Champlain: Will Council Rid Us Of This Turbulent Pest
By John Swartz
There is a council meeting today regarding the Champlain Monument. The report is slim and only asking to put it in proper storage somewhere else. There is no public forum and it will be on Youtube. Some thoughts about the whole affair are in order.
No one should expect a long meeting. Like the withdrawn report on a new plan to reinstall it of last Monday, it is likely no councillor wants to be given the opportunity to say something that also has teeth with which to bite them. That doesn’t mean something arguable might be said, but those who are trying to stop this, or at least kick the can down the road, aren’t likely to say a lot about it. That doesn’t mean some questions regarding the cost of the latest move, or validity of it won’t be asked, but conversation will avoid the whole ‘is this right’ debate.
Councillor Janet Lynne Durnford has some specific questions about the ‘reinstallation.’ related to who knew about it, how much did it cost, and the whole going behind council’s back thing, and she might ask those questions now, but she has already asked for a report and may not choose to muddy the water of the main objective of removing the statue now.
But SUNonline/Orillia has some questions and observations.
If ‘storing’ the Champlain figure of the monument on the pedestal in Terry Fox Circle was the best option, why not the same for the other figures?
Conversely, if the other figures can be, and are, stored elsewhere, why not the Champlain figure too?
This leaves mayor Don McIsaac’s explanation Champlain is being stored in the park wanting. He said he was following council’s decision to put them in storage, however most of the rest of us don’t think of out in the open in a park as storage facility.
“We’ve got it in storage now so we need to decide what to do,” McIsaac said in conversation with SUNonline/Orillia. But in a public park?
“Well, you know, creative thinking,’ he said.
This is kind of like a scene from a movie, ‘the rules don’t say a dog can’t play basketball.’
Because council did not spell out, ‘in a warehouse in Forest Home, or other suitable facility with walls and a roof, or in a mayonnaise jar on the porch of Funk and Wagnalls home office’ does not give license to leave it laying about anywhere.
But this is where politics and governance is at today, not just here, but everywhere, governing bodies have to be persnickety and specific about their resolutions, and include the most absurd scenarios lest someone takes advantage of, ‘they didn’t say I couldn’t do X’.
There are two parts to the latest controversy surrounding the monument, One is what several councillors have essentially said is defying the will of council; the other the betrayal felt by people who have Native lineage and those who agree with them
On the first, McIsaac has said no City staff were involved in any part of the exercise to replant Champlain. To think anyone could drive trucks into any park in this City, or any City, and carry out the type of exercise needed to hoist a bronze statue into place without someone knowing about it and either acquiescing, or looking the other way is not realistic.
It also cost money, so who paid? The crane rental company, or companies, don’t work for free. Someone had to pay them, or sign a purchase order and there is no clerk at City Hall who would sign off on such an order without their boss and their boss’s boss, and so on giving the OK. So this had to reach all the way up the food chain because even a department head would be loath to say yes without their boss, the CAO, agreeing. This is just how bureaucracy works, CYA – in writing.
When asked about how much the exercise the day of reinstallation cost, McIsaac referred to the budget set by council ($250,000) for the return to Orillia and storage until a decision on the fate of the monument is made.
“The bill has to be worked out.” McIsaac said when asked again about that specific day.
Then there is the bill to re-reinstall it. It is a foregone conclusion that figure will not occupy the place it once did, or does today. So far each of the renderings of a new configuration has it elsewhere, and it may not return at all, so there is a cost all over again to move it, or take it away.
Many have said strong mayor powers are at play, giving heads of council too much room to what they want. Except there is nothing in the legislation that gives the kind of authority to override council decisions beyond housing permissions, the budget crafting, and hiring of one bureaucratic position.
In short, a mayor can decide how much a line item in a budget is worth, but a mayor cannot dictate if, or how, it is spent once council has given duly passed direction.
So on to the betrayal. What really counts here is how the people offended believe. It’s kind of like all the men in the room deciding abortion issues, they have no skin in the game and should shut up. So too all those saying variations of ‘put it back’ and all the myriad and misinformed reasoning behind that position; it is not for you to decide.
Just because you played on the monument as a child, or it’s always been there your whole life, or it’s part of ‘our’ history, or ‘why can’t we all just get along,’ are not rational reasons to applaud restoring the statue to it’s almost, original, upright, position.
