The landscape of Canada's museums has undergone a dramatic transformation over the past decade, with institutions across the country adopting identity-driven makeovers influenced by pressure from the Trudeau-led Liberal government. A comprehensive National Post investigation visited museums from coast to coast to examine these changes and their implications for how Canadians understand their history.
Museum Makeover: From History to Identity Politics
The Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, formerly known as Hull, promises what critic John Robson describes as an excruciatingly woke experience. Visitors are immediately confronted with bright red territorial acknowledgments on the website stating the museum sits on the traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg, land described as holding great historical, spiritual and sacred significance.
Robson, who visited the museum on October 29, argues that rather than presenting a balanced view of history, Canadian historical narratives are being anaesthetized and sedated before being presented to the public. The physical museum begins with vibrant displays of Aboriginal lifestyles and art, but quickly shifts focus away from traditional historical narratives.
What's Missing From Canadian History?
According to Robson's observations, the Canadian History Hall appears less prominent than contemporary social justice exhibits. The Indian Residential School Memorial Monument occupies central attention on welcome screens, while exhibits like Reclaiming Leisure: Black Life As Celebration with accompanying QR codes directing visitors to learn more about Black history crowd out foundational documents like the Magna Carta.
While traditional elements of Canadian history eventually appear—from the Bluenose to Terry Fox, the conscription crisis, Tommy Douglas, the Plains of Abraham, Wayne Gretzky, filles du roi, the October Crisis, the War of 1812, curling, René Lévesque, Vimy Ridge, Nancy Greene, the 1982 Constitution, the Acadian deportation, the Group of Seven, and Expo 67—they share space with multiple Aboriginal exhibits and a huge lurid residential schools trigger warning.
Questioning Historical Interpretation Methods
The museum's approach to historical sources has drawn particular criticism. Rather than discussing the nature and reliability of different historical sources, the institution juxtaposes as equally authoritative a written European account from Martin Frobisher's 1578 expedition with Aboriginal oral culture recalled by a Mi'kmaw elder in 1869—nearly three centuries later.
Further raising questions about historical accuracy, traditional Aboriginal culture is illustrated using art from 1975, while the museum presents a Wyandotte account from 1911 describing prophetic visions of white men with blue eyes coming across the waters.
Robson characterizes the modern curatorial approach as having replaced Victorian massed artifacts with interpretation thin on logic as on fact. He suggests the museum presents something more sinister in what it assumes or omits rather than what it explicitly asserts about Canadian history.
This transformation of Canada's cultural institutions comes at a time when the country is experiencing a resurgence of patriotism under the Elbows up! mentality, creating tension between traditional national pride and the new historical narratives being promoted in government-funded museums.
