Canadian Studies Announcements

In This Issue:

External Events

• Team Canada watch party

• 14th Annual Canada Day Celebration in SF
• DML Canada Day Picnic
• SF Pride 2026 – Friends of Canada

Academic Opportunities
• Call for proposals: “Interrogating Canadian Identities” conference at York University

EXTERNAL EVENTS

Team Canada Watch Party
Friday, June 12 | 11:30 am | San Francisco | RSVP

Join the Consulate General of Canada in San Francisco to cheer on the Canadian men’s national soccer team as they face Bosnia-Herzegovina. The match kicks off at 12:00 PM. All are welcome – bring your friends, your energy, and your team spirit! Food & drinks will be available for purchase. Seating will be first come, first served.

14th Annual Canada Day Celebration in SF

Tuesday, June 23 | 5:30 pm | San Francisco | RSVP

Join the San Francisco Canadian Expat Meetup Group to celebrate Canada Day in the city! ​Wear your red & white, rep your favourite Canadian team gear, and get ready to sing, “Oh Canada!” with fellow Canadians! Everyone is welcome – bring friends, family, and coworkers. This is a great opportunity to network with other Canadians in the Bay Area and make new friends.

DML Canada Day Picnic

Saturday, June 27 | 11:30 am | San Mateo | Tickets

The Digital Moose Lounge invites you to join your fellow SF Bay Canadians at their annual Canada Day Picnic! Enjoy a fun afternoon of activities and games for the whole family, with a delicious BBQ, cold drinks, and sweet treats. Meet new friends and reconnect with old ones as you embrace your heritage and celebrate with patriotic pride. Remember to wear your red and white alumni gear, or represent your favorite Canadian sports team!

SF Pride 2026 – Friends of Canada

Sunday, June 28 | 11:00 am | San Francisco | RSVP

The Consulate General of Canada in San Francisco cordially invites Canadians and friends of Canada to march in the 56th annual SF Pride Parade. All are welcome to join our friends and family to celebrate diversity and to support the 2SLGBTQI+ members of our communities in California, Canada, and beyond.

The exact assembly location and time will be announced approximately one week prior to the parade. Please register via Eventbrite to receive updates.

ACADEMIC OPPORTUNITIES

Call for Proposals: “Interrogating Canadian Identities” Conference at York University
Deadline: June 8, 2026

The Interrogating Canadian Identities (ICI) SSHRC grant at York University is hosting a conference to interrogate anachronistic and persistent images and ideas about Canadian identity. These conceptions are often rooted in the historical conceptions of settler communities and this country’s first 155 years.

The conference welcomes paper proposals investigating the continued impact of that past on contemporary views of what it means to be a Canadian, in light of changes to the Canadian population in recent decades; movements toward greater diversity, equity, and inclusion; and other shifts in the way Canadians understand their identities in the 21st century.

Read the full call for proposals here.

Canadian Studies Program

213 Philosophy Hall #2308

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Canadian Studies Announcements

In This Issue:

Program News

• New Hildebrand Fellow Christián González Reyes studies how literature informs Central American-Canadian identity in Toronto

• New research by faculty affiliate Karen Chapple finds even sharper drop in Canadian travel to the US

Academic Opportunities
• Call for research proposals: “The Canadian Counter Revolution”

External Events

• Royal Canadian Legion Memorial Day Service

PROGRAM NEWS

New Hildebrand Fellow Christián González Reyes Studies How Literature Informs Central American-Canadian Identity in Toronto

The Canadian Studies Program is pleased to announce that Christián González Reyes has been awarded an Edward E. Hildebrand Research Fellowship for Summer 2026.

Christián (they/he) is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Comparative Literature. Their scholarly work focuses on Central American, Mesoamerican, Mexican, and Central American diasporic literature and visual media. They are interested in how Central America has been conjured in the postwar period, both inside and outside of the Central American Isthmus. Indigenous and Latin American Marxisms inform their work.

Christián’s Hildebrand Fellowship will support their work on Central American-Canadian influence on cultural production in Toronto. Specifically, Christián will examine the work of Salvadoran-Canadian writer Carlos Bucio to think through questions of citizenship, diaspora, and belonging. Christián proposes framing Bucio’s writings in a bidirectional continuum that dialogues between Central American-Canadians and the Central American homelands. Thinking of these transregional and transhistorical dialogues serves as a political reclamation, in which Central America is not solely tied to the Central American Isthmus, but is in movement and is now imagined to include the diaspora in Canada.

