Does the removal of controversial commemorations impact our understanding of Canadian history?

In Take 5, Sheridan’s thought leaders share their expert insight on a timely and topical issue. Learn from some of our innovative leaders and change agents as they reflect on questions that are top-of-mind for the Sheridan and broader community.

As controversial statues were toppled amid worldwide civil rights protests last summer, a well-known debate resurfaced in Canada: what to do with statues of famous Canadians who have been revealed to harbour contentious viewpoints, or who pushed racist policies? For example, Sir John A. Macdonald — Canada's first prime minister and a dominant figure of the Canadian Confederation — was also a key player in the horrific Indian Residential School System. Is it better to tear down these statues to better reflect the Canadian values of the day, or does their removal rewrite Canadian history?

Professor Robert Tiegs considers the weight of such decisions in his Public History course. As the topic of controversial memorials makes headlines again, Tiegs shares the importance of acknowledging such impactful monuments.

Can you define public history, and describe how you decided on the theme of controversial commemorations for last year’s course?

This definition is a little vague, but public history encompasses a lot of different approaches, projects, and methodologies. It's history and historical skills put to use for the benefit of society. In the course I teach - which was introduced in Fall 2020 - we spend the first couple of weeks doing a crash course on the theories and approaches of public history, looking at how it operates in public places such as museums and parks. Then, the majority of the course focuses on student projects related to the semester’s theme.

I've always been interested in commemorations and the history behind them. I grew up in the U.S., near Mount Rushmore. That isn’t a very controversial monument, but down the street is a lesser-known mountain monument going up built in the likeness of Crazy Horse – an Indigenous leader that defeated General Custer in the Battle of the Little Big Horn. It was built to honour this Indigenous leader, but it’s not owned by the Indigenous community, and it’s taken decades to build. I worked for a few years at Crazy Horse Memorial, and always found it quite interesting to be so close to the debates surrounding its construction.

So, over the course of the summer last year, when we were thinking about what themes made sense to tackle in the public history course, we wanted to make sure they were relevant. With the murder of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter protests, and the controversary surrounding the Confederate statues being torn down across the South, it felt like a natural fit to look at some of the controversial places in Canada. Turns out, there’s a very long list.

I wanted to take this topic that’s being explored, discussed, and debated in the U.S., and put it in a Canadian and local historical context. I, and fellow faculty member Steve Bunn, read about towns such as Swastika, Ont., which has a contentious history. And Henry Dundas, the founder of Dundas, Ont., set the abolition movement in Canada back a few decades.  

The topic of controversial commemorations has long been a contentious issue, but it certainly made headlines over the past year. How do you see it playing out going forward?

There’s no crystal ball. These debates are complex and complicated. Context is key. You can’t make blanket statements about these monuments, and you have to be careful with how you proceed, because these commemorations are often meant to symbolize a moment or a value from that time – a way for society to say, “Here is something inspiring, or something we’re proud of.” 

For instance, statues commemorating Sir John A Macdonald were built in the 1800s and early 1900s, after he passed away. They were made to honour his achievement of Confederation, which is no small feat. I don’t think that a lot of Canadians realize Confederation was one of many possible outcomes in history. The fact that Macdonald was able to create this political framework to tie the colonies together, and achieve a degree of independence, was quite an achievement. So, when his statues were going up, it was like “See what we’ve done. We are a nation to be proud of.” 

But today, Canada is also proud of its multiculturalism. And now that we’re looking back at how different minority and ethnic groups have been treated in Canada, it’s not always a comfortable story. Now we’re looking back at figures such as Macdonald and realizing the key role he also played in the Indian Act and residential schools, and folks are wondering if it’s worth honoring him. I think the big issue here is the divide between memory and commemoration. As a society, how do we remember Macdonald and his role in Confederation without commemorating Macdonald the person? Because not remembering is a type of historical erasure, but commemorating involves a veneration of the person in a way, promoting the good and the bad, in this case the horrific. So how do you balance the two sides? 

