In January 1935 Prime Minister R. B. Bennett delivered a series of dramatic radio addresses that shifted from hard core conservatism to promoting state intervention.
Richard Bedford Bennett, Great Depression, 1935
John A. Macdonald, Pacific scandal, November 1873
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 →
John Turner, Brian Mulroney debate free trade, Oct. 1988
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 year by attacking Turner for making a series of patronage appointments left him by the departing... Continue Reading →
W. L. Mackenzie King and war on Germany, September 1939
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 →
Mackenzie King, Diamond Jubilee of Confederation, 1927
Canadians celebrate National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21 and Canada Day ten days later. The first national observance of Dominion Day, as it was known then, occurred on July 1, 1927, which was the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation in 1867. The centrepiece in Ottawa was a radio address by Prime Minister Mackenzie King. To... Continue Reading →
Lester Pearson raises Maple Leaf flag, February 15, 1965
On a cold February day in Ottawa a crowd of ten thousand gathered as Canada’s new flag rose above the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill for the first time. The preceding debate had been long and acrimonious. Lester Pearson believed that Canada needed a distinctive new flag, while opposition leader John Diefenbaker was passionately committed... Continue Reading →
Arthur Meighen’s tribute to Great War dead, July 1921
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 →
Robert Borden declares war on Germany, August 1914
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 →
John A. Macdonald, yes to Confederation, 1865
In 1864, the colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland planned to meet in Charlottetown to investigate a union among the British Maritime colonies. John A Macdonald and other representatives from Upper and Lower Canada invited themselves to the meeting and arrived by steamship. They proposed a wider union which would include... Continue Reading →
Great Canadian Speeches 