In principle at least, Canada’s Parliament has decided to recognize a
new national symbol – the Canadien horse.
In British Columbia and other points outside of Quebec, that would be
the Canadian horse.
“As a national symbol, it is important that it be known in the two
official languages,” said Roxanne Salinas, a Canadian horse enthusiast
from Mission, B.C.
Salinas and husband Martin Godfrey have owned two Canadians since 2000,
one bought in Quebec and the other in British Columbia.
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“The breed really did play an important role in the history of Canada,”
she said. “A lot of Canadians don’t know their history.”
On Feb. 18, MPs voted to approve in principle a bill already approved
in the Senate and sponsored in the House of Commons by Ontario Liberal
MP Murray Calder. The issue now goes to the Commons heritage committee
for hearings.
The Bloc Québecois and a smattering of MPs from other parties opposed
the motion, which was approved 150 Ð 36.
The Bloc complained that Quebec already has named the Canadien its
official horse.
BQ MP Marcel Gagnon said in debate that the horse, introduced to New
France in 1647 from France’s royal stables, is Quebec’s symbol. Like
the Québecois, he added, it has always had to fight for recognition and
survival.
“We are not about to share this horse, which is part of our proud
heritage.”
Other critics had different complaints.
Saskatchewan Canadian Alliance MP Roy Bailey said he opposed the bill
because the Canadian horse had little to do with Western Canada and
therefore was not a national horse.
Prairie native people created their own breeds, usually from horses
brought in the 16th century by the Spanish, long before the Canadian
horse’s ancestors came from France.
“To enshrine this horse as an animal symbol of Canada is nothing short
of an insult, not to this breed of horse but to the natives of Western
Canada,” Bailey said.
Saskatchewan New Democrat Lorne Nystrom and several of his caucus
colleagues voted against the bill because it was first passed by the
Senate.
“It goes against the grain of a modern democracy to have legislation
originated in an unelected Senate brought before the Commons,” he said
in an interview.
But most MPs supported the motion.
And to answer Salinas’ point about Canadians not knowing their history,
anyone who read the account of the House debate or the earlier Senate
debates and Senate committee hearings will have had a crash course in
the role of the “the little iron horse” in Canada’s development. It was
a workhorse in Quebec and then across Canada. It carried settlers onto
the Prairies.
It was a favoured horse in the American civil war and suffered a heavy
toll. It carried troops in the War of 1812 and in the Boer War 90 years
later. Numbers peaked at 150,000 in the mid-1800s, but the breed almost
disappeared by the end of the century. Numbers rebounded in the early
20th century, but had dropped to fewer than 400 registered Canadian
horses by the late 1970s.
During the past two decades, the herd has grown into the thousands.
“Twice the Canadian horse almost came close to extinction,” Calder said.
“Twice it has rebounded, thanks to the dedication of breeders in all
parts of the country. I like to think it shows the resilience we have
as Canadians and as a country ….”
In Mission, Salinas was applauding. She said she has raised horses for
30 years and first heard about the breed in the 1970s, but did not take
an interest in its history until a few years ago.
“What really got me is that I’ve had horses all these years and I
didn’t even know about our own,” she said.
“Hopefully with this recognition, we will never come close again to
losing them.”
Meanwhile, her two Canadian horses, Julie and Kal, will continue to be
shown and used in charity and trail rides.
“They are great horses.”
