Manitoba’s One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary
Inquiry--Debate Adjourned
December 1, 2020
Rose pursuant to notice of September 30, 2020:
That he will call the attention of the Senate to the Province of Manitoba’s one hundred and fiftieth anniversary.
He said: Honourable senators, it is a pleasure for me to rise today to call the attention of the Senate to the province of Manitoba’s one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. Manitoba became Canada’s fifth province and the only province to enter Confederation under Indigenous leadership, 150 years ago. At the time, Manitoba was known as the postage stamp province because it was a small square; 1/18 of its current size. It wasn’t until 1881 that its borders were changed to what they are today. As they say, you should never underestimate small beginnings. Over the next 150 years, Manitobans would prove to be resilient in the face of difficulties, resourceful in overcoming challenges and renowned for its leadership and performance in many areas.
This year we invite all Canadians to not only explore our province’s history, but to also discover our beauty, meet our people and experience our culture. In my view, Manitoba is a tremendous illustration of the diversity and the unity upon which Canada was founded and upon which our future depends.
For a province which was birthed in hardship and persevered to become the beacon it is today, it is somewhat ironic that the celebrations of our one hundred and fiftieth year have been interrupted by the greatest health challenge in the last century, the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to COVID-19, the province announced that all Manitoba 150 events are paused until 2021. But while the events will wait for the pandemic to pass, the pride of Manitobans over all that we have achieved in our province continues uninterrupted.
Honourable senators, it is all too easy to focus on the shortcomings of the past and ignore the many accomplishments that built the society we have today, and the many sacrifices that were made so that all Canadians could have a better life and a brighter future. Manitobans, and indeed all Canadians, have much to celebrate.
Fundamentally, I believe that Manitoba’s history and achievements should be celebrated because of the opportunities that have been created for the people who live there. Those opportunities were not created without a struggle and conflict, because people sometimes had different perspectives on how that should be achieved. But out of these struggles and conflicts, which were often very painful, greater opportunity emerged.
In the very first efforts that were made to establish a province in the Red River Valley, a fundamental goal was to establish a foundation of opportunity for the people who lived there. The movement that Manitoba’s founder Louis Riel led from 1869 to 1870, sought to give the Metis people of Red River, and indeed all the people of Red River, control over their own future. We know that the historic events surrounding Manitoba’s entry into Confederation had many misunderstandings and very painful components. It was not an easy time. However, looking back over the experience of the past 150 years, Manitobans today celebrate Riel’s pivotal place in our history. Today, Louis Riel is recognized as the founder of Manitoba and Louis Riel Day is celebrated as a statutory holiday in my province.
Just as Manitoba’s founding involved conflict and strong differences of opinion, the evolution of Manitoba since that time has also not been free of political struggles and intense debates. The Manitoba Schools Question was one such pivotal event that had a lasting impact. It was provoked when the provincial Liberal government, elected in 1888, abolished the dual education system that had existed since the province’s founding and instead set up a non-denominational school system. Funding for Catholic schools was eliminated and the law mandated that schools had to be conducted in English only. That action — which, by the way, was opposed by the Conservatives — created immense divisions within Manitoba and indeed the entire country.
It was not just the francophone minority that was impacted, but other minorities as well, including my own Mennonite community. Communities that had educational independence up to that point lost those rights. This created immense divisions and the so-called compromise — belatedly negotiated between the provincial Liberal government and the federal Liberal government in Ottawa after 1896 — which did not resolve that matter.
But what is perhaps more important is the resilience that existed, enabling the province to continue forward. The communities negatively and unjustly impacted by the Manitoba Schools Act survived. Ultimately, they would prosper and rebound. Ultimately, those same communities contributed to building opportunity, not only for themselves but for the entire province.
The experience of the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 illustrates a similar resilience. That strike too left a bitter legacy, but here as well, the events ultimately served to unite workers and help galvanize the labour movement, not only in Manitoba but throughout Canada. The Winnipeg General Strike was linked to the global events of the time. It is not surprising that many responded to that strike because of fear related to those global events.
But the lesson that was ultimately learned was about how to balance and protect workers’ rights within a free economy. How that happened and the nature of the balance that was struck shaped my province and its character. These major events, along with smaller everyday struggles and debates, built a political culture that has enabled Manitobans of all groups, all ethnicities and of all political perspectives to learn to work together in the great task of building their province and their country. Perhaps that is why Manitobans have never shirked from rendering service to their country.
