The slight difference in the treatment of "civilization" in the English and French versions -- the French word is a plural -- should be your first clue about how politically correct the Canadian government has become in modern times. Canadians might refer to "modern times" as "PT" -- "Post Trudeau" -- to distinguish the years since 1968 from the Ante Trudeau (AT) years, when dinosaurs roamed Parliament Hill.
The museum actually goes back to the mid-19th century, when it began as a display hall for the Geological Survey of Canada. By 1910 it had become the National Museum of Canada, and moved into the Victorian Memorial Museum building in downtown Ottawa.
With the rise of Québec nationalism [separatism, surely! Ed.] in the 60s, "national" became a loaded word, so after the coronation of the Sun King Pierre Elliott in 1968, the museum was split in two -- the Museum of Nature and the Museum of Man, both in the same ageing building. In 1982, the Trudeau government announced that the Museum of Man would be moved to its own separate facility on the Québec side of the river.
This was the 80s, eh, the heyday of wimmin's lib and "equal rights" for everyone, so the name "Museum of Man" was immediately denounced as gender-biased. The former "National Museum of Man" thus became the Canadian Museum of Civilization. In 1989, the museum moved into the new facility in Hull, which is actually an architectural gem containing some great exhibits, particularly the Canada Hall.
The museum also contains, on the ground floor, an exhibit of totem poles and other artifacts created by... errr... not "Indians and Eskimos", right? How about "Dene and Innu"? No, because that would legitimize the division between two distinct, errr, ethnic groups. So the space was called the "First Nations Hall". Note the past tense. "Nations" is not a good word, remember? So now it's the "First Peoples Hall", with no apostrophe before or after the "s" so it could be one people or, errr, two or more peoples.
That left the PC police with nothing to correct until someone complained that the word "civilization" suggested that "nations"... oops, countries or peoples... who are not Canadian might be UNcivilized, or, errr... well, not as good as Canucks, somehow. Rather than give offence to immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers, the Canadian government in its wisdom [bwuhahahaha! Ed.] Has decided to rename the place the "Canadian Museum of History"/"Musée Canadien de l'Histoire".
So that's the end of it, eh. Well, not quite. A museum of history must inevitably use dates in the description of its exhibits. The Museum of Civilization has for decades followed the politically correct -- meaning anti-Christian -- practice of dating things either "CE" (= Common Era, which we used to call "AD") or "BCE" (Before Common Era = "BC" = "Before Christ"). But now, in a stunning reversal, the Museum has decided to put "Christ" back in history!
According to a new style guide just released by the Museum, "It is now our style to use the Christian calendar abbreviations BC and AD, if necessary, to designate years."
There's nothing religious about the change, it seems. The reason for it was simply that most people didn't understand the PC terms. "It has nothing to do with the Christian calendar," said a Museum spokesthingy. "It has more to do with the fact that it's considered common usage."
Walt says "amen" to that and trusts the building's cornerstone will be re-incised with the date A.D. MCMLXXXVI.
Click here to visit the Museum's website. If you want to visit the Museum itself, go to Gatineau (formerly known as "Hull") Québec and look for the signs. Oh... No... The signs may be changed again by the time you get there. Better just look for the building.
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