quickly assembled most of the American Spirit objects, but his letters show he carefully and extensively thought through the hockey exhibit. Not including the hockey exhibit, particularly when it would have undoubtedly increased attendance given Expo’s location, demonstrates that American planners understood that the exhibit could evoke a negative response from Canadian visitors. Canadians might have seen the hockey theme in the US pavilion as usurping Canada’s culture. Cancelling it suggests that the Americans understood Canada’s cultural sensitivities. The response of the American media to the US pavilion at Expo 67 demonstrates that the exhibits failed to live up to the expectations of the American public. Americans did not believe that the pavilion properly celebrated or represented their national identity accurately to the world. The New York Times review of the US pavilion, published on 24 April, captured those sentiments when it questioned the “frivolous and superficial” appearance of American life that the exhibits conveyed. It praised the pavilion’s structure but called into question the exhibits themselves. Although Buckminster Fuller’s dome made the pavilion striking, the article noted, “Creative America” focused too much on American popular culture. The newspaper summarized the various exhibits for its audience, giving the reader a mixed evaluation of the US pavilion, concluding that it emphasized entertainment rather than education.71 Washington Post reporter Wolf Von Eckardt, in contrast, admired the tongue-and-cheek tone of the exhibits. He thanked USIA for not “boring” visitors with “ponderous lessons,” and instead giving a “joyful impression” of life in the United States. Von Eckardt, however, did recognize that many American visitors would not share his opinion. He reported that those who rode the monorail through the pavilion complained that the pop art, the dolls, and the giant blow-up

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of Clark Gable failed to represent real culture.72 Masey defended the USIA’s choices, telling the New York Times that it would be “very sad” if visitors did not like the design because the US pavilion reflected America’s “dynamism and creativity.”73 The New York Times article prompted a number of responses from the American public in the letters to the editor section of the paper. Some enjoyed the display at Expo 67, while others saw the exhibits as lacking depth. Joe Fleischman argued that Americans should be extremely proud of their pavilion, as Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic structure was majestic, like the Eiffel Tower from the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle. He also suggested that the controversial parts of the exhibition, such as the abstract art and the cinema exhibit, fit perfectly with the theme of “Creative America.” Finally, Fleischman stated that the artifacts in the pavilion, such as the flags, political campaign memorabilia, and old ads, were “a testament to the world of our heritage of freedom.”74 He was truly proud of the US pavilion because it was one of the “jewels” of Expo 67. Reader Edward Donohue called the exhibits “light-hearted and fun.”75 Others agreed regarding the pavilion’s superficiality. Elizabeth Horn stated that it was “very beautiful on the outside, but a lot of nothing on the inside.”76 In response to the criticism, the USIA printed pamphlets to better explain the exhibits as negative reviews continued to roll in throughout the summer. The USIA received 189 letters directly from Americans who visited Expo 67, of which only ten were favourable, while the rest complained that the United States failed to challenge the technical Soviet pavilion. A USIA spokesman, however, quickly pointed out that the US pavilion was one of the few national pavilions to follow the “Man and His World” theme. The United States was “mature enough,” he said, that it no longer needed to brag about progress.77 Life magazine’s 16 June coverage of the US pavilion perfectly captured the mixed response among Americans to the “Creative America” exhibits. Americans saw their Expo 67 pavilion as a “deft evocation of the American spirit” or as “a resounding bomb.” Their response would depend on how they viewed American identity or what they believed the purpose of an international exhibition should be.78 For the USIA, contributing to Expo 67 included participating in Canada’s Centennial celebration and avoiding any cultural animosity in the Canadian-American Relationship. This obviously did not please all Americans. Canadian reports, on the other hand, generally praised the US pavilion and its exhibits as some of the best that Expo 67 had to offer. Like coverage

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11.2  United States of America Pavilion at Expo 67. From Department of Public Relations, Expo 67, R869239E, DAPDCAP571558.

of the fair in the United States, Canadian newspapers hailed the pavilion’s globelike structure for its majesty.79 Yet, unlike the American press coverage, Canadian journalists reviewed the US pavilion’s exhibits with great enthusiasm. Montreal Gazette reporter Roger Bird stated that the US pavilion was “friendlier” than usual in its showcase of American talent. Bird argued that the pavilion’s exhibits made up a mosaic that expressed “variety, contradictions, failures and achievements of the United States.”80 The Toronto Star similarly pointed to the pavilion’s structure as the most exciting part of the American display, but also highlighted the items from the Apollo program, the Indian headdresses, and the giant still shots of American movie stars that told “the story of 60 years of U.S. cinema history.”81 Apart from pointing out the greater size of the Soviet pavilion, the Toronto Star made no mention that the exhibits themselves were anything less than spectacular. Toronto Star reporter Robert Fulford commended the US pavilion for setting “the tone of the fair.”82 He believed that countries

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like the Soviet Union were going to disappoint because the ideal Expo pavilion should impress with “grace and good humor rather than cold facts.”83 The US pavilion’s exhibits succeeded because they included a “magnificent” art show and Hollywood display. Canadians were receptive to the US exhibits because they fit within Expo 67’s broader “Man and His World” theme. Many Canadian newspapers included the US pavilion in their broader coverage of Expo 67, and consistently singled it out as a highlight alongside the neighbouring Soviet pavilion. Canadians saw a softer side of the United States through the identity that it projected at Expo 67. They clearly enjoyed the way in which America portrayed itself at the fair. It was the third most popular pavilion behind the Soviet Union’s and Canada’s, attracting nine million visitors in Expo 67’s six-month duration. Canadian visitors enjoyed both the US pavilion’s structure and seeing the best of America’s technological and cultural achievements because they correlated with Expo 67’s overall theme.84 As a part of Expo 67’s participants’ contract, all pavilion structures needed to be demolished at the end of the exhibition. Participating countries and exhibitors had to remove all installations, constructions, objects, and foundations from Montreal by 15 June 1968.85 The USIA was, however, running out of money by the time exhibition opened. Part way through the planning process, funding for the entire project was reduced from $12 million to $9.3 million. This forced the USIA to reduce the number of exhibits in the pavilion itself as they built its structure.86 Unsurprisingly, the United States offered to gift the pavilion to the City of Montreal as a cost-saving measure, rather than tear down Buckminster Fuller’s majestic structure. The USIA Director Leonard Marks formally presented the geodesic pavilion to the city, represented by Montreal’s Mayor Jean Drapeau on 20 July 1967.87 Despite not being the biggest attraction of the fair, the US pavilion is one of the only structures that still remains at the former Expo 67 site. The US pavilion stands today as a reminder of how the two countries shaped their identity narratives around one another at Expo 67, and how the United States, in the words of the USIA and its Commissioner General Stanley Tupper presented a “warm and human portrait” of the United States to Canadians.88 Conclusion Expo 67, although occurring in Canada’s Centennial year, was not an official Centennial project. The Canadian Corporation for the 1967

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World Exhibition chose the “Man and His World” theme to reorient the exhibition to something less nationalistic than past world’s fairs. It was a universal theme, acknowledging the connectivity of the human experience and the primacy of humankind. It can also be seen as distinctly Canadian, as it attempted to avoid blatant nationalism and commercialism in favour of an inclusive narrative. Jody Berland argues that, unlike the United States, Canadians are “embarrassed by anything but the most subtle and ironic of patriotic gestures.”89 The CCWE did not think of itself as running the exhibition as a part of the Canadian Centennial. Expo 67 offered Canada the opportunity to put together an exceptional international exhibition, not become a showcase for Canadian nationalism. Nationalism and awareness of the Canadian Centennial did, however, influence how the world’s fair was advertised and the exhibits that other countries chose to display. Examining the Canadian-­American relationship at Expo 67 reveals how countries navigated within the “Man and His World” theme. Both Canada and the United States mutually projected their identities through the parameters of the exhibition. Canadian advertisements for Expo 67 in the United States constructed the exhibition as a part of Canada’s larger Centennial celebration, and encouraged Americans to travel to Canada for an unforgettable holiday in 1967. They also created in the United States an anti-modern image of Canada, but visitor’s experiences in Montreal challenged this idea. Those travelling to Canada for the first time had the opportunity to see and learn about the new modern Quebec and Canada, even if they advertisements enticed them to do so within a traditional, romanticized image of the country. The United States Information Agency’s planning process for the exhibits to be included in the US pavilion at Expo 67 similarly reveals the influence of location on the American cultural narrative. The United States actively participated in Expo 67 by tying its “Creative America” exhibits to the showcase’s overall theme rather than attempting to demonstrate US dominance over the Soviet Union internationally. Canada and the United States mutually projected their individual identities to one another through Expo 67. Cultural competition with the Soviet Union did not dominate the US pavilion at Expo 67. Rather, cultural understanding of the Canadian-American relationship allowed the United States Information Agency to create exhibits that fit in the narrative that Canadians were trying to construct. Not including a hockey theme in the US pavilion, for instance, demonstrates American sensitivity to how Canadians saw themselves. Canadian

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planners needed to attract American visitors to the fair by highlighting it as an important part of Canada’s Centennial year. Both countries challenged their mutual expectations of each other. Americans visiting Expo 67 saw how modern both Quebec and Canada had become, and the USIA planners clearly understood Canada’s cultural sensitivities. Both sought to participate in Expo 67 as equal partners rather than as patriotic competitors. NOTES 1 Damien-Claude Bélanger, Prejudice and Pride: Canadian Intellectuals Confront the United States, 1891–1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 25. 2 Phillip Massolin, Canadian Intellectuals, the Tory Tradition, and the Challenge of Modernity, 1939–1970 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), 171. 3 Paul Litt, The Muses, the Masses, and the Massey Commission (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 5. 4 See Robert Bothwell, Alliance and Illusion: Canada and the World, 1945–1984 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007); Stephen Azzi, Reconcilable Differences: A History of Canada-US Relations (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2014). 5 Norman Hillmer and J.L. Granatstein, For Better or For Worse: Canadian and the United States into the Twenty-First Century, 15 (Toronto: Nelson, 2005). 6 John Herd Thompson and Stephen J. Randall, Canada and the United States: Ambivalent Allies (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2008), 7. 7 Bélanger, Prejudice and Pride. 8 L.B. Kuffert, A Great Duty: Canadian Responses to Modern Life and Mass Culture, 1939–1967 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003). 9 Ryan Edwardson, Canadian Content: Culture and the Quest for Nationhood (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008). 10 Seymour Martin Lipset, Continental Divide: The Values and Institutions of the United States and Canada (New York: Routledge, 1991). 11 Rebecca Dalvesco, “The United States Pavilion at Expo 67: Creative America” (PhD dissertation, Arizona State University, 2004), 15. 12 John Lownsbrough, The Best Place to Be: Expo 67 and Its Time (Toronto: Allen Lane, 2012), 83. 13 Ibid., 95. 14 Department of Foreign Affairs, Bureau International des Expositions – Canadian Representation and Policy, “Canadian Universal and International Exhibition, Invitations to Foreign Governments,” Library and Archives Canada (LAC), RG 25, vol. 5533, folder: invitations, 18.

Situating Expo 67  335 15 “Over-all Total Higher: US Visitors to Expo Fall Short of Forecast,” Globe and Mail, 19 Aug. 1967. 16 Richard Starnes, “U.S. Bubble Proving a Big Bust at Expo 67,” Pittsburgh Press, 5 June 1967, 28. 17 John M. Lee, “Expo 67: Again the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Are Rivals,” New York Times, 23 Apr. 1967. 18 Paul Greenhalgh, Ephemeral Vistas: The Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions and World’s Fairs, 1851–1939 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1988), 53. 19 Robert Rydell, All the World’s a Fair: Visions of Empire at American ­International Expositions, 1876–1916 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 5. 20 Robert Rydell, World of Fairs: The Century of Progress Expositions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 53. 21 John E. Findling and Kimberly D. Pelle, eds. Historical Dictionary of World’s Fairs and Expositions, 1851–1988 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990), 311. 22 Canadian Corporation for the 1967 World Exhibition (CCWE) Board of Directors (BofD), Mtg Minutes, 5 Apr. 1963, LAC, RG 71, vol. 155, file 3: Pt. 5 Notes Sommaires – no. 5 1963, part 5. 23 Gabrielle Roy, Terre des Hommes/Man and His World (Montreal: La Compagnie Canadienne de l’Exposition universelle de 1967, 1967), 20–2. 24 CCWE BofD Mtg Minutes, 7 June 1963, LAC, RG 71, vol. 155, file 3: Pt. 5 Notes Sommaires – no. 10 1963, part 6. 25 While the creators of “Terre des Hommes” or “Man and His World” idealistically believed they selected an inclusive theme, both the French- and English-language expressions of this idea are inextricably gendered. This article examines the theme’s influence on the American exhibits at Expo 67, but future research might challenge the theme’s inclusivity by looking at who or what this ideal excluded: most obviously, women. 26 CCWE, Department of Exhibitions, “Letter to David Jensen,” Jan. 1966, LAC, RG 71, 1984–85/031, vol. 34, file U.S.A. Pavilion 1. 27 CCWE BofD Mtg Minutes, 7 June 1963, LAC, RG 71, vol. 155, file 3: Pt. 10 Notes Sommaires – no. 10 1963, part 6. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. 30 Robert Wright, Virtual Sovereignty: Nationalism, Culture, and the Canadian Question (Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 2004), 17. 31 CCWE BofD Mtg Minutes, 7 June 1963, LAC, RG 71, vol. 152, file 3: Pt. 10 Notes Sommaires – no. 10-21 1963, part 2. 32 The 1964–65 World’s Fair was heavily criticized for its commercialism. Reporter James E. Clayton, in discussing its difference from Expo 67, put it

