Category: English

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Vivek Astvansh, Associate Professor of Quantitative Marketing and Analytics, McGill University

Customers contact companies regularly to purchase products and services, inquire about orders, make payments and request returns. Until recently, the most common way for customers to contact companies was through phone calls or by interacting with human agents via company websites and mobile apps.

The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) has seen the profileration of a new kind of interface: chatbots. A chatbot is an intelligent software program that can carry out two-way conversations with customers.

Spurred by the potential of chatbots to communicate with customers round-the-clock, companies are increasingly routing customers to chatbots. As such, the worldwide chatbot market has grown from US$370 million in 2017 to about US$2.2 billion in 2024.

As these tools become more embedded in customer service systems, understanding customer preferences and behaviours is crucial.

Do customers prefer chatbots or human agents?

Despite the enthusiasm on the business side for chatbots, customers are far less convinced. A recent survey found that 71 per cent of customers prefer interacting with a human agent rather than a chatbot. Sixty per cent of customers also report that chatbots often fail to understand their issue.

Underlying these preferences is a broader skepticism about AI, as the majority of customers report low trust in it.

Most companies today use chatbots as the first line of customer support. Only when a chatbot fails to provide the necessary information or a customer asks to speak with someone does the conversation shift to a human agent.

While efficient, this one-size-fits-all approach may be sub-optimal because customers may prefer a human agent for some types of services and a chatbot for others.

For example, a recent survey found 47 per cent of Canadians are comfortable letting a company use their purchase history for marketing, but only nine per cent are comfortable letting the company use their financial information.

New research offers insight

To better understand how customers actually interact with chatbots versus human agents, I partnered with a large North American retailer and analyzed over half a million customer service interactions between customers and either agents or chatbots.

I used machine learning methods to conduct three analyses on the chat transcripts.

The first focused on why customers reach out to customer service in the first place. I found most inquiries fell into six main categories: orders, coupons, products, shipping, account issues and payments. Customers rarely turned to chatbots for questions related to shipping or payment, seemingly preferring human agents when their issue involves more detailed or sensitive information.

The second analysis measured how closely the language used by customer service agents — both human and bot agents — matched the language of the customers they were interacting with. It found human agents showed a higher degree of linguistic similarity to customers than chatbots did.

This result was unexpected. Given the sophistication of today’s AI, I had anticipated chatbots would be able to closely mimic customer language. Instead, the findings suggest human agents are better able to follow customers’ varied and dynamically changing language use.

The third analysis tested the thesis that similarity breeds liking — a concept that suggests human agents’ similarity with customers should increase customer’s engagement.

I measured customer engagement by the average number of seconds between a customer’s consecutive messages during a chat. The results show that when human agents displayed higher linguistic similarity, customers responded more quickly and frequently. The more the customer felt “understood,” the more engaged they were.

Recommendations for companies

My research findings make three recommendations to companies. First, companies should identify the reason behind each customer inquiry before assigning that customer to a chatbot or a human agent. The reason should determine whether the company matches the customer to a bot agent or a human agent.

Second, both chatbots and human agents should be trained to adapt their language and communication style to match that of the customer. For human agents, this kind of mirroring may come naturally, but for chatbots, it must be programmed.

My research shows that customers are more engaged when they feel that the agent they are chatting with understands them and communicates in a similar way. Doing this will keep customers engaged and lead to more effective and efficient interactions.

Third, businesses should ask technology companies for evidence on how much their chatbots increase effectiveness and efficiency relative to human agents. Specifically, how do their chatbots compare to human agents in terms of efficiency and customer satisfaction? Only if the metrics exceed a certain threshold should companies consider using chatbots.

Customers want to feel understood and supported — and for now, that often still means talking to a real person. Rather than seeing chatbots as a wholesale replacement, companies should treat them as part of a hybrid approach that respects customer preferences and aligns the right tool with the right task.

Vivek Astvansh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Chatbots are on the rise, but customers still trust human agents more – https://theconversation.com/chatbots-are-on-the-rise-but-customers-still-trust-human-agents-more-259980

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Anthony Sanfilippo, Professor of Medicine (Cardiology), Queen’s University, Ontario

Canada faces a massive shortage of physicians. According to recent reports, Canadians require about 23,000 family doctors to meet current and emerging needs.

