By Theodore Aretakis In the recent 2026 Québec elections, one topic once again captured the electorate’s attention: immigration. The Parti Québecois (PQ), which formed a minority government, presented twelve points on immigration during their campaign, notably setting permanent targets to roughly 35,000/year—a stark drop from last year’s figure of 60,000. PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon describes this initiative as important… Read more »
The report section defending EDI measures ably illustrated how “EDI is a condition for research excellence.” Notably, the witnesses and briefs (if not the committee report itself) pointed to research that demonstrates the importance of diversity in health sciences and increased novelty, productivity, and impact in diverse research teams. Reading the pro-EDI section, indeed, highlights just how little the anti-EDI section gestured to research findings, despite witnesses’ repeated protestation that EDI is not evidence-based.
By Annabelle Penney I did not expect to cry on the way home from the Calgary airport. It had been over a year since my last homecoming, and recently I’d wondered if ‘home’ still fit Alberta. I’d forged newfound allegiances to Quebec, a province embroiled in its own separatist debates. While working on my thesis for some of the flight,… Read more »
Amy Swiffen, Keith Cherry, Hannah Wyile and Kris Millett This post is part of the Indian Act 150 series There is a harmful provision of the Indian Act that, until recently, has never been the object of sustained scholarly scrutiny: Section 141. In force from 1927 to 1951, this provision made it an offence for Indigenous peoples to raise funds or retain… Read more »
Daniel Sims This post is part of the Indian Act 150 series In May 2024, I attended a meeting of Parks Canada’s Indigenous Cultural Heritage Advisory Council in Sydney, British Columbia. One of our agenda items was the federal government’s commemoration of upcoming historical events, including the passage of the Indian Act in 1876. The hope was that we would tell the… Read more »
We, at Active History, were saddened to learn about the passing of Danielle Terbenche. Her academic work and community involvement leaves a lasting impact. Danielle Terbenche completed her PhD at the University of Waterloo. During her time there, Danielle co-founded the Tri-University Graduate Students’ Association, published two peer-reviewed papers, and won the tri-university history programme’s award for “Best Paper or… Read more »
By Daniel R. Meister When it comes to periodizing the history of federal policy of multiculturalism in Canada, existing models have loosely associated changes in policy with the changing of the governments.[1] But a closer examination of the earliest decades of the policy’s existence suggests that the Cabinet ministers responsible for the policy were more responsible for its evolution than the… Read more »
Poilievre’s allegory to Robin Hood was not, after all, a quaint diversion from matters of real political substance. His speech sets a dangerous precedent for shifting public discourse toward the mystical, exclusionary community of “the folk,” and that it is a threat against which we should all be vigilant.
By Roberta Lexier For early twentieth-century Marxists, fascism was, explains Alberto Toscano in his 2023 book, Late Fascism, “intimately linked to the prerequisites of capitalist domination.” “The instrument of the big bourgeoisie,” Robert O. Paxton suggests in The Anatomy of Fascism, its purpose: “for fighting the proletariat when the legal means available to the state proved insufficient to subdue them.” “At times… Read more »
Shannon Stettner[1] The space outside abortion clinics is complicated. Much of it is public and there are important discussions about the uses of public space, the right to protest, and the “ownership” of such spaces.[2] In Canada, many legal injunctions or safe access zones (theoretically) prevent protestors from occupying the area directly in front of clinics because clinics are also… Read more »