The scope of the sacrifice that Manitobans made for their country is illustrated by the fact that more than 4,200 of Manitoba’s lakes are now named after the province’s fallen: individuals who fell during the First World War, the Second World War, Korea, and most recently, Afghanistan. That tradition of naming Manitoba’s lakes after its many fallen began in July 1947, when 25 lakes in the northwest of the province were named for 26 soldiers and airmen who were decorated and died serving their country. The scope of that sacrifice is evident in individual stories. One of the lakes, Two Tod Lake, also known as Tod Lake, is named for twin brothers who died during the Second World War.
There are other reminders of the sacrifices Manitobans have made. In Winnipeg, there is now Valour Road, so named because three recipients of the Victoria Cross lived on that street prior to the First World War. Extraordinarily, Robert Shankland, Leo Clarke and Frederick Hall were all awarded the Victoria Cross during the First World War. They all lived on Pine Street in Winnipeg, the street then renamed Valour Road.
Just 99 Canadians have won the Victoria Cross since it was instituted in the mid-19th century. Of those 99 holders of the Victoria Cross seventeen, nearly one in five, have come from Manitoba. These are stories of the sacrifice that Manitobans have made for their country.
Another story of sacrifice is the story of Thomas George Prince, an Ojibwe from Manitoba, who volunteered to serve his country during the Second World War. He earned the Military Medal in Italy and the American Silver Star. He was decorated by King George VI at Buckingham Palace. I thought that he would have been a great person to be recognized on Canada’s five-dollar bill, and many of us started a campaign to that effect. Unfortunately, he did not make the short list, but his valiant sacrifice will never be forgotten by Manitobans.
Manitobans have always persevered in the face of both manmade and natural challenges. The year I was born, Manitoba experienced the great flood of 1950. The flood reached its highest level in Winnipeg on May 14 — the day that I was born. One hundred thousand Winnipeg residents had to be evacuated from their homes; the largest mass evacuation in Canadian history. Even the hospital my mother and I were in was threatened, forcing us to be evacuated to another hospital. According to some accounts, my mother and I were sent down the river by boat to the other hospital, which resulted in some discussion about whether I should be named Don or Moses.
Approximately 10,500 homes were destroyed in Winnipeg alone, and 5,000 buildings were damaged. But through it all, Manitobans pulled together, both to fight the flood and then to rebuild, and finally to prevent future damage possibly reoccurring on that scale.
It was Premier Duff Roblin who spearheaded the development of the Red River Floodway. The excavation of the floodway channel became known as Duff’s Ditch, and it was the second largest earth-moving project in the world, second only to the Panama Canal and larger than the Suez Canal excavation. Since its opening in 1968, it has prevented similar flood damage in Winnipeg from ever reoccurring. After the 1997 Manitoba flood, the floodway was expanded even further, with its capacity now able to accommodate nearly 4,000 cubic metres of water per second.
Manitobans have proven themselves to be tough and resilient people. We have had to be in order to make a life in what is certainly a beautiful land, but one which can also be harsh and unforgiving.
Of course, Indigenous people have known that for the thousands of years they have lived in this region. The presence of Indigenous peoples in Canada can be traced back to approximately 10,000 years ago, shortly after the last ice glaciers retreated. Over time, there were settlements of Ojibwe, Cree, Dene, Sioux, Mandan and Assiniboine. These First Peoples were resilient and resourceful, surviving bitter winters and trading amongst themselves to create a better life for their communities. It is thought that the Whiteshell Provincial Park region in Manitoba may have been a trading centre where Indigenous peoples from the four corners of Turtle Mountain would come to trade, learn and share knowledge.
When the Europeans began to arrive in the 1600s and the fur trade began to expand further west in the 1700s, Lake Winnipeg became a major junction for the trade routes. Indigenous peoples were a key part of this trade, which brought both economic opportunity and violent confrontations.
When the province was formed in 1870, its name was drawn from its Indigenous heritage. The word “Manitoba” is believed to have come from several Indigenous languages, including the Cree word manitou-wapow, the Ojibwe word manidoobaa or the Assiniboine word minnetoba.
For a land that can be harsh, Manitoba has attracted one of the most diverse populations that exist anywhere in the world. The 2006 Canadian Census found that more than 200 ethnic groups now make up Manitoba’s diverse population. Manitobans celebrate that diversity every year through festivals like Folklorama and through many individual celebrations put on in individual communities. The diversity is a testimony to the opportunity that so many have seen and continue to see in my province. It’s a testimony both to the strength of Manitoba and to the strength of Canada.
