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Jennifer Hodge de Silva, née Hodge, documentary filmmaker (born 28 January 1951 in Montreal, QC; died 5 May 1989 in Montreal). Jennifer Hodge de Silva was a pioneering African Canadian filmmaker of the 1970s and 1980s. She was the first Black filmmaker to work consistently with both the National Film Board and the CBC. She produced an acclaimed and influential body of work known as realist social issue documentary. Her highly regarded film Home Feeling: A Struggle for Community (1983), co-directed with Robert McTair, is widely taught in film studies programs throughout Canada.

Nadine Rena Caron, OBC, surgeon, researcher, mentor, educator, patient advocate, community leader (born 1970 in Kamloops, BC). Nadine Caron was the first female First Nations student to graduate from the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine. She was also the first female First Nations general surgeon in Canada. For many years, Caron has highlighted the needs and voices of northern, rural and Indigenous populations in Canada.

Christa Deguchi, judoka (born 29 October 1995 in Nagano, Japan). Christa Deguchi is the only Canadian ever to win a gold medal at the World Judo Championships. The Japanese Canadian judoka won the bronze medal at the 2018 World Judo Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan, and a gold medal at the 2019 World Championships in Tokyo, Japan. Deguchi competes in the women’s 57 kg weight class and is a member of the Kyodokan Judo Club in Lethbridge, Alberta. She was considered one of Canada’s top athletes heading into the postponed 2020 Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo.

Félix Auger-Aliassime, tennis player (born 8 August 2000 in Montreal, QC). Félix Auger-Aliassime is one of the world’s rising tennis stars. In 2015, he became the youngest player ever to win a professional match and the youngest player ever to reach the Top 800 in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) rankings. In 2015, he and Denis Shapovalov won Canada’s first Junior Davis Cup title, as well as the junior boys doubles title at the US Open. By the age of 20, Auger-Aliassime had reached the final of five ATP Tour events. During the 2019 ATP Tour season, he rose 91 places in the world rankings, from No. 108 to No. 17.

The following article is a feature from our Vancouver Feature series. Past features are not updated.

Laure Waridel, CM, CQ, social activist, author, environmentalist, lecturer and columnist (born 10 January 1973 in Chesalles-sur-Oron, Switzerland). Regarded as one of the 25 most influential political personalities in Québec, Laure Waridel holds an honorary doctorate from the Université du Québec à Rimouski, the Insigne du mérite from the Université de Montréal, and the rank of Knight of the Order of La Pléiade. She is a co-founder of Équiterre, a Québec organization that encourages individuals and governments to make choices that are fair, ecological and consistent with the principles of solidarity. The author of a number of books and essays on environmental issues, Waridel has contributed to many magazines, such as Voir and Reader’s Digest, in addition to hosting the radio show Acheter, c’est voter on Radio-Canada. She is currently strategic advisor for CIRODD, an interdisciplinary centre for research on operationalization of sustainable development. This centre is based at Polytechnique Montréal, and its membership includes over 80 researchers.

French Canadian nationalism concerns a wide variety of manifestations of the collective will of much of Canada's French-speaking population to live as a distinct cultural community. Its innumerable ramifications have been not only cultural but also political, economic and social.

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.

Maggie Helwig, poet, novelist, social activist (b at Liverpool, Eng, 1961).

"I started to go down to Bay and Wellington. That’s where the recruiting station was. The first time the guy, the recruiting officer, just said, "No, sorry, we don’t take you people.""

See below for Mr. Braithwaite's entire testimony.

Please be advised that Memory Project primary sources may deal with personal testimony that reflect the speaker’s recollections and interpretations of events. Individual testimony does not necessarily reflect the views of the Memory Project and Historica Canada.

Jose Amaujaq Kusugak, Inuk politician, community leader, teacher, activist, linguist and broadcaster (born 2 May 1950 in Repulse Bay, NT [now Naujaat, NU]; died 18 or 19 January 2011 in Rankin Inlet, Kivalliq, NU). Kusugak was president of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. from 1994 to 2000. This was the organization responsible for negotiating and implementing the land claim that ultimately resulted in the creation of Nunavut in 1999. For this reason, some consider Kusugak a Father of Confederation. He was also a lifelong advocate for Inuit rights, language and culture.