In the absence of effective solutions, mayors and municipal councils across the country are competing with each other to entice doctors to their communities.

It seems insurmountable, but options do exist and, no doubt, multiple approaches will be needed. What’s possible?

My clinical, administrative and educational roles over the years have provided an opportunity to work within and examine the doctor “pipeline” from multiple perspectives. There’s a disconnect between that pipeline and the urgent and growing need for doctors, which was a major motivation for my book The Doctors We Need: Imagining a New Path for Physician Recruitment, Training, and Support. Based on all this, at least seven approaches seem possible. All have their pros and cons.

Option 1: Recruit foreign-born, foreign-trained physicians

Medical education and training is available in most countries. The number of doctors available varies widely. In fact, some countries appear to have a surplus of medical school graduates who are unable to find employment.

In Canada, doctors are in demand and enjoy an excellent standard of living. Immigration to Canada, if offered, would likely be seen as a very attractive option.

However, medical training globally is highly variable and assessing qualifications relative to Canadian standards is challenging. There would also be no assurance that such doctors would be interested in taking on needed roles or remaining in those practices once settled. Finally, there is an ethical concern — we may be robbing other countries of their needed physicians.

Option 2: Short-track qualification of foreign-trained physicians already in Canada

Many foreign-trained doctors have already immigrated to Canada and are working at non-medical jobs, hoping to gain residency status that would allow them to undertake examinations or complete their training.

This approach would have many of the same disadvantages as above, but at least ensures these individuals already have some familiarity with Canadian work environment and a better awareness of the expectations facing physicians.

Option 3: Repatriate Canadians who have trained (or are training) abroad

It’s generally acknowledged that there are at least as many Canadians studying medicine outside Canada as within. These are people who were unsuccessful or chose not to engage in our highly competitive admission processes that annually turn away thousands of highly qualified students. They tend to enrol in well-established medical schools in countries such as Australia, Ireland and England.

Although no rigorous analysis or statistics are available, it’s increasingly recognized that the majority remain and practise in the countries where they trained, having established relationships and support structures. In fact, many are actively recruited to take up much needed primary care positions in those countries.

Attracting them back to Canada will require a targeted recruitment strategy and expansion of available post-graduate training positions. All that being said, this is potentially a workforce already prepared and willing to address Canadian health-care needs.

Option 4: Increase the efficiency and capacity of our current physicians

All doctors, particularly family physicians, face a burden of paperwork and administrative tasks that drastically reduces their capacity to assess and treat patients. Developing innovative processes and collaborations that allow them to focus their time on direct patient care will expand their impact and reduce the number of physicians required.

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Option 5: Supplement doctor roles with non-physicians

We’re already seeing this strategy play out with nurses and pharmacists providing some primary care that was previously provided only by physicians.

This approach has many merits and can allow physicians to concentrate on key essential roles, as for Option 4, above. The keys will be to ensure that the health-care teams co-ordinate and integrate their work effectively, and that all essential services are provided.

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Option 6: Collaborate with high-quality medical schools outside Canada to facilitate entry and training of willing and qualified Canadian students

If we’re not able to train sufficient physicians through our own medical school structure, we could partner with foreign, well-functioning medical schools to promote access for Canadians who wish to return to Canada and engage the types of practices that are in such demand.

This would require identifying appropriate schools and developing partnerships ensuring that the admission standards, curriculum and clinical training meet Canadian standards.

Option 7: Increase medical school admissions and training in Canada

The most obvious and intuitively appealing approach would be to simply ramp up the training pipeline within Canada’s medical schools. After all, we have excellent schools and certainly no shortage of very willing and capable applicants.

There are currently 18 medical schools in Canada. Plans are in place to expand to 20 schools over the next few years, but this will not be effective unless we change the current processes of training.

The supply of family doctors provided by our current admission and training processes falls far short of our needs. Recent studies also demonstrate that graduates from our current training programs are increasingly turning away from the comprehensive and community-based practices so much in need.

Consequently, even a dramatic expansion within the current training paradigm will fall far short of addressing our needs. To be effective, expansion must occur in conjunction with new approaches to admissions and training.

