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Located to the east side of the Parliamentary library, and backing onto the Ottawa river, the Baldwin and Lafontaine monument is situated in one of the most prominent locations in all of Canada. This prestigious placement in the heart of Canada did not come as a result of chance. Since 1858, when Ottawa was chosen to be the capital city of Canada, careful attention has been paid to the layout of monuments within the grounds of Parliament. Because of the limited number of places that are appropriate and feasible for monuments to be erected, it was decided that the strategy of monument placement would centre around the promotion of “national values”. It is important to take note of the fact that there are a total of 22 memorials within the grounds of Canada’s Parliament that predominantly celebrate political and military themes, however there are no monuments on the grounds that relate to the experiences or contributions of Canada’s Indigenous or ethnic minority communities.

Like many of the statues and memorials that can be seen around the grounds of Parliament, the Baldwin and Lafontaine monument works in a post-colonial manner to support and reaffirm the authority and sanctity of the State and Monarch. By placing monuments that predominantly depict “male founders, leaders, and defenders” in the most prestigious locations on Parliament Hill, a narrative is created that reaffirms notions of white male dominance and superiority in the context of Canadian history. In addition, themes of these monuments tend to center around notions of violence being dutiful when directed at enemies, and, often, they omit or ignore facts about Canada’s more troubling times throughout history. Other groups, who arguably offered greater sacrifice than did Baldwin and Lafontaine, often receive no attention whatsoever on Parliament Hill in terms of memorialization. For example, during the War of 1812, nearly 10,000 First Nations warriors and Métis fighters fought alongside British and Canadian forces, accompanying them through almost every single battle that was fought, yet these heroic and brave individuals receive no memorialization on the grounds of Parliament Hill.

The Baldwin and Lafontaine monument aims to memorialize the relationship between two important Canadian leaders who worked together in order to make significant progress and advancements for Canada. A further goal of this monument is to reinforce unification between French and English Canadians by eliciting feelings of togetherness. Baldwin and Lafontaine are widely referred to as the “Fathers of Responsible Government in pre-Confederation Canada” and that they “paved the way for it’s peaceful democratic independence” in official documents from the Government of Canada. The narrative posed by the words of the Government in such literature should be recognized as inconsistent with the, oftentimes, troubling realities of Canadian history. While Baldwin and Lafontaine certainly aided in the advancement of Canada, to herald them as “paving the way" for Canada’s "peaceful democratic independence” ignores the numerous atrocities that have been committed by the Government of Canada throughout history that were not representative of a "peaceful independence" in the least. For example, Canada’s Indigenous populations have suffered from cultural genocide, the effects of the residential school system, increased rates of incarceration, etc., and other groups such as Jewish refugees, who in 1939, were refused refugee status by the Government of Canada and were subsequently executed when they were forced to return to Europe during the Holocaust.