Victoria Day/Fete des Patriotes
It’s the May Long Week-End and those of us with green thumbs can finally start gardening without fear of a frost ruining our hard work. This is the third consecutive Victoria Day i will be celebrating in Toronto - and i hope it is as pleasant as the last two which included a visit to a multitude of tourist traps and a family dinner with people who were not my family.
Victoria Day is celebrated on the Monday before May 24th or May 24th itself in honour of the most illustrious sovereign’s birthday. There was a bit of confusion with respect to when to celebrate later sovereign’s birthdays, and now the May 24th long week-end is considered to be a joint celebration. Apparently there are annual fireworks in Victoria, BC which i have yet to witness - but hope to some day.
Of course, Queen Victoria is dear to the heart of many Canadians for having given Canada its independence (at least as far as domestic policy was concerned - we only became independent with respect to other powers after WWI - hence why we entered the war when Great Britain did). One would expect SOME gratitude on the part of Quebec as a nation for the constitution which we still uphold (as the Charlottetown Accords were never passed and the new Constitution never ratified) for so many of the clauses which ensures Quebec’s status as a nation. However, like so many things, the historical events get jaded by politics and Quebec celebrates Fete des Patriotes on this federal holiday which it cannot legally avoid.
I am particularly fond of the Patriotes of 1837-8. My more devoted readers may remember that i have an ancestor who was hanged for his participation in the Papineau Rebellion (see here). Unfortunately for those trying to avoid references to a British heritage, the Patriotes movement was largely the result of law professionals arguing that taxation without representation was unconstitutional - sound familiar? It was not an attempt to separate the French-speakers from the English-speakers, but rather an attempt to more fully adopt the political reforms that were taking place in Great Britain. Although violence erupted, and the cannon ball holes are still visible at the Church in Ste. Eustache which i have rollerbladed and driven by on numerous occasions, the leader of the movement, Papineau, was strongly anti-violence. He fled to the United States rather than getting involved in an armed confrontation. Smart move as the Patriotes were quickly put down and Amable Daunais, my distant uncle, was hanged the next February.
Note: The Portrait of Queen Victoria by Franz Xavier Winterhalter contained in the Royal Collection is under the Copyright of her Majesty Queen Elisabeth II and is a link to the British Government’s Biography of Queen Victoria.
Ooh, have you read 1837: The Farmers’ Revolt? We read it in a theatre class this year, and it’s all I remember about the rebellion (although we did study it back in grade 8).
What’s really interesting is reading about the process of creating the play (which was written collectively): the challenges of covering all the events, physically staging it, and finding contemporary resonances that the company could connect to. So, if you’re looking for some light reading….
You can’t discuss Canada’s independence without discussing our constitution - which wasn’t really ours until 1982.
In some ways, I enjoy thinking I’m as old as the country I was born in.
On better-considered second thought, 1837 is written in Toronto, so the Quebec side of the rebellion is very much peripheral to the action in Toronto (what else would you expect from Toronto?). Although by your description, the rebellions’ causes sound very similar. I was just excited to be able to make any pertinant link between what I’m doing in school and what you are.