Doldrums

 

Blogging will be slim to none for about a week.  Enjoy a holiday yourself.

Podcasting confederation

Have to say I continue to be impressed and intrigued by Christopher Dummitt's blog, 1867 and All That, now in its second season and getting right to the confederation negotiations of 1864. 

I'm biased, no doubt, by the nice things he says about my own work, as here, and by the sense I get that at least some of my takes on confederation have become mainstream. But Chris D definitely has his own approach to the topic, and delves into many stories and situations beyond my coverage.

Fin du Tour

Two messages to the blog last week. One says, I love the blog but tend to skip the cycling stuff. The other: thanks for the cyling coverage

History of the empty corridor

Not to keep banging on about the British Columbia Review, but I have to recommend Richard Mackie's essay in historical memoir "Along the Empty Corridor of British Columbia" not only for its historical content but also for its reflections on what has been publishable and unpublishable in Canadian history and journalism over the last few decades.

Photo credit: John Harvey from BC Review.

Local blogger charts in techy survey

There's a thing called FeedSpot  -- "the Internet’s Largest Human Curated Database of Bloggers and Podcasts."  I'm not sure I had ever heard of it before yesterday, when I saw, quite accidently, that on July 19 they posted a ranking of "25 Best Canadian History Blogs and Websites." ranked by "traffic, social media following, domain authority, and freshness."

 The top ranked blog is the Canadian Museum of History Blog. Until now I had no idea of its existence. It rates high for Facebook and Twitter engagement, but is credited with only 2 posts per quarter. I'll start looking.

Second is The Canadian Historical Association website. I didn't know the CHA had a blog, and none is mentioned on its home page, though there is a Teachers' blog somewhere on the site. FeedSpot credits the CHA website with two posts per month.

Third takes us into serious blog territory: Active History. Though FeedSpot credits it with only thirty posts a year, it must be more like twenty a month.  Active History is active, it's history-focus, it has a big readership, lots of contributors, and good social media linkages. This is a high ranking that is definitely deserved.

And fourth is the blog you are reading now, Christopher Moore's History News. Our posting score, I'm pleased to say, is far and away the best by the survey's metrics, at three posts a week -- which seems about right. It would probably lead in the linking it does too, if they measured that. (Linking should be a key indicator of a blog's value, blogging being a collaborative medium.) Let me say as well that of the top five, Christopher Moore's History News is not only ranked the most active in posting.  It's also the only one with a single author, no institutional mandate -- and no institutional funding. No funding at all, actually.  In twenty-odd years, expenses here have been precisely zero. (Its revenues: also precisely zero. No donation box, no grants, sponsors, or advertisers, and likely to stay that way.) 

If the humans at FeedSpot ranked a little for quality, it makes me think... chance for a gold here? 

Fifth is the online magazine of urbanism Spacing.ca, which is a terrific magazine with interesting historical content on Canadian cities and urbanism. So sorta/kinda a "history" "blog" ... I guess.

Nice also to see NiCHE, Borealia, Daniel Francis's blog, Acadiensis blog, Canadian Legal History blog  -- all on my faves list (at right) -- featured in FeedSpot's top twenty-five too.  Others worth checking out too. Odd that sites like Library and Archives Canada blog, and the DCB Online didn't make the lists.  

Louisbourg rebuilt again

 ... This time it's in Lego.

Two hundred thousand pieces of Lego, two years labour, and the fortress city rises again, this time in scale to the iconic Lego figurine.  And I want to go to there.

"Me and my brother went to the fortress for the 250th anniversary of the second siege of the fortress [2008]," said Bédard. "It was just magical with all of the British and French soldiers and the fortress itself and the fog." [....]

 Bédard said he began the replica project in January 2020, and soon after a team was assembled.

The five people behind the project have all chipped in to cover its cost, estimated at around $20,000.

No word on whether there are teenyl ittle Lego historians behind the scenes of this reconstruction, but it's got a good review from one who could be there, John Johnston, the dean of lifesize Louisbourg specialists: 

A.J.B. Johnston, a historian who worked at the Fortress of Louisbourg for 23 years, said he's impressed by the Lego creation's accuracy and detail.

 "It's an endless pit, or an endless treasure trove," he said. "Louisbourg can fascinate you in countless ways."

Update, July 22: Mark Reynolds comments:

Sometimes you don't know what your dream is....until you see a full scale Lego replica of Louisbourg, and realize that you've wasted your life. To think I've been raising children, when I could have been doing that instead - if they ever make Canadian history Lego kits, I will be *bankrupting* this family, I swear.

