Photo by Gerry Lauzon

At the end of last week, the Quebec government tabled Bill 78 in an effort to end the months of protest over planned hikes to university tuition. The bill sets restrictions on the freedom of assembly and expression, requiring those in protests over 50 people to ascertain that the protest has been officially sanctioned by police and government officials.  The bill also holds student associations, unions and their leaders accountable for the actions of their membership. The biggest problem with the law, like most draconian measures, is that it is vague in its definition of illegal activity and harsh on punishment.  Not surprisingly, countless groups – including some that disagree with the tuition-based protest – have voiced their opposition to it, culminating in a mass demonstration on Tuesday in Montreal.  Below is a translated version of an open letter, written by many of Quebec’s leading historians in reaction to the government’s bill.  It is followed by brief summaries of the posts related to this issue published by our francophone partner site, HistoireEngagee.ca.

Here is the letter:

“In the silence of rejection, the chains of the slave and the voice of the whistleblower are no longer heard.  All tremble before the tyrant.  It is as dangerous to encourage their favour as merit their disgrace.  The historian is charged with the people’s vengeance.  It is in vain that Nero prospers, for Tacitus has already been born into the empire.” – François-René de Chateaubriand, Mémoires d’outre-tombe.

As professors and historians who, alongside others, have documented Quebec’s political history, we affirm that we have rarely seen the government commit as blatant an assault on the fundamental rights underpinning Quebec society.

The rights to free expression, to protest, and to assemble are at the heart of our democracy.  These civil and political rights determine our belonging and participation within the life of our political community.  From the struggle of the Patriots during the 1830s to that of the union movement during the Quiet Revolution, these rights were at the heart of our province’s historical transformation; they were central to the fights of women, Aboriginal people and others for political recognition. Our political regime cannot fully claim to be a democracy without the rights enshrined in the Charters.  Democracy requires that citizens have the capacity to exercise their rights.  This is the foundation of law in this country and the primary objective of political struggles since the beginning of the parliamentary system.

The student movement, by its actions over the past three months, has merely taken up the mantle of this democratic heritage. It is unbearable to watch a government using undemocratic practices in response to these protests. The principal function of a democratic state is to guarantee its citizens their rights and freedoms.

Worst of all is the government’s more recent act, Bill 78.  According to the President of the Quebec Bar, this act calls into question the primacy of the rule of law in conflict resolution.  Indeed, in its current form, Bill 78 clearly limits the right of all citizens to peaceful protest. It severely curtails the academic freedoms within the university.  It suspends legitimate legal recourse and reverses the burden of proof by making student associations and unions responsible for the acts committed by others. Finally, it severely penalizes citizens, student associations and unions who do not comply with the provisions of this exceptional law.

In its current form, Bill 78 is a wicked and infamous law.  We call on all those in this country who care about our fundamental political freedoms to mobilize against this aggressive act against our rights and liberties.

This letter has been translated for the benefit of English readers.  I have tried to stick as closely to the original intent of the letter.  To see the original visit: http://histoireengagee.ca/lactualite-en-debat-une-loi-scelerate-et-une-infamie/

**********

Histoire Engagée has covered these protests in fairly thorough detail.  Below is a brief summary of each of their posts.

Why World Class Universities? And who are they for? By Martin Lavallée (May 2)

• In this post Martin Lavallée asks what the Charest government means when it states that tuition must be increased in order for Quebec to have ‘world class’ universities. Finding this term poorly defined in government discourse, he sets out to establish how the government defines this term. Referring to a 2009 World Bank report, Lavallée suggests that the ‘world class’ university is one that targets research that usefully fuels a knowledge economy rather than humanist development.  By the terms set out by the World Bank, universities that are truly world class are primarily English language institutions that focus on technical and technological knowledge. The question underlying these debates is whether les Quebecois support this shift in emphasis.

The Three Braves and the 1958 Student Strike: An Interview with Francine Laurendeau. By Maurice Demers, Annie Poulin, and Pascal Scallon-Chouinard (May 1)

• Daughter of the well-known intellectual and politician André Laurendeau, Francine Laurendeau had a prolific career as a journalist, host and director with Radio-Canada.  Along with Bruno Meloche and Jean-Pierre Goyer, she played an important role in the 1958 student strike, the first student strike in the history of Quebec. For months, those Three Braves had the audacity to aspire to meet with Premier Maurice Duplessis in order to deliver a report written by the striking students. The Premier never acquiesced to meet with “children”. They are the subject of the National Film Board’s L’histoire des Trois.  In this interview she discusses the events in 1958, their impact on her life and Quebec society, as well as their relationship to the current student strike in Quebec.

