Some people think Canada has always been a quiet, polite country, with a relatively boring history.
Nothing could be further from the truth. From terrific sea battles, to violent rebellions, to wars, great inventions, and so much more, Canadian history is one of the most interesting there could be.
On this date, Feb 11, 1869, Patrick J Whelan was hanged for the political assassination of one of Canada’s “Fathers of Confederation”, Thomas D’arcy McGee.
The event was the first political assassination in the brand new country, and the last public hanging.
The assassination possibly involved at one and the same time various degrees of old Irish tensions between Catholic and English protestant, between “British” Canada and the Fenian (Catholic Irish) support for US absorption of Canada through “manifest destiny”, and internal Canadian politics.
After a late night parliamentary debate in Ottawa, in the wee hours of April 7 1868, McGee arrived at his boarding house, and while entering, was fatally shot by a single bullet from a .32calibre handgun.
After a roundup of suspects, tailor Patrick Whelan was found with such a gun, although still fully loaded. His Fenian sympathies were suspected but also not proven
In a trial based mostly on circumstantial evidence, and with the extremely unusual presence of Prime Minister John A MacDonald (friend of McGee) sitting on the bench beside the judge, the Irish immigrant Whelan was pronounced guilty of the murder of Member of Parliament Thomas D’Arcy McGee, also an Irish immigrant.
Protesting his innocence to the last, Whelan was hanged at Ottawa’s Nicholas Street Gaol in front of some 5,000 people what is often billed as the last public hanging in Canada.
Other evidence suggests however that several months later, on December 7, 1869, Nicholas Melady was hanged in Goderich Ontario outside the walls at the Huron District Gaol for the murder of his father and step-mother.
In addition, there is evidence that in some cases relatively large groups were permitted inside prison walls to witness hangings, and in other cases scaffolds were built high enough that people on the roofs of nearby buildings, or even occasionally from street level, could see the hangings,
It should also be noted that in 1869, Canada consisted of only four provinces, and public hangings continued in other regions such as the prairie provinces and British Columbia which had not yet become a part of Canada.
The last executions in Canada were in 1962, A de facto moratorium came into effect in 1963, an official moratorium on the death penalty came in 1967 except for murders of police or prison staff, In 1976, the ban became law except for certain offences under the National Defence Act. These were removed with a complete ban on the death penalty in 1998
While McGee was the first political assassination in Canada, the next did not occur until just over 100 years later when Quebec “separatist” terrorists of the so-called Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) carried out many bombings with several killings and maimings, culminating in the assassination of the Quebec provincial Minister of Labour, Pierre Laporte, in October 1970.
By the way, the Nicholas Street gaol in Ottawa is still standing and is now a hostel where visitors can stay. It is also said to be haunted by the ghost of Whelan.
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