Christián holds BAs in Literatures in Spanish (Honors with highest distinction) and Latin American Studies from UC San Diego. They also have an MA in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley.

New Research by Faculty Affiliate Karen Chapple Finds Even Sharper Drop in Canadian Travel to the US

A new study published by the University of Toronto and authored by a Canadian Studies faculty affiliate has found that the decrease in Canadians’ travel to the United States has been even more dramatic than previously reported.

The study shows that visits by Canadians to US metro areas declined nearly 42% year over year in the face of political tensions between the two countries, and suggests that an ongoing boycott of the US may have been more effective than previously thought.

The study’s lead author, Karen Chapple, is Director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto and a professor emerita at UC Berkeley. In an interview with the CBC, Chapple says the sharp drop indicates a “sea change” that is affecting all aspects of Canadians’ travel habits.

Data previously published by Statistics Canada showed a 25% decrease in border crossings by Canadians. However, the University of Toronto study used cell phone data to provide a more granular analysis of where Canadians are visiting in the US, including their movement within the country. For example, Chapple notes that Canadians who do visit the US are limiting their travel and visiting fewer cities per trip.

Warm-weather vacation spots in Florida and the southern US have been hardest hit, with some cities seeing up to a 65% decrease in Canadian visitors. Despite California’s efforts to attract Canadian tourists, San Francisco was the ninth-most affected city, showing a 57% decrease in visits by Canadians.

The data also show that it isn’t only leisure travel that has been affected. Visits to finance and tech hubs across the United States are also down, suggesting that Canadians are also avoiding business travel where possible.

ACADEMIC OPPORTUNITIES

On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America, the Canadian Institute for Historical Education (CIHE) is seeking a research paper related to how the formation of that country led to or influenced the later formation of Canada. The paper will be published on the CIHE website and widely promoted, and the author will deliver the paper at a meeting of the CIHE open to the public. Possible themes include, but are not limited to: similar or differing approaches to government, colonial matters, Loyalist migration and patterns of settlement, indigenous affairs, leadership and leaders.

This opportunity is open to current or former Canadian academics (including graduate students and retirees) currently or previously associated with a Canadian or American university. A stipend of $20,000 CAD will be payable to the successful applicant.

To learn more, click here.

EXTERNAL EVENTS

Royal Canadian Legion Memorial Day Service
Saturday, May 23 | 11:00 am | Colma, CA

Branch 25 of the Royal Canadian Legion, representing the San Francisco Bay Area, invites you to their annual Memorial Day Service. The service will take place at the Royal Canadian Legion plot in the Greenlawn Memorial Park in Colma.

If you are unable to attend in person, you can register to watch the live stream on Zoom here.

Canadian Studies Program

213 Philosophy Hall #2308

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Canadian Studies Announcements

In This Issue:

Academic Opportunities

• Call for Papers: 24th Biennial Conference of the American Council for Québec Studies

Upcoming Events

• Taking the Long-Term View: Technology Relations between Canada and the Bay Area in the Age of AI

External Events

• National Women’s Soccer League Canadian Heritage Night: Bay FC vs. Ottawa Rapid FC

• Le Vent du Nord & Foghorn Stringband at the Freight

ACADEMIC OPPORTUNITIES

Deadline: May 1

The American Council for Québec Studies (ACQS) has extended the deadline for its call for proposals for its next biennial conference, to be held November 12–15, 2026, at the Omni Mont-Royal Hotel in Montreal.

The chosen theme, “Crossings, Crossroads, Intersections: Québec Studies Between Fracture and Connection,” welcomes a wide range of approaches in both the social sciences and the arts and humanities. It aims to highlight the significance of the exchanges made possible through the cultural and political intersections that enrich North American Francophone communities.

Conference presentations can be made in French or English. Click here to read the full call for papers.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Canadians have made foundational contributions to the world’s technological advances. Before Apple and Google dominated the market, Research in Motion’s Blackberry invented the mobile office. Today’s AI landscape rests on the work of titans like Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio, Richard Sutton, Joelle Pineau, Doina Precup, and Ilya Sutskever. Their long-term research pursuits at both universities and companies have fueled modern neural networks and machine learning.

