Image by Radha-Prema Pelletier

By Jessica Van Horssen

So the winter semester is over, and for those of us at Quebec universities, what a semester it’s been! Specifically, McGill University has had its share of drama this year, with strikes, occupations, computer hacking, and demonstrations against the Quebec government’s plans for tuition hikes. With all of these things going on, it’s no wonder one of McGill’s dirty little secrets has been quietly pushed aside.

Attached is the talk I gave at McGill in March about the historic connection between the university and the asbestos industry. University ties to massive, ethically-questionable corporations is nothing new, and certainly not McGill-specific. Quebec’s continued support of the asbestos industry, of which it was once a world leader, is also nothing new. Neither is the public’s general outrage when information on these ties emerges, nor is the public’s gradual loss of interest in this topic, which contributes to the perpetuation of the toxic legacy of asbestos in Quebec, Canada, and the world.

This time around, the outrage and loss of interest began with a CBC documentary that aired earlier this winter and exposed McGill’s Dr. John Corbett McDonald’s relationship with the asbestos industry, and questioned his findings on how Canadian asbestos impacted human health. While it shouldn’t be a surprise that someone funded by the asbestos industry produced reports claiming that the carcinogenic mineral wasn’t so bad after all—as long as it came from Quebec’s mines, of course—what is absolutely frustrating is McGill’s reaction.

McDonald was exposed in the 1970s by CBC Radio and the New York Times shortly after his pro-Canadian asbestos reports were published in well-respected medical journals—the public was outraged then too, but again, forgot about it soon afterwards—and McGill received and processed the cheques coming from the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association (QAMA) to aid in his research endeavors. Despite this, McGill apparently had no idea McDonald’s legitimacy and authority were questionable. Closing ranks around one of their own is a tough habit to break.

Despite their immediate defense of McDonald, McGill launched an internal preliminary review into his ties to the industry, and investigator Dr. Rebecca Fuhrer, head of the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatics, and Occupational Health at McGill, attended my talk in March.

Now, the struggle for the legitimacy of historians amongst scientists is, again, nothing new, although it remains unfortunate, and I hoped that Dr. Fuhrer would be inspired by my talk to look deeper into the evidence. I was glad that during the question period, we got into a nice discussion on ethics, and what defending McDonald and his outdated conclusions, (which were outdated even in 1970 when he published them), says about McGill.

McDonald has won awards for his contributions to public health in Quebec. It seems he also had ties to an industry that was notorious for corruption and deceit. The information McDonald published on this greatly contrasted the conclusions respected members of the global medical community had been making on the dangers of asbestos for decades, and the reason they differed so much is not because Quebec asbestos is safe—although it is safe if you believe that jumping from the 16^th floor of a building compared to the 18^th floor will give you a different result.

On April 4^th, Dean of Medicine Dr. David Eidelman, sent an email to the McGill community to inform us that Dr. Fuhrer’s preliminary report had been submitted and stated that there was no evidence of research misconduct, but that more time and research is needed to assess McDonald’s research “integrity.” What is the difference between misconduct and a lack of integrity? A dilution of accountability?

As predictable as the internal review’s non-conclusion conclusion is, it’s also frustrating. Sure, the general public has once again forgotten its outrage, so the heat is off McGill, but what about the long-term and far-reaching effects of researchers like McDonald, and what about McGill’s role as an internationally respected institution? In navigating McGill’s archives, did Dr. Fuhrer take the time to examine McDonald’s published conclusions within the context of what every medical professional not funded by the industry was saying about Canadian asbestos and health?

Quebec’s asbestos workers were usually kept far away from nosey medical professionals the companies didn’t have in their pockets for fear of what they would discover. There’s a reason they allowed McDonald to study them, and there’s a reason QAMA was head over heels happy over his conclusions. What was that reason? While examining these workers, McDonald made choices on who was important enough to study and who wasn’t—the female workers in the industry certainly weren’t, even though the first recorded person to die of asbestos-related disease was a woman, and reports on the specific vulnerability of women to diseases asbestos causes had been widely discussed in the global medical community for decades.

Did McDonald, a revered researcher and now professor emeritus at McGill, not keep up with the literature on the subject he was rapidly becoming the Canadian expert on? Who else did he overlook in his examination of Quebec asbestos workers? What could possibly make him believe Canadian asbestos was safe? And, of course, WHY?!

The asbestos industry has a long, well-documented history of manipulating medical professionals and medical evidence. Asbestos companies began doing this at McGill in the 1930s. I would love McGill investigators to first ask, then answer, this question: based on his published work, was McDonald a pawn of the asbestos industry, making his bizarre, dated conclusions based on evidence manipulated by companies, or a knave, willingly contributing to the legacy of misinformation and disease in Quebec and around the world in return for funding?

Take some time to listen to my talk. McGill is one of the most respected universities in Canada, and for good reason. However, in defending McDonald and deflecting criticism by waiting for a tumultuous semester to end and the public to lose interest, has McGill itself been a pawn or a knave in the past and present Quebec asbestos trade?

To listen to Jessica’s talk, “Quebec’s Asbestos Industry and McGill University: The Historic Relationship,” click here.

Jessica Van Horssen is a postdoctoral fellow in Quebec Environmental History at McGill/UQTR. She is primarily interested in the ways communities understand and internalize environmental contamination and risk, and the wide-reaching effects this can have. For the most part, she keeps her research to asbestos communities, but these are part of a much larger tradition of global resource towns.

This is the first in a weekly series of posts leading up to the mini-conference The War of 1812: Whose War was it Anyway? being held at the University of Waterloo on May 30th.

By Adriana Ayers, MA Candidate, University of Western Ontario

Augmented reality games (ARGs) are immersive and interactive plot-based games, which break down the barriers between the gaming world and reality. They are not played in any one place or through any one medium, but sprawlsprawled across multiple media elements, such as email, Twitter, YouTube, Wiki pages, text messages, blogs, etc.etc.. No form of communication or digital interaction is off limits. Indeed, the point of an ARG is to pull game play out of the computer and into the real world, blurring the lines of simulation and experience. Unlike a regular computer game, which is controlled by artificial intelligence, ARG players interact directly with the human beings who design and control the game, appropriately named the PuppetMasters.

