Category Archives: Law and History

Old Tomorrow’s Bicentennial: Don’t Think Motivation, Think Law

By James Daschuk Ok, first things first: I do not hate John A. Macdonald. At the risk of maddening some colleagues out there, I am wary of trying to contort huge historical events and consequences into how they apply to a single individual’s psychological makeup, political vision or personal ambition. As a self-professed environmental historian, I have even joked with… Read more »

Civilian Internment in Canada: Histories and Legacies

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Rhonda L. Hinther It was by a mere two hours that eleven-year-old Myron Shatulsky missed seeing his beloved father, internee Matthew Shatulsky, when the train transferring Matthew and his comrades from the Kananaskis Internment Camp to Petawawa passed through Winnipeg earlier than anticipated on a July day in 1941. Myron had not seen his father since the RCMP hauled him… Read more »

The Gender of Lying: Jian Ghomeshi and the Historical Construction of Truth

By Beth A. Robertson On the evening of October 26th, I found myself staring at a computer screen, dumbfounded and confused. What I had unwittingly come across was Jian Ghomeshi’s bizarre facebook post that told a story of him being fired from the CBC because of his private sex life. He argued that he was let go when the CBC… Read more »

Podcast: “Death or Deliverance: Canadian Courts Martial in the Great War” by Teresa Iacobelli

https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Iacobelli-Ottawa-Historical-Association-lecture.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadThe Ottawa Historical Association welcomed historian Teresa Iacobelli on March 5, 2014. ActiveHistory is happy to feature her talk “Death or Deliverance: Canadian Courts Martial in the Great War”. Iacobelli is a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at Queen’s University. Her talk is based on her book of the same title: Death or Deliverance: Canadian Courts… Read more »

Proclamation and Commemoration: The Treaty of Niagara, Royal Proclamation, and a Critical Look at “Creating Canada”

By Michelle Hope Rumford The undertaking of “commemoration” encompasses actions taken in a spirit of remembrance and honor. Choosing to commemorate acknowledges the importance of an event. It allows history to live on into present contexts. In the context of the continuous formation and re-evaluation of the relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the Canadian government, 2013 was marked by a… Read more »

Death or Deliverance: Canadian Courts Martial in the Great War

Reviewed by M. Wayne Cunningham On 27 March 1917, a cold wind blew, and showers of sleet rained down on the small village of Mont St. Eloi, located in northern France.  On this bleak day, a young Canadian soldier, twenty-one year-old Arthur Lemay, stood before a field general court martial, the army’s highest wartime court. He had been there before…. Read more »