A toast to Sir John A.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/01/2015 (4140 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

He’s on our $10 bill, but most Canadians don’t pay our first prime minister his due, a group of immigrants learned at a 200th birthday party for Sir John A. Macdonald Thursday.

Sunday is the 200th anniversary of the birth of the Father of Confederation, and to celebrate, a local collector of Macdonald memorabilia shared with newcomers some of Sir John A.’s private letters and talked about what they all have in common.

“My father and I came to Canada looking for a new home and new opportunities and all that we had with us were two suitcases,” said Bashir Khan, an immigration lawyer who arrived from Pakistan at age 11.

Macdonald arrived in Canada from Scotland at the age of five and his family struggled, said Khan. “Basically, he was poor,” he told a lunch-time gathering at Welcome Place hosted by the Pakistan Cultural Equation of Manitoba.

Macdonald had to start earning his living at age 15, then articled before becoming a lawyer, said Khan, who collected letters Macdonald wrote from 1847 to 1868 to George Herman Ryland, a clerk of the executive council (now the Privy Council) of Upper Canada.

When Upper and Lower Canada united, Ryland stepped aside under an agreement with a Lord Sydenham to become registrar of Quebec. He wasn’t compensated as promised after Sydenham fell off his horse and died, and Ryland was owed close to 80,000 British pounds in back pay. Most of Khan’s letters are Macdonald’s expressions of support for compensating Ryland, such as this one marked “Private” and dated 29 June 1847 to G.H. Ryland, Montreal. At the time of this letter Macdonald was receiver general of Canada West:

“I some days ago received your note with reference to your case before Council. I can assure you, my dear Sir, that the feelings which induced me to take up your cause in the House of Assembly during the two last sessions, still exist, and that my opinions as to the justice of your claims for compensation remain unchanged. The only difficulty that exists is the amount and nature of the compensation and that must be got over in some way. In the position that I now hold, I cannot, of course, long press your claims, as an advocate but I feel bound from my sense of what is due you, and from the Government, to endeavour to obtain for you the justice that has been so long delayed.”

After Macdonald championed his cause and a long, drawn-out battle with buck-passing between the colonial and imperial governments, Ryland ended up getting about half of what he believed he was owed, said Khan, who researched the story behind the letters.

It’s the legacy of Macdonald, more than the letters, that fire up the proud Canadian.

“He gave us the country we have now,” said Khan. Macdonald pushed for unity and the construction of the cross-country railroad. “Without him, there’d be no Canada to immigrate to,” Khan said. Canada would’ve been swallowed up by the United States if Macdonald hadn’t united several independent colonies in British North America, said Khan.

“John A. Macdonald played a significant role as a father of Confederation in bringing the country together,” said Khalid Mahmood, president of the Pakistan Cultural Equation of Manitoba that provided lunch and a “Happy Birthday John A” cake for the occasion.

“I love Canada — it’s a wonderful place to live and raise our children,” said Mahmood, who came to Canada 40 years ago.

Vinh Huynh, who came to Canada as a privately sponsored refugee in 1979 at the age of 10 and attended Thursday’s party, said Macdonald was “a man of his time.”

“We look through modern eyes and there are many things we can fault,” like the push to build the railroad on the backs of Chinese labourers who weren’t treated fairly. “How do we learn from this and move forward?”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca