Tag Archives: Canadian history

Bedrock

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By Maren Savarese Knopf This post was originally published by NiCHE in collaboration with the Indian Act 150 series. “Sir, We are looking anxiously for your report as to Indian titles both within Manitoba and without; and as to the best means of extinguishing [terminating] the Indian titles in the valley of Saskatchewan…We should take immediate steps to extinguish the… Read more »

Will Québec ever answer the ‘Immigrant Question’?

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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 »

On the Useless History Degree

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By Sarah Kittilsen As a tour guide, I answer a lot of questions. Some are related to the tour itself, but many are not. Guests ask about my life just as much as, if not more than, they ask about the history of Montreal. I wasn’t surprised, then, when a woman turned toward me one summer morning and asked, “So,… Read more »

Alberta, I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down

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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 »

An Anarchist Queen and Her Radiant Protégé: Marie Tiboldo and Emma Goldman in Toronto

Cynthia Wright and Franca Iacovetta In November 1926, Emma Goldman, then 57 and beginning a first period of exile in Toronto, enthused over a “radiant” young Italian woman seated at a welcoming dinner for Goldman organized by the city’s Jewish anarchist comrades.[1] Just over six months later, Goldman dubbed Marie Tiboldo “a terrible prude” who did “not feel anything deep… Read more »

Happy Independence Day 2026 – Mexico & Canada

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A view of Canada's Parliament Hill in Ottawa, seen across the Ottawa River from a distance, with green, tree-covered slopes in the foreground. The Gothic Revival sandstone buildings include the Library of Parliament's polygonal tower on the left, the Peace Tower with its clock and Canadian flag at center, and the East Block's spires on the right, all set against a blue sky with scattered white clouds.

James Cullingham Canada and Mexico approach an historic juncture in their relations with the United States. Both countries face a July 1 deadline over the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) which replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 2020 under the auspices of Justin Trudeau, Donald Trump and Andrés Manuel López Obrador. CUSMA is due to be formally extended… Read more »

Health care workers and the ‘third wave’ of occupational health

Peter L. Twohig On 16 April 2026, five thousand long-term care (LTC) workers in 56 facilities throughout Nova Scotia began a strike. A tentative agreement ended the labour action after eight weeks, another example of a lengthy labour dispute in a nursing home. Indeed, some of the longest strikes in recent Canadian history have been in LTC.[i] Striking long-term care… Read more »

The Great Acceleration of the Laurentian Dairy Transition

Black and white archival photograph of a wood-shingled barn or farmhouse with a metal roof, two chimneys, and a weathervane, seen from the roadside. A wooden fence and overgrown brush line a dirt road in front of the building, with tall trees to the right. The image is labeled 'T.S. 9131' in the bottom corner.

Stéphane Castonguay and Colin Coates This is the ninth post in a series about the Great Acceleration as a framework and reconnaissance for Canadian environmental history. The posts in this series are cross-posed with NiCHE The relationship between agriculture and the Anthropocene unfolds across a temporal and conceptual spectrum punctuated by the various proposals for a “Golden Spike.”1 At one end… Read more »

When did the Great Acceleration start? Saskatchewan might hold the answer

A black-and-white photograph showing a line of steam traction engines plowing a prairie field near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, circa early 1900s. Several operators tend the large wheeled machines as they cut furrows across flat, open farmland. Photographed by B.P. Skewis of Saskatoon; copyrighted in Canada and USA

Jim Clifford When did the Great Acceleration start? Saskatchewan might hold the answer. Between the 1890s and the 1930s, the settler population exploded, and these newcomers broke 20 million acres of prairie grassland into wheat farms. The transformation released vast quantities of CO2 held in the soil and was inseparable from the genocidal dislocation of Indigenous people from their land.1… Read more »

Canada’s Christine Jorgenson?

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A black-and-white newspaper photograph showing Frances Marie Jefferson, a young woman with short curly dark hair, seen from behind on the left side of the frame as she looks into a mirror. Her reflection is visible in the mirror, showing her smiling face and wearing a light-coloured top with a ruffled or lacy collar.

Walter T. Cassidy The Windsor Star reported an incident on May 28th, 1954—as did papers all over North America—about a Port Colborne, Ontario woman being arrested in Buffalo, New York, for trying to enter the United States “illegally” after being in an accident in the neighbouring American town. It was her second time trying to cross the border, the first… Read more »