Witness to Yesterday (The Champlain Society Podcast on Canadian History)

Nicole O’Byrne speaks with Donald Savoie about his book Louis J. Robichaud. Louis J. Robichaud, the first elected Acadian premier of New Brunswick, transformed an inward-looking province with an ingrained aversion to change into a vibrant modern society now home to strong political, administrative, and educational institutions. Donald Savoie draws a portrait of adroit political leadership and of a man who, recognizing his province’s need for modernization, rose unwaveringly to the demands of office and ushered in profound and enduring change for Acadians and for all New Brunswickers. In a timely biography informed by a long friendship between fellow Acadians, Savoie contrasts the challenges of governing New Brunswick in the 1960s with those faced by governments and political leaders today to better understand the magnitude of Robichaud’s accomplishments over a ten-year span. Leading a province with a long history of intolerance towards minority groups, notably Acadians, Robichaud’s Liberal government confronted the dominant Anglo-Protestant political class and introduced reforms that included the Official Languages Act, broader access to education for francophones, the establishment of the Université de Moncton, and initiatives in regional and natural resource development, health care, and equitable public services across the province’s disparately funded urban and rural counties. Seismic changes at the time, these reforms are now woven into the social fabric of New Brunswick. Informative and lively, Louis J. Robichaud argues convincingly that while the premier’s achievements can be viewed as specific to his era, his political fortitude and vision are a model for politicians, legislators, and civil servants today. Donald J. Savoie holds the Clément-Cormier Research Chair in Economic Development at the Donald J. Savoie Institute. He is the author of numerous books including Speaking Truth to Canadians about Their Public Service. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Larry Ostola speaks with Brendan Kelly about his book Habs Nation. The history of the Montreal Canadiens is about more than just hockey. It’s also the story of how hockey’s most winning team has always skated hand-in-hand with its home province of Quebec. Brendan Kelly takes a fresh look at the ups and downs of the Habs since the heyday of the “Flying Frenchmen” in the 50s, 60s and 70s and shows how the history of the team mirrors the tumultuous changes in Quebec over the past decades. Why was it that from 1955, year of the “Rocket Richard Riot,” until 1995, year of Quebec’s second referendum, the Canadiens won 17 Stanley Cups? Kelly talks with former Canadiens greats like Serge Savard and Bob Gainey, journalists, politicians, filmmakers and even Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen, maybe the Canadiens’ most famous fan—telling the tale of the team’s unique bond with its fans. One surprising conclusion is that when the team’s roster was at its most Québécois, the team had its greatest success on the ice. Since Montreal’s last Quebec superstar, Patrick Roy, was unceremoniously booted out of town, the franchise has failed to win a Stanley Cup and has rarely been amongst the NHL’s elite squads. Brendan Kelly, born in Glasgow, raised in Montreal and a fan of the Canadiens for longer than he can remember, was one of the founders of the late great alternative weekly the Montreal Mirror. He worked at the Montreal Daily News in the late 80s and had a weekly music column on CBC Radio for over 30 years. His Montreal Gazette column “What the Puck” is a controversial contrarian hot take on the Canadiens that elicits much hate and even more love. He has written for the Gazette since 1996. He also contributes frequently to various Radio-Canada cultural shows. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

James Stewart (J.D.M.) speaks with Ed Conroy about his book, ImagiNation: The Golden Age of Toronto Kids' TV. Featuring over one hundred children’s programs broadcast between 1950 and 2000, ImagiNation is a memory-filled trip for anyone who spent their weekdays after school or Saturday mornings staring at the idiot box. The story of each Toronto-produced series is covered — from inception through production to broadcast — along with the tales of local stations and the people who made it all happen. Ed Conroy is a cultural historian, writer, producer, archivist, and vintage video sleuth. He is the founder of Retrontario.com and his writing on Canadian pop culture and history has appeared in the Toronto Star, Toronto Life, blogTO, The Canadian Encyclopedia Blog, and YTV.com. He has appeared on CTV, TVOntario, CBC TV & Radio, Zoomer TV & Radio, and is a regular guest and occasional host on Newstalk 1010. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past. Image Credit: Dundurn Press