The new program developed by Queen’s at Lakeridge in Oshawa, which is dedicated to admitting and training family doctors, is an example of such innovative programming.

The major drawback of this approach, of course, is that it will take time to even begin to address the shortfall. However, it addresses the fundamental problem most directly and establishes a framework for ongoing sustainability.

While there is no single perfect solution, there are a number of approaches, all of which have potential to relieve Canada’s medical workforce crisis. It’s time to explore and pursue them all. It’s time to develop and empower a multi-disciplinary, pan-Canadian panel to decide which mix of the options will build the reliable, sustainable physician workforce that Canada needs and deserves.

Anthony Sanfilippo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Family doctor crisis: 7 options to find the physicians Canada needs – https://theconversation.com/family-doctor-crisis-7-options-to-find-the-physicians-canada-needs-259601

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Reuben Rose-Redwood, Professor of Geography and Associate Dean Academic, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Victoria

On March 25, 2025, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts University, Rümeysa Öztürk, was walking in a Boston suburb when she was detained by plain-clothed federal agents. A video of the encounter went viral, sparking fear and outrage in the United States and beyond.

Since March, a growing number of international students in the U.S. have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated for everything from engaging in political activism to minor infractions such as traffic tickets.

The tightening of restrictions is part of a broader effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to impose its political will on colleges and universities. These governmental interventions have caused deep concern about the future of higher education, democracy, scientific research and the rule of law in the U.S.

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Many of the revoked student visas were restored in late April as a result of nearly 100 federal lawsuits. But the Trump administration continues to target international students for deportation.

In Öztürk’s case, her visa was revoked for co-authoring an op-ed in a student newspaper a year earlier. The op-ed called on the university to acknowledge the plausible claim of a Palestinian genocide and divest from companies with links to Israel.

Other international students, scholars and permanent residents have also been detained for participating in pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses.

Just before the Gaza campus encampment movement arose in April 2024, we published an edited book, International Student Activism and the Politics of Higher Education. Our book brought together interdisciplinary scholars to examine how international students have engaged in political activism and advocacy through case studies.

This leads us to consider what lessons the history of international student politics might hold for addressing current challenges.

Host and home country relations

Although the backlash against international student activism has captured headlines recently, there’s a long history of international students participating in political life during their studies abroad.

These political activities have ranged from protests against tuition hikes to involvement in lobbying and demonstrations related to global geopolitical issues.

The first key lesson we have learned is that the very presence of international students on university campuses is a political matter that depends on a measure of good will between the host and home countries.

For instance, when diplomatic relations between Canada and Saudi Arabia broke down in 2018 due to a dispute over alleged Saudi human rights violations, the Saudi government ordered its students to leave Canada and study elsewhere. Despite this order, thousands of Saudi students chose to stay in Canada even after Saudi authorities withdrew government scholarships to support them.

Political courage in face of risks

A second lesson is that international student activists have often demonstrated extraordinary political courage when the risks of government retaliation are high.

After the First World War, Korean nationals studying in the U.S. took inspiration from the American Revolution to advocate for an independent Korea. At the time, participation in the independence movement was punishable by death in Japanese-occupied Korea.

Following the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, Chinese students and scholars in the U.S. also protested against political repression in China at great risk of persecution if they returned to their home country.

Building political solidarity

A third important lesson is that the international student experience offers an opportunity for students to build political solidarity across national divisions.

The international solidarity movement for Palestine is a prime example.

During the 1960s, support for Palestine was widespread among international students of different nationalities in strongholds of student politics such as Paris. In recent years, international students have forged new alliances through the pro-Palestinian protest movement against the Gaza war on campuses around the world.

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Ebbs and flows of activism

International students have engaged in diverse forms of “front-stage” and “back-stage” political action in different contexts.

Front-stage political activism includes participation in protests, demonstrations, occupations and other political acts that are publicly visible.

Some protests are responses to specific policy changes at colleges and universities. At the University of Victoria, where we both work, international students protested tuition increases in 2019, blockading administrative buildings and occupying the Senate chambers.

