By David J. Bercuson
Canada was not even an independent nation when it fought its costliest war ever, the First World War, which for Canada began on August 4, 1914. When the war ended on November 11, 1918, Canada’s soldiers — indeed Canada’s entire war effort — gained a vital step on the road to full nationhood. Read the full story
Canadian governments have been unsuccessful in describing their foreign policy. Prime ministers Pierre Trudeau, Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin each published glossy booklets outlining Canada’s role in the world. All were full of incoherent generalities and all were quickly forgotten. Read the full story
Frank Underhill was a noted Canadian historian a half century ago, even if he is now almost forgotten. But he wrote one sentence that still rings true: Canadians, he said, were the first anti-Americans, the ideal anti-Americans, the anti-Americans as they exist in the mind of God. In no period of Canadian history was that description so exactly right as in the years after 1968. Read the full story
“The Americans are our best friends,” one Canadian politician told the House of Commons early in the 1960s, “whether we like it or not.” Whether we like it or not. In other words, Canadians had no choice but to be close to the Americans, the economic, military and political superpower. Read the full story
In the year before World War I began, celebrations abounded along the Canada-United States border. It was 100 years since the end of the War of 1812, and orators at great banquets in both countries hailed the century of peace between Canada and the U.S. The “undefended border” between the two North American nations was an example to the world, they all proclaimed. If only Europeans could act like Americans and Canadians. Read the full story
Late on an August evening in 1939, Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King was contemplating a peaceful night’s sleep. Before going to bed, he turned on the radio. The international news had been worrying, and King knew that it had profound implications for a country so closely linked to Great Britain and its empire.
In 1897 the new prime minister met the old Queen. Wilfrid Laurier, who had become the Prime Minister of Canada the year before, crossed the Atlantic Ocean to participate in the celebrations of Queen Victoria’s 60 years on the British throne. She was the symbol of the power, prestige, and stability of a British Empire that spanned the globe. Read the full story
Canada's Hockey Experience
Posted on 01 September 2011
By Brian Baker
On Canadian soil, in sudden death overtime, Sidney Crosby took the feed from Jarome Iginla, tied up in the corner, and snapped the puck through a small sliver of daylight that U.S. goalie Ryan Miller failed to block.
The passion and celebration that ensued over the “Golden Goal” at the Winter Olympics in 2010 [...more]
