Getting It Wrong: How Canadians Forgot Their Past and Imperilled Confederation by Paul Romney (review)

408 The Canadian Historical Review motivations that go beyond purely historiographical considerations. For all these reasons, The Second Greatest Disappointment should be of interest both to scholars and to a more general public, particularly the multitude of tourists and honeymooners who made the pilgrimage to Niagara Falls - a rare and enviable opportunity for an academic historian . NICOLE NEATBY University ofPEI Getting It Wrong: How Canadians Forgot Their Past and Imperilled Confederation . PAUL ROMNEY. Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1999. Pp. 332. $60.00 If this book does not generate some interest and controversy in Canadian political history, nothing will. It is Paul Romney's hope that, by reexamining and scrutinizing some ofthe basic assumptions ofCanadian history, he can expose their faulty foundations. Much of the political history accepted by English Canadians, he asserts, is quite simply wrong. Ifwe can peel away the layers of misinterpretation and reconstruct the intentions of those who framed this nation, we have a much better opportunity to 'form a basis for dialogue between French and English Canadians' and to help discover 'remedies for the country's perennial constitutional quandary.' This is an ambitious book. Nationalism, according to Romney, is at the heart of our historic misinterpretations because both the French and the English variants 'rest on mutually incompatible histories ofCanada.' Blame lies with the English Canadian intelligentsia, and historians in particular, who helped create 'a Canadian nationalism that many Quebecois see as inherently dangerous to the survival of their culture.' This English Canadian nationalism refuses to distinguish francophones from the various immigrant communities in Canada; it refuses to concede special status to Quebec as a historic French Canadian homeland; and, most important, it refuses to accept that Confederation was and is 'a solemn pact between two nations.' The idea of a compact was the cornerstone of Confederation , Romney claims, yet it has been misunderstood by historians and, as a result, forgotten by Canadians. The solution is to return to the era of Confederation to re-examine the facts: 'I have discovered that the compact theory had English- as well as French-Canadian antecedents and that the Confederation settlement accommodated both ideas without contradiction.' But Paul Romney does more than simply dredge up the old compact theory debate. In re-examining this era he formulates a powerful critique Book Reviews 409 of the English Canadian historical establishment and one of its main interpretative frameworks - 'the centralist, nation-building idea of Confederation.' The firsthalf of Getting It Wrong traces the origins and growth of'the forgotten vision ofCanada.' Oliver Mowat becomes Romney 's misunderstood hero, falling victim to the centralist myth and its destruction of 'the Reform interpretation of Upper Canadian history.' The campaign for responsible government has been 'nationalized' into a 'Canadian matter - the advent of internal self-government throughout the North American colonies at mid-century,' rather than being recognized for what it was: a struggle for individual liberty and local selfgovernment . 'The chiefimportance of Confederation,' Romney asserts, 'lies in the belated prospect ofself-government for Upper Canada.' Much of the blame for this misinterpretation Romney drops on the shoulders of Donald Creighton. The 'Father ofCanadian history' was so desperate to hang on to a fading vision of his Canada in the 1960s that he played an instrumental role in entrenching an idealized version ofthe past. But Creighton is not alone in shouldering the blame. Romney criticizes the entire historical establishment, and in particular such figures as Arthur Lower, Frank Underhill, and W.L. Morton for their negative interpretation of the 'Reform tradition.' He takes this further, arguing that the historians' prejudice against William Lyon Mackenzie and his insurrection was matched only by the derision shown towards his grandson William Lyon Mackenzie King. Romney returns to the nineteenth century in an attempt to present 'Canada's founding in a light that exalts the power and status of the provinces far beyond the trivial measure admitted by Donald Creighton and his contemporaries.' Confederation is portrayed as 'a second great struggle for responsible government.' Mowat's quest for provincial autonomy , according to Romney, was the third. The Reform struggle for local autonomy possessed a shared understanding of Confederation with French Canadian clericalism. The second half of Getting...