Most of my current students are too young to remember the now infamous election debate clashes between Brian Mulroney and John Turner. So I like to show them the Free Trade Clash from 1988 or the patronage kerfuffle of 1984. Both debates were widely …
Continue readingAuthor: Matt
Pample the Moose: Roger Abbott. A Canadian comic genius passes away.
I just found out that Roger Abbott, star of the Royal Canadian Air Farce, has passed away at the age of 64. I feel a bit like I’ve lost a funny uncle. Air Farce was a huge part of my political education as a teenager, and my life is richer for Abbott…
Continue readingPample the Moose: Too early for a post on strategic voting?
In a historic vote today, the Canadian government was found in contempt of Parliament. It’s a shame they couldn’t have also been found in contempt of the Canadian people, of logic, of sound policy-making and in contempt of a host of other principles t…
Continue readingPample the Moose: Brooke Jeffrey, <i>Divided Loyalties: The Liberal Party of Canada, 1984-2008</I>
As I write this review, Canada appears to be on the eve of an election call. It thus seems fitting to reflect on elections and campaigns past. For the past two weeks, I’ve been making my way through Divided Loyalties, Concordia political scientist …
Continue readingPample the Moose: Wild election predictions
I haven’t blogged nearly as much about contemporary politics of late as I did when this blog got started. In no small part, it’s because I’ve found both federal and provincial politics to be rather depressing, and largely without policy initiatives to…
Continue readingPample the Moose: In Memoriam: Olive Dickason (1920-2011)
This blog isn’t going to become a chronicle of the passing of people who have played roles in my career as a historian, (political blogging will likely resume when the writ is dropped, if not sooner) but it nevertheless came as a bit of a shock for me …
Continue readingPample the Moose: Working on recent history – some reflections
In my professional life, I usually find myself researching and writing on topics that deal with the last fifty or so years of Canadian history. This sometimes leads to people thinking that I’m not a historian, but a political scientist. It also means…
Continue readingPample the Moose: Ontario Catholic schools and Gay-Straight Alliances
I’ve jokingly remarked to my husband in the past that if I’d been born 60 years earlier, I probably would have been a Jesuit priest, rather than the openly-gay university professor that I’ve become. But if I’d been born a mere 6 years earlier, my pare…
Continue readingPample the Moose: Mon pays, ce n’est pas Vancouver!
I had to shake my head in amused bewilderment in reading Vancouver Olympics CEO John Furlong’s whining in his memoirs about how the issue of French in the Olympics’ opening and closing ceremonies was criticized by people like Graham Fraser and James Mo…
Continue readingPample the Moose: Political History Conference CFP
I’ve been busy with the start of term lately, but figured it couldn’t hurt to give a bit of publicity to a conference I’m helping to organize. – MHCALL FOR PAPERS “Transformation: State, Nation, and Citizenship in a New Environment”A conference sponso…
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