Thinking about Genocide and Mass Murder: How Could it Have Happened in Nice Canada?

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By Alvin Finkel

The decision of the Commission on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women to use the word “genocide” to describe past Canadian state policies regarding Indigenous women has occasioned heated debate about whether that word is appropriate for anything short of a conscious state plan to rapidly physically eliminate all members of a defined group or to thoroughly destroy their culture and thus eliminate them as a unique entity. The Commission suggests that in fact the latter has been the goal of Canadian governments all along and that condoning physical violence against Indigenous women has been an unstated side effect of attitudes and policies that deny the right of Canada’s Indigenous people to preserve their millennial cultures.

A Political Cartoon from July 1880 in Grip Magazine

Decisions about what human horror stories qualify as genocide are largely political. There is, of course, consensus that Hitler planned to murder all Jews and managed to kill the majority of them in areas that were under German control at some point during his rule. His murder of Roma was also clearly genocide.

But what about the Holodomor, the murder through famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933? Continue reading →

Remembering a Military Chaplain: Major R.M. Hickey, MC

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This is the third of several posts marking the 75th anniversary of D-Day and the end of the Second World War as part of a partnership between Active History and the Juno Beach Centre. If you would like to contribute, contact series coordinator Alex Fitzgerald-Black at alex@junobeach.org.

By Harold Skaarup

New Brunswick’s history is often our family history, and it has been my experience that we often learn far more by word of mouth about what it was really like to have been in the service by those who were there before us.  If you have been given the gift of hearing these kinds of stories first hand, write them down and share them, for if you don’t, the memories can be lost for good. The invasion of Northwest Europe 75 years ago today, changed the world.  Those who took part in it deserve to be remembered.

As a farmboy in Carleton County, I can remember listening to a veteran of the Second World War talking to my grandfather, a First World War veteran, about his experiences in Normandy.  The man had served with the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment, and he was talking about the Hitler Youth boys he had fought and the hard fact that they would not surrender with the adults and had to be mown down with machine gun fire.  My grandfather said he was still suffering from a form of shell shock. These days we call it post-traumatic stress. It has always been around us, even in peacetime.

When my father, RCAF Warrant Officer Aage C. Skaarup was posted to CFB Chatham, New Brunswick, where he serviced the equipment that was used to start up the McDonnell CF-101B Voodoos, my mother Beatrice introduced me to another veteran soldier who had been in Normandy.  He was a former chaplain who had also served with the North Shore Regiment. In 1973 he was living in a Chatham hospital. Continue reading →

History Slam Episode 132: Conversation with a D-Day Veteran

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By Sean Graham

Tomorrow is the 75th anniversary of D-Day, a day that is incredibly significant both in the military history of the Second World War and the collective memory of that conflict. The latter has been greatly influenced by the many depictions in film of the landings on the 6th of June 1944 – perhaps most famously Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998). And while the best of these representations in film have been informed by historical research and first-hand accounts, milestone anniversaries have a remarkable power of re-focusing discussions around those who were actually there.

Already this week, national and local media have been filled with stories of the veterans who are still with us. As many of them head to France for commemorative ceremonies, there has been a great acknowledgement that, just as happened with First World War veterans, there will come a time when first-hand accounts of the Second World War will no longer be possible. One of these larger projects is D-Day in 14 Stories, a new documentary film that, as the title suggests, looks at the war through 14 individual experiences/stories. In doing so, the film tells diverse stories while simultaneously creating an interwoven narrative.

In this episode of the History Slam, I talk with Jim Parks, a Second World War veteran featured in the film. We talk about his experience during D-Day, the sights and sounds of the war, and his feelings towards the Germans. We also discuss his memories of training, his time in London, and where he was on Victory in Europe Day.

D-Day in 14 Stories airs on History Channel multiple times on June 6 with a national airing on Global on Saturday June 8.

Continue reading →

‘”I’m scared too”: Margie MacNaughton, her father Archie, and the cost of D-Day

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This is the second in a series of posts marking the 75th anniversary of D-Day and the end of the Second World War as part of a partnership between Active History and the Juno Beach Centre. If you would like to contribute, contact series coordinator Alex Fitzgerald-Black at alex@junobeach.org.

Editor’s note: On May 30th, 2019 Historica Canada released a new Heritage Minute honouring those who participated in D-Day, the June 6th landings in Normandy 75 years ago. Jen Sguigna, who consulted on the project, gives her readers insight into both the man at the centre of the Minute and the family he left behind. You can watch the heritage minute here.

The story of Archie begins with a list: Canadians killed on D-Day.

John Archibald MacNaughton, Major in the North Shore New Brunswick Regiment. Hometown: Black River Bridge, New Brunswick. 47 years old.  Killed in action on 6 June 1944.

The list stops where Archie’s life stopped, with no acknowledgement of the lives that went on without him.

Major Archie MacNaughton, Second World War (c. 1939). Photo courtesy of the MacNaughton family.

