One of the major recurring themes in Canadian history has been the need for people of many different backgrounds to co-operate in order to be able to live together. At the best of times, Canadians have survived and thrived through co-operation and finding common ground, and St. Albert is no exception.
In many ways, St. Albert is representative of Canada itself. Both our city and our country were founded as bilingual and multiracial communities, strengthened by the co-operation between their English, French and First Nations founders, and subsequently enriched by the later waves of immigrants that settled here seeking better lives. St. Albert was founded by the French-Canadian Father Albert Lacombe and 20 MĂ©tis farming families, who worked with later English-speaking arrivals to develop the community and prepare it for the immigrants who would join the community in the early 20th century.
Similarly, Canada was established by the co-operation between its English, French and Aboriginal founding peoples. Confederation was established by the co-operation of English- and French-speaking Canadians, while the Aboriginal peoples who signed the treaties that allowed Canada to expand and helped European settlement to begin in the first place did so with the intent of sharing the land. This foundation would be later enriched by immigrants who came from all over the world, right up to the present day.
Canada — especially Western Canada — wouldn’t have been the same without this immigration and the treaties signed with the Aboriginals, and St. Albert played a major role in making them possible. Our city was used as a base from which Bishop Vital Grandin co-ordinated much of the missionary activity that built relationships with the Aboriginal peoples of the Prairies and the North, and made them willing to sign the treaties that allowed immigration to begin.
Individual initiative, combined with collective action, is what has allowed both St. Albert and Canada as a whole to grow and prosper while also supporting those who had a harder time making ends meet. St. Albert could never have been founded if Father Lacombe hadn’t made the effort, and the settlers who came to Canada and made it strong risked everything they had in doing so.
But St. Albert could never have thrived if the missionaries and the Aboriginals did not help each other, and it would have been impossible for the settlers to make new homes in Canada if the government hadn’t helped them by constructing the railroad and offering free land. When the Aboriginals were ravaged by smallpox in the 1870s, the missionaries provided medical treatment, starting a St. Albert tradition that continues today with modern efforts to assist seniors, the disabled and others who could use some help.
St. Albert’s 150th anniversary is this year, and Canada’s 145th anniversary is next year, which makes this a good time to reflect on the incredibly rich potential both our city and our country possess. They both face many serious challenges, but they also have the opportunity to build on the great legacy we’ve inherited.
