Episódios
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Greg Marchildon speaks with Patrice Dutil about his book, Sir John A. Macdonald - And The Apocalyptic Year 1885.
In 1885, Sir John A. Macdonald faced a series of unprecedented challenges during his long political career. These included threats to Canada's sovereignty, armed resistance in the North-West, food insecurity among Indigenous peoples, a financial crisis jeopardizing the Canadian Pacific Railway, protests against Chinese immigration, nationalist dissent in Quebec, a devastating smallpox epidemic in Montreal, and opposition to expanding voting rights. Political historian Patrice Dutil examines how Macdonald, at the height of his powers, managed these crises, stabilized his government, and helped secure the future of Canada.
Patrice Dutil is the author or editor of a dozen books, and a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. He founded and edited the Literary Review of Canada and led the Champlain Society for seven years and used to be a host on Witness to Yesterday. Dutil is a senior fellow at the Bill Graham Centre and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. His works include Ballots and Brawls: The 1867 Canadian General Election and Prime Ministerial Power in Canada (co-edited with Roger Hall).
Image Credit: Simon & Schuster
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Nicole O’Byrne speaks with Greg Marchildon about his book, Tommy Douglas and the Quest for Medicare in Canada.
Tommy Douglas and the Quest for Medicare in Canada examines how Tommy Douglas led the creation of universal health care in Saskatchewan during the 1930s Depression. It explores his efforts to implement hospital insurance and build support for a national Medicare system, despite strong opposition. The book highlights how Douglas's leadership, vision, and coalition-building were key to establishing Medicare in Canada.
Gregory P. Marchildon is a professor emeritus at the Institute of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation at the University of Toronto and the founding director of the North American Observatory on Health Systems and Policies.
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Greg Marchildon speaks with Stephen Maher about The Prince.
The Prince is a comprehensive biography of Justin Trudeau's time as prime minister, written by Stephen Maher. Based on over 200 interviews, it details how Trudeau transformed the Liberal Party from third place to a majority government in 2015. The book examines his political skills, achievements like poverty reduction, climate progress, and Indigenous reconciliation, as well as his struggles, including errors in judgment and internal conflicts. Maher explores how Trudeau’s leadership, once promising, faltered due to missteps and strained relationships, leading to a decline in popularity and the potential collapse of his government.
Stephen Maher has been writing about Canadian politics since 1989. As a columnist and investigative reporter for Postmedia News, iPolitics, and Maclean’s, he has often set the agenda on Parliament Hill, covering political corruption, electoral wrongdoing, misinformation, and human rights abuses. He has also won many awards, including the Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, the Michener Award for meritorious public service journalism, the National Newspaper Award, two Canadian Association of Journalism Awards, a Canadian Hillman Prize, and has been nominated for several National Magazine Awards.
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Larry Ostola speaks with David Roberts about Boosters and Barkers: Financing Canada's Involvement in the First World War.
Boosters and Barkers by David Roberts explores Canada's efforts to finance its participation in World War I through public contributions, particularly war bonds. The book examines how Ottawa appealed to citizens for financial support, incorporating imperial funding, taxation, and other revenue sources. Using print, images, and music, Canada’s bond campaigns generated significant public engagement, raising nearly a third of the country’s $6.6 billion war costs. The story highlights the necessity of funding, propaganda strategies, public resistance, and the lasting financial impact of the war.
David Roberts is a retired editor of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography/Dictionnaire biographique du Canada. In addition to writing many entries for the DCB, he is also the author of In the Shadow of Detroit: Gordon M. McGregor, Ford of Canada, and Motoropolis. He lives in Don Mills, Ontario.
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Nicole O’Byrne speaks with Geoff Hudson, Megan Davies, John Belshaw, Darrel Manitowabi, and Sasha Mullally about An Accidental History of Canada published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2024.
An Accidental History of Canada explores the often overlooked smaller-scale accidents in Canadian history, from the 1630s to the 1970s. Covering incidents in workplaces, homes, and leisure activities, the book examines how these events reveal vulnerabilities, inequalities, and power dynamics in colonial, Indigenous, rural, and urban contexts. It contrasts Indigenous and settler views on accidents, linking them to the rise of the modern state. The volume argues that accidents, whether seen as fate or miscalculations, reflect shared societal values and attitudes toward risk.