Tecumseh Lies Here is an augmented reality game developed by faculty and students at the University of Western Ontario, designed to expose players to the history of the War of 1812, while teaching them traditional research techniques and skills necessary for practicing historians. In September 2011, the creators of the game ran a successful beta test on a group of unsuspecting public history graduate students—including me. Suspicious and even unwilling at first, I found myself drawn into the game through its clever incorporation of fake conspiracies among contemporary historiographical debates. My insatiable appetite for puzzles, and my perpetual need to finish what I started, made it difficult for me to ignore. Suddenly my hours spent in the archives filled more than a class requirement; I was solving riddles, unlocking ciphers, and racing around southwestern Ontario to open a GPS-powered treasure boxes.

Tecumseh Lies Here explores the life of the Shawnee war-chief Tecumseh, and the myths and controversy surrounding his death and final resting place. Although Tecumseh died at the Battle of the Thames on October 5 1813, his body was never identified, giving rise to rumors that perhaps he had not died or that his body had been spirited away. White fascination with Tecumseh and the morbid question of his remains grew throughout the nineteenth century.

Tecumseh Lies Here thrust me and my fellow players into a secret world of 1812 enthusiasts still searching for Tecumseh’s bones—a kind of metaphor for continuing contests over the commemoration of the war. Some of the characters we encountered were helpful and encouraging; some were whistleblowers in a complex historical conspiracy; and others were downright terrifying. While playing the game we found our everyday discussions, twitter-feeds, studies, seminars and eventually our dreams, completely consumed by Tecumseh and the mysteries surrounding his death. .

The game blended fictional characters with a genuine historical mystery, and questions about the memory of the real Shawnee leader, and the meaning of the war. To “win” the game, I and the other players had to comb through libraries and archives, gather evidence, interpret primary sources, analyze secondary sources, and debate the best means of moving forward and solving the clues. Heritage and historical sites were part of the game as well. There were riddles involving museum exhibits, clues hidden in parks and battlegrounds, and devices that could only be activated in certain significant locales. The game, like the past, was pervasive—its traces could be anywhere.

One of the most interesting and unexpected aspects of the game was how collaborative it was. From what I’ve read about ARGs, that was part of the point. ARGs are cooperative games that leverage the collective intelligence of all their players. Many historians can attest that sharing is not necessarily our strongest suit. The intricacy and range of the ARG’s content appealed to many learning styles and research strategies, giving everyone in the group their moment to shine. In order to solve clues and move on to a next round, it questioned the ‘acceptable’ way in which we traditionally interact with historical discourse – it challenged the way we viewed history and its creators.

ARGs have exciting potential for education, training, and addressing real world problems.  MIT’s educational ARG Reliving the Revolution (2005) turned the site of the American Revolutionary Battle of Lexington into an augmented learning environment where students learned techniques for historical inquiry, effective collaboration, and critical thinking skills. In the PBS-funded ARG World Without Oil (2007) over 2,000 players from twelve countries came together to manage a simulated global oil crisis, forecasting the results of the crisis and producing plausible strategies for managing a realistic future dilemma. And the World Bank’s Urgent Evoke (2010) enlisted over 19,000 players in an effort to empower young people, especially in Africa, to come up with creative solutions to environmental and social challenges.

Historians and history educators have only begun to take note of these developments but the potential is exciting and real. Besides Tecumseh Lies Here, another ARG for history education is the Arcane Gallery of Gadgetry, developed by faculty and students at the University of Maryland. Historians and history educators have only begun to take note of these developments.  But the potential is exciting and real.

For more discussion on this topic, I and three of the creators of Tecumseh Lies Here will be leading an informal panel discussion at The War of 1812: Whose War was it Anyway?. We’ll present our experiences writing, running, and playing the game, and try to open up a discussion on the politics and pedagogy of the 1812 bicentennial, and the potentials and challenges of ARGs for history and heritage education. We hope to see you there!

Marine Le Pen. Creative Commons photo by NdFrayssinet

By Dr Valerie Deacon

No, this isn’t the beginning of Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto, though that spectre (of Communism) has played just as important a role as this one in twentieth century European history. Today’s spectre is the spectre of fascism and it is not only haunting Europe, but has also infected North America. The problem with this spectre, though, is that like many ghostly things, it lacks a clear definition.

The April 25th edition of the Toronto Star features an article with which many liberal North Americans might be inclined to agree. Thomas Walkom’s article “Europe’s restraint agenda rekindling fascism” argues that recent austerity measures in Europe are pushing people too far and he writes that European rulers have “forgotten their own history. People will put up with only so much before they embrace extreme measures”. He cites as evidence of this the recent success of political parties of the far right in Europe, including the stunning electoral success of France’s Front national, led by Marine Le Pen. Walkom concludes his article by noting that only neo-Nazis are offering alternatives to the voting public in Europe and that this is not only obscene, but dangerous.

To be sure, the rise of these parties (though many of them have been around for decades – a fact often ignored by North American journalists) is indeed dangerous. Marine Le Pen’s electoral success should scare us all because her extremist views have clearly become palatable to the general electorate and there is little in the Western world that is more dangerous than a “legitimate” victory of the extreme right. However, it is also dangerous to use this language of ‘fascism’ to discuss what is happening right now in Europe, for several reasons.

