Roundup: Happy 200th birthday, Sir John A!

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Tomorrow marks the 200th birthday of Sir John A Macdonald, our first prime minister and the man who made us. Unfortunately, because we don’t do a good job of recognising him, we’re not seeing too many celebrations around the country, which is a shame. And more recently, we’re seeing a rash of spiteful editorials, like this one, that declare that we should not celebrate him at all because he was a horrible racist drunk, or what have you. Never mind that everyone in the 19th century was pretty terrible, never mind that he was far more enlightened and moderate than most of his peers, never mind context or nuance as we read history – let’s grind some modern day axes on the backs of historical figures who can’t defend themselves! (Macdonald’s biographer, Richard Gwyn, offers a pretty good response to these kinds of articles here). In the meantime, Stephen Harper pens an op-ed in Macdonald’s praise, while Mark Kennedy wonders if any politician today could survive the scandals that Macdonald did (spoiler: probably not), and Aaron Wherry gets a roundtable of experts together to discuss Macdonald’s legacy. In the meantime, celebrate his birthday by watching the CBC film about the first steps toward confederation (online here), listen to some of his speeches as read by other former prime ministers, and certainly have a drink in his honour. Note that his favourite tipple was actually champagne, and not scotch, as so many people like to claim.

Good reads:

  • Jason Fekete looks at some of the creative ways MPs and candidates are trying to fundraise for the next election – thanks of course go generous tax credits.
  • Aaron Wherry looks at the myriad of possible outcomes of the next election, and how the rules of our system work in those cases.
  • Michael Spratt dismantles Peter MacKay’s open letter to Stephen Maher in response to his calling out of the Conservatives’ criminal justice failures.
  • Here’s an excellent look at the constitutionality of the victims surcharge.
  • Ruh-roh! The government has been using a lot of unpaid interns and hiring on very few of them afterward.
  • MPs publicly debate the merits of publishing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons, with divergence within parties.
  • Susan Delacourt wonders where all of the humour has gone in Canadian politics.

Odds and ends:

NDP MP Yvon Godin has decided he won’t run again. His is the party’s only seat in New Brunswick.

Public Works tried to pay a trapper they hired in beaver pelts. No, seriously.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer still can’t get any data on the costs of the Iraq mission.