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This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on August 2, 2004. Partner content is not updated.
This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on April 24, 1995. Partner content is not updated.
The First World War forever changed Canada. Some 630,000 Canadians enlisted from a nation of not yet eight million. More than 66,000 were killed. As the casualties mounted on the Western Front, an expatriate Canadian, Sir Max Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook), organized a program to document Canada’s war effort through art, photography and film. This collection of war art, made both in an official capacity and by soldiers themselves, was another method of forging a legacy of Canada’s war effort.
Among Canada’s defining events, the Battle of Vimy Ridge in the First World War ranks high. It was a triumph — a major victory for the Allied side after a long, bloody stalemate — and a tragedy. In the four-day battle, 3,598 Canadians died and another 7,004 were wounded. In the century since it ended, on 12 April 1917, it has become something else: an event bordering on myth. “In those few minutes,” said Canadian Brigadier-General A.E. Ross of the victory, “I witnessed the birth of a nation.”
Maison Saint-Gabriel is a museum and historic site that openedin 1966. This 300-year-old building, located in Montréal’s Pointe-Sainte-Charles district, is one of the finest examples of the traditional architecture of New France.
The term "Canadian studies" refers to a distinctive interdisciplinary approach to research and teaching about Canada. It has roots in the evolution of Canadian nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s (see also Canadian Identity).
Capitalism is an economic system in which private owners control a country’s trade and business sector for their personal profit. It contrasts with communism, in which property effectively belongs to the state (see also Marxism). Canada has a “mixed” economy, positioned between these extremes. The three levels of government decide how to allocate much of the country’s wealth through taxing and spending.
This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on June 23, 1997. Partner content is not updated.
These days, the classrooms and corridors of Matthew Elementary School in Bonavista, Nfld., are like a shrine to John Cabot.This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on April 26, 1999. Partner content is not updated.
Hollywood will no doubt make a movie about Wayne Gretzky some day, and it will have to include the scene where he plays his last game in Canada, in Ottawa against the Senators.This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on July 27, 1998. Partner content is not updated.
This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on July 15, 1996. Partner content is not updated.
This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on August 2, 1999. Partner content is not updated.
As they waited last week for the inevitable confirmation that the most famous son of their fabled political dynasty was in fact gone, Americans were drawn to places with a special connection to the Kennedy family.This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on August 5, 1996. Partner content is not updated.
One soggy day late last April, Art Poirier found himself among thousands of people stacking sandbags against rising floodwaters from southern Manitoba's ancient and implacable nemesis, the Red River. Poirier flicked a cigarette butt into the brand new lake around his home.This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on April 8, 1996. Partner content is not updated.
This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on June 21, 1999. Partner content is not updated.
Over the telephone, Susan Musgrave, one of British Columbia's most celebrated poets, is weeping and talking ceaselessly at the same time, trying to figure out how things could have taken such a terrible turn.This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on December 15, 1997. Partner content is not updated.
Outside, a wet, heavy snowfall is turning rural Nova Scotia into a pre-Christmas postcard of frosted evergreens and rolling white fields. Inside, Allen and Debbie Martin sit at their kitchen table, sipping coffee and trying to put their feelings into words.This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on May 5, 2003. Partner content is not updated.
Between the 1950s and the 1990s, the Canadian government responded to national security concerns generated by Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union by spying on, exposing and removing suspected LGBTQ individuals from the federal public service and the Canadian Armed Forces. They were cast as social and political subversives and seen as targets for blackmail by communist regimes seeking classified information. These characterizations were justified by arguments that people who engaged in same-sex relations suffered from a “character weakness” and had something to hide because their sexuality was considered a taboo and, under certain circumstances, was illegal. As a result, the RCMP investigated large numbers of people. Many of them were fired, demoted or forced to resign — even if they had no access to security information. These measures were kept out of public view to prevent scandal and to keep counter-espionage operations under wraps. In 2017, the federal government issued an official apology for its discriminatory actions and policies, along with a $145-million compensation package.
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is a board of the British Privy Council. It was formed in 1833. In 1844, it was given jurisdiction over all of Britain’s colonial courts. People who had been judges in high courts in Britain served on the Judicial Committee, along with a sprinkling of judges from the Commonwealth. Their decisions were often criticized for favouring provincial powers over federal authority, especially in fields such as trade and commerce. The Judicial Committee served as the court of final appeal for Canada until 1949, when that role was given to the Supreme Court of Canada.