First, calling these parties ‘fascist’ blinds us to what is actually happening in Europe. The term ‘fascist’ has, since the early heady days of Italian fascism, been a vague epithet to denounce a political enemy – and it often didn’t matter if that enemy was on the left or the right of the political spectrum. Historians and political scientists have been incapable of finding a useful definition of fascism, in part thanks to its vague usage in political discourse. The most meaningful definition, though it too is not perfect, is found in Robert Paxton’s work – because he recognizes that ‘fascism’ changes depending on the context within which it is found. We need to look at the situation in Europe right now and while we might see some similarities to the 1930s, they are, in fact, two different eras. The consequences of economic destruction in the 1930s will not necessarily be the consequences of economic destruction in 2012.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly for real-world political affairs, is the fact that by using the language of ‘fascism’ we imply that this is a known enemy. Who hasn’t been taught about Nazi crimes? There is a tendency to think that if we recognize our enemy (i.e. if they are neo-Nazis) then we will also know how to combat them (i.e. using measures that have been used in the past). But part of the real danger even back in the 1920s and 1930s was that fascists and Nazis were underestimated – because their political opponents used dated understandings of political affairs to deal with them. European liberals in the 1920s and ‘30s tended to view, for example, Benito Mussolini as a new variation on old conservatism. Boy, did they regret that later on. And so it is today, that we need to assess – truly and honestly assess – these political parties for what they are, not what they remind us of.

If we want history to provide us with ways of understanding the world, then we would see the success of, say, the Front national as another chapter in an ongoing development of the radical right in France. Though it requires a little more work, it is far more useful to situate these parties where they belong – in geographically, historically, and temporally specific contexts. Do I agree with Walkom’s assertion that these parties are obscene? Yes, without question. But we need to understand why, as obscene as they are, they are attractive to European voters in 2012 and using the language of fascism will not help us achieve that goal.

By Joshua MacFadyen

It is 24 April, and although some Canadians have been mowing grass for weeks the spring plants on Prince Edward Island are only beginning to overcome the cold nights and occasional flurries that visit this island in April. Still, this is an early spring by historical accounts. On this day in 1879, John MacEachern recorded the following diary entry in Rice Point:

“Ice drifting out of Harbour and Nine Mile Creek, boats can get to Town now, a Ltr [boat] from East Point [arrived] back at Governors Island Tuesday.”

The day before he had recorded a similar view from the farm:

“pulverizing lea land today & yesterday, ice still unbroken outside harbour & inside St Peters Island.”

Thirteen years earlier the ice was more fluid, moving along the South Shore of the Island on 18-19 April until there was finally “no ice in sight” on the 23^rd.  This did not mean winter had passed; MacEachern noted “frosty ground, hard all day,” on 24 April, and frost deep enough to prevent stumping and ploughing all that week.  Usually we think of historical weather reports and almanacs as about as exciting as reading the phone book, but diary entries like these reveal dramatic changes in our environment and our climate when we read them in real time.

Spring 2012 has already set several record high temperatures.  The last snow banks receded from the hedgerows weeks ago and the Northumberland Strait, the body of water that contained unbroken ice on this day in the nineteenth century has been ice-free for well over a month.  People have short memories, and although the effects of climate change are becoming more obvious on a year-to-year basis, comparing our current weather with data from 1.5 centuries ago suggests we are living in an eerily different climate.

According to Environment Canada’s Climate Archive, the average temperature between 1 March and this date in 1879 was negative 1.8.  This year it has averaged positive 1.8.  The average daily highs are even more striking, jumping from 2 degrees in 1879 to 6.7 in 2012.  A difference of around 4 degrees might not seem like much global warming over such a long span, but to farmers like John MacEachern the effects on daily life and the surrounding environment today would be obvious.

Scientists who examine modern weather station data work primarily with a small number of relatively recently established stations, and they recognize the importance of volunteer reporting to ensure an accurate and representative data set (Yukon farmer Hugh Bradley has recorded the weather twice a day since 1954).  Farm diaries are perhaps the largest pre-twentieth century volunteer weather database, and historians who at one time may have glanced over the mundane repetition of daily weather reports are beginning to explore journals and diaries for their phenological, or seasonal indicator, data (Phenology is the study of how plants and animals develop with seasons and cycles.). Liza Piper was one of the first historians to systematically examine Canadian climate through farm diaries.  Other projects such as the Thousand Eyes program in Nova Scotia built on work by Adam Fenech, Don MacIver, Heather Auld, and Stu Beal and analysed the early twentieth century phenological calendar for native plants. Naturalists who study Aldo Leopold’s phenology argue that spring events are coming two to three weeks earlier in Wisconsin today.

Real Time Farming offers a new way to digest historical weather observations – in real time!  The journals of farmer-naturalist Francis Bain are replete with phenology, and several of his climate observations have been transcribed on the blog.  Farmers recorded a range of everyday phenological observations such as the flocks of migrating Canada Geese noted by John MacEachern on 8 April, 1879, or 19 March, 1866; the depth and consistency of snow in the woods on 5 April 1866 and 17 March 1879; and the constant references to travel conditions on, and hence the thickness of, river and sea ice.  Similar observations of ice travel conditions and the first sailing of ferries and other boats were routinely recorded in newspapers as well.

Mussel mud digging was another routinely generated climate record found in farm diaries.  The location and stability of the ice was critical information for farmers; the information also provides a serendipitous record of interest to climate historians.  Most farmers recorded the date that they set their heavy and cumbersome mud digging machines out on the ice and the date they pulled them back in.  On 18 March Basil McNeill figured “the hauling is over for this year” due to a mild spell and spring freshets that weakened the roads and ice.  The mild weather proved temporary, and a cold “Nor West Wind” mobilized the diggers for another two weeks. In the first week of April, McNeill recorded a massive snow storm, and to his surprise, weather that was “cold for the time of year” meant one of his neighbours continued “hauling mud yet.” Roderick Munn’s record of mussel mud digging provides a history of the ice conditions on the Hillsborough River and a snapshot of coldest winters throughout the 1880s.

The routinely generated records of nineteenth century farmers are valuable sources of historical climate data. Through academic research, public projects like Thousand Eyes, and new digital initiatives like Real Time Farming, these farmers and naturalists may become an earlier set of “volunteer climate observers” to join 21^st century climate history database.

