This article is rightly about recovering the dead and Norm Christie’s inexhaustible efforts to educate Canadians about their military history.
It is worth noting the myth, propagated by the Liberals, all started by Mackenzie King to shore up the Quebec vote.
“Canadians don’t know their history (of the Great War) and there’s a reason they don’t,” he says. “It was intentionally erased by the Liberal government of Mackenzie King … to protect his vote in Quebec, and to hide the fact that he didn’t serve in the Great War.
Norm Christie has done this country and it’s military a great service by chronicling the sacrifices this distant, sparsely populated corner of the British Commonwealth made in the Great War. Canada became a nation then with the blood of our citizens being shed. A major accomplishment for a country that has never had an enemy at their doorsteps.
My grandfather was one of those 172,000 that were wounded and if he were alive today hearing the notion that Canada is a nation of peacekeepers, he would have a few choice words along with the business end of his cane.
Peacekeepers or not, we’d better get our arse in gear.
http://rt.com/news/247169-icebreaker-laser-russia-arctic/
MacKenzie King was a poison toad of a man – a truly despicable craven character who nevertheless was declared Canada’s best PM ever by a panel of authors and journalists years back. Which said far more about the values of our press corps than it did about the toad.
King also decided against providing conscripts to Canadian units fighting in Italy even though losses were such that Canadians were being killed and wounded in greater numbers than they would with replacements. Even though he understood it was the right thing to do, he was more concerned about loosing his majority government in the election after the war because how it would be impact Quebec ridings.
Hear you. My Grandfather was one, and not only the “great war” but the one after. Not sure he would just use a cane though. May he RIP.
I have added another “great” leader to my list to visit their grave site with a case of beer. Army friends welcome to join me….
OK folks, don’t beat on King too much. Yep, he was terrible in many ways, but he did an outstanding job of guiding our nation through WWII. Our economic mobilization level was second only to Britain of all the major combatants. He stayed out of the way of the military commanders.
Give the man his due as well as blaming him for his (many) faults.
Jamie, it is interesting that today as in those days, the voters get whatever they vote for and then some.
Try and research $1/year men who led Canadian WW II war effort. If like me you will not find much. I have never found a list of names or their accomplishments.
I was always curious because a old family friend was assigned to D. Archibald who was a $ a year man. Our family friend told us about their war exploits traveling all over Canada and Central America acquiring war materials. Why is this history so murky? These were the men that made it happen not McKenzie King. My understanding is that much was done without any political oversight.
Read about William Stephenson who did so much in his sabotage and actual assassination of German and Japanese elements. IMHO he created the OAS for the Americans. Canada’s history has been manipulated to benefit the politicans.
That said we do not hear much about Quebec troops being marched on to troop ships in Halifax at gun point. Nor do we hear about the revolt by troops in Prince Rupert which was only surpressed with a threat of air bombing by the Canadian air force. I believe those troops were revolting because of possible shipment overseas.
“…….but he did an outstanding job of guiding our nation through WWII…….”
You have him confused with C D Howe…..
The “Nation of Peacekeepers” mythology is a great example of a typical political and popular inversion. Peacekeeping is a subset of military operations and not the reverse.
Canadians have been great peacekeepers precisely because we are excellent soldiers. If we’d had no soldiers, we’d have had no peacekeepers.
To put it in a way that might mean more sense to our metrosexual ‘burb dwellers in the GTA: firefighters don’t exist to rescue your mother’s cat from way up in that tree but it is because they are firefighters that they can rescue your mother’s cat.
The same accusation – that war history was intentionally buried – can be made against our Liberal institutions and their treatment of Canada’s WWII history.
Telling the whole truth would have revealed that the numbers of volunteers for hostilities, when compared per capita to the provinces, were waaayyyy down in la belle province. The other reason any talk about WWII was shied away from was the fact that the Patron Saint of yellow Liberalism – Turdo la First – had shown his true colours by hiding behind the hemlocks from 39 to 45.
“Canadians don’t know their history (of the Great War) and there’s a reason they don’t,” he says. “It was intentionally erased by the Liberal government of Mackenzie King … to protect his vote in Quebec, and to hide the fact that he didn’t serve in the Great War.”
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the teaching of history falls under the jurisdiction of the provinces. And MacKenzie King governed off-and-on from 1921 to 1948 – that is from three years after the end of the Great War to Thirty years on from its conclusion. To put it in perspective, we’re almost thirty years on from the fall of the Berlin Wall. Knowledge of the Great War would have been widespread as a huge number of Canadians at that time had lived through or fought in that conflict.
He may be guilty of many things but suppressing the history of Canada’s role in the Great War should be laid at King’s feet.
Canada has a lot to be proud of when it comes to WWI, WWII, and the Cold War, and the civilized world owes Canadian Veterans a lot. Too bad so many Canadians seem almost ashamed of their military history. I’m an American, and very often I find that I know more about Vimy Ridge, Juno Beach, and the Princess Pats than a lot of Canadians do. Let’s hope that this article is a sign that this neglect is ending.