By Bob Joseph This post is part of the Indian Act 150 series. This year, 2026, marks 150 years of the Consolidated Indian Act of 1876. This serves as a timely opportunity to discuss the dismantling of this destructive and restrictive piece of legislation. The Indian Act has constrained and controlled the lives of Status Indians for generations, and reconciliation… Read more »
Meredith J. Batt I have made an error. These are not words that come easily to a historian, when evidence is the backbone of our work. However, as Tim Lacy notes in his Society for U.S. Intellectual History blog post On the Failures of Historians, “There is no question that historians in their role as content experts experience failure. All humans are… Read more »
Katherine Wilson-Smith “A View From the Roof of the Residence.” Twenty One Years at Mansfield House, 1890-1911. Plaistow: W. S. Caines, 1911. 1. “From the roof of the Settlement one looks over a vast, monotonous, dingy sea of houses, acre upon acre, mile upon mile, in long rigid rows – like frozen waves of the grey sea – broken only… Read more »
By Katie Carson, Sarah Kittilsen, and Sean Carleton Canada 150—the sesquicentennial celebration of the country’s confederation—was marked with pomp and circumstance, as the Federal Government encouraged Canadians across the country to commemorate what it called “one of Canada’s proudest moments.” April 12, 2026 will mark another sesquicentennial: 150 years since the Canadian government passed the Indian Act, the cornerstone of the legislative apparatus that continues to govern… Read more »
By Lilia Scudamore Few Canadian governments — federal or provincial — have been so embroiled in scandal as William “Bill” Vander Zalm’s Social Credit Party (known colloquially as the ‘Socreds’). The government was routinely caught performing an array of improprieties, ranging from back-door deals to openly disobeying the Supreme Court of Canada to fighting with journalists on air.[1] The contemporary… Read more »
By Samir Shaheen-Hussain The “thrifty gene” has a decades-long history that can be traced back to James V. Neel, an American physician-scientist, considered by many in his field as the “father of modern human genetics” [90]. Neel expounded his hypothesis in 1962 by proposing that such a gene would have emerged in hunter-gatherer societies as an adaptive response to a… Read more »
Warrant Officer Daniyal Elahi, 337 Queen’s York Rangers Royal Canadian Army Cadets Growing up, I often felt as though Muslim Canadians were a recent part of this country — as if our connection began only in 1965, when my grandfather immigrated from Pakistan. In school, the Canadian soldiers we learned about seemed to share the same background and the same… Read more »
Ella Prisco This essay is part of a 2-part series. See the other entry here. “They have borne the lonely hours with fortitude,” stated the Winnipeg Citizen in its coverage of scabbing women during the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919.[1] Indeed they had, taking up positions as telephone switchboard operators and waitresses in response to the nearly thirty thousand workers… Read more »
Ella Prisco This essay is part of a 2-part series. The second post will be published next week. Depending on who you asked, Winnipeg on May 15, 1919 was either a city in chaos or on the precipice of a brave new world. It was the first day of the Winnipeg General Strike, the culmination of weeks of tension between… Read more »
Author Carol F. Lee explores the writings of her mother Mary Quan Lee, with a focus on her experiences in the 1930s and her sense of dual Canadian and Chinese identity in the 1940s. Lee notes that her mother’s identity was shaped in large part by openings and closings in opportunities and the structural realities of exclusion in Canada.
