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AbstractJohn Bartlet Brebner (1895-1957) was a significant Canadian historian, but his work has been marginalised and discredited in the historiography. A Maritime historian, he continued to study Nova Scotia after leaving the University of Toronto for Columbia University, and this and his work on early explorers and British history led to his espousal of a continental approach that emphasised Canadian-American exchange and a shared British legal and political heritage. A deep liberal, he felt under suspicion because he did not promote either of the two nationalist schools of Canadian history and because he lived in the United States; this feeling moved him to naturalise as an American in 1941 and give up Canadian history. He later regretted this action, as his experiences as a liberal American in the post-war era gave him concerns about the liberal quality of American nationalism. After Brebner's death, his reputation was tarnished by the posthumous publication of an obsolete manuscript and the concerted attack of nationalist historians who, led by Donald G. Creighton, sought to deny legitimacy to even the most nuanced use of the "continental approach."

Research on miracle-working images has shown that devotees attributed their power to the authentic likeness of the holy people these images possessed. An authentic likenss of Christ, for instance, possessed his seemingly infinite agency. Using the miraculous painting of the Annunciation at the Santissima (SS.) Annunziata in Florence as a case study, this article questions whether an image’s agency was indeed limitless. Based on an examination of various hagiographical writings on the shrine written during the Counter-Reformation period, in particular Angelo Lottini’s Scelta d’alcuni miracoli e grazie della Santissima Nunziata di Firenze, this article proposes that certain miracles were connected with the image’s origins. In light of James Frazer’s theory of sympathetic magic, and Alfred Gell’s more recent theory of art and agency, this article argues that these post-Tridentine writings define the Annunziata image’s agency by the circumstances of its origins, which made it especially (though not exclusively) powerful over problems relating directly or conceptually to the mind, imagination, and eyes.

Keywords: Counter-Reformation Art, Florence, Santissima Annunziata, Miracle-working Images, Hagiography, Agency, Giovanni Angelo Lottini, Luca Ferrini, Francesco Bocchi, Fertility

Between 1906 and 1954, the Franciscan order was at the helm of two important social movements in Québec: the temperance and Catholic family movements. In their journals La Tempérance (1906–1937) and La Famille (1937–1954), Franciscan writers invoked the hereditary consequences of alcoholism for future generations and the looming threat of racial degeneration. This paper examines how local religious and scientific elites contributed to the growing acceptance and dissemination of eugenics in early-twentieth century Québec. It focuses on the Franciscans’ writing about heredity, degeneration, and eugenics, and especially on Hervé Blais’s 1942 publication Les tendances eugénistes au Canada.

Keywords: Québec, Québec, Eugénisme, Eugenics, Ordre des frères mineurs, Order of Friars Minor, Temperance Movement, Mouvement de tempérance, Mouvement familial catholique, Catholic Family Movement

This is the personal memoir of blind lawyer and volunteer disability rights advocate David Lepofsky. It describes his involvement in and perspectives on the successful fight from 1980 to 1982 to get Canada’s proposed Charter of Rights amended to guarantee equal rights for people with disabilities. It includes a foreword by the Hon. Rosalie Abella, former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. This memoir recounts the little-known saga of the disability amendment to the Charter. Few know that equality for people with disabilities was the only constitutional right added to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms during the widely publicized eighteen-month battle over the patriation of Canada’s Constitution, from October 1980 to April 1982. It is aimed at anyone interested in disability rights, human rights, Canadian political or legal history, social justice advocacy, and Canadian constitutional law. It provides a mix of legal and legislative history, personal autobiography, grassroots advocacy strategy and reflective commentary on lessons learned. It compares social justice advocacy techniques in 1980 to those practiced in the disability rights arena four decades later.