The Student Strike in the Middle Ages and the Emancipation of the Universities. By Anthony Oddo (April 9)

• Oddo presents an interesting post on the struggle over the intellectual, social and cultural nature of education in 13^th century Paris.  The university, he argues, was formed based on a covenant between the tutor and their students. This privileged relationship often caused tension between scholars, the public, ecclesiastic and royal authorities, leading to both students and faculty boycotting their universities. Although the historical context was radically different, Oddo’s piece demonstrates that the defense of university autonomy, the bond between students and professors and a focus on the common good have been recurring tensions over the centuries.

On Tuition… Again: When one strike hides another. By Louise Bienvenue and Pierre Hébert (April 6)

• Here Bienvenue and Hébert look at Quebec’s recent past, suggesting that the roots of the current situation can be found in a chain of events that began with cutbacks in 1995.  A series of reductions in the university sector led to both government and corporate intervention in university administration. Increased attention to management and performance – demanded by these two broad influences – has led to division between teaching and research, as well as a giant ballooning of university bureaucracy (promotion, development and recruitment). They suggest that these are the central issues that must be discussed in order to properly address the current situation.

A Statement from the Masters and Doctoral students at the University of Sherbrooke about the Debate over Tuition Fee Increases. (April 3)

• This statement from the graduate students at the University of Sherbrooke suggests that the strike represents a debate over the role of education in Quebec society.  They express their support for the strike, suggesting that accessibility to higher education has a direct link to the health and vitality of Quebec society.

Student Free Speech, a Victory Threatened. By Karine Hébert and Julien Goyette (April 2)

• This post looks at student societies from the end of 19^th century until the present.  It notes that up until the Second World War, university students (mostly men) were perceived by both themselves and others as the elite, focused on maintaining the status quo. But by mid-century, due to World Wars and the Great Depression, this group began to conceive of itself as a specific generation and social class that situated itself within a broader provincial and global context, focusing on issues such as liberalism, feminism and socialism. This latter vision of youth culture, the authors argue, was responsible for setting the agenda of the student movement since the 1950s. Today that student voice risks being overwhelmed by the noises of individualism and economics, allowing the government to ignore the student movement and refuse to negotiate.  This path risks a return to the earlier period.

A Brief Look at the History of the Quebec Student Movement to Enrich the Debate over the Student Strike. By Mauricio Correa (March 29)

• In this post Correa draws parallels between the current student strike and the debates that took place over similar issues in the 1950s and 1960s. The piece situates the current strikes in the context of the gains students made in the mid-twentieth century. He argues that current government proposals threaten to reverse the changes brought about by these earlier protests.  Like the striking students in Chile and Colombia, the student movement wants to assure that Quebec’s universities remain autonomous, accessible and state financed. He also compares student action during both events and warns that the students were more united in the 1950s and 1960s.  Although the current student strike has the potential of being very successful, disunity within the student movement risks compromising their goals.

Marching and Angry: The Mobilization of Students and Access to Higher Education in Quebec, 1958 to 2012.  By Martin Paquet

• This is a lecture recorded in February 2012 at Laval University.  Here Paquet discusses the stakes, successes, failures and impact of the student movement in Quebec.

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 and boost the bloodletting. Or when invoking the glories of past wars. The War of 1812 was no exception.

Those who witness war’s gruesome reality often remember things differently, as do many historians.

“It would be a useful lesson to cold-blooded politicians, who calculate on a war costing so many lives and so many limbs as they would on a horse costing so many pounds,” wrote embittered battlefield surgeon William ‘Tiger’ Dunlop, “to witness such a scene, if only for one hour.”

In his 1847 memoir of Upper Canada, Dunlop recalled treating the wounded, often by amputation. The scene he recommended to callous statesmen unfolded in the withering heat of the ramshackle Butler’s Barracks at Fort George, down the Niagara River from Queenston Heights. Flies lighted on the wounded, depositing their eggs so quickly that “maggots were bred in a few hours, producing dreadful irritation…..”

Dunlop worked 48 hours straight before literally falling asleep on his feet. One of the 220 wounded he came upon in a single morning was a gray-haired American farmer whose wife had helped him to struggle across to the enemy side, seeking treatment under a flag of truce. She was a “respectable elderly woman,” her husband either a militia man or a camp follower. She held his head in her lap as he slowly expired.

