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Originally Posted by PsYcNeT
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Do you really expect anyone with even a basic knowledge of history to be shocked that MacDonald, and virtually every other European political leader of that era, believed that stuff?
Canadian immigration policy in the early 20th century listed a preferential ranking of prospective immigrants: Anglos at the top, Northern Europeans next, then Mediterranean stock, then Eastern Europeans, then Asians, finally Jews (black immigration was discouraged altogether). This wasn't secret, or considered embarrassing - the government was completely open about which ethnic groups it most wanted in Canada.
In 1915, Canada's National Council of Women championed sterilization to prevent unfit mothers from "filling the cradles with degenerate babies." As an MLA, Nellie McLung pushed for Alberta's eugenics laws to ensure "simple-minded women" couldn't breed. There's a school named after her about 2 km away from my house.
So we seem to have three options:
A) Denounce and remove the memorials of the great majority of politicians and public figures from about 1940 and earlier.
B) Denounce and remove the memorials of some. But which ones? Who gets to decide?
C) Recognize that "the past is a different country; they do things differently there." And acknowledge that while those beliefs are not acceptable today, there's nothing meaningful to be gained by retroactively vilifying everyone from earlier eras.