 

More Tour de France: Canadians to the fore

The pride of Ste-Perpetué, Qc. Chapeau!

So last week I was noting Hugo Houle, a Canadian mostly anonymous in the pack of the Tour de France.  Yesterday, Hugo Houle became the first Canadian to win a stage of the Tour in decades.  So, not just a domestique!

Yesterday, observers -- mostly delighted for Houle -- were saying he had always been "one of the hard men," "a battler," "a journeyman." But even a journeyman can have his day. 

Houle's team Israel-Premier Tech Startup,* half owned by a Canadian, has no contender for overall winner, so Houle has not had to burn himself out as a support rider up front, providing slipstream to a contender. After saving his strength a while, he was able, first to go with a strong breakaway group (none of whom threatened the total time of the overall leaders), and then to break from the breakaway and go solo 40 km from the finish.  

Michael Woods, another Canadian of Israel-Premier Tech, was also in the original breakaway.  Woods is a team star, and had Houle have stayed with the breakaway group, he would likely have tried to pace Woods to victory. But when Houle discovered he could escape the group, Woods found himself in a chase group of just three, next behind Houle. It's a team sport; Woods saw what he had to do.  

The only chance of the three to catch Houle was to work together, maximizing their speed by sharing the work, taking turns leading their group. But Woods was not about to work. He hung back in the slipstream of the other two -- and with just two riders working, they were not powerful enough to catch Houle, whose lead actually expanded.  Victory to Houle. Victory for the whole team too, Woods not least. He came in third.

*Bike teams are permanent, but sponsors (and team names) change frequently.  At the moment there are three top-rank teams with Middle Eastern sponsors:  UAE, Bahrein-Victorious, and Israel Premier-Tech 

Democracy: it's not how many people vote but who's accountable to whom

Some analyses of British and Canadian Conservative leadership selection processes:

 Alastair Campbell, British Labour stringpuller:  

Why is the country allowing – yet again – 160,000 mostly very old and similar people to choose the country’s leader?

Simon Jenkins, British journalist:

The decision of Truss versus Rishi Sunak now goes to a bizarre “selectorate” of the Tory party members. As of 2017, their average age was 57. More than half are over 60 and more than 70% are male. They live predominantly in the south of England. That the nation’s leadership should hang on this tiny unrepresentative group is a perversion of parliamentary democracy. It has long stipulated that the government of the country should be led by the person who commands majority support of the House of Commons. That person is Sunak.

Aaron Wherry, Canadian journalist:

The UK Conservative leadership race began five months after the Canadian Conservative leadership race began and the UK race will end five days before the Canadian race does. Canadian leadership races are way too long.

Geoff Norquay, Canadian Conservative stringpuller

The reason for the party’s long leadership contests is that they are based on a one-member-one-vote system accompanied by open recruitment. [...]  The party opens itself up to the possibility of under-the-table fundraising practices, bulk purchases of memberships on others’ behalf and faked memberships.

The process for the replacement of Boris Johnson as leader of the British Conservative Party provides some useful ideas.

The British analysts are already aware that the process recently adopted there is a travesty of parliamentary democracy, that it produced Boris Johnson and will now likely produce Liz Truss, his wannabe. Meanwhile the Canadians are saying, "Oooh, shiny things over there!" 

Jenkins gets to the nub of what's necessary in less than a sentence. "The government of the country should be led by the person who commands majority support of the House of Commons." Norquay goes on for paragraphs about how leaving the decision to whoever buys the most votes is (I'm not making this up) "more democratic." Wherry thinks that would be okay if it went a little faster.

  

This Month at Canada's History: new stories

In Canada's History for August-September, a bunch of stories that might not have featured so much in the old Beaver. 

• The cover story features Deke Richards's account of the Patriotes of 1837-38 who were exiled from 1839 to 1844 in New South Wales, Australia. I might quibble about Richard's claim that the rebels of 1837 "helped build responsible government." One might say that's not quite what they were fighting for. (Having returned to Lower Canada, many of the exiles stood with Louis-Joseph Papineau in opposing the new responsible government of 1848.)  But their exile to convict labour in Australia is well described here and surely an under-appreciated story.

• There's a close analysis by Shezan Muhammedi of the 1972 migration of tens of thousands of Ugandan Asians driven out of Uganda under the rule of Idi Amin -- and accepted as refugees in Canada. 

