MASSEY HALL, TORONTO, ONTARIO
OCTOBER 14, 1904139
Yet once more it is my privilege to appear before an audience of my fellow citizens of this the banner city of the banner province of the Dominion. (Applause) It is always a pleasure for me to come to the City of Toronto, for in the past years, more than once, I have experienced your kindness towards me and every time in past years it has been my privilege to come before you, you have tendered me such a reception as…can be excelled nowhere except in Toronto itself. In this city, however, it is possible for you to excel yourselves….
I do not claim credit for the prosperity which this country has witnessed, that as a result of the policy followed by this Government the name of Canada has gained a prominence it had not eight years ago. (Applause) I assert that the name of Canada during these eight years has travelled far and wide, and whether a man must be a friend or foe he knows that he must admit that there are today in Europe thousands and thousands of men who had never heard the name of Canada eight years ago and who today, every day, turn their eyes towards this new star which has appeared in the western sky. (Applause)….
We are just at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is the year 1904. We are a nation of six million people already; we expect soon to be twenty-five, yes forty millions. There are men living in this audience, men over there (points to the young people in the gallery), the hope of the country (applause) who before they die, if they live to old age, will see this country with at least sixty millions of people. (Renewed applause)
Under such circumstances are we not to provide for the future, or shall we be content to grow up in the gutter and not take steps towards our higher destiny? It is often the mistake of nations that they do not apprehend fully the necessities of the situation. They fail in boldness. That is not and never shall be the case with the Government which I represent before you today. (Applause) We shall not, whatever our errors are otherwise, we shall not err for want of boldness. (Renewed applause)….
I tell you nothing but what you know when I tell you that the nineteenth century has been the century of American development. The past one hundred years has been filled with the pages of her history. Let me tell you, my fellow countrymen, that all the signs point this way, that the twentieth century shall be the century of Canada and Canadian development. (Cheers) For the next seventy years, nay for the next one hundred years, Canada shall be the star towards which all men who love progress and freedom shall come.
Men of Toronto, I have no right to speak to you; I am simply a Canadian like yourselves, coming from another province, but trying my best to unite our common people. (Applause) Men of Toronto I ask you – and this is the prayer I want to convey to you – I simply ask you to forever sink the petty differences which have divided you in the past and unite with us and take your share of the grand future which lies before us. (Cheers) I give that prayer to you.
But if there is one class to which above all others I would convey the appeal it is not you older men, you middle-aged men, but to the young boys in the gallery, the hope of the country. (Cheers) To those, sir, who have life before them, let my prayer be this: Remember from this day forth never to look simply at the horizon, as it may be limited by the limits of the province, but look abroad all over the continent, wherever the British flag floats, and let your motto be Canada first, Canada last, Canada always. (Applause lasting several minutes)
There is something distinctly Canadian about the fact that the author of a famously bold prediction about his country’s future was originally opposed to its creation. “All the signs point this way,” Sir Wilfrid Laurier told an adoring crowd at Toronto’s Massey Hall in October, 1904: “the twentieth century shall be the century of Canada and Canadian development.” It was a claim he made more than once that year, and when he said those words, Laurier was in his sixties, frail in health but sure in his views, a political icon who had eight years of experience as prime minister, and a life filled with achievements, frustrations, turnabouts, and more than a few triumphs. He was a long way in every way from the young man who, four decades earlier, had been a political radical who once called Confederation “the tomb of the French race and the ruin of Lower Canada [Quebec].”
In many ways, Laurier mirrored the evolution of the country he served as its first-ever francophone prime minister. He overcame the shared suspicion between the country’s two founding linguistic groups, as he came to believe each was stronger together than apart. He realized that for Canada to flourish, it would need newcomers from other countries and cultures, so he encouraged immigration (although he blotted his copybook in 1911 by supporting efforts to suppress immigration to Canada by black people). He preserved Canada’s independence by resisting efforts to draw it closer into the sphere of a powerful friend (Great Britain). And he deftly played off the interests of Britain and the United States against each other in order to be friends with both – without becoming more beholden to either. He was one of Canada’s first proponents of free trade with the United States – although in that he was too far ahead of his time – which led to his 1911 electoral defeat.
An eloquent speaker open to compromise but sure of his views, the paradox of Laurier was that he professed little interest in political leadership. “I know I have not the aptitude for it,” he said when he was chosen leader in 1887. “And I have a sad apprehension that it must end in disaster.” In fact, he had similarly taken his time getting into elected politics, and even longer in deciding to temper his relatively radical early views as well as his initial dismay at the prospect of a large, unified Canada.
But by the time Laurier got up in front of his Massey Hall audience that night, he was sure in his convictions, and forward-looking in his views. Far from looking back, he looked ahead, focusing on all the strengths he foresaw for Canada in future. In fact he aimed many of his remarks specifically – and unusually – at the twenty-somethings in the crowd, rather than older voters. He told them he expected that in their lifetimes, they would see the country’s population rise from its then total of six million people to “at least sixty millions.” At a time when many people were instinctively suspicious of outsiders – at least those who were not British – he forecast that “Canada shall be the star towards which all men who love progress and freedom shall come.” Along with Clifford Sifton, he had already implemented steps in favour of immigration that led to the West becoming one of the economic engines of Canada’s growth.
Laurier’s buoyancy that night is particularly striking, measured against the challenges and hardships that still lay ahead. His party was almost destroyed in the 1911 federal election, when his opponents turned his support of free trade against him and accused him of plotting the destruction of Canada. From there, now in his seventies, he worked desperately to rebuild the Liberals even as the country plunged into the First World War. In 1917, he ran – and lost – again, and died two years later.
But even as Laurier’s final years belied the hope and cheer he expressed in 1904, a longer-term look shows he was far more right than not. Throughout the twentieth century, Canada’s two major language groups continued – for the most part – to get along. Immigration became a cornerstone of the country’s growth. Canada increasingly asserted its independence from Britain and, of course, finally achieved Laurier’s free trade objective with the United States. His Liberal Party, which appeared on the edge of collapse near the end of his life, rebounded to dominate Canadian politics for much of the century. And his beloved Canada, while it never attained the level of achievement he forecast, continued to grow and prosper, becoming the destination point of dreams for millions of people around the globe. In his goals and ambitions, Canada was a country always looking beyond itself, seeking to continually improve. Much like Sir Wilfrid Laurier – the man who did so much to set it on that track.
Anthony Wilson-Smith, a former journalist and long-time political observer, is president and CEO of Historica Canada.