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

The Champlain Society

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. 3d ago

    Pursuing a Public Life: How to Succeed in the Political Arena

    James Stewart (J.D.M.) speaks with Sergio Marchi about his book Pursuing a Public Life: How to Succeed in the Political Arena Our politics are currently suffering formidable challenges. Our national discourse has become more polarized, increasingly divisive, and notably nastier. Consequently, many people are keeping their distance from public life, rejecting a political system that they deem broken and unrepairable. Public opinion surveys consistently reveal that public cynicism is at a record high, coupled by declining voter turnout. Many people are disengaged from public life. The Honourable Sergio Marchi — city councillor, member of Parliament, cabinet minister, and ambassador — relates his experiences over his thirty-year political career. He shares the adventures, policy decisions, and lessons learned in an effort to shed light on the inner workings of a public life, from nomination meetings, to campaigning, to governing, to make it easier for those interested in making a difference to take the plunge into an exciting, meaningful, and purposeful profession. Sergio Marchi has led a distinguished public life, as a community activist, city councillor, a Member of Parliament, and Minister for International Trade, Environment, and Citizenship and Immigration. After voluntarily leaving the political arena, he was appointed Canadian Ambassador to the World Trade Organization and the United Nations Agencies in Geneva. He lives in Quebec. Image Credit: Dundurn Press

    Pursuing a Public Life: How to Succeed in the Political Arena

  2. Oct 9

    Howie Morenz: The Greatest Season in the Life of Hockey’s First Legend

    Larry Ostola speaks with Donald Murray about his book Howie Morenz: The Greatest Season in the Life of Hockey’s First Legend Howie Morenz was hockey’s first superstar, a dazzling skater and prolific goal scorer who electrified crowds while leading the Montreal Canadiens to three Stanley Cups. The 1930-31 season finds Morenz at the peak of his powers. His Canadiens dominate the NHL and Morenz is leading the league in scoring while earning his second Hart trophy as most valuable player in hockey. Following him game by game through this remarkable season, author Donald Murray weaves in the backstory of how Morenz became the most exciting and successful hockey player of professional hockey’s first half century. With keen insight and gripping prose, he describes Morenz’s unparalleled agility, his ferocious will, and brilliant leadership, among other elements of what made him the league’s most extraordinary talent – one the whole hockey world would mourn when he died at age 34 of a broken leg suffered in his final game. Donald Murray grew up in Lachine on the island of Montreal, Quebec, during the Rocket, Beliveau, and Lafleur eras of accomplishment by les Canadiens. After taking a Canadian Studies degree at Mount Allison University, in New Brunswick, followed by a sojourn of a few years in Yukon, he pursued legal studies at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, and has based his criminal defence and human rights legal practice there since the mid-1980s. Image Credit: Sutherland House

    Howie Morenz: The Greatest Season in the Life of Hockey’s First Legend

  3. Oct 2

    "P.S. Burn after Reading"

    Larry Ostola speaks with Reinhold Kramer and Tom Mitchell about their book "P.S. Burn after Reading” After Soviet cipher clerk Igor Gouzenko defected in 1945, Canada was shocked by the revelation that its own citizens were engaged in espionage for the Soviet Union. P.S. Burn After Reading explores how the Canadian government used the controversial Kellock-Taschereau Commission – sometimes judiciously, sometimes not – to uncover and thwart domestic spies during the early days of the Cold War. Drawing on a wealth of sources, including the Commission’s extensive records, GRU documents turned over by Gouzenko, American Venona decrypts, Soviet KGB archives, and newly released British MI5 and MI6 files, authors Reinhold Kramer and Tom Mitchell provide a comprehensive account of the crisis. They reveal that, despite some civil liberties missteps, the government’s suspicions were largely justified. The book weaves together the evidence against the spies, the tradecraft of Soviet espionage, complex legal challenges faced by the state, and the political fallout. With access to hundreds of newly released British intelligence files, P.S. Burn After Reading offers both specialists and general readers fresh insights into the espionage crisis of 1945–46 and the pivotal role it played in exposing Canada’s postwar security and intelligence vulnerabilities. Reinhold Kramer is a professor in the Department of English at Brandon University. Tom Mitchell is a university archivist at Brandon University.

