History from the podium
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 but his trial occurred in July into August of that year. Riel led the Métis agitation at Red River that resulted in Manitoba’s becoming a province in 1871, but was forced into a lonely exile in the United States. Many Métis moved from Manitoba 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 →
James Shaver Woodsworth had an almost prophetic status among members of his CCF caucus and party. Woodsworth was also a pacifist. When Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 and it became obvious that Canada would likely soon be at war, the caucus held a wrenching internal discussion in which most members disagreed with Woodsworth,... 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 →
The British were embarrassed by a rebellion against their colonial administration in Lower Canada (now Quebec) in 1837. Lord Durham was sent to Canada to study the situation and he decided assimilation of the French Canadians was the best solution. He proposed a single government for Upper and Lower Canada, which would have only English... Continue Reading →
I belong to a group called the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians, and they have a publication called Beyond the Hill. Their current issue carries an interview with me by Wade Morris about my recent book Speeches That Changed Canada. He asks not only about the book and the political speeches contained within it, but... Continue Reading →