336  Robyn E. Schwarz as such: “The New York Fair was big-town commercial. We left it with the feeling that the dollar came first, the quality of the exhibits came second, and the enjoyment of the visitor came third.” Seeing as the fair took place during the Expo 67 planning process, it was used as an example of what Expo 67 planners wanted to avoid. It was later referred to in reports on Expo 67 to demonstrate Montreal’s superiority. James E. Clayton, “Expo Tops Rival Fairs: Expo Puts Fun First, Other Fairs in Their Place,” Washington Post, 30 July 1967. 33 CCWE BofD, “Significant Dates,” 13 Mar. 1964, LAC, RG 71, vol. 156, file 3: Pt. 23 Notes Sommaires – no. 23 1964, part 2. 34 The Canadian Corporation for the 1967 World Exhibition: General Report on the 1967 World Exhibition (Ottawa: Government of Canada, 1969), 577. 35 CCWE BofD, 12 July 1963, LAC, RG 71, vol. 152, file 3: Pt. 13 Notes Sommaires – no. 13 1963, part 2. 36 Arthur B. Carveth to Clyde Battan, 17 Aug. 1966, LAC, RG 69, vol. 593, file: Expo 67. 37 Lownsbrough, The Best Place to Be, 34. 38 James Winchester, “Why We’re Going to Canada in 67,” LAC, RG 69, vol. 539, National Publicity Division file. 39 Ian McKay, The Quest of the Folk: Antimodernism and Cultural Selection in Twentieth-Century Nova Scotia (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994), 4. 40 Ibid. 41 Winchester, “Why We’re Going to Canada in 67.” 42 Reeves Haggan to John Fisher et al., “Broadcasts of TODAY show,” 28 July 1967, LAC, RG 69, vol. 574, file: Information Abroad. 43 Nicole Neatby, "Meeting of Minds: North American Travel Writers and Government Tourist Publicity in Quebec, 1920–1955," History Sociale/Social History 36, 72 (2003): 467. 44 Ibid., 482. 45 Ada Louise Huxtable, “A Fair with Flair: Expo 67 Shows How to Provide Variety within a Controlled Plan,” New York Times, 28 Apr. 1967. 46 Kermit Holt, “Canada’s Spectacular Centennial Summer: The Universal and International Exhibition Expo 67,” Chicago Tribune, 14 May 1967. 47 Marquis Childs, “The Great Success of Canada’s Party,” Washington Post, 30 Oct. 1967. 48 Jay Walz, “A ‘Sin City’ No More: Mayor Acclaims Montreal, the Home of Expo, as Great and Respectable,” New York Times, 29 Apr. 1967. 49 See Mathieu Lapointe, Nettoyer Montreal: Les campagnes de moralité publique, 1940–1954 (Quebec: Septentrion, 2014).

Situating Expo 67  337 50 Richard Joseph, “Wonders of Montreal Impress Expo 67 Visitors,” Chicago Tribune, 14 May 1967. 51 Cecil Smith, “Expo 67 Dedicated to Greater Glory of Man,” Los Angeles Times, 7 May 1967, C15. 52 Nicholas John Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945­–1989 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 1. 53 Ibid., 23. 54 Ibid., 91. 55 Ibid., 189–91. 56 Jack Masey and Conway Lloyd Morgan, Cold War Confrontations: US Exhibitions and Their Role in the Cultural Cold War (Baden, Switzerland: Lars Muller, 2008), 311. 57 J.L. Lorimier, “Press Service,” 30 July 1964, LAC, RG 71, 1984–85/031, vol. 34, file: U.S.A. Pavilion 1. 58 Office of the US Commissioner General to the Universal and International Exhibition of 1967, “Exhibits,” 1965, United States National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD (hereafter NARA), RG 306, vol. A1 1080, ARC 4704608. 59 Pierre de Bellefeuille, “United States Participation in Theme,” 31 Dec. 1964, LAC, RG 71, 1984–85/031, vol. 34, file: U.S.A. Pavilion 1. 60 Office of the US Commissioner General to the Universal and International Exhibition of 1967, “Progress Report,” 31 Dec. 1966, NARA, RG 306, vol. A1 1080, ARC 4704628. 61 Masey and Morgan, Cold War Confrontations, 284. 62 Ibid. 63 Office of the US Commissioner General to the Universal and International Exhibition of 1967, “The American Spirit Exhibit,” 1966, NARA, RG 306, vol. A1 1080, ARC 4704615. 64 Jack Masey to John Otis Brew, 13 June, 1966, ibid. 65 Phyllis Montgomery to Pat Esell, 23 Sept. 1966, ibid. 66 Office of the US Commissioner General to the Universal and International Exhibition of 1967, “Shipments Not Arrived Brooklyn,” 6 Dec. 1966, ibid. 67 Ibid. 68 Jack Masey to Clarence Campbell, 11 Apr. 1966, ibid. 69 Masey to Campbell, 12 July 1966, ibid. 70 Andrew Holman, “Introduction,” in Canada’s Game: Hockey and Identity (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), 6. 71 “U.S. Pavilion at Expo 67 Opens with Space and Art Displays,” New York Times, 24 Apr. 1967, 18.

338  Robyn E. Schwarz 72 Wolf Von Eckardt, “Expo 67 Is Our World at Its Best,” Washington Post, 30 Apr. 1967, F1. 73 “U.S. Pavilion at Expo 67 Opens with Space and Art Displays.” 74 Office of the US Commissioner General to the Universal and International Exhibition of 1967, “Press,” Files of the Protocol Section, compiled 1964–67, NARA, RG 306, vol. A1 1093, ARC 4704381. 75 Ibid. 76 Ibid. 77 “Americans Sour on ‘Fluff’ in Their Expo Show,” Toronto Star, 8 July 1967, 13. 78 Frank Kappler, “Heigh Ho! Soft Sell at the Fair,” Life, 16 June 1967, 13. 79 Leslie Millin, “Bird’s Eye View of U.S. Pavilion,” Globe and Mail, 14 Apr. 1967. 80 Roger Bird, “A Contrast of the Best of Both,” Montreal Gazette, 28 Apr. 1967. 81 “U.S. Expo Pavilion Dazzling but Soviet’s much Bigger,” Toronto Star, 21 Apr. 1967, 12. 82 Robert Fulford, “Expo 67 Diary,” Toronto Star, 27 Apr. 1967, A 27. 83 Ibid. 84 “Soviet Union Pavilion Biggest Attraction,” Globe and Mail, 30 Oct. 1967. 85 Office of the US Commissioner General to the Universal and International Exhibition of 1967, “Closing of the Exhibition,” 1965, NARA, RG 306, vol. A1 1080, AC 4704631. 86 Senate Appropriations Committee, “Remarks by Stanley Tupper,” 1 Aug. 1967, NARA, RG 306, vol. A1 1080, AC 4704599. 87 “U.S. Pavilion at Expo 67 Given to Montreal,” New York Times, 21 July 1967. 88 Canadian Centennial Commission, “Press Release,” 7 Oct. 1996, LAC, RG 69, vol. 574, file: Promotion abroad, 1963–68. 89 Jody Berland, “Politics after Nationalism, Culture after ‘Culture,’” Canadian Review of American Studies 27, 3 (1997): 41.

12  New Nationalism in the Cradle of Confederation: Prince Edward Island’s Centennial Decade matthew m c rae

Prince Edward Island has always had something of a love-hate relationship with tourism. On the love side, the industry has long been recognized as a cash cow. On the hate side, Islanders have long been suspicious of tourism and its purported benefits, wondering if the prosperity that the industry promises is really worth the price. These two divergent attitudes have often come into conflict, but perhaps never so blatantly as in Prince Edward Island’s years of Centennial celebrations, between 1964 and 1973.1 The period after the Second World War bore witness to a tourism boom across North America, and Canada’s smallest province was no exception. Provincial tourism boosters marketed PEI to potential tourists as an anti-modern paradise and marketed tourism to the provincial and federal governments as a sound investment; tourism was seen as a means of attracting economic development and achieving prosperity. Once Island tourism became synonymous with nationalism, however, the industry was embraced wholeheartedly as an engine for economic development. The organizers of the 1964 Charlottetown Centennial celebrating a hundred years since the Charlottetown Conference worked hard to establish Prince Edward Island as the “Cradle of Confederation,” a claim that boosters used to funnel both tourists’ money and federal funding into the province. The success of this strategy helped the tourism industry become the focus of capital investment and planning on a scale never before seen in the province’s history. Tourism became a pivotal part of efforts to modernize PEI and raise its standard of living. When, nine years later, it was time to mark the Centennial of Prince Edward Island joining Confederation, tourism promoters could count on a well-oiled festival machine designed to capitalize on the Island’s

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image as the birthplace of the nation. There was, however, a contradiction built into this approach to tourism. On the one hand, the industry depended on an anti-modern aesthetic to attract visitors, while on the other, this aesthetic became ever more difficult to maintain as boosters touted tourism growth as a way to bring progress and development to the province. Some Islanders began to scrutinize the anti-modern image – and the national mythology that had become attached to it – and started questioning the desirability of tourist development as a path to prosperity. The 1973 Centennial of PEI’s entry into Confederation thus became the stage for a debate about provincial identity, with some Islanders questioning the role that both tourism and Canadian nationalism had come to play in their society. Prince Edward Island was not the only region to market itself to tourists using an anti-modern approach. The historian James Murton has written about the tensions and contradictions that developed as tourism operators such as Canada Steamship Lines promoted Quebec as a “land of history” populated with quaint, anti-modern, French-­ Canadian habitants.2 Similarly, Ian McKay describes the history of Nova Scotia’s anti-modern, tourist-oriented identity in both his The Quest of the Folk and with Robin Bates in In the Province of History: The Making of the Public Past in Twentieth-Century Nova Scotia. Alan Gordon also writes about a “culture of innocence” that Nova Scotia leveraged in the twentieth century to promote itself to tourists.3 McKay, in particular, looks at the efforts of private tourism boosters such as folklorist Helen Creighton and Nova Scotia Premier Angus L. Macdonald. These individuals curated the past in such a way as to emphasize a white, anti-modern, “authentic” identity for Nova Scotia, while rejecting more problematic aspects such as labour, politics, and even prosperity.4 Different on Prince Edward Island was the explicit linking of the Island’s anti-modern aesthetic to nationalism. PEI’s claim to national relevance as the birthplace of Confederation had existed for some time, but it was solidified as never before by both the 1964 Centennial and, to a lesser extent, the 1973 celebration. Other anniversary celebrations had certainly commemorated provincial pasts in order to achieve relevance; in his study of Alberta and Saskatchewan’s Golden Jubilees, James Opp notes that commemorations “invoke their claims to legitimacy by virtue of their connections to past reference points.”5 For British Columbia’s 1966 Centennial, Susan Roy similarly observes that organizers were eager to promote Indigenous performances, because “the ‘modern’ and ‘progressive’ state claimed its historic roots in an Aboriginal past.”6

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In the case of Alberta and Saskatchewan, Opp holds that the 1955 Jubilees in many ways served to challenge federal institutions and national symbols while attempting to make space for provincial identities.7 On Prince Edward Island, by contrast, there was a far more concerted attempt to graft provincial identity directly onto national identity – to make the Island and Canada one and the same. Identity, however, is not simply dictated from above. The historian John Bodnar contends that “public memory emerges from the intersection of official and vernacular cultural expressions.”8 He further suggests that creators of official culture “ share a common interest in social unity, the continuity of existing institutions, and loyalty to the status quo,” while vernacular culture “represents an array of specialized interests that are grounded in parts of the whole.” Vernacular culture is diverse and “intent on protecting values and restating views of reality derived from firsthand experiences in small-scale communities rather than the ‘imagined’ communities of a large nation.”9 Susan Roy notes, for example, that many Indigenous groups participated in the centenary of British Columbia in 1966 not because they agreed with the goals of the planners of the celebration, but because they saw a platform they could use to draw attention to their own issues and concerns: “Aboriginal peoples did not leave dominant histories uncontested; rather, centennial events were a potential (though limited) site of public debate about history.”10 Similarly, in his article “The Highland Heart in Nova Scotia: Place and Memory at the Highland Village Museum,” about the creation of a Scottish Museum in rural Cape Breton, Alan Gordon points out that “local citizens were not passive recipients of an official memory.” Rather, as he explains, Cape Bretoners “helped shape a collective memory of ‘Scotland’ and forged their own imagined community.”11 On Prince Edward Island, the efforts of official culture to link a pastoral anti-modernism to nationalism and development similarly created space for vernacular culture to contest the official narrative and to reshape it for its own purposes. Central to this debate was not just national and regional identity, but also tourism. Since the end of the Second World War, armies of affluent tourists have spread out and invaded not just PEI, but every corner of the planet. By the mid-1990s, tourism had become the largest employer and fastestgrowing industry in the world.12 Tourism is a global phenomenon, and Prince Edward Island’s tourist industry can only be understood in the context of economic and political forces much larger than the province itself.