By Ryan Kelly

At risk of a credit rating downgrade, Ontario is grappling with the task of closing a presumably skyrocketing debt in the coming years. In search of creative ways of closing this fiscal gap, the Liberal government has been remarkably uncreative in its proposed solutions. Most notably, the proposed budget is void of new or progressive revenues, and is decidedly austere in design. Plainly, with artificially low interest rates, and deficit resulting from the economic downturn of 2008-09, the Liberal government seeks to cut essential public services. Let there be no mistake that Ontario’s financial standing is not in any way the result of over-spending on essential services. Quite the opposite is the case. Per capita, Ontario spends less than any other province on public services. This tells the story of highly efficient programming and servicing.

So far as anyone can tell, taxation is as old as any form of organized rule. As the old adage goes, there are two things certain in life, taxes and death. For some, the former option is considered even more dreadful than the latter. Why are taxes so objectionable? Taxation can be seen to have matured from the days of the terrible Sheriff of Nottingham. Taxes have become more progressive in design, wherein bigger earners are subject to a greater rate, while a lower tax burden falls on those least able to afford them, although in recent decades taxes have increasingly been shifting onto middle income earners. Tax revenue is collected and used by the government in a myriad of ways, most importantly as an apparatus for providing services that improve people’s quality of life. Many of these quality of life issues are such that we take them for granted, and rarely think of while we access them on a daily basis. Indeed, I would move into a higher tax bracket if I had a nickel for every time someone said health care and education are free in Ontario.

If the people in Ontario utilize these tax-provided, efficiently run services, why are we opposed to a nominal tax increase? The short answer is we’re not. More and more public opinion polls demonstrate an earnest acceptance of tax increases to maintain public services and to make smaller the ever increasing equality gap in Canada. Why is the Liberal government balking at this green light for continued peace and stability in our public sector? One can only assume there is political gain for “Strong Action” in the budget, as it is coined. In Ontario’s last election, the Progressive Conservative Party in their epic failure of a campaign labelled Dalton McGuinty the “Taxman”. In the previous two elections, the majority Liberal government flopped on promises to not raise taxes. One wonders if this attack was anti-taxation, or anti-political-untruthfulness. Regardless, it can be left to the reader to speculate whether the negative campaigning proved to be successful. What remains is a minority government in the midst of an identity crisis that has forgotten all traces of its Dr. Jekyll persona.

As we consider a budget in Ontario intent on austerity, we are well served by acknowledging the follies of cuts under the Harris/Hudak government. Two notable consequences were marked by preventable, tragic deaths. In Walkerton, safety standards and qualified staff were compromised as a direct result of public service cuts. The incompetence and relaxing of standards these cuts encouraged remains the catalyst for this disaster. Less than a year later, and not many kilometers away, austerity struck again in Sudbury. After imposing a 40% cut in social services, rules were stiffened to punish the minute fraction of recipients deemed to be committing fraud. A young, pregnant Kimberly Rogers, seeking a diploma, received both student assistance and Ontario Works, something acceptable prior to the changes. Ms. Rogers was made into an example; she was sentenced to house arrest, receiving an income so small (eighteen dollars per month after rent), even the basic necessities of life were beyond reach. In the midst of a sweltering heat wave, under house arrest in an apartment with no air conditioning, Kimberly Rogers was found dead. In both of these tragedies, adjudicators have drawn direct and culpable cause and effect relationships between public service cuts and a dangerous decline in health and safety.

The Ontario New Democrats are negotiating with the Liberals to create a more responsible budget; they have sought feedback from the people of Ontario, incorporating this directly into budget revisions. They have proposed tax credits for creating jobs to help Ontario recover from the recession, along with removing the HST from household essentials like home heating and hydro. They have also proposed modest increases to Ontario Disability Support, offering people in dire circumstances much needed relief from impoverishment; this increased support will funnel directly back into the economy, again aiding in recovery. They have argued that this can be financed with a two percent income tax increase on those with annual earnings of five hundred thousand dollars or more each year.

On the advice of economist Don Drummond, advice not substantiated by many of his peers, the Liberal government argues we are facing a debt that could double in the next five years. Forgotten are the days of surplus prior to the economic downturn of 2008. Forgotten too are the causes of the recession, which has little to do with public service spending. Under the guise of an economic lag, the Liberal government is opposed to considering new and progressive revenue sources. Furthermore, they seek to decrease spending, which will undoubtedly increase our debt load, actions historically proven to prolong recession. The Ontario Liberal Party is decidedly on a path bordered by the very worst of Rae’s “Social Contract” and the destructive days of the Harris/Hudak regime. Ontario’s choices are not as few as it seems. It is entirely possible to avoid a credit rating downgrade, maintain important public services, and seek out new revenue sources that will strengthen our economic recovery. One can only assume that resistance is, like so many other decisions, driven by political opportunism. As we watch history repeat itself, let’s remember the disastrous consequences of austerity cuts in Ontario.

Ryan Kelly teaches computer science at Donald A. Wilson Secondary School; he is Vice President of District 13 of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, Chair of its political action committee, and is a member of the OSSTF political action committee.

The Battle of Vimy Ridge, a painting by Richard Jack. Canadian War Museum.

By: Laura Piticco

The week of April 9-13 is important for marking two major events in history: the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, and the 95th anniversary of the battle at Vimy Ridge. Both events have as of late been dominating the media coverage, one in particular, the Titanic, more than the other.

Underlying the coverage of both of these events is the actual history that seems to have gotten lost. As historians, we want to see that people are actually thinking critically and being provoked to ask questions; not simply accepting the material that is being presented. The Titanic was more than just an ocean liner sinking. It is a story that encompasses topics about class, race, and gender in a society that is not that far removed from our society today. We should be thinking about and discussing these issues in relation to how it was representative of the society of the time. Equally important, in terms of Vimy Ridge, are the countless other battles fought in World War I that showed the strength and collectiveness of our nation. Are they not as important? Can and should the battle of Vimy Ridge be the most significant representative moment of this war? Should we not honour the other battles with the same respect?

What has become an issue is that these events seem to have gotten coverage based heavily on the fact that they are considered milestone occasions. The one hundredth anniversary of an event seems to always be glorified and promoted in the news, simply because one hundred years has been presented in our society as the accepted date with which something should be remembered. Should the number behind the anniversary of an event automatically make it more important than the significance of the events’ history?

