Commentary
Louis Riel has long been called by some the Father of Manitoba. Though the province’s website is equivocal (saying only that he is “widely regarded” as such), last year Manitoba one-upped itself. Supposedly “correcting history,” Premier Wab Kinew declared Riel the province’s “first Premier”—a position that not even Riel imagined he ever held and that he was never sworn into.
The first chief executive of Manitoba was an Englishman named Alfred Boyd, remembered only, if at all, because he “drew many laughable sketches of members of the House that were grotesquely funny.” By contrast, Riel is one of the few historical figures recognized by Canadians….