Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Greatest Hits from the old weblog

I took a break from blogging while we've been reorganizing this blog a little. I'm now running under blogger software with a new look and a new link.

Here are all the older pieces from the original blog:

August 15, 2005
New in The Beaver: Auditing Democracy

The July/August issue of The Beaver features a lead article on Alberta and Saskatchewan, which are celebrating the hundredth anniversary of their becoming provinces.
My own column in the same issue is about political science and what it knows about Canadian history. I take a look at an impressive new ten-volume paperback series called “The Canadian Democratic Audit” (http://www.canadiandemocraticaudit.ca/). In it a crew of poli-sci profs have undertaken an audit of how democratic, how representative, and how accountable Canadian political institutions are. I found it made thought-provoking reading – but it also got me making my own audit of the field of political science, what it knows and how it knows it. Grab a copy of The Beaver and take a look

Chris

July 14, 2005
File this under: Things That Make You Laugh Out Loud In The Archives, So That The Other Researchers Wonder If A Nut Is In Their Midst.

From a letter by Prime Minister John A. Macdonald to one P. King, November 20 1885
I am extremely sorry that I have not been able to provide for you in the North West. I thought I had done so but an untimely accident threw me over for the time.… The office I had thought to get for you was the postmastership at Calgary…. I thought it was all done and you had been notified when I found to my horror that another Mr. King who was strongly recommended had by mistake been appointed. He now holds the office. I now must try to repair the error and be on the lookout for another vacancy.

Chris

May 19, 2005
RUQuotable? – a web query.

You should know John Robert Colombo The Master Gatherer. He’s the creator of Colombo’s Canadian Quotations and a hundred other precious and idiosyncratic Canuckky reference works: poets, places, ghosts, UFOs. Look him up at http://www.colombo.ca/

Anyway, I recently helped JRC find a quotation he needed, and he asked if I had quotations from my own work that might be worth anthologizing. Well, I started assembling a list. But how do I know what phrases from my own writing might have stuck in a reader’s mind and memory?

So I’m unleashing the power of the internet. You are reading this. Have you read a phrase or passage in my work – books, journalism, anywhere – that has stuck.
I’d love to know about it: cmed@sympatico.ca If you know a collectable line from anyone else, you can send it to the Master Gatherer himself.

Chris

April 19, 2005
Democratic Accountability

This Gomery thing: should Paul Martin be held responsible for what happened when Jean Chrétien was prime minister?

Well, he was there, wasn’t he? He was a senior cabinet minister most of the time, political minister for Quebec, member of the caucus, member of the government. If he knew, he should have done something. And if he didn’t know, he should have known.
I hear those arguments. But then I think…. In practice, how seriously do we as Canadians take this idea that MPs should control their leaders’ actions?

In Jean Chrétien’s last few years as prime minister, it was generally known that at least a hundred of the 170 or so Liberal MPs wanted Chrétien out and Martin in. But what could they do? Nothing. What control did they have? None.

Y’see, Canadians don’t believe prime ministers and party leaders should be answerable to the MPs we elect. We insist it is “democratic” for leadership to be anointed at these vast assemblages in hockey arenas we call leadership conventions. Paul Martin wanted to replace Jean Chrétien. What the MPs we elected may have wanted wasn’t worth a rat’s ass. Martin and his supporters had to go out and buy 150,000 votes (“party memberships,” they are called) and force a convention. And during the years it took to arrange all that, well, Jean Chrétien was Da Boss. He got to do what he liked, didn’t he? God forbid he should be accountable to… well, to the elected representatives of the Canadian people.

Wouldn’t it be better if leaders were hired and fired by the MPs, people we actually elect, people who stick around to account for themselves? Then, if half the Liberal caucus thought there was something smelly in the PM’s office, they could do something about it (“Come clean, Jean, or we toss you.”). And if they did not do something about it, well, we would every reason to hold THEM accountable – because they could have. That might have given them incentive to act in the first place.

You know, that’s how it works in every parliamentary democracy in the world, except ours. Leaders who become a problem get turfed all the time. If it worked here, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien would have been held to account a lot sooner. So would Prime Minister Paul Martin, for that matter.