If we examine this idea further, this year marks the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812. Though it is often argued, and has been the main focus of many of the speeches this week, that it was the Battle of Vimy Ridge where Canada finally came together as a nation, did the War of 1812 also not have a significant impact that has shaped our cultures consciousness of who we are as Canadians? News coverage of this has slid significantly in the past few months, with this historian only hoping that the next few months bring a significant turnaround in this matter.

One of the most telling and perhaps frustrating aspects of this is that Canada Post, instead of choosing to commemorate the Battle of Vimy Ridge as a postage stamp, chose to go with the Titanic. Why? The argument lies in the fact that after the ships sinking, two of the first vessels to start the recovery effort of the victims were sent from Halifax, Nova Scotia. There is also a graveyard that is the final resting place of 150 of the ships unclaimed victims. The Halifax branch of Canada Post outfitted mail trucks and created a 100th anniversary collection line of stamps. Does this small role that Halifax played in this event justify the efforts that are being put in place for this commemoration? Does this actually show respect for the event or is it just a way of capitalizing on all of the hype that is surrounding this anniversary? If this is the way in which we choose to commemorate significant historical events, will the Battle of Vimy Ridge receive the same treatment in five years? And if so, will it be to capitalize on the number associated with the anniversary, or will it be to reflect on the true meaning behind the historical importance and implications of the battle?

Yet, there is still hope. Upon reading one of the few articles that focused on the memory of Vimy Ridge, it highlighted the over 5,000 Canadian students who made the journey to Vimy to remember. Perhaps all is not lost. Perhaps there is still a desire out there, by these young people in particular, to keep the memory of important and more importantly the historical significance of events such as this alive in our national narrative. There may be no re-release of a movie in 3D that glorifies this moment in Canadian history and, this may be for the better. Events such as this are not to be glorified, they are to be respectfully remembered. Though they may not get as much coverage as some more ‘popular’ historical events, there are people out there, and in particular young people who are not willing to forget.

There needs to be a shift in the way in which we choose to remember and commemorate. We need to alter our thought process by finding a way to prioritizing our remembrance, not popularize it.

Laura Piticco is completing her MA in Public History at Western University in London, Ontario. Her personal website can be found here. 

By Sean Kheraj

Reposted from the Otter.

Last November, ahead of the House of Commons vote on the elimination of the Canadian Wheat Board purchasing monopsony, the federal Minister of Agriculture, Gerry Ritz, and his provincial cohorts from Alberta and Saskatchewan held a press conference to celebrate the achievement of the federal Conservative Party’s long-held policy objective. Alberta Agriculture Minister, Evan Berger proudly declared that “I believe we are giving back a property right, a freedom of choice, to farmers who make large investments, who have the wherewithal to sell their grain to whomever, whenever, at what price they see fit.” When asked why Stan Struthers, Manitoba’s Agriculture Minister, was absent, Minister Ritz derisively explained that, “Mr. Struthers and his government continue to be mired in the past.” But just what that past is remains unclear in the political and media debate over the fate of the Canadian Wheat Board. History, of course, plays a very significant role in this debate because this is not the first time the Conservative Party has tried to eliminate the Canadian Wheat Board.

In 1920, Prime Minister Arthur Meighen pulled a “mean trick” on Western Canadian farmers by eliminating the Canadian Wheat Board and reinstating the Winnipeg Grain Exchange as the predominant institution of the Canadian grain trade. After four consecutive wheat harvests sold under a state-controlled market, Meighen’s Conservative government sought to restore an open market in wheat which had been suspended since 1917.

In 1917, the government of Robert Borden — Meighen’s predecessor — overrode the open market in wheat by imposing a fixed price under the authority of the newly created Board of Grain Supervisors in an effort to halt the rapidly accelerating growth in wheat prices precipitated by wartime inflation during the Great War. From September 1, 1917 to July 21, 1919, the Board suspended all trading in wheat futures on the Winnipeg Grain Exchange. Wheat acreage grew during the war years in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta from 9.3 million acres in 1914 to 16.1 million acres in 1918 as, according to John Herd Thompson, “[t]he demand of the Allies was primarily for wheat, and the Western farmer rushed to meet this demand.” The Board of Grain Supervisors issued price controls on wheat in order to stabilize the cost of wheat for wartime purposes. [1]

Following the emergency of the Great War, the federal government attempted to return the wheat trade to an open market and permitted the trading of futures on the Winnipeg Grain Exchange on July 21, 1919. Following ten days of frantic trading, speculators had driven the price of wheat up so quickly that Ottawa was compelled to again step in to reduce the inflationary pressure. On July 31, the federal government created the Canadian Wheat Board as the exclusive marketer of prairie wheat, replacing the Board of Grain Supervisors. Unlike the wartime Board, the CWB did not buy and sell wheat at a fixed price. Instead, it bought wheat at a fixed advance and later distributed a proportionate share of any additional funds from the total sales of the crop to Western Canadian farmers. [2]

The first Canadian Wheat Board remained in operation for just one year as an emergency measure to control inflation and limit the escalation of food prices. Farmers, however, saw great value in the high prices and stability afforded by the government marketing system. The Saskatchewan Co-operative Elevator Company passed a resolution at its annual meeting in December 1919 stating “that we favor the national marketing of our grain through a body similar to the Canadian Wheat Board, on which the farmers shall have adequate representation.” While this sentiment was not unanimous among Western Canadian farmers, it was clear that most farmers did not want to return to the open market on the Winnipeg Grain Exchange. [3]

When Meighen thrust farmers back onto the pre-war open market system for the 1921 crop year, farmers were shocked by the sudden drop in prices. According to Dominion Bureau of Statistics records, the average annual price per bushel dropped from $2.51 in 1920 to $1.65 in 1921. While the staggering downward price pressure cannot be solely attributed to the open market system, grain growers were convinced that the abandonment of the CWB had been a mistake. Following disastrous crop years in 1921 and 1922, Western Canadian farmers chose to abandon the open market and by-pass the speculators on the Winnipeg Grain Exchange by establishing co-operative wheat pools. In 1923-24, all three prairie provinces established wheat pools and conducted their pooling activities through a collective Central Selling Agency, which effectively supplanted the speculators on the Winnipeg Grain Exchange. During its years of operation between 1923 and 1931, this collective wheat pool effort then subverted the open market. [4]

From 1931 to 1935, the Canadian wheat trade suffered from the dual environmental and economic disasters of the Great Depression and was highly modified by federal government liquidation and stabilization activities before the re-establishment of the Canadian Wheat Board in 1935 under a voluntary government marketing system. Finally, after more than twenty years of farmer protest and agitation, the monopsony authority of the CWB was restored in 1943 and persisted until 2012, nearly seventy years.

