Christopher Dummitt: Canada must teach its national story

We are in a moment of heightened focus on Canadian national identity.

Ever since Donald Trump threatened to annex Canada, many Canadians have responded with the assertion that Canadian identity is unique from the United States.

But this national mood comes only a few years after a campaign of tearing down statues of Canada’s seminal historic figures, and then-prime minister Justin Trudeau calling Canada a “post-national state.” Most recently, a so-called prank show with funding from the CBC targeted Canadians who have defended the legacy of Canada’s founding prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald.

So, is the wave of Canadian patriotism that’s played out over the past year grounded in a firm understanding of the history – both good and bad – that has shaped the country? This a moment when Canadians would benefit from knowing the historic roots of their democracy and the stories of figures like Macdonald who helped build a nation on the northern half of the continent.

One voice who has consistently stood up for the idea that Canadians should have a robust and balanced view of their past is Trent University history professor Christopher Dummitt.

Dummitt joins Inside Policy Talks to discuss his efforts to reach beyond the classroom with his new Canadian history YouTube channel – titled Well... That Didn't Suck! – and share his views on the current state of Canadians’ relationship with their history.

On the podcast, he tells Ian Campbell, digital editor at MLI, that one source of Canada’s amnesia about its cultural and democratic roots is the deliberate erasure of Canadian national symbols that took place in the 1960s. This was most famously exemplified by the new Canadian flag created by the Pearson government, devoid of any reference to Canada’s British heritage – the very roots that gave Canada its parliamentary democracy.

Dummitt says the toppling of historic statues that has taken place in the 2020s is “in a sense just a continuation of what happened in the 1960s and 1970s.”

Part of the solution, says Dummitt, is to restore provincial history curriculums that teach a cohesive Canadian national story.