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Island leaders, however, were often reluctant to make significant investments in tourism. In 1944, PEI Premier Walter Shaw, in response to an invitation to a Canadian tourism conference, wrote that his province was “getting as many or more tourists than we can possibly accommodate.” Some of this was almost certainly federal-provincial posturing, but the unenthusiastic language Shaw used – such as describing tourists as “insisting” on visiting the Island – would have been more than enough to make any tourism booster wince.13 Nevertheless, Shaw was certainly right in one respect: tourism numbers were growing so fast that it was difficult for provincial infrastructure to keep up. The Island’s estimated tourist numbers increased steadily throughout the 1950s and more than doubled between 1960 and 1968, from some 208,507 to 452,258 persons.14 The growth was part of a general trend in North American tourism, as society became increasingly affluent and mobile, a trend that Carlton S. Van Doren and Sam A. Lollar call “the flowering of mass travel.”15 Development of PEI Tourism In the face of ever-increasing visitor numbers, PEI’s tourism boosters were slowly able to convince the provincial government to invest in critical infrastructure such as roads, parks, and loans for entrepreneurs who wanted to build accommodations.16 In 1960, the province finally acknowledged the importance of the industry by creating the Department of Tourist Development, with Provincial Secretary John David (J.D.) Stewart as minister.17 Stewart immediately promised to continue work on building infrastructure and enforcing standards such as reliable sanitation.18 Of course, the Island’s tourism boosters realized there was more to attracting business than just paving roads and making sure the toilets flushed. PEI had to be a unique experience for most visitors – otherwise why would they come? During the first postwar decades, Prince Edward Island was marketed as an anti-modern paradise; in travel literature, PEI was presented as the antidote to the hustle and bustle of modern-day life. In doing so, tourism boosters were not creating a new identity for the province from scratch: since the nineteenth century, the discourse around Island identity had often focused on a “garden myth” that, as David Milne explains, “organized for Islanders an ideal picture of themselves as an independent agricultural people protected from the world in an unspoiled pastoral setting.”19 What boosters did was

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harness the garden myth to a new purpose, namely, attracting tourists. This was PEI identity served up for the consumption of outsiders. A typical tourist brochure from the 1950s read as follows: “This is Canada at its best – the ‘Garden Province,’ the Eden spot, the unspoiled, idyllic Island, with the finest, uncrowded beaches on the north Atlantic coast, and refreshing water temperature, averaging 70 [degrees Fahrenheit] all summer! Wherever you go, get to Prince Edward Island this year.”20 By the 1960s, however, Island tourism boosters had begun to worry that the natural charms of the “Garden Province” were not enough, and more entertainment facilities were needed to keep tourists busy on rainy days or after the sun went down.21 This concern coincided with a shift in political attitudes to economic intervention, not just on Prince Edward Island, but throughout Atlantic Canada. The year 1962 saw the creation of both the Agricultural and Rural Development Act and the Atlantic Development Board by the federal government.22 These organizations were the beginning of a far more interventionist approach to “jump-starting the stagnant Atlantic economy.”23 In the beginning, endeavours such as the ADB and ARDA were focused primarily on how to improve agriculture.24 With the 1964 Centennial, however, PEI’s political and commercial elite began to see tourism as an industry equally worthy of extensive economic planning and investment: 1964 marked a hundred years since a group of politicians met in Charlottetown for the first of a series of meetings that would eventually lead to Confederation. Commemorating the conference was not a new idea in 1964; a celebration had been planned for the fiftieth anniversary in 1914, but the outbreak of the First World War put a halt to those festivities.25 In 1939, a weeklong festival was held to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary, but the beginning of the Second World War shortly afterwards meant it was quickly forgotten.26 Despite this, the “birthplace of Confederation” theme never completely went away. The 1950 Annual Report of the Prince Edward Island Travel Bureau suggested that increased publicity for the birthplace theme would result in increased tourism, noting, “As in previous years, the year 1950 showed the Confederation Chamber in our Provincial Building to be the outstanding spot for the sight-seer.”27 Leo Dolan, head of the Canadian Government Travel Bureau, gave a nod to the “Cradle of Confederation” when he spoke at the annual meeting of the Canadian Tourism Association in Charlottetown in 1956.28 Travel writers always included a mention of the Charlottetown Conference in their articles. Journalist Douglas Roche wrote in 1958 that “Prince Edward Island has sold itself

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so successfully as the ‘Cradle of Confederation’ that no visitor misses seeing the room off the tiny Legislature Chamber where the first plans of Union were drafted in September, 1864.”29 Even Prime Minister Louis St Laurent made mention of the province as Canada’s birthplace in a 1957 election speech in Charlottetown, remarking, “Soon you will be observing the 100th Anniversary of that meeting. I am sure that you will make it a celebration worthy of the importance of the Charlottetown Conference in Canadian History.”30 It was obvious to everyone that there would be a Centennial celebration, but exactly what form it would take was still up for debate. As early as 1950, PEI tourism booster Frank MacKinnon was suggesting the construction of a cultural centre in Charlottetown to commemorate the Fathers of Confederation. The son of former ­Lieutenant-Governor Murdoch MacKinnon, Frank MacKinnon was a man of many hats; as a political scientist and writer, he had won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-fiction with his book Government of Prince Edward Island. MacKinnon also served as principal of Charlottetown’s Prince of Wales College during the 1950s and 1960s and involved himself heavily in PEI’s political life.31 MacKinnon had not been the first to suggest the creation of a provincial cultural centre, but he was the one who took up the cause and linked it to the 1964 Centennial and making it a memorial to the Fathers of Confederation. MacKinnon’s efforts would ultimately result in the construction a multimillion dollar cultural complex in Charlottetown’s city centre: The Fathers of Confederation Memorial Building, also known as the Confederation Centre of the Arts. The building would become the most solid and lasting legacy of PEIs 1964 Centennial. By 1960, Frank MacKinnon had managed to win the support of Premier Shaw’s government for the Memorial Building project, but the assistance of the federal government would also be needed. Rather than make the request directly, MacKinnon enlisted the aid of Eric L. Harvie of Calgary, a distinguished First World War veteran, a successful lawyer, and a self-made Alberta oil tycoon.32 In 1955, Harvie had founded the Glenbow Foundation, an organization dedicated to collecting and preserving Canadian, and to a lesser extent, world history and culture.33 MacKinnon picked his allies well. Harvie’s passion for the past made him a convincing champion of the Memorial Building scheme, while his wealth and philanthropical work made him hard to ignore. Ultimately, MacKinnon’s and Harvie’s adept political manoeuvring paid off, and Ottawa agreed to fund the memorial project. The

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Islanders had shown themselves to be skilled in the art of subtle persuasion, but they also owed their victory to having the right idea at the right time. Throughout the 1960s, Canada was in a generous mood when it came to Centennial celebrations. With the Dominion’s British ties slowly fading and the low rumble of separatism growing louder in Quebec, the nation was cast adrift, searching for a new definition of itself. Englishspeaking Canadians began to try to distance themselves from the cultural influence of the United States and carve out a niche for their own separate identity. Overnight, politicians such as Liberal Walter Gordon, who wanted to limit the amount of foreign investment (particularly American investment) in Canadian business, became heroes of the “new nationalism.”34 The Centennial Impulse: The Birthplace of Confederation In such an environment, all symbols of Canadian unity and culture gained an enhanced importance, and any anniversary of a Canadian milestone or achievement was a reason to celebrate. The entire country contracted a case of what the historian Edward MacDonald has termed “centennialitis”: “The contagion eventually infected all parts of the country, even Quebec. Symptoms included a mild euphoria with a marked tendency toward nostalgia. The condition was not terminal, though it lasted nearly a decade, and it came in distinct waves, cresting in 1967.”35 Canadians had long been susceptible to celebrating their nationality, as the 1883 Loyalist Centennial in New Brunswick (see Bourque et al., in this volume), the 1908 tercentenary of Quebec, and the 1939 Confederation Week celebration on Prince Edward Island had demonstrated.36 The Centennial bug of the 1960s, however, was a stronger, longer-lasting strain of this nationalistic “contagion,” and PEI was not the only province with Centennial aspirations. By 1960, Quebec was already tossing around the idea of the 1967 world’s fair in Montreal and demanding federal dollars to support it. Meanwhile, the Ottawa Citizen reported Newfoundland and Labrador had intimated it was less than enthusiastic about celebrating the Centennial because after 1962 Ottawa was cancelling the province’s special federal grant.37 Worst of all, some provinces and regions were even challenging Prince Edward Island’s status as the birthplace of Confederation, hoping to claim a share of the glory (and funding) for themselves.

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Nova Scotia asserted that the 1864 gathering in Halifax (immediately following the Charlottetown Conference) had been more significant in forming the country.38 The Gaspé region of Quebec also attempted to claim the birthplace title on the grounds that the explorer Jacques Cartier had landed in Gaspé first, making it the “real” birthplace of Canada. Frank MacKinnon wrote some testy comments refuting Gaspé’s claim and forwarded them to Deputy Minister of Tourism George Fraser. MacKinnon’s refutations were forceful, but belied an underlying insecurity about Prince Edward Island’s status as the “cradle”: – [One] can hardly refer to a place of landing as “birthplace.” – Anyway Cartier landed here first. – Leif Erikson landed before Cartier. – Birthplace is the place where the first plans for Canada were made and the idea of union first officially suggested and planned this in Charlottetown. – Canada as a nation did not exist in 1864 (the name was used for the Province of Canada (Quebec and Ontario) before the nation was first planned in Charlottetown in 1864).39 MacKinnon’s points are valid ones, although he fails to note that his last argument also provided a case against naming Charlottetown as the birthplace. Canada did not exist as a nation in 1864, but neither did it exist until three years after the Charlottetown Conference when the British North American Act was ratified in London, England. It should also be noted that Canada’s Indigenous peoples did not factor into this debate at all; as far as MacKinnon was concerned, they had no role in the creation story he was writing. PEI’s arguments for being the birthplace were far from airtight, but the fact that Charlottetown had long since installed itself in the popular national imagination – in paintings and school histories – as the Cradle of Confederation undoubtedly stood it in good stead in the campaign to secure federal funds for 1964. All the same, the Island’s Centennial planners were taking no chances, and they wanted 1964 to permanently establish Charlottetown’s birthplace status in the popular imagination. The 1964 celebration was to be a pseudo-event, as described by the American historian Daniel Boorstin: the festival would legitimize PEI’s claim to be the birthplace of Confederation, and this claim would in turn legitimize the festival itself.40 In a letter of 3 February 1960 to

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Provincial Secretary J.D. Stewart brainstorming ideas for celebrating 1964, Dr MacKinnon identified the Centennial as an opportunity “of associating P.E.I. a bit more with national matters and establishing even more securely the idea of the Island as a national ‘site,’ ‘shrine’ or the like to which all Canadians look.”41 A later report stated this goal even more explicitly: Aim: To register the 1964 P.E.I. centennial as a national cause for celebration. Promotionally, we must keep in mind its significance for all Canadians, that it is a birthday party in which the whole country should be deeply involved. Historically and romantically it should contribute to the events scheduled for 1967 as it did to the events in 1867, BUT IN THE BEGINNING WAS CHARLOTTETOWN. Here is the valid Canadian historic shrine.42

Key to achieving this aim was having the 1964 celebrations recognized as the official opening of the 1967 Centennial of Confederation, thereby anchoring 1964’s national significance to the undisputed 1967 birthday. A report of PEI’s Centennial Committee’s board of directors announced success in gaining recognition of this “special status” on the national level. MacKinnon wrote, “Both the National Centennial Administration and the National Centenary Council have recognized the Island’s 1964 events as the first stage of the 1967 celebrations just as the Charlottetown Conference was the first step towards the union of 1867.”43 The prominent Canadian historian Donald Creighton gave the Islanders his support by writing an article about the Charlottetown Conference for the 1964 centenary.44 With official support for the Island’s celebrations assured, Islanders could actually begin planning for the Centennial year itself. The Fathers of Confederation Memorial Building was intended to be the crown jewel of the Centennial. The structure would contribute to Charlottetown’s status as a sacred site, and it would also serve as an attraction worthy of the tourist’s gaze in and of itself.45 The sociologist Dean MacCannell notes that “massive institutional support is often required for site sacralization in the modern world.”46 This was certainly true of Charlottetown’s birthplace status; a whole new institution was being created whose primary purpose was to legitimize the city’s claim to be the “Cradle of Confederation.” Once built, the Memorial Building would continually remind Canadians of the Island’s privileged position in Canadian Confederation.