The early history of state-regulated wheat marketing through the Canadian Wheat Board provides crucial perspective on the decision of the federal government in late 2011 to rescind the CWB purchasing monopsony. This history provides several important revelations:

1. Western Canadian farmers have not independently sold wheat on a fully open market as independent sellers since 1922. That market operated for just two years before it was abandoned by many farmers in favour of cooperative wheat pools. This means that there is likely no Canadian with living memory of a truly open wheat market in Western Canada. Furthermore, a sustained open wheat market has not operated in Western Canada for longer than a two year period since before the Great War, nearly a century ago. Therefore, forcing Western Canadian wheat farmers into an open market constitutes a radical economic transformation to a market condition that last existed when the horse was the predominant form of transportation in Canada. Who then is mired in the past?
2. Many prairie farmers preferred government purchasing and marketing of wheat and opposed the decision of the Meighen government to eliminate the Canadian Wheat Board. The CWB system offered stable wheat prices and often higher wheat prices than that which could be obtained through the futures market on the Winnipeg Grain Exchange.
3. The decision of the federal government to rescind the CWB purchasing monopsony does not, in fact, return Western Canadian wheat farmers to a fully open market system because the CWB will continue to operate on a voluntary basis as it did from 1935 to 1943. The current Conservative government has framed its policy shift as an attempt to restore the rights of farmers to act as individual commodity producers, ignoring the history of cooperative wheat pools in the prairies as an alternative to a truly open market. Farmers may choose not to participate independently on the open market and instead choose the path of their predecessors and stay with the government-supported cooperative wheat pool of the CWB. After all, in an open market with many more sellers than buyers, commodity prices will be driven down as sellers compete with one another and profit-driven buyers benefit from a flood of supply.

[1] John Herd Thompson, Harvests of War: The Prairie West, 1914-1918 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1978) 61.

[2] Vernon C. Fowke, The National Policy and the Wheat Economy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973 [1957]), pgs. 171-173.

[3] The Grain Growers’ Guide, 31 December 1919, pg. 8.

[4] Fowke, The National Policy and the Wheat Economy, pgs. 196-197.

This is the first part of a three-part series on the history of the Canadian Wheat Board and the implications of the recent policy changes of the federal government concerning the CWB.

By Shannon Stunden Bower.

Reposted from the Otter.

The current iteration of the Canadian Wheat Board was established in 1935, during a period of regional emergency. Prairie farmers struggled amidst the difficult circumstances created by the twin crises of widespread agricultural drought and the Great Depression. The authority of the Wheat Board was expanded during World War II. In 1965, the Board’s governing legislation was amended to remove any time limit, establishing the Wheat Board as a permanent fixture on the Canadian Prairies.

Permanent until now, that is. Through Bill C-18, which gained assent 15 December 2011, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government eliminated the Wheat Board’s monopsony as the sole buyer of Canadian prairie grain. Those who think like Prime Minister Harper see economic freedom in this move; others fear the elimination of what they see as the advantages the Board offered to Prairie farmers.

While the legislation governing the Board has been amended over the years, the major principles governing its operation have endured through seven decades. As a drastic transformation of the agency takes place, it is perhaps appropriate to review some of the changes in prairie agriculture that have occurred during the agency’s tenure.

The difficulties of the 1930s were a final illustration of some of the mistakes made in the period of prairie settlement, in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Land had been occupied without adequate consideration of its environmental characteristics, and inappropriate agricultural techniques were widespread. On the Canadian Prairies as elsewhere, the conclusion of World War II saw the application of wartime technologies to peacetime pursuits. While the era of industrial agriculture started decades earlier, it was the post-war years that brought the large-scale adoption of new agricultural machinery. Tractors, trucks, and combines became more common, with numbers increasing at a great rate in the period immediately following the war. At the same time, chemicals became more widely available for agricultural purposes, with many prairie farmers adopting pesticides and herbicides with enthusiasm. After decades of expanding in geographical extent, from the mid-20^th century onward, prairie agriculture was changing in character.

A key change was an expansion in the size of farms and a corresponding drop in their number. Fewer farms meant fewer people, as the rural landscape of the prairies became less populous. At the same time, prairie economies were diversifying, even while extractive industries remained key economic motors. Each prairie province found its own path through these changes, with distinctions in political character and economic orientation becoming more pronounced. Indeed, it became more difficult, in this period, to speak in any meaningful way of the prairies as a coherent region.

The prairies of 2012 are quite different from the prairies of 1935. But these changes do not explain the movement to transform the Canadian Wheat Board. Understanding the motivations of those who think like Prime Minister Harper requires reference to another series of events. Explaining the impending transformation of the Wheat Board means paying attention to the rise of neo-liberal economic thinking in Britain and the United States. Neo-liberalism is a political ideology that emphasizes deregulation of the financial sector, retrenchment of the state through privatization, and constraints on the labour movement. It is associated with the leaderships of Margarent Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States. The Canada-US Free Trade Agreement of 1988 and the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994 were Canadian policies in some ways in tune with neoliberalism. Former Alberta Premier Ralph Klein (in power from 1992 to 2006) was among the first Canadian politicians in power to wholeheartedly embrace neoliberalism. Over the past 25 years, neo-liberal ideology has come to seem like commonsense to some in Canada. This has laid the groundwork for an assessment of the Canadian Wheat Board as an intolerable incursion on the economic freedom of prairie farmers.

