History from the podium
Normally this blog is devoted to Canadian speeches but on rare occasion there is an exception. This is one of those times. In a televised address on March 18, 2020 Chancellor Angela Merkel appealed to Germans to follow reason and show discipline in the face of the Corona pandemic. Merkel has shown herself, once again,... Continue Reading →
Thomas Homer-Dixon is a professor in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo, Ontario. His research, writing and speaking is focused on threats to global security including economic instability, climate change, and energy scarcity. He believes that human society and ecological systems are under multiple stresses occurring at a rate that is too... Continue Reading →
Thérèse Casgrain was born into an affluent Québec family, but she relentlessly championed women’s equality. Her speech to the League for the Rights of Women in 1941 occurred one year after women in Québec won the right to vote. Each year for more than a decade, Casgrain and other women found a sympathetic member of... Continue Reading →
In January 1935 Prime Minister Richard Bedford Bennett delivered a series of dramatic radio addresses to the nation while Canada was in the grip of the Great Depression. Bennett had been staunchly conservative and anti-interventionist, but the country was in deep trouble. Bennett’s brother-in-law, W. D. Herridge, convinced him that he should follow the lead... Continue Reading →
Controversy between Ottawa and Alberta over oil is nothing new. In the 1970s there was a spike in international oil prices which enriched Alberta but drove inflation in Canada. Alberta feared what Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government would do in response. Premier Peter Lougheed outlined the issues as he saw them during an October 1980 speech... Continue Reading →
Louis Riel was hanged in Regina on November 16, 1885. Riel led the Métis agitation at Red River that resulted in Manitoba’s becoming a province in 1871. But he was forced into a lonely fifteen-year exile in the United States. Many Métis moved west from Manitoba to the banks of the North Saskatchewan River to... Continue Reading →
John A. Macdonald and his Tories won the first post-Confederation election in 1872. They promised to build a transcontinental railway and there was a nasty feud over the contract between rival entrepreneurs in Toronto and Montreal. Macdonald chose Hugh Allan’s Montreal group. In 1873, someone broke into the office of Allan’s lawyer and found a... Continue Reading →
Adrienne Clarkson had a successful career in broadcasting and diplomacy prior to being appointed as Canada's governor general in 1999. She served in the role until 2005. Her speeches were elegantly written and skilfully delivered. In her installation speech, she talked about Canada, her family's history and her childhood experience as an immigrant from Hong... Continue Reading →
Canada's political leaders are now holding debates leading up to the October 2019 federal election. However, the mother of all election debates occurred in 1988 over free trade between Canada and the US. Brian Mulroney had defeated John Turner and the Liberals in the 1984 election. Mulroney scored a coup in the televised debate that... Continue Reading →
