How Is Canada Portrayed In A People's History

The representations of the nation’s past have been selectively pieced together to present a narrow or idealistic picture of Canada’s history. Canada: A People’s History has focused their time and attention to generating a mass viewer base rather than a clear and detail oriented reality. This naive picture of the nation is presented as the “real” picture of Canada (Dick 191) from an Anglo-Canadian perspective of history rooted in tradition. Information is presented from the perspective of the narrator, as the author and not the voice of the larger audience (193). Viewers are to take what is presented to them as spoken truth. The narrative driven intent to tell stories negates historical accuracy and rejects the use of expert commentators (195-196).

Take the use of execution of Thomas Scott at Red River; the illustration used paints Métis people as killers, while the circumstances surrounding the altercation is coincidently – or not so coincidently – omitted (202). It displays the marginalization used to pursue a national building agenda. The “rights of First Peoples, racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, lesbian, gay, transgendered and bisexual people, the homeless and the unemployed” (204) where simply omitted from the story of Canada in A People’s History and has arguably has a negative effect on the knowledge, perspective and understanding of Canada as a whole. Aboriginal people, for example, should not be painted as refugees who immigrated to Canada like others who have become occupants and citizens of the nation. Canada’s Chinese population should not be depicted in Historica Minutes as the bright strong figure behind Canada’s Canadian Pacific Railway construction, because despite their work on the railway they received difficult, backbreaking treatment – not for their own benefit but for the benefit of Canada’s political picture at the time of its