Active History

Polls and the Crisis of Confidence

June 19, 2014 1 Comment

By Jonathan McQuarrie

Why do newspapers support the public-opinion polls?…Not only do the modern polls, based on a small, carefully selected cross section, provide more accurate measurements; they can be applied to give continuous and rapid measurements of public opinion at all times. -George Gallup and Saul Forbes Rae, The Pulse of Democracy, 1940, 119.

So called ‘pollsters’ should hang their heads in shame. It’s time to quit whoring out the profession and get out of the media polling game. –Allan Gregg, tweet on 12 June 2014.

What a difference sixty years makes. On the night of the Ontario election, Allan Gregg, the well-known pollster and political pundit, made his displeasure with the inaccurate polling results perfectly clear. Tweets, of course, must always be taken with a several grains of salt. A more measured critique would certainly avoid use of ‘whoring,’ an ugly verb laden with gendered, moralizing judgments, especially following debate over the Conservatives’ highly controversial Bill C-36. However, Gregg has a long track record of being increasingly critical of his former profession. Following Christie Clark’s surprise victory in British Columbia’s 2013 election, Gregg told Canadian Press that the errors “should not happen.” Gregg is not the only commentator who has been sharply critical of polling, but he is the most prolific.

As Daniel J. Robinson’s book The Measure of Democracy: Polling, Market Research, and Public Life 1930-1945 (Toronto, 1999) makes clear, George Gallup and Saul Forbes Rae’s spirited defence of polling as serving public interests needs to be taken with as much salt as Gregg’s tweet. Early pollsters like Gallup’s American Institute of Public Opinion (AIPO) — and its Canadian branch — were soon shaped more by commercial research and committed to market metaphors than by any idealistic commitment to representing the voice of a broad public opinion. In that sense, Gregg’s position is a more honest representation of polling firms and their major function, which is market research. Continue reading →

History Slam Episode Forty-Four: Pierre Savard Conference Keynote Speaker Robert Englebert

June 18, 2014 2 Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

By Sean Graham

On Wednesday April 23, the tenth edition of the Pierre Savard Conference kicked off at the University of Ottawa. Through the years the conference’s keynotes have included such prominent historians as John Ralston Saul, David Hackett Fischer, and James Bartleman. But this year the organizing committee decided to bring the conference full circle and invite the University of Saskatchewan’s Robert Englebert to deliver the keynote address. For it was Robert Englebert who chaired the inaugural conference when he was a graduate student in the Department of History at the University of Ottawa. Seeing him back at the conference he founded was really interesting – particularly because Mme Savard (Pierre Savard’s widow) was so excited to meet him.

In this episode of the History Slam I talk with Robert Englebert about the conference, returning to Ottawa, and his research on French North America. We also talk about the book he co-edited with Guillaume Teasdale entitled French and Indians in the Heart of North America, 1630-1815.

Sean Graham is a doctoral candidate at the University of Ottawa where he is currently working on a project that examines the early years of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He has previously studied at Nipissing University, the University of the West Indies, and the University of Regina and like any red-blooded Canadian his ultimate dream is to be a curling champion while living on a diet of beer and poutine.

An Idea Whose Time Has Come: A City Museum for Toronto

June 17, 2014 8 Comments

Figure 1: One of the more dramatic past concepts for a Toronto Museum, by Sandro Thordarson.

By Daniel Ross and Jay Young

The Toronto Civic Museum, Humanitas, the Global City Museum: over the last forty years Toronto has seen a number of bold proposals for a city museum, but up until now there has been a distinct lack of shovels in the ground (or exhibits in the halls, as the case may be).

That may change soon. A workshop on June 3^rd marked the launch of the Museum of Toronto (MoT) project, an attempt to breathe new life into an old—but still very relevant—cause. What does it mean to create a city museum for a diverse metropolis like Toronto? How can this new initiative reach its potential? Continue reading →

Rescued by the Americans: the Story Ottawa Conservatives would prefer Canadians not know

June 16, 2014 6 Comments

By Veronica Strong-Boag

First of all three disclaimers: I like many Americans; I love digital records; and I value the efforts of independent on-line initiatives to serve the public good. Why then my reservations when I read the website http://parkscanadahistory.com? Two generous residents of the lower forty-eight, with significant expertise in the US National Park Service,[1] have provided free access to a rich trove of “electronic publications, covering the cultural and natural history of Parks Canada and the national parks, historic sites and marine conservation areas of the Canadian park system.” Full texts are available, although only in English. As Harper’s Conservatives sack information services and access, anyone interested in Canada’s parks and historic sites and monuments has reason for gratitude. We would be much poorer without such initiatives to preserve access to critical information about our past and present.

