Canadians SPEAK OUT against Trudeau’s latest attack on John A. Macdonald
Episode Stats
Words per minute
170.1194
Harmful content
Toxicity
2
sentences flagged
Summary
Bellevue House in Kingston, Ontario is supposed to be a monument to Sir John A. Macdonald, the founder of Canada, but it's actually a shrine to anti-Canadian propaganda. And it's not hard to see why.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
You think that it's important for Canada to protect our history and to not erase our history?
00:00:05.000
Every inch of history is important to our kids and to the future.
00:00:10.480
It's important for every country to protect their history because you don't want to lose that.
00:00:15.840
I feel like we have to remember history and learn from it.
00:00:18.860
I think it's like people trying to make white people feel guilty.
00:00:30.000
Harrison Faulkner reporting from Kingston, Ontario.
00:00:34.400
I'm standing outside Bellevue House, the National Historic Site,
00:00:38.120
which is supposed to be a monument to Sir John A. Macdonald, the founder of our country.
00:00:43.380
The problem is, just like every other Macdonald monument across our country,
00:00:47.760
this really isn't much of a monument, much of a shrine to Macdonald.
00:00:51.860
It has been reopened after six years of being closed for repairs.
00:00:56.560
And of course, it went from being a legitimate monument of Macdonald
00:01:03.520
The tour of Bellevue House starts behind me in the Visitor's Centre.
00:01:07.640
And what's very strange about the Visitor's Centre is that it's not really a story of Macdonald,
00:01:12.600
but it's more a story of Canada starting at Macdonald.
00:01:16.020
The facts, if you will, are in white text, the actual story,
00:01:20.120
and then underneath it in purple text seems to be the reinterpretation of history.
00:01:25.020
That's the Justin Trudeau-approved version of Canadian history,
00:01:28.180
which really just says everyone was a racist, everyone was an evil coloniser,
00:01:32.300
and the formation of Canada is itself illegitimate,
00:01:36.360
because it was all built on racism and colonialism.
00:01:39.160
It goes from the Visitor's Centre, then to, of course, Bellevue House.
00:01:45.100
the tour guides that we had for Bellevue House were remarkably unbiased.
00:01:50.440
They actually seemed to want to tell the truth about Macdonald.
00:01:53.680
Of course, they had to read off part of a script about how bad John A. Macdonald is
00:02:00.400
But the rest of the tour was remarkably unbiased.
00:02:06.440
What you saw inside Bellevue House, however, was not.
00:02:10.560
Welcome to the new and improved, decolonised Bellevue House.
00:02:14.820
Before you get to the house, you'll first see this sign with unattributed quotes about Sir John A. Macdonald.
00:02:22.260
No surprise that the first quote you'll see is,
0.89
00:02:27.540
It seems that the most generous quote from an unknown source they could find was,
0.96
00:02:34.000
The anti-Canadian propaganda begins immediately when you walk through the front door of Bellevue House.
00:02:39.860
The tour begins with this sign, reminding you that you are invited into discussions and moments of personal reflection
00:02:48.060
about how Canada's future can be more inclusive.
00:02:52.140
As you will see, this isn't your typical museum.
00:02:55.840
In the basement of the house, you will see a lexicon for the time,
00:03:00.240
which includes words like genocide, imperialism, racism, and colonialism.
00:03:05.120
On the main floor, when you walk into John A. Macdonald's kitchen,
00:03:09.360
you can't help but notice this giant red sign telling you how the, quote,
00:03:14.280
European occupation, unquote, caused significant harm to indigenous diets.
00:03:21.360
Remember, this is all John A. Macdonald's fault, which really means it's all your fault.
00:03:26.320
When you walk up to the second floor of Bellevue House,
00:03:29.080
well, that's when the decolonization really begins.
00:03:32.180
Inside Bellevue House, John Jr., John A. Macdonald's youngest son,
00:03:38.160
died at just one year old due to infant death syndrome.
00:03:45.120
well, that's when you're greeted with one of the most disgraceful things inside of this house.
00:03:49.160
They've turned John Jr.'s bedroom into a memorial for residential school children,
00:03:54.240
including this out-of-context quote from Macdonald,
00:03:56.980
all designed to make you think that he was the worst person in this country's history.
00:04:04.880
where there is a giant flat-screen television above John A.'s bed,
00:04:11.780
Interesting. I didn't know flat-screen televisions were around in the 1850s.
00:04:19.820
nearly every monument to Macdonald has been erased, starting here in Kingston.
00:04:23.320
The Kingston City Council voted to remove John A. Macdonald's statue a few years ago.
00:04:27.520
That was followed by similar actions in Charlottetown,
00:04:30.480
who also voted to remove John A. Macdonald's statue.