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The new structure had other important functions. PEI’s political and commercial elite wanted to see tangible, long-term economic benefits emerge from the Centennial. The publicist Dennis L. Clarke stated the generally held view in an August 1963 letter to Centennial planner William Hayward, when he stated, “We must not think of this publicity project in relation to promoting a one year centennial, but in terms of its long range effect on every area of Prince Edward Island’s economic future.”47 The Memorial Building would serve as a permanent tourist marker, a tangible organizing and directing point for tourist behaviour. Instructions for the architectural competition held to choose a design emphasized this role, stating, “The competitor is wasting his time who thinks of this building as anything but a national shrine to which Canadians will forever pay homage as the Birthplace of their nation.”48 The building was going to be larger than anything PEI had ever seen. Hailed as “Canada’s first memorial to the Fathers of Confederation” the structure was to house a theatre, art gallery, museum, library, and memorial hall. The construction cost came to $5.6 million; Parliament voted the project 15 cents per head of the population, as did each provincial legislature. All funds were handed over to the citizens’ foundation, which oversaw the construction.49 The building was completed and opened for business in May 1964, just in time for the tourist season.50 It was a great coup for Frank MacKinnon and his team. But one building alone, however spectacular, did not a centennial make. As in 1939, the Islanders knew they needed to plan an event-filled celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the Charlottetown Conference. The 1959 session of PEI’s Legislative Assembly had already made provisions for a Centennial Committee led by MacKinnon.51 The committee’s board of directors was not officially appointed until much later, however, on 12 April 1962, by an order-in-council of the lieutenant governor. The chair of the board of directors was, of course, Frank MacKinnon himself, but many other prominent Islanders had volunteered for the committee. They included Alan Holman of the Summerside-based department store of the same name, former PEI Travel Bureau Chief W.W. Reid, and representatives from many of PEI’s prominent families, such as the Peakes, the Linkletters, the Yeos, and the Duffys.52 The organization was divided into a number of smaller committees, each charged with a particular aspect of the year’s events: Agriculture, Special Projects, Conventions, Armed Forces and Sports, Drama, Creative and Cultural Arts, Finance and Budget, Decorations and Illumination, Education and Children’s Events, and Religious Activities.53 The

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committees did not have to create an event schedule from scratch as planning for many events had begun long before the 1962 order-in-council. MacKinnon’s 1960 letter to Stewart had made numerous suggestions for the year’s events, ranging from a grand pageant – Mackinnon was likely thinking of the highly successful pageant mounted in 1939 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Charlottetown Conference – to a visit from the Queen.54 Before anything could be accomplished, however, there was the question of money. The committee soon set to work on drawing up a budget. A letter of 16 March 1962 to Stewart from William Hayward, business manager for the committee, confessed that “the matter is largely guesswork,” but suggested a budget of $250,000 as a “reasonable expenditure.”55 This estimate was based on studying the budgets of similar types of celebrations that had been held in Saskatchewan and British Columbia.56 It proved to be way off. Ultimately, $420,000 was allotted to the Centennial Committee by the provincial government, along with a $100,000 grant from the Centennial Commission in Ottawa. The committee was given complete freedom with regard to how it spent the money, and to its credit, remained within its original budget.57 Publicity was perhaps the most important committee expenditure; events would most certainly fail if no one attended them. Advertising was much too important to be left to a volunteer, so the committee hired a full-time director. The publicist Mary Jolliffe was the only truly professional member of the committee, and by 1964 she had had a long and distinguished career in public relations.58 Jolliffe organized a publicity blitz on and off the Island. Press releases were continually issued, radio and television coverage of events was arranged whenever possible, and special articles and stories were prepared for newspapers and magazines across the country. MacKinnon was sent on a lecture tour of nearly every major Canadian city in an effort to drum up interest in the Island’s celebration. Published by the Centennial Committee, 1964 Centennial booklets, were distributed to the public, and even placed in every Canadian government office and embassy worldwide.59 All this was in addition to the regular publicity campaign carried on by George Fraser and PEI’s Travel Bureau. Unlike Fraser’s Travel Bureau, the Centennial’s promoters could focus their efforts on a single, tangible event, to which the Island’s antimodern aesthetic could be attached. Prince Edward Island had always relied on its image as a Garden of Eden untouched by the modern world to set it apart from the rest of North America as a worthwhile tourist

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destination. Centennial literature attempted to enhance this sense of touristic distinctiveness by stressing PEI’s connections to the past. While the older literature emphasized the “quaint” and “pastoral” nature of the Garden Province, the Centennial literature portrayed the Island – and Charlottetown in particular – as a place where one could experience the “Spirit of ’64” that had motivated the Fathers of Confederation. “And these are things that can be relived almost as easily as they can be recalled in Charlottetown,” sang MacKinnon of the Fathers’ achievements: “There is no part of Canada where the pre-­Confederation past lives so closely with the present – where history from that era stands so ready to breathe down the neck of the observer who is alert to it – as in Prince Edward Island … In all the rest of Canada there cannot be found as many landmarks associated with them directly, as a body, as survive in good condition in Charlottetown and its environs.”60 The 1964 Centennial allowed Prince Edward Island to combine the two main thrusts of its image making: a sense of place and a sense of the past.61 The province was presented as the new nationalism’s fountain of youth, a place where the citizens of the nation could rediscover their roots. It had all begun in the garden of the gulf, and the entire country was to be made aware of this fact. The Centennial’s promotional efforts were not just directed across the Northumberland Strait. Planners also wanted Island residents to be swept up in the Spirit of ’64. Centennial planners stressed that the enthusiastic participation of all Islanders, whether they were directly involved with the celebrations or not, was vital to the Centennial’s success. Promoters created a new identity for Islanders: they were the guardians of the Confederation spirit that promotors saw as a national treasure. For the inhabitants of Prince Edward Island, getting into the Spirit of ’64 was not just an option. It was their duty, as guardians of the “spirit.”62 A Centennial newsletter of December 1962 explained the sacred obligation of every Islander: “First of all, every one of us has the responsibility to become absorbed in the ‘spirit’ of confederation. This means, as we have already indicated, being able to replace small dreams with larger ones. In this case, it means being able to plan this Centennial in such a way that once again the whole future of this province will be changed. During 1964 enough worthwhile things should be done in this Province to leave marks for years to come.”63 Two months later, the February newsletter began to explain, in practical terms, what being “absorbed” by the spirit of Confederation entailed. The author first announced the significance of the occasion,

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declaring that “1964 represents the best opportunity this province has ever had to distinguish itself in the eyes of Canada and the rest of the world.” Then came the call to arms: “It takes a lot of work and effort to get ready for the thousands of people who will be flocking in here. And it will take practically every man, woman and child to do the job right.”64 It is easy today to dismiss these heavy-handed attempts to reconstruct PEI’s identity and link it to the birthplace myth. As has been noted, however, the new nationalism of the 1960s held great allure for many Canadians. Many Islanders, too, found the birthplace myth, which linked their little Island to something much larger than itself, powerful and compelling. Leone Ross, chair of the Children’s Events Committee, was one individual who had been convinced by the spirit of Confederation. She described the following experience in her final report to PEI’s Centennial Committee: One inspiring experience I shall always remember. I had taken a busload of children from the Rehabilitation Centre on a tour of the Wild animal park at Rustico, served them a picnic supper at Cavendish, then took them to Green Gables. I was exhausted when we started homeward, yet here were children in braces, crutches, and wheelchairs, singing lustily and happily as the bus rumbled along. Suddenly they burst with fervor into “This Land Is Your Land.” I could offer them so little when they needed so much, but here was the nucleus of all we had hoped for in the Centennial Year – the conscious realization by our young people that this was their heritage, this their country, this their opportunity and challenge.65

Ultimately, it would be the conviction of individuals such as Leone Ross that would become the driving force behind the success of the Centennial year. 1964 was to be a year-long party. Not even the most critical member of the Tourist Association would be able to complain that there was not enough for tourists to do. Just as the Memorial Building was the crown jewel of the centennial, the Dominion Drama Festival, created in 1932 to promote amateur theatre in Canada, was held in the Memorial Building and became the major event scheduled for 1964. The festival’s opening season at the Memorial Building, which was now also being called the Confederation Centre by the public, was dedicated to promoting the “national” aspect of the celebrations and stressing the notion that the new Centre was truly for all Canadians. The first show to play at the festival, entitled “John A. Beats the Devil” was very much

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in the Spirit of ’64. It was followed throughout the summer by performances by an endless parade of Canadian cultural icons: Pierre Berton, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Don Messer, Wayne and Shuster, the Oscar Peterson Trio, and theatrical productions by Neptune Theatre of Halifax, just to name a few.66 Local theatre groups even collaborated to put on a centennial pageant in the style of 1939 for four nights at the Centre, which was broadcast nationally by the CBC.67 If the highbrow arts centre with its heavy doses of Canadian culture did not enthrall all audiences, there were other options. The Islandwide schedule of events was divided into two separate phases, based around the tourist season: summer events focused on tourists while the remainder of the year was planned with the local populace in mind.68 Chief among the tourist season events were the “Centennial Days,” held in all the major towns and villages across Prince Edward Island, featuring parades, sports, band concerts, regattas, and the like. In addition, regular scheduled events, such as Old Home Week, the Summerside Lobster Carnival, and the Souris Regatta were all expanded to feature the Centennial. The armed forces and the RCMP participated in many of the events, adding a martial flair to the festivities. The committee’s final report praised the aplomb of the local festivities: “Rarely has a population of 100,000 enjoyed so many and so varied celebrations.”69 The Centennial Days did have their challenges, however, as many communities were not motivated by the Spirit of ’64. As Christopher Los contends in an earlier chapter in this volume, “Each Centennial project had more to do with localized urban planning regimes than it did with the Centennial celebrations as such” (238). This was also true for the Island’s Centennial Days. Communities were often more driven by parochial concerns than patriotic ones. The town of Victoria struggled with two warring committees championing different civic projects, while the town of Cardigan was determined to roast an entire ox for their Centennial Day and requested the aid of the provincial Centennial Commission, since the community had no idea how to accomplish such a feat.70 Parochialism presented other problems as many other towns were unfamiliar with the tourism industry and did not understand how to take advantage of the funding available to them. Those elements of the population that did not fit with the predominantly white and anglophone focus of the Centennial had an even more difficult time. The French Acadian village of Wellington was at a complete loss as to how to deal with the Centennial. On 15 June 1963, Cyrus F. Gallant, a comminssioner for the village, replied to the Centennial

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Committee’s general call for the Island’s communities to organize with a letter full of trepidation, declaring, “I for sure, and other commissioners are not too familiar with what we should do for the occasion so unique.”71 Gallant hoped that the provincial committee would be able to help him pick a date for Centennial Day and organize it. Committee Events Manager Ken Birtwistle replied that Wellington’s community leaders should pick its own day, and he sent a calendar of events to help Gallant and his colleagues choose.72 A date was picked for Wellington Day – 22 July – then nothing else was heard from the community for two months. When Gallant finally broke his silence on 2 December, it demonstrated just how unfamiliar the village commissioner was with PEI’s tourism industry. “As chairman of our Village,” he wrote, “I must confess that I have done nothing in respect to our Centennial Program. This project is too large a shoe for my foot, and the commissioners are very, very busy at their daily work … It is true you have furnished us with [word unclear] literature so far but to explain its contents is beyond our ability to do.”73 The Acadians, much like PEI’s other distinctive minorities, such as the Mi’kmaq, the Lebanese, and the Island’s black population, had received scant attention in the province’s tourism promotion efforts up until the 1960s. Centennial planners made little effort to change this emphasis. The story of Confederation as presented in 1964 was largely a tale of wise white men forging a nation while visiting a “British” Island of yeoman farmers – the Spirit of ’64 left little room for anyone else. Even so, planners saw themselves as creating an inclusive, national celebration. In the long run, there would come to be more truth to that claim as the Confederation Centre would eventually be used by minority communities to explore their history and express their culture.74 The Confederation Centre was not the only institution founded in the Centennial year. On 24 March 1964, the provincial legislature passed the Coat of Arms Act and a Flag Act, officially commissioning a provincial flag.75 The flag was based on the coat of arms given to Prince Edward Island in 1905. Even the Latin motto on the coat of arms reinforced the notion that Prince Edward Island was now Ottawa’s charge – Parva Sub Ingenti – translated roughly as “the small under the protection of the great.” The Legislature, realizing perhaps that the Island’s history did not stop or start in the year 1864, also passed an act creating an official provincial public archives.76 These symbols of the Island’s history and heritage would help perpetuate the touristic impact of 1964 by further legitimizing the province’s association with a mythical past.

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The truly grand official events had to wait for the week of 1 September, the anniversary of the Charlottetown Conference itself. The week was marked by a Dominion-Provincial Conference in Charlottetown, which achieved an impressive symmetry with 1864 and placed an official sanction on Centennial mythmaking. MacCannell notes that one of the final stages in the sacralization of a tourist site is the mechanical reproduction of the sacred object: “the creation of prints, photographs, models or effigies of the object which are themselves valued and displayed.”77 In 1964, it was not an object but an event that was being reproduced. Both politicians and actors engaged in reproduction, legitimizing their own actions as well as legitimizing the original event. For those who preferred more authentic displays, the year was capped off by a visit in October from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh. This event also saw parades, crowds, and speeches, as well as another visit from the prime minister, along with the governor general, Georges Vanier and his wife. Overall, the year was a staggering success. The Department of Tourist Development counted 333,951 visitors during the spring, summer, and autumn months of 1964. It was yet another record year for the industry, with an increase of 16 per cent over 1963. The Centennial celebrations, with their events in May and June as well as September and October, had the effect of extending the tourist season further than in any previous year.78 Some 104 conventions and conferences were also held on Prince Edward Island; the previous record had been 49 in 1955.79 Bus tours also reached a new high, with 109 tours rolling onto the Island.80 All in all, George Fraser estimated, tourism had been worth an unprecedented $12 million to the province in 1964. The future looked almost as bright as the present. The opening of the Confederation Centre had increased the province’s capacity for conferences and tours. “Before 1964,” the Centennial Committee noted, “one spoke in terms of conventions of around 300 [attendees], Now those of 800 or more can be housed and fed, and space for banquets, meetings and dances in separate areas for 1000 people are quite feasible.”81 This was entirely due to the construction of the Confederation Centre: “The experience of 1964 indicates that Charlottetown can be one of the nation’s best and most popular convention centers.”82 The Confederation Centre’s first season had been a relative, if not smashing success. Even if the first season had not been a success at all, the Centre would still have been considered an asset simply because of its continued (and funded) existence. Confederation Centre was to become one of PEI’s