Geoff Hudson is an Associate Professor in the history of medicine at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine University.
Megan Davies is Professor Emerita at York University. She is a historian of health with a regional focus on British Columbia
John Belshaw is a historian at Thompson Rivers University.
Darrel Manitowabi is an Associate Professor in the Human Sciences Division at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine University Sudbury Campus where he is the inaugural Hannah Chair in Indigenous Health and Indigenous Traditional Medicine.
Sasha Mullally is a Professor in the History Department at the University of New Brunswick.
Image Credit: McGill-Queen’s University Press
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Larry Ostola talks to Gregory Kennedy about his book, Lost in the Crowd: Acadian Soldiers of Canada's First World War.
In December 1915, Acadian leaders in New Brunswick expressed concerns about their soldiers being "lost in the crowd" within the Canadian Expeditionary Force during World War I. They successfully lobbied for the creation of a French-speaking, Catholic, and Acadian-led national unit. Over a thousand Acadians from the Maritimes, Quebec, and the U.S. Northeast joined this effort.
In Lost in the Crowd, Gregory Kennedy uses military archives, census records, newspapers, and soldiers' letters to explore the experiences of Acadian soldiers and their families before, during, and after the war. He highlights their enlistment rates, compares their experiences with English-speaking soldiers, and examines underreported issues like underage recruits, desertion, and army discipline. Kennedy also uses the 1921 Census to analyze the long-term impacts of the war on soldiers, families, and communities.
The book offers a fresh approach to military history by focusing on the Acadians, a francophone minority in the Maritimes, reshaping our understanding of French Canadians in World War I.
Gregory M.W. Kennedy is professor of history and dean of the Faculty of Arts at Brandon University and the author of Something of a Peasant Paradise? Comparing Rural Societies in Acadie and the Loudunais, 1604-1755.
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Larry Ostola talks to Barry Gough about his book, The Curious Passage of Richard Blanshard: First Governor of Vancouver Island.
This biography by historian Barry Gough focuses on Richard Blanshard, the first governor of Vancouver Island, and explores the early days of Canada's westernmost province. Blanshard arrived on Vancouver Island in 1850, after a long sea voyage, to begin his short and troubled tenure as governor. His time in office, lasting only three years, was marked by conflict with the powerful Hudson’s Bay Company and its leader, James Douglas, who succeeded him as governor. Despite his pivotal role in alerting London to American threats, Blanshard's tenure was unsuccessful, overshadowed by political and cultural challenges. His story sheds light on the struggles of early colonial governance, the influence of commerce, and the clash of European and Pacific Northwest cultures.
Barry Gough is one of Canada’s premier historians and biographers. His insightful research and lucid writing spanning five decades have earned him high distinction. Among his awards are the Canadian Historical Association’s Clio Prize, the Maritime Foundation’s Mountbatten Award, the Washington Historical Society’s Robert Gray Medal, the Alcala Galiano Medal and the Keith Matthews Award. In 2022, he was awarded the Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing for Possessing Meares Island. He is a Fellow of the Society for the History of Discoveries.
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Nicole O’Byrne talks to Ryan Manucha about his book, Booze, Cigarettes, and Constitutional Dust-Ups: Canada’s Quest for Interprovincial Free Trade.
In 2012, Gerard Comeau, a retiree from rural New Brunswick, became an unlikely Canadian hero when he was fined for purchasing cheaper beer in Quebec and bringing it back across provincial borders. His case highlighted Canada's strict interprovincial trade laws, which are designed to protect domestic industries from foreign competition but can hinder commerce within the country itself. Ryan Manucha’s Booze, Cigarettes, and Constitutional Dust-Ups explores the historical, political, and legal factors behind Canada’s interprovincial trade regulations. The book also reflects on how the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of both global and domestic supply chains, emphasizing the relevance of Canada’s economic union in an increasingly isolationist world.
