How to think about history: All of us are imperfect. That includes historical figures and all of us alive today, and future generations will also find fault with us. Thus, the proper way to think about historical figures is to ask: “Did they help build a free, flourishing Canada?”

To Canadian governments

• John A Macdonald and other founders created a country that became freer and more flourishing over time and provided shelter and opportunity to ever-more diverse peoples since 1867. They did so in an age of rudimentary transportation and communication links and in the face of invasion threats from the United States.
• Sir Matthew Begbie opposed the anti-Chinese and anti-indigenous racism of his day in British Columbia. He did so while also upholding the rule of law in a frontier province.
• Egerton Ryerson was a strong proponent of free education for all Canadian children. He also lived with Ojibway people, spoke Ojibway, and promoted Ojibway leaders.
• BC’s first governor James Douglas fought slavery amongst BC’s 19th-century indigenous peoples including personally buying the freedom of those enslaved.
• All Canadians today have ancestors who helped create Canada. Those include indigenous peoples whose ancestors crossed the Bering Strait 20,000 years ago and carved communities out of the wilderness, to early French fur traders, to immigrants from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe over hundreds of years.
• All of our ancestors sacrificed in wars and depressions to make Canada free and flourishing.

Source: The 1867 Project: Why Canada Should Be Cherished—Not Cancelled. Edited by Mark Milke and published by the Aristotle Foundation.