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permanent attractions just as Province House and the Prince Edward Island National Park were. Confederation Centre had become a lasting marker for the tourist’s gaze. The final report of the board of directors of the Centennial Committee also stressed the many benefits of 1964 that were not as literally concrete as the Confederation Centre. The festival had proven that careful planning and investment could have a positive economic effect, and it had also laid the groundwork for a birthplace myth-centred tourist ethos among the Island’s population. As well as financial gains, the report listed many other benefits of the celebration: education, the stimulus to local and national culture, the growth of community spirit, and the creation of new infrastructure. It also was noted that none of this would have been possible without an initial investment. The report declared that “business did well on Centennial activities and there were, as a result, many examples of the old principle that ‘you must spend money to make money.’”83 Last but not least, the province received an unparalleled amount of national and international publicity as a result of the Centennial. PEI had basked in the national limelight and even achieved international notoriety during the Royal Visit. It was confidently declared that “the effects of this publicity will last for many years and be important to tourism and other industries.”84 Prince Edward Island tourism was finally an “industry,” fixed in both the national and provincial psyche. The Centennial Committee believed its duty was to convince Islanders to take a proactive approach to the tourism industry. PEI’s political and commercial elite had gradually become more proactive over the course of the postwar era, but it was felt this attitude was still somewhat lacking among the populace at large. The report from the board of directors noted, “In so many things [there is] a reluctance, often understandable, [for the public] to take on a new or an uncertain commitment [and it] forced the Committee to sponsor major events. The ‘it will never work’ school of thought is always encountered at such times and it needs to be countered.”85 The committee saw the Centennial as a long-term investment, and it wanted Islanders to see it that way, too. The Centennial could be used to stimulate economic growth on PEI, “priming the pump” by covering start-up costs for initiatives that could be repeated in the future, and providing a model of what types of activities were indeed possible.86 The Centennial had shown Islanders just how much the tourism industry, when riding piggyback on a national cause, could achieve. Prince Edward Island had successfully reconstructed its pastoral,

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anti-modern identity to present itself as the wellspring of Canada’s past, a place where the nation could go for spiritual healing. As a result, the Island had attached itself to the federal government as a national treasure that must be preserved and maintained. Perhaps most importantly, the Centennial Committee had convinced technocrats in Ottawa and on Prince Edward Island that the province’s tourism industry could produce economic growth if it received central management and careful investment. Planners were no longer just thinking in terms of temporary grants – they were now thinking in longer, more systematic terms about tourism. In the coming years, federal-provincial cooperation would transform tourism into the centrally controlled, carefully planned, and well-funded industry tourism boosters had always dreamed it should be. Tourism’s future on Prince Edward Island was a direct result of the lessons that learned from the 1964 Centennial of the Charlottetown Conference. The Economic Planners: Modernity and Its Critics Of course, the newly popular Keynesian approach to regional economies in Canada was not restricted to tourism. In 1966, the entire Province of Prince Edward Island was designated as one of five areas in the country chosen for comprehensive, long-term development planning under the federal government’s Fund for Rural Economic Development (FRED).87 The federal government, in large part, paid for a comprehensive study of the Island’s economy by the firm Acres Research and Development, which was tabled in 1967. Acres’s report suggested that tourism’s central problems – the short season, the geographical concentration of tourist facilities, and the low return on investment – could be corrected by careful management.88 At the same time, Acres recommended that tourism should not be the main focus of economic development, due to the seasonal nature of the work and the low average return on investment.89 These warnings about tourism’s viability would ultimately be overlooked in favour of the industry’s perceived benefits. The federal and provincial zeal for economic intervention continued unabated after the report produced by Acres Research, and in March 1969 the Comprehensive Development Plan was signed into existence with the support of both levels of government.90 The CDP proposed to spend a staggering $725 million, including federal contributions of $225 million, over the course of fifteen years. The funding arrangement divided the plan into three five-year phases, although only the first and

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most important phase of the CDP, which went into effect on 1 April 1969 and was to end no earlier than 31 March 1974, is considered here. Phase One was budgeted at $242 million, of which the federal government would provide no more than $125 million.91 The money was to go towards the radical redesigning of Prince Edward Island’s economy and society. Development planners believed that prosperity could not be achieved in PEI without fundamental social change. The social-economic structure of Island life was to be given an injection of rational planning based around cost-benefit values. The provincial government itself was to be transformed, and to that end, a small army of technocrats from Ottawa arrived on the Island and created a new Department of Development to “modernize” departments such as Education and Health.92 Government restructuring was only the tip of the iceberg, however. All sectors of the provincial economy were to undergo restructuring and development in conjunction with one another.93 Agriculture was to be transformed to a large-scale agribusiness model, with a proposed reduction of the number of Island farms to twenty-five hundred larger and more profitable “commercial farm units.”94 Low-income farms were to be bought out by the government, with former owners relocated and retrained to work in an expanding sector of the economy, such as tourism or manufacturing. A similar model was proposed for the fisheries sector, to reduce the number of fishermen and active ports. No one could accuse the Comprehensive Development Plan of not being comprehensive. By involving itself in almost every aspect of Island life, economic, social, and otherwise, the CDP was forging a brave new world in which economies of scale would reign. Tradition and the old Island way of life were now seen as obstacles to progress and prosperity. Despite this, PEI’s old garden myth had not completely outlived its usefulness. It still had one role to play – and that was in Prince Edward Island’s tourism industry. Development planners did not, however, follow the advice of the 1967 Final Report from Acres and keep investment in tourism low. The Comprehensive Development Plan had big dreams for tourism, and big money to match. The industry was to receive more than $12.7 million during the first phase of the plan, one of the larger sums associated with the CDP (if considerably less than the $35 million earmarked for agriculture). Much like every other sector of the economy, tourism was to be radically redesigned. Unlike with agriculture and the fisheries, planners wanted to expand tourism operations. As with every other aspect of Island society, the industry was to be consolidated, though,

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so that tourism could be more competitive and better regulated. A new planning unit was added to the department responsible to implement CDP programming and act as a liaison with the Department of Development. The unit was yet another example of the new ethos of planning that had been gradually winning over the tourism department. The CDP had now made the ethos official policy. Perhaps the most important component of the plan’s tourism operation was grooming PEI’s image. The Plan stated that it was necessary for the Island “to maintain the park-like atmosphere of Prince Edward Island” if the tourism industry was to grow and thrive.95 A failure to do so would almost certainly lead to disaster, “since there will be less reason for people to travel long distances to see something little different from any other place.”96 Tourism’s use of the garden myth presented a paradox for development planners. On the one hand, the signing of the CDP had been a trumpet call sounding the demise of Prince Edward Island’s old order. On the other hand, planners acknowledged that the Island’s tourism industry, which was one of the central features of their efforts to modernize the province, depended on the garden myth for its success. The Comprehensive Development Plan did not single-handedly bring modernity to Prince Edward Island, but it did make modernization an official policy. For some Islanders, the CDP’s vision for the future was a bitter pill to swallow. It seemed that the plan had summarily dismissed the traditions and values on which Islanders had built their society. The political scientist David Milne has noted that “the Development Plan had given an explicit status to the tourist industry that simply could not be harmonized with the traditional model of the Island as a garden of independent yeomen.”97 Tourism, with its key position in the CDP’s strategy and its apparent belief that the garden myth was only useful as a marketing tool, became an obvious target for traditionalist opponents of the CDP. It is impossible to identify how widespread opposition to modernity, as envisaged by the Comprehensive Development Plan, was among Islanders. The 1970 election results indicated that the province was in favour of progress, but that did not mean Islanders were in favour of progress at any cost, and there were widespread demonstrations to that effect. A case in point was the government’s attempt to create an additional park in King’s County to be another “growth pole” for the region. As soon as the initiative was publicly announced, it was met with vocal opposition from the farmers whose land was located within the confines of the proposed park. Finally, at a public meeting with residents

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of Fairfield on 28 June 1973, Premier Alexander Campbell tore up the parks agreement, much to the approval of the local farmers.98 Protests were not restricted to the potential inhabitants of future national parks, however. Farmers across the province were unhappy with the Comprehensive Development Plan. When 1971 proved to be the worst year for agriculture on record, the confrontational National Farmers Union organized a protest. At the height of the tourist season, farmers used their tractors to clog PEI’s main tourist highways.99 The fact that the NFU had chosen to protest by interfering with tourists, rather than gathering at Province House or some other symbol of government authority, indicates that tourism was by then perceived as the government’s primary concern by the angry farmers. The fact that Campbell disparagingly referred to the farmers as a “special interest group” served to demonstrate that agriculture no longer held its privileged position in Island society.100 The protests also suggested that tourism was closely associated with the CDP’s push for modernity. Even supporters of the Comprehensive Development Plan began to turn against tourism. The Prince Edward Island Rural Development Council had originally been a grassroots movement organized to combat rural poverty, but in 1970 the RDC signed an agreement with the province where it would receive funding and act as a liaison between ordinary Islanders and CDP technocrats. By 1971 however, the RDC was publicly questioning the CDP’s emphasis on tourism, calling the focus “excessive.”101 Deputy Development Minister Richard Higgins attempted to defend the government’s tourism expenditures, but he had to admit that such costs “from an emotional point of view, may not be popular with farmers and fishermen.”102 Campbell’s government soon found itself backpedalling on numerous other issues and rethinking its views regarding the garden myth. Campbell was soon revising the CDP’s agricultural objectives to make room for the “family farm” and “community values.” As Milne notes, “The conversion was so adeptly handled that in an article in the Canadian Magazine a cartoon depicted Campbell as the Island’s veritable Jolly Green Giant towering over the lush Green Garden of the Gulf.”103 1973: Prince Edward Island’s Centennial PEI’s Department of Tourism received a facelift as well. Late in 1971, Minister Bonnell resigned from the provincial government to accept one of PEI’s Senate seats.104 Premier Campbell took the opportunity

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to restructure and rename the department. Even the new name, the Department of the Environment and Tourism, suggested a new, more subtle understanding of what “tourism” was. The department was divided into three branches: the Environmental Control Commission, charged with managing PEI’s fish and wildlife; the Land Use Service Centre, which was to focus on land development and management; and Tourist Services, which contained the old Travel Bureau and Parks Division, as well as the new Resorts Division and the Accommodations Inspection Division.105 In announcing the creation of the new DET, Premier Campbell declared, “It is of great concern to the Government that the growth of the tourist industry be achieved hand-in-hand with the maintenance of an environment from which citizens and visitors will derive maximum benefit and enjoyment.”106 The newer, friendlier tourism department would not, however, end the ongoing debate about the Island’s future. The province had never really addressed the issues that had made the Centennial Days of the 1964 celebrations so difficult and acrimonious. Many Islanders did not feel that the emphasis on tourism reflected the realities of Island society, and they felt marginalized in the new order. Debate only intensified and then finally peaked during the province’s 1973 Centennial marking a hundred years in Confederation for Prince Edward Island. The celebrations would become an ideological battleground for competing views of PEI’s past, present, and future. By 1973, Canada’s bout with “centennialitis” was finally coming to a close. The Centennial flames had been fanned continuously throughout the 1960s, notably in 1964 and 1967, as well as numerous anniversary celebrations in various provinces. British Columbia alone had celebrated no less than four centennials between 1958 and 1971.107 Prince Edward Island’s 1973 festival, held to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the Island’s entry into Confederation in 1873, was to be Canada’s last major Centennial celebration. A 1973 Centennial Commission had been created in 1969 to begin planning. Organizers considered the Centennial a perfect chance to reinforce the tourism ethos among the Island’s inhabitants. Earlier in this volume, Bourque, Huskins, Marquis, and Richard discuss the 1883 Loyalist Centennial in New Brunswick and note that it was not “a critical examination of the past” – it was intended to serve as a vehicle for tourism and civic boosterism. Ninety years later, the goal on Prince Edward Island was similar. Previous centennials had inspired enthusiasm among Islanders, and organizers hoped this celebration would resurrect the “Spirit of ’64” one more time. A Centennial Celebration

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Act was officially assented to on 25 July 1970, in which it states, “The participation of individual Islanders in CENTENNIAL ’73 is the primary single aim of planning.”108 Individual Islanders got involved in the 1973 Centennial in record numbers. At the end of the day, there were twenty-one commissioners, an executive staff of thirty-six, some one hundred community committees consisting of more than fifteen hundred Islanders, twenty-two provincial committees with upwards of two hundred members and, as with all centennials, an army of volunteers. The massive scale of involvement produced, among other things, approximately four hundred new programs in PEI for the year 1973.109 The large participation also proved that at least when it came to centennials, many Islanders were not averse to tourism. As with the 1964 and 1939 celebrations, the commissioners and executive staff of the 1973 commission served as a veritable who’s who of Charlottetown’s business and political elite. For the elite that had no actual position with the commission, there was always inclusion in the honorary board of directors, which included Senator Elsie Inman as well as three other senators, three former Island premiers, all four PEI MPs, two MLAs, a rear-admiral, a chief justice, and the architect the 1964 Centennial, Frank MacKinnon. Perhaps not surprisingly, there were no notable representatives of the Island’s minority communities.110 The celebrations would, for the most part, follow the model of 1964, minus any $5 million centrepiece, such as the Confederation Centre. The celebrations and projects themselves, however, received much more money than 1964 had; Ottawa bankrolled 1973 to the tune of about $1.5 million, while the Campbell government in Charlottetown contributed $900,000.111 The money went towards 1964-type celebrations, including a publicity blitz, community days, community and provincial projects, and the now near-compulsory Royal visit. Despite these very real successes, the 1973 Centennial attracted a range of naysayers, and was used by many as a platform for wider attacks upon the tourism industry and even on the Comprehensive Development Plan itself. The government tried its best to rally the troops and silence the critics. Environment and Tourism Minister Robert Schurman made an appeal at the Tourist Association’s annual dinner in 1972, exclaiming, “All systems are go” for the upcoming Centennial: Referring to the upcoming 1973 P.E.I. Centennial, he [Schurman] said that “there are those who will say that we are having too many centennials, we

