Labour At The Lakehead

In the early twentieth century, politicians singled out the Lakehead as a breeding ground for radical labour politics. Michel S. Beaulieu returns northern Ontario to its rightful place as a birthplace of leftism in Canada by exposing the conditions that gave rise to an array of left-wing organizations. Cultural ties among workers helped bring left-wing ideas to Canada, but ethnicity weakened the left as each group developed a distinctive vocabulary of socialism and as Anglo-Celtic workers defended their privileges against Finns, Ukrainians, and Italians. At the Lakehead, ethnic difference often outweighed class solidarity at the cost of a stronger labour movement for Canada.

In any account of twentieth-century Canadian law, Bora Laskin (1912-1984) looms large. Born in northern Ontario to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Laskin became a prominent human rights activist, university professor, and labour arbitrator before embarking on his 'accidental career' as a judge on the Ontario Court of Appeal (1965) and later Chief Justice of Canada (1973-1984). Throughout his professional career, he used the law to make Canada a better place for workers, racial and ethnic minorities, and the disadvantaged. As a judge, he sought to make the judiciary more responsive to modern Canadian expectations of justice and fundamental rights. In Bora Laskin: Bringing Law to Life, Philip Girard chronicles the life of a man who, at all points of his life, was a fighter for a better Canada: he fought antisemitism, corporate capital, omnipotent university boards, the Law Society of Upper Canada, and his own judicial colleagues in an effort to modernize institutions and re-shape Canadian law. Girard exploits a wealth of previously untapped archival sources to provide, in vivid detail, a critical assessment of a restless man on an important mission.

Personal accounts are at the heart of Closing Sysco, where each story reveals the cultural, political, and historical ramifications of industrial closure in Sydney, Nova Scotia, the former steel city of Atlantic Canada.

Above the entrance to the Finnish Labour Temple in Thunder Bay is the motto labor omnia vincit – “hard work conquers all” – reflecting the dedication of the Finnish community in Canada. Hard Work Conquers All examines Finnish community building in Canada during the twentieth century. Waves of immigrants imbued the relationship between people, homeland, and host country with the politics, ideologies, and cultural expressions of their time. This collection of essays explores the cultural identities of Finnish Canadians, their ties to Finland, intergenerational cultural transfer, and the community’s connections with socialism and labour movements. It offers new interpretations of the influence of Finnish immigration on Canada.

Often remembered for its humanitarian platform and its pioneering social programs, Saskatchewan’s Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) wrought a much less scrutinized legacy in the northern regions of the province during the twenty years it governed. Until the 1940s churches, fur traders, and other wealthy outsiders held uncontested control over Saskatchewan’s northern region. Following its rise to power in 1944, the CCF undertook aggressive efforts to unseat these traditional powers and to install a new socialist economy and society in largely Aboriginal northern communities. The next two decades brought major changes to the region as well-meaning government planners grossly misjudged the challenges that confronted the north and failed to implement programs that would meet northern needs. As the CCF’s efforts to modernize and assimilate northern people met with frustration, it was the northern people themselves that inevitably suffered from the fallout of this failure. In an elegantly written history that documents the colonial relationship between the CCF and the Saskatchewan north, David M. Quiring draws on extensive archival research and oral history to offer a fresh look at the CCF era. This examination will find a welcome audience among historians of the north, Aboriginal scholars, and general readers.

"Including a new article "The Swedes in Canada's national game: they changed the face of pro hockey" by Charles Wilkins."

During the Cold War, more than 36,000 individuals entering Canada claimed Czechoslovakia as their country of citizenship. A defining characteristic of this migration of predominantly political refugees was the prevalence of anti-communist and democratic values. Diplomats, industrialists, politicians, professionals, workers, and students fled to the West in search of freedom, security, and economic opportunity. Jan Raska’s Czech Refugees in Cold War Canada explores how these newcomers joined or formed ethnocultural organizations to help in their attempts to affect developments in Czechoslovakia and Canadian foreign policy towards their homeland. Canadian authorities further legitimized the Czech refugees’ anti-communist agenda and increased their influence in Czechoslovak institutions. In turn, these organizations supported Canada’s Cold War agenda of securing the state from communist infiltration. Ultimately, an adherence to anti-communism, the promotion of Canadian citizenship, and the cultivation of a Czechoslovak ethnocultural heritage accelerated Czech refugees’ socioeconomic and political integration in Cold War Canada. By analyzing oral histories, government files, ethnic newspapers, and community archival records, Raska reveals how Czech refugees secured admission as desirable immigrants and navigated existing social, cultural, and political norms in Cold War Canada.