There are some creative solutions out there. The Township of Russell, which is located just outside of Ottawa, was named after a slaveholder. During the protests in Summer 2020, many citizens of Russell were rightfully upset. The township's council came together and decided to officially renounce its original namesake. Rather than change their name entirely, they decided they would honour a different Russell.

The city of Kitchener, Ont., used to be named Berlin, but during the First World War, the citizens rushed to rename the city for British general Horatio Herbert Kitchener. Well, Horatio also has a questionable past. So it goes to show that even if you change a name, you can still get it wrong. It’s so complicated and complex.

I find the debate fascinating. It’s difficult and I don’t envy anybody who must make those decisions.

What do you hope students gained from the project?

I hope they get interested in Canadian history. As an American, I feel like Canadians are often shy about their history. Because they didn’t have a revolution or a civil rights movement, sometimes it seems like Canadians feel like they don’t have a history worth promoting, or worth getting excited about. But there are a lot of fascinating things about Canadian history, and oftentimes those interesting nuggets can be found in the statues you’ve driven by hundreds of times. If you’ve driven through Dundas, or down Jarvis Street in Toronto, you can find symbols of Canadian history. 

I think it opened up the complexity of the situation surrounding these controversial moments. All of these commemorations that our students studied — there's no simple answer for any of them. 

One of the more interesting examples I liked was Swastika, a small mining community in very northern Ontario. They had named it Swastika in 1908, because the word means good luck, and that’s what the symbol represents. But after the Second World War, they were forced to reexamine their name. They were named Swastika long before the rise of Hitler, and the community felt they should be able to keep their name, and maybe work to rehab its reputation.
And I think a lot of students were appalled to realize what Sir John A. Macdonald did with the Indian Act and residential schools. But that doesn’t give you a simple solution for what to do with statues. I think students really came to understand the complexity of the issue. It’s much more of a grey area than black and white.

See the projects: Controversial Commemorations in Ontario – Fall 2020

Why do you think it’s important to not only think critically about history, but also exercise that ability?

I think having a citizenry that has good critical thinking skills and the ability to interpret information is becoming more important, not only to form a healthy democracy, but also to ensure a good functioning society. Not to get on my soapbox, but there are so many things within our society today that need addressing. 

You know, you have the issue of fake news. You have the issue of information overload. We're just bombarded with facts and figures, and it’s your responsibility to interpret this information and make sense of it. We live in a world where so much of what we read and consume is curated. It’s important to always view information through a critical lens to be able to contextualize or be able to think critically about things, even things you already agree with. Even though you might agree with something, is it actually accurate?

Why is there value outside of the classroom to look at history within a modern context?

Once you dive in and start to explore history and some of these big, big historical events, it can start to feel like history is written in stone. We get this sense that “well, of course, it had to be this way.” Columbus had to discover the new world in 1492 because that's how it happened. The Nazis had to lose the Second World War, or the Soviets had to lose the Cold War, because that's what happened. Since we know these events as facts, it's difficult to think of any different eventualities or alternative paths. But there are alternate realities out there — different histories that could have occurred. 
So, if you can kind of suspend what you already know, then you can go along the journey to see where things could have gone differently, and you can apply that context to history in general and see that it’s not written in stone. It's a bit more open ended and a lot more malleable — like a clay that you can mold in different ways. There’s a lot more room to change and adapt, and I think that’s really empowering. We can still make these changes. There are different choices we could have made, can make, and will make that can influence history and change it, and change public perception of it. 

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Robert Tiegs has been teaching Part-Time at Sheridan since 2013, and Full Time as the Professor of Public History since 2019. His research interests are a bit eclectic, with his dissertation focusing on military and environmental history, while his projects since then have focused on history and commemoration and digital history.  For the most part, he is always looking for new and innovative ways to frame, share, and teach history.  

Interested in connecting with Robert Tiegs or another Sheridan expert? Please email communications@sheridancollege.ca.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.