I also believe that the energy that this diversity has generated helps to explain the multifaceted talent that Manitoba has generated over the decades. Neil Young, Burton Cummings and the Guess Who, Randy Bachman and Tom Cochrane. These are just a few of so many great artists who have come out of and contributed to Manitoba’s vibrant cultural scene.
Manitoba has built world-renowned cultural institutions. The Royal Winnipeg Ballet is known the world over, while the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre has become a model for regional theatres throughout Canada and the United States.
The Winnipeg Art Gallery has the world’s largest collection of contemporary Inuit art, while Winnipeg’s French theatre — and I’m going to mess this up — Théâtre Cercle Molière — am I close, Senator Gagné? Close. Thank you! It is Canada’s oldest continuously operating French theatre.
The Canadian Museum for Human Rights is the world’s first museum dedicated to human rights and the first new national museum ever to be located outside of the National Capital Region.
Manitobans have also excelled in athletics. The world knows speed skaters Susan Auch, Clara Hughes and Cindy Klassen. Curling’s Jennifer Jones won the gold medal for Canada in 2014 and is acclaimed in her sport. She made 15 appearances at the national Scotties Tournament of Hearts, winning and representing Canada at the World Championships six times.
Jeff Stoughton is a three-time Canadian curling champion and a two-time world champion.
I do not believe that anyone can go to a Winnipeg Jets game and not be swept away by the enthusiasm and love that the Manitobans have for their team.
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers have made the most Grey Cup appearances — more than Saskatchewan — having played for the coveted trophy 25 times and winning 11 of those.
So many individual Manitobans have also made major contributions to the world. Baldur Stefansson — known as the “father of canola” — is said to have changed the face of the prairies.
Arthur DeFehr, the founder of Palliser Furniture, made a company founded on Christian ethics and one of Canada’s largest furniture manufacturers.
Monty Hall, from the North End of Winnipeg, who everyone in North America came to know as the host of “Let’s Make a Deal.”
Sir William Stephenson ran the spy war against Nazi Germany during World War II and became the inspiration for James Bond.
Our own Murray Sinclair from Selkirk, Manitoba, has been an inspiration to his people, to Manitobans and to Canadians.
There are literally too many to mention. The contributions that Manitobans have made have enabled their province, their country and the world to become a better place.
Manitobans have always been a people to look forward rather than backward. Right now, Manitobans, like the rest of Canada and the rest of the world, are facing a new challenge as the result of a global pandemic that is testing our collective capacity to cope and persevere. But like the Spanish flu of a century ago, this new challenge too will be beaten. Manitoba’s communities, like communities all across Canada, work together to move forward as they always have. This is, after all, the essence of Canada.
The Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples stated 25 years ago:
Canada is a test case for a grand notion — the notion that dissimilar peoples can share lands, resources, power and dreams while respecting and sustaining their differences. The story of Canada is the story of many such peoples, trying and failing and trying again, to live together in peace and harmony.
That is, indeed, the story of Canada and the story of my province, Manitoba.
When my own people, the Mennonites, came to Manitoba in the 1870s, they left everything behind, clinging to that hope. Mennonites who came to Manitoba in a later migration during the 1920s had seen family members murdered before their very eyes and had seen everything taken away from them — their land and all their possessions. But in Canada and in Manitoba, they found freedom and they found peace. They also found opportunity and prosperity. That is why they came, and that is why they have stayed. Canada and Manitoba remain attractive to the world because they still carry that same hope for the peoples of the world.
Today, colleagues, I invite you to join me in celebrating Manitoba’s one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. It is an opportunity to remember what has been accomplished and to work hard for an even better future in the next 150 years. Thank you.
Honourable Senators, I rise today to speak to Senator Plett’s inquiry on recognizing Manitoba’s one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. I want to thank Senator Plett for taking the initiative in putting forward this inquiry and so giving the chamber an opportunity to recognize Manitoba’s history.
Manitoba became the fifth province to join Confederation 150 years ago. However, we cannot honour Manitoba’s past without acknowledging her long history prior to Confederation. Before first contact with European settlers, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples conservatively estimated that over half a million Indigenous peoples inhabited Turtle Island.
