Winter street scene, Quebec City, QC, about 1910. Source: McCord Museum.
ActiveHistory.ca is on a hiatus for the winter break, with a return to daily posts in early January.
Thank you to all our contributors, guest writers, guest editors, and readers for making 2015 a very successful year.
Happy holidays to all and we look forward to continuing our work in 2016!
By Aaron Boyes and Sean Graham
Once again we have offered our two cents about the events of 100 years ago. Let us know what you think of the final results.
Joshua Feuerstein is someone that we had never heard of until he posted a video to Facebook claiming that Starbucks “hated Jesus” because they took Christmas off their red cups. This launched a wave of articles and responses discussing the so-called War on Christmas. What nobody seemed to notice, or at least care about, was that the video was posted on November 5, a full 50 days before Christmas.
In his weekly Tuesday Morning Quarterback column, Gregg Easterbrook of the New York Times regularly discusses his Unified Theory of Creep, which holds that things are constantly creeping forward. To put it another way, we are incapable of living in the moment and must look ahead to the next big thing. That people plead with stores to wait until after Remembrance Day to put out Christmas decorations is a sign of how far things have gone. It really shouldnt be a big deal to say “please, try to restrain yourself to only seven weeks of Christmas songs.”
But it’s not just holidays. Benjamin Moore has already declared the 2016 Color of the Year. Motor Trend revealed its 2016 Car of the Year in November, a full six weeks before the end of 2015. Starbucks launched its fall favourite pumpkin spice latte in August, a full month before fall. Angela Merkel was named Time Magazine‘s Person of the Year on December 9, reminding us once again that, apparently, nothing important happens in December.
This article, which has somehow survived for a third edition, is part of our effort to combat this trend of creep by reminding everyone that time and perspective are important. So we are back to recap the most important events of the year, 100 years later. The rules are simple, we used a painstaking (and proprietary) process to select sixteen major events from 1915 and created four March Madness style brackets. This year they are the Cultural Region, the Science Region, the Politics Region, and (everyone’s favourite) the Potpourri Region. From there, we engaged in a back and forth debate over each match-up on our way to determining the biggest event of 1915.
Like last year, though, we disqualified anything to do with the First World War (with one exception). This isn’t because we don’t want to write about the war – despite knowing we couldn’t do it nearly as well as Canada’s First World War – but rather that the war would dominate the bracket and easily win. For that reason, we have focused on some lesser known, yet still incredibly significant, 1915 events.
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by Christo Aivalis
If one peruses their televisions, computers, and streetscapes, they can’t help but forget that we have been in the throes of the Christmas season since November. But this form of Christmas celebration, tied so deeply with capitalism, belies the transformative optimism Christmas provided working-class socialists in the Depression, and still today. Much as Pope Francis’ criticisms of capitalism and consumerist Christmas celebrations amidst war offer a call to change, so did the Christian Left seek a new social order in the Great Depression via the message of Christ and Christmas. For them, the egalitarian and socialist ideals of a 2000 year old Humble Nararane Carpenter spoke the society they wished to build.
While much has been written about Christianity socialism among ministers-turned-politicians like Tommy Douglas, J.S. Woodsworth, and Stanley Knowles, less has been said about Christian socialism among Canadian workers and trade unionists. Yet if we look back to Depression-era trade union newspapers, we see a movement utilizing Christian scripture and imagery in order to agitate for substantive political, economic, and social reforms. After all, numerous contributors argued that Christ was not only God reborn, but was God reborn as a humble Nazarene carpenter: a workingman sent to bring a gospel of justice and equality for the downtrodden. Christ came not as a king, but as a pauper, and in so doing showed his allegiances. This identification with Christ as a radical workingman led many to propose a Christian social order that struck at the core of social and economic inequality, private property:
A theology which teaches that God is Mammon’s silent partner would necessarily be suspect in an age of folk upheaval…. Property needs not God to protect it…Jesus announced “Good News”[:] namely, that Heaven is passionately on the side of the people against the despotic tendencies of property; and under that leadership a messianic passion for men is announcing itself. The trouble is the working people at large have not yet come to behold The Carpenter.[1]
Henry Trim
In the final part of this series on solar energy we will examine the unhappy results of solar advocates’ overreliance on optimistic simulations and the difficulty of commercializing economically marginal technology. Tragically for development of renewable energy, neither solar technology nor the energy market developed as projected.