    "P.S. Burn after Reading"

  4. Sep 25

    Canada and the Great Irish Famine

    Larry Ostola speaks with William Jenkins about his book Canada and the Great Irish Famine. In the summer of 1847, over four hundred ships arrived in the Gulf of St Lawrence, carrying Irish men, women, and children who were fleeing the starvation and misery of the Great Potato Famine. Tens of thousands of famine refugees rebuilt their lives in different parts of Canada, in places urban and rural, Anglophone and Francophone. Though still a young province within the British Empire, Canada would be marked permanently and in significant ways by this mass migration. Canada and the Great Irish Famine examines how people confronted, experienced, and remembered the famine migration. Essays consider the transatlantic voyage; the collection of donations and organization of aid; the challenges encountered by the cities of Quebec, Saint John, Montreal, Toronto, Kingston, and Hamilton and their public debates over the impact of so many new arrivals; the accompanying problems of disease, destitution, mental illness, death and burial; the stories of orphaned children; and expressions of famine memory. The worst demographic catastrophe in nineteenth-century Europe inspired generations of political writings, artistic and literary endeavours, and commemorative practices, and it was woven into narratives of Irish nationalism and the founding of Canada. Canada and the Great Irish Famine provides a new perspective on the social outcomes of Ireland’s famine migration as well as on the resilience and adaptability of the receiving communities and the migrants themselves. William Jenkins is associate professor of history at York University and the current president of the Canadian Association for Irish Studies. He is the author of Between Raid and Rebellion: The Irish in Buffalo and Toronto, 1867–1916. 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: McGill Queens University Press

    Canada and the Great Irish Famine

  5. Sep 18

    Outport Woman: Life on the Ocean's Edge

    Nicole O’Byrne speaks with Hayward Blake and Raymond Blake about their book Outport Woman: Life on the Ocean's Edge. Every family has a story. Some just haven’t been told – until now. Outport Woman uncovers the remarkable life of Minnie Beatrice Blake, a woman who spent nearly eighty years on Newfoundland’s rugged South Coast. Through Minnie’s experiences, readers are invited into a world of resilience, loss, laughter, and love – where women held families and communities together in the face of hardship and change. Drawing from family memories, local stories, and archival discoveries, this vivid narrative brings to life outport communities like Saddle Island, Pushthrough, and Hermitage. Minnie’s story reveals the quiet power of women whose work, courage, and spirit shaped not only their families but the province itself. More than a single biography, Outport Woman is a tribute to the generations of women – mothers, grandmothers, daughters – whose lives built the backbone of Newfoundland and Labrador. Heartfelt, moving, and beautifully told, this is the story of one woman – and of countless others – who found extraordinary strength in ordinary life. Hayward C. Blake was born in Pushthrough and resettled to Hermitage when he was fourteen years old. Graduating from Memorial University and the University of Toronto, Hayward taught in the K-12 school system and served as principal of Ascension Collegiate in Bay Roberts, completing his career as an administrator in the faculty of Education at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Raymond B. Blake is a professor at the University of Regina and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is author and editor of more than twenty books. His Canada’s Prime Ministers and the Shaping of a National Identity won the Shaughnessey Cohen Prize for Political Writing from the Writers’ Trust of Canada in 2025. He was resettled from Pushthrough to Hermitage before studying at Memorial and York universities. Raymond lives in Regina with his wife, Wanda, and their two sons, Robert and Ben, and their partners, Lauren and Katherine. 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.

    Outport Woman: Life on the Ocean's Edge

  6. Sep 11

    Justice for Some

    Nicole O’Byrne speaks with Kent Roach about his book Justice for Some: A Comparative Study of Miscarriages of Justice and Wrongful Convictions. This book defines the differing concepts of miscarriages of justice, wrongful convictions and innocence in relation to the presumption of innocence and the rationing of justice. It compares inquisitorial systems, with examples from Europe, South America and Asia to adversarial systems. It contrasts England's focus on the miscarriage of justice and the remedial institutions of the Court of Appeal and the Criminal Cases Review Commission, with the United States and China's narrower focus on proven factual innocence It highlights new laws enacted in India in 2023 that increase the risk of wrongful convictions, and details how the International Criminal Court has taken steps to reduce the risk of false guilty pleas that may have been accepted by previous international criminal courts. The book examines the roles of racist prejudice and gender stereotypes in wrongful convictions. It also examines false guilty pleas such as those in the Post Office scandal, as well as wrongful convictions for crimes that did not happen. Kent Roach, CM, FRSC is a professor of law at the University of Toronto. He is the author of eighteen books including Canadian Policing: Why and How it Must Change, shortlisted for both the Balsillie and Donner Prizes for best book in public policy. He has conducted research for public inquiries on policing including the Arar, Air India, Ipperwash, Public Order Emergency, and Toronto Missing Persons inquiries and served as chair of the RCMP’s Management Advisory Board. He received the Molson Prize in 2017 for contributions to the social sciences and humanities. 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.

