Connecting for Canada’s 150th

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Mobilizing research about Canada’s past, present and future

As we settle into 2017, we look forward to celebrating Canada’s 150th birthday. Much has happened since Confederation in 1867, and Canadians will be marking the occasion with home-grown events right across the country.

SSHRC is helping facilitate festivities through its new Connection Grants—Connecting for Canada’s 150th. These grants support outreach activities organized by postsecondary institutions and their affiliated researchers that underscore the contributions social sciences and humanities research has made to Canadian society.

The first round of Canada 150 Connection Grant recipients has been announced. It includes the following:

• A symposium, to be co-hosted by the Songhees First Nation and the University of Victoria, examining early Indigenous treaties, legal documents and elder wisdom, to better understanding of the relationships on which Canada was built.
• A conference, to be held at the University of Toronto, to coincide with a performance in April by the Canadian Opera Company of a work based on the life of Louis Riel, a prominent player in Canada’s past. The conference will delve into the artistic interpretation of the controversial life of Louis Riel, and his enduring impact on the relationship between the Métis Nation and Canada.
• Visions for Canada 2042, a conference to be organized by Carleton University, which will look at the Canada we imagine 25 years from now. In an increasingly interdependent world, what will Canada’s global role be going forward?

“I think this Connecting for Canada’s 150th series of grants has generated an impressive number of ideas to celebrate Canada’s special birthday,” says Dominique Bérubé, vice-president, Research Programs at SSHRC.

Canada 150 is as much about looking forward to our collective future as it is about looking back over our shared past.