So. Our provincial government released a White Paper today called: Drawing the Line: Defending Saskatchewan's Economic Autonomy.
Some preliminary thoughts: 🧵 The paper situates itself squarely within the Saskatchewan second-class province rhetoric of gaining provincehood in 1905 WITHOUT full control over Crown lands.

I'm halfway through a course on #Mentalhealth first aid, and I want to share a powerful message. Mental health can be viewed and understood via where it sits vis a vis physical health. We had various illnesses, and had to rank them from least to most needing help. Ready? We were each given cards with illnesses, and we set them on the floor in the order we thought, from least problematic to most serious. When we were done, the leaders helped us rearrange them into the correct order from least to most needing care:

There is a somewhat ahistorical viewpoint regarding some of Saskatchewan’s largest social/infrastructure changes that deserves review. Three that come to mind are rural electrification, telephone, and Medicare.
All came from local innovations that were scaled up. Let me explain. Medicare’s roots were in local innovation, such as an RM hiring a local doctor via taxes, or building/supporting a cottage hospital. These early wins cascaded across municipal lines, with local variations, including medical insurance.

I've made the point before but I'll make it again: if you think about the pandemic as simply a health care crisis, you'll deliberately misunderstand its true reality: this is best understood as Total Mobilization. And the two best examples of Total Mobilization for Canada are not the 1918 flu pandemic or the 1950s polio story. The two examples of Total Mobilization are WWI and WWII. If you understand that, break that down, you'll see where I'm going.

I was part of a conversation today which left me unsettled, angry and rather disgusted by the casual misogyny, the way the conversation rolled out. It had to do with farm property, marriage and divorce, and legal dispersal of farm property.
So you get a thread (sorry/welcome). I am a trained western Canadian historian AND a woman farmer, and I can tell you that white women fought against patriarchal property laws in western Canada for generations.

There's a meme going around comparing the Capitol insurrection with BLM protests. Here are a few key differences the meme conveniently ignores:
1. Leadership. The sitting POTUS *called for* the event. Not just responded after. Called for it. 2. Amplification: the sitting POTUS used social media to advertise the event for weeks, giving it legitimacy and voice.

Omayra asks an important question, especially given the current political climate in western Canada. Whether or not you agree with or believe in it, it holds power in its ability to stir people's emotions.

https://twitter.com/OmayraIssa/status/1323016302831706113

It's first and foremost a concept tied most closely to western non-Indigenous settlement and extractive industries eg agriculture, timber, mining -- though Ottawa has it's own terrible history with Indigenous peoples.

Quotes from this evening's reading of Allan Tupper's article 'Mr Trudeau and the West' from 1981: 'Western alienation is now based upon a solid foundation of complex political, economic, and institutional forces. It will remain a cornerstone of the Canadian political agenda regardless of the Liberal party's national leader or...The stripe of the governing party in Ottawa.'

So...when I say that there is energy in last night's Buffalo Party vote, I decided to break it down. They ran 17 candidates in ridings across the province. Definitely an indicator of not great organization (Greens ran 60, PCs 31) but 17 ran. In those ridings, the percentage of the vote ranged from a low of 3.49% of that riding's vote (Saskatoon Stonebridge Dakota) up to a whopping 25.50% in Estevan.

There are several key posts on @women4sask site on mental health care. Danielle Chartier:

https://twitter.com/women4sask/status/1317600572912988161

The excellent @LanaShawAg brings a visceral personal call for support for rural caregivers: womenforsaskatchewan.ca/lana-shaw-supp…

Good morning, and happy Last Day Before The Saskatchewan Provincial Election. Over the past month, we've uploaded around 50 posts from Saskatchewan women writers with many ideas for SK future.
womenforsaskatchewan.ca Ours Voices of Iskwewak series, written by Indigenous leaders, is amongst the most powerful writing, shining light with an Indigenous lens. womenforsaskatchewan.ca/category/voice…

This was a week of interesting conversations, both public and private. In two cases, I was asked to clarify *why* rural folks think in particular ways around climate change, especially pipelines and the 'just' transition to green energy. A thread: [Note: I do not speak for all rural residents. These are my opinions, drawn from what I see and hear. They are by no means universal].

I am confused. Were the charges stayed, or withdrawn? There is a huge legal difference, despite the lawyer interviewed in the article (whose remarks should be reviewed by the law society).
cbc.ca/news/canada/sa… A charge that is stayed is still on the court record and can be reactivated. It matters who requested the stay of charges. pardons.org/stay-of-charge…

I'm a historian. I follow a lot of historians on Twitter.

I've yet to find a single historian angry about statues being torn down.

(Book burning, though...or reducing funding to archives...that gets them hopping. Since that's an actual site of history loss). Statues? Nope. Let me explain. I have a new book out, about a person: Sylvia Fedoruk. (It's called A Radiant Life and a great place to find it is @McNallySK) It's entirely possible that an artist could be commissioned to create a statue of Sylvia. Great.

It's time for another edition of 10 Cool Things About Sylvia Fedoruk!

https://twitter.com/TweeterMillsCBC/status/1299709642885533698

1. Syl was instrumental in rescuing Sask's cobalt bomb for posterity: first, mounted in the ceiling of the cancer clinic; now, a valued part of the @wdmtweets Western Development Museum collection in Saskatoon.

Alright. With my new book on the shelves @McNallySK and @usask gearing up to host an online launch September 15th AND an appearance @JohnGormleyShow this Friday, here's another 10 things about #SylviaFedoruk: 1. She might be famous for her work with #cobalt60, but her first @usask summer job was to work on the betatron. Even though it was used primarily for cancer treatment, it was in the physics building, not the hospital.

Ten of the most interesting things about Sylvia Fedoruk that you might not know: #ARadiantLife #SylviaFedoruk

https://twitter.com/UofRPress/status/1297997288715907073

1. She was an avid amateur photographer and won prizes at the @SaskatoonEx for photography exhibits.

With the strong #BlackLivesMatter and #IndigenousLivesMatter movements, I thought I'd help by addressing some of the popularized misconceptions around Indigenous people and prairie farming. We know that serious systemic racism exists, and it exists strongly in ag communities. First: the history of First Nations within the space we now know as western Canada (prairie, boreal, and cordillera) spans 10,000+ years. It's deep, and is complex with many layers. It cannot and should never be dismissed by a sentence or two, or a paragraph.

Am thinking about what advice would be useful to first year university students. I'm compiling a list that I've given my son.
1. Read your emails, all the way through. No skimming, no shortcuts. Universities communicate via email. 2. Read your class syllabus. High schools don't use these, so kids don't understand what they are, why they are important, and how they help.
Read. The. Syllabus.