Generous federal funding combined with the installation of solar collectors on government buildings set off an immediate boom in solar in 1979. The Canadian solar industry was almost non-existent when the government announced the program a year before. New solar heating companies quickly appeared and the few existing worked feverishly to expand. Although funds often seemed to arrive too slowly for the needs of these fledgling companies and government analysts complained about problems with companies’ paperwork, the program generated the interest in solar and the rapid expansion it hoped for.[1] This expansion, however, came with problems the WATSUN computer model did not predict.
The most serious problems were with the many new companies. Continue reading
By James Morgan
During the 1960s and 1970s, Hydro-Québec rose to prominence as a major producer and exporter of hydroelectric power. This later led to a mutually beneficial economic relationship with the State of Vermont when it needed electricity and Québec wanted to sell electricity. The exchange of power from Québec to Vermont changed diplomacy from the federal to provincial and state level, which served Québec’s political, economic, and cultural objectives. Particularly relevant in light of recent debates over oil dependency, as well as ongoing discussions of Québec nationalism, the technological, political, and social challenges encountered during the process demonstrate how energy strategies are often caught up within broader cultural politics. The rise of Québec as a prominent source of hydroelectric power coincided with a rapid and profound political, economic, and cultural modernization that took place in the province.
In the early 1960s, electricity in Québec remained largely under private control until 1962 when nationalization of the private utilities by Hydro-Québec was the major issue of the provincial election campaign for Liberal Premier Jean Lesage. The Liberals won and the nationalization process began in 1963. René Lévesque was Lesage’s Resources Minister who had the responsibility for implementing the nationalization. The nationalization led to massive expansions of generation and transmission, including the Daniel Johnson Dam and Generating Station, and leadership in high voltage transmission in North America—735 kilovolts Alternating Current. The James Bay power project, centered on the La Grande River, was announced in 1971 by Liberal Premier Robert Bourassa.
Sharp rises in oil prices in the 1970s posed a considerable challenge for Vermont utilities and consumers. The state was almost entirely dependent on oil for power generation. Republican Governor Richard A. Snelling looked to Québec for affordable, reliable electricity. Between 1978 and 1980, the Vermont Public Service Board (the state energy regulator) reached an agreement with Hydro-Québec to wheel power from the Beauharnois station to Vermont through New York over existing interconnections with the Power Authority of the State of New York (PASNY). In 1979, a small contract between Québec and Vermont was reached, however Governor Snelling wanted Vermont to receive more power from Québec and become a major conduit for power to reach other New England States. René Lévesque, leader of the separatist Parti Québécois, was now Premier and wanted Québec to export more power for economic and political reasons.
In 1980, Snelling presented his “Electric Community” plan. He called for creation of a North Atlantic Energy Organization, a NATO-like effort to secure affordable, reliable electricity for New England, mostly through power from Québec. The plan was only realized in a figurative sense, as no formal organizations were established. Discussions about possible exports began with the New England Power Pool (NEPOOL), then the regional system operator for New England. In 1983–1984, Hydro-Québec and the Vermont Department of Public Service reached a 10-year contract for 150 megawatts. The power enters Vermont at a station in Highgate near the border with Québec.
In 1983, Québec signed the first agreement with NEPOOL in Boston worth $400 million (Canadian) in revenue for Hydro-Québec. A 735 kilovolt AC line to Des Cantons substation that enters the US through Vermont and terminates near Boston was built to supply the power.
Robert Bourassa returned as Premier in 1985 with a vision for more hydroelectric development in the James Bay region that would require more dams and generating stations on more rivers. This plan was outlined in his book Power from the North. In December 1987, Vermont Joint Owners (VJO), a consortium of Vermont utilities, reached an agreement for 500 megawatts from Hydro-Québec. VJO negotiated directly with Hydro-Québec, the state was only involved as a regulator. In 1990, VJO was approved by the National Energy Board of Canada. The government announced the Great Whale/Grande Baleine power project the same year. All power from it was to be for export markets.
