Historian, Veterans’ Experience, @CanWarMuseum. @Niemanfdn Fellow. Husband. Dad. Coureur des bois. Long jabber. Still hits the jump shot. Decent cook.
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Articles by Michael Petrou
Pharmacometric‐Based Evaluation of Salmeterol and Its Metabolite α‐Hydroxysalmeterol in Plasma and Urine: Practical Implications for Doping Control
1 Introduction Inhaled β2-agonists are among the drugs most frequently used in sports, which is related to a high prevalence of asthma and exercise-induced bronchoconstriction among athletes [1].
Procedural fairness and perceived legitimacy and justice of anti-doping proceedings: a mixed Methods International Study
Abstract Aims The present research had a twofold objective: a) to assess procedural due process practices in anti-doping proceedings based on official data presented by National Anti-Doping Organisations (Study 1), and b) to explore the perceived fairness and legitimacy of anti-doping proceedings in sanctioned athletes who had undergone anti-doping proceedings, and in athlete representatives, such as legal counsellors or individuals from organisations involved in promoting athlete’s voice and...
After the Shooting Stops: Vets Talk About the Ripple Effects of Combat
Michael Petrou, NF '18, on leading "In Their Own Voices," an oral history project about the post-war lives of Canadian veterans. Two summers ago, I sat down with Alex Polowin, one of a quickly dwindling number of Second World War veterans, and asked him how he felt when the war ended. “Sad,” he told me. Polowin, who has since died, served three years in the Royal Canadian Navy, including during the D-Day invasion of France.
D-Day - Grief, pain and pride, 80 years later | Opinion
Canadian War Museum historian Michael Petrou writes history has long-reaching ripples, and those from D-Day shaped not only the people who were there, but the world in which we live today. Published Jun 06, 2024 • Last updated 8 hours ago • 6 minute read This photo, taken on June 6, 1944, shows Canadian soldiers from 9th Brigade landing at Juno Beach in Bernieres-sur-Mer as Allied forces stormed Normandy beaches in north-western France on D-Day. Imperial War Museum.
Petrou: D-Day - Grief, pain and pride 80 years later
Had the troops at Normandy been thrown back into the sea, delaying the arrival of Allied armies in western Europe, post-war Europe would have looked very different — dominated by the Soviet Union and inhospitable to freedom. • • You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.
Opinion: D-Day - Grief, pain and pride, 80 years later
Had the troops at Normandy been thrown back into the sea, post-war Europe would have looked very different — dominated by the Soviet Union and inhospitable to freedom. • • You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.
“It Was Like a Dream”: War Pilgrimages in the Canadian War Museum’s Collections
This article uses material culture and oral histories held by the Canadian War Museum to explore war-related pilgrimages undertaken by veterans and their loved ones. The artwork, scrapbooks, mementos and recorded interviews reveal how meaningful pilgrimages can be for their participants. These are emotional or spiritual journeys as much as they are temporal ones.
Simultaneous quantitation and identification of intact Nandrolone phase II oxo‐metabolites based on derivatization and inject LC-MS/(HRMS) methodology - Sakellariou - 2025 - Drug Testing and Analysis - Wiley Online Library
1 INTRODUCTION Anabolic agents are used by athletes to enhance their performance, despite their prohibition by WADA and their well-documented adverse health consequences.1, 2 19-norandrosterone (19-NA) is the major metabolite of the prohibited anabolic steroid nandrolone or its prohormones and is considered in its glucuronidated form as the target metabolite in sports drug testing to reveal nandrolone abuse.3 Based on the 2021 Anti-Doping Testing Figures, 62 Adverse Analytical Findings (AAFs)...
High-School Athletes’ Knowledge, Attitudes, and Perceptions on Doping: The Cyprus Sport-School Study
Abstract : Doping constitutes one of the main problems in sports. The importance of sociological research on doping is widely accepted. However, such studies in Cyprus are scarce.
