Viewpoint: How do we decide what’s worth a memorial?

By Maureen McEwan

In the thick of the Trumpian tumult, history has come centre stage once more. This summer saw the felling of several American statues. Confederate generals such as Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee were shrouded with tarps or cast off their pedestals. The August tragedy in Charlottesville revealed further presidential follies and raised a broader question about memorialization.

Across the border, we grieved for Virginia while quietly counting our blessings.

But we’re not immune. Canada has begun dismantling its own commemorative landscape. In recent weeks, statues honouring the country’s first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, have been criticized and covered in police tape. Calls for the removal of Macdonald’s name from schools and public areas have resounded. And from Halifax to Victoria, from Cornwallis to Langevin, the debate about our tributes to historic figures continues.

The issue hit home in Centretown over the summer when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ordered the renaming of the building that houses his own PMO — the Langevin Block at the corner of Elgin and Wellington streets — because Father of Confederation Hector-Louis Langevin was an architect of the residential schools system.

Monuments, memorials and other such tributes remind us of the good, bad, and sometimes ugly moments. So which history should we remember and recognize? And are these symbols the carvings of colonialism or the relics of our culture?

This week, Ottawa unveils the long-awaited Holocaust Monument. Demand for the memorial began in earnest in 2005, when a resolute U of O student discovered that Canada was alone among former Allied nations in lacking such a commemoration in its capital city. While the Holocaust Monument is an overdue addition to our landscape, the unveiling calls attention to the fact that Ottawa is sorely missing other commemorative monuments.

The capital’s current collection of commissioned statues strongly reflects our military heritage and the contributions of a few sporting and cultural heroes, including hockey legend Maurice Richard and musician Oscar Peterson. Confederation-era politicians and former prime ministers are well represented.

But Ottawa barely recognizes the country’s Indigenous history.

The two statues downtown that do acknowledge this vital part of the nation’s story are the National Aboriginal Veterans Monument in Confederation Park and the Anishinabe Scout in Major’s Hill Park.

The latter has a problematic history of its own, having once symbolized the scout’s subordinate position at the feet of French explorer Samuel de Champlain’s statue on Nepean Point.

Most alarmingly, there are no monuments to commemorate the horrific legacy of residential schools or to acknowledge the tragedy of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls. We’ve let Winnipeg and Saskatoon take the lead there. In 2012, Parliament dedicated a stained-glass window to residential schools — sure, a step in the right direction. Yet the gap remains. We’ve obscured crucial parts of our country’s history.

The debate on the founding fathers will rage on. But even as we consider removing some of the existing memorial landscape, perhaps we could review what’s still missing. Maybe we could bring the conversation about Indigenous commemoration to the forefront instead of waxing nostalgic about Confederation for the 150th time.