That evening in mid-June 1864, George senses that a once-in-a-lifetime moment has come. It is time to set aside personal hostility and old grudges for the greater good, for the country, for the future of all British North America. He doesn’t call together advisors whom he knows will try to argue him out of his conviction. He calls in a member of Macdonald’s party he respects and asks him to tell Mr. Macdonald that he wants to offer him a way forward. He tells him he must bring M. Cartier of Canada East into it from the get-go to make it work. Brown already knows, respects, and likes Cartier, contrary to his supposed firm dislike of French Catholics. Cartier likes Brown. Thet became fast friends for life. Throughout the sleepless night, the messages go back and forth until the two rivals finally meet and agree to work together. They exchange their first handshake in fifteen years.
Tag Archives: History of Canada
Difference Makers, 1: a Beautiful, Humble Life
Few things were harder than watching the wasting away of a human life as the bodies of the disease’s victims literally disintegrated. Medications and supplies were in short supply for a long time. Gradually, as the sufferers died and the disease was contained, the leper communities were scaled back and eventually closed.
The Ghosts of Christmas, 1 (with Apologies to Charles Dickens)
The post-Christian cultural revolution in the West I have been describing in its Canadian context is the same which has swept Europe, the United States, and Western outliers such as Australia and New Zealand. Many of the European states have a barely breathing remembrance of Christendom, despite the appearance of oddities such as political parties calling themselves “Christian Democrats”. Churches are largely museums and cultural artefacts, even those still kept open for religious functions among the remnant of Christians. Such ceremonies are seen as living lessons in sociology and anthropology by their State benefactors.
World.V.You 