But after we have thanked our American friends, we should ask some questions, beginning with why is such an external source of public data on Canada necessary? The US site explains that it is “not affiliated with Parks Canada.” This seems a bit strange surely? All the linked documents were paid for by Canadian taxpayers and all were inspired by Canada’s own priorities with regard to national parks and historic sites and monuments. Indeed the various units within Parks Canada have a distinguished history of professional research conducted by historians, archaelogists, anthropologists, and a range of natural scientists. Their studies have contributed significantly to what we know about human exploration and settlement and changes in the natural environment and climate. They have been essential in ensuring that we better understand our part of North America.

Unfortunately, the deep knowledge available in the research records of every federal department has become a target for Canada’s current Conservative government. It is routinely suspicious of expertise and scholarship in the social sciences and sciences in particular.[2] Like all federal agencies and institutions, Parks Canada has been stripped to the bare bones by several decades of neo-liberalism, culminating in today’s wide-ranging assault on data collection and access. Federal websites generate growing frustration as materials disappear entirely or fail to be updated. The loss of significant departmental libraries and collections, like the general retreat from support for Canadian Studies, has become a commonplace tragedy that beggars future generations. The elimination in 2014 of the Depository Services Program (initiated 1927), which made government documents available to Canadians, is the critical context in which Parks Canada’s diminution and the value of http://parkscanadahistory.com needs to be understood.[3] Continue reading →

Eye of the Storm: History, Past and Future at the University of Saskatchewan

June 12, 2014 1 Comment

By Merle Massie

The University of Saskatchewan has been front and center in national and international news this past spring, owing to the public fallout of an ugly internal battle regarding the university’s past and future directions.

And historians have been active generals and foot soldiers on all sides of the battle. Because when you’re talking about shaping past and future, there are historians in the room.

A quick précis of events: Robert Buckingham, then Executive Director of the School of Public Health, released an open letter entitled ‘Silence of the Deans,’ accusing University of Saskatchewan senior administration of demanding a code of silence and conformity surrounding the controversial priority planning process TranformUS underway on campus. In response, the University of Saskatchewan fired Buckingham and stripped his tenure.

The ensuing public outcry – across campus, Saskatchewan, alumni, Canada, and beyond – was loud, outraged, and embarrassing for USask. The next day, part of the decision was revoked and Buckingham’s tenure reinstated. President Ilene Busch-Vishniac candidly admitted: “we blundered.” But soon the dominoes fell. Provost and Vice-President Academic Brett Fairbairn, who signed the firing letter, tendered his resignation. Two days later, the Board of Governors fired the President and hired a new interim President, Gordon Barnhart, to skipper the USask ship out of the shoals.

The key context to the story is, of course, money. Long prior to the Buckingham fiasco, the U of S has been wracked with controversy. To combat a projected future budgetary shortfall, the program prioritization process is leading adjustments and strategic cuts, rather than an across-the-board slash. This process has been messy, painful, and sad. University of Saskatchewan has been in ‘crisis mode’ for two years. The events of this spring merely brought the festering mess to a public explosion.

There is both storyline and characters in this battle: they read like a ‘who’s who’ of the History department. Continue reading →

History Slam Episode Forty-Three: Congress 2014 Recap

June 11, 2014 3 Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

By Sean Graham

Aerial view of Brock University. Photo via www.brocku.ca

Between May 24 and 30, Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, hosted the 2014 Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities. For three of those days the Canadian Historical Association held its annual meeting. This was my third year attending the CHA and I have to admit that it’s always an interesting experience. Between meeting people for the first time, seeing old friends, attending panels, and checking out the myriad of non-CHA events (Hello My Cousin Vinny’s in Niagara Falls!) the three days somehow manage to simultaneously go by really quickly and really slowly.

That dynamic was particularly evident for me this year as I spent the four days preceding the CHA at the 2014 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women. I very much enjoyed my time at the Berks – there was an energy to the Berks unlike anything I’d ever experienced – but, when combined with the CHA, it led me to wonder if the limited resources available to those of us who study history are best spent on conferences. Between email, Skype, and the seemingly countless other digital options, I can’t help but wonder if the work being done in conference sessions could be replaced.

The problem with that, however, is the presupposition that the value of conferences lay exclusively in the panels, keynotes, and other ‘official’ events. Things like the beer tent, Cliopalooza, and the brief interactions between panels all have immense value. The opportunity to have genuine human interaction is fun – particularly after spending the better part of the past few years breathing in dust at the archives. For instance, putting faces to the names you know from Twitter is great. There are also the stories of book and article projects that were born out of conversations had at conferences. Those are the things that can’t be replaced.
Continue reading →

Downsizing Flight Attendants in the Sky and the Deregulation and Privatization of Air Travel in Canada

June 10, 2014 No Comments

Source: airlinespastpresent.blogspot.com.

By Bret Edwards

Transport Canada recently announced a plan to change the number of flight attendants Canadian airlines are required to staff on specific commercial flights. The current national standard, developed in 1968, is one flight attendant for every forty passengers. If the regulation is changed, this ratio will drop to one in fifty.

