History from the podium
Wilfrid Laurier was campaigning for reelection when he made the following speech before a packed house in Toronto’s Massey Hall on 14 October 1904. The speech, while not one of his best, was vintage Laurier -- suave, playing to the audience, and discreetly undermining his political opponents. Near its end, he provided his grand vision... Continue Reading →
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 →
On Saturday night into Sunday morning of April 18-19, a gunman in Nova Scotia went on a rampage. It was the largest mass shooting in Canadian history and left 23 people dead, including a female RCMP constable and the perpetrator himself. He was wearing an RCMP uniform and driving a car which had been made... Continue Reading →
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 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 →
