Yes Russia was the most instrumental country in defeating the Nazis, i was responding to eyeball's self-loathing of Canada specifically.
You cannot move on from the past when the past is still alive here in the present.
Yes I agree with this and have addressed this. There's nothing wrong with debating Sir John's legacy, taking down statues if need be etc.
Also, couching every revelation about past atrocities with "but what about the good things" is a form of denialism.
That's a misrepresentation of my point because I didn't do this. I would never deny the seriousness and tragedy of these new revelations of past atrocities or try to underplay it. I'm speaking of eyeball's knee-jerk reaction towards completely disavowing himself of Canada due to these kinds of revelations.
Racism, sexism, homophobia etc is a part of the legacy of every single government on earth. That doesn't excuse it, it just means that our history as a country and a civilization is one of progress from a point where things weren't as just to where we've been on a continual journey over many centuries to rectify this. Human rights in our society have been progressing since the Magna Carta. It's logical that who we were as a society 150 years ago wasn't as just as it is today, and that's not a reason to hate our past or ourselves in their entirety, it's just to say there's times where we've been very wrong about some things that have been and still need to be rectified.