| CHARLES PACHTER article for Magna International annual book, Nov 1999
As prime minister, I would:
Memorize and sing loudly and confidently the updated lyrics to our national anthem:
O Canada, our home and native land
True patriot love in all thy sons command
With glowing hearts we see thee rise
The true north strong and free
From far and wide O Canada
We stand on guard for thee
God keep our land glorious and free
O Canada we stand on guard for thee...
And learn the second verse:
O Canada, where pines and maples grow
Great prairies spread, and lordly rivers flow
How dear to us thy broad domain
From east to western sea
A land of hope for all who toil
The true north strong and free...
Get anglophone Canadians to learn the French lyrics, with an appropriate translation to give the religious and historical context some meaning:
O Canada, terre de nos aïeux
O Canada, land of our ancestors
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux
Your brow is crowned in garlands of glory
Car ton bras sait porter l'épée
For your hand has carried the sword
Il sait porter la croix
And your hand has carried the cross
Ton histoire est une épopée
Your story is an epic tale
Des plus brillants exploits
of the brightest shining feats
Et ta valeur, de foi trempée
And your valour, bathed in faith
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits...
will guard our homes and our rights.
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As prime minister, I would :
Get the census takers before every federal election to make a door-to-door collection of the spare change on every Canadian’s dresser drawer. From 10 million homes, the pennies, nickels and dimes would amount to over $200 million. Use the money to upgrade the Trans Canada Highway.
Guest -host a CBC TV talk show. Do a standup monologue about life in Ottawa. Tell anecdotes about my colleagues, and describe my impressions of the heads of state of other countries.
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Tell this Canadian joke at fundraising dinners:
Four international heads of government are asked to write an essay on the Elephant.
British prime minister Tony Blair writes "The Elephant- Its Lifestyle and Habitat".
French prime minister Lionel Jospin writes: "On The Love Life of the Elephant".
American president Bill Clinton writes: "Towards a Bigger and Cheaper Elephant".
As Canadian PM I would write: "The Elephant - A Federal or Provincial Problem.”
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As prime minister, I would :
Set up a task force to eliminate useless task forces.
Appoint as Minister of Culture a person who is truly cultured.
Host a fall fun fair for farmers, feminists, fishers, fiddlers, flight attendants, florists, foster parents and furnace cleaners.
Serve Butter Tarts -our national pastry- to foreign dignitaries at all diplomatic functions here and abroad.
Have Canada Post do a large commemorative stamp of the Queen of Canada riding a moose.
Give free obligatory makeovers to all the provincial premiers. No open-collared, short-sleeve shirts or polyester slacks allowed. Get a contemporary Canadian designer to create a comfortable casual uniform similar to those worn by Canadian Tire repairmen
Give artists the same recognition as hockey players.
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Create a Trans-Canada Highway link-up to VIA Rail so cars and vans can piggyback at intervals onto trains at strategic vistas along the way.
Simplify income tax returns. Retrain the bureaucrats who might lose their jobs to be wilderness ecology workers. Get them all to plant trees.
Replace the GST with a built-in tax.
Send a basic level primer to every Canadian household on how parliament works.
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Lure Princess Anne, the most Canadian of all the royals (hard working, self effacing, looks like she shops at Bi-Way ) over here for half the year. Get her to share Rubber Chicken Disease Dinner duties and Senior Lifestyle Residence Ribbon-Cuttings with the over-burdened Governor-General. Renovate regional summer and winter palaces for royal accommodation and for public gatherings -the venerable Château Montebello near Ottawa, or the grand lodge in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta or the Manoir Richelieu in Quebec, or Simcoe’s Navy Hall in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Host Solstice Parties each spring, summer, fall and winter all around the country. Try spring in Victoria, summer in Muskoka, autumn in Charlevoix, winter in Banff. Ask selected guests from each region to invite their best friend or colleague to come and schmooze casually. Change the locations annually. Next year try spring in Cornerbrook, summer in Saskatoon, fall in Mahone Bay, winter in Inuvik.
Appoint new creative staff at the CBC every 4 years.
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Memorize some basic historical facts about the key nation builders of our past -First Nations leaders Joseph & Molly Brant, Tecumseh; French explorers and administrators Cartier, Champlain, La Salle, Frontenac, Talon, Laval; British Military Caretakers who kickstarted English Colonial Canada following the American Revolution: Dorchester, Haldimand, Simcoe, Johnson, Brock; Pioneer Women Marie de l”Incarnation, Madeleine de Verchères, Susanna Moodie, Nellie McClung.
Re-think the bumper sticker “ My Canada Includes Quebec”. As long as we have existed together, Canada and Quebec to me are one and the same. Quebecwas Canada for 150 years before the rest of us grew into present-day Canada. Les canadiens français explored the length and breadth of the North American continent and intermarried with native peoples creating another distinct part of the Canadian family, the Métis. If “Inclusion” is to be a national policy, bumper stickers should also say: My Canada includes Chinese Single Moms, Ukrainian Muslims, Afro-Acadians, Late Loyalists, Jews for Buddha, Lesbian and Gay Fundamentalists, the Follicly Challenged, etc.
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As prime minister, I would:
Make a monthly Canadian Home Acquaintance Trip (CHAT ) to someone living in a small town or in a rural retreat. My travel destination wish list would include the following places: Ucluelet , Agassiz, Skookumchuk, Cochrane, Drumheller, Batoche, Moose Jaw, Gimli, Flin Flon, Point Pelee, Magnetawan, Glen Huron, Picton, Bromont, St. Jean Port Joli, L’Esterel, Trois Pistoles, La Beauce, St Andrews, Carraquet, Cheticamp, Ingonish, Wolfville, Cavendish, Malpèque, Gros Morne, Petty Harbour, Trinity East, Placentia, Yellowknife, Moose Factory and Cape Dorset, for starters.
