Chilean Refugees: Lessons of Past and Present

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By Francis Peddie

Image from the North American Congress on Latin America Archive of Latin Americana at the New School for Social Research

Image from the North American Congress on Latin America Archive of Latin Americana at the New School for Social Research

The image of a dead child on a beach has brought international attention to a long-simmering crisis. The photos of Alan Kurdi’s lifeless body has focused the media on the humanitarian catastrophe that is Syria. Broader awareness of the Syrian refugee situation has provoked response among European and North American citizens, with many voices calling for admission of more asylum seekers, and others opposed for reasons of security or cost. Demonstrations and lobbying have obliged government leaders and opposition politicians to define their positions and hopefully take action to open the doors to refugees —or keep them closed.

The Syrian crisis, through the tragedy of the Kurdi family, has unexpectedly become an election issue. Since the Kurdi photos, political leaders have been addressing the issue and attempting to define their positions. Two examples are Stephen Harper’s defense of Canadian refugee policy and quotas as measures protecting the security of Canadian citizens, while Justin Trudeau referenced past examples of rescue efforts, such as the airlift of Asian Ugandans carried out by his father’s government in the early 1970s. These two positions reveal the tension that has traditionally existed regarding refugees: the fear of harm to society versus the imperative to provide shelter to the vulnerable. Continue reading →

Soldier-Candidates and the 1917 Wartime Election

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By Matthew Barrett, Queen’s University

Mowat (1)At a 1923 meeting of the Great War Veterans Association (GWVA) in Ottawa, General William Antrobus Griesbach, former Member of Parliament for Edmonton West and Senator for Alberta, remarked on the expected role of the ex-soldier in Canadian political life. “I had an idea at one time,” he explained, “that after the war over half of the Canadian parliament would be men who had served in the war. I had an idea it would hardly be possible for a man to be elected to parliament who had not served his country in the war on active service.” To his disappointment, at the time of this speech, only a handful of sitting MPs had fought in the Great War. Although he cautioned against organized political action by veterans’ groups, Griesbach argued, “I say that the ex-service men should be active in politics, active on all sides.”[1]

Nearly a century later, the number of elected representatives with military experience is small; in the 41st Parliament, 13 of 308 members in the House of Commons. Canadian military personnel and veterans’ lack of success in electoral politics suggests that a military career makes for an uneasy transition into political candidacy.[2] The current federal election campaign does demonstrate, however, that veterans’ issues can emerge as key policy issues. Continue reading →

From Tragic Little Boys to Unwanted Young Men

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By Veronica Strong-Boag

Canadians are easily sentimental about babies and toddlers. Look at the ready adoption of global infants or September 2015’s outpouring of grief for the three-year-old Syrian Alan Kurdi. Once victims of poverty, exploitation, and conflict reach adolescence and beyond, however, sympathy frequently evaporates.

Refugees are a case in point and gender consorts with age to matter. Girls and women suffer recurring abuse and stigmatization (Dauvergne, Angeles & Huang) but boys and men have a special place in the hierarchy of the demonized. Males beyond childhood are only too readily branded rapists, drug-dealers and addicts, thieves, lay-abouts, and, increasingly, terrorists. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that male teenagers and twenty somethings are somehow less worthy. The image of one drowned little boy cannot redeem his elder brothers. Continue reading →

Waffling over the Leap Manifesto

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By Jonathan McQuarrie

Sneers extinguish far-reaching ideas. Such was the fate of the recent Leap Manifesto, a document that emerges from the conviction that “Canada is facing the deepest crisis in recent memory.” It’s easier to dismiss an idea that calls for a radical rethinking of Canada and energy regimes, indigenous policy, and social programs than it is to actually engage with the ideas, to actually develop criticisms that explain precisely why radical rethinking isn’t necessary. Banal dismissal is all the easier when one writes for the Globe and Mail, a paper that, for all its considerable merits, tends to slant towards the complacent and comfortable, to people with money and influence. (This is hardly a criticism—we all enjoy being comfortable. But comfort tends not to encourage substantial risk).

Of course, it is too early to write a post-mortem on the Leap Manifesto. It was released just over two weeks ago, and signed by well-known people who will, in all likelihood, continue to advocate for clean, community-based energy regimes. Naomi Klein, David Suzuki, Charles Taylor, and Thomas King are hardly people without audiences. However, like most radical documents, it begins at a disadvantage. Some disadvantages come from economic context—globally orientated trade governed by privately-orientated capitalism has, for all its flaws, created staggering wealth and prompted unparalleled growth in incomes and goods (distinct, of course, from distribution). Frankly, too many people do well by the revenues produced from global capitalism to seriously consider locally orientated alternatives.

The reception of the Leap Manifesto brought to my mind reception of the Manifesto for an Independent Socialist Canada. The latter manifesto, issued by the so-called Waffle Movement in 1969, was spearheaded by Mel Watkins and James Laxer. The Waffle Manifesto, emerging as it did from a Cold War context where the United States loomed large and Canadians of various national stripes fretted about their national identity (cf. Grant’s Lament for a Nation), called for total divestment from the “American Empire.” For the authors, the United States essentially was capitalism, a point the manifesto made clear when it claimed that Canadian capitalists were simply dependent on Americans and that “Capitalism must be replaced with socialism.” Pointing to the “alienating” nature of capitalism, the Waffle Manifesto asserted that a socialist economy would contribute to healing the rift between English and French Canada (indigenous people are conspicuously absent for the modern reader, a flaw common for older socialist critiques that foregrounded class as the terrain of politics). Statist planning of a national economy was presented as a viable alternative to capitalism.
Continue reading →

‘Tomorrow: Sunny’: The Rise and Fall of Solar Heating in 1970s Canada, part 2

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By Henry (Hank) Trim

In this installment of my four part series on solar energy in Canada, I examine how small numbers of environmentalists introduced solar technology to North Americans and successfully championed it as the centerpiece of the first sustainable development strategies. (Click here to read part one)

Solar energy has a long history. The first efforts to use solar energy occurred in 19th century France where Augustin Monchot experimented with a solar steam engine. In the early 20th century, American engineer and inventor Frank Schulman built a series of “sun engines.” His experiments culminated in a solar thermal power plant used for irrigation in Maadi, Egypt in 1913. Unfortunately for Schulman, the First World War, improvements in the internal combustion engine, and falling oil prices largely ended interest in solar power.