His daughter Margie, now in her eighties, tells a story of her father that can’t be found in war diaries and military histories. She remembers him proudly: Beloved husband, adored father. Revered in his community and dedicated to his family farm. His strong sense of duty.

I first found a mention of Archie in an East Coast community newsletter. Continue reading →

Salmon and Christianity

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This is the fifth post in a series featuring short descriptions of papers and panels that will be presented at the Canadian Historical Association’s annual meeting being held at the University of British Columbia June 3-5.

Salmon and Christianity might seem unlikely bedfellows, but the beauty of the Canadian Historical Association’s annual conference is that it creates opportunities to bring together – and into conversation – research that shares important connections and productive differences. This panel engages important debates about the ways that settler colonialism shapes how Indigenous people engage, and continue to engage, with the changes that came with the colonization of their lands, waters, and spiritualities. Both papers share a broad geographical focus centred on the Pacific Northwest and seek to use historical research on the return of the Tla’amin food fishery in 2018 and the missionary life of a British priest to identify ways settler people can, and need, to address the historical legacies and ongoing processes of colonialism in Canada.

Thanks to their close observations and interactions with Indigenous peoples, heroic self-promotion, and the huge legacy of documents, images, and recordings they created, missionaries have long been a subject of fascination for historians, faith communities, and the public. Research since the late 20th century has revealed in careful detail the ways missionaries and their work promoted and facilitated colonization of Indigenous peoples and lands (and in some cases, the ways missionaries attempted to resist some of these efforts). Because of the work of survivors and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, for many Canadians, the most well-known example of this is the role missionaries and clergy played in running the Indian Residential Schools and the abuse of children that became an undeniable feature of these institutions. So, in this difficult context, is there still value in studying missionary histories? And, could a close examination of how missionaries in Canada related to settler colonisation reveal possibilities for creative decolonial practices in the present? Continue reading →

OERs and Classroom Conversations about History

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This is the fourth post in a series featuring short descriptions of papers and panels that will be presented at the Canadian Historical Association’s annual meeting being held at the University of British Columbia June 3-5.

In most university curricula, conversations about our discipline begin in the first- and second-year classroom and are often profoundly shaped by our choices of textbooks and primary and secondary source readers. Many of these resources are costly for students, rigidly structured, and – according to some evidence – seldom used by our students.

Over the past five-to-ten years, greater efforts have been made to address these issues. In 2015, BCcampus published a two-volume open-access Canadian history textbook (click here for pre-Confederation and here for post-Confederation), authored by Thompson Rivers University historian John Belshaw. Last year, eCampusOntario supported a companion tutorial reader, Open History Seminar, edited by Sean Kheraj and Thomas Peace, a prototype of which is currently being used in a handful of classrooms across the country.

In this roundtable, John Belshaw, Amanda Coolidge (BCcampus), Sean Kheraj, and Thomas Peace discuss the promises and prospects for open educational resources (OER) in the history classroom. In addition to focusing on the nature of OERs, panelists highlight the gendered nature of textbook publishing in Canada, whereby most of the major textbooks (including these resources) have been authored by men.

The roundtable discussion will be followed by a workshop during which the panelists will work with participants as they learn the basic skills to build supplemental materials for these existing resources, such as additional chapters, useful assignments and exercises; in addition to learning about the resources available for creating new OERs for the history classroom in Canada. Participation in the workshop is limited to 30 people and requires registration (click here to register).

This panel is sponsored by the Active History Committee of the CHA.

For other examples of History-focused OERs check out:

This event will be held on Wednesday June 5 at 1:30 p.m. For more details about the CHA’s annual meeting consult the program here. If you would like to contribute a post to this series, please contact Tom Peace (tpeace@uwo.ca).

(Re)Thinking Late 20th Century Canada

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This is the third post in a series featuring themes and panels that will be presented at the Canadian Historical Association’s 2019 annual meeting at the University of British Columbia, June 3-5.

Historians, who for many years ignored the historiographic no man’s land between the charismatic upheavals of the 1960s and the world historical events of the [late] 1980s, have come to recognize the 1970s as the foundry of our current world order.[1]

Late twentieth century historical sources have become increasingly available to Canadian historians. Yet, Nils Gilman’s metaphor of a “historiographic no man’s land” continues to be relevant. Temporal and politically laden frameworks like the “long sixties” and “the just society” are not easily applied to the decades that followed. Between 1970 and 2000 significant economic, cultural, and social shifts destabilized the contested post-war liberal consensus. The repatriation of the Constitution and passage of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms provided hard-won platforms for Indigenous peoples, women, queer communities, people with disabilities, and immigrants and refugees to have a greater influence on politics and society; many of these movements had strong connections to struggles elsewhere. At the same time, global neoliberal politics were having an impact on national politics and, as a result, economic support for programs that fostered inclusion diminished. Culturally, Indigenous politics rooted in international decolonization movements, tensions between Quebec and Canada, Canada and the United States and challenges to Canada’s recently redefined identity as an inclusive and multicultural nation made “Canadian identity” an increasingly fraught subject. These decades, which laid the foundation for present day Canada, require further analysis.