The story you heard in grade school about Champlain was simplified and in light of more dispassionate investigation (i.e. white man’s work) it turns out Champlain’s character and exploits more closely resemble a certain example of current leadership south of the border, than it does a noble/benevolent explorer/discoverer.
The citizens of Montreal would equally aghast of a proposal to install a bronze statue of Donald Ewen Cameron. Sure he was a prominent psychiatrist at McGill University, but he was also in charge of the MKUltra experiments and one would be showing their ignorance of what he actually was responsible for by advocating in favour of memorialization just because he was a prominent professor and researcher.
No doubt Champlain explored, no doubt he was the glad hand emissary of old French interests who just wanted the furs, but he was also a glory seeker, a duplicitous go-between with the various Native nations, pitting them against each other in order to get his way and look good to the King.
He had as much regard for native custom and way of life as the current head of the U.S. government has for the law, or our premier’s regard for the public purse.
But, but, he was friends with the locals and vice versa, they nursed him back to health. Well that was a side benefit of his winter stay in our neighbourhood. His injury was sustained in an act of hubris, pretending to lead the charge of a skirmish he orchestrated and when the Wendat found out he planned to meet with the Iroquois they decided it was in their best interest to keep him here to prevent him meeting with their enemy.
We have insulted our friends by returning the statue and for cheering it. And let’s not forget the plethora of downright racist comments and threats made by some, a truly revelatory act such backward thinking still exists and that some have no trouble voicing it. Some of the comment points to the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action, specifically the atonement this nation shares for the residential schools, and here in Ontario the 60s Scoop. Each and every one of us knows someone who was part of that, or has family that was. None of us truly knows the scope of the injustice suffered unless it was your brother or sister, mother or father, aunt or uncle, or cousin snatched away. We have no justifiable right to pass judgment on what the survivors believe and feel and what they bow say about the aftermath.
More insulting is the meeting between government agents and the chiefs of the various bands at which they were informed of the plan for residential schools took place in that area of the park back in 1846. Most do not know this, but many do and putting the spearhead of colonialization there is at best throwing salt on the wound. Back in 1925 it is unlikely anyone knew that information and if they had maybe would have thought twice about putting the monument there.
Yet people still cling to their outdated understanding of Champlain and his relations with our neighbours. Some believe they are being neutral, or non-provocative, or non-racist (some absolutely do know they are). The one thing they cannot seem to do is shake what they were erroneously taught as school children, to acknowledge an entire group of people have lived experience that contradicts what they think they know.
The amount of absolute pronouncements regarding all of this is astounding, so a moment to put to rest a few. Yes there were 170 elementary school children in the park taking part in the Gathering: Festival of First Nations Stories (timing is everything and this was not good). Yes the people with the statue told them they had to leave. No, they did not leave. Arts Orillia’s director, Kate Hilliard, said she showed her permit and the installation crew took a coffee break until the program was over. And, the kids had no idea what was taking place because they weren’t told and truck are just trucks to them.
Yes one person did spray paint a slogan on the steps of the monument. If no one stepped forward to accuse her, she likely would not have been arrested becasue the police did not witness the act and she told the police what she did (which is self incrimination). As it was she was released 30 minutes later, no trip to the station involved.
In our view the charge is a little much and has potential for long term consequences which outweigh the act. We do have a right to free speech and how we exercise it is not regulated, except where violence is involved. What she did is not permanent or damaging, except maybe to the egos of some people. We are not saying everyone should do the same, but under the circumstances when your opinion (she previously wrote to and appeared before council), and that of others of like mind, is of no consequence and is cast aside in such a manner how does one think a response should go. If there ever was an example a slap on the wrist is in order, it seems this is it.
Also much has been made the statues could be stored at the Orillia Recreation Centre, specifically in the basement under the pool. One person was quite emphatic there was no basement. Yes there is. It is big enough to store all of the pieces, though getting Champlain in might be the issue (size, doorways) but once in there is tons of room to stretch out.
Today, Friday May 29, council has a special meeting called for 2 p.m. at the behest of staff, to remove the statue from the park. Councillors are likely to respect the amount of division this affair has caused and vote to take it away. They are correct to assert it does not speak well to reconciliation, but it would be nice to hear one of them bring in the real history and say flat out, Champlain was not a nice person, who did not respect Natives except for their trapping abilities and no one today would, given all the historical data, suggest this is a person who should be given a monument.
Council meetings are open to the public or can be watched on the City’s Youtube channel.
(Photos by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia)
