By Barry Wilson, Ottawa bureau
GUELPH, Ont. — Journalists like to flatter themselves by proclaiming that they are writing the first draft of history.
During election campaigns, partisans like to flatter themselves by proclaiming that they are part of making history.
But amid all the pseudo-history of election campaigns, sometimes there are moments of real history and not necessarily connected to the campaign.
So it was on an April afternoon when Guelph Liberal candidate and one-term MP Frank Valeriote decided an interview scheduled for his office would be moved to his home.
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There was a bit of history to that decision.
Several months before, Valeriote and I had spent part of an evening supporting the malt barley growers of Western Canada and talking about history — my collection of prime ministerial and political memorabilia and his home.
Ostensibly, we were talking about his role as an urban member of the House of Commons agriculture committee, but the conversation wandered.
So when I showed up in Guelph during Western Producer election coverage, he wanted me to see the house.
It turns out that when the Guelph lawyer purchased a rundown stone rooming house in north Guelph almost 30 years ago and decided to restore it, he inadvertently was restoring history.
It was the house where Charles Edmond Kingsmill, the first admiral and first head of the Canadian Navy, lived when he was a boy.
In 2010, the centennial of the Canadian navy created by Sir Wilfrid Laurier, lampposts throughout Ottawa featured the face of the dapper Kingsmill on banners.
Valeriote made sure he got a few of them and last year, plaques were erected in front of his house to commemorate its history.
So in the middle of an election campaign that is history on the run, there was an hour of tranquility in real history, a stone home built in 1859 and that through four wives housed 14 children, one of whom became the founding father of the Canadian navy.
“It’s amazing,” said Valeriote. “Here he was growing up in a landlocked community many miles from water and yet it became his life and his legacy.”
Indeed.
Real history in the midst of frantic pseudo-history is nothing short of relaxing.