• Laura Jones examines the neglected work of women photographers in nineteenth century Canada, illustrating her account with many startling and unfamiliar images.  

• Nancy Payne, a Canada's History contributing editor, explores how Lang Pioneer Village in Ontario's Kawartha Lakes district, once a traditional ancestor-saluting tribute to the pioneer white settlers of the region, is working with Curve Lake First Nation to integrate Anishinaabe stories and subjects, including the particularly oppressive Williams "Treaty" by which most of the land was transferred to the Crown.  

All too woke? Too few fur traders and explorers?  I hope not! But there is also attention to the history of public gardens across Canada, and coverage of the fiftieth anniversary of the Canada-USSR hockey series of September 1972 (Spoiler alert: we win!), ps a slew of CanHist reviews, and other features.  Nothing of me this month, but coming, it's coming. 

The subscription button is right here.

It's past time for some Tour de France

For Bastille Day, a little update on the Tour de France, since coverage is promised in the masthead of this blog and I've been remiss lately.

Tadej on a good day

See, there is a guy called Tadej Pogacar ("Taddy Po-GATCH -ah," more or less, if the commentators have any grasp of Slovenian pronunciation.) He's 23 and people wonder if he's the new Bernard Hinault -- Hinault being the greatest of French cyclists (Eddy Merckx being Belgian). As a rookie with some promise a couple of years ago, Pogacar snuck in on the last race day and took the yellow jacket from his countryman Primos Roglic, who was supposed to win. The next year Pogacar won the Tour again going away, and suddenly he was the god of cycling.

So this year he's very much the favorite, and there is a list of could-just-possibly-beat-him contenders:  past winner Geraint Thomas of Britain, young Dane Jonas Vingegaard (second place last year), Primos Roglic still striving, Roman Bardet a faint hope for the French (who never win any more), aging Colombian super-climber Nairo Quintana, and the young Belgian star Wout van Aart. Doesn't cycling always have the best names? 

There were some flat stages in Denmark and northern France at the start of the Tour and sprint finishers did well, but once the race got serious (that is, hilly), Pogacar took charge as expected. His UAE team is not as strong as some, and its numbers keep getting thinned by withdrawals over Covid results. But Pogacar is constantly fast in all conditions and able to accelerate like a Porsche when he has to. He responds to every challenge, holds the lead, and wears the yellow jacket (holds in reserve the white for best young rider too).

'Til yesterday. Yesterday, in the Alps and very hot weather, they left Albertville and went up the mighty Galibier, an endless ladder of steep switchbacks topping out over 2000 metres. Lots of attacks and attempts on the Galibier, and Pogacar dismisses them all. There's a group up front, but they are all nobodies -- all the contenders are clustered with Pogacar and his team. They all scream down the other side, and then up again to the top of the Col Grandin, less famous but no less steep and almost as high. 

But the Galibier attacks leave wounds. They have mostly come from support riders of Jumbo-Visma, the team of both Roglic and Vingegaard, so far overshadowed but still contending. Pogacar survives the challenges, but they keep forcing him and his support riders to respond when they want to conserve their strength. Then the Grandin. The breakaway riders up front in today's lead are winnowed down to one survivor, the Frenchman Warren Barguil. With a few steep kilometres still to go, Pogacar and the handful of contenders hanging on behind him are coming up fast.  

Then bam bam bam: what the commentator calls "the most dramatic day in the Tour de France in a decade." Well, they always say things like that. But for those of us paying attention -- and the thing about the Tour is you pretty much have to watch every single damn day to have a clue what is really going on -- it was pretty special.  

Nairo Quintana, never happy unless it is above 1500 metres and the roads are horribly steep, attacks, goes away from the peleton, and starts hunting down Barguil up front. But Quintana is way down the overall standings -- not too big a threat.  

Then suddenly young Vingegaard goes too, speeding away from Pogacar's little group. Consternation and excitement! Vingegaard is a contender -- and this time, first and only time, Pogacar cannot find the energy to respond. He starts "going backwards"  -- not really, he's still roaring up these endless slopes at maybe 18 km/hr -- but compared to Vingegaard at 20+, he's vanishing. Then Roman Bardet sweeps past Pogacar and away. Then Geraint Thomas, who was well behind and largely written off, also comes up to Pogacar and roars past him. Up front, Barguil finally "cracks" -- breakaway guys almost always do after fifty or seventy k of solo effort --and they all sweep past him.