00:04:32.860
Again, followed by actions we've seen in Montreal,
00:04:36.160
where his statue was violently torn down by a group of BLM activists.
00:04:40.100
Since then, Montreal has decided that actually they won't put Macdonald's statue
00:04:45.480
They'll just leave the pedestal there so that everyone can see the crime that was committed
00:04:49.840
Regina, they voted to remove their John A. Macdonald's statue.
00:04:53.240
The City of Victoria, they also voted to remove John A. Macdonald's statue.
00:04:56.620
In Hamilton, they voted to remove John A. Macdonald's statue.
00:05:03.400
well, they took John A. Macdonald's name off their Faculty of Law building.
00:05:06.200
Basically, every single monument to John A. Macdonald under Justin Trudeau's leadership
00:05:11.240
And if it hasn't been erased, it has been footnoted and qualified
00:05:14.680
with things that, frankly, he wasn't that responsible for.
00:05:18.360
Did anyone really expect anything different to come from the Bellevue House monument?
00:05:21.660
It only opened just last week after six years of being closed
00:05:25.300
At the opening ceremony of Bellevue House just last week,
00:05:28.440
we were reminded by one of the historians who was involved with putting up the new plaques
00:05:32.980
and the new statements reminding us all how evil John A. was
00:05:35.620
that Canada is steeped in racism and colonialism.
00:05:39.840
Canada, like the United States, was steeped in racism, colonialism,
00:05:44.280
white supremacy and other legacies of enslavement.
00:05:47.040
We're now here, however, to ask local Kingstonians what they think of John A. Macdonald.
00:05:53.200
Should John A. Macdonald be celebrated or should we continue this process
00:05:57.200
of demonizing the greatest Canadian, the man responsible for our country?
00:06:02.320
I feel like we have to remember history and learn from it
00:06:15.180
Do you think that Canada has a history that we should be proud of
00:06:18.360
and not just be constantly feeling, you know, apologizing and feeling bad for?
00:06:23.820
Do you think that using today's standards, moral standards,
00:06:29.080
to judge leaders in the past, say in the 1850s, 1860s,
00:06:33.960
do you think that's a good way to approach history?
00:06:36.880
I mean, I feel like society was very different back then
00:06:40.060
in the way that we had different rules and different norms
00:06:45.060
But again, the new norms that we have brought about,
00:06:47.780
they are much more suited to our way of life in the current milieu.
00:06:51.660
So I feel like while we should not really vilify previous figures,
00:06:56.480
we should also not glorify them and maybe keep it at like a middle point
00:07:00.040
where we are not really glorifying them or vilifying them.
00:07:03.160
Or maybe if you want to take an optimistic look,
00:07:05.340
we could maybe just look at the achievements that they have made
00:07:07.380
rather than look at them through a personal lens.
00:07:10.440
I feel like, say, some of the monuments that have came down
00:07:12.760
or them trying to maybe, if they're going to change some street names,
00:07:21.840
and we acknowledge some of the bad things that happened in the past,
00:07:27.700
and history's important to our kids and to the future.
00:07:33.080
You think that it's important for Canada to protect our history
00:07:39.620
I think it's like people trying to make white people feel guilty.
00:07:45.700
You think the attacks on McDonald have gone too far?
00:07:47.740
Like, you can't blame a guy that's the head of the country
00:07:49.460
for something that came down that was of the time that he was in.
00:07:54.060
A lot of people don't realize the natives at that time
00:08:00.220
So I don't mean to be disrespectful to any Indigenous people or anything at all,
00:08:09.300
If you were looking at it from today's point of view,
00:08:11.360
we're not looking at it from the point of view from our past.
00:08:15.000
I think it was Prime Minister Pierre Elliott-Trudeau that said,
00:08:18.660
and this was over, I think the Chinese being in the,
00:08:36.580
and we can't make restitution to people that aren't here.
00:08:39.780
do you think Canadians should be prouder of their country
00:08:45.620
I find that there's a lot of woke stuff going on
00:09:05.840
because you don't want to lose that for the next generation.
00:09:10.380
So it's important to share and to preserve that.
00:09:13.260
Do you think that it's important to recognize the positives
00:09:24.260
that one person do at their moment in the history.
00:09:37.540
and avoid to do the same things again over and over.
00:09:41.180
We've just heard from local Kingstonians or Kingstonites.
00:09:45.800
Maybe we've been giving them the wrong name this entire time.
00:09:47.680
But there has not been that much diversity of opinion on this issue.
00:09:53.060
says that it's important to protect Canadian history.
00:10:10.080
we can't be applying the moral standards of today
00:10:14.600
If these standards were applied 100 years from now,
00:10:17.240
all of us would be thrown to the trash heap of history.
00:10:43.260
but he is the reason why we have a Canada today.
00:10:48.060
for living in one of the greatest countries in the world.