Larry Ostola speaks with Barbara Messamore about her book Times of Transformation. Times of Transformation positions the watershed 1921 federal election in the context of activist efforts and the revolutionary mood in the years following the Great War. New Liberal leader William Lyon Mackenzie King, who went on to become Canada’s longest-serving prime minister, came to power, with his party capturing every Quebec seat. The 1921 election brought many Canadian firsts: the first post-Confederation minority government, the first time women were eligible to vote on terms equal to men, and the first effective fracturing of the two-party system, with the establishment of a federal Labour party and the dramatic rise of the Progressives. In her engaging, in-depth account, Barbara Messamore shows how these changes had been brewing at the activist level even before the end of the war. The Progressive party owed its success to the increasing politicization of farmers and the importance of tariff policy, freight rates, and grain prices to the western voting base. Suffrage came after a decades-long battle for political rights for women. Labour strikes swept the nation in the post–Great War era, and a new national Labour party gained Commons representation. The 1921 election in Canada was a manifestation of long-building forces for change that embodied the global zeitgeist of postwar disillusionment and hope. Barbara Messamore’s detailed exploration of this turning point election will appeal to those interested in history, biography, and the evolution of Canadian democracy Barbara J. Messamore is a professor of history and department chair at the University of the Fraser Valley. She is the author of Canada’s Governors General, 1847–1878 and coauthor of Narrating a Nation: Canadian History Post-Confederation and Conflict and Compromise: Pre-Confederation Canada. She cofounded and edited the Journal of Historical Biography and is president of the Institute for the Study of the Crown in Canada. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Larry Ostola speaks with Dan Black about his book Oceans of Fate. The remarkable story of how one ship — doomed by war — intersected lives and crossed into history. Completed in 1913 for Canadian Pacific, the Empress of Asia plied the oceans for nearly 30 years. Built for long-haul ocean travel during peace-time, she saw wartime service as an armed merchant cruiser and troopship before Japanese dive-bombers destroyed her in 1942. Through the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression, she brought continents and people together, delivering mail and multimillion-dollar consignments of silk. As a luxurious passenger liner, she was a “Greyhound of the Pacific,” braving epic storms and smashing transpacific speed records. From stokehold to bridge, steerage to first-class staterooms, she steamed with a kaleidoscope of lives, including courageous and recalcitrant crew, immigrants and refugees seeking a better life or relief from disaster, drug smugglers, weapons dealers, and the idle and not-so-idle rich. This is the dramatic story of how that one ship and the lives of those on board intersected during a tumultuous period of world history, culminating in her sinking off Singapore in the Second World War. Dan Black is the former editor of Legion Magazine, and author or co-author of three previous books, including Harry Livingstone’s Forgotten Men: Canadians and the Chinese Labour Corps in the First World War, published 2019. He lives near Ottawa. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Often misunderstood or even unrecognized, Canada’s governors general are not merely heads of state; they are amongst the great constitutional curiosities of our age. In this delightful and often whimsical account of the Canadians who have held this post since 1952, journalist and author John Fraser explains the successful, if illogical, evolution of the institution and engages readers with the hilarious foibles, moving triumphs, and sombre tragedies of the men and women who have been chosen to represent the Sovereign in Canada. John Fraser is a Canadian journalist, writer, and academic, and is the founding president of the Institute of the Study of the Crown in Canada. He was the editor of Saturday Night magazine, columnist, China correspondent, Ottawa bureau chief, and London correspondent for The Globe and Mail. He is the recipient of multiple national journalism awards and was chair of the Canadian Journalism Foundation until 2008. John served as Master of Massey College from 1995 until his retirement in 2014. He is the author of several best-selling books. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past. Image Credit: Sutherland House

Larry Ostola speaks with J.D.M Stewart about his book The Prime Ministers: Canada’s Leaders and the Nation They Shaped. After a surprising conversation with young Canadians who didn’t recognize the name Lester B. Pearson – Nobel Peace Prize winner and Canada’s fourteenth prime minister — author J.D.M. Stewart set out to bring the country’s history to a new generation. The result is The Prime Ministers, a lively, accessible chronicle of Canada’s leaders, from Sir John A. Macdonald in 1867 to Mark Carney in 2025. With engaging prose and fresh insights, Stewart captures the defining moments of each prime minister’s time in office, revealing how they managed relationships with Indigenous peoples, the environment, American presidents, and international powers. He also explores how their reputations have evolved – who has been forgotten, who remains controversial, and who has become a lasting part of Canada’s cultural fabric. The Prime Ministers is a necessary and important book, intended both for newcomers to Canadian history and those who have loved it for a long time. J.D.M. Stewart is a writer, historian, and one of the country’s foremost experts on Canadian prime ministers. His commentary regularly appears in the Globe & Mail, The Hub, and the Literary Review of Canada. His previous book, Being Prime Minister, was a Hill Times Top 100 pick. He has also inspired a generation of students during his thirty-year career teaching history to high school students in Toronto, Montreal, and Panama City. He lives in Toronto. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

James Stewart (J.D.M.) speaks with Patrice Dutil about his book, The Enduring Riddle of Mackenzie King. In his lifetime, Canadians often dismissed William Lyon Mackenzie King as a meritless interloper, yet numerous scholars have since ranked him as the best prime minister ever. Patrice Dutil leads a who’s who of historians to discuss why King deserves that estimation – or why not. This fresh, full assessment forms a new take on how King may – or may not – be the greatest of all Canadian prime ministers. The Enduring Riddle of Mackenzie King unwraps an enigma for scholars, students, and general readers interested in political history, Canadian history, and the history of the Second World War. Patrice Dutil is a professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Toronto Metropolitan University, a senior fellow of the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History at the University of Toronto, and a senior fellow of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past. Image Credit: UBC Press