For the full exposition of this argument, let me recommend my book 1867: How the Fathers Made a Deal. For a short illustration, well, there it is in the headlines.

Chris

March 22, 2005
Subscribers to The Beaver magazine should be receiving the April/May issue any day now. My column this issue was prompted by news in January of the death of Louis Robichaud, “Ti-Louis,” the little Acadian who was premier of New Brunswick in the 1960s. Actually I thought he had been dead for a long time.

Robichaud was a fascinating character. How many provincial premiers from small provinces have two major biographies written about them years after they have left office? Even more, his career says a lot about what provincial governments can do when they choose to. What Premier Robichaud did in New Brunswick in the 1960s provides a startling perspective on the idea of provincial government put forward more recently by premiers like Mike Harris, and Ralph Klein and Gordon Campbell.

Check it out in The Beaver – Canada’s national history magazine. http://www.beavermagazine.ca/
Chris

March 16, 2005
What’s the G-G Worth?

Governor General Adrienne Clarkson catches flack from time to time for the lavishness of her expenses. The Conservative opposition actually managed to cut her expenditures in a recent committee vote in the minority House, as if hobbling Canada’s representative to the world were something to work for and boast of.

There’s a long history to this. Here’s Richard Cartwright in 1906, as an elderly retired politician remembering 1867, when he took the Confederation platform to his Kingston, Ontario, constituents:

“When I was explaining to my constituents the terms of Confederation and the various reasons that had brought it about, my people accepted my explanations in a very excellent spirit and appeared perfectly disposed to give me a free hand in all points but one, and that point on which they struck was the Governor General’s salary. The proposal to raise the salary of the Governor General of Canada from £7000 to £10,000 met with the warmest disapprobation and I was heckled remorselessly for supporting it…. I can assure you it told very seriously on the result of the elections. I refused point blank to pledge myself to vote for a reduction of His Excellency’s salary, and it cost me hundreds of votes and very nearly lost my election.

“The warmest disapprobation.” What a way they had of putting things in those days.

Chris
February 11, 2005

"Votes for women in 1885"

In April 1885, in the House of Commons, Prime Minister John A. Macdonald said, “With respect to female suffrage, I can only say that personally, I am strongly convinced, and every year for many years I have become more strongly convinced, of the justice of giving women otherwise qualified the suffrage. I am strongly of that opinion, and have been for a good many years, and I had hoped that Canada would have the honor of first placing women in the position that she is certain eventually, after centuries of oppression, to obtain. It is merely a question of time all over the civilized world.. I am in favour of giving ladies, married and unmarried, the franchise.
Mind you, after all this, John A. admitted that he could not convince his caucus to agree with him, so there would be no legislation forthcoming to enfranchise women. He claimed credit for progressive views without actually doing anything progressive. Women first voted in the three prairie provinces in 1916, and federally in 1917-8.

His views on giving all citizens equal rights to marry, whatever their sexual orientation? Well, I haven’t seen him on the record about that.

Chris

January 3, 2005
“Old Business”

Is the Hudson’s Bay Company, chartered 1670, the oldest company in the world? I once described it in print as “the world’s oldest continuing trading company.” In The Company of Adventurers, Peter C. Newman called it “the oldest continuous capitalist corporation.” And with similar hedging, the standard Canadian references make like-sounding statements. So, browsing through an article on the world’s oldest companies in The Economist (Dec 18-31, 2004), I was surprised to find no mention of The Bay.

Typical Brit ignorance? Well…. The article lists such Methuselahs as Kongo Gumi, a Japanese construction firm in business since 578 AD, and Chateau de Goulaine, a French vineyard going since about 1000 AD. Is the Company of Adventurers a company of Johnny-come-latelies?

