Wall Street Journal: Toppling a Statue North of the Border

Canada’s George Washington

Huh? No, not really.

We don't have an equivalent to George Washington, in part because in much of America it's borderline treason to criticize him. Washington is the perfect, flawless embodiment of the American nation, and don't you forget it. Moreover, "what would Washington have wanted?" remains a key question in both American politics and jurisprudence: what would Washington think about abortion, or digital rights management, or Monsanto, or war with Iran?

Canadians... don't. Not a single Prime Minister gets this pedestal. MacDonald was a racist drunkard. Mackenzie King was a hypocrite who took political advice from seances with deceased relatives and household pets. Pierre Trudeau's career-long efforts to placate Quebec ultimately failed in important ways while severely alienating the west. We don't talk about Brian Mulroney, and there's no reason to talk about Chretien, etc. etc. etc.

The only Prime Ministers who are basically unblemished in the popular discourse are Pearson, Borden and Laurier -- and even then, while we cite these people as inspirational and significant, nobody ever looks up at the sky and thinks "gee, I wonder what Robert Borden would do about asylum-seekers crossing at Cornwall: we should talk about it a lot, and then do exactly that".

This doesn't make our past Prime Ministers irrelevant, but it does mean that they aren't past Presidents: there is no "Canadian George Washington", except insofar as George Washington was first, and Sir John was first, and that's a thing they technically have in common. But in every other regard, there's no real parallel.

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