(From a 2008 Letter to the Editor of the Sarnia Observer)
I wonder how many Sarnians were aware that the Civic Day just passed was, in Sarnia, officially referred to as Alexander Mackenzie Day.
In many parts of Ontario, it is Simcoe Day, but in this city, the city government at one time had the forethought to name the day after Canada’s second Prime Minister.
What did we do in this city to honour the second PM, founder of the Supreme Court and The Royal Military College? . . . Absolutely nothing.
For a week before the holiday, I searched the newspaper and Internet to see if Mackenzie was being honoured somehow on his day and found nothing.
I did find an announcement by city hall that Parks Canada was taking over maintenance of his gravesite.
Good thing, too, I guess judging from the rundown condition it is currently in.
I went to his gravesite on Alexander MacKeanzie Day to pay my respects and place a little Canadian flag at his monument.
I was saddened to see that there were no other flags or flowers or tokens of any type present. It seems Sarnia has forgotten Mr. Mackenzie.
I wonder what is taught in local schools about him, what do our children know of him?
Every day in our drive to become diverse, we seem to lose a little more of who we were.
What made us Canadians in the first place.
I do not expect us to venerate our past leaders as the Americans do, but is a little respect too much to ask?
Ralph Butt Sarnia