James Stewart (J.D.M.) speaks with Catherine McKenna about her book, Run Like A Girl. From Olympic dreams to the frontlines of politics and climate action, Run Like A Girl charts McKenna’s personal and political journey – from leading Canada’s climate plan to withstanding sexist attacks as “Climate Barbie.” Through a unique scrapbook-style format, McKenna blends candid personal stories, political insights, and reflections on motherhood, ambition, and activism. McKenna recounts her fight for climate policy, the ups and downs of public service, the tough decision to leave politics, and her mission to empower women in leadership. For readers of Becoming by Michelle Obama and No Logo by Naomi Klein, Run Like A Girl is a timely and deeply personal call to action – about finding your own path, breaking the rules, fighting for the future – on your own terms. Catherine McKenna is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Climate and Nature Solutions. She is Canada's former minister of environment and climate change (2015-19) as well as minister of infrastructure (2019-21). The chair of the UN Secretary General’s Expert Group Net Zero, she is a frequent speaker on climate action and women empowerment. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past. Image Credit: Sutherland House

Larry Ostola speaks with Madelaine Drohan about her book He Did Not Conquer. Throughout his long and illustrious career, Benjamin Franklin nursed a not-so-secret desire to annex Canada and make it American. When he was not busy conducting scientific experiments or representing American interests at home and abroad, Benjamin Franklin hatched one plan after another to join Canada to the American colonies and then later to the United States. These were not solely intellectual efforts. He went to Montreal in 1776 to try to turn around the faltering occupation by American forces. As lead American negotiator at the 1782 peace negotiations with Britain in Paris, he held the fate of Canada in his hands. Ill health and other American priorities then forced him to abandon his decades-long campaign to possess Canada. Franklin’s elevation to the status of an American icon has pushed this signal failure into the far reaches of collective memory in both Canada and the United States. Yet it shaped the future of North America and relations between the two neighbours over the next two and a half centuries. Madelaine Drohan spent most of her journalistic career as a foreign correspondent, reporting on Europe for the Toronto-based Globe and Mail and then on Canada for the London-based Economist. She is a senior fellow at the Graduate School for Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa. She lives in Ottawa. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Larry Ostola speaks with Randall Wakelam and William March about their book On the Wings of War and Peace: The RCAF during the Early Cold War. Bringing together leading researchers on Canadian air power, On the Wings of War and Peace captures the history of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) during the first decades of the Cold War – a period which marked the zenith of air force accomplishments in peacetime Canada. The volume covers topics that go beyond straightforward flying operations, examining policies that drove operational needs and capabilities and the personnel, technical, and logistical functions that made those operations possible. With contributions written by former RCAF members who have both expert and personal knowledge of their topics, On the Wings of War and Peace brings new perspectives to the RCAF’s role in shaping the modern Canadian nation. Randall Wakelam served in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) as a tactical helicopter pilot and educator for more than four decades; he has taught and written about air power and leadership for the past twenty-five years and is now an associate professor emeritus of the Department of History at Royal Military College. William March is a freelance historian and writer focused on aerospace power history, Canadian military history, and leadership. He previously served as a maritime air navigator in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) for over forty years. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Nicole O’Byrne speaks with John W. Burchill and Richard Jochelson about their book Ancillary Police Powers in Canada: A Critical Reassessment. Police enforce the law, but they must also obey it. Statutes circumscribe how law enforcement officers conduct their work. Controls on police power are also embedded in the decisions written by judges, spawning a controversial area of legal debate — and of policing itself. The courts have handed police many powers to stop, search, and otherwise investigate people in the pursuit of public safety and crime prevention. Ancillary Police Powers in Canada explains what these common-law police powers are; how they came to be; and, crucially, what the potential dangers are in their expanding scope. What is the difference between police duty and lawful authority? Should the Supreme Court revisit and possibly rescind powers when the police tactics they enable become controversial? This nuanced book surveys the evolution, application, and future development of judge-made police powers in Canada from various points of view. The authors, with backgrounds in law, policing, and criminal justice, bring historical perspective, critical legal theory, and empirical analysis to bear on an issue that is fundamental to constitutional protection from state interference with individual liberty. The result is a unique and thought-provoking journey into the changing practice of Canadian policing. John W. Burchill is an instructor at the University of Manitoba, chief of staff with the Winnipeg Police Service, and president of the Winnipeg Police Museum and Historical Society. Richard Jochelson is the Dean of Law at the University of Manitoba. A widely published scholar, he also spearheaded Robsoncrim.com, a leading research blog that undergirds the Criminal Law Edition of the Manitoba Law Journal. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Greg Marchildon speaks with Ron Graham about his book, The Coutts Diaries: Power, Politics, and Pierre Trudeau 1973-1981. Jim Coutts, principal secretary to Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau from 1975 to 1981, was one of the most powerful men in Canada during those tumultuous years. Equally admired and attacked, respected and reviled, he was, in the words of one contemporary journalist, “a political phenomenon such as Canada has never known before: Machiavelli masquerading as a cherub.” The man who “exercised more backroom power than anyone else in modern Canadian political history,” Coutts not only knew everyone and saw everything at the centre of the action, he wrote it all down. Now, for the first time, his secret diaries have been edited into a single volume that offers an astonishing, behind-the-scenes look into public events and private lives during some of the most dramatic years in Canadian history. Ron Graham is an author and journalist based in Toronto. He has written extensively over many decades on Canadian politics, history, religion, business, and culture. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.