Madelaine Drohan

cbc.ca'Back up!': U.S. official shouts at Cuban delegation on floor of UN over annual resolution | CBC NewsU.S. and Cuban officials engaged in a stunning shouting match on the floor of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, the latest in a series of public spats between the longtime adversaries ov...

It’s pretty rich for a US official to be lecturing another country about corruption. www.cbc.ca/news/world/u...

Drop by the Dundurn Press booth if you are at TWOTS on Sunday. I’d be happy to talk about how Benjamin Franklin’s efforts to annex Canada set the stage for Donald Trump. #twots #canada #history #books #cdaus

Madelaine Drohan reposted

CIPS / CÉPI

@cepi-cips.bsky.social

21 Sept

Have you voted for the CIPS Best Blog Award 2026? 🏅 Wondering who's on the shortlist? ➡️ America’s Roots are Showing with its Threat to Greenland By @mdrohan.bsky.social Check out the full shortlist >>> www.cips-cepi.ca/2026/09/15/c...

nytimes.comOpinion | Canada Said No to America. It Will Reverberate Far Beyond Its Borders.Mark Carney has chosen suffering, but he did what Canadians elected him to do.

24 Aug

The majority of Canadians have been saying No to becoming Americans for 250 years. Some Americans either aren’t listening or won’t take No for an answer. #hedidnotconquer #canada #history #book #cdaus

epi.yale.eduEnvironmental Performance IndexEnvironmental Performance Index The 2026 EPI ranks 177 countries on 47 environmental indicators across 12 issue categories representing critical sustainability challenges in environmental public healt...

2 Aug

Canada is 29th on this list, below the United States at 27th. epi.yale.edu/indicator/20...

Madelaine Drohan reposted

Brent Toderian

@brenttoderian.bsky.social

26 July

To carry 50,000 people per hour in each direction, a city needs a 175m wide road for cars. Even if those cars are electric. And then there’s all the parking. OR a city can move A LOT MORE people in a lot less space, with A LOT LESS public money, emissions, pollution, noise etc. Choices. Simple.

theglobeandmail.comInside the private Muskoka conference that lures Canada’s movers and shakers – including Mark CarneySince 2015, the invitation-only gathering has brought together prominent Canadians for candid conversations about the challenges shaping the country’s future

26 July

Getting a bunch of rich people in a room will not solve the world’s problems. They will want to remake the world, or in this case the country, into a place where they would feel comfortable and where their needs are met. www.theglobeandmail.com/business/art...

26 July

The PM would make better use of his time meeting with those who deal with the problems created by rich people. Teachers. Doctors. Charities. There is a long list of people who could better acquaint the PM with the country he governs.

opencanada.orgWhen America Tried to Win Canada - Open CanadaThe failure of American colonists to win Canadian hearts and minds 250 years ago offers lessons for responding to current meddling in the Alberta separatism debate.

13 July

Propaganda, spies, and willing local accomplices. See how American meddling in the Alberta separatism debate resembles the tactics they used in Quebec 250 years ago. #hedidnotconquer #canada #history #americanrevolution @revwar250.bsky.social opencanada.org/when-america...

Madelaine Drohan reposted

Pissedoffpundit

@pissedoffpundant.bsky.social

11 July

Great movie, wish I would've known it was a documentary, way back then🤔...

@economist.com Checks and Balance podcast wants listeners to name their favourite founding father. I picked John Adams. Here is why: #hedidnotconquer #canada #history #books @dundurnpress.bsky.social @america250.bsky.social @revwar250.bsky.social

He was definitely put off by the slipperiness and chameleon-like qualities of Benjamin Franklin, the object of my study. Adams always seemed to have the good of his fellow colonists at heart, whereas with Franklin you never knew.

As for marital relations, Franklin spent decades apart from his common-law wife Deborah and did not bother to return home from Europe when he learned she was dying. I am not sure what Adams thought about that, but I doubt he approved.

I formed a liking for John Adams when I read letters written by delegates to the Continental Congress from the time the American colonists invaded Canada in 1775 to their Declaration of Independence in 1776.

His letters to his wife, Abigail, caught my eye. In them, he opened his mind to her on big matters (independence) and small (his personal faults), treating her as his equal. He came across as a straightforward, principled man. I suspect he may have been a bit of a prig in real life.

The founding fathers were still peeved with Britain about the 1774 Quebec Act when they declared independence #OTD July 4, 1776. They made sure to include the Act’s terms in the grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence. #canada #history #americanrevolution @revwar250.bsky.social

The landowners and speculators among the founders had counted on having the land below the Great Lakes for new settlements. They eventually got this part of Canada in the 1783 peace treaty with Britain that ended the American Revolution.

Section on the Quebec Act: “For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies”

The Protestant founders were irritated the Act allowed the French Canadians, 99% of the population in the British colony, to continue practising Roman Catholicism (despite promising to do the same when they were trying to get them to join the revolution).