Other front-stage political actions — such as the 2024 Gaza campus protests — are part of global movements.

But front-stage protests are only half the story. They often ebb and flow throughout the school year and come with significant risks due to the precarious status of international students as visa holders.

Given the heightened risks under the Trump administration, some international students are advocating for more strategic back-stage political activism to minimize public attention.

In a recent editorial, Janhavi Munde, an international student at Wesleyan University, noted that within the current political environment, “it might be smarter and safer to create change in the background” in order to “provide more scope for impactful activism — as opposed to getting arrested the day of your first on-campus protest.”

Strengthening democratic culture

The current debate over international student activism in the U.S. raises broader questions about the very purpose of higher education in democratic societies.

When asked at a news conference why Öztürk, the Turkish student at Tufts University, was detained, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained that “we gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses.”

This narrow understanding of higher education reduces the richness of the educational experience — where learning occurs both within and beyond the classroom — to a one-dimensional focus on schooling to receive a credential.

One of the main aims of higher education in democracies is to foster critical thinking and civic engagement. When international students actively participate in campus political life, this strengthens the democratic culture of higher education and society.

More than a century ago, American philosopher John Dewey observed in Democracy and Education that education is essential to striving for the democratic ideal. He argued that “democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living.” For Dewey, education could foster democracy through “the breaking down of those barriers of class, race and national territory.”

Equal dignity of all people

As geographers, we take inspiration from Russian geographer Peter Kropotkin’s classic 1885 essay where he observed that, in a:

“time of wars, of national self-conceit, of national jealousies and hatreds … geography must be — in so far as the school may do anything to counterbalance hostile influences — a means of dissipating these prejudices and of creating other feelings more worthy of humanity.”

When international students such as Öztürk urge us to “affirm the equal dignity and humanity of all people,” they are displaying political courage by embodying the ideals of freedom and democracy at a time when these founding principles of the U.S. are increasingly under threat.

Reuben Rose-Redwood has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada.

CindyAnn Rose-Redwood has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada.

– ref. International student activism histories show how education can foster democracy – https://theconversation.com/international-student-activism-histories-show-how-education-can-foster-democracy-257600

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Paul Hamilton, Associate Professor of Political Science, Brock University

The recent resurgence of Canadian nationalism is a response to explicit threats made by United States President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly expressed his desire to make Canada the 51st American state.

Canadian flag sales have skyrocketed, informal and formal boycotts of American goods are continuing and Canadians are being urged to stay home and spend their vacation dollars domestically. Even in Québec, pro-Canadian sentiments are evident. Canadian nationalism is back.

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Yet only a decade ago, the newly elected Justin Trudeau labelled Canada the first “post-national nation” in an interview with The New York Times. In essence, the prime minister suggested, Canada was moving beyond nationalism to some new phase of social identity. Nationalism, like a step in the launch of a spacecraft, would be jettisoned now that it was a vestigial and outdated feature of Canadian society.

As we argue in a recently presented paper to be published soon, Canadians are nowhere near either a homogeneous, popularly held identity, nor are they “beyond nationalism” as if it were an outdated hairstyle.

Instead, Canadian steps toward a united, widely held nationalism continue to be stymied by both substantial constitutional issues (Québec, western alienation, Indigenous aspirations to self-determination) but also by battles over banal symbols of national identity. Canadians are, in the words of journalist Ian Brown, “a unity of contradictions.”

The importance of symbols

In his influential book, Banal Nationalism, British social science scholar Michael Billig highlighted the role of symbols like stamps, currency and flags to identify barely noticed transmitters of national consciousness.

Writing in 1995, at a time of ethnic nationalist resurgence in the former Yugoslavia, Billig contrasted the understated, reserved nationalism of citizens of established states like Canada with the dangerous, passionate expressions of nationalism in the Balkans.

This genteel nationalism is barely noticed much of the time, but proposals to alter national symbols arouse debate — like during the great Canadian flag debate of the mid-1960s — and expose deep emotional attachments. Canadians, too, are nationalists.

But they’re also citizens of a liberal democracy where nationalistic narratives compete to define and unite the nation. Societies evolve and generational change can lead to new symbols reflecting changing values. The historical episodes of discontent pertaining to national symbols show how Canadian society has evolved since its drift away from Britain after the Second World War.