These rapid developments were not free from controversy, however. The Great Whale project instantly became a point of contention due to cultural and environmental concerns involving the indigenous Cree people of the James Bay region. The Canadian government ordered a full environmental assessment of Great Whale, which had not happened with La Grande. There was considerable public protest. Letters showed up in the offices of politicians and a group of Cree people actually canoed from northern Quebec to New York City to make their case to the United Nations. The Vermont Public Service Board responded with strict conditions—Hydro-Québec had to prove that VJO power would come from existing dams and not require Great Whale. Largely due to widespread opposition, the Great Whale project was cancelled by Premier Jacques Parizeau soon after taking office in 1994. Also, VJO was not perfect financially. Price increases were not adjusted to inflation and Hydro-Québec could not renegotiate the price if interest rates fell.
The modernization of Québec during and following the Quiet Revolution was reflected through the rise of Hydro-Québec as a major producer of hydroelectric power and a world leader in long distance transmission. Québec was able to demonstrate its newfound expertise by exporting electricity to the United States—particularly Vermont, at a time when the need there for reliable and affordable electricity was increasing. The modernist achievements of Québec through power generation and transmission, and the ability for Vermont to purchase power from Québec were however greatly challenged and curtailed due to opposition to the Great Whale project by environmental activists and indigenous people concerned about negative effects on their traditional land.
James Morgan is a Ph.D. candidate with the Department of History at the University of Ottawa.
By Aitana Guia
Too many political leaders are banking on politicizing migration today. Culture has become a fertile battlefield. Food represents familiarity and safety. Eating is a daily activity that connects parents to their children, to their schools, and to their extended families. Social life in Southern Europe revolves around food and food rituals.
Donna Gabbacia, a historian of the American immigrant experience, explains that the “choices people make about eating are rarely trivial or accidental. Food is a central concern of human beings in all times and in all places.”[1]
Marine Le Pen’s Front National (FN) knows it. Continue reading
By Daniel Ross
For more than four decades, John Sewell has been a constant presence in Toronto civic life, where he has somehow managed to combine relentless criticism of the status quo with a long record of public service. He first drew attention as a community organizer in the late 1960s, before going on to have a career in city politics, including a two-year stint as mayor. Since leaving politics he has become something of a public intellectual, with two well-received books on urban planning, The Shape of the City (1993) and The Shape of the Suburbs (2009). Applauded for his principled stands on civil liberties issues, he has also been criticized as uncompromising, combative, and—a charge he would probably agree with—anti-suburban.
Sewell was just one of a group of progressive community organizers and citizen urbanists who made the jump into municipal politics in late 1960s and early 1970s Toronto. Spurred on by a surge in neighbourhood activism, they found common ground on an agenda of limiting private redevelopment, expanding public services, and increasing citizen participation in government. This was echoed by developments in other Canadian cities—the rise of the Montréal Citizens Movement, for example—prompting talk of a nation-wide “urban reform” or “municipal reform” movement. Sewell’s latest book, How We Changed Toronto (Lorimer, 2015), is an attempt to come to grips with his own role in the reform moment in Toronto. Continue reading
On the day after the Trudeau government revealed its five-point plan for a renewed relationship with First Nations, ActiveHistory.ca is pleased to announce the publication of Leon Crane Bear’s “The Contemporary relevance of the Historical Treaties to Treaty Indian peoples”
By Leon Crane Bear
In June of 1969, the federal government announced its Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy (hereafter, the White Paper), which proposed to end discrimination against Indians and to assimilate them into the Canadian body politic. The White Paper recommended the abolishment of all legal recognition of registered Indians within federal legislation including the legal status of Indians, repeal the Indian Act, and the end of treaties. In 1970, in response to the White Paper, the Chiefs of the Indian Association of Alberta (hereafter, the IAA) produced a counter document titled Citizens Plus: the Red Paper (hereafter, the Red Paper). This essay explores the frictional dynamics of the White Paper and Red Paper including their respective intent and outcomes. The radical difference in intent and vision between these two documents may be understood today as a major catalyst for a changed relationship between the two parties. That is, the issues of assimilation and the legal recognition of treaties were central to national discussion over 45 years ago and, because these issues are not settled, these issues are largely relevant today. Historical treaties are important to First Nations people as embodied in the content of the Red Paper, and treaty Indians, like myself, continue to see the treaties as significant to our contemporary relationship with the state.
