A Place to Belong Historica Canada

Coming October 5, 2021: Tracing stories from the earliest Black settlers to recently arrived Canadians, Strong and Free captures just a few of the crucial stories of Black Canadians thriving and contributing to building this country.

Listen to Strong and Free, a six-part podcast from Historica Canada, produced by Media Girlfriends. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. Because Black history is Canadian history.

In this episode, we asked: What does the multiculturalism policy look like in practice? To find out the answer, Jim Torczyner, a professor of social work at McGill University, walks us through Montreal’s most diverse neighbourhood, Côte-des-Neiges, and we explore what works — and what needs work.

In the late 1960s, Hogan’s Alley was the only area in Vancouver with a largely Black population, mainly because of the housing discrimination pervasive in the city.

In this episode, Randy and Bertha Clark share their memories of a tightknit community brought to the ground by city planning, and explain how historic Black communities are still fighting to be remembered.

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains reference to specific instances of anti-Black racism and violence.

Toronto’s Chinatown – one of the largest in North America – is filled with hustle and bustle. Today, the community is larger, more diverse, and more embedded in Canadian society than ever. But, in the late 1960s, the City of Toronto nearly wiped its Chinatown from the map.

In this episode, Arlene Chan helps us explore the history of the Chinese people in Canada, and one Chinese Canadian woman’s determination to save Toronto’s Chinatown.

On a cold January day in 1916, dozens of francophone parents fought off police who were trying to prevent French-language instruction at the Guigues School in Ottawa. In the infamous Battle of the Hatpins, mothers brandished rolling pins, cast-iron pans and hatpins and refused to allow police on the grounds.

In this episode, executive director of the Alliance des femmes de la francophonie canadienne, Soukaina Boutiyeb, helps us explore the centuries-long fight for francophone rights in Ontario – and the historic battle that marked it.

Canada as we know it today has been shaped by policies that encourage immigration and welcome people from all corners of the globe. But the journey to a multicultural Canada hasn’t been a straight path.

In this episode, Guy Freedman, Métis from Flin Flon and president of the First Peoples Group, and historian Dr. Jan Raska from the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 help us understand how we got to where we are today.