362  Matthew McRae had one in 1964 and another in 1967 and now this. These are the wet blankets of society.” He added, “They would ignore the over $1,500,000 that Ottawa is prepared to spend in helping us stage this party.” Mr Schurman noted that the centennials of 1964 and 1967 had resulted in a surge of tourism that had not lost its momentum.112

The “wet blankets of society” were not, however, going to stay quiet. The most vocal and intelligent attack on the 1973 Centennial came from a group of Island historians, artists, and concerned citizens calling themselves the Brothers and Sisters of Cornelius Howatt. The BS-CH was also used as a lever to launch an attack on the CDP’s vision of Prince Edward Island and to present its own variation on the garden myth. According to Harry Baglole, a founding member of the Brothers and Sisters and later the editor of the Island magazine, the BS-CH was created as a direct result of the extravagant plans the government had made to celebrate 1973.113 The BS-CH believed that the Centennial Commission was ignoring the fact that the Island had resisted joining Confederation from 1864 until 1873, reconstructing history in order to attract more tourists to the province. The BS-CH also felt there was a historical parallel to be drawn. In 1873, Prince Edward Island gave up a measure of its self-sufficiency by joining Confederation. In 1973, the BS-CH argued, the Island was again giving up control of its destiny to development planners and tourist dollars. The group had named itself after Cornelius Howatt, a nineteenth-century farmer and politician, because Howatt had been one of only two members of the Legislative Assemby to oppose joining Confederation in 1873 and, instead, had advocated for self-sufficiency. The Brothers and Sisters of Cornelius Howatt was particularly concerned with tourism’s attempts at social control and the establishment of a tourism ethos. It was believed that the Island’s traditional culture of self-sufficiency was being transformed into a culture of subservience. In essence, the BS-CH believed that by eroding the family farm and encouraging the tourism ethos, the Comprehensive Development Plan was reconstructing PEI’s identity for the worse. The new provincial identity had no scruples, no dignity, and no connection to the Island’s hallowed past: “We are in the process of being conditioned to think of ourselves, not as an independent agricultural and fishing community, but as a pandering people – a province of flunkies and attendants. Our principal occupation, we are encouraged to believe, is to satisfy

Prince Edward Island’s Centennial Decade  363

the imagined needs and fancies of the glut of tourists who are lured to the Island by glossy promotional literature and the Big Sell – even though this involves an abandonment of our traditional values and life-style.”114 As evidence of this reconstruction, the Brothers and Sisters pointed to some of the tourist industry’s more heavy-handed attempts to make Islanders more tourist-friendly. The most notorious example was an advertisement published in provincial newspapers in the summer of 1973 announcing “Welcome a Visitor Week” instructing Islanders on how to be good hosts: 1. Ask if you can give help when a stranger appears lost or hesitant. 2. Take time to give accurate and specific directions. 3. Speak slowly and distinctly (but don’t “shout”) when assisting a foreign visitor. 4. Walk with him a block, or even more, to point out the way. 5. If he is a photo fan, offer to take a snapshot of him with his camera. Many tourists appreciate this courtesy. 6. Be enthusiastic and well-informed about your local sightseeing attractions. 7. Post this on your office, union, church or synagogue bulletin board. 8. Be friendly. Be helpful. Be hospitable.115 The Brothers and Sisters saw such advertisements as the work of insensitive development planners “from away” who were only interested in changing Islanders’ behaviour to fit their own schemes. In the case of instruction number 7, the BS-CH pointed out that there were no synagogues on Prince Edward Island. Why should Islanders accept the authority of someone who did not know the Island? This was only a small part of the BS-CH’s opposition. The attacks on the Comprehensive Development Plan by the Brothers and Sisters of Cornelius Howatt were all symbolic in nature, drawing on the rhetoric of the garden myth for ammunition and using the weapons of humour and satire to get their points across. To promote 1973, the Centennial Commission had created a mascot of a smiling Father of Confederation with the Centennial logo emblazoned on his hat. The BS-CH retaliated with a logo and mascots of its own. The BS-CH logo became the image of a manure spreader, with the statement “spread the word” emblazoned beneath it.116 The most famous of the BS-CH’s mascots (there were several) became the PIE-Faced

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Kid. The imaginary exploits of the Kid, who did everything he could to sabotage the tourism industry, were recorded in a series of letters to the editor. In one letter, the Kid even did battle with the Smiling Father, who nearly defeated the Kid with his feared ­“Centennial pin.”117 The PIE-Faced Kid was also used to challenge the strictures of social control. A BS-CH letter to the editor explained that the Kid had acquired his hatred of tourism due to the “Welcome a visitor ad.” Young and idealistic, the Kid actually attempted to follow the advice on how to deal with tourists. After being humiliated and called “queer” and “quaint” in several encounters with those from away, “something snapped within the Kid, who did not think of himself as being either queer or quaint. In that instant, the ‘sidewalk ambassador’ was transformed into the ‘Scourge of Tourism.’”118 The Brothers and Sisters attacked anything they perceived as detracting from the Island’s sovereignty and dignity. As part of the 1973 celebrations, ownership of Province House, PEI’s historic legislature and site of the Charlottetown Conference meetings, was transferred to the federal government. In exchange, Ottawa promised to “restore, preserve, interpret and administer” the building in a fashion that acknowledged its significance to all Canadians as a national shrine.119 The BS-CH preferred to acknowledge Province House’s significance as a symbol of PEI’s self-governing status. Three days after the announcement of the transfer, the Brothers and Sisters draped black crepe on the main entrance of the building, mourning the Island’s loss of control over its own legislature. A BS-CH letter to the editor entitled “Province House: Ward of Ottawa” expressed the organization’s sentiments: “Province House, we are told, is to become a ward of the federal government, and though it will not become a barrack or a bank, as a national shrine it will become more and more an object for curious visitors and cameraclutching tourists ‘merely to look at.’”120 The names of the two new ferries, the Vacationland and the Holiday Island, were also seen as disgraceful. Edward MacDonald notes the tourist ferries never received from Islanders “the affectionate regard that they harboured for the Abby [the Abegweit].”121 The Brothers and Sisters, for their part, suggested that the two ferries be renamed the Coney Island I and Coney Island II. The Brothers and Sisters twisted the Centennial slogans as well. “The place to be in ’73,” immortalized on the Island’s 1973 licence plates, was transformed into “The place to pee in ’73.”122

Prince Edward Island’s Centennial Decade  365

12.1  The Official Mascot of the 1973 Centennial – the Smiling Father. Image courtesy of the Prince Edward Island Museum and Heritage Foundation.

There was a certain parochial naiveté about the attitude of the Brothers and Sisters, since much of the garden they claimed to be defending had already passed on. The break with the past had come to Prince Edward Island long before, but it was only as the 1970s began that, to paraphrase Edward MacDonald, the full price of modernity became apparent. At the same time, the BS-CH did recognize that a return to the

366  Matthew McRae

“old ways” was not possible, nor even desirable. Premier Campbell, himself a target of the BS-CH’s satiric attacks, understood this fact: If the Brothers and Sisters of Cornelius Howatt are simply saying that we should return to the ways of our forefathers one hundred years or more ago, I would have to violently disagree with them. But I don’t believe this is the message they are giving to us. I have considered and advocated for some time that we in Prince Edward Island must carefully examine change so that we are able to weed out those aspects which would be detrimental to our way of life, and, at the same time, take advantage of those aspects of change which will enhance and improve our quality of life.123

Conclusion The 1964 Centennial of the Charlottetown Conference had convinced many Islanders that PEI’s future lay in tourism and linking Island identity not only to the garden myth, but also to the new nationalism. It had also demonstrated the value of economic investment and planning, laying the groundwork for the Comprehensive Development Plan in the late 1960s. The 1973 Centennial of PEI’s entry into Confederation, however, in conjunction with the social and economic changes brought by the CDP, had prompted some Islanders to take a long hard look at their garden myth and how it was being deployed by their provincial and federal governments. A debate had begun about the province’s past, present, and future, and about what the “Island way of life” really was. Tourism, which promoted the Island’s past while simultaneously serving as a harbinger of modernity, became central in that debate. The industry had tied itself to the garden myth, to Canadian nationalism, and to government-led economic development, three of the main issues in the debate about the Island’s future. Thanks to the hard work of the Island’s tourism boosters, tourism went from being seen as a secondary industry in the immediate postwar era, to being perceived as having a pivotal role in PEI’s economic destiny. Tourism became, in effect, one powerful filter through which to view the Island’s future. People and groups such as the Brothers and Sisters of Cornelius Howatt, however, felt compelled to note it was not the only view of the province’s future. Ultimately, fears that the province would become another Coney Island dissipated. Tourism peaked in 1975, and then levelled out at approximately 500,000 to 700,000 visitors annually thereafter.124 Academics writing in the late 1970s and 1980s would remark that

Prince Edward Island’s Centennial Decade  367

12.2  The official symbol of the Brothers and Sisters of Cornelius ­Howatt – a manure spreader. From Baglole and Weale, Cornelius Howatt: Superstar! cover.

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the significance of tourism on Prince Edward Island society had been exaggerated.125 Many believed a permanent plateau had been reached. Tourism is once again on the rise, however. The number of visitors to PEI increased by 60 per cent following the completion of Confederation Bridge in 1997, before reaching 1.18 million visitors in 2000.126 Charlottetown’s role as the birthplace of Confederation is being promoted now more than ever, notably during 2014, the year of the sesquicentennial of the Charlottetown Conference, which was once again used to divert both government and tourist dollars into the province. With partners including various businesses and the provincial government, PEI 2014 staged more than 150 events over the course of the year. To promote the sesquicentennial, $5 million was pumped into events and projects that included everything from the publication of graphic novels about the Charlottetown Conference to financing for the PEI Snowmobile Association.127 Once again, the question of how to ensure that the year would create a lasting legacy was paramount, with different views coming from various parts of Island society.128 The garden myth and PEI’s claim to being the “Cradle of Confederation” continues to influence the Island’s economy and society. Despite the continued encroachment of the “modern” world, PEI continues to promote itself as a place out of time, where the “Spirit of ’64” can still be experienced as a fact. Islanders will have to decide exactly what they want their province to be, by re-engaging in the kind of debate that took place during the 1960s and 1970s on Prince Edward Island between the virtues of embracing modernity and guarding a mythic past. NOTES 1 This chapter is based on two chapters of the author’s master’s thesis, “Manufacturing Paradise: Tourism Development and Mythmaking on Prince Edward Island, 1939–1973” (Carleton University, 2004), written with the support of his supervisors, Duncan McDowall and Del Muise, to whom he owes much thanks. The author would also like to thank Ryan O’Connor, who suggested submitting a chapter to this volume, proofread the initial submission, and attended a workshop on his behalf. Without him this chapter would never have been written. 2 James Murton, “‘The Normandy of the New World’: Canada Steamship Lines, Antimodernism, and the Selling of Old Quebec,” in Nicole Neatby

Prince Edward Island’s Centennial Decade  369 and Peter Hodgins, eds., Settling and Unsettling Memories: Essays in Canadian Public History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 426. 3 Alan Gordon, “The Highland Heart in Nova Scotia: Place and Memory at the Highland Village Museum,” in John Walsh and James Opp, eds., Placing Memory in Canada: Local Acts of Remembering (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010), 115. 4 Ian McKay, The Quest of the Folk: Antimodernism and Cultural Selection in Twentieth-Century Nova Scotia ((Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994), 151; Robin Bates, In the Province of History: The Making of the Public Past in Twentieth-Century Nova Scotia (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010), 254. 5 James Opp, “Prairie Commemorations and the Nation: The Golden Jubilees of Alberta and Saskatchewan, 1955,” in Norman Hillmer and Adam Chapnick, eds., Canadas of the Mind: The Making and Unmaking of Canadian Nationalisms in the Twentieth Century (Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 2007), 222. 6 Susan Roy, “Performing Musqueam Culture and History at British Columbia’s 1966 Centennial Celebrations,” BC Studies 135 (Autumn 2002): 55–90. 7 Opp, “Prairie Commemorations and the Nation,” 215. 8 John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 13. 9 Ibid., 13–14. 10 Susan Roy, “Performing Musqueam Culture.” 11 Gordon, “The Highland Heart in Nova Scotia,” 112. The concept of “imagined communities” that Gordon refers to is the brainchild of Benedict Anderson. Anderson focuses on the nation as an imagined community willed into being by common agreement, but many scholars have also applied the idea to regional and ethnic identities as well. For more information, see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 2006 [1983]). 12 Larry Krotz, Tourists: How Our Fastest Growing Industry Is Changing the World (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1996), 11. 13 J. Walter Jones to D. Leo Dolan, executive-director, National Tourist Advisory Committee, 24 Aug. 1944, Public Archives and Records Office of Prince Edward Island (PAROPEI), RG 25/33, J. Walter Jones Papers,, file: National Tourist Advisory Committee. 14 B. Graham Rogers, 1963 Prince Edward Island Traffic Figures with Comparisons, Borden–P.E.I., –Cape Tormentine, N.B., PAROPEI, RG 25/34, Matheson Papers, Transportation Files, 1, and “Borden–Tormentine Route, Total Passenger Traffic for Years 1928–1944 Inclusive,” ibid., RG 25/33, vol. 3,

