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Roderick Benns: Posted on June-04-13 12:02 PM
 Today, back in 1979, Joe Clark took office as Canada’s youngest Prime Minister at age 39 – one day before his fortieth birthday. This election of Canada’s 16 Prime Minister actually serves as my earliest political memory. I was eight years old and I recall begging my parents to let me stay up to finish watching the election. There was something about the drama of the night that captivated me and sparked my interest in Canadian electoral politics. In his cabinet, Clark included the first black minister (Lincoln Alexander, just recently deceased) and the youngest ever cabinet minister (Perrin Beatty, then 29). |
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Roderick Benns: Posted on May-29-13 10:01 AM
 On this day in history, May 29, two very different kinds of disasters occurred. One was political, the other involved a staggering number of causalities. On this day the Reform Party of Canada was founded (and the disaster part was what happened to the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada years later.) Preston Manning, as leader, became the voice for fiscal and social conservatism; Deborah Grey went on to become the party's first MP, winning the 1989 Beaver River Alberta by-election. |
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Roderick Benns: Posted on May-22-13 11:38 AM
 According to a press release on CountyLive.ca, John A. Macdonald will soon have a bronze bust unveiled in Picton, Ontario on May 26th -- the 10th known sculpture of Canada's first leader. Ruth Abernethy, one of Canada’s most well-known bronze portrait artists, will unveil the bust of Macdonald. This is the first stage of a commission to create a larger-than-life bronze sculpture of Macdonald for the bicentennial of his birth in two years. The event will be held at Picton’s Regent Theatre Sunday, May 26 at 2 p. |
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Roderick Benns: Posted on May-16-13 10:18 AM
It is beyond ludicrous that Canada doesn’t have a single national holiday for a Canadian. As we approach the Victoria Day weekend, few of us will reflect on the long ago monarch who never once put a single toe on Canadian soil. Of all the statutory Canadian holidays, this is the dumbest of them all. (Followed closely, I would say, by the banal-in-name Family Day.) I’m all for a holiday in late May. But maybe we could pick a Prime Minister’s birthday to celebrate? Hmm. The trouble is that May is the ONLY month in which there were no Canadian PMs birthed. |
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Roderick Benns: Posted on April-29-13 12:54 PM
 There's a lawyer in Saskatchewan by the name of Bill Selnes who maintains an excellent, active Canadian mystery/thriller blog. Bill reviewed 'Showdown at Border Town: An Early Adventure of Paul Martin'here. Then he blogged about how the teenage author, Caroline Woodward (inset), won the contest to write the young Paul Martin book here. (See Woodward and Martin pictured below at book signing.) Finally, he interviews Caroline Woodwardhere about the whole experience. |
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Roderick Benns: Posted on April-23-13 10:19 AM
 We know that Arthur Meighen was probably the greatest political debater ever to set foot in Canada’s House of Commons, and one of its finest orators. (For sheer oration alone, Wilfrid Laurier gets the nod. And how incredible it was that these two men’s careers overlapped, as they sat opposite one another in the House for many years.) Not many know, however, that Meighen, the arch Conservative of his century, had a fondness for the arts that reached the very depths of his being. While en route to Australia aboard a ship in 1934 – and without the aid of any books -- Meighen wrote |
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Roderick Benns: Posted on April-11-13 10:18 AM
 Today, in 1872, John A. Macdonald began his fifth parliamentary session with an ambitious agenda. In this session Canada would pass the Dominion Lands Act, which granted 160 acre homesteads in Manitoba for new western immigrants. (What, you thought there was free land now? This IS a history blog...) As well, the Trade Unions Act made unions legal. (Now, in most unionized workplaces, joining the union is not up for debate. Interesting, as 140 years later, Ontario Tory leader Tim Hudak says a government led by him would make joining a union optional, not mandatory, in any Ontario workplace. |
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Roderick Benns: Posted on April-01-13 2:12 PM
It’s warm, narrative and grand in scope and the illustrations are superb. Granted, my daughter is inquisitive, but I was struck by how enamoured she was with the story – a testament to the authors’ ability to convey historical information in a captivating way. My daughter is reading the sidebars and inset information (of which there are plenty) while I am reading the main text. |
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Roderick Benns: Posted on March-25-13 10:58 AM
If you’re a parent or student and interested in Canada’s history (and if you’re reading this I’m betting you are) check out this fantastic contest from the folks at Canada’s History. I say this with firsthand experience, having been one of the judges for the contest for the past two years. There are some talented students in this country who are able to tell great history stories. |
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Roderick Benns: Posted on March-15-13 10:09 AM
 Military history fans will no doubt be happy with this fall’s offering of ‘Merry Hell: The Story of the 25th Battalion (Nova Scotia Regiment), Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1919’ in hardcover. Looks like an interesting account of the battalion from the First World War, given that it’s a team-up between Captain Robert Clements and professional military historian Brian Douglas Tennyson. According to the publisher, University of Toronto Press, Clements served in the battalion throughout that period and wrote the story long after the war, all based on vivid personal memories and the experiences he had. |
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