Category Archives: Canadian history
Soundbite Histories
Daniel R. Meister It’s part of the craft of writing: a “killer quote” that powerfully demonstrates the point the author is trying to make. Taken from a primary source, it can become the most quoted part of the secondary piece in which it appears. And when loosed from its moorings to the publication that contextualizes it, the quote is carried… Read more »
Canada’s Sex Work Legislation Must Change
The Global Pandemic in Saskatchewan: a history to remember
Erika Dyck and Jim Clifford The COVID-19 pandemic tested healthcare systems worldwide and pushed many of them to the breaking point. Canadians experienced the pandemic in diverse ways depending on where and how they lived, from single-family dwellings with converted virtual workspaces to long-term-care facilities with rigorous lock-down policies or First Nations reserves with inconsistent access to potable water, but… Read more »
Spotting the Difference: Comparing Canadian Sex Work Legislation from 1985 and 2014
Canada’s Sex Work Legislation Hasn’t Changed

It is unsurprising that the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform launched a constitutional challenge to the PCEPA in 2021- brought to the Ontario Superior Court between October 2 and 7, 2022.On September 18, 2023, the Ontario Superior Court released its decision in CASWLR v. Attorney General (Canada), deciding to uphold the PCEPA.
Role and Responsibility of Historians in Fighting Denialism

One problem is that those engaging in Indian Residential School denialism understand the important role that truth-telling about the past has on social change. If establishing the truth is, as the TRC contended, the precondition for healing, justice, and reconciliation, then denialists seek to deliberately divert attention away from the truths about the horrors of Indian Residential Schools.
Black Canadian Tap Dancer Joey Hollingsworth: Sounds of Memory

Joey Hollingsworth (b. 1936) is a tap dancer, creative force and one of the first Black performers on CBC television. Joey danced in the era of medicine shows, big bands and civil rights. He was backed by the Samuel Hershenhorn Orchestra on CBC (1954), directed by Norman Jewison – CBC Special Christmas with the Stars (1956); and acted with black… Read more »
The Spokesman: Gender and the Liberal Party in 1960s New Brunswick
On 21 October 2024, New Brunswickers elected Susan Holt as their premier, the first female to hold that office in the province’s 240-year history. Politics has long been gendered as a male game, and for an equally long time men have excluded both from voting and running for office.[1] Given that Holt’s win was accompanied by the election of a… Read more »
“Porter Talk”: Podcasting and the Power of Oral History
Stacey Zembrzycki In 1986 and 1987, Stanley G. Grizzle began to cold call old friends, asking them if they would be willing to share their memories of portering during the first half of the twentieth century. This famed Toronto-based labour activist, war veteran, civil servant and citizenship judge, who was also a porter for twenty years, was in the midst of writing… Read more »


