Witness to Yesterday (The Champlain Society Podcast on Canadian History)

Donald Wright speaks with Jack Cunningham about his book Chrétien and the World. Conventional wisdom holds that foreign policy was not a priority for Jean Chrétien over his ten years as Canadian prime minister. In reality, he and his government pursued an often ambitious, activist policy to forward not only national interests but liberal ideals on the world stage. Chrétien and the World combines t...

Larry Ostola speaks with Randall Wakelam and William March about their book On the Wings of War and Peace: The RCAF during the Early Cold War. Bringing together leading researchers on Canadian air power, On the Wings of War and Peace captures the history of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) during the first decades of the Cold War – a period which marked the zenith of air force accomplishments i...

Donald Wright speaks with Eric Adams and Jordan Stanger-Ross about their book, Challenging Exile: Japanese Canadians and the Wartime Constitution. How did Japanese Canadians navigate the challenges arrayed against them? Eric M. Adams and Jordan Stanger-Ross detail the circumstances and personalities behind the proposed exile. They follow the lives of families facing government orders that forced t...

Nicole O’Byrne speaks with John W. Burchill and Richard Jochelson about their book Ancillary Police Powers in Canada: A Critical Reassessment. Police enforce the law, but they must also obey it. Statutes circumscribe how law enforcement officers conduct their work. Controls on police power are also embedded in the decisions written by judges, spawning a controversial area of legal debate — and of...

Larry Ostola speaks with Marc Milner about his book Second Front: Anglo-American Rivalry and the Hidden Story of the Normandy Campaign. In June 1944, an Allied army of British, American, and Canadian troops sought to open up a Second Front in Normandy. But they were not only fighting to bring the Second World War to an end. After decades of Anglo-American struggle for dominance, they were also con...

Greg Marchildon speaks with Ron Graham about his book, The Coutts Diaries: Power, Politics, and Pierre Trudeau 1973-1981. Jim Coutts, principal secretary to Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau from 1975 to 1981, was one of the most powerful men in Canada during those tumultuous years. Equally admired and attacked, respected and reviled, he was, in the words of one contemporary journalist, “a pol...

Larry Ostola speaks with Don Weekes about his book, Hockey Hall of Fame Timeline of the Game: 150 Years of Hockey Stories. The players. The builders. The moments and stories that define the game. Hockey Hall of Fame Timeline of the Game is a visual catalog of hockey's history -- from the early days of a modest ice game played on ponds to today's fast-paced, global, multi-billion-dollar sport. Hock...

James Stewart (J.D.M.) speaks with Alexandra Giancarlo, Janice Forsyth, and Braden Te Hiwi about their book, Beyond the Rink: Behind the Images of Residential School Hockey. In 1951, the Sioux Lookout Black Hawks from Pelican Lake Indian Residential School toured Ottawa and Toronto after winning the Thunder Bay district championship. Promoted as proof of the residential school system’s “success,”...

Larry Ostola speaks with Harry Malcolmson about his book, Scene: How the 1960s Transformed Canadian Art. Scene traces this remarkable reshaping of the nation’s artistic landscape. Written by renowned art critic Harry Malcolmson, the book offers an insider’s view of how a surge of artists, galleries, collectors, and critics propelled Canadian art onto the global stage. Malcolmson explores the force...

Nicole O'Byrne speaks with Barry Cahill about his book, A Biography of Robert Henry Winters. This biography is of Nova Scotian Robert Henry Winters (1910-1969) who was first elected to Parliament in 1945 and appointed to Cabinet by Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent in 1948. Between 1957 and 1965 Winters was one of Canada’s most prominent businessmen, running companies specializing in resource extrac...

Larry Ostola speaks with Anton Wagner about his book, The Spiritualist Prime Minister: Volume 1: Mackenzie King and the New Revelation, along with the author of the foreword, Walter Meyer zu Erpen. The Spiritualist Prime Minister by Anton Wagner is a groundbreaking two-volume biography that reveals the deep influence of Spiritualism and the occult on William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canada’s longest-s...

James Stewart (J.D.M.) speaks with Matthieu Caron about his book, Montreal After Dark: Nighttime Regulation and the Pursuit of a Global City. Montreal After Dark by Matthieu Caron explores the transformation of Montreal’s vibrant nightlife from the early twentieth century through the reformist era of Mayor Jean Drapeau. Once known for its lively scene of sex, jazz, liquor, and gambling, Montreal’s...

