History from the podium
When Canada went to war in 1939, Prime Minister Mackenzie King promised there would be no military conscription for overseas service. But the war dragged on with no apparent victory in sight. In this speech on April 7, 1942, King asked Canadians to vote in a referendum, not on conscription, but rather to relieve the government from its earlier promise. Eventually, the government imposed conscription near the war’s end.
Dr. Norman Bethune left his medical practice in Montreal in 1936 to join the Republican forces fighting the fascists under General Franco in Spain. There Dr. Bethune pioneered a portable blood transfusion unit that was used at or near the front and it saved thousands of lives. In 1937, he was asked by the Republicans... Continue Reading →
Edward Ahenakew was Anglican clergyman of Cree ancestry, born in 1885 on the Ahtahkakoop First Nation in central Saskatchewan. He spent his life doing missionary work on reserves, promoting the Cree language, working to improve education on reserves, and attempting to organize a national organization to represent Indigenous people. On June 16, 1920 he gave... Continue Reading →
After Adolph Hitler came to power in 1933, he rearmed Germany and pursued an aggressive foreign policy which saw him annex both Austria and then the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in 1938. Initially, Canada’s Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King supported British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in his decision to sacrifice Czechoslovakia by appeasing Hitler. But... Continue Reading →
World War I ended on 11 November 1918. Canada’s fighting forces performed well, and some say that Canada forged its identity as an independent nation in the horrible furnace of war. The costs were great -- sixty thousand dead and thousands more who returned mutilated in mind and spirit. In 1921, Arthur Meighen, Canada’s prime... Continue Reading →
The 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War in 1918 is about to occur. When war erupted in August 1914, there was great enthusiasm in some quarters about a fight that many thought would be over before Christmas of that year. Rev. Thomas Todhunter Shields was the pastor of Jarvis Street Baptist... Continue Reading →
It will soon be 100 years to the day since the First World War ended on November 11, 1918. The war began in August, 1914, when Britain’s ultimatum for Germany to withdraw from occupied Belgium expired. The entire British Empire, including Canada, was automatically at war. The House of Commons was on summer break when... Continue Reading →
In 1917, there was a divisive debate in Canada over military compulsory conscription. It was led by Conservative cabinet minister Arthur Meighen, who had drafted the legislation. That bill became the centrepiece of the bitterly contested "khaki election" which occurred in December 1917. The Conservatives won the election but divided the country. Brilliant, opinionated, and... Continue Reading →
Great Canadian Speeches 