Conscripting Canada’s Past: The Harper Government and the Politics of Memory

Abstract

In this critical commentary on the political uses of memory in contemporary Canada, the author examines the conscription of the Canadian past by the Harper government since it came to power in 2006. He shows how the conservatives’ reconstruction of the nation’s past serves their broader project of reconstructing the nation tout court. Moreover, he presents the various strategies they have deployed to remake Canada’s history in their own image: the increased emphasis on military history and on the ties that bind Canadians to the monarchy; the endeavour to cast the War of 1812 and the First World War as foundational events in the making of modern Canada; the creation of the Canadian Museum of History. The author also discusses the dismantling of Library and Archives Canada, the main repository of the nation’s memory.