Witness to Yesterday (The Champlain Society Podcast on Canadian History‪)‬ The Champlain Society

Nicole O’Byrne talks to Sean Carleton about his book, Lessons in Legitimacy: Colonialism, Capitalism, and the Rise of State Schooling in British Columbia.

Lessons in Legitimacy brings the histories of different kinds of state schooling for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples – public schools, Indian Day Schools, and Indian Residential Schools – into one analytical frame. Schooling for Indigenous and non-Indigenous children and youth had distinct yet complementary functions in building British Columbia. Students were given lessons in legitimacy that normalized settler capitalism and the making of British Columbia, first as a British colony and then as Canada’s westernmost province.

Sean Carleton combines insights from history, Indigenous studies, historical materialism, and political economy to present different histories of education for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples together. In the process, this important study reveals how an understanding of the historical uses of schooling can inform contemporary discussions about the role of education in reconciliation and improving Indigenous–settler relations.

Historians, Indigenous studies scholars, and those in the field of education history will find this work illuminating, as will educators and general readers with an interest in schooling’s role in truth and reconciliation.

Sean Carleton is an assistant professor of history and Indigenous studies at the University of Manitoba. He has published in Historical Studies in Education, History of Education, Settler Colonial Studies, and BC Studies.

Image Credit: UBC Press

If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Nicole O’Byrne talks to Martin Friedland about his book, Canadian Criminal Law in Ten Cases.

Canadian Criminal Law in Ten Cases explores the development of criminal justice in Canada through an in-depth examination of ten significant criminal cases. Martin L. Friedland draws on cases that went to the Supreme Court of Canada or the Privy Council, including well-known cases such as those of Louis Riel, Steven Truscott, Henry Morgentaler, and Jamie Gladue.

The book addresses such issues as wrongful convictions, the enforcement of morality, Indigenous experiences with criminal law, bail and trial delay, and the impact of the 1982 Charter of Rights on the criminal justice system.

Friedland describes in a masterful way the factual background of each case and the political, social, and economic conditions of the time. Each character – the accused, judges, and counsel – is described in detail, as are the relevant laws and procedures. Friedland includes recommendations on how the criminal justice system can be improved, such as by creating a new federal commission devoted solely to criminal justice and by the enactment by Parliament of enhanced codes of evidence and criminal law and procedure.

Canadian Criminal Law in Ten Cases is an indispensable guide to understanding the criminal justice system for lawyers, students, and anyone interested in criminal law and the administration of criminal justice.

Martin L. Friedland is a university professor of law emeritus at the University of Toronto.

Image Credit: University of Toronto Press

If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Larry Ostola talks to Palmiro Campagna about his book, The Avro Arrow: For the Record.

The controversial cancellation of the Avro Arrow — an extraordinary achievement of Canadian military aviation — continues to inspire debate today. When the program was scrapped in 1959, all completed aircraft and those awaiting assembly were destroyed, along with tooling and technical information. Was abandoning the program the right decision? Did Canada lose more than it gained?

Brimming with information to fill the gaps in the Arrow’s troubled history, Campagna’s new edition also brings to light recently discovered documents that answer whether the United States government wished Canada to continue the development of what was considered the world’s most advanced interceptor aircraft.

Palmiro Campagna is the author of Storms of Controversy: The Secret Avro Arrow Files Revealed, Requiem for A Giant: A.V. Roe Canada and the Avro Arrow, and The UFO Files: The Canadian Connection Exposed. He lives in Ottawa.

Image Credit: Dundurn Press

If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Larry Ostola talks to Bill Vigars about his book, Terry & Me: Inside the Marathon of Hope.

A twenty-two-year-old cancer survivor and amputee, Terry set out from St. John’s Newfoundland in April 1980, aiming to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. His first months on the road in Atlantic Canada and Quebec were not only physically taxing—he ran the equivalent of a marathon a day—but frustrating as Canadians were slow to recognize and support his endeavor. That all changed when he met a young man named Bill Vigars, who on behalf of the Canadian Cancer Society led a campaign to ensure that every person in Canada knew the story of this outstanding young man. Vigars was by Fox’s side through all the highs and lows until the tragic end of his journey in Thunder Bay. A recurrence of his cancer cut short Terry’s dream and, soon, his life. Now, for the first time, Vigars tells the inside story of the Marathon of Hope—the logistical nightmares, boardroom battles, and moments of pure magic—while giving us a fresh, insightful portrait of one of the greatest Canadians who ever lived.

Bill Vigars was the Director of Public Relations and Fundraising for the Canadian Cancer Society’s Ontario Division, and acted as Terry Fox’s public relations organizer, his close friend and confidante. He set up several key events as the Run entered Toronto.

Image Credit: Sutherland House

If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Nicole O’Byrne talks to Heidi MacDonald about her book, We Shall Persist: Women and the Vote in the Atlantic Provinces.

We Shall Persist captures both the long campaign and the years of disappointment. Suffrage victories across Atlantic Canada were steps in an unfinished and contentious march toward gender, race, and class equality.

This insightful book will appeal to readers with an interest in women’s history, as well as to historians, political scientists, and women’s studies scholars and students.

Heidi MacDonald is the author of numerous articles on women’s and gender history in Atlantic Canada. She is co-author, with Rosa Bruno-Jofré and Elizabeth Smyth, of Vatican II and Beyond: The Changing Mission and Identity of Canadian Women Religious. From 1999 to 2018, she taught at the University of Lethbridge and served as the founding director of the Centre of Oral History and Tradition from 2013 to 2017. In 2019, she became dean of arts and professor of history and politics at the University of New Brunswick Saint John.

Image Credit: UBC Press

If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Larry Ostola talks to Robert Lower about his book, Unsettled: Lord Selkirk’s Scottish Colonists and the Battle for Canada’s West, 1813–1816.

The fascinating story of the Red River Settlement, now Winnipeg, in the years 1813 to 1816, told with archival journals, reports, and letters. Unsettled takes you inside the experience, relying on journals, reports, and letters to bring these days of soaring hope, crushing despair, and heroic determination to life — to bring their present into ours.

Robert Lower is a native of Winnipeg, where he wrote, edited, and directed films for over 40 years. Always fascinated by history, he was led to this book by his personal connection to the Red River Settlers. He and his wife, Elise, now divide their time between Winnipeg and Victoria, B.C.

Image Credit: ECW Press

If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.