They did not like that Britain allowed the Canadians to keep their civil law, except in criminal matters. But they were infuriated that Britain decided Canada’s borders should return to what they were (approx) when it conquered the colony in 1760, instead of much narrower ones set out in 1763.

youtu.beMadelaine Drohan: Long Before Trump, Franklin Failed to Annex Canada | TVO Today LiveYouTube video by TVO Today

It was a fun conversation.

hclark@hclark.bsky.social

As the U.S. prepares to celebrate its 250th, icymi: @mdrohan.bsky.social tells @spaikin.bsky.social about American founding father Benjamin Franklin's failed attempts to annex Canada. Don't know this story? She says that's because Canadians let the losers write the story: youtu.be/71XcY7OgYe8?...

3 July

#OTD July 3, 1776, John Adams grumbled in a letter to his wife Abigail that had the Declaration of Independence been made seven months earlier, “we should have mastered Quebec and been in Possession of Canada.” #hedidnotconquer #canada #history #books #americanrevolution @revwar250.bsky.social

But an attempt on December 31, 1775, failed miserably. The invaders finally departed Canada in late June 1776. On the upside, Adams told his wife the delay had extinguished hopes for reconciliation and solidified support for independence.

3 July

The previous day, delegates had voted unanimously for independence and had largely approved a declaration, barring final review. “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America,” he declared.

Instead, he hinted at internal divisions among the delegates, with those still hoping for reconciliation with Britain causing “Obstructions, Embarrassments and studied Delays, which have finally, lost Us the Province.”

3 July

Seven months earlier, American troops were gathered outside the walls of Quebec City, the seat of British power in the colony. Hopes were high that with Montreal and Trois-Rivières already in their hands, Canada would soon be theirs.

He said that if he could write freely, he could easily convince her “how such a Declaration would have influenced Affairs in Canada.” Delegates to the Continental Congress had agreed not to talk about their internal deliberations.

Madelaine Drohan reposted

Internet Archive

@archive.org

🇨🇦 This Canada Day, we're celebrating the remarkable collection built by Internet Archive Canada and its library, archive, and university partners over the past 20 years. Discover how this digital library came together ⤵️ internetarchivecanada.org/2026/07/01/w... 🧵 1️⃣/ 👇

#OTD July 1, 1776, delegates to the Continental Congress pondered their failure to make Canada the 14th colony before they moved on to debating the wording of their intended declaration of independence. #history #books #americanrevolution @revwar250.bsky.social @250yearsagonews.bsky.social

Only after all these letters were read could delegates resume what John Adams called “the Great Debate” over the declaration. But the letters had left their mark. “Alass Canada!” Adams wrote a friend at the end of the day. “We have found Misfortune and disgrace in that Quarter. Evacuated at last.”

In a different letter, Adams blamed the indecision of Congress and mistakes by rebel officers for the series of disasters in Canada, adding that an epidemic of small pox “compleated our Ruin, and have compell'd us to evacuate that important Province. We must however regain it, sometime or other.”

In his letter to Congress, George Washington, commander of the Continental Army, wrote of “the melancholy situation of our affairs in Canada.” Philip Schuyler, the general who had overall command of the invasion, spoke of the “Grief I feel on the Evacuation of Canada by our Troops.”

John Sullivan, the general in charge of getting the defeated troops across the border, wrote about the large number of rebel soldiers who were ill. He said it was “the most dismal spectacle Ever furnished from one Army in this Quarter of the Globe.”

The delegates had started the day with the unhappy task of reviewing letters from the rebel generals who had overseen the inglorious retreat of the American army from the British colony of Canada. This marked the end of the 1775-76 invasion begun with high hopes of a quick and easy conquest.

thecanadianencyclopedia.caBenjamin Franklin and American Attempts to Annex CanadaBenjamin Franklin, writer, publisher, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat (born 17 January 1706 in Boston, Massachusetts; died 17 April 1790 in Philadelphi...

Benjamin Franklin tried twice during the American Revolution to make Canada the 14th colony. I wrote about these failed attempts and the thinking behind them for the Canadian Encyclopedia. Here's the link: thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/b... #canada #history #books #americanrevolution

#OTD June 18, 1776, a defeated American army straggled out of Fort St. Jean on the last leg of their journey home to the 13 Colonies. They had invaded the British colony of Canada the previous September, confident of making it the 14th colony. #canada #history #books #americanrevolution

By June 20, Guy Carleton, the British governor of Canada, thanked the Canadians for their zeal and said they could return to their homes now that “the rebels are gone.” America’s first war of liberation had failed.

“Alas Canada,” John Adams (pictured) wrote July 1, 1776, “We have found Misfortune and disgrace in that Quarter.” He later said the retreat was caused by “a Complication of Circumstances, of Famine, Pestilence, Distress, Defeat, and Disgrace.” #hedidnotconquer @dundurnpress.bsky.social

Benedict Arnold, the rebel general who led the flight from Montreal, estimated that half the 7,000 American troops in Fort St. Jean were suffering from smallpox. A further 1,000 were vulnerable because they had not yet had the disease.