Over the past seven decades, much has changed on the Canadian prairies. Understanding the transformation of the Canadian Wheat Board, however, means looking beyond the borders of the Prairie Provinces, indeed, even outside the Canadian nation. It is in the context of this wider history that it becomes possible to understand the short title of Bill C-18, the Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act. The Conservative government is here invoking a particular neo-liberal vision of freedom, one that bolsters the individual’s ability to choose at the expense of the community’s capacity to achieve collective gains. Prime Minister Harper’s actions amount to the wholesale application of the international economic logic of neo-liberalism to agriculture on the Canadian prairies. After decades of dramatic regional transformation, this may prove to be the biggest change yet.

This is the second part of a three-part series on the history of the Canadian Wheat Board and the implications of the recent policy changes of the federal government concerning the CWB.

By Merle Massie

Reposted from the Otter.
Wheat. The Golden Crop of the west, what was once the backbone of prairie farms, is facing a new/old future. Perhaps the low-carb diets and labeling of wheat as a potential allergen in food products (bread: may contain wheat!) is tearing into wheat’s popularity and profitability? Not really. World population is growing exponentially, and wheat still packs a commercial punch – it is highly portable, easy to store, and full of potential food energy.

What’s new is the way that western Canadian farmers will market their product to that vast, faceless, hungry world population. The Canadian government, in a move that splits the farm community along viscerally divisive lines, has ended the 70 year monopoly of the Canadian Wheat Board.

Critics and proponents of the Wheat Board – in letters to editors of various national, regional, and special interest newspapers, in blog posts, in corporate press releases, in political speeches, and in small-town coffee shops and cold hockey arenas – spent the fall of 2011 in a flurry of decisions, court injunctions, and media manipulation.

Just search ‘Canadian Wheat Board’ in your internet search engine under ‘news’, and you can spend the rest of the day viewing both sides of the discussion. You’ll see everything from erudite and precise legalese to the kinds of words associated with all-out barroom brawls.

The most divisive spread seems to be political: a Conservative government has made no bones about its intention to dismantle the CWB, and has been attempting to do so (and has been both thwarted and supported) since 2006. Legal battles abound; constitutionality has become both an issue and a potential crisis.

What, you might ask, is the Canadian Wheat Board, and what was its purpose? The short answer is, the CWB was essentially a single desk grain buyer for all of the wheat and most of the barley grown in western Canada (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and the Peace River region of British Columbia). The CWB in turn acted as a marketing agent on the world market.

From the farmgate perspective, it worked like this: you grew wheat on contract with the Canadian Wheat Board. When you delivered it to the elevator (no matter which one), you received an initial payment and your wheat went into a particular ‘pool’ depending on the date you brought it in, the type of grain (hard red spring wheat, durum, etc.) and its grade. That initial payment was guaranteed by the federal government, which provided base financing until the Wheat Board was able to sell the grain to a buyer. Interim and final payments would bring the farmer’s total to 100% (minus, of course, selling fees, elevation and freight fees, and other check-offs).

If you were a farmer in Ontario or Quebec, or elsewhere, you were not required to sell to the Canadian Wheat Board. And therein lies the sting: why is there a double standard? Are western Canadian farmers such poor marketers that they require a single desk seller to market their collective product?

So, Bill C-18, “An Act to reorganize the Canadian Wheat Board and to make consequential and related amendments to certain Acts”, otherwise known as the “Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act” passed the now-majority Conservative Parliament and was given royal assent on December 15^th, 2011. The CWB will cease to operate as a single desk buyer for western cereal crops on August 1^st, 2012 – just before the next harvest begins.

From the farmgate, the question swings into a whole new dimension: what now?

The CWB still exists; and, for the next five years, its pooling prices will be guaranteed by the federal government. What was once a single desk, though, now has to compete on the open market – and it won’t be an even playing field. With no elevators, terminals, or grain handling facilities, the CWB is busy ‘negotiating’ with grain companies to allow it room to manoeuver. Grain companies, delighted with the CWB’s changed status, expect higher profits — now might be a good time to buy shares in Cargill and Viterra. Yet, profits for private companies irk the farm community and push farmer’s trust back onto the CWB (even in its new, untested format).

The CWB has another option for reinventing itself. A revised suite of marketing programs, which addresses forward planning, hedging, and professional crop sales advisory roles, has been introduced. If the new order works out, the CWB could potentially expand to marketing oilseeds and pulses, as well as grains. But they have competition: marketing advisors are popping up everywhere, promising to sell your grain profitably. And some will no doubt be successful.

Around the kitchen table at our farm, we’re planning our next crop year, but with wary eyes in all directions. Contracts being offered from grain companies sound good, but they don’t have enough information on prairie shipping premiums, foreign exchange, or grade dockage. We forward contract canola, but wheat – with its increased risks due to frost, pests, wet years, dry years, hail, and a myriad of other environmental issues – is a tough crop to predict with any degree of confidence. Signing a contract promising to deliver no. 1 wheat is an incredible risk.

So, uncertainty reigns. And, it will for at least another eighteen months, until the new system works itself through one full crop year, and farmers have a chance to analyze their options in full.

This is the third part of a three-part series on the history of the Canadian Wheat Board and the implications of the recent policy changes of the federal government concerning the CWB.

For more, see Merle’s website: http://merlemassie.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/canadian-wheat-board/

By David Zylberberg, PhD Candidate, Department of History, York University

Last week the Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services, chaired by Don Drummond, released its much anticipated report. Despite the numerous useful suggestions and rethinking of health-care delivery, this report feels like a missed opportunity. Commissions to fundamentally rethink what services governments provide and how they are delivered do not happen every decade. As such, they are unique opportunities to redesign administrative structures and improve services.

The most famous such commission was the Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Social Insurance and Allied Services, commissioned by the British government in 1941 and chaired by William Beveridge. The Beveridge Report was released in December 1942 advocating a comprehensive system of social insurance to protect Britons from want, “disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness” (6).  Its proposals included a national program of Social Insurance to help poor people, a National Health Care System, Old Age Pensions and benefits for disabled people.

