Residents Invited to Sir John A MacDonald Birthday Celebration
Sir John A. Macdonald’s birthday celebration in City Park January 11
The City of Kingston is encouraging local residents and elementary and secondary school students in particular to join with Mayor Mark Gerretsen next Tuesday, Jan. 11 to honour the birthday of Kingston’s greatest son, Sir John A. Macdonald.
As has been the case since Parliament declared each January 11 Sir John A. Macdonald Day across Canada in 2002, Kingston’s celebrations will again feature a ceremony starting at noon at the statue of Macdonald in City Park Kingston (at King and West Streets).
Mayor Mark Gerretsen will address the crowd and the event will also feature performances by the Mother Teresa Catholic School Choir, a Canadian Citizenship Re-Affirmation Ceremony, a toast by a member of the Kingston Historical Society and hot chocolate supplied by the City to warm patriotic hearts on this important day in the life of Kingston and Canada.
As he has since the event began on January 11, 2003, Kingston lawyer Robert Tchegus of the law firm Cunningham Swan will serve as Master of Ceremonies and local MPP and provincial cabinet minister John Gerretsen – who has been at each and every noon-time Sir John A. celebration at the statue since they began – will also be in attendance.
“This year marks the second year that the City of Kingston has partnered with volunteer organizers to make this an official municipal celebration,” said event founder (along with his wife, Alison Bogle) Arthur Milnes, the Inaugural Fellow in Political History at Queen’s University Archives.
“Kingston is to be saluted for the resources and efforts municipal leaders and staff have put into marking Kingston as the home of Canada’s first Prime Minister. The City’s support of this event compliments well the Macdonald highway signs now in place along Highway 401 at the entrances to our city and the nationally renowned Sir John A. Macdonald-themed walking tour of our downtown, In Sir John A.’s Footsteps, the City of Kingston commissioned and funded two years ago. With the Bicentennial of Sir John A’s birth fast approaching in 2015, these are excellent foundations to build upon.”
Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first and founding Prime Minister, was born in Scotland in 1815. He died, in office as Prime Minister of Canada, on June 6, 1891 at age 76 and is buried here in Kingston with other members of his family.
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For those who cannot attend this official celebration, (or would like to supplement it with a few laughs), I invite you to download or view “JEKYLL & CANADA”, (a bilingual “silent film”), at:
http://www.vimeo.com/16219886
“In 1866, John A. Macdonald was drunk. Canada’s only hope was that Dr. Henry Jekyll could invent a hangover cure before the final Confederation Conference.”
Happy Birthday John Macdonald! It’s encouraging to learn of a civic celebration, and one too at Bellevue House. I’m surprised this is just a recent development, though, in the past few years. Why wouldn’t Kingston have marked his birthday for a century, by now? These events for the chief Father of Confederation have been long overdue.
I see a citizenship re-affirmation ceremony is part of the city’s event. It sounds patriotic, except when you realize that the oath calls upon Canadians to swear allegiance to a overseas monarch, one who is not Canadian, rather than to Canada and the Constitution. While John A. might have had no trouble doing so (he was born in the UK, after all), we have since forged an independent nation which owes thanks but not continued allegiance to an undemocratically selected foreign ruler, her heirs and successors. That’s one part of the party I’ll abstain from.