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Featured Speeches
We will regularly feature a highlight from our Digital Library. This selection is curated with current Empire Club events in mind, as well as careful attention as to what is happening in the news with a focus on socioeconomic issues . Check back here monthly for updated features as well as for our collection of Newsletters and Teacher’s Guides.
Wisdom's Stage: Past Speeches
Use our search tools, as well as our chatbot and translation features, to quickly access and review exactly what you are looking for in this extensive library containing thousands of speeches from 1903 to the present day. This library contains text versions of all speeches, and video recordings of many of the speeches delivered in recent years.
For Over 120 Years,
Facts That Resonate
While the Empire Club of Canada has always had a profound impact on shaping the opinions of Canadians, it was recognized in 1969 that the Club’s content should be made easily available to students and academics, researchers, journalists, authors and anyone wanting to view source material not readily available in any other venues. The primary mandate of the Foundation is to promote the Digital Library or Archives of the Empire Club to ensure that Canadians and all those interested in Canada have unfettered access to history by reading or hearing the words of those people who made this history.
Attend in-person or online
The Empire Club of Canada has weekly meetings from September through to the end of June each year, held in downtown locations in Toronto. The hundreds of attendees have a unique opportunity of meeting influencers and societal leaders, including business, political and cultural executives who often become future contacts for attendees. Empire Club meetings provide a unique forum to build professional contacts and friends while at the same time educating attendees of all ages on the issues of the day.
A Word from our President…
Empire Club Foundation President Gordon McIvor and the Foundation Board have in no way edited any of the speeches contained on this site, electing to present them exactly as they were delivered. This obviously means that some of the values and language contained in these speeches would not necessarily be well received in the context of contemporary society which in Canada has become far more progressive, diverse and inclusive across the decades. It is therefore important to remember that you will read many speeches in this collection that were the product of the time they were delivered in and do not meet the social norms of contemporary Canada.
Your Support Makes a Huge Difference
Making a donation to the Empire Club Foundation helps us get an important new firsthand historical record in front of anyone doing research, albeit for education, journalism, policy development or any number of other reasons. There is no other prime source of history like that found in the words of those who were actually making that history, and your support today means that we can continue to host and curate this precious resource. The Empire Club has for 120 years been an institution in Canada, and the content flowing out of it has helped thousands to better understand the Canada of yesterday, today and tomorrow.
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We acknowledge that we live, work, meet and travel on the traditional territories of Indigenous Peoples that have cared for this land, now called Canada, since time immemorial. These lands are either subject to First Nations self-government under modern treaty, unceded and un-surrendered territories, or traditional territories from which First Nations, Métis and Inuit Peoples have been displaced.
This website was made possible through a generous donation from the Jackman Foundation and the Hal Jackman Foundation.
Promotional support provided by the Canadian Association of Principals, the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, and the University of Toronto Library System.