Recently, there have been some good cases for the utility of history as a discipline in explaining Idle No More. Here I want to add to, and shift, the terms of this discussion. Historians who study Canada, and the societies that preceded it, and who are committed to social change need to become active allies of #IdleNoMore.
NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair made a good suggestion last week. After the Prime Minister publicly outlined the marching orders for his ministers – which did not address recent tensions with First Nations but did emphasize the allocation of funds and resources towards a handful of historical celebrations – Mulcair took him to task. Picking up perhaps on the contradiction of… Read more »
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/John-Reid-January-17-2013.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadOn January 17th the students and faculty at Acadia University invited historian John G. Reid to provide historical context to the #IdleNoMore movement. This hour long lecture builds on Reid’s forty-year career as a historian of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century northeastern North America and expert witness in a number of court cases involving Treaty and… Read more »
By Christopher Moore This post was originally published on Christopher Moore’s History News Late in 2011, before Attawapiskat and Idle No More were as newsy as they are now, CBC Radio’s Ideas presented my radio documentary “George MacMartin’s Big Canoe Trip,” an exploration of how the James Bay Treaty was made in 1905. The radio-doc draws on the diary of… Read more »
By Tobold Rollo [This post first appeared on Tobold Rollo’s website.] As Chief Theresa Spence continues her hunger strike, her request that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Governor General meet with Chiefs to discuss treaties has many Canadians wondering what relevance treaties could possibly hold today. Anticipating this uncertainty, I wrote a pamphlet with the Mohawk scholar, Taiaiake Alfred,… Read more »
