By Stanley Hallman-Chong The history curriculum in Ontario is part of a larger set of curricula that embrace several other subjects and disciplines, including Social Studies, Civics, Geography, Law, Politics, and Economics. Hence when the Ontario Ministry of Education proceeded to review its history curriculum, it sought to create a common structure and an element of unity that would encompass… Read more »
By Lindsay Gibson What has changed and what has remained the same about historical thinking in secondary schools since Stephen Harper became Prime Minister in 2006 (also happens to be the same year the Historical Thinking Project began)? It is difficult to make generalizations about historical thinking in secondary school classrooms across Canada because there are differences in curricula, teachers,… Read more »
By Heather E. McGregor Recently Peter Seixas announced that the Historical Thinking Project (the Project) was denied ongoing funding by the Department of Canadian Heritage. This change was said to be because the purposes of the Project do not coincide with, as quoted from The Canada History Fund, “projects that celebrate key milestones and people who have helped shape our… Read more »
By Thomas Peace “Our historians have almost wholly ignored the existence of slavery in Canada.” Two weeks ago these words echoed through Fountain Commons here at Acadia University. Historians, educators and activists had gathered for Opening the Academy: New Strategies for Exploring and Sharing African Nova Scotian Histories. The message those of us in the audience heard was that African-Canadian… Read more »
By Greg Kennedy I recently had the opportunity to participate in a roundtable discussion held by the Department of Political Science here at the University of Moncton. The topic was “Current Foreign Policy and Defence Challenges in Canada” and the roundtable included Jocelyn Coulon, an expert on Canada’s involvement with United Nations peacekeeping operations as well as Jean-François Caron, a… Read more »
Reviewed by Joanne Epp When University of Saskatchewan professor Erika Dyck began investigating the use of lysergic acid diethylamide (commonly known as LSD) in psychiatric research, she was surprised at what she found. LSD has a bad reputation, to say the least. It’s widely seen as a dangerous drug that leaves its victims permanently damaged and prone to debilitating flashbacks. LSD has… Read more »
By Andrew Watson, Stacy Nation-Knapper, and Sean Kheraj Last year, Nature’s Past, the Canadian environmental history podcast, published a special series called, “Histories of Canadian Environmental Issues”. Each episode focused on a different contemporary environmental issue and featured interviews and discussions with historians whose research explains the context and background. Following up on that project, we are publishing six articles… Read more »
By Krista McCracken National digital library projects and national digitization initiatives have emerged across the world in recent years with varying levels of funding, support, and success. How does Canada’s national attempts at digitization and open access compare to international efforts to make material freely accessible online? The example closest to home is the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)… Read more »
By Veronica Strong-Boag Author’s note: This post was commissioned as an IWD blog by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. It was initially approved and posted by the Museum on 4 March 2014. It was, however, almost immediately withdrawn as ‘Communications’ at the Museum deemed the one line comment on the current federal Conservative government unacceptable as written. The offer… Read more »
By Kaitlin Wainwright Today marks 180 years since the former Town of York was incorporated as the City of Toronto. It was given a new name, distinguished from New York and a dozen or so other places in the province. The city’s earliest neighbourhoods were the five wards named for the patron saints of the British Isles: St. George, St…. Read more »