This was done in trying circumstances as the report was commissioned a year after Britain had been nearly invaded and while it continued to be at war against a much larger power with only its former colonies as allies. The Committee deliberated while German tanks advanced through the Soviet Union and its final report was presented during the Battle of Stalingrad, a point when the defeat of its main ally seemed likely and its own invasion possible.

The Beveridge Report’s proposals were implemented between 1945 and 1950, a point in which the British government’s fiscal situation was much worse than Ontario’s currently is. The government owed a massive debt to the United States that was incurred to fund the war, required exports to be one-third larger than imports to meet its debt payments and had converted most of its consumer manufacturing to military needs during the war. Given what the Beveridge Report proposed and Atlee government did, Drummond could have proposed more.

The Drummond report was commissioned by premier Dalton McGuinty in June 2011 with a mandate to evaluate all of Ontario’s public services and report back upon how they could be improved, while balancing the budget by 2017-18 without proposing tax increases. The Report has been widely discussed across the province, but most of the attention has dealt with either the responses of party leaders or the proposal to charge for parking at commuter train stations in suburban Toronto.

In 2010-2011, the Ontario government ran a budget deficit of $16.7 billion, while forecasting medium-term economic growth that looks overly optimistic given the long-running decline of southern Ontario’s manufacturing sector. This limits the provincial government’s fiscal options and shapes the challenge presented to Drummond and his assistants. Given the mandate of balancing the budget without raising taxes in a period of limited economic growth, this report was always going to produce some controversy.

Its guiding principles of seeking to improve the efficiency and quality of services are admirable and should be generally practiced by governments. By avoiding the following five practices, it has also produced a better set of recommendations than the austerity measures being practiced by most American states and European nations. Drummond seeks to “not simply cut costs” and to “avoid across-the-board cuts,” “avoid setting targets for the size of the civil service,” “not rely unduly on hiring freezes and attrition to reduce the size of the civil service,” “not hang onto public assets or public service delivery when better options exist” and “not resort to traditional short-term fixes” (12).

Most of the specific recommendations are also reasonable and will improve the quality of Ontario government services if implemented. A greater focus on public health and the lifestyles of Ontarians will save the health care system money and improve the quality of life, especially since such factors are much more significant to a person’s health than medical care (155). Similarly, increasing home-based care for elderly Ontarians (recommendation 5-4), sharing of records between health care providers (5-35) and taking advantage of the skills of highly trained nurse practitioners and pharmacists (5-18, 5-21, 5-24) should improve the quality of the health care system while lowering costs. Following the examples of other provinces on successful reforms is also a good step (5-81, 5-100).

There are also good recommendations in other sectors. Closing some facilities for young offenders when all are operating at below capacity following changes in sentencing policy over the last decade is an obvious cost-saving measure (8-16). Other obvious suggestions include reducing the number of departments responsible for environmental and natural resource regulation to prevent inaction from competing jurisdictions (13-2, 13-7), increasing the number of skilled immigrants who arrive in the province (10-1 through 10-7), ending outdated business support grants after 2013 to prevent them becoming perpetual subsidies (11-6), transferring offenders serving sentences over 6 months to federal penitentiaries so they can receive better rehabilitative programs (14-10), as well as measures to clamp down on contraband tobacco (18-3), limit the ability of businesses to hide income in other jurisdictions (18-1) and ensure the collection of fines (18-10 through 18-13).

However, I would like to focus on its recommendations for post-secondary education. The report makes some suggestions to improve the Ontario Student Assistance Program and for ensuring that private career colleges whose students qualify for loans actually teach effectively (7-14, 7-19 through 7-25). Otherwise, it focusses on improving the quality of teaching in universities and through modifying the tenure system to reward excellent teaching. Encouraging better teaching is a noble sentiment and the current promotion system does not always encourage it. However, most professors in Ontario Universities care deeply about their teaching, do a good job of it and the best researchers are also often the best teachers.

Drummond proposes increasing post-secondary funding by 1.5% per year, while noting that “Enrolment is expected to grow by an average of 1.7 per cent per year through 2017–18. Already, such rapid expansion, combined with the lowest funding levels in Canada, has undermined quality — more sessional instructors, larger classes and less contact with professors” (33).Yet the rest of the report does not address those fundamental factors which have a much larger impact on the quality of teaching than the small extent to which the current tenure system may encourage professors to not care about their teaching commitments. When an institution like York University has fewer full-time faculty members in its Arts and Professional Studies faculties than it did 35 years ago, despite enrolment more than doubling and tuition rising substantially faster than inflation or professorial salaries, there are clearly potential areas to substantially improve Ontario’s already good universities. (See York University’s  most recent factbook)

Other areas of university budgests are only minimally addressed by Drummond. Recommendation 7-30 calls on the provincial government to “Cease funding for international marketing of Ontario’s universities and integrate it into existing trade mission activities. Universities, colleges and the federal government already invest in these activities.” Yet it does not recommend the elimination of the domestic marketing budgets that have grown while faculty numbers have not. Even one extra professor in a classroom is much more useful to the essential purpose of universities than any number of advertisements on busses.

The other major recommendations for post-secondary education involve better differentiating the roles between institutions. These are mentioned in recommendations 7-4 through 7-7, which emphasize the different roles of colleges and universities. These include colleges not creating any new degree programs and differentiating between universities so that “not every institution needs to become a comprehensive research university” (246-247).Such a differentiation would require faculty having different teaching loads at different types of universities. This may be necessary to improve the quality of education at Ontario universities while restricting the growth of costs. However, it remains part of a focus on the compensation of faculty and the tenure system rather than the areas where increasingly large amounts of university resources are being spent.

Discussing the current administration of universities or whether their large autonomy from each other is conducive to meeting the fundamental objectives of teaching and research would have been more radical. But it might also have led to substantial improvements in the efficiency and quality of our institutions. Given that such reports do not occur frequently, by not dealing with those aspects an opportunity was missed to improve Ontario universities without increasing overall costs.