Since 2004, The Avie Bennett Historica Chair in Canadian History has served to promote the study of Canada’s heritage as a vital and lively academic discipline. The Chair was established by the Historica Foundation of Canada, endowed by York Chancellor Emeritus Avie Bennett. Each year, an esteemed lecturer is invited to share their research with historians, students, faculty, and the public at large.
2026 Avie Bennett Historica Lecture
Is the Twenty-First Century Far Right a Mass Ideology or an Elite Imposition?
Social, cultural and political factors that favour the emergence of the far-right ideology.
Date: Thursday, Sept. 17
Location: Schulich ELC – Main Dining Room
Event Program:
- Book Launch: 5:40–5:55 p.m.
- Dinner: 6–7 p.m.
- Public Lecture: 7–8 p.m.
Presented by Doug Saunders, international affairs columnist, The Globe and Mail.
To many observers, it has appeared as if the wave of authoritarianism, “illiberal democracy” and outright fascism swept across the ostensibly democratic world starting some time around 2016, ending and reversing many decades of progress. But there is little understanding or agreement about the cause of this crisis, and its potential solutions. Are we in the midst of a secular shift in public attitudes, beliefs and preferences, away from trust in liberal institutions, rule of law and equality and toward a more protective, insular, nativist and authoritarian-minded way of thinking that’s being reflected in victories by strongman leaders and parties of intolerance? Or have those extremist movements and individuals seized control of formerly moderate parties and movements, manipulated flaws in the democratic system and imposed themselves upon publics whose majorities are not otherwise inclined towards their beliefs? Are democracy and equality falling prey to an organic shift from below, or, in the words of an important study, does democracy erode from the top? And, for those who seek to reverse this shift, as we’ve seen happen successfully in Hungary and Brazil, does that distinction really matter?
Doug Saunders
Doug Saunders is The Globe and Mail’s international affairs columnist and an award-winning author and journalist whose work focuses on cities, migration, population and global affairs. He has reported from more than 40 countries and previously served as The Globe and Mail’s European bureau chief in London and bureau chief in Los Angeles. Saunders is the author of Arrival City: The Final Migration and Our Next World, The Myth of the Muslim Tide, and Maximum Canada: Toward a Country of 100 Million. His work has received numerous honours, including five National Newspaper Awards and the Donner Prize. A native of Hamilton, Ontario, Saunders was educated in Toronto at York University.
20 Years of the Avie Bennett Historica Canada Chair in Canadian History
The Viewbook presents the research and publications of Professor Marcel Martel, the Avie Bennett Historica Canada Chair in Canadian History. It also features information on our engaging public lectures, external grants, alumni accomplishments and more.
Download the Viewbook (PDF)
Past Events
The Shifting Canadian Political Landscape
September 17, 2025
Six months in the tenure of Mark Carney as prime minister, a look at the state of play on and off Parliament Hill and on the US/Canada front. Mark Carney came to the job of prime minister with an ambitious agenda but also zero parliamentary experience. How has he adapted and is the delivery living up to his campaign promise to reinvent the Canadian economy? And what does his track record so far suggest about the longevity of his minority government?
Photo Gallery
Canada’s Transnational Fighters
September 19 - 20, 2024
Throughout its history, when the Canadian state has decided if the country will go to war, usually in following imperial decisions, national interest, or alliance obligations, its professional service personnel, its reservists, and its citizen base have formed the armed forces. Swearing an oath to the Crown, wearing a uniform, and being bound by a military code of conduct that is different than that of civilian norms and laws has defined those who served and continue to serve in Canada’s armed forces. And yet there is another group of Canadians who have fought in foreign wars. Known as transnational fighters, these Canadians have left Canada to fight abroad. The line between foreign fighters and mercenaries can be a thin one in some cases, but mercenaries are usually fighting primarily for pay. Transnational fighters almost always have other motivations. While some of the transnational fighters have been former members of Canada’s armed services or veterans of its official wars, these soldiers, airmen, or other types of warriors have fought in these conflicts not in the Canadian uniform or guided by its military’s regulations. They are not paid by the Canadian state, have no special veterans’ benefits, and their military commitment has not been officially commemorated. Tens of thousands of Canadians have nonetheless served from immediately before Confederation in wars beyond Canada’s borders. This public lecture will explore why individual Canadians have felt compelled to leave their communities to fight overseas. It will also touch on their experience in the conflict zone, the fighters’ return to Canada, and their treatment within society.