Ryan Manucha is a widely published author on interprovincial trade. He lives in Toronto.
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Larry Ostola talks to Tim Cook about his book, The Good Allies: How Canada and the United States Fought Together to Defeat Fascism during the Second World War.
The Good Allies is a compelling narrative by Canada’s leading war historian, exploring the evolving relationship between Canada and the United States during World War II. Initially marked by rivalry and mutual suspicion, the two nations eventually forged a strong alliance, working together to defeat the fascist threat. The book examines how Canada, though smaller and overshadowed by the US as a global power, flourished alongside its powerful neighbor. It highlights the cooperation, sacrifice, and shared struggles that defined their partnership during the war and shaped their enduring alliance.
Tim Cook is Chief Historian and Director of Research at the Canadian War Museum. His bestselling books have won multiple awards, including four Ottawa Book Awards for Literary Non-Fiction and two C.P. Stacey Awards for the best book in Canadian military history. In 2008 he won the J.W. Dafoe Prize for At the Sharp End and again in 2018 for Vimy: The Battle and the Legend. Shock Troops won the 2009 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction. Cook is a frequent commentator in the media, and a member of the Royal Society of Canada and the Order of Canada.
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Nicole O’Byrne talks to Adam Dodek about his book, Heenan Blaikie: The Making and Unmaking of a Great Canadian Law Firm.
In 1973, three young lawyers founded Heenan Blaikie in Montreal, which grew to be a prominent Canadian law firm with notable members, including former political leaders. Despite its close-knit atmosphere, the firm faced significant internal issues, leading to its collapse in 2014. Adam Dodek, an impartial observer, examines the firm’s rise and fall, highlighting its unique culture alongside underlying problems like workplace bullying, challenges for women and minorities, and sexual harassment. The narrative is contextualized within broader societal changes, including economic shifts and crises. Dodek's thorough investigation serves as an essential read for legal professionals and those interested in the dynamics of corporate failure.
Adam Dodek is a professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa. Among his numerous publications are In Search of the Ethical Lawyer; The Canadian Constitution, Third Edition, named by the Hill Times as one of the top 100 books on Canadian public policy; and Solicitor-Client Privilege, which won the Walter Owen Book Prize. He is a recipient of the Canadian Association of Law Teachers Prize for Academic Excellence, the Mundell Medal for excellence in legal writing, and the Law Society of Ontario’s Law Society Medal. He is also a director of the Canadian Association for Legal Ethics and the Canadian Legal Information Institute, and a past governor of the Law Commission of Ontario.
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Greg Marchildon talks to Ken McGoogan about his book, Shadows of Tyranny: Defending Democracy in an Age of Dictatorship.
Shadows of Tyranny by Ken McGoogan explores how figures like Donald Trump reflect the authoritarianism of the mid-20th century. Drawing on thinkers like Orwell and Atwood, McGoogan examines how paranoia and demagoguery contributed to democracy's decline and argues these same forces are fueling a far-right movement in the U.S. that threatens democratic values.
In this cautionary work, McGoogan warns of a dark future while urging action to prevent it.
Ken McGoogan is a Canadian author of seventeen books, primarily nonfiction, including bestsellers like Searching for Franklin, Fatal Passage, and Canada’s Undeclared War. His latest book, Shadows of Tyranny, examines how figures like Donald Trump reflect mid-20th-century authoritarianism. McGoogan has received numerous awards, including the Pierre Berton Award for Popular History. He is a fellow of the Explorers Club and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and works as a resource historian with Adventure Canada. Originally from Montreal, he now lives in Guelph, ON.
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Nicole O’Byrne talks to David Frank about his book, J.B. McLachlan: A Biography: The Story of a Legendary Labour Leader and the Cape Breton Coal Miners.
J.B. McLachlan: A Biography presents a vivid portrait of a significant early twentieth-century Canadian rebel. Recognized as a remarkable biography, it chronicles the life of a Canadian labor hero and provides an unparalleled account of twentieth-century Canadian labor history, inspiring readers who seek social and economic justice.