Manitoba, a Cree word meaning “the narrows of the Great Spirit,” was Cree, Dakota, Dene, Ojibwa and Oji-Cree country, and eventually the country of the Métis Nation. At times in isolation, at times through interactions, peoples of different cultures and social organizations inhabited Manitoban lands from time immemorial. Let us not forget this fact, this too long neglected part of our history.
As we celebrate the Manitoba Act of 1870, we must not overlook the long, proud history of the Métis Nation and its active contributions to building Canada and the Province of Manitoba. The Métis people were born in the 1700s when French and Scottish fur traders married Indigenous women.
Europeans began travelling further and further into the northwest, primarily seeking a route to the Pacific Ocean, but also seeking Castor canadensis, or more precisely the second layer of its fur, which was so well suited to making felt and the felt hats that were so fashionable in Europe at the time. La Vérendrye, for instance, who was encouraged to navigate the waters from Lake Superior to Lake Winnipeg by the Cree and Assiniboine in trade negotiations, settled at the confluence of the Red River and the Assiniboine, where the cities of Winnipeg and St. Boniface and their French heritage would emerge.
The Métis are one of the Indigenous peoples of Canada within the meaning of subsection 35(2) of the Constitution Act, 1982. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that the Métis nation became a people of the northwest even before that territory was part of Canada. Thanks to the determination of the francophone Métis, their leader Louis Riel, and his provisional government, including Father Joseph-Noël Ritchot, Manitoba secured its provincial status, bilingual institutions and separate schools upon entering Confederation.
Like the various First Nations and later the Métis, the French Canadians living in this area fought to be treated fairly in this expanding federation. That was the case for my great-grandparents on the Gagné side, who moved to the area near the Rat River in 1877. By 1872, just two years after Manitoba entered Confederation, it was already evident that it would not be easy to ensure that the rights obtained by the Métis were upheld. Father Ritchot, who had been one of three people sent to Ottawa by Louis Riel in 1870 to ensure respect for property rights on Métis land on the Red River and to promote Manitoba’s entry into Confederation, strongly encouraged some Métis people to settle quickly on the good land along the Rat River.
In 1877, 20 families were living in the mission established on the Rat River, known as the Saint-Pierre mission. Father Jean-Marie Jolys took over and had a chapel and the first schools built. A lot of effort was made to recruit new French Canadian settlers from Quebec and the United States, where they had emigrated. They were all francophone. Here I stand, the descendant of immigrants who left France in 1644 to settle in Quebec before moving on to Massachusetts and finally Manitoba. Thanks to the resilience of these valiant pioneers, I have the privilege of addressing you this evening as a francophone senator from Manitoba.
Manitoba is one of three Canadian provinces with constitutionally protected language rights, putting it at the forefront of the fight for language rights. That said, the government’s support of language rights for Franco-Manitobans has fluctuated greatly over time, as guarantees were negotiated and rights were denied, for example with the Thornton Act. Fiercely fought battles were waged all the way to the highest court in the land to restore these rights, thanks in part to Georges Forest and Roger Bilodeau.
The resistance of Franco-Manitobans, especially with respect to education, inspired other battles across French Canada and helped pave the way for the adoption of the federal Official Languages Act in 1969 and its 1988 overhaul.
The legal battles fought by Franco-Manitobans had an effect across the country. These battles helped delineate the language rights guaranteed to all official language minority communities and led to amendments to the regulations under Part IV of the act, requiring that federal services be offered in both official languages.
In looking back on the province’s history, we cannot help but observe how the diversity of relations and struggles in Manitoba are a microcosm of those that characterize Canada’s history as a whole and of the many important issues we continue to navigate today as a federation. I would like to conclude my speech by addressing three of these issues: first, the issue of recognizing language rights; second, the recognition of the rights of Indigenous peoples and their history; and third, our tradition of welcoming immigrants.
In recognizing and maintaining language rights at the federal level, this is a task that we have before us in modernizing the Official Languages Act. The landscape has evolved considerably since Lester Pearson commissioned André Laurendeau and Davidson Dunton to undertake their study. At the level of the provinces, my colleagues from Quebec know all too well the declining rates of the use of French in its metropolis Montreal. Today, the province debates how to rehabilitate Bill 101.