The Bay Area, meanwhile, has long been a hub of technological innovation. It is a place where scientific theory mixes with venture funding and engineering expertise to make designs into successful products. The relationship between the Bay Area and Canada’s technological talent has always been strong, and this panel will explore the current landscape and the outlook for the future. How can we ensure that both the long-term research pursuits as well as the start-ups necessary for innovation thrive in both environments? What can we learn from the different ecosystems, and the relationships that we’ve built up to now?

About the Panelists

Timothy Barfoot is a professor at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) and a researcher in robot autonomy and vehicle navigation technologies. He is Director of the UofT Robotics Institute, co-Faculty Advisor of UofT’s self-driving car team, and previously worked as Director of Autonomous Systems at Apple in California. Professor Barfoot holds a BASc from the University of Toronto, and a PhD from UTIAS in robotics.

Carl Choi is the President of RLWRLD USA, a physical AI startup developing robot foundation models for industrial environments. Before joining RLWRLD, he was a partner with Alumni Ventures in Silicon Valley, where he led investments in AI, robotics, and foundational technologies. Mr. Choi holds a bachelor of mathematics from the University of Waterloo, a BBA from Wilfrid Laurier University, and an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

Matei Zaharia is an associate professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences (EECS) at UC Berkeley. His research focuses on computer systems for large-scale workloads such as AI, data analytics, and cloud computing. He is also the co-founder and CTO of Databricks, a cloud-based platform for data analytics. Professor Zaharia holds a bachelor of mathematics from the University of Waterloo, and a PhD from UC Berkeley. Prior to joining the Berkeley faculty, he taught at MIT and Stanford.

Claire Tomlin (moderator) is a professor in the Department of EECS at UC Berkeley and holds the James and Katherine Lau Chair in Engineering. Her research interests include unmanned aerial vehicles, air traffic control and modeling of biological processes. Professor Tomlin holds a BASc from the University of Waterloo, an MSc from Imperial College, London, and a PhD in EECS from UC Berkeley.

This event will have a remote attendance option via Zoom. Please select the “virtual attendance” in the RSVP form to receive the link.

If you require an accommodation to participate fully in this event, please let us know with as much advance notice as possible by emailing canada@berkeley.edu.

EXTERNAL EVENTS

National Women’s Soccer League Canadian Heritage Night: Bay FC vs. Ottawa Rapid FC

Fri., April 17 | 7:00 pm | San Jose | Tickets

Be a part of history at the first-ever match of a Canadian team playing in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL)! Home team Bay FC also has two players on the Canadian National Team: Sydney Collins and Lysianne Proulx. Join fellow soccer fans from around the Bay and friends from the Digital Moose Lounge and Consulate to cheer on these Canadian athletes!

This unique offer, customized for all Canadian communities in the Bay Area, grants you access to a select seating location at an exclusive group rate for Bay FC’s match against the Ottawa Rapids at PayPal Park on April 17th (7pm kickoff). Doors open at 5:00 pm to enjoy the family-friendly open space, food trucks, and fan experiences.

Le Vent du Nord & Foghorn Stringband at the Freight

Thurs., May 7 | 8:00 pm | Berkeley | Tickets

Get ready for an evening of high-energy roots traditions as Québécois band Le Vent du Nord joins forces with the Foghorn Stringband for an exciting co-feature performance at the Freight in Berkeley. Blending the driving rhythms of Québecois music with the old-time flavors of the American string band tradition, this electrifying evening promises foot-stomping grooves, rich harmonies, and masterful musicianship.

Le Vent du Nord are globally-recognized ambassadors of Canada’s Francophone culture and a major creative force within Québec’s progressive folk music scene. The band has released 13 albums and received numerous international awards including Artists of the year at Folk Alliance International & Canadian Folk Music Awards and two JUNO Awards.

The Foghorn Stringband is the gold standard in the old-time American string band music. They draw from old-time, bluegrass, classic country, and Cajun music traditions in an ongoing quest to present a broad span of American historical music.

Canadian Studies Program

213 Philosophy Hall #2308

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