This post is the second in a series marking the 50th anniversary of the passing of Bill C-373, “An Act to provide for the recognition of the Beaver (Castor canadensis) as a symbol of the sovereignty of the Dominion of Canada,” edited by Blair Stein.
In 1975, the consensus was clear in Canada: the beaver should remain Canadian, and the Americans should keep their hands off our animal. The precipitating incident occurred in late 1974 when New York State Senator Bernard Smith wanted his assembly to adopt the beaver as a symbol, reflecting the fur trade heritage of New Holland-New York.
Once they found out, Canadians became incensed. Mark Bonokoski, a journalist at the Toronto Sun, passed along the news to the office of former prime minister John Diefenbaker, still an MP in Ottawa. Diefenbaker’s executive assistant contacted Sean O’Sullivan, the 22-year-old Progressive Conservative MP from Hamilton-Wentworth. O’Sullivan intended to raise the issue during Question Period on 19 December 1974, but the responsible minister, Secretary of State Hugh Faulkner, was absent. O’Sullivan instead wrote to the minister asking him to use diplomatic channels to dissuade the New York state senator from proceeding with his bill. Faulkner did not reply formally to O’Sullivan for over a month, and when he did it was to shrug (actually, rather justifiably) that there was nothing he could do to stop an American state from adopting the emblem. In the meantime, the issue had captured the imagination and harnessed the anger of many Canadians.
The CBC program “As It Happens” ran with the story, fanning widespread concern at a time of year when the news cycle tended to slow down. The program commissioned a French horn quartet to play an ode to the beaver and brought one into the studio. The beaver proceeded to pee on host Alan Maitland.
Thousands of upset Canadians wrote to “As It Happens”, the Secretary of State, MP O’Sullivan, and other MPs. The CBC did not save those mailbags of correspondence, but the Secretary of State’s office did. The postcards, letters, drawings, and petitions were almost unanimous: it was imperative to “keep the beaver Canadian.” For many of the writers, the beaver was Canadian for the same reasons that American journalists thought it was a New Yorker; their tendency was to anthropomorphize the animal, to attribute human traits like hard work, monogamy, and intelligence to the beaver.
Teachers used the debate to teach civics lessons, and classes sent in their views. One student from St. Johns School in Kitchener, ON, noted that the beaver “provides homes and breeding places for wildlife, their dams help control floods and they also keep soil from washing away.”[1] This letter suggested some research into the environmental importance of the beaver, and it is rare exception among the many letters. Other writers were less precise about the animal attributes of the beaver, emphasizing human virtues. For a correspondent from Ottawa, the beaver “represents industriousness, skill and hard work.” Another writer from Medicine Hat, AB, pointed to the historical importance of the (dead) beaver: “It represents the competitive ethic of the fur trade that opened up this nation.”[2] More typically, the key argument why the beavers should remain Canadian was circular: it already was a symbol of the country, and therefore it should stay thus. If the Canadian government declared that it was a national symbol, many writers believed, the Americans would not be able to do the same.
In particular, many writers felt like their southern neighbours were trying to usurp their claim to the symbol. From Ottawa, a correspondent complained that “The Americans have taken a great deal out of Canada, more perhaps than they are entitled to. They will continue to do this as long as our government does nothing.” A Mississauga, ON, writer begged the Minister to act forcefully: “Don’t let them Yanks steal everything from us. They already have our land, businesses, oil, water etc etc PLEASE don’t let them take our BEAVER.”[3]
O’Sullivan had his chance to advance the cause a month later. On 24 January 1975, seconded by his fellow backbench MP Joe Clark, he presented private member’s bill C-373 “to protect the beaver as a popular symbol reserved to Canadians by declaring the beaver a national symbol.”[4] O’Sullivan used the anthropomorphic argument to make his case: “the strong, tireless and industrious beaver has always been symbolic of our northern homeland.”[5] He acknowledged that Oregon, “The Beaver State,” had the beaver on the reverse of its two-sided flag which dated back to 1925. O’Sullivan worked tirelessly because in the 1970s, private member’s bills almost never passed into law. O’Sullivan lobbied the across the aisles because a single “nay” vote could block the bill. On 18 March, the bill passed the House of Commons without a formal vote.
In the Senate, O’Sullivan supplied talking points to Senator Muriel McQueen Fergusson. Defending the bill, she quoted everyday Canadians who had written to their MPs: Mrs. Constance McDermid of St. Catharines, ON, who said that the beaver “stands for industry and faith. The little creatures build well,” and Janice Newton of Halifax who asked to “keep the beaver Canadian – it is as Canadian as the maple leaf. Maybe even more.”[6] The bill passed the Senate, again without a recorded vote, and it received royal assent on 24 March.
Meanwhile, State Senator Smith of New York forged ahead. He had spoken to O’Sullivan on 30 January, and a few weeks later told him that he could “see no reason why Canada and the State of New York can not share the same animal, who happily lives in our respective geographical areas.” Smith’s legislation proceeded and eventually passed. The president of the Oregon State Senate wrote jovially to the New York Times that the citizens of his state protested the New York action by “raising their tails in protest,” asking the state, tongue-in-cheek, to “keep your hands off our beaver.”[7]
O’Sullivan’s political career took a different turn than this success might have foretold. He left the House of Commons in 1977 and joined the Catholic priesthood. Having invested his energy into the cause of making the beaver a symbol of the country, he was disappointed by how the news media reported on his efforts. The Toronto Sun journalist who had initially noticed the New York State bill, Mark Bonokoski, published an article just as bill C-373 was about to pass under the headline, “It was only a joke!” Similarly, Globe and Mail journalist Geoffrey Stevens said to O’Sullivan when he saw him on the plane from Ottawa that the beaver campaign was a “phony issue.” O’Sullivan begged to differ.[8]
With Bill C-373, the beaver had become a symbol, though the precise wording of the legislation was rather restricted: the Beaver (Castor canadensis) was to be “a symbol of the sovereignty of Canada” but in a limited fashion, as it stipulated that this held “when used by Her Majesty in right of Canada.”[9] In other words, the government’s official use of the beaver as a symbol was protected, but the bill did not enshrine (not could it really) the beaver as a vernacular, popular symbol, as most letter-writers had desired. And it could not stop New York State from adding the beaver to its long list of symbols. But Canadians implored the federal government to enshrine what they already knew: the hard-working beaver symbolized the country.
[1] Brock University Archives, Sean O’Sullivan fonds, RG431-1 (hereafter SO’S), 21.26, Bonnie Reist, Kitchener to Joseph Flynn, MP, 31 January 1975.
[2] Library and Archives Canada, Secretary of State, BAN #2002-01398-S, Box 150, File #7974-5, Part #1 (hereafter Sec. State), Steve Rodney, 8 January 1975. SO’S, 12.26, Chuck Meagher to Sean O’Sullivan, 20 January 1975.
[3] Sec. State, Charles Hacklad, 27 December 1974. Sec. State, B. Montgomery, 21 January 1974.
[4] House of Commons, Debates, 24 January 1975, p. 2573.
[5] House of Commons, Debates, 21 February 1975, p. 3463.
[6] Senate, Debates, 20 March 1975, p. 686.
[7] SO’S, 12.16, Bernard C. Smith to O’Sullivan, 18 February 1975. Jason Boe, to the Editor, New York Times, 12 May 1975, p. 26.
[8] Bonokoski, “It was only a joke!” Toronto Sun, 16 March 1975. SO’S, 12.26, O’Sullivan to Geoffrey Stevens, 21 February 1975.
[9] https://lois-laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/N-17/page-1.html
