Category Archives: Canadian history

Uncovering the Sexual Assaults of Mervyn Brown: Part 1

The case of Mervyn Brown offers an important, if disturbing, precedent for understanding just how entrenched have been the practices of protecting powerful men from the consequences of misogynistic and abusive behaviour historically. Hotels have long been spaces in which women’s labour, often menial, has been confused with their sexual availability; this case demonstrates the legitimisation of sexual violence towards impoverished and vulnerable women in those spaces. Orchestrated at the highest levels of government, this cover-up provides an important lesson in the history of modern political celebrity, and acts as a register for the strength of the imperial and economic relationship between Britain and Canada during the late 1920s.

Home and Homecoming: My Mother’s Return as a Ugandan Asian Refugee after 50 years of Forced Displacement

  Shezan Muhammedi This year mark’s the fiftieth anniversary year of the Ugandan Asian refugee resettlement in Canada. It was the first major resettlement of a non-European refugee community in Canada during the post-war period, following the official de-racialization of Canadian immigration policy in 1962. My mom and her family are part of the nearly 8,000 Ugandan Asian refugees who… Read more »

‘Rather Absurd’: Christian Nationalism and the Dominion of Canada

Daniel R. Meister In July 2023, former adherents of a religious movement went public with concerns that Christian conservatives in New Brunswick were “more radical than they seem.” The specific context was a political controversy surrounding Policy 713 on LGBTQ+ students in public schools. In its coverage of Policy 713 and the conservative Christian reaction to it, the CBC reported… Read more »

ActiveHistory.ca repost — Aboriginal History in Ontario’s Cottage Country

ActiveHistory.ca is slowing down our publication schedule this summer, but we’ll be back with more new posts in September. In the meantime, we’re featuring posts from our archive. Thanks as always to our writers and readers! The following post was originally featured on April 3, 2012. This summer, learn whose land you vacation on. Editor’s note: Several outdated links throughout… Read more »

ActiveHistory.ca repost — Historia Nostra: Parks and Profit at Kejimkujik National Park

ActiveHistory.ca is slowing down our publication schedule this summer, but we’ll be back with more new posts in September. In the meantime, we’re featuring posts from our archive. Thanks as always to our writers and readers! The following post was originally featured on April 9, 2021. As Canadians hike and camp their way through the summer, Erin Isaac and Elisabeth… Read more »

ActiveHistory.ca repost — Decolonizing Cottage Country

Photograph of a calm lake with a brown wooden dock extending away from the viewer. There are red and green leaves on a tree branch in the foreground.

ActiveHistory.ca is slowing down our publication schedule this summer, but we’ll be back with more new posts in September. In the meantime, we’re featuring posts from our archive. Thanks as always to our writers and readers! The following post was originally featured on February 22, 2018. Since then, Drew Hayden Taylor has released Cottagers and Indians in print and directed… Read more »

ActiveHistory.ca repost — Simcoe Day and the Politics of Reclaiming and Renaming

Colonel John Graves Simcoe, [ca. 1881], by George Theodore Berthon. Government of Ontario Art Collection, 694156.

ActiveHistory.ca is slowing down our publication schedule this summer, but we’ll be back with more new posts in September. In the meantime, we’re featuring posts from our archive. Thanks as always to our writers and readers! The following post was originally featured on July 18, 2017 As Canadians mark Simcoe Day and the August long weekend, Elliot Worsfold’s post on… Read more »

Historia Nostra at the Fortress of Louisbourg

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By Erin Isaac I first reached out to Dr. Amy Scott (University of New Brunswick) about visiting her in Cape Breton in February 2020, after attending a public lecture she gave at New Brunswick’s Provincial Archives. In her talk, Dr. Scott told us about the things her team was learning about 18th-century disease, injury, and lifeways from the grave goods… Read more »

ActiveHistory.ca repost – The Northwest Territories and the Manhattan Project

ActiveHistory.ca is slowing down our publication schedule this summer, but we’ll be back with more new posts in September. In the meantime, we’re featuring posts from our archive. Thanks as always to our writers and readers! The following post was originally featured on December 22, 2022. As the film Oppenheimer hits the big screen and renews discussion of Canada’s role… Read more »

“Absurd Quackery”: The Canadian Women’s Health Movement, Vaccine Attitudes, and Healthsharing

A magazine page titled "Shots in the Dark: The Risk of Infant Vaccination." The page includes a picture of a child in a crib.

Kathryn Hughes In 1989, the popular Canadian women’s health magazine Healthsharing published an article entitled “Shots in the Dark: The Risk of Infant Vaccination”. Echoing the anti-vaccine movement of this period (the title borrows from the 1985 influential anti-vaccine text DTP: A Shot in the Dark), the article discussed the risk of the DPT-P vaccine, quoted personal stories from mothers… Read more »