Airlines have led the push for a higher ratio. They argue that passenger safety will not be jeopardized, jobs will not be lost, and Canada will be aligned with the international standard, which itself has shifted over time. Fairness is also an issue, given that the federal government granted exemptions last year to two airlines, WestJet and Sunwing, to operate at the lower ratio. The airlines left out now want the same privilege.

Opponents, led by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, see the change as a cost-cutting measure by airlines that will lead to pink slips. They also point out that Transport Canada concluded in its last review eight years ago that the current ratio was best for safety purposes. Critics argue that risks to passengers will also increase if the ratio is changed, since some exits on certain aircraft will be left unstaffed in the event of an emergency.

The proposed ratio change is but the latest example of how regulating safety and security in Canadian commercial air travel has become increasingly susceptible to economic interests, an outcome of deregulation and privatization in the industry over the last few decades. Briefly exploring this history helps explain the current conversation about downsizing flight attendants in the sky and the competing arguments at play. It turns out the calculus of regulation includes more than just preventing unsafe and risky practices. Continue reading →

European Nativism Narrows the Horizons of the European Union Project

June 9, 2014 No Comments

Flags of Venice and Lega Nord. Source: Wikipedia Commons.

By Aitana Guia

From its inception in 1950, federalists and intergovernmentalists wrestled for control of a project to unify Western Europe on economic and political terms. For most of its six decades of existence, those who were reluctant to cease a growing share of their sovereignty to European institutions in Brussels held federalists at bay. Booming postwar economic times fueled the dream that a primarily economic union sustained by a gargantuan bureaucracy could save the European Union, as it was known since 1992, from a growing number of Eurosceptics on all sides of the political spectrum.

The large presence of Eurosceptics in the European Parliament as of May 2014 questions the viability of the European project. It signals that popular disengagement with European institutions and legal frameworks is not a passing fad until now dismissed as protest vote, but rather an underlining current set to limit the expansion and deepening of European unity.

In order to comprehend the heterogeneous group of opponents to the European Union, journalists and scholars have labeled them Eurosceptic, xenophobic, and Islamophobic (see here and here). Although these labels are useful in order to focus attention on the minority groups these parties violently oppose, they miss the important function of group cohesion these parties offer to disengaged ethnic Europeans. Continue reading →

Memory at 100: The First World War Centennial and the Question of Commemoration

June 4, 2014 2 Comments

Is this a First World War monument?

By Nathan Smith

In a recent post here Jonathan Weier compared official plans in the UK and Australia to commemorate the First World War centennial with the Canadian government’s disengagement with the one-hundredth anniversary of the First World War. Given the interest the federal Conservatives have shown in warrior nationalism and war commemoration, this is surprising.

From the government’s memorialization of the War of 1812, which includes a website, you would think it would be excited by the prospect of commemorating Canada’s Great War. The National Day of Honour it held this past 9^th of May seems like more evidence for this assumption. Announced by the Prime Minister’s Office this past March, the honour day was “in recognition and commemoration of Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan.” You can find video of the day’s events on the Prime Minister of Canada YouTube channel (and, you know, subscribe if you want).

Weier suggests some reasons why the government may be biding its time on commemorating 1914-1918. He also says the government’s reticence to commemorate the centennial may not be a bad thing. Might it lead to a greater diversity in how the war is remembered, and what is remembered? Continue reading →

Pessimism and Hope When Teaching Global Environmental History

June 2, 2014 7 Comments

Wendell Berry stands before the solar panels on his farm in Henry County, KY. Photo by Guy Mendes (From Wikipedia)

By Jim Clifford

This past year I taught a small but fantastic group of undergraduate students in a course focused on the global environmental history of the industrial revolution. My goal in the course was to situate the massive environmental transformations of the past two centuries in a broad historical context and to provide an opportunity to discuss the benefits and costs of these changes. By the end of the course, however, it became clear that the students recognized the unsustainable nature of the global economy and that they were unconvinced that the more positive and sustainable developments in recent decades would meet the challenge of climate change.

We started the course by exploring global trade and connections from 1400 through to about 1800, recognizing the importance of China and Asia more generally during this time period. From there we explored the ongoing debates about the reasons the industrial revolution started in Britain. With that broad context established we explored some of the environmental consequences of industrialization and globalization over the past two hundred years. This included attention to the colonial disposition, resource depletion and widespread deforestation resulting from the reliance of industrial economies on on raw materials from forests, plantations, mines and guano islands scattered throughout the world. We explored a range of developments with significant environmental consequences, such as the application of industrial technology to fishing and whaling, leading to the collapse of whale populations and once productive fisheries, through to the extractive industries that harvested mahogany, cinchona and gutta percha from tropical forests in South America and South East Asia. Continue reading →

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