Photo: Trivial Pursuit, courtesy of Canadian Museum of History

Two forthcoming efforts in this direction illustrate the broad potential for conceptualizing post-post-war Canada. The first is a panel at the 2019 Canadian Historical Association annual meeting, “Non-Trivial Pursuits: Historicizing Late-Twentieth Century Canada” (Wednesday 5 June, 3:30-5:30, BUCH A 202). Continue reading →

Looking back to ’72: From one Trudeau re-election bid to another

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By David Blocker

The 1972 federal election was one of the closest in Canadian political history.  The exact results of the election remained in doubt for several days after the polls closed on October 30, 1972.  After recounts indicated the Liberals had tied with the Progressive Conservatives at 109 seats Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau decided to remain in government with a minority.[1]

Considering the parallels between the circumstances around the 1972 election campaign and the current context raises several interesting questions.

First, after winning power with a campaign full of euphoric promise, will progressive disappointment in Justin Trudeau’s first term result in Liberal election losses, as it did for Pierre in 1972?

Second, in the 1972 federal election the question of Canada’s relationship with the United States loomed large because of a right-wing American president’s protectionist economic agenda.  How will similar circumstances affect the 2019 federal election?

Third, will a divided conservative vote in Quebec benefit Justin Trudeau as it did his father in 1972?

Finally, is Jagmeet Singh willing and/or able to adopt the left-populist rhetoric that worked for David Lewis in the 1972 campaign propelling the NDP to its best result (at the time) and leaving the party holding the balance of power in the House of Commons?

The first, and most obvious, point of comparison between 2019 and 1972 is the Trudeau connection. Continue reading →

Treaty Talks: Engaging Non-Indigenous Canadians with the Past and Present of Treaties

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This is the second post in a series featuring short descriptions of papers and panels that will be presented at the Canadian Historical Association’s annual meeting being held at the University of British Columbia June 3-5.

The last call to action of the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission suggests the statement “I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada including treaties with Indigenous peoples” be included as part of Canada’s oath of citizenship.[1] This revised oath reflects decades of work by Indigenous leaders to restore the vision of treaty-as-relationship and echoes similar calls for recognition of treaty relationships in the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP).[2] But how and where do non-Indigenous Canadians, new and old, learn about treaties?  Treaty education and awareness is uneven across the country. Saskatchewan, for example, has had a Treaty Commissioner since 1989, and has been integrating treaty education into school curricular for more than 20 years.[3]

But in central and eastern Canada, RCAP fell on deaf ears. Until the TRC report again brought the question of treaties forward, knowledge about treaties in central and eastern Canada was concentrated in Indigenous nations, specifically with Elders and knowledge keepers, some federal employees and a few academics and lawyers. While the reanimation of public awareness of treaties has happened across the country, it is perhaps especially notable in those provinces where pre-Confederation treaties were sometimes (conveniently) forgotten by settler governments within decades of their making.

The panel is comprised of three settler scholars working to increase the knowledge and learning about treaties and treaty relationships among non-Indigenous people in the province of Ontario. Continue reading →

History Slam Episode 131: Newfoundland’s Rocky Road Towards Confederation

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By Sean Graham

From airport kitchen parties to This Hour Has 22 Minutes to one of the greatest moments in Canadian curling history, Newfoundland and Labrador has become a vital component of Canadian culture. That position wasn’t a given, however, when it joined Confederation in the spring of 1949 after a contentious campaign. As Canada’s youngest province, there are many people still living whose nationality at birth was Newfoundlander and not Canadian, a fact which many hold dear.

The process through which Newfoundland rejected Confederation in the 19th century before joining in the 20th is a unique story where the divide between urban and rural populations and their voting priorities was clearly on display. In both cases, a refrain has emerged that many voters were duped, or didn’t fully comprehend, when casting their ballots. For some historians, these were not people voting in their own best interests, but rather an uneducated group that had been sold a bill of goods.

There are many parallels in how people have written about these people in Newfoundland during the Confederation debates and some members of the electorate today. As part of what seems to be increased tribalism in North American politics, the rush to cast those with whom we disagree as uneducated or foolish is clear when scrolling through Twitter during any election campaign. But what if people aren’t necessarily being fooled, but rather examining the available options are voting in their best interests?

In their new book Where They Once Stood: Newfoundland’s Rock Road Towards Confederation Raymond Blake and Melvin Baker examine the gulf between pro- and anti-Confederation voters in Newfoundland during the process that ultimately led to Canada’s 10th province joining Confederation. By challenging the popular notion that those who voted against Confederation in 1869, and for Confederation in 1948, were gullible and/or uninformed, Blake and Baker have explored a historical issue that not only informs our understanding on Newfoundland and Canadian politics, but also contemporary political discussion.
Continue reading →