2007-04-09

Five Questions: Historian Christopher Moore

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another installment of Five Questions. Our guest for this week is writer/historian Christopher Moore.

Writing in a lucid and entertaining manner, Mr. Moore has a refreshing interpretation on the pulse of this nation. He graciously took the time to be part of FQ to discuss his career, writing as well as offer insights about Canadian history and politics. Our sincere thanks goes to him for allowing us to get to know his splendid body of work. Canadians need to support Canadians!

1) On your website you say you are sometimes drawn into cultural politics. What do you mean exactly and could you give us an example of what constitutes cultural politics in Canada?


Recently I wrote a profile of the Alberta writer James Gray for The Beaver where I’ve been a columnist for years. Thirty years ago, Gray said, “I’m a successful writer. Why can’t successful writers make a living in this country?” So he worked for better contract terms, for copyright licensing, for lending rights, for public support for writing and the arts. Writers like me owe something to people like him.

So just giving something back to my profession: that’s where I started with “cultural politics.” I have been active in The Writers’ Union, served on various boards, delivered briefs to Parliament, lobbied the Canada Council, and worked with fellow creators on issues that should matter to us. (e.g., www.creatorscopyright.ca) Hey, it gets me out of the house and away from the keyboard now and again.

But it’s not just professional artists and writers who should take an interest in cultural policy. This is a big country, wide open to all the culture of the world – as it should be. If we don’t build public policies that sustain the conditions in which independent artists and writers and performers can flourish, no one else will do it for us.

2) You’re a writer and historian. Connecting the two takes a special skill. With history being deemed “boring” by the media and students alike how conscious are you of this when you write about history? How can we make - assuming this assertion is true - history interesting again?

“Deemed” “boring”? Without looking too far, you could probably find a hundred pieces that start, “Everyone says history is boring, but this [biography, narrative, novel, movie, play, exhibit, historic site, music CD, whatever…] is fascinating!” How many exceptions have to whack us over the head before we reassess the stupid rule itself? Every year the bestselling books in Canada are about Canadian history. History is what all our novelists write about. Every six months some huge debate erupts about the treatment of history in the latest TV movie or that controversial new museum exhibition or whether the government should make reparations for some historical evil. What was the boring part again?

I never try to make history interesting. I’m interested. I think I have a serious grownup interest in history, and I think an appreciation of history is like an appreciation of music or architecture or whatever, just one of the signs of a reasonably cultured adult. Fortunately, enough Canadians share that interest that I have been able to work as a freelance writer on historical things all these years. Ramming history down the throats of uninterested Canadians is not a mission I’ve ever been inclined to sign up for.

I used to say that among historians I called myself a writer and among writers I called myself a historian. I think I’ve resolved that a bit now, but I do take the writing seriously. Trying to write well is endlessly stimulating and challenging. History provides the material, but the writing is important as well.


3) Discuss some of your books and where your interests in history lie.

I’m an immigrant, came here as an infant, so it’s not as if it’s “roots” that engages me, and my interests are not bound by Canada. But as a writer I have focussed on Canada. Not that our history is better than anyone else’s, but it’s ours, and here is where the sources are and the audience is. I’ve never run out of challenging topics, and usually enough Canadians have taken an interest.

As a freelance writer I range quite widely around Canadian history – never been a specialist. (www.christophermoore.ca/books.htm) Initially I was engaged with social history, daily lives, the extraordinary histories of ordinary people. You can see that in my first book Louisbourg Portraits: Life in an Eighteenth Century Garrison Town. I seem to have moved on toward political subjects, national history – not the usual direction these days. I’m currently trying to write a book about the year 1885 – the last spike, the Métis uprising, much else. It’s remarkable, to me at least, how all the great themes and struggles of Canadian national life were already at issue then.

I’ve always been a historian for hire (not for my views, but my services!), and a lot of interesting work has come to me that way. Most of my writing for children began that way, notably The Story of Canada, chosen some years as one of the ten best Canadian children’s books of the century. I was drawn into writing about legal history some years ago, and now I maintain a sort of sideline in that field (www.christophermoore.ca/legalhistory.htm). Lawyers have always got a finger on almost everything, so I have learned all kinds of things about Canadian history through that prism. And lawyers make good clients; if they are interested, they can afford to pay!


4) The failure of leadership is an oft-discussed issue these days. Andrew Cohen discusses in While Canada Slept the erosion and ultimate loss of Canadian leadership. You have written about the state of leadership in this country too. Please talk about this.

Failure of leadership? We have leadership coming out our ears. We have toxic levels of leadership. Think of all the people who vote-buy their way through a leadership convention, squeak out 35% in an election, and instantly become heroes and legends in their own mind, free to do as they please for four or five years. We need to encourage accountability, representation, government by discussion. Work on those, and leadership supplies itself.

Writing 1867: How the Fathers Made a Deal (www.christophermoore.ca/books.htm), I discovered a key reason why the constitution-makers of the 1860s succeeded while the Meech and Charlottetown boys failed: back then they booked a big room. They brought in representatives of opposition parties as well as governments, and they gave them time to work out a sturdy consensus able to stand up to hard scrutiny. That kind of politics could still work, and not just for constitutions.

4) "Farewell the Peaceable Kingdom" by Joe Armstrong alludes to a process of social re-engineering that runs contrary to Canadian history; the Montreal Economic Institute Has published various letters about Canada’s capitalist past - Topics that seem taboo today. On the other hand, Mel Hurtig seems to posit that the Fraser Institute and CD Howe have misguided and misrepresented Canadians with all sorts of “right-wing nonsense” as he puts it.

So you’re now in caucus and you’ve been transported back in time and given the task of shaping the national identity. What would you do?

Sorry, I don’t know most of these references very well. And I’m just a historian. “Re-engineering the national identity” sounds too much like “making history interesting” – the kind of suicide mission I avoid.

But since you mention “caucus,” let me float the idea that the vital unit in Canadian politics should be the caucus of elected members. I admire people who run for political office. I think they are courageous and mostly pretty smart. But in office MPs rarely look courageous or smart. MPs always seem to do whatever the boss tells them to, no matter what the good of the country or their own constituents might demand.

They do that, I fear, because we keep telling them to.

Journalists, commentators, political scientists, and consultants all obsess about “leadership.” God forbid our leaders should seem “weak” (that is, accountable). People yearn for some kind of direct communion with leadership, and they are impatient with mere representative government. They advocate for proportional representation as if they believe it would be a good thing to have legislatures filled with hacks and flunkies tied even more firmly to the party apparatchiks.

Sadly, our MPs already mostly act as if they were appointed hacks and flunkies. Then we can’t understand why our leaders are out of control. I won’t go on; I’ve written more about this at www.christophermoore.ca/state-of-the-nation.htm


Bonus Question!

- Does the arrival of Mario Dumont in Quebec and revival of conservative impulses in Canada with Prime Minister Harper signify anything in your opinion?

Sure. We are supposed to say Quebec politics is unique and distinct, but young Mario reminds me a lot of Danny Williams of Newfoundland or Bill Vander Zalm of British Columbia. Or even John Diefenbaker, though that kind of demagogic one-man-show thrives best in provincial politics. They usually build their power by presenting themselves as the tribune of the little guy, fighting against some demonized establishment. For Mario Dumont, the obvious enemy is going to be Ottawa and Canada. I don’t respect him much, but I think he’ll be trouble until he burns out his welcome. Toxic leadership!

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