WW1 Veteran's Legacy Not Good Enough for Old Enemies

[TCBF]

- Howard Green, an officer in the 54th bn, CEF, and a Cabinet Minister (Foriegn Affairs) in the Diefenbaker Government was to have had a federal building in BC named after him.  Then this:

http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=6e011ea6-2725-41b6-b720-40fbc3bfdfbf

- Perhaps we should totally white-wash our history and  name another building after "The Kamloops Kid" - Inouye Kanao.  Sure he was hung as a traitor- but so was Riel, right?

http://www.cariboo.bc.ca/carryon/dcharbon/kdn07/worst.htm

- This is multi-culty agit-prop at it's worst.  There is only one way that Canada will survive as a nation, and it will be only when "Canada" is considered a full word, and not half of one.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

There is only one way that Canada will survive as a nation, and it will be only when "Canada" is considered a full word, and not half of one.

 

[gaspasser]

Why is it that nowadays you cannot do anything without upsetting and offending some group of "from here-now live here's" ?
I may have been born in the UK, but I consider myself Canadian, maybe some of these other people need to remember that.  While I strongly believe in and support remembering your ethnic and cultural background, they gave that up to be Canadian.  Getting tired of hearing and seeing these "somewhere else-Canadians" complaining about the way things are here and not willing to stand up and try to change it.  Maybe they should go back to being from "somewhere's else"??? 

The first part of the title says the poignant part, WW1 Veteran!     
Someone's Hero is usually someone else's tyrant.

 

[1feral1]

With six years of the carnage of WW2, you really can't blame that MP for making such statements at the time. The key phrase here is 'at the time'.  I am sure many Canadians felt the same way then.

All this PCness is really putting me off. I hope they don't change the naem of that building. he was  patriot, and a Veteran.

Well, we can always rename Kitchener (Ontario) to New Berlin. ;D  We all know that story.


Regards,


Wes

 

[jollyjacktar]

- Perhaps we should totally white-wash our history and  name another building after "The Kamloops Kid" - Inouye Kanao.  Sure he was hung as a traitor- but so was Riel, right?

I'm sure there is an outhouse in the backwoods somewhere that needs a name.

I do wish this group would stop beating this drum.  They have received their apologies and such recognising the injustice.
There are other groups out there that make my ears hurt too.  For how many generations must this carry on.  It will soon get to the point that no one is still alive who was part of it.  There are plenty of good/bad  examples of what can go on with this attitude.  Northern Ireland, Fmr Yugoslavia and other spots where old wounds aren't allowed to heal.

What about all the service given to Canada by Mr Green, is it not worthy enough to offset his faults?  After all is that not what is being recognised?

 

[Edward Campbell]

Howard Green was a man of very modest accomplishments - none more so than his highly forgettable 'tour of duty' as Minister of External Affairs from '59 to '63. He was one of the authors of Diefenbaker's silly anti-nuke/anti-American position.

If he must have a building named after him I sincerely hope it's a very small, very unimportant building.

Where is the Hume Wrong Building? Where is the Norman Robertson Building? Where is is the Escott Reid Building. If we want to honour fine public servants and makers of foreign policy then let it be giants, not pygmies.

Green's status as a veteran is a red herring. He was a Conservative lightweight, honoured for being just that. His status as a racist is also a red herring - but a popular one.

I hope they take his name off the building, but not for the wrong reasons. The man was a twit; that's why nis name ought not to be a Canadian government building.

 

[Blackadder1916]

And a little bit about his military service.  While he should be commended for serving, does it rise to the level of having a building named for him before others.

http://aabc.bc.ca/access/aabc/archbc/display/CVAN-434

. . . He applied for a commission with the 54th. Kootenay Battalion and served as a Lieutenant in Canada, England and France, and saw action with the 4th Division from August 1916 to July 1917. He was subsequently an instructor with the Canadian Corps School and with the 6th. Canadian Infantry Brigade. After the armistice, he was attached to the Canadian Section, G.H.Q., where he was promoted to the rank of Captain. Green returned to Canada in 1919 and attended law school at Osgoode Hall in Toronto, and was called to the bar in B.C. in 1922. He worked for . . .

http://www.54thbattalioncef.ca/WARPAGES/geographic.htm

. . .
Howard Green's service to his country began in World War One, when he served overseas with the 54th Kootenay Battalion from 1915 to 1918. [He was with Kootenay Battalion from 1915 to 1917; he was with other units, notably the Sixth Brigade as Staff Captain, from 1917 to 1919. EJB]  Howard Green was mentioned in Military Dispatches and discharged as a Staff Captain in 1919. ['Mentioned in despatches': he got this mention for administrative duties - helping to repatriate troops after the war.  The senior officers he worked for must have appreciated what he did (and his desire for recognition).  But it was not a battlefield honour, and therefore Howard Green never cited it and deprecated other people making much of it. EJB]
. . .

 

[54/102 CEF]

Howard Green was a man of very modest accomplishments - none more so than his highly forgettable 'tour of duty' as Minister of External Affairs from '59 to '63. He was one of the authors of Diefenbaker's silly anti-nuke/anti-American position.

My unproven theory is Green and Dief laid the ground work for the pull back from NATO which really got going in the Trudeau era.

But this is an old story to start with

A book is in the works on Green - who saw his share of gore on the Western Front. I think its highly logical that after you've seen the Somme you sure as heck don't want to chance seeing the aftermath of a nuke. As for his service in WW1 being a red herring - why go there?  He had service in the Trenches from day 1 when his unit went to the St Eloi Craters - which was as honorable as it gets.

He had service of 24 plus years in the house of commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Green

The big hit on Green is he is identified as a poster boy for Country Wide Anti Japanese Sentiment on the West Coast that was accepted wisdom of the day. A Macleans article http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20070213_090219_2824

The anti-Japanese era was a regrettable era, and the modern day efforts to "get even for the past" is just as regrettable. Mulroney cleared the slate.

Probably the better route is to name the building for a local hero with links to Asia. Has the bldg been renamed? Anyone?

Times have changed and we have to change with them.

Green's unit - www.54thbattalioncef.ca

He was with them for the better part of a year until he went to a Bde job.

 

[Old Sweat]

As Secretary of State for External Affairs, Green was more than a little anti-military. He apparently used to say that not one dollar should be spent on weapons as long as a single child anywhere in the world went to bed hungry. I remember being at various times being disappointed and/or disgusted at some of his public pronouncements.

 

[TCBF]

- Clarence Decatur Howe, the American-born "Minister of Everything", stated that Howard Green stalked the halls of Parliament with a Bible in one hand and a stiletto in the other.

- Green was wrong on banning the nukes, and the divisions he created in Cabinet led to George Pearkes resigning as MND, and the eventual American-engineered defeat of the Progressive Conservatives by the Liberals.

- BUT, with all of his failings, he was a staunch Canadian patriot, which was a hell of a lot more than I can say for his detractors in B.C.

- Indications here that another "LackOfBallsRep" could be filled out over Ottawa's response to this matter.

- The building was renamed after another Vancouver former MP Douglas Jung, the first Chinese-Canadian to sit in the House Of Commons.

 

[Avor]

Why is it that nowadays you cannot do anything without upsetting and offending some group of "from here-now live here's" ?

They leave thier country, come here, and don't stop complaining. Although PCness is getting the better of us, such as the lack of school Cristmass plays, but what I love about Canada is that might right to freedom of speech and expression trumps the immaginary "right of not to be offended."