Kostash at Carte Blanche

This little magazine from Quebec's feisty anglos has an interview with a hero(oine? does one still say) of mine, Myrna Kostash, on the genre of nonfiction (without the hyphen, she suggests).

History rules at the Children's Book Awards

Book award season continues. Last night in Toronto it was the Canadian Children's Book Centre award ceremony. This used to be the most modest and friendly of book events. Now it has some serious financial support from TD Bank, the (ahem) TD Bank Financial Group Children's Book Awards have gone seriously elegant, but kids' book people are still very nice. As a publisher said last night, "Kids' authors are great. Print 'em a bookmark, they are happy. Not like with adult books."

I was a juror this year for the Bilson Award for historical novels for kids, the generous gift of the late history professor (and kids' novelist) Geoffrey Bilson of Saskatchewan. The field is thriving beyond anything Bilson ever saw; we considered about forty young people's historical novels written and published in Canada. (The CCBC welcomes donations to the Bilson Endowment Fund.)

The Bilson winner: John Ibbitson for The Landing, an ambitious, skillful novel set in Muskoka in the 1930s. (There may be some who wish Ibbitson would give up his day job commenting on politics at the Globe and Mail and write kids' books fulltime -- he missed his award because he's following the PM in Asia right now.) The Landing won the GG in Children's Lit last year; this year that prize went to one of our Bilson shortlist, a potato famine novel called Greener Grass by Caroline Pignat.

History did well by the awards. These days, a lot of writing for kids is historically-linked. Publishers are taking to them, and to issue-oriented books in general, because they work, because the readers and the foreign rights buyers and the buzz are there. The winner of the big TD Canadian Children's Book Prize was Nicola Campbell, a Salish/Métis writer from British Columbia, for Shin-Chi's Canoe, set in a residential school. Another prize winner was Bite of the Mango by Mariatu Kamara (with Maclean's journalist Susan McClelland), set in the recent civil wars of Sierra Leone.

The only person who seems not to have got the memo was one of the hosts, an earnest education professor (could she be Welsh?) who thought it appropriate to introduce the Bilson Prize with remarks on how boring Canadian history is and how the novelists must strive to make it interesting. I was going to boo, but it was a children's lit event; the general niceness prevailed.

Happily, lots of no-issue, sheer pleasure kid's books still appear. Mattland, the picture book winner, and Chicken Pig Cow by Ruth Ohi, looked quite wonderful.

Wales: Europe's Canada?

Is the history of Wales really as boring as it seems? A generation ago this was still a Cinderella subject for a coterie of scholars.

Hywel Bennett investigates in The Guardian online.

History Online: Dan Francis on the Left Coast

Vancouver historian and encyclopaedian Daniel Francis has a new project, and his lively KnowBC blog has a new feature.

Dan has begun posting chunks of his new book project, a history of the British Columbia coast, to the KnowBC blog as he goes along. First instalment here.

Louis Riel executed (not quite) today

The remarkable you-can't-look-away website Executed Today featured Louis Riel a couple of days ago as its executed-today guest of honour.

Berton Prize: Paul Gross

This is prime season for artists who go to those rich galas that Stephen Harper does not like except when he's attending them.

Last night in Toronto was the annual fundraiser for the Berton House in Dawson City, Yukon (link here, tho' it could use some updating!). The house recently welcomed its fiftieth writer-in-residence, and Pierre might be glad to know they have included a historian or two (Charlotte Gray, Ken McGoogan, Brian McKillop, Mark Zuelke). The Toronto fundraiser has always been a rowdy and rambunctious bunfight, taking its cue from Pierre himself, who used to get up and recite "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" from memory while people hollered and cheered. Now it's mellowing, and they get by with film of him.

In the last few years the National History Society has used the event to present its Berton Prize, an annual honour for those who make Canadian history better known. This year the honoree was Paul Gross, who put a lot of bums in seats for his First World War history movie Passchendaele.

