Wednesday, July 1, 2015

How "Dominion Day" was dumped by the Liberals ... and a salute to the Conservatives











From a previous post:
Some history on how "Dominion Day" was dumped in favour of the meaningless "Canada Day":
... In hindsight, it was a case of identity theft, an act of historical vandalism. A quarter-century ago, 13 members of Parliament hastily -- some say indecently -- renamed the country's national birthday in a swift bit of legislative sleight-of-hand.

At 4 o'clock on Friday, July 9, 1982, the House of Commons was almost empty. The 13 parliamentarians taking up space in the 282-seat chamber ... The whole process took five minutes. ... a private member's bill from Hal Herbert, the Liberal MP from Vaudreuil ...

And here are Mark Steyn's 2015 reflections on the subject:
... let me salute Canada's Conservative government for taking a tonally mature and historically honest approach to this country's nationhood. 

... the usual [Liberal] guff about "what a young nation we are".  We're not. We're one of the oldest continuous constitutional orders on earth, and there was always something queasily totalitarian about Liberal propagandists' insistence that Canada didn't exist until M Trudeau moved into Sussex Drive.

... Mr Harper does not share that view. ... Canada's citizenship ministry even hands out copies of Magna Carta to new arrivals - which in this 800th anniversary year is even more heartening. So I'm glad we're reconnecting with the half-a-millennium of history the Trudeaupians tried to bury.
... I shall always be grateful to Mr Harper's ministry for giving us a decade-long respite from all that Trudeaupian eternal-youth gibberish.

11 comments:

UCSPanther said...

The "Eternal Youth" gibberish comes from the toxic hippie era, and those who are still around from that time are learning the hard way that youth is anything but eternal.

Alain said...

It was most certainly historical vandalism and the theft of our national identity. It started with the trashing of our national flag under which our military had fought bravely and with a lot of loss of blood. This rewriting and revising our history, culture and traditions was put on fast track under Trudeau, such was his hatred for our history, culture and traditions. It saddens me to see so many generations since who are now ignorant of all but the mythical Canada created by the Liberals.

Anonymous said...


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Shane Koyczan
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Every year around May, I start to get inundated with requests to perform "We Are More" for Canada Day. When I originally performed it for the Olympics I felt comfortable because we had not yet strayed so far down this dark path we now find ourselves on. Also the opportunity to perform on a world stage was just too huge to pass up. The problem I have now is that I can't firmly stand behind the poem saying things like "We are an experiment going right for a change." The awful truth is that our cultural identity is undergoing radical plastic surgery, and I'm not sure what country I'm looking at anymore. A country that labels Canadians as second class citizens. A country that kills its research and gags its scientists. A country that refuses to take a serious look into missing aboriginals despite being the same country that killed First Nations children in residential schools... was this nations first attempt at genocide not enough? It's a ridiculous world we live in where we are born within a set of imaginary lines, and that life within those borders is then what defines us to everyone else living inside a different set of imaginary lines. I feel very fortunate to have been born Canadian, but to truly call myself one requires that I participate in making the country a good place. The Canada we have now is run by criminals and big business. Politicians who have the power to vote up their own salaries. Parties who cut social programs, but spend millions of tax dollars on partisan ads trying to convince us that they're doing a good job. We are not "going right for a change"... we are going terribly wrong. I can't participate by offering a poem that suggests everything is okay... it isn't. I will participate by saying that we can do better, and that the standards we place on those we elect need to be elevated. A poem and some fireworks won't fix what's wrong with our country. By all means, spend time with your friends and family. Enjoy the festivities and be proud, but please remember that we have work to do... change does not manifest without our participation. My Canada Day will be at the next election

Anonymous said...

oldwhiteguy says,,,, that anon sounds like a liberal socialist. just have to get in a subtle dig about something that is really not the responsibility of a government.

Anonymous said...

Of course in your haste to 'correct' history, you neglect the fact that in 1946 the House of Commons unanimously passed a private members bill to rename Dominion Day to Canada Day. Your beloved Senate killed the bill by introducing a churlish amendment.

Yahoo from YYC.

JR said...

Well, that's not quite true. The 1946 vote was not 'unanimous'. It was 123 to 62 (in a Liberal parliament). But see, the Senate does do good work.

Several attempts were made (by Liberals) to change it subsequently and all failed for one reason or another. They finally resorted to skullduggery to get what they wanted - a meaningless name for a national celebration, a name apparently rendered 'popular' by the CBC.

Anonymous said...

So why doesn't the Majority Conservative government change the name back to Dominion Day? Undo a little more Liberal arrogance and stupidity plus the added bonus of making lefty moron heads explode!! Fun!!!
NO QUARTER

Anonymous said...

That's just typical of Liberals/Progressives..change for the sake of change. To hell with the ramifications of and problems caused by unneeded change; it makes them "feel good" and to the Left, "feeling good" about themselves trumps common sense, logic, ethics, morality....Apparently that's "progress".

Anonymous said...

Harper has been PM for 9 Canada Days and has not renamed it. Give it up ya big baby.

JR said...

Anonymous @8:28 etc, is just trying to be a dumb-assed troll - and succeeding very well. S/he knows full-well that "Harper" knows better than to open that can of worms. Even if he favored the idea of changing the flag (which I'm all but certain he doesn't) it would be, like the abortion issue, a non-starter. Most others commenting here are also realistic about this. The main point is, on Dominion Day, to remember the liberals' vile penchant for vandalizing history to push a progressive agenda.

Anonymous said...

JR, you are conceding that democracy has spoken. This not some lefty plot, it is the will of Canadians. So why be a silly troll and muse about resurrecting Dominion Day. Or, stiffen Harper's spine so he will lead rather than follow opinion polls. Bette yet throw away your money into Del Mastro and Levant court defence funds.