Is This Lot The Best Canada Can Come Up With For National Heroes?

By Charles W. Moore

To commemorate Canada Day this year, the Dominion Institute and the Council for Canadian Unity conducted an unscientific Internet poll (www.ourheroes.com) asking participants to vote for their greatest non-living Canadian heroes. If nothing else, the results reveal an alarmingly impoverished concept of heroism and lack of proportional judgment among the 28,000 odd respondents.

Reviewing the top 20 names on the "heroes" list, I'm obliged to deduce that the heroism bar is set mighty low in the minds of Canadians. For example, if this poll is representative, Terry Fox is Canada's all-time greatest hero. Come on folks! Fox was a courageous, albeit egotistical young man who tragically died of cancer at an early age. I suppose his abortive run across Canada (a feat later accomplished by another one-legged cancer victim, Steve Fonyo) was mildly heroic, but had Fox not died, would he even be on the list? Ask Steve Fonyo. Fox's placing is maudlin sentimentalism at its worst.

Number Two is Sir Frederick Banting, co-discoverer (with Charles Best) of insulin. This was an admirable achievement, but heroism? Only in a country obsessed with health care, I guess.

Hero number three really set me back on my heels. Lester B. Pearson a hero?! The mean-spirited partisan who insisted that Canada' flag be purged of "Tory blue?" The guy who gave us the unfunded Canada Pension Plan time bomb and set the country on the road to hundreds of $billions of debt with his enthusiasm for social programs? No thanks!

Even if a political career qualifies as "heroism" it's beyond me how Pearson beat out Sir John A. MacDonald, whose claim to hero status is slightly legitimized by his being Canada's first Prime Minister -- sort of our George Washington, although I can't think of any actual heroic acts attributed to MacDonald.

Louis Riel, who was hanged for treason, came fifth, and since he died for what he believed in (rebellion against the government), I suppose he is some sort of hero, at least to his admirers. Another sentimental favorite, I fear.

In sixth place we find our first real hero, Major General Isaac Brock who died in the Battle of Queenston Heights defending Canada against an American invasion during the War of 1812. The Canadians won (some of the credit should go to a fellow named MacDonnell, according to the late Stan Rogers).

Back to politicians for number seven, Tommy Douglas, former Saskatchewan premier and co-founder of the NDP, a dubious achievement. Douglas is also credited with popularizing the welfare state and inventing Medicare, so in a country obsessed with social programs......... But a hero???

Laura Secord, the American-born loyalist heroine who is sort of Canada's Paul Revere and Betsy Ross rolled into one, also hails from the War of 1812. She is remembered today mainly by the brand of boxed chocolates bearing her name, recently acquired by an American food conglomerate.

Billy Bishop finished ninth, and like Brock and Secord really does deserve to be on this list. A World War I fighter pilot, Bishop shot down an officially credited 72 enemy aircraft, the highest score of any Allied airman, and far eclipsing America's top WWI fighter ace, Eddie Rickenbacker, who had just 26 confirmed kills.

Number 10 is Nellie McClung, a temperance crusader and suffragette who campaigned for womens' right to vote and be considered "persons" under the law. These estimable objectives achieved, Ms. McClung fittingly became a CBC executive. But heroism?

John Diefenbaker is 11th. The prototypical Red Tory won a landslide election victory in 1958 on the strength of his oratorical skill, then frittered it away, a casualty of his own egotism and incompetence. Dief is remembered for terminating and then purging the Avro Arrow fighter jet project, which Pierre Berton has accurately called one of the greatest acts of legislative vandalism in our country's history. Not a hero to me.

Norman Bethune, a Canadian physician and Communist who died while serving with Mao Tse Tung's Red Army on its Long March came 12th. Perhaps Bethune treated some of those later responsible for the Tienanmen Square massacre and the rape of Tibet. Crazy or courageous? In any case, persons who voluntarily support totalitarian mass-murderers are strange heroes by my lights.

Thirteenth is Shawnee Indian leader Tecumseh, who fought alongside Brock and other British generals in the War of 1812. A genuinely heroic and admirable man, but his claim to Canadianism is nebulous, He was from Ohio, and was basically an American rebel.

Number 14 is Sir Sam Steele, a onetime Mountie who commanded the Lord Strathcona's Horse regiment in the Boer War and the second Canadian contingent in World War I. Probably belongs on the list.

Alexander Graham Bell came 15th. Bell invented the telephone and was a great innovator. But while he spent a good deal of his life in Canada, Bell was born in Scotland, and became a U.S. citizen in 1882.

Lucy Maud Montgomery finished 16th. Sentimentalism strikes again. Montgomery was a writer of considerable merit, but a heroine? Puh-leez!

Rene Levesque took 17th place. Only in Canada would a man who dedicated his life to breaking up the country make its top 20 heroes list. Of course Riel finished fifth. Go figure.

Lt. Gen. Sir Arthur Currie, who commanded Canadian forces in Europe during World War I, and was later principal of McGill University, was in 18th spot. I guess he squeaks through as a hero of sorts, although few Canadians would recognize his name.

Joey Smallwood, the last Father of Confederation who brought Newfoundland into Canada in 1948, was 19th. Since popular support for joining Confederation only enjoyed 52 percent support, I suspect Smallwood's claim to heroism is qualified.

Don't we love the War of 1812, the only time anyone can think of that we whipped the Yanks in a fair fight, save for the 1992-'93 World Series and some Stanley Cups? Charles de Salaberry holds down 20th place for his distinguished military leadership in that war. Never mind that he was born in France.

Who would I choose? A lot of nameless people mostly, like the guys who gave their lives in the botched Dieppe raid, or those who died in bombers over Germany, or in the hideous mud-soaked hell of the World War I trenches, or the poorly trained and equipped Canadians who tried to defend Hong Kong, many of whom died in Japanese prison camps. People like a fellow I knew who volunteered for three extra tours a World War II pilot, eventually flying 18 types of aircraft, and who was decorated by King George at Buckingham Palace. After that, he returned home to a career as a paint salesman in Nova Scotia. I won't mention his name, because he wouldn't want it publicized. That's the kind of guy he is. A real Canadian hero.

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