The Advocate’s article announcing the release of our new $10 bill left me wondering if the federal government has decided that the way to build a better future is to erase our history.
The image of Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, which had been the face of the $10 bill for nearly half a century, was reduced in 2017 to just one of a cluster of notable Canadians.
But apparently that wasn’t enough for those who with Orwellian glee would continually amend our nation’s history.
Now, with the release of the new $10 bill, Macdonald’s image has been eliminated in favour of that of Viola Desmond, a gutsy, ahead-of-her-time Nova Scotia social activist of the 1940s.
Why? Why would Canada, one of the world’s longest-surviving democracies, degrade the memory of its founding prime minister by removing his portrait from its currency?
Any research of Canada’s history will show that not only was Macdonald our first prime minister, but that without him, it is unlikely that Canada as the nation we know – vast, prosperous and democratic – would have happened.
Without Macdonald’s persistence, Canada would likely now be a fraction of its present size, or possibly in part or whole an appendage of the United States, a country that interestingly continues to honour its slave-owning founding president on not only its currency, but also on the names of cities, a state and many streets, bridges and schools.
George Washington is rightly remembered not just for having the sins of many a wealthy man of the 18th century, but for his part in founding a great nation.
John A. Macdonald was a person with flaws, as are we all. But his accomplishments greatly outweigh his failures, and for those he must be remembered.
Richard D. McDonell, Red Deer