In New Brunswick, the province’s bilingual constitutional status is being questioned, most notably by a new provincial political party that opposes elements of the province’s official bilingualism. In Ontario, just over two years ago in this very chamber, we deplored the abolishment of the province’s language commissioner and how funding for the French-language university was cut. In British Columbia, this past June, the Supreme Court of Canada found the provincial government violated section 23 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in systematically underfunding the French-language school board.
In other words, in reflecting on the history of minority language rights in Manitoba, we have a lesson for all Canadians: remain vigilant. The homogenizing forces of globalization are too often unkind to linguistic minorities, as they have been to Indigenous peoples.
Only in 2016 did the Supreme Court recognize the Métis and non-status Indians under section 91 of the 1867 Constitution Act. The Daniels decision affirmed the federal government’s fiduciary duty, and the right of Métis to be consulted in good faith. This breakthrough came over 150 years after Louis Riel started on the quest for constitutional recognition.
Politics in Manitoba, as elsewhere, has not been a cakewalk. There have been hard-fought battles, and there have been calamities, including natural disasters, but from the fertile soils of the south, up through the rocky Canadian Shield and the freshwater lakes that the Hudson Bay nourishes, Manitoba is a place of living together — a place of friendships, a place like the giant prairie sky of openness. There is no better place to appreciate this than by looking at Manitoba’s rich tradition of welcoming newcomers.
The Cree, Dakota, Dene, Ojibway and Oji-Cree were the first to welcome Europeans to their lands. Through the different waves over the centuries, Manitobans have welcomed people from all four corners of the globe. All found a home in Manitoba, including the Vietnamese boat people who arrived in the late 1970s, the Rwandan families of the 1990s and, more recently, the families fleeing civil war in Syria.
Despite its difficulties, over the last 150 years Manitoba has demonstrated resilience and political wisdom in building a society where diversity and common values are held together. In the next 150 years, I hope future generations will renew and strengthen this legacy because democracy depends upon diversity. Thank you. Meegwetch.
Honourable senators, I start by saying happy one hundred fiftieth to all my fellow Manitobans and congratulations on the many accomplishments in so many fields, from medicine to agriculture, education to business, engineering to architecture, aeronautics to athletics and so many more. I have certainly had an eventful, rewarding career in the arts and academia in Manitoba, the province of my birth and where I have returned twice over the decades to be part of our boomerang club. I thank Senator Plett for initiating this inquiry and for his and Senator Gagné’s excellent historical summary of our strong and resilient Manitobans.
You’re not going to be surprised that tonight I will pick up on the creative side of Manitobans and focus on the exciting and important arts hub that my province has been for hundreds of years — far more than the 150 we are celebrating this year. You all know I call my office “mini-Manitoba,” and you all have the publication Celebrating Manitoban Art about the work I have installed in my office.
First, let me say how proud I am to be the first Canadian-born member of my family and how lucky I am that Manitoba was that place. My family, like so many, has lived and worked in the province with dedication and pride. My father was a fur trade historian and edited the 1770s journals of Samuel Hearne, which included the explorer’s time in Churchill, the gathering point for the Inuit, Cree and Dene peoples.
Both my deceased husbands are on the roster of Memorable Manitobans and served the province with pride and love of place. One, John Bovey, was a provincial archivist who brought the Hudson’s Bay Archives from the U.K. to Winnipeg, a significant historical holding that became the first UNESCO-designated archival collection globally. The other, John Harvard, after his award-winning journalism career, served Manitoba in the House of Commons for four terms and then as Manitoba Lieutenant-Governor. He always championed ordinary Manitobans from every corner of the province, celebrating their many strengths and faces.
In 1970, Manitoba’s centennial, I returned to Manitoba as a very young, inexperienced curator at the Winnipeg Art Gallery to work with a major centennial exhibition, heralding visual expressions by itinerant, early-resident and, later, long-time professional artists. From the early work of Indigenous peoples, including the exemplary beadwork of the Métis and the intricate birch bark biting of First Nations creators, to the arrival of the first explorers who witnessed a landscape, light and customs they have never seen before and the 1821 arrival in Hudson’s Bay of the first trained artist to be resident in Western Canada, Peter Rindisbacher, a 15-year-old Swiss boy. His family and that group thought they were arriving in New Orleans — what a surprise!
They moved to Red River where they lived until 1826, and Rindisbacher’s new surroundings and its fauna fascinated him, and his work changed in response. He painted many portraits of Indigenous people engaged in traditional activities and ceremonial treaty signings, the interior of Hudson’s Bay buildings, and he also recorded Europeans in the region. The respect, sensitivity and ability with which he portrayed his subjects is captivating, as are his landscapes, such fresh depictions of the light in Manitoba’s vast spaces.