    Justice for Some

  7. Sep 4

    The Writings of David Thompson, Volume 3

    Donald Wright speaks with Bill Moreau about his book The Writings of David Thompson, Volume 3: From the Northwest to Montreal, Selected Letters and Contributions to Newspapers, published by the Champlain Society in 2025. David Thompson is one of the touchstone figures in the early history of Canada, and is celebrated for his distinguished fur trade career with the Hudson’s Bay Company and North West Company. But Thompson’s life after he retired from this career in 1812 is less well known. The forty-five years of Thompson’s post-fur trade life, spent largely in Glengarry County and Montreal, were as dramatic and historically relevant in their own way as his years in the West: his family grew, his financial fortunes waxed and then devastatingly waned, and his work as a surveyor took him from the St. Lawrence to Lake of the Woods, to the Eastern Townships, Muskoka, and New York City. Volume 3 of the Writings of David Thompson gives us a deeper appreciation of the full life of this fascinating figure. Made up of professional and personal letters, and contributions to Montreal newspapers, this volume follows Thompson through all the stages of his life, beginning with his years with the HBC and NWC, continuing through an active middle period as a Glengarry landowner and international boundary surveyor, and then into later life as venerable contributor to public debates and supplicant for pension and patronage. As we read through Thompson’s letters, addressed to fur trade colleagues, boundary commission officials, colonial administrators, British and American cabinet member and personal friends, his life and times come into vivid focus. This volume nicely complements Thompson’s Travels, the work that is the subject of Volumes I and II, and is marked by the same incisive mind, intellectual breadth, reflectiveness, and literary skill that characterize that great narrative. Bill Moreau is the editor of the three-volume Writings of David Thompson, the final volume of which was published last fall by the Champlain Society. Bill lives with his family in Vaughan, Ontario, and teaches Grade 5 at Dunlace Public School in North York 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.

    The Writings of David Thompson, Volume 3

  8. Aug 28

    Warriors and Warships (2023 reissue)

    Larry Ostola speaks with Robert D. Banks about his book, Warriors and Warships: Conflict on the Great Lakes and the Legacy of Point Frederick. The untold story of Point Frederick, where early nineteenth-century Canadians built warships that stopped invasion and brought peace. Warriors and Warships brings to life a much neglected part of Canada’s military history, covering the warships and the people who built them at Point Frederick from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century. Opposite Kingston, Point Frederick was the 1789 dockyard home of the Provincial Marine on Lake Ontario and the headquarters of Britain’s Royal Navy from 1813 to 1853. Today, it is the home of the Royal Military College of Canada. In this detailed narrative, with over one hundred colour archival maps, aerial views, photographs, and 3D reconstructions, Banks recounts Point Frederick’s building of great sail and steam warships and the roles these vessels played in conflict on Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence River, and Niagara. Among the conflicts is the War of 1812, when French Canadian and British shipwrights made warships that forced the U.S. Navy into port and led to the American withdrawal from Canada. Banks also covers the role of the ships in the settlement of Upper Canada, the rebellion of 1837, the early planning of the Rideau Canal, and the beginning of the undefended border. Banks shares the moments of hardship, triumph, and tragedy of both the warriors and the warships in this important contribution to Canadian history. Robert Banks is a graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada and the University of Toronto. A former pilot, he served as a flight surgeon with the Snowbirds and specialized in aerospace medicine, a field where he's known for his research and his role as an investigator of the space Shuttle Columbia crash. A prolific author, he's published over 30 scientific papers and book chapters and has a long-standing interest in the history of Ontario and Canada. 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.

    Warriors and Warships (2023 reissue)
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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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