The History of Canadian Historical Recognition

Paul Litt's article focused on the benefits and level of achievement that Historical Markings within Ontario have. It's easy to notice these markings, they are predominately plaques that are placed around the province, and everyone who has driven on the highway has surely seen the blue and gold signs that point to an exit that holds a historical artifact on the other side. Litt states that the profiling done for specific historical sites were generally political, economic, and religiously based. These are things that are easy to identify with, and the most well known historical sites certainly fall under these categories. In following these themes however, Ontario failed to acknowledge major parts of its society and culture. Litt makes the remark that if a martian were to land in Ontario, the apparant history would be full of successful politicians, soldiers, and clerics. Since most historical plaques were established in the 20th century as well, they would also think that almost everythign significant had occurred within the 19th century. In short, it is apparant that the historical plaques give a very abbreviated and biased view of Canadian nationalism.
Plaques as a view of an overall history are also very limited. They cannot be edited easily, and the information available is extremely scarce. Litt states that there were three phases within the history of historical plaques. The first phase involved communities within Ontario dominating where the plaques were to be placed. This was a good way to get an accurate description of what Canadian Nationalism is, because although the communities may be biased and repeat what other communities have already done, it shows what is important to the actual citizens of Ontario and therefore Canada. There was also a board that decided whether the site was truly important to all of Ontario, which did not necessarily address the question of whether it protrayed Canadian nationalism, but if we are to take the stance that Canada is merely a set of regions, then this would be the correct route to take. The board also became preoccupied with showing that Ontario was not another part of the United States. This seems to solidify the thoughts that have been discussed in our seminars that all that makes us Canadian is that we are not American. The plaque project was very anti-American in almost all ways, which does not necessarily show Canadian nationalism, but a distate for American nationalism.
The second phase concerned the fact that many rights were changing in the mid 1900's, yet the plaques did not change to mirror that image. The Ontario Heritage Foundation was created in response to this, which introduced the Ontario Heritage Act. It soon became the chief operator of all things historical, and it turned its focus to the restoration of old buildings as new historical sites. For this reason, local history increased, and urban focus was diminished.
The third phase of the program called for governmental interference, with the creation of minority group recognition. Additional plaques were created that focused on such minorities, although not near as many as were originally created for the program.

Overall, I would not say that the plaque program within Ontario was successful in portraying Canadian nationalism. The program was not even able to accurately portray the Ontario landscape of multiculturalism and different historical sites, so for it to be able to accomplish this on a national level is questionable. Even though new plaques that gave notice to First Nations and women, among others, were placed within Ontario, they are still widely outnumbered by the traditional, white male version of history on the plaques. There is also limited money to fund the revision of the plaques, so it does not appear to be changing anytime soon. The program is entirely out of date, and since things in the 21st century happen very quickly, it is time to update.