On July 1st, 2021 the Canadian Historical Association (CHA) — which represents some 650 professional historians across the country — released a statement saying that Canada’s “long history of violence and dispossession” directed at indigenous peoples “fully warrants our use of the word genocide.” It was an unusual step for an institution representing an academic discipline that has long shied away from using language that might be deemed “controversial,” particularly when the lens of analysis is directed, not at faraway …
Tag: Settler-Colonialism
This article was published in Active History on Aug. 9, 2021 On August 3, 1871 the negotiations that became known as the “Stone Fort” treaty, or Treaty 1, were wrapped up at Lower Fort Garry, north …
A version of this was published in Canadian Dimension magazine (July 4, 2021) Every so often the media and political pundit classes work themselves into a frenzy of finger-wagging over the vandalism, toppling, or destruction of …
Tha Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) followed the corporate media newswire framing for its headline on May 11, 2021: Israelis are “killed” with the active voice; Palestinians “die” with the passive voice. Even the headlines are colonial. …
I’ve heard a lot of Canadians get indignant over the years about charges that this has always been, and continues to be, a fundamentally racist and colonial society. They were indignant when Maclean’s published a piece …
Originally posted in the Media Co-op (November 11, 2019). It’s Remembrance Day in Canada, and so rather than talk about how ignorant and racist Don Cherry is, or how the day is typically used by disingenuous …
Review of James Daschuk’s Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life (University of Regina Press, 2013) Originally published in Briarpatch Magazine (March 2014) In the context of a Canadian popular …
Originally published in The Uniter (October 3, 2012) This year marks the 200th anniversary of the Red River Settlement, an agricultural colony founded by a Scottish “noble” named Thomas Douglas, the Fifth Earl of Selkirk. Familiar Winnipeg …