Vingegaard finishing - you'd be crying too

At the top Vingegaard comes in along, winning by what looks like a kilometre. Quintana, Bardet, and Thomas roll in, David Gaudu and Aussie [sorry, he's a Brit] Adam Yates as well, while poor Tadej is "pedalling squares," leaning over his handlebars looking like death as he takes the final slopes. At the end Pogacar, seventh on the day, has lost the yellow jacket to Vingegaard, and sits third overall behind him and Bardet, 2 minutes and 22 seconds behind the new leader. Huge. HUGE.

So there -- all you need to impress your friends even if you don't have the expensive Flobikes streaming subscription that provides Tour coverage. Today, Bastille Day, they take on Alpe d'Huez, an even more legendary and terrifying array of switchbacks into the sky than the Galibier.  Like as not, Pogacar will have recovered and will crush all his rivals once more. Paris is still a long way away, and they have not seen the Pyrenees yet.

Happy to say there are four Canadians in the Tour again this year. Mike Woods can be a contending climber on a good day but he's much bashed up from a nasty crash a couple of days ago. And three Quebeckers:  Hugo Houle, Antoine Duchesne, and Guillaume Boivin, all Tour regulars now, but what cycling calls domestiques, support riders, none expected to sit high in the standings. I do miss Ryder Hesjedal, "the big Canadian boy," as ur-commentator Phil Liggett labelled him every time he loomed up into contention. The scenery, the France-from-above travelogue, is still a marvel.  

Update, same day.  So Tadej Pogacar did bounce back, did very well up the Alpe (actually first they went up and down the Galibier again today). But the thing is, Vingegaarde no longer needs to strike out and beat Pogacar, he just has to keep pace with him. That way, his overall lead, earned yesterday, endures. That's what he did today -- matched Pogacar pedalstroke for pedalstroke all the way to the finish, and held on to his Yellow.

Update, July 18:  from Alan McCullough:

There is an interesting review of a book on the business side of the tour [may be paywalled] in the TLS of 1 July 2022, p.7. "Le Fric: Family, Power, and Money; the business of the Tour de France" by Alex Duff.

Thanks, Alan.  Plus: Fair play to Hugo Houle: more than a domestique. The day after my report above, he went out with the breakaway, contended for the stage win until the very last seconds, and ended up third, maybe a bike length behind the day's winner. 

 

History of librarians

Who knew librarians get honoured for their civic service?  At Charles Street near Church, the City of Toronto has a plaque in honour of James Bain, who "established and directed" the world's busiest library system.

Bain has a biography in the DCB, written by the magnificent Edith Firth. A few notes from it:

"The library board had to sue the city council for operating funds in 1900."

"Goldwin Smith and others had opposed the establishment of the library because taxes would be used to circulate novels."

"When the reference library’s catalogue was published in 1889, its Canadian section was much admired, especially the rare books. Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau thought the number of current French Canadian titles was “wonderful” and offered to help Bain find Quebec publications."

"His voracious reading and retentive memory gave him a knowledge of history, literature, and bibliography that was both extensive and precise; he also possessed “perfect patience with illiteracy,” so that he could give courteous, kindly, expert help to everyone. He was especially helpful to authors."

Photo "credit": me.  (Didn't expect so much sun shadow.) 

Review notes from the west coast: UPDATED

Catching up on the British Columbia Review, which must be the most comprehensive review publication in the country these days, online at least (though it only covers BC books), brought me to Ken Favrholdt's review of the new second edition of Unsettling Canada by Arthur Manuel and Ron Derrickson, with an introduction by Naomi Klein. The first edition was published in 2015, without the introduction.

This review is a mostly biographical sketch of Arthur Manuel and suggests the book is largely a personal memoir. If this truly is the "decolonization manifesto" mentioned in the review's headline, the reviewer might have discussed those matters in more detail.  

But Manuel is important, as readers of his second (2017) book The Reconciliation Manifesto (also co-authored by Derrickson) will recognize. That one still strikes me as the best summary available of what is required for "reconciliation" to succeed and how to go about it: namely, treaty implementation leading to a secure revenue base and serious Indigenous self-government. From this review, I'd recommend going to Reconciliation Manifesto first.  [July14: see more on this in the update below]

The Review also published Jason Colby's review of Possessing Meares Island: A Historian’s Journey into the Past of Clayoquot Sound by Barry Gough, a prolific scholar of early west coast history whom I feel I've  never sufficiently covered here (or elsewhere). Meares is an island tucked into the west coast of Vancouver Island, the scene of much eighteenth century contact history and also of recent confrontations over both logging and indigenous title. The book under review covers Gough's involvement with both aspects of that history: as a historian of the contact events and as a consultant in the legal struggles over logging and title.

