The Ben Mulroney Show - Ben goes in-depth on the legacy of John A. Macdonald

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Guests and Topics: Ben goes in-depth on the legacy of John A. Macdonald Guest: Craig Baird, Host of Canadian History Ehx Guest: Daniel Tate, Concerned Canadian If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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the amateur. Only in theaters and IMAX April 11th. You know, we're living in a moment where there's a resurgence of Canadian pride and this belief that the world needs more Canada and that our values are worth protecting. You know, that only happens if there's a Canada. And Canada didn't happen by accident. And in the world in which it was formed in 1867, it's a hard thing to do. It's a damn hard thing to do. And there was a man by the

name of Sir John A. MacDonald, that through his leadership and vision, divined it, created it, helped build it, made sure that the Americans didn't invade it. And he is, in my humble opinion, the greatest prime minister in history. And I'm speaking as the son of one. So I appreciate what I'm saying. And to say that does not mean he was perfect. To say that does not mean he did not make mistakes, but he's the one who got us here. He's the one who, he's the guy who dreamt of Canada

and made it so. And so what I want to do now is take some time with somebody who knows a lot about this sort of thing to talk about Sir John A. Macdonald. What made him great? What were his flaws? And how best can we remember him? And so let's welcome back to the show, Craig Baird,

the host of Canadian History X. Welcome, Craig, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me. So let's paint in broad strokes off the top. Who was Sir John A. Macdonald before he became prime minister? Wellald before he became prime minister? Well, before he became prime minister, he was a very prominent lawyer in Kingston.

And then in 1844, he was elected to the legislature of what was then called the province of Canada. And eventually by the 1850s, he become probably one of the most prominent politicians in that province, which eventually led him to becoming co-premier and eventually starting to look at uniting all the parties into the great coalition with George Brown

in order to seek this federal and political reform that would eventually result in the creation of Canada in 1867. And it wasn't a foregone conclusion that Canada would just be created. I have to assume, Craig, that there were forces at play pushing against his vision. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, it's important to note that like he was one of several people who were trying to put this through. He was definitely the most prominent one, the one who kind of really kind of led the way. But, you know, very early on, it looked like the creation of Canada would just be the province of Canada, which would be modern day Ontario and Quebec and only a small portion of that. But people like

John A. MacDonald were the ones who helped get the Maritimes involved and to create the four founding provinces that would eventually be Canada. So yeah, it was definitely something that was not a foregone conclusion. There was a lot of work involved. It took years to do a lot of negotiations with Britain that eventually led to what became Canada. And that's one reason why he was chosen by the governor general to be the first prime minister before we had our first election. How long was he in office for? He was in office for quite a long time. He was in office from 1867 to 1873. And then after a brief time away because of the Pacific scandal, he was then in office

from 1878 to 1891. And he was our first prime minister to actually die in office. So I believe he ranks third all time behind William I. McKenzie King and I think Pierre Trudeau in terms of longest time serving as prime minister. In our few remaining minutes, we're going to talk the good and the bad. So let's talk about his biggest accomplishments in office. Well, I think probably the biggest accomplishments is probably the railroad. I mean, obviously, there's aspects to that that kind of fall into the bad as well.

But without the railroad, we wouldn't have had British Columbia joining Canada. British Columbia originally just wanted a wagon road to connect them to the rest of Canada. And it was the federal government who said, well, we'll build you a railroad. And when he was ousted in the Pacific scandal and he had to resign as prime minister, there was actually a real possibility that British Columbia would secede from Canada. There was a real movement for that. And it was his election in 1878 that stopped that from happening because work on the railroad began again. So I would say that's probably his biggest accomplishment because that railroad then brings in things like Alberta, Saskatchewan,

builds up Manitoba and has a huge impact on making Canada coast to coast. But there's a wide variety of other things. There's the national policy that really started to build up the industries of Canada. It had tariffs for other countries like the United States, but it had favorable tariffs for the British Empire. And so there was a lot that he did, but I definitely think that the CPR was definitely his biggest accomplishment. And I only learned recently that it was built in four years and the debt was paid off in

one. Mm hmm. four years and the debt was paid off in one. Yeah, people think that like when BC joined British BC joined Canada in 1871, they think that the work started then and they kind of did, but there was a lot of surveying and things like that by 1873 1874. Not a lot had been done and the liberals weren't really in favor of having this railroad across Canada during their time in power. So really, yeah, from 1878 to 1885, and really from 1881 to 1885, that's when most of that railroad was built. And yeah, there was a lot of debt and everything,

but because of the terms that were used to create the CPR, it was paid off very quickly. I'm talking with Craig Barrett about our very first prime minister, Sir John A. MacDonald. What do you think would have happened? I'm asking you actually Barrett about our very first Prime Minister, Sir John A. MacDonald. What do you think would have happened? I'm asking you actually not be rooted in fact, but instead be rooted in theory. What would have happened to the Western North America had that railroad not been put in

place? Would the Americans have rushed in to fill the void? Well, I think they may have in British Columbia, because there definitely was a lot of Americans who were in British Columbia after the Fraser Gold Rush. And the Americans very much wanted Alaska all the way down the Pacific coast to Mexico. They really wanted to have all of that. I think places like Alberta and Saskatchewan probably

would have stayed in Canada, because that was part of Rupert's land and the Northwest territories that got transferred to Canada by the British government. So those probably would have stayed in Canada because that was part of Rupert's land and the Northwest territories that got transferred to Canada by the British government. So those probably would have stayed. But again, without having the Northwest Mounted Police being created and going west and getting the whiskey runners and everybody out of Canada and really asserting our control over the Canadian West, we might have eventually had Western Canada becoming its own country or joining the United States because of an influx of Americans coming in.