Opinion | Bringing the war home: A Toronto Star legend, Robert Reguly reported from around the globe. But covering war exacts a price at home, writes his son Eric
A journalist son’s quest to understand the dad who reported brilliantly on Mideast conflicts, Vietnam, the Robert Kennedy assassination — but came home scarred By Michael PetrouSpecial to the Star Sat., April 2, 2022timer7 min. read “He who would live off war must eventually yield something in return.” So wrote German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht in 1940, a generation before a Toronto Star reporter by the name of Robert Reguly went to Vietnam to live off the war there.
Jewish-Canadians in the Spanish Civil War as viewed by historian Michael Petrou
Excerpted from Michael Petrou’s chapter “‘Our Fight Is Not Yet Over’: Jewish-Canadians in the Spanish Civil War” in the book Armed Jews in the Americas (Brill, 2021), edited by Raanan Rein and David M. K. Sheinin. Richler often blended fact and fiction, but this detail is precise: two St. Urbain residents, Saul Shapiro and Hyman Nelson, did fight in Spain. So did another 40 or so Canadian Jews, including more from Richler’s neighbourhood.
Passing the torch
When Open Canada relaunched over a year ago, among the first articles I published as editor-in-chief was an essay by journalist Kareem Shaheen in which he reflected on his reporting on the death and suffering of civilians during Syria’s civil war, and on the apparent absence of any difference that reporting had made. The experience changed him. “When the heart breaks it is remolded in its survival, hardened against further shocks,” he wrote. Shaheen is not alone.
Remembering 9/11 and the wars that followed
I was an intern at the Ottawa Citizen newspaper on the morning of September 11, 2001. Like a lot of reporters of my generation who would later spend time in Afghanistan, I tend to divide my life between what happened before and what happened after. I came into the newsroom as the second plane hit the World Trade Center, erasing any doubt America was under attack. The news editor started pointing at people, seemingly at random, telling them to get into cars and drive to New York. I was one of them.
Opinion | How 9/11 set off a chain of events that changed the world — and America’s place in it Original
This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com How 9/11 set off a chain of events that changed the world — and America’s place in it Before the Sept. 11 attacks, America was an unchallenged superpower.
Betrayal - Open Canada
One of the most enduring misconceptions about Afghanistan among Canadians and other foreigners who wanted to end their countries’ military involvement in Afghanistan is that the conflict was about us, and that it would end when we left. “Stop the War!” read the slogan on signs carried by protesters urging a troop withdrawal, as if such a withdrawal would result in peace. We are now witnessing the fallacy of those assumptions.
War in Afghanistan is not over. But trust in Canada is finished
By Michael PetrouSpecial to the Star Fri., Aug. 13, 2021timer4 min. read One of the most enduring misconceptions about Afghanistan among Canadians and other foreigners who wanted to end their countries’ military involvement in Afghanistan is that the conflict was about us, and that it would end when we left. “Stop the War!” read the slogan on signs carried by protesters urging a troop withdrawal, as if such a withdrawal would result in peace.
Battles among Israelis a troubling new aspect of familiar clash with Hamas
By Michael PetrouSpecial to the Star Sun., May 23, 2021timer4 min. read Fighting between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that governs the Gaza Strip, has ended, predictably, with a ceasefire. Gaza’s health ministry says at least 243 people died in Israeli strikes, including more than 100 women and children. Israel says most of the dead were Hamas militants. It also says some Palestinians were killed by Hamas rockets that landed inside Gaza.
An apology rooted in falsehood
Canada interned hundreds of Italian Canadians during the Second World War “for the simple reason that they were of Italian heritage,” Liberal MP Angelo Iacono told the House of Commons earlier this month, prepping Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to announce that Canada would formally apologize for doing so. It is a remarkable claim, suggesting a massive violation of human rights.
Opinion | Trying not to offend China is a loser’s game. It’s time Justin Trudeau took a stand
By Michael PetrouSpecial to the Star Fri., March 19, 2021timer3 min. read updateArticle was updated 0 mins ago There is a predictable rhythm to the dance in which Beijing and Ottawa have been engaged these past two years: Evidence emerges that China threatens Canada’s national security — through cyberespionage, for example, or intellectual property theft. China further crushes democracy in Hong Kong.
Opaque by default
Global Affairs Canada spent eight years trying to hide the fact that Canada once decided not to ship bandages to rebels in Libya because the bandages were made in Israel. In the process, it hid behind and abused the Access to Information Act by pretending that merely embarrassing information could by harmful to Canada and its allies.
