History Matters by Canadian Institute for Historical Education

In this episode Allan speaks with Carla Peck and Alan Sears about their 2026 book, Rescuing Reason: How History Education Can Help Save Democracy . The conversation explores their paths into history education, influenced by the late Peter Seixas, and examines the purpose of education: Sears and Peck argue that history is essential for fostering civic reasoning, empathy, and navigating complexity....

In this episode Allan talks with historian and author John Boyko about his latest book, In Pursuit of Tomorrow: The Inventive Life of Sandford Fleming . While Fleming is best known for coming up with the idea of standard time and time zones used around the world today, that was just one of a long list of significant achievements. By his mid-twenties, Fleming had already surveyed and mapped half a...

In Episode 26, recorded at the annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association in Charlottetown, Allan talks with Professor Donald Wright , past president of the Canadian Historical Association and professor at the University of New Brunswick, about his biography Donald Creighton: A Life in History. The conversation opens with a look at the CHA itself—its bilingual mandate, its annual confer...

In this episode Allan talks with Patrice Dutil, professor of Politics and Public Administration at Toronto Metropolitan University, about his edited volume The Enduring Riddle of Mackenzie King and what it reveals about one of Canada’s most puzzling political figures: how did someone with no obvious charm or charisma remain in office so long? The conversation focuses on the issue of conscription a...

In this episode Allan talks with Professor Duncan McDowall , University Historian Emeritus at Queen’s University, about the life and legacy of Sir John A. Macdonald. McDowall suggests that Macdonald’s early years in Kingston were critical in shaping his appreciation for the importance of building ties between Protestant and Catholic, English and French, and with the thousands of immigrants, partic...

In this episode of History Matters , host Allan Williams speaks with historian and former U.S. Army officer Ty Seidule about how history is remembered, interpreted, and debated in the United States. The conversation begins with recent controversies over the renaming of U.S. military bases previously associated with Confederate figures, including the work of the Naming Commission. From there, Seidu...

In this episode, Allan speaks with Joanne Archibald , Executive Director of the Canadian Business History Association, about the role of business history in shaping Canada’s past. The discussion begins with a business and logistical perspective on the Battle of Vimy Ridge, highlighting the contribution of Canadian industry and railways to the war effort. Archibald then outlines how business histor...

In this episode, posted on the April 9th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917, Allan talks with military historian Dr. Eric McGeer about the battle and its place in Canadian memory. The conversation covers the battle itself and its significance in the Arras Offensive and in the course of the First World War, the men who led the planning and preparations in the months leading up to April...

In this episode, Allan talks with journalist Jerry Amernic about his book Sleepwoking, published in November 2025. The conversation opens with an anecdote about the founding of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York in 1939, ostensibly because the first ever baseball game had been played there in 1839, an origin story subsequently debunked by the Hall of Fame itself. Sleepwoking, in a...

In this episode, Allan talks with writer and media executive Richard Stursberg to explore the rise and decline of Canadian book publishing. The conversation breaks down how Canada once built a thriving literary culture, why English-Canadian publishing has lost ground, and what that means for national identity, history, and cultural sovereignty today, along with what can be done to rebuild it. Stur...

In this episode of History Matters, Allan speaks with veteran journalist Christina Blizzard about her fifty plus years in journalism, a career that began at the old Toronto Telegram in an era of linotype and “hot lead” printing, included being a “Day One” employee at the Toronto Sun in 1971, and continued into today’s era of social media, digital printing and the AI-driven newsroom. Blizzard discu...

In this episode of History Matters, journalist and author Madelaine Drohan joins the program to explore a question that feels contemporary, but is anything but new: how long have American Leaders imagined Canada as part of the United States? The conversation begins with today’s “51st state” rhetoric and Prime Minister Carney’s Davos warning that Canada is facing a rupture, not a transition. From t...

In this special episode of History Matters Allan welcomes Gordon Henderson, a veteran television producer, documentary film maker, and historical novelist to introduce a live stage performance of the “The Trial of Egerton Ryerson,” a play commissioned by the CIHE, researched and written by Gilbert Reid and Gordon Henderson. Reid did the bulk of the original research which Henderson turned into a p...

