The Past Speaks

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has said that lack of knowledge of Canadian history threatens the future of Canada.

Kenney also took a shot at how Canadian history is often taught, saying there is too much emphasis put on social history and some recounts of Canada’s story make it sound like the country was built of oppression and injustice. “If that indeed is the way in which we seek to teach history, no wonder that young people aren’t particularly interested,” Kenney said.

Kenney also praised the teaching of history in Quebec’s school system.

Kenney called Quebec a model for teaching history to its young people, saying that while some may quibble about how that history is presented, there is no question that students in that province are taught history.

Read more here.

I would like to share a few quick thoughts about what Mr. Kenney has said.

First, what makes Mr. Kenney certain that students would be less interested in “social history” than in “political history”?  I find that students are very interested in social history topics such as Japanese internment or the Civil Rights movement in the Deep South or the history of sex.  Moreover, I would suggest that social history is a particularly important topic to teach given the make up of our current intake of immigrants. Few immigrants to Canada nowadays come from advanced industrialized countries. Many of the people arriving in Canada today come from countries with radically different social histories and very different attitudes towards women, sexuality, and religion. Some might argue that they are at an earlier, more primitive stage in their social history. For instance, India just recently decriminalized homosexuality– legislatively, it is where Canada was in the 1960s.  (I admit this is a topic that  straddles political and social history).  India’s political institutions are, on a superficial level, similar to those of Canada. It is a federation with a Westminster-style parliamentary system.  The cultures, however, are totally different. It would therefore seem to be important to tell immigrants about aspects of our social history, Pierre Trudeau’s famous quip about the state having no place in the bedroom of the nation.

Second, while I’m not certain whether the teaching of Canadian Quebec history in Quebec schools is really a role model for the rest of the country. I’m not terribly familiar with the current Quebec curriculum, but my impression is that the courses on “Quebec and Canadian history” are geared towards promoting a Quebec national identity rather than a Canadian one.  Given that Mr. Kenney’s political party supported a parliamentary resolution declaring Quebec a nation, perhaps this is appropriate.

I have quoted the guide to class on the “History of Quebec and Canad”a from the Quebec Ministry of Education website. This guide outlines the major themes that will be taught to students. Notice how the Quebec experience is emphasized and the rest of Canada is seen as peripheral:

Canada took part in the Second World War, but a movement of resistance to conscription swept Québec, as it had in 1917. The war overshadowed the social debates raised by the Great Depression. In the period of prosperity that followed the end of the war, the development of communications technology opened Québec to a wider range of outside influences, especially from the United States. Immigration and urbanization accelerated. The period was marked by the dominance of Duplessis, but different groups
increasingly began to question the traditional values of Québec society. The Quiet Revolution consolidated this movement and accelerated change by defining the characteristics of a contemporary society. In becoming aware of the richness and cultural diversity of today’s Québec, adult students may acquire a better understanding of the importance of the major debates at the heart of current preoccupations... These will help create a picture of Québec society, enabling adults to grasp the main territorial, economic, demographic, political and social phases of the evolution of Québec society in relation to Canadian society, from the Confederation to the present.
Various issues may be debated in the classroom : the right to strike in the public sector, the demands of native peoples, political evolution since the Quiet Revolution or any other subject dealing with the future of Québec society.

Please note how the document speaks of the relationship between  “Quebec society”  and ” Canadian society”.

Third, Mr. Kenney would seem to be odd person to promote nationalist history. First, his government is strongly supportive of decentralization, provincial rights, regional identities. There is nothing wrong with this, but it flies in the face of traditional English-Canadian nationalism of the sort articulated by the great Canadian historian Donald Creighton.  Mr. Kenney’s government also has a pronounced continentalist, pro-US orientation, which also contradicts  [English] Canadian nationalism– traditionally, Canadian historians celebrated Canada’s distinctive and made anti-American politicians such as John A. Macdonald into heroes.

Anyway, I’m not certain how much Canadian history Mr. Kenney learned as a young man, since his university education was in the United States (!), where little Canadian history is taught. It may be that Mr. Kenney has suddenly became a convert to the cause of Canadian nationalism and [English Canadian] national history, but I am skeptical. The historical section of the Discover Canada citizenship guide his department issued was rubbish– inter alia, it did not mention the following Prime Ministers: Mackenzie King, Lester Pearson, Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney, John Diefenbaker. The booklet said almost nothing about Canadian political history, perhaps because the minister who commissioned it himself may know little about Canadian political history.

Perhaps it is that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man hopes to be king.

Anyway, I’m not saying that it would be good to teach history from an English-Canadian nationalist perspective. I’m just pointing out some of the internal contradictions of Mr. Kenney’s argument.