“O that the King and the President were both here this moment to see the misery their quarrels lead to,” Dunlop recalled her moaning. “They surely would never go to war without a cause that they could give as a reason to God on the last day, for thus destroying the creatures he has made in his own image.”

Dunlop, later a prominent politician and magistrate remembered the military incompetence of poorly planned deployment of medical men like himself as “one of the many blunders of this blundering war.”

Two hundred years later Canada’s Prime Minister remembers the War of 1812 as “the beginning of a long and proud military history in Canada.” Stephen Harper has decided to commemorate the War of 1812 with a $28 million heritage extravaganza, selling what Pierre Berton called a “bloody and senseless conflict” to the citizenry for the simple reason that it was a war. That’s because Harper and his New Warrior supporters among historians, journalists and sundry militarists are attempting to establish war as the pith and essence of all Canadian history.

Military metaphysics, the presentation of war in a pleasing and glorious fashion, are a mere prelude to sure-to-be-much-bigger-and-more-glorious commemorations in the next few years.  The centenary of World War I looms large in the minds of militarists and the far right as they set about priming Canadians for the celebration of Vimy and all the rest. It will romanticize that ghastly spasm of ineptitude in the service of a “Birth of a Nation” story, all the while airbrushing out its incalculable costs.

The celebration of the War of 1812 will cost Ottawa $28 million – enough to operate its recently eliminated Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory for eighteen years. But the New Warrior government has its priorities, among them underlining the importance of yet another milestone in the history of barbarity.

According to Stephen Harper, or more likely one of his hirelings, the war helped establish Canada’s “path toward becoming an independent and free country…. The heroic efforts of Canadians then helped define who we are today, what side of the border we live on, and which flag we salute.”

This though there was no such thing as Canada at the time. The famously undefended border has become a militarized “security perimeter.” And few Canadians are known to indulge in patriotic displays of flag-waving.

No matter. In 2012 Canada is being treated to sanitized glorifications and events designed to attract tourists. In early June the anniversary of the Battle of Stoney Creek will bring scores of re-enactors to suburban Hamilton. There will be music, costumes, games, readings and tours. And certainly musket fire.

It is uncertain whether New York historian Douglas DeCroix’s summary of the dust-up at Stoney Creek will feature in the festivities. The battle, he explained, was “in many ways representative of the War of 1812 in microcosm. The American commanders are captured. The British commander gets lost in the woods. The Americans are technically defeated but retain the field. The British are victorious but they retreat.”

Such is not the message being peddled by Ottawa. Nor will we be reminded how profoundly the British double-crossed their crucial allies. Although Tecumseh is celebrated as a hero, the fact that First Nations  people were the war’s real losers tends to be downplayed. After 1814, with the Treaty of Ghent in which the British negotiators betrayed the native claims, the First Nations came to be treated as “Wards of the State,” not separate entities. And the dream of a kind of native-controlled polity in the heart of North America — to which the British had given their tentative support — was gone for good.

What remains is the war’s curious paradox – reflected in New Warrior attempts to commemorate the American invasion and the violence it provoked. This became clear in early 2003 as a surge of protest against the impending American invasion of another country  had culminated in the largest demonstrations in the history of the world.

Just as American and British troops rolled into Iraq, right-wing zealots in the Niagara region organized a “Canadians for Bush” rally, picking an odd spot for their modest get together — Brock’s Monument at Queenston. The irony seemed lost on the prominent politicians who attended. They included Ontario cabinet ministers Jim Flaherty and Tim Hudak as well as former Canadian Alliance leader and prime ministerial candidate Stockwell Day.

Day’s new boss, Stephen Harper, really did want Canada to follow George W. Bush into a war that would, as so many were predicting at the time, turn into a murderous and catastrophic blunder.

Harper had told a similar, Their-Country-Right-Or-Wrong rally in Toronto that he supported “the liberation of the people of Iraq. Let us pledge today, that in the future, when our American and British friends and our friends around the world take on the cause of freedom and democracy, we will never again allow ourselves to be isolated.”

Pierre Berton, the most successful popularizer of the Canadian story and a notable chronicler of his country’s wars, concluded his two-volume history of the War of 1812 by pointing out that “Political and military leaders constantly used the clichés of warfare to justify bloodshed and rampage. Words like honour…liberty…independence…freedom were dragged out to rally the troops, most of whom, struggling to save their skins, knew them to be empty.”