David Frank is a leading figure in Canadian history. He taught for over 30 years at the University of New Brunswick, and he has written six books on Atlantic Canadian labour history. His articles on labour and social history have appeared in numerous books and journals.
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Greg Marchildon talks to Mairi Cowan about her book The Possession of Barbe Hallay: Diabolical Arts and Daily Life in Early Canada.
A timely arrival for the upcoming spooky season, this episode features a reissue from 2022 in which Greg Marchildon interviews Mairi Cowan, author of The Possession of Barbe Hallay: Diabolical Arts and Daily Life in Early Canada. Cowan's work explores the social and religious context of 17th-century Quebec through the case of Barbe Hallay's possession, highlighting the fears and anxieties of people in New France. She examines beliefs about witchcraft, demonology, and the influence of the Church, illustrating the colony's precarious social dynamics during that time.
Mairi Cowan is Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, at the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Toronto Mississauga with a cross appointment to the Institute for the Study of University Pedagogy. She is a historian of the late medieval and early modern world, with specializations in the social and religious histories of Scotland and New France. She is also an officer of the Champlain Society.
Image Credit: McGill-Queen’s University Press
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Greg Marchildon talks to Sandra Rollings-Magnusson about her book, Folklife and Superstition: The Luck, Lore and Worldviews of Prairie Homesteaders.
The homesteading era on the Canadian Prairies (1867–1914) saw hundreds of thousands of migrants from northwestern and eastern Europe settle in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, seeking prosperity or fleeing hardship.
Historian Sandra Rollings-Magnusson emphasizes the personal stories of these homesteaders, using archival sources to showcase their lives filled with humor, superstition, and resilience. She explores practices like water-witching and neighborly pranks, illustrating how they adapted to challenges and formed diverse communities. This blend of traditions created a unique Prairie culture, enriching our understanding of this significant period in Canadian history.
Sandra Rollings-Magnusson is an Associate Professor of Sociology at MacEwan University with over thirty years of research on western Canadian homesteaders. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Regina and a PhD from the University of Alberta and has published numerous articles and three books on homesteading life.
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Greg Marchildon talks to Eric Cline about his book, Squandered: Canada’s Potash Legacy.
An exposé of the reality of Saskatchewan’s potash industry management—prioritizing private profit over public interest.
Eric Cline practiced law in his hometown of Saskatoon prior to serving 16 years in the Saskatchewan legislature, where he held several senior cabinet positions, including Health, Finance, and Industry and Resources. After politics, he worked for 12 years as a corporate executive in the mining sector before establishing an arbitration practice and working as a professional fused-glass artist.
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Nicole O’Byrne talks to Catharine Anne Wilson about her book, Being Neighbours: Cooperative Work and Rural Culture, 1830–1960.
Being Neighbours takes the reader into the heart of neighbourhood - the set of people near and surrounding the family - through an examination of work bees in southern Ontario from 1830 to 1960. The bee was a special event where people gathered to work on a neighbour’s farm like bees in a hive for a wide variety of purposes, including barn raising, logging, threshing, quilting, turkey plucking, and apple paring. Drawing on the diaries of over one hundred men and women, Catharine Wilson takes readers into families’ daily lives, the intricacies of their labour exchange, and their workways, feasts, and hospitality. Through the prism of the bee and a close reading of the diaries, she uncovers the subtle social politics of mutual dependency, the expectations neighbours had of each other, and their ways of managing conflict and crisis. This book adds to the literature on cooperative work that focuses on evaluating its economic efficiency and complicates histories of capitalism that place communal values at odds with market orientation.
Catharine Anne Wilson, FRSC, is the Francis and Ruth Redelmeier Professor in Rural History at the University of Guelph and founder and director of the Rural Diary Archive website.
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Nicole O'Byrne talks to Greg Marquis about his book "Canada's State Police: 150 Years of the RCMP. Drawing upon all of the available literature related to the organization's history, Marquis lays bare what he regards as 150 years of state police action and seeks to challenge what he claims are the carefully constructed myths about the RCMP's role in Canadian life.
