Forrest Pass The first time a Canadian maple leaf appeared on a flag, it was flown in the final days of a violent protest. At the Battle of Saint-Eustache in 1837, Patriote fighters carried a white banner charged with a Maskinongé fish, pinecones, the initials “C” and “JB” (for “Canada” and “Jean-Baptiste” respectively), and a branch of green maple leaves…. Read more »
Laura Madokoro I started writing this piece yesterday evening in my home in Ottawa, on the traditional, unceded territories of the Algonquin Nation. It was not a typical Sunday evening by any stretch of the imagination. Since last Friday we have been surrounded by the sounds of trucks and have seen large numbers of protesters showing their support for the… Read more »
Jennifer Tunnicliffe COVID-19 and the steps taken to inhibit its spread have inspired significant opposition across Canada over the past ten months. Protestors have rallied against measures implemented by provincial governments, and movements such as The Line Canada and March to Unmask have used public demonstrations and social media platforms to denounce mandatory mask-wearing, quarantine procedures, travel restrictions, and lockdown… Read more »
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/History-Slam-161.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham On August 26, as the scheduled start time of the Milwaukee Bucks-Orlando Magic playoff game approached, word started to circulate that Bucks players would not be taking to the floor. Three days earlier in Kenosha, WI, about 40 miles from Milwaukee, Jacob Blake was shot 7 times in the back by… Read more »
By David Frank I keep my camping gear in an old wooden box that sits neatly in the back of my car. Nothing unusual about that. But when I packed up to go Canso for the Stan Rogers Folk Festival this summer, I realized this would be a kind of homecoming — for the box. Let me explain. The box… Read more »
By Daniel Ross On June 19th, City of Toronto officials on their way to work had to step over the bodies of hundreds of cyclists lying in front of the entrance to City Hall. A week later, the busy intersection in front of the Bank of England in central London was shut down by a similar spectacle. And in January,… Read more »
By Jessica Squires At this year’s Canadian Historical Association meeting in St. Catharines, I participated in a round table discussion about war resistance. As the panel showed, war resistance history is a growing area of research, offering a different perspective on traditional histories of war, politics, international relations, and social movements. The panelists included Bruce Douville (Algoma University), Rose Fine-Meyer… Read more »
Transborder pipelines are nothing new. There is a long history, forgive the pun, of such enterprises in North America. In fact, Canada has historically been a pipeline pioneer. Yet the Keystone XL project has attracted what is likely unprecedented environmental opposition for a transnational pipeline, including protests featuring celebrities and arrests outside of the White House. Perhaps this pipeline has become a potent symbol of wider dissatisfaction with our current petro-regimes and environmental approaches?