NASA’s space program rekindled interest in solar energy in the 1950s. Continue reading →

Conscientious Objectors: Fitting Dissent into a Coming of Age Story

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By Amy Shaw

A First World War era postcard. Credit: unattributed, but fair use

A First World War era postcard. Credit: unattributed, but fair use

With the centennials of the events of the First World War and the sesquicentennial of those leading to Confederation this is a busy time in terms of commemoration. And, as both are presented as different kinds of birth of a nation, we’re paying a lot of attention right now to questions of identity. The trouble is the two narratives fit awkwardly together. The debates and accommodations of the Charlottetown and Quebec Conferences seem a world away from the bloody (and more exciting) fields of war. How do we remember who we are? Continue reading →

New Directions in Active History: A Retrospective

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By Beth A. Robertson, Ph.D 

Created by Shawn Graham, Carleton University, through Voyant using #ActiveHist2015 twitter feed

Created by Shawn Graham, Carleton University, through Voyant using #ActiveHist2015 twitter feed

New Directions in Active History was not your ordinary academic conference. This weekend scholars, students, private and public sector workers, local community members, archivists and more conceived of new ways to communicate the complex issues of the past to larger audiences. Discussions weaved between public policy and public history programs, to the meaning of community-engaged research and the role of technology. We watched the pilot of Ronald Rudin’s Lost Stories that sought to uncover the forgotten legacy of Thomas Widd and how artist Lalie Douglas made his story come alive. Poster sessions featured the work of the Graphic History Collective and the web-based documentary project on the London Dominion Public Building. Moving performances by indigenous activist and radio-show host Mary Lou Smoke[1], as well as Staging Our Histories made the past few days at Huron University College truly unforgettable. The New Directions conference was a regenerative moment for not only the website ActiveHistory.ca, but for all those invested in active history as a practice. Indeed, the conference was a rich opportunity to gather, share, and make connections in order to re-envision the place of history within Canada and our broader world. Continue reading →

Old Stock Canadians: Arab Settlers in Western Canada

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By Sarah Carter

Carter 2

“King Ganam,” The Raymond Recorder 20 Aug. 1954: 3

Syrians have a long history in Canada. Paul Anka is perhaps the best known Canadian of Syrian ancestry. But there were others; many of whom we must consider “Old Stock Canadians.” Somewhat less well known, for example, but still very popular in his day, was “Canada’s King of the Fiddle,” Ameen “King” Ganam, born in Swift Current in 1914. He entertained from a young age in Saskatchewan and then in Edmonton starting in the 1940s, later moving to Toronto where he had his own radio program the “King Ganam Show.” His band the Sons of the West included Tommy Hunter. Ganam was one of the first inductees into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame. A 1954 article about him began “With his dark good looks, flashing brown eyes and Syrian background, King Ganam looks as if he’d be most at home dashing across the desert on an Arabian steed. But says he, the only plains he has ever dashed across are those in Southern Saskatchewan where he was born and grew up.”[1]

The southern Saskatchewan plains where Ganam was born, and that he dashed across, were home to many Arab settlers. Continue reading →

History Slam Episode Seventy-One: Race, Gender, and Rap

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By Sean Graham

When teaching courses on the history of popular culture, one of my favourite exercises is to play a song and then ask the class what the song is about. With certain songs, students come up with answers pretty quickly, while in other cases, it takes a little more prodding. In all cases, though, it’s a lot of fun to examine the music in an effort to understand its cultural significance and the artists’ expression of identity.

As a relatively new style of music in the mainstream, rap has not received the same scholarly attention as other genres. Jazz of the interwar period and folk of the Vietnam era have been studied extensively, but rap is just now coming into focus for historians. This is a critical development as it’s a style ripe with material for study.

In this episode of the History Slam, I talk with Francesca D’Amico about her research on rap in North America. We chat about the differences between Canadian and American artists, gender representations, and race construction. Continue reading →

Facing Down R.B. Bennett

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By Karen Bridget Murray

Richard B. Bennett accepts a gift from Indigenous children (1932). Library and Archives Canada, MIKAN 3362410

Richard B. Bennett accepts a gift from Indigenous children (1932). Library and Archives Canada, MIKAN 3362410

This essay addresses sensitive material that some readers might find disturbing. The Indian Residential Survivors Society provides support for survivors and their families.” We could like the second sentence to this website: http://irsss.ca/do-you-need-help/

A growing chorus is calling for a statue to honour R. B. Bennett on Parliament Hill. An eight-foot high sculpture has already been made and reportedly held in storage in Ottawa. It has been suggested Bennett be placed facing east, towards his childhood home of New Brunswick. The renewed interest in Bennett’s place in Canadian history reached a crescendo just as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada was winding down its important work. This opportune moment invites us to ponder the 11th prime minister’s role in the “national crime” that was the residential school system.[1]  Bennett’s response to reports of the mass flogging of children at a residential school in Nova Scotia is a good place to start. Continue reading →