DESCRIPTION EP15 Public monuments shape how Canadians encounter their past. Yet the process of representing historical figures in bronze raises important questions: how does one preserve humanity, complexity, and context in a permanent public form? In this episode of History Matters , Allan Williams speaks with Ruth Abernethy, one of Canada’s most accomplished sculptors. Her public works include f...

In this episode of History Matters, Allan Williams speaks with Professor Christopher Dummitt of Trent University about the events leading to Ontario’s 1954 Fair Accommodations Practices Act. The discussion examines the leadership of Hugh Burnett, the organized campaign against racial discrimination in Dresden, and the broader pre-Charter human rights movement in Canada. This period is frequently o...

In this episode of History Matters, Allan is joined by Charlotte Gray, one of Canada’s best known and most prolific popular historians, for a wide-ranging conversation about how Canadian history is preserved, told, and understood today. We begin with the urgent and pressing issue of the future of Library and Archives Canada, which has experienced deep funding cuts, and now labours under privacy an...

In this episode of the Canadian Institute for Historical Education podcast, host Allan Williams speaks with distinguished historian Nicholas Rogers, Research Professor Emeritus at York University and author of numerous works on eighteenth-century Britain and the Atlantic world. The conversation centers on Rogers’s recent article in the Canadian Historical Review, “Toronto’s Dundas Imbroglio,” whic...

What if one of the most defining moments in Canadian democracy wasn’t Confederation, but a riot that burned Parliament to the ground in Montreal? In this episode of History Matters, I’m joined by Christopher Dummitt, professor of Canadian history at Trent University and host of the acclaimed podcast 1867 and All That. Together, we dive into the dramatic political turning points of the 1830s and 18...

This episode is the second of two taken from a CIHE event held in March 2025 with Oxford Professor Nigel Biggar, recently appointed to the UK House of Lords, and Margaret MacMillan, Companion of the Order of Canada. This second part features the conversation between Lord Biggar and Professor MacMillan that followed his opening statement. They examined the moral complexity of empires, especially th...

This episode is the first of two taken from a CIHE event held in March 2025 with renowned historians Professor Nigel Biggar, recently appointed to the British House of Lords and author of the 2023 book, Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning , and Professor Margaret MacMillan, Companion of the Order of Canada, and author of The Uses and Abuses of History , among many other books. In the first of two parts...

Did you know that in World War II, Canada’s “best business brains” traded Bay Street boardrooms in support of the country's war effort? In this episode of History Matters , I sit down with Winnipeg-based historian and author Allan Levine to talk about his new book, The Dollar a Year Men: How the Best Business Brains in Canada Helped to Win the Second World War (Barlow Books, 2025).  We open w...

In this episode, host Allan Williams welcomes historian and former Ontario cabinet minister Sean Conway for a wide-ranging discussion that connects contemporary political decisions to their deeper historical roots. Conway reflects on the Ontario provincial election of 1985, which brought an end to the 42 year PC dynasty, and the unusual circumstances that led to his receiving official briefings on...

What happens when a national biography doesn’t just celebrate—or condemn, but strives to understand? In this episode, I sit down with historian David A. Wilson to explore how the DCB is rethinking who gets included, how language is updated without “rewriting” the past, and why a birdseed magnate—James Nicholson—helped launch Canada’s most important biographical project. In this episode, I sit down...

Host Allan Williams welcomes J D M James Stewart, author, broadcaster, podcaster, and veteran teacher, to discuss The Prime Ministers, Canada’s Leaders and the Nation They Shaped Sutherland House, 2025. They revisit R B Bennett’s reputation in the shadow of the Depression, examine Mackenzie King’s wartime stewardship, and consider how crisis, longevity, and electoral success drive rankings that of...

Host Allan Williams welcomes J.D.M. Stewart, Eric McGeer, and Christopher Dummitt for a special tribute to Tim Cook, the award-winning Canadian military historian and chief historian/director of research at the Canadian War Museum. The panel reflects on Cook’s life, generosity, and extraordinary output—19 books that made the World Wars accessible without sacrificing scholarly rigour. They spotligh...