Search for ""

Chiac (also spelled chiak or chiaque) is a specific type of discursive switching between French and English among individuals who are highly bilingual and have Acadian French as their mother tongue but Canadian English as their first or second language.

The history of Black Canadian voting rights is marked by contrasting shifts. Enslaved during the period 1600–1834, Black persons could not vote. Emancipated, they were entitled to the rights, freedoms and privileges enjoyed by British subjects, including the franchise; however, racial discrimination did at times impede Black Canadians’ right to vote. The rights and freedoms of Black women were further restricted by virtue of their sex.

Black communities in Canada represent an array of experiences, below are some that relate to the right to vote.

Margret Benedictsson (née Jonsdottir), journalist, social activist, suffragist (born 16 March 1866 in Hrappsstadir, Iceland; died 13 December 1956 in Anacortes, Washington). Benedictsson brought her deeply held beliefs and interest in social change to Manitoba. Through her service to the Icelandic communities in Selkirk, Gimli, and Winnipeg, she championed women’s suffrage, education, improved working conditions, and human rights.

Hiawatha is an important figure in the precolonial history of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) of present-day southern Ontario and upper New York (ca. 1400-1450). He is known most famously for uniting the Five Nations—Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida and Mohawk—into a political confederacy. In 1722, the Tuscarora, a tribe from much farther south, joined the Confederacy, forming what we now know as the Six Nations. The story of Hiawatha should not be confused with the popular poem by Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha (1885). While Longfellow references Hiawatha, the poem’s focus is actually an Algonquian cultural hero, Nanabozho. Whether this was an intentional or accidental error, Longfellow’s poem confused the history of Hiawatha.

Anton Wilfer. Violin maker, b Luby, Czechoslovakia, 30 Apr 1901, d Montreal 31 Aug 1976. He studied and practised violin making in his home town before travelling in 1946 to Mittenwald, Bavaria, to perfect his work with master craftsmen.

Strachan lost his father when he was 14. He entered the University of Aberdeen at only 16 and supported his widowed mother through teaching.

The history of Indigenous peoples in Canada begins much earlier than any other group living here — and is far more complex.

Elsie Marie Knott (née Taylor), Ojibwe chief, community leader, entrepreneur (born 20 September 1922 on Mud Lake Reserve [now Curve Lake First Nation], ON; died there on 3 December 1995). Knott was the first elected female First Nations chief in Canada, after a 1951 amendment to the Indian Act permitted Indigenous women to vote and participate in band governments. She was also chief of her First Nation for 14 years, from 1954 to 1962 and from 1970 to 1976. Knott was dedicated to preserving the Ojibwe language and was known for her community activism and support of education.

Often based on the unorthodox lives of real people, Michael Ondaatje's poetry and prose is characterized by its preoccupation with multiculturalism and its gravitation toward the bizarre, the exaggerated, and the unlikely.

For hundreds of years, very few sports were considered appropriate for women, whether for reasons of supposed physical frailty, or the alleged moral dangers of vigorous exercise. Increasingly, women have claimed their right to participate not only in what were deemed graceful and feminine sports, but also in the sweaty, rough-and-tumble games their brothers played.

Saidye Rosner Bronfman, OBE, community leader, philanthropist (born 9 December 1896 in Plum Coulee, MB; died 6 July 1995 in Montreal, QC). Saidye Bronfman was a leader in the Jewish community who generously supported the arts and various charities. She received the Order of the British Empire for her work with the Red Cross during the Second World War. Saidye and her husband, Samuel Bronfman, drew from their fortune in the liquor business to create a foundation that continues to fund community groups today.

On 14 April 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Daniels v. Canada that the federal government, rather than provincial governments, holds the legal responsibility to legislate on issues related to Métis and Non-Status Indians. In a unanimous decision, the court found that Métis and Non-Status peoples are considered Indians under section 91(24) of the Constitution Act, 1867 — a section that concerns the federal government’s exclusive legislative powers. Recognition as Indians under this section of law is not the same as Indian Status, which is defined by the Indian Act. Therefore, the Daniels decision does not grant Indian Status to Métis or Non-Status peoples. However, the ruling could result in new discussions, negotiations and possible litigation with the federal government over land claims and access to education, health programs and other government services.

Dorothea Ferguson (née Palmer), birth control advocate, social worker (born 1908 in England; died 5 November 1992 in Ottawa, ON). Dorothea Palmer was arrested in 1936 for advertising birth control to women in a working-class neighbourhood in Ottawa. She was cleared of charges after a lengthy trial proved her work had been for the public good. Her acquittal was a major victory for the birth control movement in Canada.

R. v. Powley was a legal case concerning Métis hunting rights in Canada. In 1993, the province of Ontario charged Steve and Roddy Powley with illegal hunting. The Powleys disputed their conviction, arguing that the Aboriginal rights enshrined in section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 protected their hunting rights as Métis people. The case concluded in 2003, when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the Powleys were, in fact, exercising lawful Métis hunting rights. The Powley case established criteria on who can legally qualify for Métis rights. It outlined 10 specific criteria, known as the Powley Test, which applies to Métis communities across Canada. The case also clarified that the Métis are a distinct people, separate from First Nations and Inuit peoples in Canada. Some legal experts believe the Powley case might lead to expanded Métis rights, including harvesting and fishing rights and possibly self-government.

Lucille Teasdale Corti, CM, GOQ, surgeon, humanitarian (born 30 January 1929 in Montréal, QC; died 1 August 1996 in Lombardy, Italy).

Portuguese explorers were among the first Europeans to lay eyes on what is now Canadian soil. In the 2016 Canadian census, 482, 610 people reported being of Portuguese origin, and 221, 540 people reported having Portuguese as their mother tongue language.

James Patrick Brady, prospector, Métis leader (born 11 March 1908 in Lake St. Vincent, AB; disappeared 7 June 1967 in the Foster Lakes area, SK). A grandson of one of Louis Riel’s soldiers, Brady became a leader among the Métis of northern Alberta and Saskatchewan. He was active in the radical politics of the 1930s, trying in vain to persuade the  Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in Saskatchewan to implement progressive Indigenous policies. Brady was a founding member of the Association des Métis d’Alberta et des Territoires du Nord-Ouest in 1932 and remained a major figure in the organization as an influential teacher. The last moments of his life are shrouded in mystery as he disappeared on a prospecting trip in 1967.

George Manuel, OC, LLD (born 17 or 21 February 1921 in the traditional Shuswap territory in British Columbia; died on 15 November 1989 in Kamloops, British Columbia) was an Indigenous activist of the Shuswap Nation engaged in Indigenous politics on the local, national and international scales (seeIndigenous Peoples in Canada). He was the president of the National Indian Brotherhood of Canada (today’s Assembly of First Nations) from 1970 to 1976 and founded the World Council of Indigenous Peoples in 1975.

​Ralph Garvin Steinhauer, OC, lieutenant-governor of Alberta, Indigenous leader, farmer (born 8 June 1905 in Morley, North-West Territories [now AB]; died 19 September 1987 in Edmonton, AB). The first Indigenous person to serve as lieutenant-governor of a Canadian province, he was committed to Indigenous affairs in Alberta and Canada.