By Mary Chaktsiris, Sarah Glassford, Chris Schultz, Nathan Smith, and Jonathan Weier Preamble During the first half of 2019, we the editors of www.ActiveHistory.ca’s long-running series “Canada’s First World War” stepped back and reflected on the editorial work we undertook over of the course of four and a half years of Great War centenary commemorations, 2014-2019. In response to… Read more »
Erin Gallagher-Cohoon In this morning’s post, I focused on how parliamentarians were invoking a sense of history and nationalism to argue both for and against legalizing same-sex marriage. In this post, I explore the history that is often left unsaid in this debate: the history of queer parenting. By 2005, when many parliamentarians were arguing that marriage rights should not… Read more »
Erin Gallagher-Cohoon In 2005, Canada became the fourth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage. During the House of Commons’ debates on Bill C-38, an act respecting certain aspects of legal capacity for marriage for civil purposes, parliamentarians on both sides argued that what they were contemplating doing was unprecedented; whether a brave or a reckless act, it was… Read more »
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/History-Slam-135.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham With the federal election campaign in full swing, the environment has emerged as a prominent issue for the parties vying to form the next government. The news of hundreds of young Canadians pledging not to have children until Canada takes significant steps towards addressing its carbon emissions highlights how environmental policy… Read more »
By Rebecca Lazarenko When Canadians consider the French-Canadian experience of the First World War, what most often comes to mind is the opposition of French Canadians in Québec to conscription, and the war itself more broadly. Very few Canadians consider that there were multiple francophone communities outside of Québec and that their experiences during the war varied. Even fewer consider… Read more »
Editors at Active History have been discussing the conclusions of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Women and Girls since they were released earlier this month. In thinking of the best way to amplify the findings laid out in the report, “Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Women and Girls,”… Read more »
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/History-Slam-133.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham The theme for Toronto Pride this past weekend was ‘FREEDOM.’ The theme was selected, in part, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Widely seen as the impetus towards the modern gay rights movement, the uprising in New York City overshadows another event in the movement’s history that is… Read more »
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/History-Slam-129.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham The few times that I have taught the introductory survey in Canadian history, one of the issues that students have struggled with is the Quiet Revolution and October Crisis. There are a few reasons for this, including that I teach in Ontario, where Quebec history doesn’t get a lot of coverage… Read more »
Jonathan Scotland As Andrea Eidinger reminded us in her recent post on the changing nature of poppies and Remembrance Day, the poppy has been central to Canadian commemorations of wartime sacrifices since its adoption ninety-seven years ago.[1] Despite this ongoing effort to remember, the iconic red flower’s history is often taken for granted, its early years almost completely overlooked. Even… Read more »
Today, 23 October, is the 52nd anniversary of Chanie Wenjack’s death. Chanie (misnamed Charlie by his teachers) was a 12-year-old Anishinaabe boy who, along with two other classmates, ran away from the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in Kenora, Ontario in October 1966. Fleeing the school’s abusive environment, Wenjack tried to make it home to Ogoki Post in northern Ontario,… Read more »