Early depictions by European artists included an engraving after a sketch by Samuel Hearne, Fort Prince of Wales, dated 1769; a watercolour by H.J. Robertson at Fort Gibraltar in 1804; and an 1817 engraving after a sketch by Lord Selkirk at Fort Douglas. Most early itinerant artists passed through the region as members of various exploration parties.
Our province has been a Canadian creative hub ever since, and the many leading innovative accomplishments were, I believe, enabled in part by our geographic isolation and severe winter climates. The rich discussions, cross-disciplinary experiments and the lively evenings in studios and galleries made it Winnipeg. Bruce Head, R.C.A., who spent his entire career in Winnipeg never felt isolated, and he stated about the scene:
Here you can find out what is happening in the art world. You can get active but you can also be left alone if you want.
In 1870, when the province joined Confederation, it was dubbed the “Gateway to the West,” and Winnipeg was seen as “Chicago of the North.” We’ve talked about the derivation of the name of Manitoba and that one of its Indigenous meanings was the “place where God lives,” the title Sandy Bay-born artist Robert Houle named one of his major paintings.
The name “Winnipeg” comes from the Cree, meaning “murky or muddy water,” an apt description, I fear, of the colour of the river waters. I love skating the rivers and taking children out to the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers where the ice is of different colours, and I point out that this is the place where the economy of Western Canada was born. The 1905 painting, The Dakota Boat, by W. Frank Lynn, depicts with clarity that early trade and contemporary life, the forts, the Hudson’s Bay Upper Fort Garry, the Indigenous and Hudson’s Bay Company leaders in the centre of the work, and it shows the river and the evocative sunset.
Manitoba is a cradle of so many firsts in Canadian arts and culture. Red River, for instance, was the site of the first oil paintings done outdoors in Canada by William Hind in 1862, more than 40 years before the founding of the Group of Seven, and eight years before we joined Confederation.
Artistic hubs require a number of factors to succeed, including political leadership, as we have heard, economic stability, a population of sufficient size and artists who are keen to push boundaries. Manitoba had all these convergences.
The influential Winnipeg branch of the Women’s Art Association of Canada was founded in 1894 by a group of determined and dedicated women, and their innovations and goals spelled the solid foundations the arts of the province still build on. The Winnipeg Women’s Art Association and the Virden Agricultural Fair both contributed substantially to the young province’s flowering art scene, and their leadership spawned a number of organizations in Winnipeg and across the province. Indeed, the 1893 Virden fair’s fine arts section was so successful, subsequent agricultural fairs in the province became the major visual arts exhibition venues.
The first civic art gallery in Canada was the Winnipeg Art Gallery, which opened in December 1912. Following the lead of the Winnipeg Women’s Art Association in the 1890s, the gallery presented Indigenous art of the region at its inception, and now its new Inuit arts centre will be opening in February as part of the province’s one hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebrations. The Winnipeg Art Gallery will be pioneering education and awareness programs to the Arctic, sharing their important Inuit collections and research virtually — programs which will, however, be dependent on increased bandwidth in the North.
The first abstract painter in Canada, Bertram Brooker, had worked in the theatre in Neepawa before doing his 1927-28 abstractions. The photo engraving firm Brigdens of Winnipeg, founded in the provincial capital in 1914, became the largest employer of artists in the West for years. They had the contract to produce Eaton’s mail-order catalogue.
The “Painter of The Prairie,” Winnipeg’s Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald, was the only western member of the Group of Seven in the early 1930s, and three decades later, in 1968, the grand Western Canadian Screen Shop was founded in Winnipeg. They connected with print-making studios in Quebec and Newfoundland. Their gatherings poured out into the street and were legendary.
The organization’s fiftieth anniversary had shared celebrations in Regina and Winnipeg, and we are anticipating the catalogue shortly. It is clear that from 1950 forward, individual artists, organizations, the Winnipeg School of Art, arts collectives and more, together created the phenomenon dubbed “the Winnipeg effect” — an impact felt across Canada.
Not surprisingly, new media brought new revolutions in art-making — computer generated work, digital imaging, memes of participatory audience engagement in work, sound, and interdisciplinary creation proliferated.