Pitseolak Ashoona, CM, artist (born between 1904 and 1908 on Nottingham Island (Tujajuak), NWT; died 28 May 1983 in Cape Dorset, NWT). Among the first generation of Inuit printmakers, Pitseolak Ashoona was born en route from Nunavik in arctic Québec to the south coast of Baffin Island (Qikagtaaluk). She is known for her lively prints and drawings, which show "the things we did long ago before there were many white men" and for her imaginative renderings of spirits and monsters.

Hugh Burnett, civil rights activist, carpenter (born 14 July 1918 in Dresden, ON; died 29 September 1991 in London, ON). Burnett was a key figure in the fight for anti-discrimination legislation in Ontario. Through the 1940s and early 1950s, he organized tirelessly against racial discrimination in public service in his hometown of Dresden, Ontario, rising to prominence as a leader and organizer of the National Unity Association (NUA), a coalition of Black community members pushing for equal rights in Dresden and the surrounding area. He was instrumental to in bringing about legislative and legal victories for civil rights at the provincial level related to the 1954 Fair Accommodation Practices Act, an early anti-discrimination law in Ontario.

The millennial generation (also known as Generation Y) refers to a cohort of people born roughly between 1980 and 1996, though some have a more restrictive definition (see Population of Canada). Most millennials are children of members of the baby boom generation, a term which refers to those born immediately following the end of the Second World War. Millennials are often compared to and defined by the ways in which they are both a product of, and a challenge to, their parents’s generational traits.

Ahousaht (Ahousat) is a Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation residing on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The word Ahousaht means “facing opposite from the ocean” or “people living with their backs to the land and mountains” in the Nuu-chah-nulth language. It is the largest of all the Nuu-chah-nulth nations, with a population of 2,224 in 2021.

Fenians were members of a mid-19th century movement to secure Ireland’s independence from Britain. They were a secret, outlawed organization in the British Empire, where they were known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood. They operated freely and openly in the United States as the Fenian Brotherhood. Eventually, both wings became known as the Fenians. They launched a series of armed raids into Canadian territory between 1866 and 1871. The movement was primarily based in the United States, but it had a significant presence in Canada.

George Dixon, boxer (born 29 July 1870 in Africville, NS; died 6 January 1908 in New York, New York). George Dixon was the first Black world champion in boxing history and the first Canadian to ever win a world championship. Despite his small stature (5 feet 3.5 inches and between 87 and 115 pounds), Dixon amassed several notable accomplishments across a 20-year career and was the first boxer to win championships in multiple weight classes — bantamweight (1890) and featherweight (1891–96; 1897; 1898–1900). A cerebral fighter known as a “pioneer of scientific boxing,” he is credited with inventing various fundamental training techniques, including shadowboxing and the use of the heavy bag. As a dominant Black fighter in the post-Civil War United States, Dixon was subjected to fierce racism. He died in poverty from alcoholism at the age of 37. He was an inaugural inductee into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame and the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame, and was also named to The Ring Magazine Hall of Fame and the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

Jeremiah “Jerry” Alvin Jones, soldier, farmer, truck driver (born 30 March 1858 in East Mountain, NS; died 23 November 1950 in Halifax, NS). Jeremiah Jones was a Black Canadian soldier who served during the First World War. Jones was 58 years old (13 years above the age limit) when he enlisted with the 106th Battalion in 1916. For his heroic actions during the Battle of Vimy Ridge, he was awarded the Canadian Forces Medallion for Distinguished Service in 2010 — 60 years after his death.

French is one of Canada’s two official languages. Although every province in Canada has people whose mother tongue is French, Québec is the only province where speakers of French are in the majority. In 2011, 7,054,975 people in Canada (21 per cent of the country’s population) had French as their mother tongue.