Maybe not. A lot of these ancient businesses merely reflect a family that has stayed in the same location and livelihood for a very long time. The Hoshi family of Komatsu, Japan, claims forty-six generations of the family have run its inn continuously since 718 AD. (I’m betting there have been a few adoptions in that family tree!) Among formally organized business companies, The Bay at 335 years really is pretty senior – though the Swedish mining and timber company Stora Enso goes back to 1288, the Italian gunmaker Beretta to 1526, and Kikkoman, the soy sauce company, to 1630.

But if ongoing family operations count as businesses, Canada may still have claims to a record. In the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia, the Haida Nation runs a tour company that takes visitors on excursions through the islands in a fleet of graceful ocean-going cedar canoes. “Ten thousand years experience” is the slogan the business uses. And who’s to disagree?

Chris

December 20, 2004
Official Historian to The Daily Show?

I think optimistically of visitors here as “both of you.” But the web carries even this site farther than I imagine. This week it put me in touch with Matt, my new close personal friend at “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” The Daily Show had picked up on the news item about an American company ( www.tshirtking.com) that sells kits that purport to help travelling Americans pass as Canadians. The Show producers thought they might have their Toronto correspondent interview a Canadian expert, seeking tips in that line. So Matt did a websearch for such an expert on things Canadian. Who better than Canada’s most versatile historian?

Well it fell through. In the end they had other stories to pursue. (Maybe a joke about a joke rang a little hollow.) But it’s fun being out there at the far fringes of history news. Thanks to my inventive webmaster Sinda Abbott (http://www.meandsid.ca/) who helps make this site possible. And since I’m wrapping up for the holidays, best wishes for the holiday season to you multitudes. Sure to be lots of history news in 2005, so do come back.

Chris

December 1, 2004
Pierre Berton 1920-2004.

Almost fifteen years ago, I heard Pierre Berton talking about the fear of death. He was talking about how he wrote the first draft of “The National Dream.” Once his research was assembled, he did it in three weeks -- typing, barely to stop, eighteen hours a day, then spending the other six barely able to sleep, so eager was he to get back to his story. I thought I had never heard a more vivid account of a writer's ecstasy, of being so consumed with a subject that writing becomes a pleasure and an obsession.

Then he talked about death. It's not so much death he feared, he said back then. It would be the frustration of being taken with a book only half done and never to be completed. The man who lived with that delicious fear is the same one who created the railway books, writing almost around the clock and waking up eager for the sheer satisfaction of writing some more.
Chris

November 26, 2004
Why is so much Canadian fiction about history these days? On the other hand, is history mostly a fiction anyway? (No it isn’t, actually.) The nature of non-fiction about history, and the impulse of some historians to incorporate fiction (imagined thoughts, invented dialogue, “worked-up” scenes) is the subject of my current column in The Beaver for December 2004, now appearing on newsstands. If you are a subscriber, it’s on the way. If not, well, think about it. And look over some old comments at “Chris at the Beaver” on this website.

This month, Canada’s National History Society also launched a new and lively history magazine for kids: Kayak. Check it out at www.KayakMag.ca The kid in my house spent an hour with it when it arrived in our mail box and concluded: “Pretty good.” And that’s pretty good!

Chris

November 1, 2004:
This is Canadian Children’s Book Week, and kids’ writers are travelling across the country, to meet kids in schools and libraries in every province and territory, reading and talking about books with young readers.

I’m in Montreal and Quebec City, reading from my new book “Champlain,” talking about Canadian history and writing, and giving a special hello to my new friends:
Monday: Hello to all the kids at St George’s School in Westmount (love your brightly coloured library!) and at St John Fisher School (lots of great questions and comments, kids) in Pointe Claire.
Tuesday: I’m hanging out with students at Lower Canada College and reading at Beaconsfield Library.
Wednesday: I get to visit with kids at La Salle Public Library, at Dante School in St-Leonard, and at Dorval Public Library.
Thursday: I’m in Quebec City with a big bonjour for the kids at Quebec High School, and Ste-Foy Elementary.
Friday: I’m looking forward to sharing ideas about Canadian history with the kids of St Vincent Elementary in Ste-Foy and Holland Elementary in Quebec.
Saturday: November 6, back in Montreal, I’m dropping in at Books Babar at 46 Ste-Anne in Pointe-Claire at 3.00 pm. Join us there!