But really having the railroad going across Canada allowed us to start to settle the West and then prevent the Americans from taking that regions. Craig Barrett, talk to me about the biggest controversies surrounding Sir John A. McDonald. Well, there definitely are a few. I mean, there's obviously his policies towards the indigenous peoples. He definitely gets blamed a lot for the Indian Act, but that actually came in under Alexander Mackenzie and the liberals, but his government did expand on it. After the 1885 Northwest resistance, a lot of the First Nations in the West weren't even allowed to leave the reserves without permission. The Indian agents had a huge amount of power.

There definitely was at times almost a campaign of starvation to kind of keep the First Nations under the control of the government. Another really big thing that he's remembered for is the fact that the head tax came in on Chinese immigrants. The Chinese immigrants came in to build the railroad. And then as soon as it was built, it was kind of, you know, we didn't want any more, at least a lot of people didn't want any more Chinese people coming into Canada. So that's where the head tax came in. But again, it's also important to note that the head tax was, I think $50 when it came in, and it was actually increased by the Sir Wilfrid Laurier government to $500 eventually. So, you know, everywhere you look for at least the first century of Canada,

you can definitely find a lot of bad for every single prime minister. Well, yeah, I mean, I mean, you don't have to look very far to find, to find bad in recent history either. I mean, I'm not, I'm not singling out Justin Trudeau, but he's the last guy and he's got his own controversies that haven't aged well. So the fact that we would be holding Sir John A. up to a social standard that is impossible even for us to live up to today speaks to, I think, a sad trend in Canada

where we're unwilling to appreciate that our history is made up of human beings. Yeah, definitely. I mean, every person from our past definitely has issues with them. And you know, I mean every person from our past definitely has issues with them and you know I mean our longest serving prime minister William Lye Mackenzie King was very much against Jewish immigrants coming to Canada. None is too many, none is too many. Hey Craig we're gonna leave it there but I want to thank

you so much for painting that picture for us today. No problem, thanks for having me. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. And in our previous segment, we spoke with Craig Baird, the host of Canadian History X, to talk about Sir John A. MacDonald, our first prime minister. And that was, by the way, what we wanted to do was set the table for this next conversation. We want to give you the context of who he was, and in my opinion, why he is and shall remain the greatest prime minister that we've ever had, because without him, we don't have this country, full stop.

And that is warts and all. And he's a human being with flaws that should be judged, but they should be judged in the context of his life. And I'm very happy to have our next guest joining me, although under circumstances I did not expect, and I wish were different. Daniel Tate has been a concerned active citizen of the city of Toronto for a very long time.

And I've been following him when he pops up in the news because he's acquitted himself, I believe with honor when issues around our history, our values and how our city is spending our money. He shows up, he gives his deputations, he comes armed with facts, he comes armed with reason, and he oftentimes comes head to head with ideology, and he is pushed back against by city councillors

who behave in a way that is beneath the office that they hold. Today, I'm joined by Daniel. Welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. Thanks, Ben. Thanks for having me. The reason you're here is not a good one. A lot of us know that at Queens Park,

there's a box around the statue of Sir John A. And it has been like that for years. And it's been put there to protect him from activists who would come and desecrate that statue. And you came across that box and had enough. Yeah, that's right. It's truly shameful and frankly embarrassing as a country that we are basically pandering to these radical activists and cowering to them essentially by boxing up the great founder

of our nation. We wouldn't have the freedoms and liberties, we wouldn't be Canadian, there would be no Canada if it wasn't for Sir John A. Macdonald. And the fact that he's been boxed up for five years is a true national shame. And, you know, what I did is reflective of millions of Canadians who feel the exact same way.

So what did you do? Well, as a disillusioned and very concerned Canadian citizen, I went up there one day and I wrote, Free John on the cheap plywood that's covering the statue. Yeah. So chances are that if that plywood wasn't there, somebody would have come by with some paint and they would have thrown it on Sir John A. in an act of protest.

And I sincerely doubt that in the Toronto that we're living in today, anything would have happened to them. I also would humbly submit that if somebody had written free Palestine on that box, they probably would have been let go. But you wrote free John as in free, not even on the statue on the box, free this man who means so much to our identity, to our history, to our culture, to our values.

