It is #PrideMonth and this is the story of Michelle Douglas, who legally challenged the LGBTQ discriminatory policies in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Michelle Douglas was born in Ottawa in 1963 & after studying law, she joined the Canadian Forces in 1986.
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She soon became the first woman promoted to the Special Investigations Unit.
In 1989, despite her excellent service record, she was released from the Forces for being a lesbian. Her release stated:
"Not Advantageously Employable Due to Homosexuality"
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She then launched a $550,000 lawsuit against the Department of National Defence in January 1990.
Douglas stated that two male officers took her to a hotel room and questioned her about her sexual activities and told her that she should like men.
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Before her lawsuit could go to trial, the Canadian military abandoned its policy of banning gays and lesbians in the military and settled the case with Douglas.
This made Canada one of the first countries to openly allow LGBTQ individuals to serve in the military.
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Since then, Douglas has engaged in social justice and human rights activism. She helped found the Rainbow Railroad LGBT refugee organization. She also offered advice for LGBTQ Supreme Court cases including Vriend v Alberta & M v H.
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On this day in 1986, Canadian author Robert Munsch released his book Love You Forever.
One of the most successful children's books ever written, it is beloved by generations of Canadians and others worldwide.
Let's learn more about it (and try not to cry)!
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Robert Munsch, who was born in Pittsburgh in 1945, moved to Canada in 1975 to work at the preschool at the University of Guelph.
Four years later, he released his first book, Mud Puddle.
As for Love You Forever, the origin of the book is quite tragic.
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In the early-1980s, he and his wife Ann, went through two pregnancies that resulted in stillbirths.
After each stillbirth, Munsch silently sang in his head a four-line poem he wrote called Love You Forever.
He called it his way of crying to deal with the loss.
On a bluff overlooking Rice Lake near Peterborough, Ontario, you will find the only known effigy mound in all of Canada.
Dating back over 2,000 years, The Serpent Mounds are an important site for the First Nations.
Let's learn more!
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The mounds are composed of several separate burial locations that vary in size and resemble a snake with snake eggs around it.
They were gradually built up over the course of 350 years from 50 CE to 300 CE as an important burial site.
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The builders of the mounds were believed to be the Point Peninsula complex, an Indigenous culture that existed from 600 BCE to 700 CE during the Middle Woodland Period. Their territory stretched from Ontario to New York.
Today, CCM is known for producing hockey equipment but that is not how things began.
Early on, it was making bicycles and even automobiles but everything changed when the company had an abundance of scrap metal.
Let's learn more of the company's early history!
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Way back in 1899, CCM was founded in Weston, Ontario as a bicycle manufacturer. Unfortunately, after a bike boom in the early-1890s, the bicycle market collapsed by the end of the decade.
The company did its best to get its bicycles sold on the market.
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Eventually, the company accounted for 85% of the Canadian bicycle company.
In 1903, the company established the Russell Motor Car Company in Toronto and began to make automobiles for Canadians. It produced its first automobile in 1905.
From 1869 to 1948, over 100,000 children arrived in Canada from Great Britain as part of the British Child Emigration Movement.
It was believed the children would have a better life in Canada but that was too often not the case.
Let's learn more.
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The Children's Friend Society was founded in London in 1830 to suppress "juvenile vagrancy" through "reformation and emigration". In 1833, 230 children were sent to Toronto and New Brunswick.
It was a few decades before many more children were sent to Canada.
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In the 1860s, philanthropist Annie MacPherson was appalled at the conditions children were forced to work in at factories in London. She decided to help them and believed sending them away from the cities and even Britain was the best option for a better life.
The Starr Manufacturing Company was one of the most influential companies in Canada when it came to the development of hockey.
Their skate designs revolutionized the sport and the company's place in our history is secure.
Let's learn more!
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In 1861, the Starr Manufacturing Company was established by Dartmouth businessman John Starr.
Originally, the company just produced nuts and bolts, but in 1863 John Forbes (pictured) was hired and he brought something he was working on to the company.
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Forbes was working on a new type of skate, and with his co-worker Thomas Bateman, they invented the Acme Spring Skate.
This creation revolutionized skates. Unlike previous skates, this one clamped to a boot with a spring-lock mechanism to create a secure fit.
When an engineer graduates in Canada, they are presented with an iron ring in a ceremony called The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer.
The ring origin is claimed to relate to the Quebec Bridge collapse of 1907 but that isn't quite true.
Let's learn more!
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The bridge itself collapsed in 1907, and was then rebuilt but collapsed again during construction in 1916. It was finally completed in 1917 and still stands to this day. The bridge cost $23 million to build, and led to 88 deaths during construction.
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According to the story, the iron that was not re-used from the collapsed bridge was used to forge the first iron rings worn by graduates of Canadian engineering schools.
The true origin of the Iron Ring comes from H.E.T. Haultain, a mining engineering professor at U of T.