Spring 2021 Archives | Nieman Reports
“What if the people storming the Capitol on January 6 had been Black?” It’s a question posed by many after the events of January 6, and it prompted newsrooms to contrast how law enforcement handled the largely white, pro-Trump mob with the excessive force deployed against the diverse Black Lives Matter protesters that gathered to peacefully protest George Floyd’s death in D.C. months before.
Author Q&A: Arash Azizi
Qassem Soleimani was the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, which is responsible for the Revolutionary Guards’ operations outside Iran. America assassinated Soleimani last year in Baghdad, Iraq. More than 50 Canadians died in the aftermath, when Iran mistakenly shot down a civilian jetliner it thought was an American warplane. Q: A column in Press TV, an Iranian state news outlet, describes Qassem Soleimani as “the Muslim Che Guevara.” Was he?
Open Canada Covers Foreign Affairs with a Human Touch | Nieman Reports
Syrian refugees Wafaa Al Safadi, second from left, and her children Noor Zeina, left, 7, and Rayan Zeina, 1, attend a community gathering to welcome them in Queensland, Nova Scotia, Canada in 2016 Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press via AP Photo Editor Michael Petrou, NF ’18, invites people whose voices aren’t usually heard in foreign policy publications to tell their stories Canadians haven’t had to worry too much about the rest of the world for the past 75 years.
Author Q&A: John Stackhouse
Q. What is the Canadian diaspora? A: A diaspora is often defined by ethnicity or cultural heritage or language. There is a new kind of diaspora emerging in the 21st century, and Canada is at the forefront of this, where people are defined by a newer nation, which Canada is, and they carry with them the attributes of that nation, whatever they’re doing and wherever they are. Q: What are the attributes that Canadian expats carry?
2020: The year Canada must focus on strengthening global democracy
There’s a story we used to tell ourselves about democracy because it made us feel good about the present and hopeful for the future. It was premised on the conviction that democracy is the best form of government and on the assumption that its expansion would be, if not quite inevitable, then at least assured with appropriate nudging and support from existing democracies in the West.
Thread by @michaelpetrou on Thread Reader App
If anyone still thinks Canada’s access to information process is not broken, pull up a chair. I have a story for you.
First aid and second guesses in Libya
Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) hired a commercial supplier to provide emergency medical equipment to Libyan rebels fighting dictator Moammar Gadhafi, in part over concerns that some material that the Canadian military could have provided was made in Israel or marked with crosses that DFAIT feared resembled those worn by Crusaders.
Bill Horace: Accused in Liberia, living in Toronto
A former Liberian army rebel commander accused of war crimes is under investigation in Canada Patrick Robert/Sygma/Corbis A former commander in a rebel Liberian army whose alleged war crimes were first exposed in Maclean’s is under investigation by Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Program, a collaborative unit consisting of the RCMP, the Department of Justice, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, and the Canada Border Services Agency.
Safe haven for an alleged killer
Photograph by Patrick Robert/ Sygma/ Corbis A former commander in a rebel Liberian army who has been accused by multiple witnesses and former associates of war crimes and crimes against humanity is living freely in Toronto. Bill Horace was a general in the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, a militia that gathered in neighbouring Ivory Coast and invaded Liberia in 1989, plunging the country into more than a decade of intermittent war.
2020: The year Canada must focus on strengthening global democracy
There’s a story we used to tell ourselves about democracy because it made us feel good about the present and hopeful for the future. It was premised on the conviction that democracy is the best form of government and on the assumption that its expansion would be, if not quite inevitable, then at least assured with appropriate nudging and support from existing democracies in the West.
Renegades - Canadians in the Spanish Civil War, By Michael Petrou
A fascinating account of a little understood conflict, packed with information never before published ... For anyone interested in the history of Canada and the struggle between democracy and totalitarianism, Petrou’s masterful account is required reading. Renegades is the fullest and most authoritative account yet written of Canadian volunteers in the Spanish Civil War and a valuable contribution to the history of the International Brigades.
Was Trump to blame for the lackluster foreign policy debate this election?
