Active History

Turnpikes and Toll Roads in Perspective

November 30, 2011 1 Comment

by David Zylberberg

Last week I presented some of my research at a conference in Boston and drove from Toronto in order to do so. I have not driven in the north-eastern United States in a few years and was quickly surprised to learn that I-90 for most of its length from Buffalo to Boston has become a toll road known as the Thomas Dewey Thruway and the MassPike. The existence of tolls on a previously free road made me think about the relationship between how roads are paid for and other economic behavior.

The tolls to get from Buffalo to the Massachusetts border were $14 for my car, with a further $3.50 to get from the border to Boston. Gasoline Taxes are also lower in the United States, so at $3.39/gallon (rather than $1.18/litre in Toronto) it cost me about $15 less to fill the one tank required to get from Buffalo to Boston. In Canada, the added taxes that make gasoline more expensive contribute to the construction of roads, so are somewhat analogous to the tolls charged on some American highways and bridges. My car is fairly efficient on fuel, so while I paid about $3 more to drive on I-90 than a similar Canadian road, a larger and less-efficient vehicle would have paid less to drive on American turnpikes, despite the tolls. Which transactions are taxed affect behavior and it is worth noting that vehicles tend to be somewhat smaller in Ontario than in New York. To the extent that limiting gasoline consumption is important for limiting the problems of peak oil and climate change, New York would be well served to institute much higher gasoline taxes to replace tolls on the interstate. Such high taxes would also affect behavior on the many non-toll secondary highways and local roads. It would also be more efficient to increase gasoline taxes as they would not require building toll booths or having people collect small tolls, like the $0.15 charged when I made a brief stop in the suburbs of Buffalo. Continue reading →

The Political Uses of Public Space: A Podcast of Craig Heron’s Talk on Labour Day Parades

November 28, 2011 No Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Over the past few weeks, cities across Canada have evicted Occupy protesters from camping overnight in public parks. Opinion remains divided over the tactics of the amorphous movement. One lawyer recently defended the group by arguing in court that the occupation of Toronto’s St. James Park was a “physical manifestation of the exercise of … conscience.” In other words, the medium is the message. But some residents living in the area expressed that they felt threatened, and local businesses complained about a loss in revenue. A Toronto judge ruled that the reasonable limits clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms overrides the protesters’ particular means of freedom of expression. Last Wednesday, police evicted the final protesters from the park.

The use of public space for political protest has a long and contested history in Canada. Historian Craig Heron recently presented a timely talk entitled “Labour on the March: 150 Years of Labour Parades in Toronto.” He began his presentation by pointing out the Occupy movement’s uses of the street. For example, protesters in Toronto had used their bodies to form a “99” (as in “99 percent”) at the intersection of Yonge and Dundas Streets while media helicopters hovered above. People move through streets to communicate a message, Heron argued. Historically, parades have been an “extremely important form of mass communication,” and it was one way in which labour demanded respect within wider Canadian society during the nineteenth and twentieth century.

Heron’s talk comes from research for his 2005 book The Workers’ Festival: A History of Labour Day in Canada, which he co-wrote with Steve Penfold. The talk is available here for audio download.

The presentation was part of the 2011 History Matters lecture series, which gave the public an opportunity to connect with working historians and discover some of the many and surprising ways in which the past shapes the present. This year’s talks focused on two themes: labour and environmental history. Some of these presentations are now available in our podcast section. Stay tuned for recordings of subsequent talks from the series.

Announcement: Approaching the Past Workshop

November 27, 2011 No Comments

The next Approaching the Past workshop is scheduled for Tuesday November 29th, from 5-7 pm at the Zion Schoolhouse, 1091 Finch Ave East, Toronto. The theme of this workshop is Secret Lives: Affective Learning, Using drama to teach history. The workshop features performances and demonstrations that integrate teaching history through historical drama. The event is free, but please RSVP to approachingthepast-toronto.com. Approaching the Past Workshops are sponsored by THEN/HIER, in partnership with the Archives of Ontario, the City of Toronto, ActiveHistory.ca and OHASSTA.

EHTV Episode 10: A Town Called Asbestos V

November 25, 2011 No Comments

On this final episode of a five-part series on the history of asbestos mining in Quebec, Dr. Jessica Van Horssen examines the effects of the decline of the asbestos industry and its impact on the people of Asbestos, QC. Furthermore, she discusses the internationally condemned policy of the federal government to abandon the use of asbestos in Canada while simultaneously marketing the mineral in developing countries.

Viewers should also visit the website for Asbestos, QC: The Graphic Novel to further explore Dr. Van Horssen’s work on this topic.

Visit the full EHTV website at: http://niche-canada.org/ehtv

Eating Like Our Great-Grandmothers: Food Rules and the Uses of Food History

November 24, 2011 2 Comments

Cover Image of Michael Pollan's Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual (New York: Penguin Books, 2011).

by Ian Mosby

This month’s publication of a colourfully illustrated, revised edition of Michael Pollan’s 2009 bestseller, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, once again has me thinking about the role of historians in contemporary debates about the health and environmental impacts of our current industrial food system. As a historian of food and nutrition, I often find myself getting a bit squeamish whenever I hear anyone invoking the past to either defend or critique contemporary dietary practices. And Pollan, like other critics of the food industry, makes extensive use of history to guide his analysis of our current food choices. Continue reading →

Funneling Controversy: The Keystone XL Pipeline

November 22, 2011 5 Comments

By Daniel Macfarlane

Pipeline route, Kbh3rd - Aquifer Map

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?