Warrior Nation: Rebranding Canada in an Age of Anxiety, by Ian McKay and Jamie Swift, explores these themes in considerable depth. It will be published by Between The Lines Press in May.  Special thanks to Elliot Hanowski.

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.

"Pollution" (2008) by Bob August. Licensed under Creative Commons.

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: A Perspective on Life, Politics and the Environment, former alderman Tony O’Donohue makes reference to his founding of the Group Action to Stop Pollution (GASP) in 1967. While O’Donohue makes the organization sound like a solo creation, an ensuing conversation with James Bacque, the former chief editor at Macmillan Company of Canada, lawyer Joseph Sheard, and their spouses led to a claim that GASP’s genesis occurred during a meeting in Sheard’s living room. To the best of their knowledge, O’Donohue was not at this meeting. All of the aforementioned attended the group’s public launch in December 1967. The following month saw the creation of GASP as a legal entity. The accompanying document was signed by Bacque, Sheard, and three others. So, who are the founders? Would it be the people present when the idea of forming an anti-pollution group was first proposed? Would it be the people attached to the organization when it made its public debut? Or would it be the people who signed the group’s legal charter?

For some, this may seem trivial. That said, this is a country where a small but vocal segment of the population believes Louis Riel deserves to be recognized as a Father of Confederation, even though he did not attend any one of the Charlottetown, Quebec, or London conferences that led to the creation of Canada.

The group at the centre of my dissertation is Pollution Probe, Canada’s first high profile environmental activist organization. Over the years, many of Pollution Probe’s early members have risen to prominent positions elsewhere within the movement. Some have cited themselves as founders of the organization even though they did not join until several months after it began operations. Further confusing the matter is the fact that a small number of its members were officially recognized by the organization as “founders” several years ago. One person that was recognized as such later told me that she was not involved with Pollution Probe until autumn 1970. (Pollution Probe held its first meetings in spring 1969.) As she explained, “I was credited with being there earlier because I think they wanted to say that there were more women involved …. It was a politically correct move to call me a founder.”

The most evident case of historical revisionism within Canada’s environmentalist community is that of Greenpeace. As it turns out, two of the organization’s former members have seen their status as founders publicly renounced. Greenpeace evolved out of the Don’t Make A Wave Committee (DMAWC), which was created to oppose nuclear testing in the Aleutian Islands. In 1971 a crew supported by DMAWC loaded onto a chartered vessel, the Phyllis Cormack, with the goal of sailing into the test site. Traditionally, members of DMAWC and the environmentalists aboard the Phyllis Cormack have been recognized as Greenpeace’s founders. However, Patrick Moore, one of the latter, has noted that various branches of the organization have written him out of their history.  Paul Watson, who was involved in DMAWC as well as the Aleutian campaign as a member of the shore crew, had also been recognized as one of the founders of Greenpeace.  However, in recent times Watson, like Moore, has been stripped of this recognition. According to Moore, Greenpeace is distancing itself from him due to his outspoken support for nuclear energy. Watson, on the other hand, was voted off of the Greenpeace board of directors in 1977, and has since then denounced the corporatization of the organization while adopting more radical tactics in his own work. Recognition as founders of Greenpeace, and the credibility this provides, is a valuable commodity for Moore and Watson. However, it appears that Greenpeace wishes to deny this to figures whose views it disagrees with.

Who, then, is a founder? The definition is up for debate, and apparently varies from organization to organization. That said, two things are clear. Being a founder has inherent value, and there are people who want to control who receives this recognition. It is the historian’s job to be aware of this and to prevent a Big Brother-styled rewrite of the past.

Ryan O’Connor is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at Trent University. A historian of Canada’s environmental movement, he maintains a research blog at www.thegreatgreennorth.com.  You can follow him on Twitter: @ryaneoconnor

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 Christine McLaughlin

This past weekend I gathered with thousands of protestors at Queen’s Park who were demonstrating against pending public service cuts and wage freezes in Ontario. Spun in some quarters as a protest by organized labour, the crowd contained a multitude of groups. Many in the crowd wore “We Are Ontario” stickers, a coalition of ninety groups aiming to present a “common front” against austerity measures in the province. This is not the first attempt in Canada to unify workers and public service advocates under a unified banner. Past attempts offer important lessons for current efforts to build similar movements.

