by Steven High We are living in polarized times. Brexit, Trump, and the rise of right-wing populism has led to a resurgence of popular and scholarly interest in working class history and the ways it gets entangled with race in the wider politics of economic change. There is much at stake given the looming global transition away from fossil fuels…. Read more »
by Peter Thompson Pictou is a sleepy town of about 3000 people on the north shore of Nova Scotia. Despite its small size and its place on Canada’s margins, Pictou has been featured twice in the pages of ActiveHistory.ca over the past decade. First in Lachlan MacKinnon’s 2014 piece, “The Power-Politics of Pulp and Paper: Health, Environment and Work in… Read more »
by Anna Bettini A Changing Energy Landscape Driving along Highway 529, two hours south of Calgary, giant wind turbines tower over the fields of canola. Along the road, several signs indicate the local community opposition to wind energy projects [Picture 1]. As I approach the entrance of village of Carmangay, I notice a large wind turbine blade lying near it… Read more »
by Eliot Perrin The Flour Mill neighbourhood in Sudbury serves as an almost mythical place in Franco-Ontarian identity. Much like St-Boniface further west, it survived for decades as a Francophone enclave, maintaining and nurturing the French language, its institutions, and artistic production. For individuals of Franco-Ontarian background such as myself, it remains a place of residual family memory and lore…. Read more »
by Nicholas Fast For the public at any grocery store, the most shocking part of choosing any meat package is usually the price. It is no secret that the price of meat, especially beef, has skyrocketed during the pandemic. The sticker shock prevents many from looking beyond the plastic wrapping to really consider where the beef—or chicken or pork—comes from…. Read more »
by Liam Devitt In 1991, the AIDS Coalition of Cape Breton was founded. Cape Breton Island, a small industrial region, was a far cry from the perceived metropolitan hotspots of the AIDS epidemic. It did not have the cosmopolitan queer nightlife of these cities and little activism that could be called “gay liberation” manifested in any visible way. In short,… Read more »
by Lauren Laframboise In early February this year, Canopy Growth announced that it would close its cannabis flower production plant in Smiths Falls, Ontario. The facility was located at 1 Hershey Drive in the former Hershey chocolate factory that had once been a major employer in the small town. After Hershey’s closed in 2008, a subsidiary of Tweed Inc. (now… Read more »
