http://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/History-Slam-153-1.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham In a normal year, July 1 has a very distinct feeling in Ottawa. In the same way that Fridays can have a feeling, you don’t need a calendar to know that it’s Canada Day in the capital. Streets downtown are closed, thousands of people flood Parliament Hill, and the city is… Read more »
By Shirley Tillotson This essays is being published jointly on ActiveHistory.ca and Borealia and appeared in an earlier version as a Letter to the Editor in the National Post (Oct. 26, 2017) Fundraisers love anniversaries. They’re like birthdays, right? Presents can’t be far behind. But when it’s the anniversary of a death, it’s not so much fun. For me, as an… Read more »
http://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Joel-Girourd.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham It’s Canada Day up Canada way on the first day of July. And we’re shoutin’ “hooray” up Canada way, when the maple leaf flies high. When the silver jets from east to west go streaming through our sky. We’ll be shoutin’ “hooray” up Canada way when the great parade goes by…. Read more »
By Nathan Smith Here in East York Canada Day celebrations began in the morning with a parade. I pulled my daughter in her wagon to the starting point a few blocks from our house. As we hurried to meet neighbours I reflected on the nature of the event organizing itself just beyond a set of traffic lights ahead. Historians of… Read more »
This is my favourite time of the year to be in Quebec City. With the school year drawing to a close, a seemingly endless train of tour buses bear down on the city. Ontario’s youth are here to learn about Canada’s roots in the berceau of the nation. Our story starts here… or at least so the tale goes. Sitting… Read more »
Today is the one-hundred and forty-third anniversary of Canada’s Confederation and the formal birth of the country’s federal political system. And instead of waving the flag in a perfunctory fashion (yes, I know the Queen is visiting), I’d like to wave it in distress over the present dysfunction in our federal politics by briefly singling out four serious issues in… Read more »