Opinion: A historic Canadian insurrection has uncanny parallels with the Capitol riot

January 6, 2022

The Burning of the Parliament House in Montreal by Joseph Legere, 1849.Courtesy of McCord Museum, Montreal

Roy McSkimming is the author of the novels Laurier in love And McDonald.

It is possible that the United States, at a political turning point, could learn something from Canada’s experiment.

With the anniversary of the Capitol Hill uprising approaching, Americans are in a worrying position. Three retired US Army generals recently published a shocking op-ed in The Washington Post. His warning: “The next time we think about the coup, we cool our bones.”

If former President Donald Trump runs again in 2024 and is defeated, generals fear another armed rebellion, this time backed by rogue elements in the US military. “It is not strange,” he wrote, “to say that a military breakdown could lead to civil war.”

The same day, the Post ran a column discussing how civil wars start, advisor to the Central Intelligence Agency, political scientist Barbara F. An upcoming book by Walter. Ms Walter believes the US is closer to civil war than the public understands and has “entered very dangerous territory.” After Mr Trump it is an “anocracy” somewhere between a democracy and an autocratic state. “We are no longer the oldest continuous democracy in the world,” writes Ms. Walter. “That honor is now with Switzerland, followed by New Zealand, and then Canada.”

The Canadian people have never suffered the devastation of a civil war. But before feeling duped, we must consider what happened here in the dark month of April, 1849, 18 years before Confederation, when we had our own violent rebellion.

This took place in Montreal, the capital of colonial Canada, which included future Quebec and future Ontario. It began with a bitter political struggle carried out through parliamentary logic. On April 25, sentimental language boiled over and spread through the streets. The demigods provoked a crowd of several thousand. Waving torches and raising slogans, they marched on the undefended legislature.

Parliament was in session. Without any warning, the mob broke the doors and stormed into the room. The MLAs retaliated, throwing punches and books and ink bottles at their attackers. They were disappointingly outnumbered. One goon grabbed the mace, the other grabbed the chair. The crowd was in possession of the House.

Soon a fire broke out in the wooden building. Within hours the great structure had burned to the ground.

What is the reason for this terrible attack on democracy? Fundamental to 19th-century Canadian society was the cultural and political division, then called “race”—the division between Francophone, largely Roman Catholic, and Anglophone, whose political class was largely Protestant. Discontent, even hatred, between the two “castes” spoiled their coexistence.

In 1849 that ugly side of our politics broke out over a law known as the Rebellion Loss Bill. The bill compensated property owners in Quebec for losses incurred during the Rebellion of 1837, a brief unsuccessful attempt to gain independence from Britain. It was introduced by the Reform government of Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, an English-French coalition. Scandalized, Conservative opposition alleges law would reward sedition by giving benefits Patriot Rebels whose property was damaged by taking up arms.

Baldwin and LaFontaine were implementing a new form of governance based on the will of the people’s representatives. Innocently called “responsible government”, it was indeed a major step towards democracy and nationalism. Even the British government and the Governor-General of Canada, Lord Elgin, supported this theory. But the opposition feared it would result in “French supremacy.” His loudest spokesmen were extreme Tory MPs and the Montreal Gazetteer, whose rhetoric fueled the fires of burning Parliament.

Mob rule continued for several days in Montreal, damaging reformers’ homes and instigating deadly shootings. But as John Ralston Saul described in his study of LaFontaine and Baldwin, both leaders faced violence with calm resolve. He insisted that the Parliament be convened in the morning after the terrible fire to continue the work of democracy. And he refused to resort to calling the army against his opponents.

Another consequence had lasting consequences for our democracy. Learning from the violence of 1849, liberal conservatives felt an urgent need to reorganize their party on a more inclusive and national basis. Adopting the Baldwin-LaFontaine model, John A. Macdonald and Georges-tienne Cartier persuaded their followers to adopt the “other” they considered in Canada. They formed a large-tent team to bridge the division of language, religion and region. That paradigm has ruled the country ever since.

So the oldest continuous democracy of the East could learn a self-evident truth from its northern neighbor. Political polarization is corrosive and ultimately incompatible with a democratic state. But like an addict, a nation can recover from its excesses and restore its political balance.

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