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Article

Tilly Rolston

Tilly Jean Rolston, Canadian politician (born 23 February 1887 in Vancouver, BC; died 12 October 1953 in Vancouver, BC). Rolston was best known for her service as education minister for the province of British Columbia in the Social Credit government of W.A.C. Bennett in the early 1950s. She has the distinction of being the second woman cabinet minister elected in that province, but the first with a portfolio in all of Canada. Rolston was instrumental in developing a new financing formula for the funding of BC’s public schools, and also instituted the province’s first sex education curriculum. She is noted for being the first woman in British Columbia to receive a state funeral upon her death.

Article

Alphonse-Télesphore Lépine

Alphonse-Télesphore Lépine, printer, politician and union activist (born 15 May 1855 in Quebec City, QC; died 19 August 1943 in Montreal, QC). Elected in a by-election in the riding of Montreal East in 1888, he became the first working-class independent member of parliament in the House of Commons. In the House, he promoted a program inspired by the Knights of Labor’s declaration of principles. Throughout Lépine’s political career, his supporters did not hesitate to capitalize on his working-class background and were quick to describe him as a true “self-made man” who owed his success to his love of work.

Article

Arab Canadians

Arabs, or more specifically, Syrian-Lebanese immigrants, began to arrive in Canada in small numbers in 1882. Their immigration was relatively limited until 1945, after which time it increased progressively, particularly in the 1960s and thereafter.

Article

Doukhobors

Doukhobors are a sect of Russian dissenters, many of whom now live in western Canada. They are known for a radical pacifism which brought them notoriety during the 20th century. Today, their descendants in Canada number approximately 30,000, with one third still active in their culture.

Article

Lionel Groulx

Lionel-Adolphe Groulx, historian, priest and nationalist spokesman for the French-Canadian population (born 13 January 1878 in Vaudreuil, Quebec; died 23 May in Vaudreuil). Lionel Groulx was an important intellectual figure for the Quebec nationalist movement and generated some controversy for his antisemitic tendencies (see also Delisle-Richler Controversy).

Article

Craig Kielburger

Craig Kielburger, CM, social entrepreneur, author, speaker (born 17 December 1982 in Toronto, ON). Craig Kielburger is best known for his activism as a young teenager and his work co-founding and leading ME to WE with his brother, Marc. ME to We is a business that links purchases to global social and economic development. Kielburger also founded WE Charity (formerly Free the Children), which focuses particularly on youth education and mobilization. Much of his work revolves around a conviction that youth are fundamental to creating systemic change.

Article

Contemporary Indigenous Art in Canada

Contemporary Indigenous art is that which has been produced by Indigenous peoples between around 1945 to the present. Since that time, two major schools of Indigenous art have dominated the contemporary scene in Canada: Northwest Coast Indigenous Art and the Woodland school of Legend Painters. As well, a more widely scattered group of artists work independently in the context of mainstream Western art and may be described as internationalist in scope and intent. Contemporary Inuit art has evolved in parallel with contemporary Indigenous art, producing celebrated artists like Zacharias Kunuk and Annie Pootoogook. (See also Important Indigenous Artists in Canada and History of Indigenous Art in Canada.)

Article

François Saillant

François Saillant, activist, community worker, politician, author (born 15 June 1951 in Quebec City, QC). Coordinator and spokesperson for the Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain (Popular Action Front for Urban Planning) from 1979 to 2016, he was also a candidate for Québec solidaire in three provincial elections. He is the author of three books on the right to housing.

Article

Marie Gérin-Lajoie

Marie Gérin-Lajoie (née Lacoste) author, educator, social activist, founder of the Fédération nationale Saint-Jean-Baptiste (born 19 October 1867 in Montréal, QC; died 1 November 1945 in Montréal). From her family base in Montréal’s Catholic francophone elite, Gérin-Lajoie advocated for improvements in women’s status, including the right to vote. (See also Catholicism in Canada.) Through her writings and public lectures, she tried to ensure that all Quebec women would understand their rights and duties as defined in what she called the droit usuel: the law of daily life.

Article

Adélard Raymond

Adélard Raymond, pilot, businessman and politician (born 10 July 1889 in Saint-Stanislas-de-Kostka, QC; died 23 February 1962 in Montreal, QC). Raymond was a French-Canadian pilot who served in the First World War and then in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) from 1934 to 1945. He was the second French Canadian to be appointed air vice-marshal. Raymond was also involved in the hotel industry and in various commercial operations. He was elected mayor of Senneville, on the west island of Montreal, serving from June 1951 to June 1959.

Article

Icelandic Canadians

Icelanders, coming by way of Greenland, were the first European visitors to what is now Canada. The 2016 Canadian census reported 101,795 people with Icelandic ethnic origins, and 1440 people whose mother tongue was Icelandic.

Interview

Interned in Canada: an Interview with Pat Adachi

Pat Adachi was born and raised in Vancouver, the daughter of Japanese immigrants. She grew up in the heart of the city’s Little Tokyo neighbourhood, within walking distance of the local grounds where her father would take her on Sundays to watch her favourite baseball team, the Vancouver Asahi. Adachi and her family lived normal lives, until she and her community were uprooted in 1942, when the federal government ordered Japanese Canadians to internment camps in rural British Columbia (see Internment of Japanese Canadians).

In this interview, Adachi shares her story and relates the experiences of the 22,000 Japanese Canadians who were interned in Canada during the Second World War.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Article

Siksikáí’powahsin: Blackfoot Language

Siksikáí’powahsin (commonly referred to as the Blackfoot language) is an Algonquian language spoken by four Blackfoot nations: the Siksiká (Blackfoot), Aapátohsipikani (North Piikani), Aamsskáápipikani (South Piikani) and Kainai (Blood). While there are some dialectal differences between these groups, speakers can generally understand one another. Blackfoot is an endangered language; since the 1960s, the number of new speakers has significantly decreased. The development of language programs and resources in Canada and the United States seek to preserve the language and promote it to new speakers.

Article

Margret Benedictsson

Margret Benedictsson (née Jonsdottir), journalist, social activist, suffragist (born 16 March 1866 in Hrappsstadir, Iceland; died 13 December 1956 in Anacortes, Washington). Benedictsson brought her deeply held beliefs and interest in social change to Manitoba. Through her service to the Icelandic communities in Selkirk, Gimli, and Winnipeg, she championed women’s suffrage, education, improved working conditions, and human rights.