Historica Canada
Historica Canada is a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to promoting the country's history and citizenship. All of its programs are offered bilingually and reach more than 28 million Canadians annually.[5]
Formation
November 9, 1999
The Historica Foundation of Canada and The Dominion Institute
BN: 885434720RR0001
Registered charity
10 Adelaide Street East, Suite 400, Toronto, Ontario M5C 1J3
Canada
Anthony Wilson-Smith
(President & CEO)
The Historica-Dominion Institute
A registered national charitable organization, Historica Canada was originally established as the Historica-Dominion Institute following a 2009 merger of two existing groups—the Historica Foundation of Canada and The Dominion Institute—and changed to its present name in September 2013.[6] Anthony Wilson-Smith has been president and CEO of the organization since September 2012, with the board of directors being chaired (as of January 2021) by First National Financial-co-founder Stephen Smith.[7]
Some of the organizations best-known programs include its collection of Heritage Minutes—60-second vignettes re-enacting important and remarkable incidents in Canada's history—and The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada regularly conducts public opinion polls and creates educational videos, podcasts, and learning tools. It also operates the Ottawa-based Encounters with Canada youth program.[8]
Current programs[edit]
Canada During COVID-19[edit]
To commemorate the era of COVID-19 in Canada for future generations, Historica Canada launched Canada During COVID-19, a "living archive" of the Canadian experience during the coronavirus pandemic beginning in 2020.[9]
Historica Canada invites people to add to this grassroots project in any form—be it through photograph, video, GIF, music, art, or writing—using the project's hashtag and tagging the project's page on Instagram (and Historica Canada itself on other social media).[9]
Indigenous Arts & Stories[edit]
Indigenous Arts & Stories, on hiatus for the 2019/2020 year, is the largest art and creative-writing competition for Indigenous youth in Canada. Starting in 2005 as exclusively a writing competition, the contest expanded to accept arts submissions in 2010–2011.[10]
The program invites First Nations, Métis, and Inuit artists aged 11 to 29 to interpret an aspect of their culture and heritage through literary and visual arts. The winning submissions are reviewed and selected by a jury (one for arts and another for stories) of accomplished Indigenous authors, artists, and community leaders. The contest was born out of a joint project of the Dominion Institute and Doubleday Canada: Our Story, a short story compilation that brings together 9 leading Indigenous authors, including Thomas King, Tomson Highway, and Tantoo Cardinal.[11] In its 15-year run, more than 5,500 youth have participated in the Indigenous Arts & Stories program.[10]
Jury members include Bonnie Devine, Brian Maracle, Drew Hayden Taylor, John Kim Bell, Kent Monkman, Lee Maracle, Maxine Noel, and Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley, among others. Honorary Patrons of the program have included Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami President Terry Audla, and Métis National Council President Clément Chartier.[12]
Citizenship Challenge[edit]
The Citizenship Challenge allows participants to test their Canadian knowledge by studying for and writing a mock citizenship exam in English or French. Presented by Historica Canada and funded by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the Citizenship Challenge has tested of over 1.05 million people as of January 2021.[13][14] As a studying resource for both the challenge and for actual citizenship tests themselves, Historica Canada offers a "Citizenship Collection" through the Canadian Encyclopedia.[15]
Beyond its core programs, Historica Canada also offers commemorative programs tied to specific events. Past, including commemorative, programs of Historica Canada include:[29]
Along with its core programs, Historica Canada also produces various educational media projects, all of which are created as free content to help promote learning and historical knowledge.[31]
Historica Canada's video collection, in addition to its over-90 Heritage Minute shorts, includes more than 150 online educational videos.[31]
Inspiring Innovators (2020) is a four-part animated video series exploring "Canadian innovations that have made the world a better and safer place." Created in partnership with the Rideau Hall Foundation, the series features stories from a book by Tom Jenkins and former Canadian Governor General David Johnston titled Ingenious: How Canadians Made the World Smarter, Smaller, Kinder, Safer, Healthier, Wealthier and Happier.[32]
Between 2019 and 2020, the organization has produced two brief podcast series:
In 2020, Historica Canada announced plans for a "Black History Podcast and Video Series," seeking a production company or team to develop a six-episode conversation-style podcast series (15–20 minutes each) and a three-part animated video series that adapts the podcast into visual form (3–5 minutes each), with a total budget of CA$75,000. The series is meant to explore key moments in Black-Canadian history through notable Black-Canadian scholars, writers, and community leaders in their own words.[31]