The nascent “We Are Ontario” movement held its first general assembly 20 April 2012, the day before the rally and march at Queen’s Park. All were welcome – I was able to walk in off the street and register. The meeting brought together activists to discuss the formation and future of the movement; focus groups explored strategy and ideas for local and provincial action. The draft mission statement of the group is: “to bring together groups, organizations, and individuals across Ontario that are working to expose growing inequality and propose workable solutions to fix it; to support local campaigns with provincial coordination and resources; to garner media attention in local communities through highlighting the negative fall-out of the cuts, and always providing an alternative; to move the Ontario government to adopt policies and legislation that create greater economic and social justice for everyone.

Following an introduction and group discussions at the Assembly, an organizational structure was proposed, leading to some debate. Presented as an “equal partnership” between labour and the community, it was suggested that the steering committee be made up of 3 co-chairs from the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) and 3 co-chairs from community organizations. In addition, the steering committee would be comprised of 6 representatives from community organizations with a provincial presence and 6 representatives of labour organizations, along with one First Nations representative and five representatives from equity-seeking groups. This proposed structure aims to provide an equal balance of power between labour and community groups.

This begs the question of when labour and community became two separate and distinct groups. Are not most of us both workers and members of several communities? Can we not embrace several identities simultaneously? Can I not be a worker, trade unionist, member of a political party, a woman, equity-seeking, a student, an activist working with several groups in my community, to name just a few?

This divide between labour and community is concerning on another level. Historically, playing on such divides has been a key method in defeating such movements. Bryan Palmer’s “The Rise and Fall of British Columbia’s Solidarity” provides a fitting analogy.  History never repeats itself in exactly the same way, but avoiding its mistakes can certainly be a progressive step forward.

The Solidarity Crisis in BC began in 1983 when the Social Credit government struck against public sector unionism, cutting public services in the process (despite minimal savings and an actual government spending increase of 12%). Resistance to this culminated in the Solidarity Coalition; structurally, two distinct steering committees and assemblies divided community and labour, with organized labour forming the more powerful Operation Solidarity. Given its greater economic resources, Operation Solidarity held much more power in the movement.

After building up a mass movement around 26 pieces of legislation affecting workers, the dispossessed, the disabled, tenants, and so on, a gentleman’s agreement on two bills that largely affected unionized workers between the premier and labour leadership facilitated the collapse of a mass movement. As attacks on labour and workers rights continued in the wake of this agreement, the wedge between “community” and “labour” proved too wide to cross.

Splitting labour and community in half made it easier to play one side against the other. This offered the opportunity to destroy a mass movement showing signs of real political power.

The language of the Occupy movement and the 99% has been employed in “We Are Ontario” circles. But the Occupy movement practiced organic, grassroots democracy wherein an established leadership was difficult to locate, and anyone was welcome to participate on equal footing. With a top-down, artificial, structural 50/50 divide between community and labour, can it really be said that “We Are Ontario”? Will these divisions leave the movement vulnerable to collapse? The future remains to be seen, but avoiding a repeat of past mistakes may well be a progressive step forward.

by Mike Commito

Titanic at the docks (Wikipedia Commons)

This week marks the 100^th anniversary of the sinking of the luxury ocean liner, R.M.S. Titanic. The vessel was on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City when it struck an iceberg on the night of 14 April 1912, sinking in the early hours of the morning.

The ship was supposed to make history through its luxury, power, and efficiency. However, after fatally colliding with the iceberg, it still made history but in a much more profound and unintended way. The incident resulted in the deaths of 1,517 people, making it one of the worst maritime disasters on record. Moreover, it was a watershed moment in human history: it highlighted the limitations of technology and the idea of human infallibility. But it also spurred a memory industry that has continued to re-remember the ship and its fateful night in April 1912.

As the centennial anniversary of this event approaches, we will be bombarded by television specials and radio spots that commemorate its history. Most notably, James Cameron’s blockbuster and Academy Award winning film, Titanic (1997), was re-released on the silver screen on 4 April 2012, enhanced and in 3D format. In addition, the M.S. Balmoral recently set sail from Southhampton on 8 April as part of Miles Morgan Travel’s promotional Titanic Memorial Cruises for the month of April. The Balmoral and another ship scheduled to depart on 10 April will both replicate the Titanic’s maiden voyage albeit with a few minor adjustments to compensate for technological improvements. Tempting fate or paying homage in a peculiar way?

