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Seizing Canada’s Past: Politics and the Reinvention of Canadian History

May 17, 2012

The federal government’s latest round of “austerity”cuts threaten to undermine Canadian history research and limit the capacity of the public to know this country’s past. While the recent federal budget slashes funding for Library and Archives Canada, Canadian studies programs, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, it also redirects funds for history research into the political control of individual ministers. Within the Conservative Party of Canada’s ideological agenda to reduce the role of government in the lives of Canadians lies a contradictory policy initiative for direct cabinet control over the financing, research, and production of knowledge about Canadian history.

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What’s Wrong With Celebrating the War of 1812?

May 16, 2012
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This is the third 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 Ian McKay and Jamie Swift Warmonger politicians customarily indulge in high rhetoric, attempting to rally the citizenry round the flag [...]

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McGill’s Conclusions on its Ties to the Asbestos Industry: A Historian’s Response

May 14, 2012

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 [...]

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Who Is A Founder? A Look at the Origins of the Canadian Environmental Movement

May 10, 2012

By Ryan O’Connor One of the challenges I confronted while researching my dissertation was figuring out who the founders were of Toronto’s pioneering environmentalist organizations. This might sound like a simple task, but records of this sort are often difficult to find. Sometimes the records that exist present a one-sided story. In Front Row Centre: [...]

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Upper Canadian War Resisters in the War of 1812

May 9, 2012
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This is the second 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 Jonathan Seiling It is widely recognized that many Upper Canadians did not demonstrate utmost loyalty toward the British Crown on the [...]

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Mad Men and Wonder Years: history, nostalgia, and life in The Sixties

May 7, 2012

By Jay Young Like many people, I anticipated the return of Mad Men (AMC, Sundays, 10 pm EST), one of television’s most acclaimed series of the past decade.  Now in its fifth season, the show looks at the life of Don Draper and other workers in the New York advertising industry during the 1960s. At [...]

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Tecumseh Lies Here

May 2, 2012
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Tecumseh Lies Here is an augmented reality game developed by faculty and students at the University of Western Ontario.

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A spectre is haunting Europe…

April 30, 2012

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. [...]

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Sludge, Bugs, and Sturgeon Fry: Corporate Growth, Environmental Health and Sturgeon Populations on the Winnipeg River

April 26, 2012
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By Brittany Luby, PhD Candidate, York University While I was growing up near the Winnipeg River, sturgeon was not part of our local diet. Given the high levels of mercury – the result of industrial dumping practices and the release of organic mercury from rotting flooded vegetation – Dad limited the size of our locally [...]

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Real Time Climate Change: Farm Diaries and Phenology in Prince Edward Island

April 24, 2012
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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, [...]

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