Colby's review suggests the book also provides a glimpse into how "what matters" in Canadian history has been changing, and how that complicates life particularly for long-active historians with a long publication record. Colby praises Gough, "a genial and learned guide":

He gives careful attention to the experience of Indigenous peoples, emphasizing their relationships to land and sea and teasing out their nuanced interactions with Europeans. In doing so, Gough wrestles with the asymmetry of source material that inevitably results from an encounter between an oral culture and a literary culture. Put simply, non-native explorers and settlers tended to leave the written documents that historians have traditionally considered their “primary” sources, thereby privileging European accounts and perspectives. “Of all the challenges the historian faces, this is the most formidable,” he admits. “And so it is with this book” (p. 7).

He also praises Gough's account of his work as a consultant historian in contemporary legal matters:

In 1986 (when I was still in middle school), Barry Gough learned of the threat to Meares Island and the stakes for Indigenous rights, and he answered the call. Over the following years, he marshalled all of his knowledge, research skills, and intuition as a historian to help save Meares Island and secure Indigenous title. That is the big picture, and he deserves our thanks.

Yet Colby has reservations:

Gough’s account is richer in maritime than in Indigenous history, to be sure, and there are moments when his phrasing seems to mimic the diction of non-native sources too closely. At times, this can be innocuous and even charming, such as when he describes characters as “raw-boned” or “well-moneyed” (p. 153). But in other passages, it results in language that demands further analysis.[...]

In addition, despite Gough’s careful attention to contingency, there are also passages that seem to hint that history itself was the product of European agency. Of the decades during which European ships bypassed Vancouver Island’s West Coast, for example, Gough writes that “history had passed the place by” (p. 129). Of the British effort to chart the coast and inner waters, he observes, “The navy’s survey of Clayoquot Sound stands at the gate of history: the ancient giving way to the modern, the Aboriginal world view to that of Western science” (p. 155).

That may be where more than one veteran Canadianist is: trying to work with a new paradigm, still not entirely succeeding -- or, at least, not entirely satisfying some younger, born-woke readers.

Update, July 14:  Reader Jared Milne expands on Arthur Manuel and his reviewers:

I caught your blogpost about the writings of the late, great Arthur Manuel today. I don't know if you've read Unsettling Canada, but I have and I can say that while the book is excellent, the review you cited...not so much. 

Unsettling Canada gives a lot of historic, personal context towards the struggle for Indigenous rights and self-determination, including Manuel's idea of taking the resistance international by appealing to various UN agencies. The book also summarizes some of the most long-standing problems surrounding Indigenous governance-namely, how band councils can still be overridden by Ottawa bureaucrats even today. 

He and Grand Chief Ronald Derrickson also offer some interesting political points, namely how Algonquin peoples in Quebec developed good working relationships with lumber companies and provincial authorities that could have led to mutual benefits for everyone, made with actual in-depth Native involvement. They even point out that Indigenous territories with full control over their resources might actually charge lower stumpage fees than provincial governments, and more of the wealth from resource development itself would stay in Canada. 

Unsettling Canada is perhaps more personal and historical than The Reconciliation Manifesto, but the former gives the latter some more context and background.

Thanks, Jared, I think you are right. And (should have been made clear) I have not read Unsettling Canada.

 

  

 

Coyne on leadership

 What Andrew Coyne said in the column entitled "The very nature of a leadership race based on selling membership as fast as you can is corrupting":

Illegal fundraising, faked memberships, or bulk purchases of memberships on others’ behalf (sometimes with illegally raised funds!) – happens in virtually every Canadian party leadership race. And it will go on happening, so long as the parties persist in using leadership elections as membership drives.

The very nature of such a race, in which the prize goes not to the candidate who can win the support of the party’s existing members but the one who can sell the most memberships, is to invite such shenanigans.

I know: you who follow this blog have been reading this sort of argument as long as you have been here. But I appreciate this, because the level of incomprehension and denial among politicians and punditti remains stratospheric. 

People "who buy memberships during leadership races are not party members at all, really, but leadership tourists," Coyne observes. "The leader who surfs in on this wave is, from that day forward, accountable to exactly no one."