As an historian I am curious about the ways in which the Titanic has been remembered by different groups and individuals over time. French philosopher and sociologist Maurice Halbwachs has argued that there is not only individual memory, but also group or collective memory. Furthermore, the collective memory of a group is dependent upon the framework to which that group is exposed and how they are situated in society.  Consequently, there is, as Halbwachs wrote, “no memory without perception.” For many of my generation, it is probable that Cameron’s film was our first exposure to the catastrophe and may have been critical in generating interest in the history of Titanic. However, some have argued that the film is historically inaccurate and thus should not be viewed as a piece of historical media. Perhaps, but the film has engrained itself into our collective memory.  Bad acting aside, it has been significant in shaping our perceptions of the historical event. Besides, numerous Titanic­ inspired books, films, and other artifacts over the years have challenged the notion of historical authenticity.

German artist Willy Stöwer created one of the first visual representations of the event in 1912 with his painting, Titanic Sinking. Although iconic, the work contains a few noteworthy errors, such as the inclusion of numerous large icebergs in the background and smoke billowing from the ship’s fourth funnel.

Willy Stower, Titanic Sinking, 1912 (Wikipedia Commons)

In reality, Titanic only had three operational funnels, with a fourth dummy funnel erected to make it appear that it was on par with the speed and power of rival ships, the R.M.S. Lusitania and Mauretania, both of which had four operational funnels. Yet, it is still one of Stöwer’s most widely circulated and famous works. Since no photographs of the sinking exist, artistic renderings of the ship’s demise were the most powerful way for people to visualize an unfathomable tragedy.

In 1955, Walter Lord published A Night to Remember, a book that is still regarded by many as the definitive source about the ship and the sinking. Three years later, it was adapted for the silver screen, bearing the same title, and is still regarded by some as the most accurate Titanic film – including Cameron’s. Yet, Roy Ward Baker, the film’s director, depicts the ship sinking in one piece.  While we know today this is inaccurate, it was unknown at the time.  Robert Ballard did not discover the wreck of the ship until 1985; before then, it was unclear  if the ship had broken in two. Even so, does it matter that the above-mentioned painting and film are not entirely historically accurate? Do we as historians have to pass judgments on historical representations outside the academy? I do not believe that the historian is the ultimate arbiter of history, and therefore efforts spent policing the commemoration of Titanic or other events would be a futile exercise. After all, these representations are already part of the collective memory of our generation and those before us. The long-term viability of these paintings, books, and films has demonstrated their significance, and are therefore no less important than the works of historians.

People have also commemorated the Titanic in much more bizarre ways in recent years through the production of memorabilia. Some of these representations might be a little less tasteful than others, but it does not necessarily mean they are less important in the construction of how we remember Titanic. More importantly, with the increasing importance of global online commerce, many of these representations have allowed Titanic to transcend books and cinema.

Individuals unsatisfied with Roy Ward Baker’s or James Cameron’s big screen sinkings can actually order a giant inflatable slide that is supposed to recreate the final moments of the disaster, when the ship’s stern broke apart from the main haul before plunging into the Atlantic. Anyone looking to plan a party in April can order from the slide from Party USA. But if you really want to break the ice at your next party you should order the Gin & Titonic ice cube set from Fred & Friend’s.  Rather than chilling your drinks with standard cubes, the moulds give you the option of either sinking ocean liners or icebergs into your drink of choice.

Titanic slide (Party USA)

Gin & Titonic ice cube set (Amazon.com)

Instead of spending your money on Titanic themed party novelties, you could save up with a piggybank from Amazon that comes in the shape of a skull of a former R.M.S. Titanic sailor. A great way to teach your children the value of savings and ensure they develop an aversion to maritime travel.

Titanic skull piggybank (Amazon.com)

The commemoration of Titanic raises some important issues for historians and the public at large. Is there a best way to remember something? And more importantly for historians, do all interpretations of a historical event need to remain absolutely true to history? Even if they do not, there is no stopping or denying the significance they can have on shaping society’s perception of a given event. The year 2012 is far from over, and Titanic is just one episode that will be remembered and debated this year. From now until 2015, the bicentennial of the War of 1812 will be commemorated.  It should prove to be a contentious time for Canadian historians.

The bow of Titanic at its final resting place (Wikipedia Commons)

Mike Commito is a second-year PhD student at McMaster University. His dissertation, tentatively titled ”Orphaned Cubs and Responsible Hunters: Conflicting Values and the Management of Black Bears in Ontario, 1900-2000? focuses on the development of black bear hunting policy and management strategies in Ontario. He is interested in how various groups in the province such as biologists, policy-makers and the lay public viewed bears and how this perspective has changed over time.