GG Winner 2009: Vassangi

There's a bit of a tradition of novelists picking up non-fiction prizes when they turn to that genre, but if the writing is good, who's to complain? Anyway, last week the journalist Lyndon McIntyre managed to turn the tables by winning the Giller Prize with his detour into fiction, The Bishop's Man. How did novelists feel about that?

Anyway, M.G. Vassanji, the very fine and thoughtful novelist of the intimate aspects of global diasporas, has been given the Governor General's Non-fiction prize for his essay A Place Within: Rediscovering India. The main history title, Randall Hansen's Fire and Fury, remains among the finalists (and Hansen, I have learned, lives and teaches in Toronto, not in London as I previously wrote.

Details on the GGs here.

You are invited

The Toronto launch is tonight at the Bay/Bloor Indigo tonight at 7.30. About the book.

Update, Sept 17: I'm thinking this book is going to sell like gangbustahs this fall, for it sure looks like THE big beautiful browsable Canadiana picture book this season. (Full disclosure: I'm one of about forty historians who contributed some words to it.) Editor Mark Reid was on CanadaAM this morning, and they have it online as well as a photo gallery from the book

Lithwick on the SCC

Best piece I've seen on the Supreme Court of Canada in a long time was Dalia Lithwick's admiring, slightly envious American perspective in Slate online recently, covering the Khadr incarceration. She liked that you could watch the whole thing on TV. She saw Justice Rosalie Abella as "a cross between Celine Dion and Ruth Bader Ginsburg." She really liked how, in Ottawa's top court:

the justices include all sorts of quirky outliers, including women, people with French accents, and men with fantastic hair. (Canada is the kind of place in which Simon Potter, from Avocats Sans Frontiers, intervening in the case today for Khadr, speaks English with a Scottish accent yet argues his case to the justices in French.) It's mainly striking because Canada, for better or worse, is in a legal conversation with the rest of the world in a way the United States is not.

Not having Antonin Scalia there was a relief too.

Lithwick is generally interesting on US Supreme Court matters, and Scotusblog is extraordinary (if usually more than we want to know). Does any Canadian blog cover the SCC with anything like this kind of flair and seriousness?

The maple-glazed crown

Somehow the perception that nobody cared about the visit of the prince and his duchess suddenly led "everyone" to start pondering the state of the monarchy.

Andrew Coyne had some, for him, extraordinarily ill-informed opinions on CBC News's opinion panel late last week (Ireland appoints its president? No.), but it was funny how much he horrified the usually phegmatic Chantal Hébert. Michael Valpy's long piece in the Globe was mostly sentimental mooning, but he added the argument that it's just too hard -- Canada's simply not capable of addressing the head-of-state issue. "Cross-Country Checkup" on CBC-One did two hours on the subject (not much on the website yet), but added more heat than light. This morning John Fraser in the Globe's letters column really plumbed the depths: it's those who think this country ought to be responsible for its own affairs under its own head of state, apparently, who are the self-hating Canadians! ("They essentially hate their country.")

The Globe's editorialists, however, did rather better. They acknowledge that the Governor General is the real practical, head of state ("the Governor-General, the face of a new Canada, a symbol of our present and future and, in all but name, our head of state"). More important, they address the vital governance issue. Since the governor-general is de facto head of the Canadian state, they declare, we need to choose occupants of that office by process better than simple patronage. The Globe used to think the GG should be chosen by the Order of Canada, now they want to create a special panel to do the job. They still cannot imagine election.

I'm on record as favouring the confirmation of the Governor-General as head of state and of choosing future governors general by election. That modification ought to involve broad consultation within Canada and with other countries with the same aspiration, but as a matter of constitutional plumbing the Coynes, Valpys, Murphys and others seem to me quite mistaken in claiming the adjustment would be hellishly difficult.

Somewhat to my surprise, the calmest, most modest, most practical commentary I heard on the whole subject came from the semi-official abolitionist spokesperson on Checkup. He may have come from this organization, though I'll correct or confirm that when I can. (Update: it was indeed Tom Freda of Citizens for a Canadian Republic.) It's time, it's popular, it's actually a modest change, it would not be very difficult to do, it would reinforce rather than undermine Canadian traditions... it seemed to me he had nearly every point right. I'd love to hear, say, Michael Ignatieff muse along these lines. He used to be a thoughtful, intellectual sort of guy; I hope his new job doesn't preclude that.

