![\"John_A_Macdonald\"](\"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/John_A_Macdonald-236x300.jpg\")
This January 11, 2015 marks a special anniversary for our country: the 200th birthday of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada\u2019s first Prime Minister.<\/p>\nThis January 11, 2015 marks a special anniversary for our country: the 200th birthday of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada\u2019s first Prime Minister.<\/p>\n
Since 2002, this day is set aside for Canadians to remember their first Prime Minister, one of the Fathers of Confederation. So it is fitting to that we take this occasion to highlight a few interesting facts and celebrate the man.<\/p>\n
Through the years, By George<\/em> has lamented the ignored legacy of Sir John A in many of our posts<\/a> (and we have tagged \u201cJohn A. Macdonald<\/a>“). We have compiled lists of his quotes and a few years back featured our 10 favourite quotes<\/a>.<\/p>\n To mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Sir John A., Prime Minister Stephen Harper wrote a stirring piece <\/a>that commemorates our first PM. PM Harper writes:<\/p>\n Others had ruminated about Confederation but only he saw how to get it done \u2014 how to make the case for unity, how to rally common hopes and fears, how to overcome different perspectives and interests.<\/em><\/p>\n But Macdonald did more than achieve it; he made it work\u2026. Of the greatest importance for all of us, perhaps, was that Macdonald appropriated from the British constitution its conception of freedom, of \u201cordered liberty,\u201d of the balancing of popular rule and minority rights, of (in the terms of the era) equality before the law and governments responsible through the legislature to the voters.<\/em><\/p>\n Richard Gwyn, the celebrated biographer of John Macdonald wrote in the Toronto Star a column trumpeting: “Sir John A. Macdonald, the greatest PM of all”<\/a><\/p>\n Gwyn makes the point that \u201chad there been no Macdonald, there would be no Canada for anyone to be a citizen of.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Under Macdonald\u2019s leadership as prime minister (1867-1873 and 1878-1891), the country was extended from sea to sea, giving \u2014 at last \u2014 it a certain geographical coherence. Macdonald also led Canada to achieve the National Dream, a railway the entire way from eastern Canada to the West Coast. The railway, together with Macdonald\u2019s policy of high tariffs to protect Canadian companies from their far more efficient American rivals, made it possible for Canadians to do business with and get to know each other despite all their differences (French vs. English, Catholic vs. Protestant, Aboriginal vs. European) and the immense distances between them.<\/em><\/p>\n By other initiatives, Macdonald fashioned a distinctive Canadian way of getting things done that has stayed with us ever since.<\/em><\/p>\n