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Keep a few historical mementos on my office wall, such as:
Epitaph from a gravestone in the tiny village of Williamstown in Eastern Ontario, where several loyalist families trekked north from the former 13 colonies to rebuild their shattered lives after being forced to leave the new United States :
“Tread softly, stranger,
Reverently draw near,
The vanguard of a nation
Slumbers here.”
Excerpt from the memoirs of Joseph Bouchette, a French Canadian boat captain on the Great Lakes who first surveyed the pristine natural harbour of Canada’s largest city in 1791:
"I still distinctly recollect the untamed aspect which the country exhibited when first I entered the beautiful basin. Dense and trackless forests lined the margin of the lake and reflected their inverted images in its glossy surface...The wandering savage (sic) had constructed his ephemeral habitation beneath their luxuriant foliage...and the bay and neighbouring marshes were the hitherto uninvaded haunts of immense coveys of wild fowl."
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Excerpt from a page of Elizabeth Simcoe’s diary, written in August 1793, soon after she landed in the same harbour:
"I rode on the peninsula from one till four. I saw loons swimming on the lake; they make a noise like a man hollering in a tone of distress. At a distance they appear like small fishing boats. The air on these sands is peculiarly clear and fine. Some Indians of the Ojibway tribe came to visit us from near Lake Huron.They are extremely handsome and have a superior air to any I have seen; Some wore black silk handkerchiefs covered with silver brooches, tied right round the head, and scarlet leggings with blue broadcloth blankets. They brought the Governor "a beaver blanket to make his bed" as they expressed themselves, and invited him to visit their country.
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As a prime minister from Toronto, I would naturally be more familiar with references to this particular part of central Canada. But I would be ever mindful that Quebeckers, Maritimers, Prairie, Western and Northern Canadians have similar stories and places to quote from and to hang on their walls. I would hope they would share their stories with me.
As prime minister, I would :
Keep this timeline in perspective: The first nations and the Inuit peoples have been in what we lately call Canada for 12-15000 years,- the French for about 450, the Anglos and Euros around 250 years; Africans, Asians, South Americans and PEEVED (Practically Everyone Else Vaguely Ethnically Defined) in the last 100 years. By far the majority of immigrants has fled here from Conflict and Hardship to Safe Haven and Opportunity.
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Recite this poem, a mantra of multicultural monikers:
Pitseolak, Frontenac, Hnatyshyn, Kain,
Gretsky, Frum, McClung, Fontaine.
McIsaac, Payette, McLuhan, Wong,
Pratt, Bourassa, Egoyan, Dionne.
Atwood, Callwood, Smallwood, Sauvé
Richler, Chrétien, Jewison, Rae.
Bear in mind that every person who ever lived and died here had a Biography. Of the countless numbers of our predecessors now forgotten by history who struggled to carve out a country from the unforgiving wilderness, few have made it to the official historical record books. In the last 500 years of relatively recent recorded Canadian time, perhaps 80 million people have lived and died here. How many remain alive in popular memory? Did Canada have a dull past? Did we arrive at this envied time and place without having astonishing life stories waiting to be rediscovered? Check out Le Sieur de Roberval, Alexander Henry, Anna Jamieson, Philippe François de Rastel de Rocheblave, Robert Rogers, Simon Fraser, Ezekiel Hart, Sir Casimir Gzowski, Thérèse Casgrain, Tom Longboat, Pauline Johnson, or The Great Farini.
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Remember and learn from Canada's past injustices towards groups of people who were victimized by others in power - in our century, wrongfully interned Japanese Canadians, and war-weary Jewish refugees turned away by petty government officials.The last century witnessed the continued oppression and repression of First Nations peoples, and 250 years ago, at the dawn of our nationhood, the attempts to purge one group of colonists by another. For a profoundly moving glimpse into Canada’s painful beginnings, I would encourage Canadians to drive through rural New Brunswick near Sackville to theCollège acadien, an imposing stone building overlooking the picturesque Memramcook valley and view the exhibits on Acadian life, then watch a film on Le Dérangement or Deportation of the Acadians by the British military during the great war of 1755-63, and their subsequenrt dispersal throughout the lower 13 colonies or back to France and England. Their eventual return to their beloved Acadie. is a story of miraculous tenacity. Reflect on how their side interprets Canadian history.
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Encourage every anglophone Canadian to visit the magnificently reconstructed Fortress Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island to witness the drama and Gallic style of French Canadian colonial life before the so-called Conquest.
Keep a copy, close at hand, of these words written by Pierre Elliott Trudeau:
“I am against any policy based on race or nationalism. - By a historical accident, Canada has found itself approximately seventy-five years ahead of much of the world in the formation of a multi-national state, and I happen to believe that the hope of mankind lies in multi-nationalism.”
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And finally, as prime minister, I would:
From time to time, get off the political treadmill. I would take a breather and revel, zen-like, in this country’s astonishing beauty and abundance.
I’d ask myself if Canadians have any idea how - by comparison, - despite our foibles, our adolescent growing pains, our innate modesty, and our universal human problems, - how truly fortunate we are. And if they don’t, I’d feel it was my duty to remind them, again and again, and challenge each and ever one of them to give Canada back their personal best in return.
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