Jerry Bannister Last spring, in response to Denis McKim’s thoughtful post about the potential impacts of the pandemic on the study of Canadian history, I started a short piece on how the larger social crises were shaping our historical perspectives. As spring turned into summer, and we took advantage of the Atlantic bubble, my notes… Continue Reading
Latest in: Current Events
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Denis McKim Thomas Paine likened the American Revolution to the deluge. In much the same way that God had hit the “reset button” on history itself through the flood recounted in Genesis, the United States had initiated a new epoch by revolting against British rule and launching what Paine hoped would become an egalitarian republic.… Continue Reading
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Donald Wright When we received instructions to distance and isolate, I called my 92-year old mother who lives alone in another province. She seemed to be taking the pandemic in stride. “I survived the Depression, the war, and the energy crisis,” she said. “I’ll survive this.” To ease her loneliness and to find re-assurance, she… Continue Reading
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Scott Berthelette Near the end of the summer of 1782, Hudson’s Bay Company chief factor of York Factory, Matthew Cocking lamented: “Never has a Letter in Hudson’s Bay conveyed more doleful Tidings than this… Much the greatest part of the Indians whose furs have been formerly and hitherto brought to this Place, are now no… Continue Reading
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Kate Barker As news reports come in of scammers trying to leverage a global pandemic into profit at the expense of Canadians, it is an interesting time to examine the equivalent during the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic. Patent medicine companies and others in Canada plugged their products as influenza cure-alls in advertisements that were ubiquitous in… Continue Reading
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Olivier Guimond Participating in panels on history and heritage in recent weeks has given me pause to reflect on the relevance of the historical discipline to the climate emergency and climate change. The two events on which these reflections are based were seemingly quite different. The first was a panel on “L’historien.ne, le temps et… Continue Reading
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Olivier Guimond L’assistance à quelques panels portant sur l’histoire et le patrimoine dans les dernières semaines m’a donné à réfléchir sur la pertinence de la discipline historique dans un contexte d’urgence climatique. C’est ce sur quoi porte le présent billet, qui s’appuyera, donc, sur certains propos tenus lors de deux événements à première vue bien… Continue Reading
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Bradley Miller The Supreme Court declined this month to radically change the way that Canada works. In R v Comeau, lawyers for a New Brunswick man ticketed for bringing too many bottles of beer into the province from Quebec urged the justices to use the history of the Canadian federation to improve its future, at… Continue Reading
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Shirley Tillotson Editors’ note: This essay is jointly posted with our partners at ActiveHistory.ca, and appeared in an earlier version as a Letter to the Editor in the National Post (Oct. 26, 2017). Fundraisers love anniversaries. They’re like birthdays, right? Presents can’t be far behind. But when it’s the anniversary of a death, it’s not so… Continue Reading
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This essay is the final installment in a three-part series on Confederation that provides critical historical context for Canada’s sesquicentennial anniversary. The first two parts were posted on the 26th and 28th of June. Bradley Miller In 1882, during oral arguments at the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for one of the first court… Continue Reading
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