370  Matthew McRae Carferry file, 1. See also Annual Report: Department of Tourist Development, Prince Edward Island, 1968 (Charlottetown: Dillon Printing Co, 1969), UPEI Library, PEI Collection, 9. 15 Carlton S. Van Doren and Sam A. Lollar, “The Consequences of Forty Years of Tourism Growth,” Annals of Tourism Research 12 (1985): 481–2. 16 G.V. Fraser, Report of the Prince Edward Island Tourist and Information Branch: December 31, 1950 – December 31, 1951, (Charlottetown: Department of the Provincial Secretary, 1952), PAROPEI, Annual and Miscellaneous Reports, Box 2, 3–4. 17 Blair Weeks, ed., Minding the House (Charlottetown: The Acorn Press & The Association of Former Members of the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island, 2002), , 188–9. 18 Minutes of Semi-Annual Meeting of the PEI Tourist Association, held June 6/60, PAROPEI, RG 32, 98-004, box 3, 1. 19 David Milne, “Politics in a Beleaguered Garden,” in Verner Smitheram, David Milne, and Satadal Dasgupta, eds., The Garden Transformed: Prince Edward Island, 1945–1980 (Charlottetown: Ragweed Press, 1982), 40. 20 “Picture Yourself in P.E.I.,” in Report of the Tourist and Information Bureau of the Province of Prince Edward Island for the period January 1, 1956 – December 31, 1956 (Charlottetown: Department of the Provincial Secretary, 1957), PAROPEI, Annual and Miscellaneous Reports, Box 2, 7. 21 Ibid. 22 Anthony G.S. Careless, Initiative and Response: The Adaptation of Canadian Federalism to Regional Economic Development (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1977), 72. 23 Ibid., 109. 24 Ibid., 72. 25 Edward MacDonald, If You’re Stronghearted: Prince Edward Island in the Twentieth Century (Summerside: Williams and Crue, 2000), 34. 26 Matthew McRae, “The Romance of Canada: Tourism and Nationalism Meet in Charlottetown, 1939,”Acadiensis 34, 2 (2005): 44. 27 Report of the Travel Bureau of the Province of Prince Edward Island for the Year 1950 (Charlottetown: Department of the Provincial Secretary, 1951), PAROPEI, Annual and Miscellaneous Reports, Box 2,6. 28 “Proceedings of the Twenty Fourth Annual Convention of the Canadian Tourist Association held at Charlottetown, P.E.I., September 17 to 20, 1956,” PAROPEI, RG 25/34, Travel Bureau file, 38. 29 Douglas Roche, “Prince Edward Island: The Garden Island of Canada,” in The Ensign, 1 Nov. 1956, ibid., 25.

Prince Edward Island’s Centennial Decade  371 30 Speech by Louis St Laurent, 20 May 1957, Library and Archives Canada (LAC), MG26, Series L, vol. 27, 2. 31 MacDonald, If You’re Stronghearted, 280. 32 “Harvie, Eric Lafferty,” in The Canadian Who’s Who, vol. 9, 1961–1963 (Toronto: Trans-Canada Press, 1964), 481. 33 The Foundation eventually gave rise to the Glenbow Museum and the Glenbow Archives. The Glenbow Archives are among Canada’s largest non-governmental archival repositories. http://www .glenbow.org. 34 Stephen Azzi, Walter Gordon and the Rise of Canadian Nationalism (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999), 66. 35 MacDonald, If You’re Stronghearted, 276. 36 See H.V. Nelles, The Art of Nation-Building: Pageantry and Spectacle at Quebec’s Tercentenary (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), 1999; McRae, “The Romance of Canada.” 37 “Requires Long Planning,” Ottawa Citizen, 8 Feb. 1960, 1. 38 “Looking Forward to Big Birthday Party,” Hamilton Spectator, 10 Feb. 1960, PAROPEI, RG 34, Series 13, Sub Series 1, file 19. 39 Comments by Frank MacKinnon, with notes by George Fraser, n.d., ibid.. 40 Daniel Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), 9–12. 41 Memo from Frank MacKinnon to Hon. J.D. Stewart, 3 Feb. 1960, PAROPEI, RG 34, Series 13, Sub Series 1, file 16, 1. 42 “Progress Report, Promotion and Publicity 1964 Centennial,” n.d., ibid., file 7, 1. Original emphasis. 43 Frank MacKinnon, Report of the Board of Directors of the Prince Edward Island Centennial Committee, ibid., 2. 44 Donald Creighton, “The Confederation Conference” (Charlottetown: PEI 1964 Centennial Committee, 1964), ibid., file 26. 45 British sociologist John Urry, in his book The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies. (London: SAGE, 1990) explains that “the contemporary gaze is increasingly signposted. There are markers which identify the things and places worthy of our gaze,” 47. The Memorial Building is one of these markers. 46 Dean MacCannell, The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999), 44. 47 Dennis L. Clarke to William Hayward, 21 Aug. 1963, PAROPEI, RG 34, Series 13, Sub Series 1, file 22, 2. 48 MacKinnon, Report of the Board of Directors, 84.

372  Matthew McRae 49 Burton Lewis, Charlottetown: Birthplace of Confederation, pamphlet, n.d., PAROPEI, RG 34, Series 13, Sub Series 1, file 19, 13. 50 MacKinnon, Report of the Board of Directors, 6. 51 J. David Stewart, provincial secretary, to Bill Hancox, 28 Nov. 1960, PAROPEI, RG 34, Series 13, Sub Series 1, file 16. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 54 Memo from MacKinnon to Stewart, 3 Feb. 1960, 2. To read more about the 1939 pageant, see McRae, “The Romance of Canada,” 38–40. 55 W. Hayward, manager, to Hon. J.D. Stewart, 16 Mar. 1962, PAROPEI, RG 7, Series 17, Provincial Secretary Fonds, file 1962. 56 To learn more about the Saskatchewan and Alberta Golden Jubilees of 1955, see Opp, “Prairie Commemorations and the Nation,” 214–33, and David E. Smith, “Celebrations and History on the Prairies,” Journal of Canadian Studies 17, 3 (1982): 45–57. 57 MacKinnon, Report of the Board of Directors, 4. 58 “Miss Mary Jolliffe,” biographical sheet, PAROPEI, RG 34, Series 13, Sub Series 1, file 23. 59 MacKinnon, Report of the Board of Directors, 13-14. 60 Lewis, Charlottetown: Birthplace of Confederation. 61 Gordon notes that “place brings together meaning and the material world in a particular location. It is a lived experience that is simultaneously material and abstract.” Although he was writing about the “­ Scottishness” of Cape Breton, PEI’s sense of place similarly brought together actual landscapes with imagined qualities. “The Highland Heart in Nova ­Scotia,” 110. 62 The Island was not the first locale to believe that the entire community had to contribute to tourism, regardless of whether one benefited directly or not. Duncan McDowall has described how by the 1920s, Bermuda had associated politeness – particularly politeness to tourists – as essential to the island’s way of life. See Another World: Bermuda and the Rise of Modern Tourism (London: Macmillan, 1999), 98. The sociologist Dean MacCannell identifies such behaviour as “reconstructed ethnicity”: “the maintenance and preservation of ethnic forms for the entertainment of ethnically different others.” See “Reconstructed Ethnicity: Tourism and Cultural Identity in Third World Communities,” Annals of Tourism Research 11 (1984): 385. 63 Centennial News, Dec. 1962, PAROPEI, RG 34, Series 13, Sub Series 1, Public Relations Committee, 1. 64 Centennial News Letter: February 1963, ibid., file 6, 1. 65 MacKinnon, Report of Board of Directors, 54.

Prince Edward Island’s Centennial Decade  373 6 6 Ibid., 45–6. 67 Ibid., 8. 68 MacKinnon, Report of the Board of Directors, 9. 69 Ibid., 8. 70 Kay Wood to Cmdr. Birtwistle, 8 Mar. 1964, PAROPEI, RG 34, Series 13, Sub Series 2, file 16, and D. Ross, events co-ordinator, to Leo Barchert, manager, Swift Canadian Company, 16 Apr. 1964, ibid., file 7. 71 Cyrus F. Gallant to W. Hayward, 15 June 1963, ibid., file 17. 72 K. Birtwistle, events manager, to Cyrus F. Gallant, chairman, Village Commissioners, 17 Sept 1963, ibid.. 73 Gallant to Birtwistle, 2 Dec. 1963, ibid. 74 The Confederation Centre has featured exhibits and performances by and about the Island’s minority communities. For example, in 2013, the Art Gallery housed the exhibition “Ni’n na L’nu: The Mi’kmaq of Prince Edward Island.” http://www.confederationcentre.com/en/exhibitionsarchive-read-more.php?exhibition=78. 75 An Act Respecting the Armorial bearings of the Province of Prince Edward Island and An Act Respecting a Provincial Flag, in The Acts of the General Assembly of Prince Edward Island, 1964 (Charlottetown: Queen’s Printer, 1964), 1 and 63, respectively. 76 An Act to Establish the Public Archives of Prince Edward Island, in ibid., 287. 77 MacCannell, The Tourist, 45. 78 Department of Tourist Development: For the Period January 1, 1964 – December 31,1964, UPEI Library, PEI Collection, 1. 79 No title, speech on the progress of Centennial Committee, n.d., PAROPEI, RG 34, Series 13, Sub Series 1, file 19. 80 Department of Tourist Development … 1964, 2. 81 MacKinnon, Report of the Board of Directors, 16. 82 Ibid., 13. 83 Ibid., 5. 84 Ibid., 14. 85 Ibid., 5. 86 Ibid. 87 MacDonald, If You’re Stronghearted, 296. 88 Preliminary Review of Strategy and Programs for a Comprehensive Rural Development Plan for Prince Edward Island, 11 Nov. 1966, PAROPEI, RG 33, Accession 2639, box 3, PEI Tourism, Development Plan Strategies, 4. 89 Ibid., 103. 90 MacDonald If You’re Stronghearted, 296.

374  Matthew McRae 91 The official title of the Comprehensive Development Plan document was as follows: Canada, Dept. of Regional Economic Expansion, Development Plan for Prince Edward Island; a 15-Year Federal-Provincial Program for Social and Economic Advancement (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1969), 84. 92 Donald Nemetz, “Managing Development,” in Smitheram et al., The Garden Transformed, 157–8. 93 Canada, Development Plan for Prince Edward Island, Contents. 94 Ibid., 33. In 1961, there had been some 7,335 farms. MacDonald, If You’re Stronghearted, 259. 95 Canada, Development Plan for Prince Edward Island, 125. 96 Ibid., 109. 97 Milne, “Politics in the Garden,” 57. 98 MacDonald, If You’re Stronghearted, 316. 99 Ibid., 309. 100 Milne, “Politics in the Garden,” 49. 101 “Government Rationalizes Expenditures on Tourism,” Evening Patriot, 13 Nov. 1971, 3. 102 Ibid. 103 Milne, “Politics in the Garden,” 50. 104 “Dr Lorne Bonnell among Four Appointed to Senate,” Charlottetown Guardian, 5 Nov. 1971, newspaper clipping, PAROPEI, RG 32, 98-004, box 3. 105 Annual Report: Department of Tourist Development, Prince Edward Island, 1971 (Charlottetown: Dillon Printing Co, 1972), UPEI Library, PEI Collection, 5. 106 “New Gov’t Department Announced by Premier: Environment, Tourism under Mr Schurman,” Charlottetown Guardian, 4 Dec. 1971, newspaper clipping, PAROPEI, RG 32, 98-004, box 3. 107 “In B.C., Centennials Are a Way of Life,” newspaper clipping, paper unknown, ibid. 108 1973 Centennial Commission Final Report (Charlottetown: Queen’s Printer, 1973), PAROPEI, RG 34/15, 17. 109 Ibid., 300. 110 Ibid., 27–8. 111 Ibid., 2. 112 “All Systems Are ‘Go’ for Centennial Program Here,” newspaper clipping, PAROPEI, RG 32, 98-004, box 3. 113 Harry Baglole and David Weale eds., Cornelius Howatt: Superstar! (Summerside: Williams and Crue, 1974), 7–8. 114 Ibid., 152.

Prince Edward Island’s Centennial Decade  375 115 Ibid., 130. 116 Ibid., 164. 117 Ibid., 121. 118 Ibid., 131–2. 119 Ibid., 183. 120 Ibid., 78. 121 MacDonald, If You’re Stronghearted, 305. 122 Baglole and Weale, Cornelius Howatt, 158. 123 Ibid., 112. 124 MacDonald, If You’re Stronghearted, 315. 125 Judith Alder, “Tourism and Pastoral,” 149, and John McClellan, “Changing Patterns of Land Use,” 113, in Smitheram et al., The Garden Transformed. 126 Prince Edward Island 2001 Tourist Brochure. 127 Jim Day, “Prince Edward Island Tourism Minister Hopes Spending Big for 2014 Good Use of Money,” Charlottetown Guardian, 8 Oct. 2013. http:// www.theguardian.pe.ca/News/Local/2013-10-08/article-3421187/ Prince-Edward-Island-tourism-minister-hopes-spending-big-for-2014good-use-of-money/1. See also http://www.pei2014.ca/. 128 “Building a Lasting Legacy for 2014,” Charlottetown Guardian, 6 Aug. 2012. http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/Opinion/Editorials/2012-08-06/ article-3046451/Building-a-lasting-legacy-for-2014/1.

