History Matters by Canadian Institute for Historical Education

In this special episode of History Matters Allan welcomes Gordon Henderson, a veteran television producer, documentary film maker, and historical novelist to introduce a live stage performance of the “The Trial of Egerton Ryerson,” a play commissioned by the CIHE, researched and written by Gilbert Reid and Gordon Henderson. Reid did the bulk of the original research which Henderson turned into a play set in a courtroom. Framed as an appeal hearing after Ryerson’s “conviction” in the court of public opinion, the play explores questions of presentism, historical context, responsibility, and legacy and how public institutions decide who is honored, criticized, or removed from commemoration. The play was performed before a live audience at the Arts and Letters Club in Toronto on Sunday, February 8th 2026, with Gordon Henderson in the lead role of Dr. Ryerson, Paul Duder in the role of the Judge, and Matthew Chapman in the role of the Journalism Student; the play was directed by Elizabeth Trott.
A longer video of the event, including an audience Q&A session after the performance with Henderson and Reid and facilitated by Professor Patrice Dutil, is available on the CIHE website, www.CIHE.ca.

DESCRIPTION EP15
Public monuments shape how Canadians encounter their past. Yet the process of representing historical figures in bronze raises important questions: how does one preserve humanity, complexity, and context in a permanent public form?
In this episode of History Matters, Allan Williams speaks with Ruth Abernethy, one of Canada’s most accomplished sculptors. Her public works include figures such as Glenn Gould, Oscar Peterson, Sir John A. Macdonald, and William Lyon Mackenzie King, among many others. The conversation traces her artistic development, from her early work building characters at the Stratford Festival to her first major public commission, Raising the Tent (1996), which marked the beginning of a distinguished career in public sculpture.
Abernethy explains how her theatrical background informs her approach to historical representation. Rather than presenting idealized figures, her sculptures seek to portray individuals in moments of action and narrative attentive to personality, context, and human complexity.
The discussion also examines lesser-known chapters of Canadian history reflected in her work, including Len Cullen’s influence on the gardens of Whitby, the legacy of Camp X and William Stephenson (“Intrepid”), and Nova Scotia figures such as Vernon Smith and Abraham Gesner, whose innovations connect whale oil, kerosene, and the early development of the modern energy industry. Throughout, Abernethy reflects on sculpture as a form of public storytelling shaped by placement, inscription, design, and historical interpretation.
Listeners interested in public memory, Canadian identity, and the ways societies choose to commemorate their past will find this episode a thoughtful exploration of history in the public square.
https://www.ruthabernethy.com/
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Contact CIHE: [email protected]

In this episode of History Matters, Allan Williams speaks with Professor Christopher Dummitt of Trent University about the events leading to Ontario’s 1954 Fair Accommodations Practices Act. The discussion examines the leadership of Hugh Burnett, the organized campaign against racial discrimination in Dresden, and the broader pre-Charter human rights movement in Canada. This period is frequently overshadowed by the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The conversation also explores Professor Dummitt’s documentary series, Well, That Didn’t Suck!, including Episode 5, “The Right to Be Served,” which presents Burnett’s story for contemporary audiences. The episode reflects on the development of civil rights legislation in Canada, the influence of public advocacy on policy change, and the evolving tools historians use to communicate the past.
Listeners interested in Canadian history, civil rights, and the historical foundations of present-day legal protections will find this discussion particularly relevant.
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Christopher Dummitt
https://cihe.ca/

In this episode of History Matters, Allan is joined by Charlotte Gray, one of Canada’s best known and most prolific popular historians, for a wide-ranging conversation about how Canadian history is preserved, told, and understood today. We begin with the urgent and pressing issue of the future of Library and Archives Canada, which has experienced deep funding cuts, and now labours under privacy and access to information legislation so much more restrictive than in almost all other countries, that it has led to “the most unbelievable bureaucracy” such that access to government records and other documents can take months.
The situation is so dire, says Charlotte, that it is actively preventing new Canadian history from being written: “The core purpose of Library and Archives Canada, which is to preserve our history, is really faltering.” From there, we explore Charlotte’s career as a biographer and storyteller. We explore her quest to tell stories from diverse perspectives and why she chose to foreground women’s lives, how popular history differs from academic history, and what we can learn about important figures like Mackenzie King, Winston Churchill, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, for example, by looking at the lives of their mothers. In answer to the question, what book would you recommend to our listeners? Charlotte cited The Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, A White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation, by Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Douglas Sanderon (Amo Binashii).
https://www.charlottegray.ca/
https://cihe.ca/

In this episode of the Canadian Institute for Historical Education podcast, host Allan Williams speaks with distinguished historian Nicholas Rogers, Research Professor Emeritus at York University and author of numerous works on eighteenth-century Britain and the Atlantic world. The conversation centers on Rogers’s recent article in the Canadian Historical Review, “Toronto’s Dundas Imbroglio,” which examines the historical debates surrounding Henry Dundas, slavery, and public memory in Canada. (A free copy of the article is available upon request) The episode opens with a powerful moment from July 26, 1833, when news reached William Wilberforce that Britain had passed legislation to abolish slavery across much of the British Empire—just days before his death. Using this event as historical context, Rogers examines the complexities of abolition, Dundas's role, and how historical figures are remembered and contested today. This thoughtful discussion invites listeners to consider how history, commemoration, and contemporary values intersect.
Nicholas Rogers
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-rogers-21aab165/?originalSubdomain=ca
https://cihe.ca/