Reva Stone, recipient of the Governor General’s award in visual arts is one who pushed those boundaries substantially, with works like Carnevale, a groundbreaking piece that uses new media to engage viewers. It is a life-sized double aluminum cut-out of a young girl who moves robotically around the gallery space, interacting with visitors, taking their pictures and then displaying them on the wall. It’s compelling.
In her work, Reva Stone is now exploring artificial intelligence, surveillance studies and privacy concerns. That connection between arts and science and the studios and labs in our province are significant and extend internationally with the work of people like Aganetha Dyck with her decades of long, visual studies of bees. She shared concerns with global scientists and worked with them on international residencies on many occasions as they all tried to save the bee species.
I spoke last week in this chamber of some of our arts organizations and several marked Canadian firsts. For instance, the first English-speaking regional theatre in Canada was the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, founded in 1958 by John Hirsch and Tom Hendry. It was an amalgamation of the Winnipeg Little Theatre and Theatre 77. Early theatre in Winnipeg was born in Winnipeg’s living rooms, like that of Claude Sinclair and his wife’s, which I got to know well, decades later.
The spirit of collaboration between writers, dancers, actors, composers, musicians and visual artists in the early performances was inspiring as is evident from biographies and programs, and it is still obvious when attending performances today, and John Hirsch’s Winnipeg role is legendary.
Manitoba also spawned the country’s first contemporary dance company and Canada’s largest continuously running modern dance company, Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers, founded in 1964 by Rachel Browne. They have presented works across Canada and the United States. Dance is key in Winnipeg’s arts constellation. The Royal Winnipeg Ballet is Canada’s oldest ballet company, founded as a club in 1938 and company in 1941, and is the longest continuously operating ballet company in North America. Their commissioned choreography is groundbreaking and stunning, whether Going Home Star — Truth and Reconciliation or the more traditional Nutcracker, that has a unique Winnipeg twist and setting. For almost 80 years, their ballet school has been a fixture, and how I remember my unsuccessful foray as a ballet student.
I could go on about the productions and work of all our organizations, but time precludes that. Let me turn to the richness, creativity, inspiration and energy of individual creators of whom we are so proud.
Of course, Manitoba’s writers have been and are very strong. Miriam Toews, known as the novelist extraordinaire; Carol Shields, dubbed Winnipeg’s fiction queen; Gabrielle Roy, a franco-Canadian star scribe; and, of course, Margaret Laurence, who was and is the pride of Neepawa; poet Dorothy Livesay was celebrated from coast to coast; and there are many more.
Our performers, musicians and filmmakers are also wonderful, and if you think I am bragging, I am. The world famous violinist Brandon-born and trained James Ehnes, the Guess Who, the Weakerthans, composers Glenn Buhr, Sid Robinovitch, Sierra Noble, Rémi Bouchard and jazz musician Ron Paley, filmmakers like Guy Maddin and visual artists and ceramists. Their work is collected, seen, published and toured globally. Indigenous artists too are more than worthy of celebration. Composer Andrew Balfour, writer Ian Ross and visual artist KC Adams are only three.
Manitoba’s creativity and traditions have spread far and wide. For instance, our National Arts Centre long-time director Peter Herrndorf is Manitoban. He grew up not far from my childhood home.
The first university in Western Canada, the Manitoba Agricultural College, founded in 1877, is now the University of Manitoba and celebrated its one hundred and fortieth anniversary in 2017.
The Winnipeg School of Art, founded in 1913, formally joined the university in 1951 and it is still going strong in training artists in a variety of disciplines with conviction and substance.
So too is the music faculty. Arts students have been recipients of the Sobey Art Award, and a number of their professors and other senior artists have received the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts.
At the first hospital in Western Canada, l’Hôpital St-Boniface, the arts have played an important role in healing for decades — actually, since its inception.
I could go on. But you get the sense of the hive of creative activity Manitoba has witnessed. It is truly a pioneering province and one that has welcomed immigrants from the outset — the Icelanders making it a larger Icelandic population than Iceland itself; the Scots, who founded the Red River Settlement; the Filipinos, who have contributed immeasurably to the fabric of our province. Indeed, I believe there is no country in the world that is not represented in Manitoba’s citizenry.
Colleagues, I’m obviously a proud Manitoban. I invite you all to come and take part in any of our festivals, concerts, indoor or outdoor theatre, exhibitions or studio tours. It would be my honour to host you in our special and dynamic creative hub. Thank you.
