Prize Watch: The Canadian Historical Association Prizes; and one for Martha Langford's Canadian photography history

The Canadian Historical Association's recent Annual Meeting in Charlottetown included a giving of prizes.  According to Google's AI, these are some of the prizes.  I was unable to find any prize list later for 2025 yet posted on the CHA website so far, so this seems to be the best we can offer. Congratulations to these winners and the others not listed here.  

The Clio Prizes are for works in local or regional history, and the Albert Corey Prize is given for works in Canadian-American history, so there may be some AI slop here. But until the CHA updates its website prizes page, we are kinda stuck

Best Scholarly Book Prize: The Jesuit Relations: A Biography by Micah True.

Clio Book Prize (Atlantic): Publishing Place: Transatlantic Modernity and Periodical Culture on Canada’s East Coast by Billy Johnson.

Clio Book Prize (Ontario): Students by Day: Colonialism and Resistance at the Curve Lake Indian Day School by Jackson Pind.

Clio Book Prize (Québec): Montreal After Dark: Nighttime Regulation and the Pursuit of a Global City by Matthieu Caron.

Clio Book Prize (Canadian Committee on Women’s and Gender History): Their Benevolent Design: Conservative Women and Protestant Child Charities in Montreal by Janice Harvey.

Albert B. Corey Prize: Tradition and Tension: The Presbyterian Church in Canada, 1945–1985 by Stuart Macdonald.

I confess that when I saw first saw notice of the publication of Micah True's study of the Jesuit Relations, I concluded there could not be much new or original to say on that subject.  Evidently I was wrong: the CHA jury concluded it was the best work of historical scholarship on Canada published last year.  Congratulations and apologies to Micah True.  We should agree that there are new things to be learned about every topic in Canadian history. 

Update, same day

Martha Langford's new History of Photography in Canada: Volume 1 has been selected by the Art Libraries Society of North America as the 2026 winner of its best book prize.

I happened on this book in a bookstore the other day, and was impressed first by its weight and size. It has the problem that with a history of photography, one rather expects a lavishly illustrated "picture book" when in fact this one is necessarily dominated by a lengthy and very detail text.  There are photographs, yes, but they seemed to me as very much an accessory to the historical text.  Still, a discerning specialist jury loves it, and I'm sure their verdict is more authoritative than mine.

There is also a volume 2.

 

Submarines all the way down: Carney's cultural policy cuts UPDATED

So this happened:  

In February Colin Coates, professor of history, wrote in his role as president of the Canadian Historical Association to Marc Miller, Minister of Canadian Heritage, expressing the CHA's concern over the way the budgetary choices made by the Carney government have led to serious closures, service reductions, and staff reductions at almost every federal agency charged with creating, preserving, and distributing historical and cultural knowledge, and particularly Library and Archives Canada, the Canadian Museum of History and the Canadian War Museum, Parks Canada, and Statistics Canada. As he says:

I am sure that you are aware of the key roles these agencies play in encouraging interest in Canadian history. At this particular juncture in the history of our country, active engagement with the complicated Canadian past is more necessary than ever. Canadians need to understand, for example, the features of our past that distinguish us from our neighbours to the south and that have led us to adopt different paths to our concepts of citizenship, democracy, and civic engagement. 

On March 18  (lightspeed by Government of Canada standards) the minister replied, saying (I paraphrase): hey, we only make the budget, these agencies make their own choices, why complain to me?

We have had a deluge of propaganda about how "wokeness" is somehow killing Canadian history.  Now we can consider where the real problem begins.

This Carney government is beginning to shape up as the most philistine Canadian government in a long time. I did not love the Harper government's historical priorities (war, hockey and the crown, mostly) but at least they had some history they valued. This government: seems like it's just submarines all the way down.

See also this

Global News has put up two charts of how much the Carney government plans to cut spending or increase spending in each department.  This below is the hit list. Take a deep breath. And Canadian Heritage is not even one of the big losers, despite the damage summarized above.