Chris

October 25, 2004:
History on TV: I loved the controversy last week over CBC-TV’s Greatest Canadians. The show itself was fun: bursts of rock tunes, lots of cuts to new scenes and places, lively graphics, lots of young pop-culture presenters. It was also very much determined it was going to be fun at all costs. Broadcasters’ terror of being seen boring when they deal with history still limits so much of what they do with history to trivia. But I still found it fun to watch. And I’m looking forward to some of their shows. David Suzuki, well, I can see him anytime. But when did Tommy Douglas last get a lively half hour in prime time?

The controversy that arose in response to the announcement of the List struck me as pretty old. Sure, it is some kind of failure that John A Macdonald was the only Canadian from before the twentieth century on the Top Ten list. Sure, it is a failure of imagination that the list is dominated by whoever is on TV a lot, and that electronic culture still dismisses women. And sure it is crazy to put Don Cherry on the list.

But all the commentators spluttering in fury – haven’t they ever heard of GIGO? Garbage in, garbage out. If you hold an election where the voting population is self-selected, you don’t have a survey, you have the prejudices of the self-selected. It’s not that real, it’s not that serious, it’s not the fate of the nation!

In the end, it is only stunt programming on television Think of how we select our national political leaders. That’s a lot more critical than The Greatest Canadian, and yet all our political parties let the choice be made by anyone who buys a vote. It’s a triumph of self-selection again – except there it really matters. Why don’t we hear more complaint about the crazy choices that system puts forward. Look, if Belinda Stronach was a legitimate contender for the highest political offices in the country last spring just because her supporters bought a lot of votes (okay, “memberships”), then maybe Don Cherry can be the greatest Canadian because lots of people clicked for him.

Chris

October 18, 2004
Politics: I’m going to venture a prediction. I was just looking at a link on www.aldaily.com that does daily tracking of electoral college vote predictions for the American election. Today it says Kerry 257, Bush 247, with many of the votes for each coming from states where they hold infinitesimally small leads. All the polls and pundits say the same: it’s gonna be very close.

No it is not. Someone is going to win the US election by a wide margin.

These composite results are mostly tallying up piles of results that are each statistically unreliable. But more important: the polls only say where people are now. They don’t predict actual voting behaviour. Millions of American are going to go into the last week and then into the polling booth understanding that things are very close and everything depends on them. Faced with that responsibility, a lot of people are going to change their voting intentions right at the end without telling the pollsters. It’s a national electorate; there are national moods. Most of those who change are going to change in a single direction.

I don’t know which direction that is. I rather think last-minute shifts will be good for John Kerry and change, but it could as easily be for George Bush and staying the course (even if it’s a stupid one). Obviously events in the last weeks could influence that, too. Anyway: late on November 2, one or the other will be a clear and unambiguous winner – at least to the extent the American presidential system makes such a thing possible at all. See you November 3.

Chris

October 8, 2004
Yesterday was a big day for creators and for copyright. The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled in favour of Heather Robertson, the lead plaintiff in a class action of writers and journalists, against Thomson Newspapers, notably The Globe & Mail.

Copyright is the lifeblood of newspapers – of publishing in general. But too often publishers “forget” that copyright includes creator’s copyrights. Years ago, Heather Robertson sold the Globe first serial rights (one-time publication in the paper) to an excerpt from a book of hers. Then she found the Globe was offering the story for sale, pretty much forever, along with thousands of other freelance writers’ work, in its searchable electronic databases.

The Globe’s defence, dragged out over years, and likely to continue for years, is unbelievably lame. Its counsel, quoted in the newspaper today, claims that there is a “prevailing industry practice that freelancers implicitly gave permission for electronic republication.” Note the word ‘implicitly” It means that the Globe just decided for itself it would take all the extra rights it wanted and share none of the revenues with those who contributed the value. Nice to see them get hit in court, and the farther the appeals go, the harder they will get hit, it looks. The claim of the freelancers is for $100 million.

Chris
 
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