Greg Marquis is a historian at the University of New Brunswick. He specializes in Canadian history and criminal justice theory. He has developed a number of courses in the area of law and society, and is on the editorial board of Acadiensis. He is the author of multiple books including, The Vigilant Eye: Policing Canada from 1867-9/11, Truth & Honour: The Death of Richard Oland and the Trial of Dennis Oland, and John Lennon, Yoko Ono and the Year That Canada Was Cool. Greg Marquis lives in Quispamsis, New Brunswick.
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Nicole O’Byrne talks to Ronald Rudin about his book, Against the Tides: Reshaping Landscape and Community in Canada’s Maritime Marshlands.
Against the Tides is the never-before-told story of the Maritime Marshland Rehabilitation Administration (MMRA), a federal agency created in 1948. As farmers could not afford to maintain the dykes, the MMRA stepped in to reshape the landscape and with it the communities that depended on dykeland. Agency engineers borrowed from some of the farmers’ long-standing practices, but they were so convinced of their own expertise that they sometimes disregarded local conditions, marginalizing farmers in the process. The engineers’ hubris led to construction of tidal dams that compromised a number of rivers, leaving behind environmental challenges.
This book combines interviews with people from the region, archival sources, and images from the record the MMRA left behind to create a vivid, richly detailed account of the push–pull of local and expert knowledge, and the role of the state in the postwar era. Ultimately, Against the Tides is a compelling study of a distinctive landscape and the people who inhabited it that encourages us to rethink the meaning of nature.
Ronald Rudin is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at Concordia University. He is the author of numerous books, among them Remembering and Forgetting in Acadie: A Historian’s Journey through Public Memory and Kouchibouguac: Removal, Resistance, and Remembrance at a Canadian National Park. The latter received the Canadian Historical Association Clio Prize for best book on Atlantic Canada, the Canadian Oral History Association Prize, and the Prix de l’Assemblée nationale from the Institut d’histoire de l’Amérique française. Rudin has produced eight documentary films, most recently Unnatural Landscapes, which accompanies this book.
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Larry Ostola talks to Ross Fair about his book, Improving Upper Canada: Agricultural Societies and State Formation, 1791–1852.
Agricultural societies founded in the colony of Upper Canada were the institutional embodiment of the ideology of improvement, modelled on contemporary societies in Britain and the United States. In Improving Upper Canada, Ross Fair explores how the agricultural improvers who established and led these organizations were important agents of state formation.
The book investigates the initial failed attempts to create a single agricultural society for Upper Canada. It examines the 1830 legislation that publicly funded the creation of agricultural societies across the colony to be semi-public agents of agricultural improvement, and analyses societies established in the Niagara, Home, and Midland Districts to understand how each attempted to introduce specific improvements to local farming practices. The book reveals how Upper Canada’s agricultural improvers formed a provincial association in the 1840s to ensure that the colonial government assumed a greater leadership role in agricultural improvement, resulting in the Bureau of Agriculture, forerunner of federal and provincial departments of agriculture in the post-Confederation era.
In analysing an early example of state formation, Improving Upper Canada provides a comprehensive history of the foundations of Ontario’s agricultural societies today, which continue to promote agricultural improvement across the province.
Ross Fair is a lecturer in the Department of History at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Image Credit: University of Toronto Press
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Greg Marchildon talks to Andrew Lawton about his book, Pierre Poilievre: A Political Life.
When Pierre Poilievre was elected leader of Canada’s Conservative party in 2022, he vowed to put Canadians back in control of their own lives.
He took aim at the country’s elites and “gatekeepers” as well as governments that sneer at their own citizens. Railing against the housing crisis and spiralling inflation, Poilievre was telling ordinary Canadians he was on their side. As the adopted son of two Alberta teachers, Poilievre knows the middle class. But he’s also the embodiment of a career politician, having spent nearly his entire adult life in politics.
Andrew Lawton is a senior journalist at True North and host of The Andrew Lawton Show. He previously hosted a daily talk show on Global News Radio. He has published written work across the world, including in the Washington Post, the National Post, the Toronto Sun, and on Global News. He is the bestselling author of The Freedom Convoy.
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