The Keystone project involves several different elements: the initial Keystone oil pipeline runs from Alberta to Illinois, in part utilizing existing pipelines, while the expansion (Keystone “XL”) entails extending pipeline all the way to Texas refineries and eventually the Gulf of Mexico (see adjoining map or see a more interactive map). Both lines will be able to move over around half a million barrels of oil per day. The original Keystone line is already finished, and the extension is expected to be completed in the next few years, provided that it receives the necessary agreement from the American government. This expansion phase, however, has been greeted by visible protest.

Continue reading →

Museum Closures, Heritage and Cultivating a Sense of Place in Toronto

November 21, 2011 5 Comments

“Places possess a marked capacity for triggering acts of self-reflection, inspiring thoughts about who one presently is, or memories of who one used to be, or musings on who one might become… When places are actively sensed, the physical landscape becomes wedded to the landscape of the mind, to the roving imagination, and where the latter may lead is anybody’s guess.” – Keith Basso, Wisdom Sits in Places, 107.

Just as I read these words last week, the Toronto Star disclosed municipal plans to close three of the City of Toronto’s ten museums. Montgomery’s Inn, Gibson House and the Zion School House – museums outside of the downtown core and closely allied with the Etobicoke and North York Historical societies – are on the chopping block due to municipal cutbacks. This decision builds on the recently announced closure of the Air and Space Museum at Downsview Park, one of a few other museums in the north end of the city.

In an age of austerity, as Sean Kheraj noted last week, all public institutions supporting culture and heritage are vulnerable. But these cuts do not just reflect cutbacks in the culture and heritage sectors. In a city already bereft of recognized historical sites outside of the downtown core, this municipal decision reinforces urban and suburban differences in how Toronto’s past is told. If places have the power to shape our self-perception and how we situate ourselves in the world, as Basso and others have suggested, how has the uneven distribution of historical places influenced the culture and politics of Canada’s largest city? Continue reading →

EHTV Episode 09: A Town Called Asbestos Part IV

November 18, 2011 No Comments

The fourth part in a NiCHE EHTV mini-series, by Dr. Jessica Van Horssen, on the history of asbestos mining in Quebec investigates the decades after the Second World War when global awareness of the adverse health effects of asbestos led to import bans and ultimately the decline of the industry. As medical science unequivocally linked a variety of cancers and lung diseases to inhalation of and exposure to asbestos fibers, the industry suffered. By the 1970s, Quebec asbestos miners, asbestos corporations, and the federal government stood alone as defenders of the fireproof mineral.

Viewers should also visit the website for Asbestos, QC: The Graphic Novel to further explore Dr. Van Horssen’s work on this topic.

Visit the full EHTV website at: http://niche-canada.org/ehtv

Active History in an Age of Austerity

November 17, 2011 3 Comments

by Sean Kheraj

Montgomery’s Inn, Toronto, ON. Photo by loreth_ni_Balor.

Tom Peace recently published a post on Active History calling attention to the emergence of another round of the History Wars, but the more pressing forthcoming history war may be one between the historical community and the politics of austerity. Budget cuts at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels of government across the country have targeted cultural and heritage institutions, threatening the integrity of the capacity of Canada to maintain an adequate understanding of its collective past.

Reckless tax-cuts combined with a global economic crisis have conspired at all levels of government across Canada to persuade the country’s political leadership to use ballooning budget deficits to justify substantial service cuts with very little public debate and a tenuous political mandate. During the 2011 federal election, the Conservative Party of Canada made a commitment to balance the federal budget by 2014-15 (one which it recently abandoned), “[t]hrough accelerated reductions in government spending” without raising any taxes. Unfortunately, the promise to balance the budget through spending cuts offered no details except that a Conservative government would continue “specific measures to restrain the growth of program spending” and complete, “within one year, a comprehensive review of government spending” [1]. The most detail on these “specific measures” that the Prime Minister offered to voters during the campaign was that “We know there is fat to be saved.” Continue reading →

New Review of Perceptions of Cuba: Canadian and American Policies in Comparative Perspective

November 16, 2011 No Comments

Perceptions of Cuba: Canadian and American Policies in Comparative Perspective

By Lana Wylie

Reviewed by Mary Stanik, a communications consultant and opinion writer who has been published in a number of major Canadian and American newspapers. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

These are interesting times for anyone in Canada or the United States who takes a serious interest in Cuba. Since Raúl Castro became Cuba’s acting president in 2006 (and president in his own right in 2008), Cuba watchers in both countries have looked at the changes Castro, brother of former President Fidel Castro, has and has not made to the country’s governing structure or political culture. Within the past six years, leadership changes in Canada (with Stephen Harper becoming prime minister in 2006) and the United States (with Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009), also have brought about new thoughts and policies regarding Cuba. In Canada, there has been a cooling of relations, while there has been somewhat of a thaw in the United States. These changes might have been nearly unimaginable in either country just a few years earlier.

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