And you are now, what are you facing? Well, the maximum sentence for mischief under 5K is two years in prison. That's the criminal code. So it's now the state versus Tate that rhymes. But to your point earlier, that's problem number one is that people who are going up there, and again, these are radical activists, they have a warped worldview, they hate Canada, they think it's some, you know, colonial racist state, and they were getting away with this stuff with impunity. And the problem is that emboldens

them. When they realize they can do things without consequences or punishments, they tell their friends, hey, the government's weak, the police are weak, let's keep doing it. And so that was problem number one is that when all this stuff was happening five years ago or four years ago and nobody had the spine to basically handle business, now here we are five years later and our great founders boxed up But also many other national monuments have been disgraced from coast to coast. Yeah, or erased or removed or demeaned and or reframed under Sort of the the social values of today to make them look lesser than they were and look again I I don't like when people ascribe motivation to me.

Just because I say he's the greatest Canadian, greatest prime minister in no way discounts the issues that he had in the day. Some of it was shameful behavior. Some of it I wish hadn't happened. So two things can be true at once and this idea that with one fell swoop, we cancel people because we don't like how they behave then. Well, good luck being judged by future generations because every single one of us will come up lacking.

What really frustrates me for you, Daniel, is that this is happening to you at the same time as on everybody's social media feed, we see protesters taking over streets, threatening Jews, threatening death to Canada, threatening lighting flags on fire, and nothing happens to them. Certainly not at a level that would deter them.

They get chaperoned by the police. It doesn't make any sense. This is the environment that we currently live in in Canada, and every Canadian needs to do some soul searching and understand what's going on here. This isn't just like two-tiered policing, which it is, but what is going on behind the scenes where it's appropriate for hate propagandists to choke our city streets every single weekend with police chaperone and commit crimes, by the way, because they're defacing, they're vandalizing, they're putting hate speech everywhere. And I know

this because I walk the streets of downtown Toronto and I look at the aftermath and I've, and it's disgusting. It's not just the anti-Semitism, it's anti-Canadian, it's anti-police. These are grotesque messages and police, it's costing us now $20 million, as you alluded to earlier, to just watch these people. And so again, we have a culture of impunity that's hurting the country, hurting our city, and we need to stop. What's your defense gonna be?

In court? Well, I'm just gonna say I was following my heart, doing what I thought was right. Frankly, I don't even think it'll hold in court because it was the cheapest plywood you've ever seen. Literally, you could go to Home Hardware and buy that same plywood for $5. And by the way, when they let me out of the security cell

in which I was in at Queens Park, it had already been painted over by the groundskeeper. You might want to reach out to Bonnie Cromby's office because I was in this studio with her when Greg Brady was hosting the morning show. I was sitting right there, she was sitting right there, and she said, prior to the election, we need to get Sir John A. out of the box.

Yeah, we'll put your money where your mouth is. Yeah, I mean, listen, maybe the Liberal Party of Ontario might want to help you with your defense. Well, if, you know, we're elbows up right now, right? Oh, we're all proud, patriotic Canadians. Well, then, where are these people who are elbows up when our founding father is being thrown in the mud, his history legacy is being thrown in the mud. People are equating Sir John E. MacDonald to like Pol Pot or Stalin or Hitler, which is

historical revisionism on steroids. These people are getting away with it and we need to hold them to account. I, I went to law school years ago. I have no purport to be a lawyer, but I keep the words selective prosecution keep coming up in my head. Like the fact that they would choose to follow this court case to its conclusion and not myriad others that are probably more deserving of the time of the court is shocking to me. This is the wake up call I think a lot of people need to hear and need to see. Because

if we don't change course, like as you know, we're in an election cycle right now. We're at a crossroads, we're at an inflection point for our country. And so now is the moment people need to wake up and understand what's going on. This could have real implications for you. If it goes sideways and if you don't win, your life could be severely altered.

If people are listening to this and they really are offended and they empathize with you, is there any way that they can show their support for you? Well, number one, I have to be at the courthouse today at two o'clock at 10 Armory Street, just near University in Dundas. You can come show your support there.

I have no idea what's gonna happen. We'll see. And just spread the word, you know? Like let people know my story that again, I'm born and raised in this country. I love this country. I've been paying my taxes on time ever since I was 18 years old. I went to university. I've worked hard my whole life in the private sector and look what's happening to me. I'm now facing the prospect of two years in prison for trying to like protect the

honor of the founder of our country, who, yes, he did a couple of gross things. The Chinese had tax, not cool, okay? We can have that conversation and that context without allowing radicals and other activists to deface our national monuments. Yeah, well, sadly, it feels to me that there are certain people in positions of power

who want exactly that. And it's incumbent upon people like you, people like me to beat the drum and say, no, no, no, no, that's not right. But Daniel, I wanna thank you for coming in. I wanna say I'm sorry that this is happening to you. I do hope that you get a swift conclusion to your satisfaction on this, because this ain't right,

especially when you see what's actually happening on our streets. So I wish you, as they say in French, courage. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ben, appreciate courage. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Yeah, this is a miscarriage of justice if I've ever seen one. And we've got bigger fish to fry. Actually, this is not even a fish worth frying. transform your space and your Sundays? Well, Home Network is giving you the chance to love your home with $15,000. There can only be one winner.

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