Update, November 17: Historical smackdown! In a letter to the editor, Michael Bliss rips into John Fraser's monarchist meanderings. Readers of the tribute volume published in Bliss's honour last year will know there's some backstory here. Fraser wrote an introduction to the festschrift, Bliss is a fellow at Massey College, where Fraser is master, and their families go way back. To their credit, it doesn't inhibit their frank expression of conflicting views.

Update Update, November 18: Michiel Horn weighs in

Andrew Smith on Discover Canada and Crymble's wiki too

Smith's blog really goes to work on Discover Canada. He modestly calls it "some quick thoughts" but it's a substantial critique. (Click the title.)

Meanwhile, picking up on Smith's earlier suggestion, Adam Crymble has opened a wiki for rewriting Discover Canada He stresses this is not an official government consultation, just a "concerned citizen initiative." Adam's own blog on "public and digital history" is here.

Fact checking Discover Canada

A big omission and eight little missteps in the government's new citizenship document.

The Big One is Aboriginal Rights and Treaties. For a document properly concerned with constitutional and political frameworks, the lack of attention to the aboriginal reality in Canada is dismaying. The treaties that set out Canada's obligaions to the First Nations really are a fundamental part of the constitution of the country.

Eight picky-pickies for the second edition, noted on a quick read-through:

page 14. "The Huron Wendat... were hunter-gatherers." Jeez, they ought to know better than that. Go reread the complete works of Bruce Trigger.

page 14. "Vikings explored Canada c1000 AD." Okay, there are not too many Norwegian immigrants to take offence, but the ones who came to Canada were "Norse," surely. Vikings were more those berserk warrior types plundering Lindisfarne.

page 15. "In 1608 Champlain built a fortress..." A fortress? It was a temporary, palisaded shelter for about thirty people. I've worked on building a fortress; that was no fortress.

page 15. "In 1759 the British defeated the French in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham at Quebec, marking the end of France's empire in America." There's a certain metaphorical truth in this, sure. But fighting continued for another year, and the peace wasn't signed until 1763.

page 18. Responsible government was achieved "in Nova Scotia in 1847-48" and in the United Canadas "in 1848-49." This is a big theme for Discover Canada, and deservedly so; they might get the dates (1847-8 might pass muster in Nova Scotia, but it's 1848 or '47-'48 in the Canadas) right. And I wish they would give credit to the British North Americans who devised it, rather than that tourist Durham.

page 19. "Louis Riel led an armed uprising in 1869." As a provisional government, the entity led by Riel at Red River was as legitimate as what Canada proposed to install. As Canada proved by negotiating terms with it.

page 21. "At Confederation, only property-owning white males could vote." Well, close, but some of the provinces already had universal manhood suffrage, and any colour bar was unofficial.

page 23. "Canada liberated the Netherlands in 1945." Well, quite a bit of it, sure, but there were some other forces involved.

Canada: My part in its discovery

The first I heard about the government’s new citizenship initiative, the booklet now published as Discover Canada (downloadable here), and currently all over the headlines, was when the minister’s office emailed last June, proposing to schedule a phone conversation with Jason Kenney, minister of citizenship and immigration.

I fenced a bit. What did the minister want to talk about? Well, they had a new guide to Canadian citizenship he wanted to discuss.

Don’t people usually get a backgrounder or something before they are briefing the minister? Well, she just scheduled appointments, she said, she could not discuss policy. Eventually someone else took over, and in time they agreed to courier a draft of something they were working on, a guide to Canada for immigrants they would like some input on.

