History may be inconvenient but that doesn’t give us the right to rewrite or erase it

To the Editor:
RE: “Kincardine councillor adds further points about courage and the recognition of women”

I appreciate councillor Mike Hinchberger’s recent response to my letter regarding the destruction of the Dr. Solomon Secord monument in Kincardine. While he notes he is not speaking on behalf of council, his remarks make clear he is defending its actions.

So let me be clear: this issue is not about gender, nor is it a dispute between historical ideologies. It is about public trust, accountability, and a municipal decision that bypassed transparency, ignored family requests, and breached long-standing conditions of a commemorative donation.

Mr. Hinchberger mischaracterizes my invocation of Laura Secord — a woman born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts — as an attempt to elevate a man through her legacy. That is incorrect. Laura and Dr. Solomon Secord were family — aunt and nephew — remembered for vastly different contributions: she for her wartime bravery, he for his life-long service as a physician. The comparison is about public memory, civic respect, and how communities choose to honour those who came before them. It is not about exploiting gender — it is about protecting legacy.

Mr. Hinchberger’s assertion that Dr. Solomon Secord aided a racist Confederate agenda is a deeply selective and inflammatory reading of history. Dr. Secord was a British subject and physician, not a Confederate ideologue. To suggest that his post-war recognition by family, patients, and community was misplaced — or that it justified erasing his monument — is a misuse of history to fit a modern political narrative.

What is exploitative is the council’s weaponization of identity politics to justify the destruction of a monument.

Let us not forget: this monument stood for 110 years under conditions accepted and honoured by generations of previous councils — until this one acted unilaterally, ignoring the family’s formal request to have the monument returned to us.

That is not civic leadership. That is erasure.

As for the documentation Mr. Hinchberger now requests, these materials are currently under legal review and will be addressed through the proper legal and institutional channels.

But I will note that neither he nor the mayor nor the CAO responded when family members reached out with alternatives or concerns before the monument’s destruction. That is on record. Suffice it to say, the record of lack of communication and ignoring and overstepping the municipality’s obligations are well-documented.

Councillor Hinchberger’s attempt to reframe this as a courageous feminist stand rings hollow when the actual concern raised by the family — that of due process, respect for donor intent, and breach of public trust — was ignored.

Regardless of councillor Hinchberger’s retrospective view of Solomon Secord’s life, the monument was an historical gift to the municipality — and was destroyed without rightful due process or proper legal consideration.

To destroy a monument entrusted to a town for over a century is not just a symbolic act — it is a legal and moral failure. There is nothing courageous about discarding the past to win points in the present.

The guardians of public trust — including elected officials — must be held to account when they break it. History may be inconvenient but that does not give us the right to rewrite or erase it.

Respectfully,
David Secord
Calgary, Alberta