During the flag debate, Liberal Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson said Canada needed a new flag that would present a united nation rather than a confusing amalgamation of different people. Conservative Leader John Diefenbaker, on the other hand, argued Canada should be “all Canadian and all British” during the debate, adding that any Canadian who disagreed should “be denounced.”

The leaders could not agree, with Diefenbaker opting for something like the status quo and Pearson for a complete redesign that would represent all Canadians, regardless of national heritage. In a 1964 La Presse article on the debate, columnist Guy Cormier crudely voiced Québec’s concerns that Pearson’s handling of the flag debate was an attempt to “artificially inseminate” his agenda on the province. The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin reported on the debate, declaring that “tinkering with a nation’s flag is sort of like playing volleyball with a hornets nest.”

Mountie symbolism

As Canada became increasingly more multicultural in the 1980s, another symbol became the centre of controversy. A Sikh entering the RCMP wanted to be able to wear a turban instead of the traditional Stetson.

Despite government and RCMP support, public opinion was mixed. Racist lapel pins were sold with the message “Keep the RCMP Canadian” as some argued the old uniform should remain and that new recruits should adapt to it.

While few Canadians knew much about the design and history of the RCMP uniform, almost all Canadians consider it an iconic representation of Canada. Changes to it represent a threat to some, inclusion for others.

Changes to the anthem, passport

Changes to O Canada, the national anthem, have been proposed over the past decades. Recently, a more inclusive version was drafted, changing “in all thy sons command” to “all of us command.”

Conservative MPs and some television pundits argued the change wasn’t necessary and the anthem doesn’t belong to a political party. Opponents argued that most people aren’t offended by the anthem’s lyrics, the anthem wasn’t broken and was not in need of fixing. Ultimately, the change was made, with great praise from some and vexation from others.

Removing images of the late Terry Fox in 2023 from the Canadian passport, a document few think about until checking its expiry date before a vacation, caused significant uproar.

Other images from Canadian history were also removed, but Fox’s removal was most notable since he was someone most Canadians consider the embodiment of a Canadian hero.

The response to these changes ranged from mild — with those arguing that Canada needs more Terry Fox, not less, — to furious, as some accused Trudeau of being out of touch with Canadians and a “fault finder-in-chief.”

Far from trivial, these arguments over national symbols reveal how deeply some Canadians are attached to them. The nature of Canadian identity and nationalism will continue to be dated and contested. In that respect, Canadians are no different than the citizens of any other country.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Symbols take centre stage in debates about Canadian nationalism – https://theconversation.com/symbols-take-centre-stage-in-debates-about-canadian-nationalism-259847

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Eric Wilkinson, Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy, University of British Columbia

Tariffs imposed on Canada by the United States have fuelled a surge in nationalist sentiment that played a significant role in the outcome of April’s federal election.

Mark Carney’s new Liberal government has signalled an interest in pursuing nation-building projects that hearken back to an earlier period in Canadian history.

Economic, cultural and social policy in Canada has often served the purpose of building national unity to facilitate cohesion and collective action. But some commentators have cautioned Canadians to dampen their reinvigorated sense of pride in their nation.

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Those on the right view Canadian nationalism as an obstacle to neo-liberal economic policies while the left perceives it as irredeemably flawed.

For people on the right, free trade and globalization are thought to produce the best economic outcomes, and nationalism obstructs those outcomes. But those on the progressive left argue that Canada was founded on racist policies and settler colonialism, so nationalism should be rejected because of this original sin.

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What is a nation?

Both perspectives — and the public discussion of Canada’s national identity more generally — remain mired in confusion over the nature of nations. As a political philosopher, I have worked to clear up this confusion by determining what nations are and how they evolve.

In the 19th century, French scholar Ernest Renan outlined a definition of nation that has yet to be improved upon. For Renan, a nation consists of two things: the daily commitment of a people to continue to live and work together and a collective memory of a shared past together.

In contemporary times, Irish social scientist Benedict Anderson described nations as “imagined communities,” since the character of the nation is determined by the limits of the collective imagination of its citizens.

