Sad date on the Canadian calendar as today is the 136th anniversary of the 1885 execution of Métis leader Louis Riel. Most historians have long agreed that in allowing him to be hanged for treason, Sir John A. Macdonald made his greatest political mistake. I have long been fascinated by Mr. Riel and was always taught -- dating back to conversations with my history-teacher father when I was a kid and, in particular, during Mrs. Newell's Canadian history class in high school in Scarborough in the 1980s -- that Mr. Riel should be recognized by Canadians as a Father of Confederation, particularly for his work in crafting the entry of Manitoba into Confederation in our Dominion's earliest days. We were also always taught, as previously mentioned, that the hanging of Mr. Riel was one of the greatest mistakes and injustices in our early years as a nation. (So, the idea we hear so often today that Canadians in our schools have only been taught that Macdonald was without blemish and only seen as a hero in our classrooms is complete and utter bunk -- but I digress). Later in life I learned more about Mr. Riel when I was working on my book about Sir Wilfrid Laurier. As a young MP, Laurier impressively fought for justice for Mr. Riel after the 1869-70 "rebellion" in Manitoba. Folks will recall that the Conservatives of the day put forward a motion -- after Mr. Riel was elected fair and square as MP for a Manitoba riding -- that the Metis leader be expelled from the Commons (though he had not taken his seat). On April 15, 1874, the future Prime Minister, Wilfrid Laurier, famously rose in the Commons to defend the legal rights of Mr. Riel. "His whole crime and the crime of his friends was that they wanted to be treated like British subjects and not to be bartered away like common cattle," the young MP thundered. "If that be an act of rebellion, where is the one amongst us, who, if he had happened to have been with them, would not have been rebels as they were?" A decade later, in the shadow the sad events of 1885 we mark on this date each year, Laurier took to his feet again in the Commons on the same topic of justice for Mr. Riel. "This I do charge upon the Government; that they for years and years ignored the just claims of the Metis of the Saskatchewan, that for years and years these people have been petitioning this Government and always in vain. I say they have been treated by this government with an indifference amounting to undisguised contempt, and that they have been goaded into the unfortunate course they have adopted, and if this rebellion be a crime, I say the responsibility for that crime weighs as much upon the men who, by their conduct, have caused the rebellion as upon those who engaged in it." Unfortunately, when he was PM himself, Laurier's record on Indigenous issues was in many ways worse than Macdonald's, with, as only one example, his government's removing the hard-fought (by Macdonald) voting rights for Indigenous Peoples (limited of course), the Father of Confederation had secured earlier. All three men I have mentioned today -- Riel, Laurier and Macdonald -- were founders of our nation and deserve better than they often get today. Doing so does not excuse them at all, but fills in the picture. So, let's all mark Louis Riel Day and the loss of this great Canadian, Manitoban and Métis leader as we go about our business today and every day. You can read more about Riel at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography at this link.   caption id="attachment_592531" align="alignleft" width="501" The trial of Louis Riel/caption Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist.  He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy.  A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.