By Merle Massie

A major drought of unknown intensity and duration is about to hit the Oxbow Basin in Canada. With a population of about three million people over a landbase of 175,000 square kilometers devoted primarily to agriculture, water management will consume all levels of governance, from the farmstead to the largest city.

What are you going to do?

Send members of the University of Saskatchewan’s Global Institute for Water Security and the School of Environment and Sustainability into action! And oh yes — include an environmental historian.

Recognize the Oxbow Basin? It is a fictional place, created for the recent Invitational Drought Tournament sponsored by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada on March 2, 2012 in Saskatoon. What, you might ask, is a drought tournament? A new card game? A new version of The Farming Game [TM]? Well, not yet, but something interesting is certainly growing.

The Invitational Drought Tournament is a new, interactive game tool, “designed to help institutions build their capacity around drought preparedness” (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada 2012). Part workshop, part competition, the idea was to bring (ideally) multi-disciplinary teams into one room in a game format. Five University teams from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba competed in the event. Working with both existing drought mitigation options and creating new adaptations, the drought tournament was a fun venue to try to identify gaps and vulnerabilities in drought preparedness.

The room was filled with experts: climate change scientists, hydrologists, water modellers, soil scientists, policy analysts, engineers, economists… and the list goes on. David Sauchyn, well known in environmental and drought circles for his proxy tree ring research, brought an impressive group from Regina. Two teams from the University of Alberta complemented a group from the University of Manitoba – who candidly stated that if this had been a flood tournament, they would have wiped the floor with us. True enough. No one knows flood like Manitoba.

What was a historian doing there? I asked myself the same question – especially after I became the U of S team captain. But as an environmental historian who studies drought and flood events (and owns a farm, to boot), there was a space for me. I knew both the context (past drought events) and the on-the-ground implications of agricultural drought mitigation decisions.

University of Saskatchewan Invitational Drought Tournament Team in action, March 2 2012

The energy and research put into the game by its creators is extraordinary. Past extreme climate events – and yes, the Dirty Thirties certainly topped the list – were balanced with information on risk assessment, stream flow and water storage, regional characteristics of the fictitious basin, temperature and precipitation tables, and existing adaptation options from which we could choose.

I was humbled by my team. With players from the global south, the middle east, Israel, the far east and Canada, the U of S drew experience and innovative ideas from around the world. My team had put weeks of work into building scenarios, constructing models to predict the impact of drought on the overall water supply in the basin, economic potentials and drawbacks, and social stress on the system. I was lost. And I was enormously impressed.

University of Saskatchewan Round #2 drought adaptions and modeling

The drought tournament was an opportunity to work with others in a truly multi-disciplinary (and incredibly fast-paced) team environment. With the time clock ticking, negotiating and selecting short and long-term water, land, and financial management options and technological innovations left little time for exploratory discussion or debate. The game went through three years of intensifying drought.

We also opted to create some social innovations. Would you like to come to the Rain Dance we organized with the local Grand Council of the regional aboriginal reserves? With the lakes drying up and tourism plummeting, we all need something fun to look forward to. And how do you know – it might even work!

After the judges scored the overall results, the U of S team took top prize.

What is the point of all this, besides telling you about a fun day?

Increasingly, I see a shift within academia and governmental policy. While positivist natural science and qualitative social science methods are still fundamental to research streams, humanistic skills and perspectives are budging in, too. More and more, large multi- or inter- or trans-disciplinary teams are looking for the skills that historians bring to the table: document analysis; the ability to track landscapes over time and relate it to human dimensions of environmental change; and (I’m told) our ability to synthesize knowledge.

A sense of humour, some imagination, and a willingness to reach out helps, too.

Merle Massie at Invitational Drought Tournament, March 2 2012, in Saskatoon

I know that as an environmental historian, I’m a bit like a magpie: I find all kinds of neat, shiny bits of information from anthropology and archaeology, ecology, hydrology, geography, geology, soil science, economics, government reports, traditional knowledge, photographs, maps, and archival research and put it all together to create a more holistic picture of whatever it is I’m studying. What others consider “context” is my data!

In terms of the Invitational Drought Tournament game, the U of S team – like all the others – offered their multi-disciplinary backgrounds and perspectives not only to the day and the Saskatoon event, but to the game itself. We suggested a host of ways for the game to be improved for future iterations. Ultimately, the game will become a tool that multiple governance systems and levels can use to identify and mitigate extreme climate events.

Because extreme events will happen. Let’s work together, pooling all of our talents and expertise, to identify and rectify the gaps, and suggest positive innovations, while we can.