A difficult history of the Hudson’s Bay Company
September 28, 2023
How should historians understand the fur-trade, and powerful corporate entities associated with it, as a chapter in a global history of colonialism and dispossession? This talk will aim to trouble the history of the Hudson’s Bay Company by centering it in difficult histories of violence, conflict, and the theft of knowledge, land, and lives in North America, ones with implications for the lived present of colonialism in Western Canada.
Writing Difficult Histories in Difficult Times
January 18, 2023
This talk was about the challenges of writing difficult histories in difficult times. It asked how members of the historical community should respond to the demands for social justice and inclusion being placed on a profession. Focused primarily on the Canadian context, this talk also considered for whom these histories are difficult and the academic, institutional and bureaucratic challenges that they present for the university.
Chief Clarence Louie on Indigenous Peoples and the wine industry in B.C.
September 23, 2021
For the Avie Bennett Historica Canada Public Lecture in Canadian History, Settler Vines was honoured to welcome Chief Clarence Louie of the Osoyoos Indian Band. The Osoyoos community created the first Indigenous-owned winery in North America. Chief Louie discussed Indigenous Peoples and the wine industry in British Columbia in the context of globalization and climate change.
Carried Away: Forgetting and Remembering the Great Influenza Pandemic in Canada
March 26, 2021
In this timely lecture, Professor Esyllt Jones, author of the award-winning book Influenza 1918: Death, Disease and Struggle and professor at the University of Manitoba, explores the Great Influenza (1918-1920) in light of renewed interest following the COVID-19 pandemic. By following work by writer Alice Munro, Jones to suggests a new interpretation of how pandemic disease survivors remembered their experiences, and how those intimate histories interacted with large-scale social forces and upheavals.
Traces of the Animal Past: Methodological Challenges in Animal History
November 7, 2019
University of Calgary's Professor George Colpitts has dedicated much of his research to understanding the very meaning of wildlife and how that definition has changed over time. His 2019 keynote address explored the ways in which historians have been at the forefront of new research in human-animal studies, blending traditional archival and oral history research methods with interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks that de-centre humans in historical narratives in order to better understand the past from non-anthropocentric perspectives.
Prairie Settler Suffragists and Indigenous People
September 27, 2018
Award-winning author and Native Studies Professor Sarah Carter, from the University of Alberta, delivered a lecture titled “Prairie Settler Suffragists and Indigenous People,” drawn from her book, Ours By Every Law of Right and Justice: Women and the Vote in the Prairie Provinces. The book is part of the Women’s Suffrage and the Struggle for Democracy series by the University of British Columbia Press.
Indigeneity, the World, and Canada
March 30, 2017
In 2017, keynote speaker Justice Murray Sinclair, Senator and former Chair, Truth and Reconciliation Commission spoke on Indigeneity, the World, and Canada. In his talk, he examined what Canada could learn from other nations and their relationships to Indigenous peoples.
Read more about Sinclair's address.
Canada at 150: The Secret Handshake
October 12, 2017
Well-known across Canada as an author and public speaker, Charlotte Gray explores the past with wit and a sense of drama. Reflecting on 150 ideas that shaped Canada, she pulls from her latest book, The Promise of Canada: 150 Years — People and Ideas That Have Shaped Our Country. Her previous non-fiction bestsellers include The Massey Murder; Gold Diggers, Striking It Rich in the Klondike; Reluctant Genius, The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell, Sisters in the Wilderness, and The Lives of Susanna Moodie.
John A. Macdonald: The Good, the Bad, the Great
Award-winning author and journalist Richard J. Gwyn examined the legacy of Canada’s first prime minister during his keynote presentation at the 2015 Avie Bennett Historica Lecture.
Canada and the Great War
September 18, 2014
Highlighting the day-long "First World War: History, Memory and Commemoration" conference held at York University in 2014, Margaret MacMillan delivered a keynote address at the Avie Bennett Historica Lecture delving into the literary, aesthetic, critical, political and historical perspectives of Canada’s participation in the war.
Champlain, Humanist: The Founding of New France and the History of Canada
October 24, 2013
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Hackett Fischer gave the keynote address at the 2013 Avie Bennett Historica Lecture, using his talk to explore the legacy of founder of Quebec, Samuel de Champlain, the subject of his 2008 book Champlain's Dream.