Really captures what makes this kind of work worth doing

🧵 The Canadian federal government’s 2025 budget has allocated:

More business tax breaks including for fossil fuels sector
$925 million for AI
$81.8 billion over 5 years for military

However, this comes at the expense of cultural heritage.

My latest in Active History: #cdnhist

Good news for researchers: the Multicultural Historical Society of Ontario's collection of newspapers is beginning its migration onto the Internet Archive.

This collection has been immensely helpful for my work.

#cdnhistory #ontariohistory

internetarchivecanada.org/2026/03/31/p...

Wikipedia now has higher standards than all universities

Black Loyalist archive collection included in UNESCO Memory of the World program | CBC News A collection of materials detailing the history of Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick has been added to the Canadian Memory of the World Register by UNESCO. The announcement took place a...

Black Loyalists archive collection in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick has been added to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's Canadian Memory of the World Register.

I recently spoke with Grad Chat @cfrcradio.bsky.social about my dissertation research and what archives of folk culture can tell us about our past and present. Now available via CFRC’s podcast archive:

“Stop worrying and love the bomb”

Screenshot of text from Left Coast Dispatch. “…perhaps the cruelty is the point. Afterall, we’re not talking about a lot of money. Let’s add up the Budget 2025 cuts: Documentary Heritage Communities Program: $1.5M annually Reductions in Access to Information and Privacy at Library and Archives Canada: $13.6M annually Parks Canada library and Canadian Register of Historic Places: ~$300,00 annually Department of Public Safety library: Unknown, presumably the same or less than Parks Canada’s library cuts: ~$300,000 (?) Correctional Service Canada librarians: ~$1.5 to 2.5M, annually

“Perhaps the cruelty is the point. Afterall, we’re not talking about a lot of money. Let’s add up the Budget 2025 cuts…” buttondown.com/leftcoastdis...

This is a dog whistle and I am more than happy to tell your class, organization, or media outlet why they should take statements like this seriously

My hour has come

Joan Sangster's "Invoking Experience as Evidence," Canadian Historical Review 92, no. 1 (2011): 135-61, is one important Canadian example discussing the Royal Commission on the Status of Women (1967-70)

Library and Archives Canada to cut 56 positions Ninety-four employees at Library and Archives Canada have received notices that their jobs could be at risk, as part of the federal government’s plan to cut the size of the federal public service by 2029.

Library and Archives Canada to cut 56 positions

In the article I explore how Creighton’s collecting and the relocation were connected, and argue that, for her, ideas like race and folk culture were deeply entangled. The racism that underwrote the relocation also structures her collection, and this is one small attempt to redress that

'He was a man on a mission': Eddie Carvery remembered for keeping memory of Africville alive | CBC News Eddie Carvery, the activist who lived in a trailer on the site of the former town of Africville for over 50 years, has died. Carvery used his decades-long protest to call for reparations for the forme...

It’s also African Heritage Month in NS, and just today news broke that Eddie Carvery, who was present at the Seaview services I write about in the article, has passed away after protesting the Africville relocation and its aftermath for more than 50 years www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

In time for Nova Scotia’s Heritage Day, my article on race in the Helen Creighton collection of NS folk culture is now open access: www.erudit.org/en/journals/... #cdnhist

CHA Letter to Minister Marc Miller | Canadian Historical Association | Société historique du Canada In light of recent news about federal cutbacks implicating history-focused organizations, CHA president Colin Coates has sent a letter to the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, the Hon. Marc M...

In light of recent news about federal cutbacks implicating history-focused organizations, CHA president Colin Coates has sent a letter to the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, the Hon. Marc Miller. #cdnhist

Archives matter - but not to the Carney government. Canada has only ONE federal funding program for community archives, and they just killed it. Gone.

@wgreaves.bsky.social

www.canada.ca/en/library-a...

Leaves much to be desired, as a strategy

Your own reports show that govt contribs to those budgets have been stagnant for decades. Of course at an institutional level the books must balance but where is this investment you mention above? Boosting STEM for years hasn’t altered that dramatically, will health?

bold to assume there is a left. But if that is true, why not more money for health, not this zero-sum game where it has to come from AHSS? They clearly have not even bothered to consider that as a possibility.

I'm not seeing much evidence of it in the document. They're inducing demand in STEM programs if they shift resources away from AHSS, and we should perhaps set our horizons a little farther than what this Conservative government values

besides which there were apparently no data to back up these allocations, just feelings, and the rest of the document shows how hostile these admin are to various groups on campus (not least grad students)

That is only true of only half the of the scenarios. S&E resources are similar/marginally higher in one without the interdisciplinary faculty, and where that's not the case the difference goes to health, another science field, at the expense of social science primarily

Based on this document, that scenario is looking less and less hypothetical

What would the future of #cdnhist look like if one of the most substantial doctoral programs in the country ceased to exist? How long before this is the story at U of T, York, UBC, etc.?

They also had participants identify areas where they should increase/decrease focus on flip charts. Under the Research heading, the only direct mention of graduate students was that Queen's should decrease "Funding PhD students after year 4/5"

Consultants facilitated an exercise where participants were given ping pong balls and asked to reallocate university program resources. The result? Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences get axed almost in half in favour of Health, Science, and the nebulous "Interdisciplinary"

What are some of the conversations senior admin have been having at these planning tables? "Changing the role or getting rid of the current graduate school." "Pause all tenure decisions." "There is no housing crisis"

Leaked consultant document details proposed restructuring at Queen’s - The Queen's Journal As Queen’s unveiled its Bicentennial Vision for 2041, a leaked consultant document obtained by The Journal outlined specific structural changes on a similar timeline. Announced in the Queen’s Gazette ...

The Queen's Journal just broke how, behind the scenes of its Bicentennial Vision process, Queen's admin have been working with external consultants planning massive restructuring for years.

It's so bad. Worse than you think.