Global warming denial—the work of ignorance, wishful thinking, demagoguery, and heedless self-interest—spreads global catastrophe. A writer in a letter in the Toronto Star asserts that “…climate change has absolutely nothing to do with carbon emissions… climate change is not about science but rather about the politics of social engineering and wealth transfer.” It is this, […]
Category: War
Odyssey of the unknown soldier from First World War
World War I Prime Minister Arthur Meighen, on August 25, 1921, announced that the body of an unknown Canadian soldier from the First World War was to be removed from his grave in France and buried under the Parliamentary buildings in Ottawa. “It is proposed,” said the Toronto Globe, “that the body shall be placed […]
First World War conscription triggers riots and attempted murder
First World War As First World War military conscription became law on August 29, 1917, protesting rioters in Montreal smashed store windows. Arrests soon followed, including a group charged with attempting to murder Montreal Star publisher Hugh Graham, a strong conscription advocate, and his family, by dynamiting their summer home. The dynamiters also allegedly planned […]
Christmas in World War I, the saddest of all
World War I December 25, 1917 was the fourth Christmas of World War I, and the war was not going well. “There is no prospect of ending it at any early date,” said the Vancouver Sun. Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II threatened that if peace was not accepted on Germany’s terms, “Then we must bring […]
Busy Bugger Billy Bishop and the air aces who shot down the Red Baron in World War I
World War I “You have been a busy bugger, haven’t you?” King George V, said on awarding the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest military award, to Billy (William Avery) Bishop (1894-1956), most famous of Canada’s Wold War I flying aces, July 1917. Canada’s young flying aces, who shot down Germany’s famous Red Baron, almost dominated […]
Salvation Army’s “fallen women” not wanted in Canada
Sam Hughes, publisher, politician and soldier, doesn’t like the plan of Salvation Army founder General William Booth to help Britain’s “fallen women” transform their lives and prospects by emigrating to Canada and the United States. He voices his opinion in this item from his newspaper, the Lindsay, Ontario Victoria Warder, September 4, 1885: Booth, […]
Bank robbers try to rope Canada in U.S. War
During the U.S. civil war (1861-1865), Canadians were divided about which side their sympathies—and sometimes covert support—lay. Those who supported the Confederate south thought that breaking up the United States would lessen the danger of a bigger, stronger neighbour responding to the American cry of “Manifest Destiny,” the doctrine that called for absorption of […]
Militia officers may be laughed at
Service in the militia of Upper Canada in September 1853 was compulsory, but the law had become a mockery, according to this account, reprinted from the Guelph Advertiser. Galt has long been a place of notoriety in the petty annals of the neighborhood, and when nothing else has been available, even a court martial to […]
Britain wins Canada in naval battle
Adapted from my book, About Canada, Toronto, Civil Sector Press, 2012. It was not at the Plains of Abraham, in either the first or second battles in 1759 and 1760, that the destiny of the continent was determined. It was determined two months after Wolfe’s forces won the first battle and more than five […]
Wolfe fails to conquer Canada
From my book, About Canada, Toronto, Civil Sector Press, 2012. British General James Wolfe is widely credited with the conquest of Canada by defeating Louis-Joseph Montcalm and the French on the Plains of Abraham, September 13, 1759. Not so. Wolfe won the battle, but not the war. The French lost a battle but their […]