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

The Champlain Society
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Immerse yourself in Canada’s history! Witness to Yesterday episodes take listeners on a journey to document a time in Canada’s past and explore the people behind it, its significance, and its relevance to today. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: https://bit.ly/support_WTY. To learn more about the Society and Canada’s history, subscribe to our newsletter at https://bit.ly/news_WTY.

  1. Oceans of Fate

    2D AGO

    Oceans of Fate

    Larry Ostola speaks with Dan Black about his book Oceans of Fate. The remarkable story of how one ship — doomed by war — intersected lives and crossed into history. Completed in 1913 for Canadian Pacific, the Empress of Asia plied the oceans for nearly 30 years. Built for long-haul ocean travel during peace-time, she saw wartime service as an armed merchant cruiser and troopship before Japanese dive-bombers destroyed her in 1942. Through the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression, she brought continents and people together, delivering mail and multimillion-dollar consignments of silk. As a luxurious passenger liner, she was a “Greyhound of the Pacific,” braving epic storms and smashing transpacific speed records. From stokehold to bridge, steerage to first-class staterooms, she steamed with a kaleidoscope of lives, including courageous and recalcitrant crew, immigrants and refugees seeking a better life or relief from disaster, drug smugglers, weapons dealers, and the idle and not-so-idle rich. This is the dramatic story of how that one ship and the lives of those on board intersected during a tumultuous period of world history, culminating in her sinking off Singapore in the Second World War. Dan Black is the former editor of Legion Magazine, and author or co-author of three previous books, including Harry Livingstone’s Forgotten Men: Canadians and the Chinese Labour Corps in the First World War, published 2019. He lives near Ottawa. 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.

    38 min
  2. Political Culture in Louis XIV’s Canada

    MAR 27

    Political Culture in Louis XIV’s Canada

    Nicole O’Byrne speaks with Colin Coates about his book, Political Culture in Louis XIV’s Canada. In Louis XIV’s New France, colonial authorities attempted to reproduce French regal authority in novel ways, often by performing typical metropolitan political rituals. When these practices were transposed into the St Lawrence Valley settlements, where a small French population lived alongside a substantial Indigenous presence, they took on new meanings. The colony of Canada replicated many features of the developing French absolutist state. Yet while the king likely knew more about his colony than he did about most parts of metropolitan France, this transatlantic setting imposed new constraints on absolutist authority, from the challenges of distance to an Indigenous population that largely lived outside European norms. Political Culture in Louis XIV’s Canada examines royal power as it was represented in ritual (ceremonial entrances, Te Deums, processions), in rhetoric (political disputes over cabals and factions), and in objects (portraits, royal busts, currency, buildings, maps, and censuses). Colin M. Coates is professor of Canadian studies and history at York University and author of The Metamorphoses of Landscape and Community in Early Quebec. 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.

    41 min
  3. The Governors General

    MAR 20

    The Governors General

    Often misunderstood or even unrecognized, Canada’s governors general are not merely heads of state; they are amongst the great constitutional curiosities of our age. In this delightful and often whimsical account of the Canadians who have held this post since 1952, journalist and author John Fraser explains the successful, if illogical, evolution of the institution and engages readers with the hilarious foibles, moving triumphs, and sombre tragedies of the men and women who have been chosen to represent the Sovereign in Canada. John Fraser is a Canadian journalist, writer, and academic, and is the founding president of the Institute of the Study of the Crown in Canada. He was the editor of Saturday Night magazine, columnist, China correspondent, Ottawa bureau chief, and London correspondent for The Globe and Mail. He is the recipient of multiple national journalism awards and was chair of the Canadian Journalism Foundation until 2008. John served as Master of Massey College from 1995 until his retirement in 2014. He is the author of several best-selling books. 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. Image Credit: Sutherland House

    32 min
  4. The Crisis of Canadian Democracy

    MAR 13

    The Crisis of Canadian Democracy

    James Stewart (J.D.M.) speaks with Andrew Coyne about his book, The Crisis of Canadian Democracy. With characteristic wit, insight, and rigor, Coyne dismantles the comforting myths Canadians tell themselves about their political system, revealing a parliamentary structure eroded by unaccountable leaders, disempowered MPs, manipulated elections, and systemic dysfunction. The Crisis of Canadian Democracy is both a wake-up call and a call to action, offering compelling solutions to restore genuine self-government to Canadian politics. Essential reading for leaders, citizens, and anyone who cares about the future of democracy in Canada—or anywhere else. Andrew Coyne is a columnist for The Globe and Mail. Raised in Winnipeg, Mr. Coyne holds degrees from the University of Toronto and the London School of Economics‎. He was written previously for The National Post, Maclean’s and Southam News, contributing as well to a wide range of other publications in Canada and abroad, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The National Review, and The Walrus. He is also a weekly panelist on CBC’s The National. 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.

