and Baldwin formed governments in 1842 and 1848 and had a profound effect on public administration, the legal system, and public education in pre-Confederation Canada. They are remembered as the architects of responsible government. They set the country on the road to democracy, racial amity, and national sovereignty — aims realized two decades later in the 1867 Act of Confederation.
The achievement of LaFontaine and Baldwin’s achievement, against such heavy odds, was recalled by John Ralston Saul, author and intellectual, who wrote and lectured on the ability of French and English Canadians to work together to deal with common problems.
Saul was the first speaker in the annual LaFontaine-Baldwin Symposium Lectures in Toronto in 2000, a joint undertaking of Saul and The Dominion Institute. The institute, headed by Rudyard Griffiths, is a national, non-partisan, charitable organization founded in 1997 to promote a better understanding and appreciation of Canadian history. Subsequent speakers included Alain Dubuc (Montreal), Georges Erasmus (Vancouver), and David Malouf (Toronto).
070. Who was the first American president to visit Canada?
It was not until July 1936 that a president of the United States visited Canada. The visit was a private one and the response to the express invitation of John Buchan, Governor General Lord Tweedsmuir. That summer, U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt “took the opportunity of a sailing trip off Nova Scotia with his sons at the end of July to see Buchan in Quebec. Amazingly, it was the first official visit of an American president to Canada.”
Buchan and Roosevelt had been friends and admirers for years. Indeed, Buchan had hoped to be appointed Britain’s ambassador to the United States instead of governor general of Canada. FDR referred to Tweedsmuir as “the best Governor General Canada ever had.”
This information comes from Andrew Lownie’s John Buchan: The Presbyterian Cavalier (1995). Howard Taft was one of a number of U.S. presidents who recalled youthful vacations and hunting expeditions in Canada before they assumed the mantle of power.
071. What was unusual about Glenn Gould’s name and signature?
Glenn Gould’s name and signature were quite unusual.
Recipients of letters from the recording artist found that he seldom bothered to write the last letter of his first name. In haste he would sign his letters “Glen Gould.” The signature looks odd.
Scholars have noted that at his birth, on September 15, 1932, he was registered “Glenn Herbert Gold.” At the time anti-Semitism was a factor in Toronto, and although the family was Presbyterian and not Jewish, family members felt it was wiser to spell the family name “Gould” rather than “Gold” (a name identified with European Jewry).
072. Who are the “top ten” Canadians?
People enjoy making lists and reading them, especially graded lists, which organize one’s thoughts on the relative importance of its items. For The Top Ten Greatest Canadians, CBC-TV invited members of the public to vote on the “top ten” Canadians of all-time from all walks of life, and a list of fifty names was supplied as a reminder of claims to greatness. On November 29, 2004, the results of the voting were telecast. Here are the top ten in order of popularity:
1. T.C. Douglas, founder of Medicare.
2. Wayne Gretzky, hockey star.
3. Don Cherry, hockey commentator.
4. Sir John A. Macdonald, first prime minister.
5. Terry Fox, marathon runner.
6. Frederick Banting, co-discoverer of insulin.
7. Lester B. Pearson, prime minister and Nobel laureate.
8. Alexander Graham Bell, telephone inventor.
9. David Suzuki, scientist and environmentalist.
10. Pierre Elliott Trudeau, prime minister.
073. What were Beatrice Lillie’s fondest memories of her hometown?
In her golden years — between the two world wars — Beatrice Lillie was well-described as “the toast of two continents.” She performed in the West End and Broadway and starred in countless touring productions. Called “the ungilded lily,” this star of musical comedy was born in Toronto, married to Sir Robert Peel, and was in her early forties when she agreed to be interviewed by R.E. Knowles of the Toronto Star (March 31, 1936).
Lillie never hid her background of genteel poverty in Toronto; indeed, she sprinkled it with stardust, at the urging of R.E. Knowles, who encouraged her to reminisce about the early years in the city. He asked her about the things she would like to re-experience, so she strode down Memory Lane:
Oh, lots of things — I’d love, once more, to go out with my new parasol the first warm day — or to win a race at the Sunday school picnic — or to duck for apples on Hallowe’en — or to cut a swath, on the sidewalk, with my new skipping-rope — or to hear the bell once more when my boy-friend called to take me to a party — or to go to Hanlan’s Point and stay till it got quite dark. Or, perhaps most, to have one more long day at the Exhibition — and — and this — to gather in all the “samples” — all free and all beautiful. Ah, me! It’s all very fine to imagine all this — but it will never, never, come back again.
Knowles listened and all the while observed her expressive features: “The fine face now aglow with the tender and wistful light that only yesterday can lend.”
074. Who was “the real McCoy”?
When something or someone is genuine or bona fide, the folk expression “the real McCoy” is applied. There is no agreement as to the expression’s origin, but Canadians have argued that it refers to Elijah McCoy (1843–1929), a black inventor or technician who was born in Colchester, Ontario. According to Barbara Wickens, writing in “Immersed in Canadiana,” Maclean’s Special Commemorate Issue 100, October 2004. McCoy, the son of escaped slaves from Kentucky, “registered more than fifty patents in his lifetime, including one for a lawn sprinkler, an ironing board, and a train-wheel lubricator that came to be known as ‘the real McCoy.’” The lubricator was self-regulating and eliminated the need for trains to come to a full stop for lubrication. The first claim to be “the real McCoy” was made on his behalf only in 1992.
075. Why is Henry Ross honoured in Australia?
It is not often that a foreign government honours a Canadian-born rebel or hero, but the Australian government did so officially when it drew attention to the role played by Henry Ross in the Eureka Stockade standoff, near Ballarat, Southern Australia, on December 3, 1854. The official endorsement came from Canberra exactly 150 years later.
“It was Toronto-born Henry Ross, a twenty-seven-year-old miner who emerged from the historic battle with mortal wounds but an enduring place in Australia’s national mythology.” So wrote Randy Boswell in “Australia Honours Toronto Rebel,” National Post, December 3, 2004.
In 1849 Ross joined many other former miners from around the world in the Australian gold rush. He became a leader of the uprising at Ballarat to protest the high licensing fees and the colonial regime’s blocking of democratic reforms, including voting rights. He helped to draft the miners’ list of demands, a document important in the evolution of responsible government in Australia.
For the miners, Ross even designed a distinctive blue-and-white flag, inspired