13  Conclusion: The Importance of Commemorations and National Symbols matthew h ay day an d ray mo n d b . b l a k e

As we write these words, Canada is nearing the end of the sesquicentennial marking the 150th anniversary of Confederation in 1867. Every week in the few months leading to the launch of Canada 150, the federal government announced funding for a variety of projects connected to Canada 150, including a number of Canada 150 research chairs for Canada’s universities in June 2017. By the time this book is in your hands, those celebrations will have ended and those commemorative efforts will be the stuff of memories. In these anniversary commemorations, the questions that we often ask are versions of “Why do these commemorative activities matter?” and “Why should Canadians care what happened as part of Canada 150?” As the essays in this volume have demonstrated, commemorations have lasting legacies and impacts that can far outstrip their ceremonial dimensions when they initially occur. At the time they are celebrated, commemorations capture the mood of their society, its view of its history, and its ambitions for the future in the pageantry, speeches, and messaging produced. There are concrete dimensions to this as well. As Robert Talbot shows, the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation provided a launching pad for proponents of bilingualism and biculturalism. The bilingual postage stamps adopted in 1927 may seem but a small step on the path to a conceptualization of Canada as a bicultural nation; bilingual postage stamps, however, opened the door to future institutional bilingualism at the federal level. Projects funded with monies allocated for commemorations could have even more tangible dimensions. Several essays in this collection, including those by Meaghan Beaton, Matthew McRae, and Denis Bourque, Bonnie Huskins, Greg Marquis, and Chantal Richard, emphasize how new long-term tourism initiatives, as

Conclusion 377

strategies for economic development, were undertaken in conjunction with commemorations. As Christopher Los demonstrates, Centennial program funding launched many an urban renewal project in the 1960s. National commemorations offer opportunities for societies to reflect on and position themselves in the world. In the late nineteenth century, the Loyalist Centennial discussed in the first chapter here included consideration of how Canada related to both its British “parent” society and its American neighbour. A couple of decades later, the AngloAmerican Peace Centenary, discussed by Brandon Dimmel, echoed this theme of Canada’s place in the “anglosphere.” Fast forward to the 1960s, and we see in Robyn Schwarz’s chapter how Expo 67 provided an opportunity for both its Canadian promoters and organizers and the Americans who contributed a pavilion and visited the world’s fair to reconsider the relationship between their two societies, and to discover how they had changed over time. Canada, of course, was not merely a part of the North Atlantic Triangle, though, as Acadian, French-Canadian, and Québécois groups also viewed their regional and national commemorations as a means to reassert the French fact into the Canadian narrative. As Ted Cogan shows, commemorations could be an opportunity for pushing the boundaries of Canada’s worldview and for foreign aid–oriented groups and organizations to urge Canadians to think more globally. Commemorative events could provide an opportunity for participating groups to try to alter their societies or to posit a vision for the future. Brandon Dimmel shows how commemorations may even be set up with this new vision in mind, as organizers of the Anglo-American Peace Centenary sought to usher in a revived era of cooperation and peace in the English-speaking world. Large-scale commemorations, with multiple dimensions, could allow for groups to make proposals for change that deviated somewhat from the official narratives of commemoration of their government organizers. Ted Cogan shows how groups interested in new approaches to development aid and addressing poverty viewed Canada’s Centennial as an opportunity to change the way Canadians felt about these issues, and even secured some government funding with this in mind. His chapter echoes other scholarship that has demonstrated that, similarly, the Indigenous communities that participated in the Quebec tercentenary, British Columbia’s Centennial, and the Indians of Canada Expo 67 pavilion (among others) found ways to counter the official narratives of their governments and submit alternative versions of the history and values of their societies.1

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The official organizers of commemorations normally have a particular vision of their society, its history, and its future that they wish to project, but the participation of citizens has the potential to disrupt these narratives and to put forth alternate visions and alternate histories. This certainly was the case with Canada 150 when Indigenous activists erected a white tepee on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on 29 June 2017 to bring attention to the struggles of Indigenous peoples in Canada. As commemorations evolve in the future, the issue of participation will likely become an ever more crucial element. Helen Davies argues that one of the reasons for the great successes of the 1967 Centennial was that it allowed for a variety of different ways for Canadians to participate, on their own terms. Similarly, Robert Cupido identifies numerous different ways in which the Diamond Jubilee was celebrated in 1927, with messaging varying somewhat from region to region across Canada, depending on who organized the local events. James Trepanier’s chapter reminds us, though, that the nature of the participation of some groups was not always on their own terms, and that this could limit their engagement with the ideals of the commemorative event. Youth groups, like the Boy Scouts, have often been viewed by the organizers of commemorative events as the targets of commemorative messaging, rather than as participants in the formulation of these messages. And yet, many of the chapters in this volume have shown that commemorations, while ostensibly to mark an anniversary of a historic event, are just as much, if not more, about the future. It will likely be necessary to more fully integrate the younger generations in these discussions about what this future might hold. Oftentimes a “top-down” model has been the starting point for national commemoration exercises; an engaged citizenry, however, can make use of the opening that these anniversaries and funding opportunities offer to provide input and actively shape these events and the messages they convey. The symbols of nationhood, such as flags and anthems, that are routinely deployed at commemorative events and national celebrations, are of deep significance to the population. In June 2016, a private member’s bill, sponsored by Liberal MP Mauril Bélanger, to change the wording of Canada’s national anthem in a more gender-neutral direction passed third reading and a vote in the House of Commons. Whether or not this bill will pass through the Senate remains uncertain, but in any case, this is just the most recent instance of many past rounds of tinkering with “O Canada,” and a broader process of debating national anthems. As the chapters in this volume by Robert Talbot, Denis Bourque, Bonnie

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Huskins, Greg Marquis, and Chantal Richard note, the selection of, or granting of unofficial status to anthems was part of the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation and the Acadian Conventions nationales. Bobby Gimby’s “Ca-Na-Da!” as the unofficial anthem of the 1967 Centennial, remains a powerful memory for many, even half a century later, as Helen Davies reminds us. National flags, which provide the visual backdrop to commemorative events, and which are routinely handed out to participants, have similarly been the subject of heated debate, because citizens believe the national flags to be a crucial symbolic dimension of their nation. The Acadian tricolore, adopted at the Acadian conventions in the 1880s, remains a powerful symbol of Acadian nationhood. The heated and passionate flag debate of 1895, explored in this volume by Peter Price, proved to be a precursor to the Pearson government’s efforts to adopt a new, official Canadian flag in time for the 1967 Centennial, as discussed by Helen Davies. And as Matthew McRae observes, this extended to the provinces as well, with Prince Edward Island adopting its provincial flag as part of its “Centennial decade,” a process mirrored elsewhere, including in Ontario. Major landmark anniversaries provide opportunities for societies to consider, and possibly rethink, the symbols of their collective identity, and sometimes to adopt new ones as they move forward into the future. Do commemorations and national symbols matter, then, and should Canadians care about them? We would argue that they absolutely do, and that Canadians should. Commemorative events, often associated with mega-anniversaries, offer key junctures for taking stock of the state of a society and shaping its agenda for the future. Those who participate in the crafting of these events and their ultimate execution are exercising considerable power in the shaping of their communities. Commemorative festivities have significance far beyond the parties and fireworks that accompany them; so, too, do the symbols that surround these events. National symbols are not only deployed at the height of celebrations, but also they continue to provide the backdrop of the fabric of nationhood: the banal nationalism referred to by Michael Billig, which often passes unnoticed, but provides routine signifiers of a society.2 The elements on a nation’s flag, or the words of its anthem, provide keys to understanding how that society conceives of its history, its relationships to other countries, and the people who comprise its citizenry. Because these symbols are so omnipresent, they often pass into the collective subconscious. Canadians may not always be thinking about the

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words of “O Canada,” or the imagery of the maple leaf flag, but that does not mean Canadians are not influenced, if subtly, by their symbolism and messaging. Nationalism and identity are powerful shapers of societies, and they are reinforced by commemorative events and national symbols. Used positively, they can be effective tools for the progress and development of a society. But they can also be pernicious tools, pitting one society against another, or elements of a community against each other. Although perhaps tempting, it would be a mistake to dismiss a commemoration as just a one-time party, or a flag as a piece of cloth. As the essays in this volume have shown, commemorative events and symbolism are powerful tools for understanding the history of our societies, and they have had tangible, demonstrable impacts on the future paths taken by them. Guelph, Ontario, and Regina, Saskatchewan September 2017 NOTES 1 See H.V. Nelles, The Art of Nation-Building: The Tercentenary Celebrations of Quebec (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999); Susan Roy, “Performing Musqueam Culture and History at British Columbia’s 1966 Centennial Celebrations,” BC Studies 135 (Autumn 2002): 55–90; Myra Rutherdale and Jim Miller, ““It’s Our Country”: First Nations’ Participation in the Indian Pavilion at Expo 67,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, 17, 2 (2006): 148–73; Jane Griffith, “One Little, Two Little, Three Canadians: The Indians of Canada Pavilion and Public Pedagogy, Expo 1967,” Journal of Canadian Studies 49, 2 (2015): 171–204. 2 Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism (London: Sage, 1995).

Contributors

Meaghan Beaton completed her PhD in Canadian Studies at Trent University. From 2013 to 2015 she was the W.P. Bell Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Canadian Studies at Mount Allison University, and from 2015 to 2017 was the visiting assistant professor of Canadian History in the Department of History at Western Washington University, and a faculty member with the Canadian-American Studies Program. Her first book, The Centennial Cure, was published by the University of Toronto Press in 2017. Raymond B. Blake is a professor and head of the Department of History at the University of Regina. He has published widely on Canadian history and Canadian studies. His most recent publications include Lions or Jellyfish: A History of Newfoundland-Ottawa Relations and a coauthored history of Canada, Conflict and Compromise: Pre-Confederation Canada and Conflict and Compromise: Post-Confederation Canada. Denis Bourque is a professor of Acadian literature at the Université de Moncton. His fields of study are Acadian novels, essays, and theatre; the works of Antonine Maillet; and the history of Acadian literature. Ted Cogan is a PhD candidate at the University of Guelph whose research focuses on the intersections between national identities and Canadian foreign policy. His forthcoming thesis will explore the impact of identity on efforts by the Canadian government and key stakeholder groups to garner public support for foreign aid between 1950 and 1980. Robert Cupido teaches Canadian and British History at Mount Allison University. His research interests include the politics of ­commemoration

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in early twentieth century Canada, and the cultural and political legacy of the First World War. Helen Davies completed her doctorate in Canadian history at the University of Manitoba. Her dissertation was the first scholarly study to examine the history of Canada’s Centennial year in depth. In 1999, she joined the federal public service, working at the Federal Treaty Negotiation Office in Vancouver, British Columbia. Since 2008, she has worked at the Parks Canada Agency. Brandon R. Dimmel, whose work focuses on the Canadian-American border during the First World War, is a professional writer and historian based in London, Ontario. His most recent work is Engaging the Line: How the Great War Shaped the Canada-US Border, published by UBC Press in 2016. His other works on the history of the Canada-US border and the history of national security during wartime have been published by Histoire sociale/Social History, American Review of Canadian Studies, Journal of Borderlands Studies, and Canada’s History magazine. Matthew Hayday is a professor of Canadian history at the University of Guelph. He is the author of So They Want Us to Speak French: Promoting and Opposing Bilingualism in English-Speaking Canada and Bilingual Today, United Tomorrow: Official Languages in Education and Canadian Federalism. He has also published several articles, book chapters, and edited collections on topics related to language policy, Canadian identity, Canada Day, nationalism, social movements, Quebec history, and English-French relations in Canada. Bonnie Huskins teaches history at St Thomas University and the University of New Brunswick, where she is also adjunct professor and Coordinator of Loyalist Studies. Dr Huskins has published on the Loyalists of Shelburne, Loyalist Freemasonry, and the life and writings of late eighteenth-century British military engineer William Booth. Christopher Los completed graduate studies as a scholar funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada at the University of Guelph. He is now practising law in British Columbia. Greg Marquis teaches Canadian and criminal justice history at the University of New Brunswick at Saint John. He is the author of The Vigilant

Contributors 383

Eye: Policing Canada from 1867 to 9/11 and Truth and Honour: The Death of Richard Oland and the Trial of Dennis Oland. Matthew McRae is a PhD candidate in History at Western University. His doctoral research focuses on veterans, memory, and commemoration in the context of the 1870 and 1885 Métis and First Nations resistance movements. He currently works as a communications adviser at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he has also served as a researcher-curator. Peter Price is a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge. He specializes in the political and intellectual history of Canada and the British Empire. Chantal Richard is an associate professor in the Department of French at the University of New Brunswick. She is principal investigator of an interdisciplinary and inter-university research project on the evolution of collective identity in Acadian and Loyalist texts published in New Brunswick newspapers from 1880 to 1940, co-author of Les Conventions nationales acadiennes (1881–1937) in three volumes, and author of Les Poèmes acadiens de Napoléon Landry. Robyn Schwarz is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Western University, specializing in Canadian women’s and political history. Her dissertation examines the experiences of single mothers and the development of social welfare programs in Ontario during the 1960s and 1970s. Robert J. Talbot is research manager for the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada. In 2015, he completed a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship at the University of New Brunswick, where he studied the history of francophone/anglophone rapprochement in the twentieth century, and in 2014 a PhD in History at the University of Ottawa, where he has taught Canadian history in French and in English. He has published and presented on a variety of topics, including commemoration,  political, Indigenous, and biographical history, and current affairs. His book, Negotiating the Numbered Treaties: An Intellectual and Political Biography of Alexander Morris (Saskatoon: Purich, 2009), won the Manitoba Historical Society’s Margaret McWilliams Award for Scholarly History.

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Contributors

James Trepanier is curator, Post-Confederation Canada, at the Canadian Museum of History. His research interests include the history of childhood and youth, English-French relations in Canada, and northern Canadian history. His doctoral research – completed at York University and funded by a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship – focused on the Boy Scout movement in Canada between the 1910s and the 1960s. Research for his chapter was funded by a Joseph Armand-Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.