Supporters of various federal parties gather before an English language federal election debate at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, October 7, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Osorio With five weeks of campaigning and three televised leaders’ debates already over, the 2019 election season is coming to an end.
Parties pitch Canadians on foreign policy ideas, but a grander strategy still missing
A strange and emblematic thing happened in America on the day of the English-language leaders’ debate in Canada this week. United States President Donald Trump announced he would pull US troops out of northeastern Syria, where for years they have fought alongside the mostly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) against the so-called Islamic State. The announcement was strange because many of Trump’s allies and advisors oppose it.
The High Stakes in Hong Kong's Battle for Democracy
Protesters attend a rally at Victoria Park in Hong Kong on August 18, 2019. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung) The large and long-running protests in Hong Kong, which appear to be headed to a confrontation — maybe a violent one — with Chinese authorities, are not just about a proposed extradition bill or the territory’s relationship with China’s central government. They’re not just about Hong Kong at all.
The high stakes in Hong Kong’s battle for democracy
The large and long-running protests in Hong Kong, which appear to be headed to a confrontation — maybe a violent one — with Chinese authorities, are not just about a proposed extradition bill or the territory’s relationship with China’s central government. They’re not just about Hong Kong at all. Demonstrators there are instead on the front lines of a much larger global conflict between democracy and authoritarianism in which Canada is deeply invested but, sadly, largely absent.
My Best Friend is a Pop Star in Japan
My Best Friend is a Pop Star in Japan What happens when a temporary move becomes a new life – as a pop star? Writer Michael Petrou travels to Sendai to reconnect with his old friend who’s become quite big in Japan. Tokyo’s Budokan arena was built for judo, not rock ’n’ roll. But after the 1964 Olympic Games, the stadium took on a new life as a mecca for musicians. The Beatles played five shows here in 1966, followed over the years by Bob Dylan, Cheap Trick and Janet Jackson.
It would be immoral for Canada to leave its ISIS members in Syria: Opinion | CBC News
Abandoning the Kurds is a longstanding Western tradition. But must we really add to this betrayal by sticking them with the worst of Canada? Abandoning the Kurds is a longstanding Western tradition. But must we really add to this betrayal by sticking them with the worst of Canada?
Crisis in Venezuela: Is this the dark before dawn?
It is bad luck for Venezuela’s self-declared interim president, Juan Guaidó, and his supporters that their efforts to supplant the country’s sitting president, Nicolás Maduro, come at a time when regime change in the name of democracy and human rights has, for many, acquired a taint of futility and deception. A generation or two ago, democracy’s momentum appeared unstoppable, especially in Latin America.
Crisis in Venezuela: Is this the dark before dawn?
It is bad luck for Venezuela’s self-declared interim president, Juan Guaidó, and his supporters that their efforts to supplant the country’s sitting president, Nicolás Maduro, come at a time when regime change in the name of democracy and human rights has, for many, acquired a taint of futility and deception. A generation or two ago, democracy’s momentum appeared unstoppable, especially in Latin America.
Facing China’s wrath, Canada cannot go it alone
The combination of China’s meteoric economic rise and its disdain for the rule of law, human rights and international norms meant a confrontation between it and the West was all but inevitable. Canada, like so many other countries hoping to cash in on China’s growth, would not have chosen to be at the forefront of that clash. Even now, it appears Ottawa would like to see its problems with China somehow resolved quietly.
China - never a partner worth courting for Canada
Harvard political scientist Graham Allison, who has been advising various American administrations for half a century, likes to show his students at the John F. Kennedy School of Government a time-lapse video of a bridge in China being replaced in 48 hours. Repairs to a similar bridge near his office in Cambridge, MA, began in 2012 and aren’t yet finished. The implied lesson is one Prime Minister Justin Trudeau might once have endorsed.
Iran's long reach into Canada
The Iranian government, through its embassy in Ottawa and various friendly or affiliated organizations, is aggressively reaching out to the Iranian diaspora in Canada, as well as to other potentially sympathetic Muslims in the country. This July it is funding an “Iranian Students Convention” at the large and well-appointed NAV Centre in Cornwall, Ontario. According to the conference website, guests must be students and members of a “cultural community” or they will not be permitted to attend.
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