    33 min
  5. The Prime Ministers: Canada's Leaders and the Nation They Shaped

    MAR 6

    The Prime Ministers: Canada's Leaders and the Nation They Shaped

    Larry Ostola speaks with J.D.M Stewart about his book The Prime Ministers: Canada’s Leaders and the Nation They Shaped. After a surprising conversation with young Canadians who didn’t recognize the name Lester B. Pearson – Nobel Peace Prize winner and Canada’s fourteenth prime minister — author J.D.M. Stewart set out to bring the country’s history to a new generation. The result is The Prime Ministers, a lively, accessible chronicle of Canada’s leaders, from Sir John A. Macdonald in 1867 to Mark Carney in 2025. With engaging prose and fresh insights, Stewart captures the defining moments of each prime minister’s time in office, revealing how they managed relationships with Indigenous peoples, the environment, American presidents, and international powers. He also explores how their reputations have evolved – who has been forgotten, who remains controversial, and who has become a lasting part of Canada’s cultural fabric. The Prime Ministers is a necessary and important book, intended both for newcomers to Canadian history and those who have loved it for a long time. J.D.M. Stewart is a writer, historian, and one of the country’s foremost experts on Canadian prime ministers. His commentary regularly appears in the Globe & Mail, The Hub, and the Literary Review of Canada. His previous book, Being Prime Minister, was a Hill Times Top 100 pick. He has also inspired a generation of students during his thirty-year career teaching history to high school students in Toronto, Montreal, and Panama City. He lives in Toronto. 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.

    38 min
  6. My Life in the Law

    FEB 27

    My Life in the Law

    Nicole O’Byrne speaks with Robert J. Sharpe about his book My Life in the Law. My Life in the Law is a rich, personal reflection on Robert J. Sharpe’s long, varied, and influential career as a lawyer, scholar, and judge. After giving an account of his early life and education, Sharpe examines his time as a law student in the late 1960s, an era when great emphasis was put upon formalistic legal doctrine, heavily influenced by English law. As a legal academic in the 1970s up until the 1990s, Sharpe participated in Canadian law’s emergence from the shadow of its narrow past. He then dealt with that evolution from the very different perspective of a judge and a legal history scholar during his twenty-five years on the bench. Throughout the book, Sharpe writes about the people who influenced his trajectory: the exceptional lawyers with whom he practiced, his Oxford University professors, and his University of Toronto colleagues. He describes how these people and his three-year experience working as executive legal officer to Justice Brian Dickson at the Supreme Court of Canada prepared him for his twenty-five-year career as a judge. Written in an engaging and accessible style, this memoir tells the story of a man whose fascination with the law has led to an illustrious, decades-long career of great significance. Robert J. Sharpe is judge of the Court of Appeal for Ontario. He taught at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto from 1976 to 1988 and served under Chief Justice Brian Dickson as Executive Legal Officer at the Supreme Court of Canada from 1988 to 1990. 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.

    38 min
  7. The Enduring Riddle of Mackenzie King

    FEB 20

    The Enduring Riddle of Mackenzie King

    James Stewart (J.D.M.) speaks with Patrice Dutil about his book, The Enduring Riddle of Mackenzie King. In his lifetime, Canadians often dismissed William Lyon Mackenzie King as a meritless interloper, yet numerous scholars have since ranked him as the best prime minister ever. Patrice Dutil leads a who’s who of historians to discuss why King deserves that estimation – or why not. This fresh, full assessment forms a new take on how King may – or may not – be the greatest of all Canadian prime ministers. The Enduring Riddle of Mackenzie King unwraps an enigma for scholars, students, and general readers interested in political history, Canadian history, and the history of the Second World War. Patrice Dutil is a professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Toronto Metropolitan University, a senior fellow of the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History at the University of Toronto, and a senior fellow of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. 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. Image Credit: UBC Press

    37 min
  8. McGill in History

    FEB 13

    McGill in History

    Donald Wright speaks with Don Nerbas and Tess Elsworthy about their book McGill in History. This book brings together diverse historiographies and perspectives to critically examine how McGill has been implicated in power structures and is the product of conflicting ideologies. James McGill, the university’s namesake, owned and profited from the sale of enslaved Black and Indigenous people, a legacy highlighted by the removal of his statue and ongoing debates over the racially charged Redman name used by the men’s sports teams. Imperialism, settler colonialism, slavery, sexism, and homophobia are elements of McGill’s story that must be fully integrated into a broader understanding of the university’s institutional history. Challenging siloed narratives with new research, the contributors in this volume highlight the important task of scholars to scrutinize and confront history that is unflattering and to rethink their institution’s own story – a reckoning happening across many institutions of higher education around the world. Don Nerbas is associate professor of history and St Andrew’s Society/McEuen Scholarship Foundation Chair in Canadian-Scottish Studies at McGill University. Tess Elsworthy completed an MA in History and Classical Studies at McGill University under the supervision of Laura Madokoro. She is currently a student in McGill's School of Information Studies. 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.

    42 min
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Ratings & Reviews

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About

Immerse yourself in Canada’s history! Witness to Yesterday episodes take listeners on a journey to document a time in Canada’s past and explore the people behind it, its significance, and its relevance to today. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: https://bit.ly/support_WTY. To learn more about the Society and Canada’s history, subscribe to our newsletter at https://bit.ly/news_WTY.

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