My Blog

Harper Government Promotes Canadian History in Time for 150 Years of Confederation

06/12/2013 10:05:00

I'm liking what I'm hearing so far from the Conservative government about their plans to focus $12 million in existing funding at the Department of Canadian Heritage to promote Canada's history. All of this will lead up to the 150th anniversary of Confederation in 2017.

Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore noted the money (in addition to a Canadian history fund) would support new opportunities for travel within Canada for youth, to learn about our shared history and to get involved in history-related programs.

The federal plan also includes the creation of a Canadian history week at the beginning of July, as part of a Canada Day continuation. Moore argues the time was chosen when schools are shut down for the summer so that no one can say the Feds are trying to get into classrooms.

Probably a good idea.

Youngest Prime Minister, First Native Westerner Took Office on this Day in History

06/04/2013 12:02:00

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).

Not only was Joe Clark Canada’s youngest PM, he was also its first native Westerner. (John Diefenbaker was born in Ontario.)

As history records, Clark lasted only nine months in the role before Pierre Trudeau took office once again.

A Disaster Day in Canadian History

05/29/2013 10:01:00

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. Reform went on to take 52 seats in 1993 election, crushing the aforementioned Tories.

A more serious disaster occurred in Rimouski Quebec, in 1914, when aCanadian Pacific ocean liner called the ‘Empress of Ireland’ is hit by a Norwegian collier ship ‘Storstad’ in the middle of the night in the St. Lawrence River. The Empress ship sinks 11 minutes later. ; 1,024 lives are lost, 464 saved. A cool $1 million in silver bars is later recovered by divers. This remains Canada's worst maritime disaster ever.

John A. Macdonald Gets Busted

05/22/2013 11:38:00

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.m. Abernethy will deliver a presentation entitled “Face 2 Face with John A” followed by the unveiling of the bust.

The intent was to create a "coming of age” scultpture of Macdonald in Picton, as he set out on a very long and distinguished career, according to the press release. The sculpture is to be located in front of the Armoury, part of a plan to revitalize Picton's downtown.

The bust reflects Macdonald as 19 years old and presenting his first court case in the Picton Courthouse in 1834. He won that case and four months later became an attorney while still working in a law office in Picton. Macdonald lived in Prince Edward County for about 11 years.

For tickets to the event, get them online here.

Celebrating Victoria Day...or Maybe Miker Myers Day?

05/16/2013 10:18:00

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.

How about a generic Prime Ministers' Day?

Mike Myers was born May 25. Myer’s Day?

Here’s the least offensive idea of them all: Gardening Day.

Enough said.

Much Ado About Canadian History

05/08/2013 13:12:00

So much ado lately about the federal government’s interest in Canada’s history. One would think historians, teachers, and thoughtful Canadians of all stripes would be keen to watch this unfold. Quite frankly, why shouldn’t the federal government investigate how Canadian history is taught in schools?

History is the ‘domain’ of the provinces only in the strictest, deliverable sense. Note that investigating doesn’t have to mean meddling. And what if – gasp – the feds come up with some recommendations or suggestions for the provinces. (And really, what more could they do?) Are the provinces above this sort of thing, taking in ideas from those pesky, pan-Canadian outsiders?

The Heritage Committee has already backed off on investigating how Canadian history is taught in schools because of the predictable outcry. But there is still a review of federal, provincial and municipal programs that are designed to preserve history and heritage. This includes an assessment of the general way Canadians can access their history.

Everyone has a right to reflect on our history, whether at a government level (federal, provincial, or municipal) or as individuals. Canadians are too intelligent to watch the federal government strong-arm a version of history that we don’t resonate with. (This is irrespective of the fact that the feds have no constitutional mandate to deliver core education programs, as we’ve already determined.)

There are at least some Canadians who are too sensitive by half if they are worried about the Heritage committee being surprisingly activist in its mandate and thorough in its reach.

Saskatchewan Lawyer, Mystery-Thriller Blogger Takes a Three-Part Look at Young Paul Martin Book

04/29/2013 12:54:00

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 Woodward here about the whole experience.

This was a great plug for our Leaders & Legacies series on Canada's Prime Ministers as teens. Many thanks, Bill!

The Greatest Englishman of History by the Greatest Debater in Canada, Arthur Meighen

04/23/2013 10:19:00

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 The Greatest Englishman of History. The subject was his literary hero, William Shakespeare.

Meighen (who I wrote about here in a youth-oriented e-book) was blessed with a photographic memory and a powerful intellect. On the way back to Canada, while on the ship again, he accepted an invitation to speak at the Vancouver Canadian Club. He wired back that his subject would be the "Greatest Englishman of History" without identifying who it would be.

The slim, hardback volume (pictured) contains all of the text of Meighen’s speech, which he did in several Canadian cities and once in the U.S., too. There is also a CD of the recording in Toronto from over 70 years ago and it’s incredible to be taken back in history to hear this special moment of Meighen’s legacy in his own voice. There was no prepared speech in front of him, and all of the Shakespeare within his speech is quoted from his prodigious memory.

Meighen’s biographer Roger Graham reports that once Meighen was in front of the audience and they realized it was going to be about Shakespeare, they “drooped visibly, slumping in their seats to endure an hour's boredom.”

Graham tells us that this didn’t last for long.

“Before long, however, they were aroused, sitting up straight and listening intently. When he had finished they stood and gave him a resounding ovation, shouting, cheering and throwing their table napkins in the air."

I laughed out loud when I read (and heard) Meighen railing against the latest preoccupations for young adults and youth at the time, and how it was taking time away from more worthy pursuits, like the study of literature. Sound familiar anyone?

Here is the paragraph:

“This is an age of cinemas and sport. Those diversions on which our fathers thrived are not at all in general acceptance now…It should be our constant endeavour to get the most out of our time, for the road downward is easier than the road upward….Good literature is still our finest possession and reading it vastly the most profitable occupation of our leisure. My hope is to do something, be it ever so little, to reawaken interest in the very best of its treasures, the writing of William Shakespeare.”

While painted by many historians as a brilliant but narrow-minded ideologue, Arthur Meighen was actually a complex man. Ambitious and tenacious, Meighen’s zest for life was due in no small part to his love of family and his devotion to great literature.

Remembering Lester Pearson as a Transformative Prime Minister

04/16/2013 10:05:00

Steve Paikin at TVO has put together an outstanding two-part blog on Prime Minister Lester Pearson. It was 50 years ago last week that Pearson became Prime Minister, which was his third try. (Amazing that party leaders were actually given a chance to win at one time, instead of being pressured to leave after one try.)

It was a good thing Liberals let him stay on, too. Pearson went on to become one of the greatest and most transformative PMs in our history, in five, short, acrimonious years. The blog also touches on other future Liberal Prime Ministers he encountered along the way, such as John Turner and Jean Chretien.

Free land in Manitoba!

04/11/2013 10:18:00

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.)

Also on this day, the Public Archives of Canada was created, now known as the National Archives of Canada (also now known as the newly-diminished Archives of Canada.)