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Create AccountThis article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on October 13, 1997. Partner content is not updated.
Khaled Meshal knows he is lucky to be alive - even if he remains mystified about precisely what it was that almost killed him.The struggle over the rights of francophones in Manitoba to receive an education in their mother tongue and their religion is regarded as one of the most important “school crises” in Canadian history, with major short-term and long-term consequences.
How many politicians does it take to grease a combine? Three or four. It depends how fast you feed 'em in.
Corridart dans la rue Sherbrooke was an exhibit of installation artworks organized by Melvin Charney and commissioned for the 1976 Olympic Summer Games in Montreal. The exhibit stretched for several kilometres along Sherbrooke Street. It comprised 16 major installations, about 80 minor installations, and several small performance venues and related projects. It was funded by the Quebec culture ministry and was intended as an international showcase for Quebec artists. But roughly a week after it was unveiled, Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau had the exhibit destroyed on the grounds that it was obscene. Most of the artists involved did not recover their works. Drapeau never apologized and subsequent legal actions dragged on for more than a decade. Given the size, scope and budget of the exhibit, the dismantling of Corridart might be the single largest example of arts censorship in Canadian history.
Early in the morning of 4 Feb 1880, a party of armed men brutally murdered James Donnelly, a farmer living near the village of LUCAN, Ont, his wife Johannah, his sons Thomas and John, and his niece Bridget Donnelly.
Indian agents were the Canadian government’s representatives on First Nations reserves from the 1830s to the 1960s. Often working in isolated locations far from settler communities, Indian agents implemented government policy, enforced and administered the provisions of the Indian Act, and managed the day-to-day affairs of Status Indians. Today, the position of Indian agent no longer exists, as First Nations manage their own affairs through modern band councils or self-government.
At first in the House of Commons last week, it seemed that all the major players in the Quebec referendum had decided to go back to the future and behave as though one of the most divisive campaigns in Canada's history never happened.
Growing up in the small town of Hartney in the southwest corner of Manitoba, Grant Little believed that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police "hung the moon.
Cathy Wattendorf is a white 20-year-old student taking a "really cool" engineering course and training to be a U.S. Air Force officer in the southwest Virginia college town of Blacksburg.
The Green Party of Canada is a federal political party that advocates environmentalism as the key to a sustainable society. Annamie Paul was elected in 2020 to become the party’s leader, replacing Elizabeth May. Paul became the first Black Canadian and the first Jewish Canadian woman to permanently lead a federal political party. She resigned as leader after the party’s poor performance in the September 2021 federal election.
Two Green Party candidates were elected to the House of Commons in the 2021 election. (See Member of Parliament.)
A moment comes which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. - Jawaharlal Nehru, first prime minister of a free India, on Aug.
That workers should have political representatives of their own class has been a recurrent theme in Canadian labour history, but no one organization has provided a permanent home for this idea. Many union leaders have preferred to advance their cause through established political parties.
The right to vote in Canada has not been straightforward. Race, ethnicity, and gender were often factors in determining who had the right to vote, a right that, once earned, could be taken away. Learn about the complicated history of Voting Rights in Canada.
NEXT YEAR they will celebrate 30 years of marriage. At least, that's what they call it - although many would deny that this particular couple are married at all. They have lived in the same neighbourhood of big old houses and mature trees near downtown Winnipeg since 1978.
Nova Scotia was one of the four founding provinces of Canada. It joined New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec in Confederation on 1 July 1867. However, this was mainly because Confederation delivered the Intercolonial Railway to the Maritimes, and because of the efforts of Sir Charles Tupper. His government passed approval for Confederation in the colonial legislature despite popular opposition. (See Confederation’s Opponents.) Confederation was met with mass protests in the colony. Joseph Howe led a two-year effort to repeal the union. (See Repeal Movement.) But Howe finally decided he could do more to help his province by working inside the federal government. He joined the federal Cabinet in 1869.
On a Sunday evening, 3 June 1990, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and the ten provincial premiers marked the third anniversary of the Meech Lake Accord at a dinner in the architectural splendour of the Canadian Museum of Civilization (now the Canadian Museum of History) in Hull, Quebec.
This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on August 31, 1998. Partner content is not updated.
Osama bin Laden is a slender man with a thick black beard, lightened by traces of grey, and soft eyes that give his face a melancholy air. He does not look dangerous, but according to American officials the Saudi Arabian exile, about 40, is the world's leading terrorist.
Smuggling has always been an important issue of Canadian history and life and remains so to this day. With over 7000 km of shared border with the US, the opportunity to smuggle is ever-present. The provinces with a shared US border are not the only ones at risk.
The Wartime Elections Act of 1917 gave the vote to female relatives of Canadian soldiers serving overseas in the First World War. It also took the vote away from many Canadians who had immigrated from “enemy” countries. The Act was passed by Prime Minister Robert Borden’s Conservative government in an attempt to gain votes in the 1917 election. It ended up costing the Conservatives support among certain groups for years to come. The Act has a contentious legacy. It granted many women the right to vote, but it also legitimized in law many anti-immigrant sentiments.
Canada and the United States have a unique relationship. Two sovereign states, occupying the bulk of North America and sharing the world's longest undefended border, each reliant on the other for trade, continental security and prosperity. Despite radically different beginnings, as well as a history of war, conflict and cultural suspicion, the two countries stand as a modern example of inter-dependence and co-operation.