But by then I was growing increasingly doubtful about a Canadian history text coming straight out of the minister’s political staff. (And looking for freebies. My hints about what kind of fee we might be considering for my expertise had been smoothly but pointedly evaded.) “I'm sure you have competent public servants and consultants who have worked long and hard on this project, and I'm reluctant to second-guess them without adequate preparation,” I said in an email. I was busy, and I never actually read the draft they sent.

Well, turns out sometimes you can stand on principle and get away with it. I’m just as happy not to be on the list of helpers of Discover Canada. But in the recommendations for immigrants wishing to know more, along with The Canadian Encyclopedia and such, there is only one independently written book: The Story of Canada by Janet Lunn and Christopher Moore. Sweet. As they say, it is not enough to be chosen; to make it really satisfying, all your friends must be rejected at the same time.

I’d say Discover Canada is all right. It’s true, it’s a pretty political, constitutional, building-of-the=nation kind of history. But to introduce immigrants to the gist of their new Canadian citizenship, that is probably the way to go. A generation of historians has done heroic work in developing new Canadian histories, but the genius of social history is creating 33 million different stories. It is not supposed to cohere. All their work, our work, precious though it is, has not produced an alternate narrative to the history of a nation politically conceived and politically maintained. To us longtimers, Discover Canada may look a bit like the old story. But there are no old stories when it’s a new audience.

It’s still troubling, however, how much Discover Canada is a political document in that other sense. It’s this government’s take on Canadian history, explicitly presented as a replacement for the Liberal version of the same from 1997. I’m all for debates about history, but shouldn’t an official document, the statement of Canada to prospective Canadians, rise above this kind of political one-upmanship? And shouldn't it be written outside the minister's office? I know some pretty talented historians in the public service. What are they for?

Update: The Historians' Gaze weighs in.

(The Story of Canada, by the way, is widely available -- and coming soon to the Scholastic Book Club market too.

Winner of the Plains of Abraham debate...

... William Thorsell and the Royal Ontario Museum, for sure.

I have a certain ambivalence about the ROM. Member for years, actually use our membership, kids practically grew up there. But I'm always aware that Toronto does not have a museum of the city or the province or the country. We have the ROM instead, the ROM with glorious collections in Egyptology and Ming statuary and European armour... but with the Canadiana in basements and outbuildings, and no Canadian historians on staff ... ever? (Okay, they've done some great things in Canadian archaeology.) All I can say is it would never happen in Montreal.

But Thorsell as head of the ROM has always wanted to prove that a great museum will be a vital, provocative place, at the centre of life and culture in its city and its country. He brought that off last night. A capacity crowd in the atrium gallery: 500-700 people out for a ticketed Canadian history event on a Wednesday evening, and the ROM quietly boasting of its riches, with West's "Death of Wolfe" and Wolfe's own copy of "Gray's Elegy" on display. Bravo!

The debate, however, seemed to be more about 1960s history than the 1750s. Jack Granatstein gave us federalist politicking so vigorous that even the crowd, good Toronto Trudeauvians for the most part, I'm sure, went "Oo...ooh" when he began talking about Quebeckers' ingratitude for the cash pipeline from Ottawa to Quebec City. Well, he knew who was going to follow him. Bernard Landry gave us some of the legend of a paradisiacal New France the nuns must have taught him c1950 (before the conquest 80% of the Canadiens were literate, yeah, sure), but mostly it was the full PQ circa 1960 -- speak white, nous sommes opprimés, the call of the nation. It's what happens to history when you let the politicians in.

Even Desmond Morton, invited to give an overview of the battle before the debate, offered a watered-down version that might go over with undergraduates, but seemed a bit thin for the ROM audience... to say nothing of anyone who followed the live-blog here.

So kudos to Thorsell. The audience for serious, provocative Canadian history is here. Do this again. Just hope the historians do you better next time.

Cool Jobs in History

Courtesy of Cliopatria: here.

Back to the Plains

Wednesday night at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, William Thorsell will moderate as historians Jack Granatstein and Desmond Morton and former Quebec premier and PQ leader Bernard Landry debate the meaning of the battle of the Plains of Abraham. It's an awkward lineup -- two historians on one "side," a politician on the other -- but maybe we can hope for some fireworks.