These are subjective definitions of nations because they define national communities in terms of the identification of their members with the community.

There are other, more common objective definitions of a nation involving identity, including shared ethnicity, religion or culture. But these definitions have long been criticized since many national identities transcend ethnicity, religion, culture or any other identity markers.

Nations vs. states

A national community is distinct from a state. The state constitutes the formal political institutions of a society, while the nation is the community of people within that society who view each other as compatriots. This is why the phrase “the people” is often used as a synonym for the national community.

While some nations are stateless, in other cases, multiple nations co-exist within a single state.

In Canada, there is the Québécois nation and many Indigenous nations within the Canadian nation. Although they are distinct, states and their governments will often build national identities around themselves to enable cohesion and collective action. Canada’s national identity was systematically shaped by successive governments — from Confederation onward — to build the society that Canadians live in today.

The character of a particular nation is not fixed.

The beliefs, practices and culture of the people who choose to live and work together can be shaped into anything they collectively decide on. A nation can adopt new values, redefine its membership or have one of its definitive characteristics fade from prominence.

Accordingly, there is no reason to think that moral failings of a national community’s past must compromise it forever. A nation can, and sometimes does, recognize its past failures and become something better.

Patriotism vs. nationalism

A distinction is sometimes drawn between “patriotism” and “nationalism,” with the most famous being made by English social critic and novelist George Orwell.

For Orwell, patriotism is devotion to a particular way of life without the desire to force it on other people, while nationalism denotes an impulse to seek power for one’s nation. Patriotism, then, is a benign, ethical form of partiality to one’s nation.

Other thinkers have sought to explain how national identities and communities can be cultivated in an ethical way, described by Israeli philosopher Yael Tamir as “liberal nationalism.”

The liberal nationalist, according to Tamir, seeks to construct a national identity that adopts the correct ethical values. They hope to harness the energy of nationalism to build a nation committed to liberty, inclusivity and progress.

In 1867, George-Étienne Cartier described the Canadian identity that he and the other Fathers of Confederation sought to create as a “political nationality.” He viewed Canadian identity as being defined by shared principles rather than language or ethnicity.

More than 150 years later, political theorist Michael Ignatieff made a similar distinction between ethnic and civic nationalism. In an ethnic nation, citizens identify with each other because they belong to the same ethnic, religious or cultural community. Meanwhile, in a civic nation, the people unite behind certain civic principles, like a commitment to democracy.

Cartier’s concept of a political nationality was crucial to making sense of the political experiment that was Confederation. Having mostly abandoned their efforts to assimilate the French-Canadians, the British settlers in North America would now join with them to build a new national identity instead.

Reshaping Canadian identity

In his recent book, historian Raymond Blake explains how Canada’s post-Second World War prime ministers, through their speeches and public statements, reshaped Canada’s national identity.

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Up through Louis St-Laurent, various prime ministers would refer to the “deux nations” origin of Canada as inspirational. British and French settlers had come together despite their differences to build a new society together, they pointed out.

As time went on, it became clear this definition of Canada’s national identity wasn’t nearly inclusive enough, making no mention of Indigenous Peoples.

The multicultural character of Canadian society was increasingly acknowledged by the government and Canadians at large until it was central to Canada’s identity. Canada’s national narrative has been reframed in recent years to recognize Indigenous Peoples as one of the three founding pillars of Canadian society. This evolution exemplifies exactly the change citizens should expect in a national community.

This transformation in Canadian national identity shows that national communities can change over time — including, perhaps, in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats against Canada.

In the end, Canadians decide what sort of nation they want to inhabit. Canada’s political nationality has proven more resilient than even some of its founders might have anticipated, but not for lack of effort. There will always remain the work of building a better nation — and it’s work worth doing.

Eric Wilkinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How Canadian nationalism is evolving with the times — and will continue to do so – https://theconversation.com/how-canadian-nationalism-is-evolving-with-the-times-and-will-continue-to-do-so-259352

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Eric Strikwerda, Associate Professor, History, Athabasca University

“We’re freeing John A.,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently announced, unveiling plans to return a statue of Sir John A. Macdonald to its place of prominence overlooking the south lawn of the Ontario legislature at Queen’s Park.

