Signing up enhances your TCE experience with the ability to save items to your personal reading list, and access the interactive map.
Create Account"Tears and taxes are the price of liberty. The pockets that pay are more blessed than the eyes that weep." So said Toronto newspaper editor John "Black Jack" Robinson in a 1928 editorial urging the conscription of wealth.
The election of 1896 divided the country — along linguistic lines — over the Manitoba schools question.
On 2 October 1758, Nova Scotia's first Legislative Assembly met in Halifax, and Canadian parliamentary government was born.
In 1957 and 1958, Canadian voters swept aside 22 years of Liberal rule for the untested Conservatives under John Diefenbaker, whose campaign brilliance won him first a minority government, and then a historic majority.
Two elections within 12 months. Two leaders fighting for supremacy: one intellectual and cold, the other deliberately vague and hiding his ambition.
Calling elections is like Goldilocks visiting the three bears — which political stew will turn out to be too soon, too late, or just right? The elections of 1979 and 1980 illustrate the perils of too late, followed by too soon.
It is the greatest murder mystery in Canadian political history. Thomas D’Arcy McGee, Father of Confederation and outspoken opponent of the Fenians, was assassinated on an Ottawa street in the early hours of Tuesday, 7 April 1868.
Before Confederation, elections were rowdy, highly competitive and even violent.
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.
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.
On 4 April 1949, in the auditorium of the State Department on Washington's Constitution Avenue, the foreign ministers of Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and eight other countries signed the North Atlantic Treaty.
As the Chrétien government prepared a new Speech from the Throne in which poverty would be a major theme, the Ministers, Members of Parliament and government planners working on the speech could have done worse than to turn to the famous 1971 Report of the Special Senate Committee on Poverty.
Laurier led the country for 15 years — the longest uninterrupted term for a Canadian prime minister — with a policy of systematic compromise.
On January 11, 1914, Vilhjalmur Stefansson's flagship, Karluk, was crushed and sunk by the tumultuous, rumbling ice of the East Siberian Sea. Not an auspicious start for an invasion, but that is exactly what it turned out to be.
When Ken Taylor arrived in Iran for his first ambassadorial posting, he had no reason to expect anything but a serene time as a promoter of Canadian business and trade. Instead, he ran headlong into the Ayatollah Khomeini's Iranian Revolution.
On 15 February 1965, at hundreds of ceremonies across the country and around the world, the red and white Maple Leaf Flag was raised for the first time. In Ottawa, 10,000 people gathered on a chilly, snow-covered Parliament Hill. At precisely noon, the guns on nearby Nepean Point sounded as the sun broke through the clouds. An RCMP constable, 26-year-old Joseph Secours, hoisted the National Flag of Canada to the top of a specially-erected white staff. A sudden breeze snapped it to attention.
On July 22, 1963, Prime Minister L. B. Pearson announced the establishment of a Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism under the direction of André Laurendeau and A. Davidson Dunton.
A few days before September 12, 1877, Blackfoot and Stonies began arriving at Blackfoot Crossing on the banks of the Bow River in southern Alberta. The two were old enemies and camped on opposite sides of the river. Later in the week they were joined by the Blood and Piegan.
A federal order-in-council is a statutory instrument by which the governor general (the executive power of the governor-in-council), acting on the advice and consent of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, expresses a decision. In practice, orders-in-council are drafted by Cabinet and formally approved by the governor general. Orders-in-council are not discussed by Parliament, and do not require legislation by Parliament, before being implemented.
The Fred Christie Case (Christie v York, 1939) is a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada that allowed private businesses to discriminate on the basis of freedom of commerce. In July 1936, Fred Christie and two friends went to the York Tavern attached to the Montreal Forum to have a beer. The staff refused to serve them because Christie was Black. Christie sued, eventually bringing his case to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the York Tavern was within its rights to refuse to serve people on the basis of race. The case reveals an era of legalized racism, while its facts hide the subtle ways that racism operated in early 20th-century Canada.