Merle Massie is a writer and historian, and a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Saskatchewan. Find her blog at: http://merlemassie.wordpress.com/.

"The Discovery of Canada" by Kate Beaton (www.harkavagrant.com)

by Jeffers Lennox

Historians of Canada specifically, and academics generally, have found themselves of late at the business end of some harsh criticisms.  To believe the editorials in major newspapers, academics write about obscure topics for the benefit of a small handful of other academics; we find students and teaching to be a distraction from our esoteric research projects; and we have no qualms about abdicating our public responsibility, even though most of us are paid from the public purse.  Based on these kinds of charges, it is no surprise that many Canadians are calling for reform in the university system.  But what about demanding more of Canadians themselves?

This blog has done much to demonstrate the deep interest in public engagement felt by historians of all disciplines (perhaps specifically in Canada) and critics should take note.  Too often, those taking pot-shots at historians are themselves not interested enough in history to move beyond arguments drawn from the lowest hanging fruit.  For example, David Frum recently castigated an issue of the Canadian Historical Review by listing only the titles of the articles (though he did demonstrate his credentials by almost spelling our first Prime Minister’s name correctly).  In other cases, the field is criticized in useful ways that reflect the concerns of historians and administrators.  Paul Martin is right to emphasize the need for more content on Aboriginal history in elementary and high school.  What many critics might not realize, however, is that few are harder on historians than historians.  Those of us early in our careers (taking our cues from equally concerned senior scholars) are willing and eager to address shortcomings in the curricula, participate in public events, and make our research accessible to the widest possible audience.  The growth of digital history and open access (not to mention the rise of environmental history) has facilitated the sharing of information in ways that reflect the inherent desire among historians to influence public opinion and public policy.

To put it simply, many historians are doing whatever possible to make our work publicly accessible and engaging.  This isn’t to suggest that we don’t fall into academic gibberish or occasionally engage in inside baseball, but it might be time to address another (equally troubling) question – what if Canadian citizens aren’t interested in the past?  Before I go down that rabbit hole, a quick comparison: several very successful books on Canadian history (or topics generally held to be of interest among Canadians) by American historians have been published in the United States.  Alan Taylor recently published an excellent study on the War of 1812; David Hackett Fischer offered his audience a sweeping view of Champlain and the founding of Quebec; and John Mack Faragher provided a nuanced and incisive account of the Acadian Deportation (from their “American homeland”, no less).  Historians in the United States win Pulitzer Prizes, their books can be found on the shelves at Chapters, and many (such as Jill Lepore and Gordon Wood) write regularly for major magazines.  These historians aren’t better qualified, smarter, or (necessarily) better writers than their Canadian counterparts.  The difference, in my mind, is that they have a more eager audience.

The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle over American History (2010) by Jill Lepore

Take for example the rise of the Tea Party.  Disregarding their troubling political views, these engaged citizens are rooted in an idea of the past – the importance of the American Revolution, the ideals of the founding fathers, and the desire to return to the “true” American spirit.  Aware of this “use and abuse” of history, Harvard’s Jill Lepore offered a readable corrective in the award-winning The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle over American History (2010).  The success of this book, and others, reflects not only good history writing (by authors) but also good history reading (by citizens).  The same is true of the books by Alan Taylor and David Hackett Fischer (who in 2011 was invited to give the Creighton Lecture at the University of Toronto).

If historians in Canada don’t enjoy the same kind of public success, is it necessarily the historians’ fault?  One would think that the rise of the Occupy Movement might have engendered greater interest in the history of social movements and public resistance beyond the (useful and influential) works of Naomi Klein.  For instance, in Vancouver (the home of Adbusters and, consequently, the intellectual birthplace of the Occupy Movement) there is not a single copy of Ian McKay’s recent Reasoning Otherwise: Leftists and the People’s Enlightenment in Canada (2008) available in any Chapters within a one hundred kilometre radius.  And I doubt that’s because they’re all sold out.

Despite these discouraging signs, I don’t believe that Canadians are uninterested in their history.  I also don’t believe that Canadian historians are unable, unwilling, or uninterested in reaching a wider audience.  But something is obviously amiss.  It is time to stop laying blame and start working toward connecting the Canadian public to the historians who are doing their very best to understand and explain the past for the benefit of all citizens.

Jeffers Lennox is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia.  His research interests focus on how geographic knowledge influenced political and cultural relations among British, French, and Native groups in early North America and the Atlantic World.  His blog is www.jefferslennox.com