Larry Ostola speaks with Richard Harris about his book, The Rise of the Neighbourhood in Canada, 1880s–2020s. The Rise of the Neighbourhood in Canada, 1880s–2020s by Richard Harris traces the evolution of Canadian neighbourhoods from the 1880s to the 2020s, highlighting their growing importance amid rising social inequality and immigration. While neighbourhoods now foster fewer social connections,...

Greg Marchildon speaks with Stephen Azzi and Patrice Dutil about their book, Statecraft: Canadian Prime Ministers and Their Cabinets. This collection of essays explores the politics of cabinet government in Canada through the lens of statecraft, examining how prime ministers have exercised leadership since 1867. Through twenty critical essays, leading scholars analyse the challenges faced by indiv...

Nicole O'Byrne speaks with Alan MacEachern about his book Becoming Green Gables: The Diary of Myrtle Webb and Her Famous Farmhouse. In 1909 Myrtle and Ernest Webb took possession of a Cavendish, Prince Edward Island farm—ordinary except that it was already known as the inspiration for Anne of Green Gables, written by Myrtle’s cousin, L. M. Montgomery. The Webbs welcomed visitors to “Green Gables”...

Greg Marchildon speaks with Michael A. McDonnell about his book, Masters of Empire: Great Lakes Indians and the Making of America. Masters of Empire by Michael A. McDonnell reveals the vital role played by the native peoples of the Great Lakes in the history of North America. Though less well known than the Iroquois or Sioux, the Anishinaabeg, who lived across Lakes Michigan and Huron, were equall...

In 1973, three young lawyers founded Heenan Blaikie in Montreal, which grew to be a prominent Canadian law firm with notable members, including former political leaders. Despite its close-knit atmosphere, the firm faced significant internal issues, leading to its collapse in 2014. Adam Dodek, an impartial observer, examines the firm’s rise and fall, highlighting its unique culture alongside underl...

A twenty-two-year-old cancer survivor and amputee, Terry set out from St. John’s Newfoundland in April 1980, aiming to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. His first months on the road in Atlantic Canada and Quebec were not only physically taxing—he ran the equivalent of a marathon a day—but frustrating as Canadians were slow to recognize and support his endeavor. That all changed...

We Shall Persist captures both the long campaign and the years of disappointment. Suffrage victories across Atlantic Canada were steps in an unfinished and contentious march toward gender, race, and class equality. This insightful book will appeal to readers with an interest in women’s history, as well as to historians, political scientists, and women’s studies scholars and students. Heidi MacDona...

In Ice War Diplomat, Canadian diplomat Gary J. Smith gives his behind-the-scenes insight into the 1972 Summit Series at the height of tension during the Cold War. Caught between capitalism and communism, Canada and the Soviet Union, Smith shares stories from his first overseas assignment in Moscow where he opts for sports diplomacy, throwing off his embassy black tie and donning the blue-and-white...

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews Peter Neary. He is the co-author, with Melvin Baker, of Joseph Roberts Smallwood: Masthead Newfoundlander, 1900-1949, published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2021. This meticulously researched biography covers Joey Smallwood’s life from birth to being elected Premier of Newfoundland in 1949. Professor Neary has written numerous books and...

In her book The Art of Sharing: The Richer versus the Poorer Provinces since Confederation, Mary Janigan explores the history of equalization – one of Canada’s most important yet least understood social programs. Based on a simple idea of the federal government redistributing a portion of the tax revenues it receives to lower-income provinces so that they can provide roughly comparable public serv...

Greg Marchildon speaks with Dr Esyllt W. Jones about her Book Radical Medicine (ARP Books). Jones is Professor in the Department of History at the University of Manitoba. This recording was produced by Michael Smith at Ryerson University. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to di...

Patrice Dutil speaks with Christopher Moore about the infamous massacre that took place in May 1754 that sparked the Seven-Year War. Christopher Moore writes “History News”, a very popular blog on Canadian History (christophermoorehistory.blogspot.com) and is the author of a dozen books including Three Weeks in Quebec City: The Meeting that Made Canada (Allen Lane). This podcast was produced by Hu...

Patrice Dutil discusses the significance of the founding of the Parti québécois by René Lévesque on 11 October 1968 with Xavier Gélinas, a specialist on the Québec "Quiet Revolution" and curator of Politics at the Canadian Museum of History. This podcast is available in French on Témoins d'hier. This podcast was produced by Naomi Katz and Richard Anstey in the Allan Slaight Radio Institute at Ryer...