Meanwhile, the Times Online regrets that Britain doesn't celebrate Wolfe and his victory the way it used to. It includes this story of an encounter between Admiral Nelson and Benjamin West, painter of "The Death of Wolfe" (owned by the ROM, as it happens):

In response to Nelson’s questioning, West explained that he had refrained from painting anything similar owing to the lack of suitable subjects, although he feared that the admiral’s legendary bravery might yet provide him with another such scene. West’s macabre offer, with its promise of immortality akin to Wolfe’s, caused Nelson to exclaim: “Then I hope I shall die in the next battle!” Which, of course, he duly did, at Trafalgar in 1805.

A stamp for the Korean ceasefire

Guy Black of the Korean War Veterans Association of Canada writes asking for letters of support for a campaign for a Canadian postage stamp to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Korean cease fire in 2013. More than a hundred letters already accumulated he says.

Seems like a good and appropriate subject for a stamp, for all the reasons on the KVAC site.

But I wonder about having our postage stamps determined by popularity contests judging who can get the most letters of support sent to Canada Post. Surely with a hundred letters from prominent Canadians, CP has has the idea planted. It should not need an internet poll to sort out what gets on a stamp.

John Diefenbaker, boy detective?

There's a new series of historical novels for kids, featuring each of the Canadian prime ministers... as a twelve year old.

For instance The Mystery of the Moonlight Murder in which young Dief investigates. Twenty-one more to come, it says.

Why do journalists pine for authoritarian leaders?

Michael Ignatieff needs to get a grip – on his caucus, on his party and on his staff. Too many of his Liberals are going rogue.

Okay, so The Globe's Jane Taber didn't like the outcome of the gun control vote.

But why do journalists and commentators always, instantly, and without reflection, support man-on-horseback style leadership, and see disaster in any suggestions that legislators might actually, you know, think?

I'm not crazy about the gun control vote, either, and I admit the outcome supports those who argue the extra rural seats in the House of Commons are more of a real governance problem than it has seemed to me. (Tho' a lot of city MPs had to support it too, starting with the member for Calgary Southwest.)

But "going rogue"? The fear and contempt that Canadian political commentators have for the idea a caucus can be a deliberative forum made up of people with minds, and that a leader should be part of that caucus's deliberations, not merely its programmer, never fails to surprise and sadden me.

Update: Meanwhile, in another legislature, here's the actual parliamentary skills another caucus leader applies to get her program implemented:

It can be seen in her assiduous attention to the details of policy, her willingness to use every tool in a leader’s arsenal – persuasion, threat, reward, retribution – to put together coalitions, and her ability to prioritize Democratic principles, her colleagues say.

A Democratic insider familiar with Pelosi's methods says she sets a plan and pursues it, understanding she'll have to hold a few hands -- and perhaps smack a few others -- along the way.

"The Speaker always has a map in her head and she knows when to invoke history to the caucus versus bring in one person for a three-hour chat," the insider says. "And basically where the negotiations will be three weeks from now -- but (she) knows the members have to go through the process."

The American house passed Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi's health care bill on Saturday. Why is it beneath Canadian leaders to do this kind of parliamentary work too?

DHist goes to Afghanistan

In the Toronto Star, Allan Woods examines how the Defence Department's historical staff are documenting the new war in the old tradition.

NP on the Historica-Dominion merger

Adam McDowell at the National Post offers a long analysis of the Dominion Institute-Historica Foundation merger and what it might lead to. This blog gets a small part in the story.

Update, November 19: A perspective from KnowBC

Berlin Wall

In case you are not already familiar with Arts and Letters Daily, its range of links today on November 9, 1989 is extraordinary.

Two ideas:

History is always personal. I know a couple, historically-conscious, civic-minded, well-read, who recall nothing about those months. They had a new baby that autumn and they were so deep in the Parent Zone it all went by them in a blur.

And history changes. The most consistent reflection of people who lived divided by the wall: "I never thought it would change in my lifetime."