Category Archives: Canadian history

Revisiting the 1981 CUPW Strike for Maternity Leave

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Mikhail Bjorge and Kassandra Luciuk As co-instructors, we are currently teaching a course on the history of women and work. Our primary concern in this course is to have students think historically about women’s lived experiences under capitalism. We explore how things looked in the past, how they were transformed over time, and, in turn, why they look the way… Read more »

Disjunctures of Public Memory: Remembrance Day in Sackville NB

By Andrew Nurse Last week I was taking an evening walk – the kind recommended by your doctor, as in “get some exercise” – and I strolled by the Sackville NB skate park my son used to frequent. That was a while ago. The park is different now. There is a graffiti wall and the ramps and jumps had been… Read more »

A new approach to debates over Macdonald and other monuments in Canada: Part 1

By Stéphane Lévesque “One of the things we heard very clearly from the Indigenous family members” says recently re-elected Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps (2018), “is that coming to city hall… and walking past John A. Macdonald every time, feels contradictory. And if the city is serious about reconciliation, which I would say we are, then one important thing we do… Read more »

A Short History of Treaty Nomenclature in Ontario

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By Daniel Laxer, Jean-Pierre Morin, Alison Norman Have you ever wondered why the treaty for the territory you live on is named as it is? Why are some numbered and some named after people? Why is the Toronto Purchase also known as Treaty 13? Why are there two Treaty 3s in Ontario? No doubt that Ontario’s treaty history is the… Read more »

Tanya Talaga, Thunder Bay, and all of our relations

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Karen Dubinsky On October 16th I witnessed (and there is no better word for it) close to 1500 people come together in the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium to hear the first of Tanya Talaga’s CBC Massey Lecture series, “All Our Relations.” Based on the recently published book of the same name, a product of her year long Atkinson Foundation Fellowship… Read more »

Provincializing Europe in Canadian History; Or, How to Talk about Relations between Indigenous Peoples and Europeans

Paige Raibmon (Editor’s note : This piece was updated with footnotes, including one making explicit its reference to the work of postcolonial theorist Dipesh Chakrabarty. A shortened version of this piece first appeared in TheTyee.ca.) When I received the manuscript, I was excited to dive in. The subject was close to my heart. This was to be a new grade… Read more »

Chanie Wenjack and the Histories of Residential Schooling We Remember

Today, 23 October, is the 52nd anniversary of Chanie Wenjack’s death. Chanie (misnamed Charlie by his teachers) was a 12-year-old Anishinaabe boy who, along with two other classmates, ran away from the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in Kenora, Ontario in October 1966. Fleeing the school’s abusive environment, Wenjack tried to make it home to Ogoki Post in northern Ontario,… Read more »

Plains Injustice: Tipi Camps and Settler Responses to Indigenous Presence on the Prairies (Part 3)

This is the third and final article in a series that places the Justice for Our Stolen Children camp in Regina into historical contexts of tipi camps and settler responses to Indigenous presence on the prairies. The previous two articles can be found (here) and (here).  Part Three: The Legacy of White Hegemony and the Future of Reconciliation By Stephanie Danyluk and… Read more »

Liberation from “That Vicious System”: Jim Brady’s 20th Century Métis Cooperatives and Colonial State Responses

Molly Swain James (Jim) Brady (1908-1967) was a Métis communist community organizer active primarily in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan in the mid-20th century.[i] He played an instrumental role in the formation of the Métis Association of Alberta (now the Métis Nation of Alberta) and the Alberta Métis Settlements. Over nearly four decades, Brady was also involved in organizing resource cooperatives… Read more »

Plains Injustice: Tipi Camps and Settler Responses to Indigenous Presence on the Prairies (Part 2)

This is the second post in a series that places the Justice for Our Stolen Children camp in Regina into historical contexts of tipi camps and settler responses to Indigenous presence on the prairies. You can check out the first article in the series (here). The third and final article will be available next Friday. Part Two: Prohibit and Exhibit: A… Read more »