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Parks Canada recently cut the ribbon on a “decolonized” version of Bellevue House , Sir John A. Macdonald’s Kingston, Ont., home.

Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister and one of the singular architects of Confederation, only lived there for two years in the 1840s, long before the events for which he’d be remembered. Nevertheless, a new revamp is so meticulously critical of its former resident that Parks Canada even took pains to note that the mahogany used in Macdonald’s furniture might have come from Caribbean slave plantations. In Dear Diary , the National Post satirically re-imagines a week in the life of a newsmaker.



This week, Tristin Hopper takes a journey inside the thoughts of Sir John A. Macdonald. Take a moment to imagine every place you’ve ever lived: Every student rental, every basement apartment, every starter home.

Now imagine that — 130 years after your death — one of those places is turned into a curated, government-funded monument into what a jerk you were. I lived at Bellevue House for, like, a year; my only real memory of the place is that it’s where my infant son died, you ghouls. I never asked to be remembered like a George Washington or Simon Bolivar, but did they have to go through my toiletries to point out how even my comb was an icon of oppressive, imperialist colonialism? I’m not going to pretend my record stands up to modern scrutiny, but I can assure you that I was able to at least clip my toenails or brush my teeth witho.

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