The statue’s return comes five years after activists, disgusted by the first Canadian prime minister’s racist policies, sprayed pink paint over the statue’s base.

Ford’s announcement was welcome news to the mostly conservative historians, editorialists and assorted pundits who have decried Macdonald’s “cancellation.”

Their objections have been part of passionate debates about whether racist and harmful figures from the past should be celebrated through statues, school and state institution names and public infrastructure projects.

For these conservatives, the issue is simple. Dismantling statues is dismantling Canada’s history.

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On the other side of the debate are those who argue that Macdonald’s active and integral role in creating the aggressively assimilationist Gradual Civilization Act, the infamous Indian Residential Schools system, the Reserve and Pass Systems and the Indian Act were all meant to make Indigenous Peoples disappear.

Macdonald was no man to celebrate, they contend, and his statue is nothing more than a symbol of racism and Canada’s dark colonial past.

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Flurries of commemoration

Both sides to the debate, of course, are correct in their assessments of Canada’s first prime minister. Like all historical figures from the past, Macdonald was a complex human being operating at a particular historical moment. And his actions had important historical implications for the way Canada developed.

Was Macdonald, as proponents of his statue suggest, a visionary nation-builder? Maybe. But he was also a racist colonizer who used his position and his power to advance clearly racist goals in the most awful ways.

And yet, the debate misses a deeper and much more interesting set of questions about how we understand Canadian history, how we describe Canada’s past and ultimately how Canadians tell stories about themselves to each other.

It’s important to recognize from where and in what historical contexts Canada’s statues, commemorations and public infrastructure names come. Statues of figures like Macdonald, as well as the naming of public buildings, bridges and roads in his honour, appeared principally at two separate times.

The first came in the late 19th century, mostly commemorating Macdonald’s death in 1891. But statues were being erected during this period amid rising nationalism. They signalled a celebration of Canada’s membership in the British Empire, then at the zenith of its power and influence.

The second flurry of Macdonald commemoration was in the mid-1960s, another moment of heightened nationalism and Canadian pride. It coincided with Canada’s centenary in 1967, the Montréal Expo that same year, a new Canadian flag and a newfound confidence in the world through its active participation in international peacekeeping efforts.

Canada was also at that time grappling with a deeply dissatisfied Québec and its place in Confederation, a state of affairs that eventually resulted in a divisive sovereignty referendum in 1980 that threatened the very fabric of Canada.

Respecting the dissent

But just as Canadians need to understand the historical contexts in which citizens of the past have celebrated people like Macdonald, so too do they need to grasp the historical contexts in which Canadians past and present have questioned his legacy.

In 2013, the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States sparked critical re-evaluations of statues of Civil War-era figures from the American South and the continued use in some southern states of the highly offensive Confederate flag, along with many other symbols of racism, division and hatred.

The release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) final report a decade ago similarly forced Canadians to confront some the darkest chapters of the country’s past.

The point often missed here is that historical markers — like the TRC Commission and the Black Lives Matter movement — themselves become artefacts of the ongoing project involving how people tell stories about themselves to themselves, what those stories say about them in the present and how they want to define themselves in the future.

A more fulsome engagement with history demands Canadians refrain from conflating the story of John A. Macdonald, the statue, with the story of John A. Macdonald, the man, any more than we’d conflate a drawing of an apple with the one on our counter.

A true examination of Macdonald

It’s not a question of who Macdonald was or wasn’t. Instead, it’s about the historical context in which the commemorations of him were installed. But it’s also part of the continuing story of how we see ourselves today.

Claims that dismantling public statues and renaming roads and schools somehow erases Canadian history are ridiculous and profoundly misunderstand how history works.

As Canada Day approaches, it’s important to remember that Macdonald’s story and legacy live on exactly where they should — in the pages of history books, museums and classrooms, where his life and times can be examined, interpreted and debated with the kind of depth and nuance that Canadian history deserves.

Eric Strikwerda does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Resurrecting John A. Macdonald statues ignores critical lessons about Canada’s history – https://theconversation.com/resurrecting-john-a-macdonald-statues-ignores-critical-lessons-about-canadas-history-259351