If They’d Take Champlain From You, They’d Take Anything From You!

On the 10th of June, Samuel de Champlain’s statue was hauled in dishonour from Orillia’s Couchiching Beach Park. Father of New France and founder of Quebec City, Champlain is among the most influential figures in the seeding of modern Canada.

An explorer, cartographer, administrator, and diplomat, Champlain sought to make Quebec an established and powerful colony in the name of the French crown. A gentleman adventurer, he yearned for the seas from boyhood, and had by age 20 sailed to Mexico, the Caribbean, and South America. He wrote extensively, leaving us the only written account of New France in the early 17th century.

At first pass, it is clear to see why anti-colonial activists would seek to drag Champlain into the gutter. His vision contests the legitimacy of their own. It is also clear why panderers and the historically miseducated would support investing the time to wash him from public consciousness. He is a contemptible “colonizer.” He represents a visionary past. And the past is not compatible with the righteous and eternal present.

But among the better known facts about Champlain is that he fostered constructive and collaborative relationships with the Indigenous peoples he encountered. He represented an alternative to the more rapacious and bloodthirsty approaches to Indigenous relations found across the Americas. Having witnessed firsthand the harshness of the Spanish against Indigenous peoples, Champlain chose a gentler tact, endeavouring to treat with dignity even those of enemy tribes, and to elevate native allies within his ranks.

The removal of Champlain is a testament to the true nature of the cultural program being perpetrated against us. The erasure of our stories and ancestors is not about truth. It has nothing to do with the right framing of wrongly honoured villains. If there is no space for Champlain, there is no space for any founder of any repute at all.

It seems Champlain is too European to keep a statue. He is too far away from modern Canada to stand tall. That would give the impression that Canada and Quebec are legitimate, and that they have a right to exist. We are on “stolen land”. And we, just as the English, must make amends. The English must return to the Welsh all the land from Northumbria to Kent. Never mind a thousand years of Anglo-Saxon history. It does not matter.

The just claim is the claim that is hammered and hammered and hammered into the media by grifters and ivory tower activists. The just claim is the claim that makes you feel good about yourself. Blood and soil for some, not for others. I disagree. We should all disagree, loudly, often, and with conviction.

Shortly after a bag was thrown over the head of Champlain’s statue and shortly before his abduction by city officials, a woman was arrested for assaulting Champlain with spray paint. She was charged with mischief. Had that statue represented someone else, and had the perpetrator been someone else, one can’t help but speculate whether they would have been slapped with punitive anti-hate charges. The erasure of Canada is condoned implicitly by our government. “A system is what it results in,” don’t these protesters often say? We must put an end to this ruin of our heritage. We must adapt our laws to put an end to spiritual terrorism.

You should reflect that Samuel de Champlain froze half to death in a hut for his vision of North America’s future. Half his men died their first winter in this harsh and beautiful country. 16 of 25 died their first winter in Quebec City. What now are Canadians willing to do? Have we any bravery in personal and political life? Canadians must get serious about the struggle for Canada. You will lose the future by doing nothing.