See also Coyne's reply to a critic who observes that MPs have lost their entitlement to choose their leaders because of their sacrifice of their own "credibility, dignity, and ability to lead:"

Alas, yes. One of the many self-reinforcing loops at work in the emasculation of MPs is self-selection: the people who present themselves as candidates tend to be people who find MPs’ present state of powerlessness acceptable. 

— Andrew Coyne 🇺🇦 (@acoyne) July 10, 2022

He's not wrong about this. As long as we tell MPs we want them to be like sheep and that our system requires them to be like sheep, and that it's democratic for them to be like sheep, well, baaaa. 

How parliamentary democracy dies

No mo' Bo Jo! 

I rarely tweet, but last night, when the Canadian Conservative party announced the removal from the leadership "race" of Patrick Brown I could not resist asking:

"What could be unethical enough to get a candidate thrown out of a competition that is entirely based on the buying and selling of votes by the tens of thousands? -- @cmedmoore

The removal from office by the British Conservative MPs of Prime Minister Boris Johnson will presumably have no influence on coverage and analysis of the endless trainwreck of the leadership struggles of the Canadian Conservative party. Nothing ever does suggest to our punditti that the Canadian way of leadership needs to be reconsidered.

The British leadership decision will involve the party caucus choosing two candidates for the office, followed by a vote by existing Conservative party membership holders (no sales; by and large no campaign). 

It's a compromise and a dumb one. Boris Johnson would never have been selected in the first place, and his whole farcical faux-populist tenure avoided, had MPs retained final authority and made the choice themselves -- as had always been the rule in parliamentary democracies all over the world, other than Canada. 

The Canadian disease has not entirely conquered Britain. The British leadership selection will be done in a few weeks and cost almost nothing, compared to months and millions here. But it's spreading.

History of the extinction of Newfoundland cod stocks

Active History and Shannon Conway, a recent PhD. in Newfoundland cultural history, remind us of the thirtieth anniversary of the Newfoundland cod moratorium, the profound change it made in Newfoundland, and its ongoing consequences.

Part of moving past the economic and socio-cultural trauma of the cod moratorium and the devastation it caused for many Newfoundlanders is finding ways forward. In recent years, the recreational ground fishery has become a highly anticipated part of many Newfoundlanders summers; most importantly, it actively connects Newfoundlanders to their history, heritage, and traditional foodways and practices, thereby recouping some of the loss experienced in the aftermath of the moratorium. As well, repurposing decommissioned fish processing plants that haunt many outport communities in rural Newfoundland is a considerable step forward by creating local jobs and removing the spectre of the abandoned facilities. In Burin, for example, a fish plant has been converted into a cannabis facility.

Conway points out the cod moratorium was and remains the largest industrial layoff in Canadian history, and is still in place after thirty years. There are few signs of the cod stocks recovering. 

Patrick Watson (1930-2022) and Irving Abella (1940-2002) RIP, two different historical practices

No one in the last fifty years introduced more Canadians to glimpse of the history of Canada than Patrick Watson, who died the other day at ninety-two. Watson, quite apart from his glittering career as a pathbreaking broadcaster and documentary filmmaker, was also the inventor of the Heritage Minute.  Tell me you -- and your family, and your friends, and you kids -- have not seen them a million times.

I profiled Patrick Watson once. He told me the germ of the Heritage Minute was his time as a juror on a one-minute film festival held in association with Montreal's Expo 67.  He came away with a sense for how much could be achieved in a very short film. When the Bronfman Foundation sought his advice on a Canadian heritage-promotion project, he instantly said "one-minute movies" He would insist on movie techniques for the Heritage Minutes, even at great expense: strong production values, good acting and costuming, high-quality lighting and sound, original music, even the use of 35 mm instead of TV film. Above all, he insisted on what he called "compressed narrative" -- a very brief story that  could stand, even benefit from, repeated viewings.

A quite different historical life ended almost simultaneously with the death of Irving Abella, deservedly known as the author of None is Too Many, the history of Canada's resistance to Jewish refugees before and during the Second World War. None is Too Many was not only groundbreaking scholarship but also perhaps unmatched in Canadian historical scholarship for its direct impact on public policy and social attitudes.  Its publication influenced the Canadian government to accept the Vietnamese "boat people," which set a pattern for expanded Canadian welcome and acceptance of refugees.  

Beyond None is Too Many, Abella was a productive labour and social historian at York University from his start there in 1968, the author of Coat of Many Colours, a history of Jews and Judaism in Canada, and the founder of the first program of Jewish studies at a Canadian university.