The Red Paper was an act of resistance by the IAA that was predicated on two key points: first, the Red Paper emphasized the treaty connection between First Nations people and the federal government; second, the Red Paper articulated a model of “self-governance” that reinforced an Indigenous perspective.[1] Moreover, the Red Paper was generated by mutual cooperation between Indigenous leaders and members of Indigenous communities in Alberta. The key concepts of treaties and “self-sufficiency” were evident in both documents. This essay determines the essence of those differences by arguing that the differences in views, in the political significance, as well as the emergence of Indigenous community opposition with regard to the legal status of Indians, treaties, and lands is worth understanding for contemporary citizens. This comparative analysis shows that in 1970, the IAA regarded the historical treaties as sacred agreements and yet, as I imply, treaties have never lost relevance for treaty Indian people in contemporary Alberta. [Read More]
Leon Crane Bear is Siksika (Blackfoot) and is a treaty Indian. Siksika is in Southern Alberta, and is part of five First Nation’s who signed Treaty 7 in 1877. He recently received, in October 2015, his Master of Arts degree from the University of Lethbridge, in Alberta.
Editors Note: This is the penultimate essay published as part of our papers section. A new “Features” section will begin in early-2016. This section will share many commonalities with the former Papers Section (including hosting all of the papers we’ve published over the years) while accommodating additional resources such as our series and theme weeks.
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By Sean Graham
Between 1960 and 1996, the Guatemalan Civil War pitted the government against leftist rebel groups. Both during and after the war, there were accusations that government forces committed human rights violations against civilians. The government denied these allegations and claimed that there was no documentation to substantiate any of the claims. That was until a cache of documents from the National Police was found in an abandoned headquarters in 2005. That launched a massive effort to preserve and archive the documents. Despite official efforts to destroy the material and threats of physical violence, a group of volunteers worked tirelessly to ensure that it was possible to figure out what happened during the war.
In this episode of the History Slam, I talk with Kirsten Weld of Harvard University about her book Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatamala. We chat about the uncovering of the archives, the process of reclaiming the material, and the contested nature of building memory.
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By Mary Chaktsiris and Stephanie Bangarth
We leave you our deaths: give them their meaning: give them an end to the war and a true peace: give them a victory that ends the war and a peace afterwards: give them their meaning.” – Archibald MacLeish, ‘The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak’ (1941)
On March 18, 1931, A.W. Neil, MP for Comox-Alberni in British Columbia, introduced a motion in the House of Commons to have Armistice Day observed on November 11 and “on no other date.” Another MP, C.W. Dickie of Nanaimo, also speaking on behalf of veterans, moved an amendment changing the name from “Armistice” to “Remembrance” Day. This term, Dickie felt, better “implies that we wish to remember and perpetuate.” Parliament swiftly adopted these resolutions and Canada held its first ‘Remembrance Day’ on November 11, 1931. The hour of annual remembrance was fixed at 11 a.m. on 11 November, the time and date of the Armistice in Europe.
Department of National Defence / Library and Archives Canada / ecopy, R112-4004-8-E, Remembrance Day Ceremonies, Ottawa, 1962.
Canadians first started to collect around military cenotaphs in 1902 at the end of the Boer War when the nation indulged in a great, patriotic burst of memorial-building. Monuments to Canada’s first foreign war were erected in city parks and town squares from Victoria to Halifax. Over the next decade, huge crowds would gather around them. By 1918 the trauma and slaughter of the First World War meant that new memorials would be built, but this time they were mostly sombre creations designed simply to honour the dead as opposed to marking military success. In the decades that followed through the Second World War, the Korean War, and Afghanistan, Canadians have gathered faithfully around such memorials each November 11 to remember.
But what is it that we are remembering? And who and what are we leaving out? In many ways we have been confined by a very narrow definition of remembrance. This narrowing represents a lost opportunity to think more deeply about war and its effects, to reflect on the causes of war making, and to search for ways to understand war, death, and sacrifice as meaningful in our modern lives. Continue reading
