Canadian “Civil War”: telling short tales
November 30, 2025 5 Comments
I’ve been looking into the background of Canadian “Civil War” a bit as I had always been curious about the origin of the game that was the origin of O Canada. It seems to have had a bit of a convoluted past, to fit with its odd treatment of the subject and indeed its very existence.
As I mentioned in the Designers Notes to O Canada:
O Canada is a reboot of Canadian Civil War (designed by James Dunnigan and published by SPI in 1977) via an adaptation of the GMT COIN system. (Funnily enough, a note by a developer in MOVES magazine #33 (June 1977) reveals that the original title for the game was to be O! Canada but “the Canadian Government told us that they already had a game by that name and no, they wouldn’t let us use the title”. This is a reference to a roll-and-move game called Oh! Canada that was published by the Commissioner for Official Languages in 1974 and was distributed to elementary schools to promote bilingualism. Even though I vaguely remember this 51 year old item from my childhood, I didn’t bother asking the Commissioner.)
But there’s more, revealed in a comparate review of CCW and Quebec Libre (designed by Stephen Newberg, the Grand Poobah of Simulations Canada) by David Isby in Fire and Movement #23. Canada-Quebec_in_fm_23 Isby writes:
Canadian Civil War began its existence as 0 Canada, an offspring of the fertile imagination of Terry Hardy, SPI’s former Head of R&D. It was a great, swashbuckling scenario of insurrection and civil war, with only minimal serious thought. The feedback suggestion saw Canada as sort of a vast banana republic of the north, with warring factions looking to seize key weapons and areas. We found all sorts of interesting things — the largest concentration of armor in Canada are 60 Bundeswehr Leopards at Shilo, Manitoba. Imagine them being hijacked to Quebec! Who was going to stop them? And, of course, there was foreign intervention. Why are the French lengthening the runway on the island of St. Pierre in the Gulf of St. Lawrence? Why, to provide a staging place for the French Foreign Legion as it flew in to aid the Quebecois! Of course, there would be the Russians, aiding what Hardy termed the “commie-simps” allying with the separatists – 8,000 Soviet “tourists” flown in, with ASU-85s disguised, as golf carts. The whole idea was conceived slightly more seriously than Space: 1889, but not by much.
No one thought any more of that particular feedback proposal until the issue of Strategy & Tactics containing it finally inched its way across the 49th Parallel. At least one of our Canadian subscribers connected with the news media smelled a story. The Montreal and Toronto papers soon picked it up, and before we knew it, the wire services had ensured that 0 Canada was front-page news throughout the Dominion. SPI was soon besieged with calls from radio stations, magazines, newspapers, far more than in connection with any of our other efforts. While the stories were rather matter-of-fact, some Canadian gamers were, understandably, a bit embarrassed. But SPI, forging ahead as always, decided they could hardly not do the game after all the free publicity it had received. So, before the feedback results (which were eventually to prove rather lukewarm) were in, the design work on 0 Canada commenced.
There were a few problems. First Terry Hardy was rewarded for his R&D efforts by being sacked. This removed the original designer. Then, the copyright on the use of the game title 0 Canada was held by the Canadian Government, and they were not too likely to grant permission. So the game had to move on with a new designer and a new game, Canadian Civil War.
The game had problems with the original design. It was very sketchy — some ideas flying in loose formation. In such cases, the developer usually puts the ideas into a working system. Here, unfortunately, the first developer was untried and inexperienced. He also could not write to save his life. (He was also eventually sacked.) Whether the original design was worthwhile or not is uncertain. What is certain is that the first drafts of the rules were gibberish. I found them as comprehensible as a Sanskrit telephone directory. When I was asked to explain on Canadian television how the game was played (that was an occasion of Canada’s 110th Anniversary celebrations), I had to make up the rules as I went along. Those rules actually weren’t bad, and bore, in fact, a more than passing resemblance to Quebec Libre — another example of great minds thinking alike, or fools seldom differing.
Elsewhere in the Fire & Movement article the pinch-hitter designer James Dunnigan offers his interpretation of events:
The chief impetus for designing Canadian Civil War came from Terry Hardy (for years our token WASP, Republican, Harvard man, football player, and, since his departure from SPI three years ago, a member of our Board of Directors; this makes him my boss, thus assuring my approaching this story with proper decorum). His family goes way back to before the American Revolution. Unfortunately, his folks chose the wrong side and were thus forced to decamp in haste for Canada after the war. A few generations later, many of the Hardys wandered back to the States. But large segments of the clan remain in Canada, and annual reunions are held. Inspired by his constant contact with Canadian politics — not to mention no little emotional involvement — Terry thought the ongoing situation a perfect topic for a game. The proposal did not make it in the feedback, but the response from Canada was huge. And we hadn’t done our “Editor’s Choice” game for the year yet. We decided to take a chance on romance and do the Canadian Civil War. Terry, when faced with the actual prospect of designing the game, pleaded that his personal convictions concerning Canadian politics prevented him from doing the job with the proper professional disinterest; there being no other volunteers, I took on the task. A crash course in Canadian politics (including reading a Canadian daily paper for six months) followed [presumably this paper was the Ottawa Citizen, since Dunnigan referenced an article in the paper for his title with the extra quotation marks – BRT]. More importantly, I relied on a number of Canadian gamers for technical and playtesting assistance. It was a truly international project. I also enjoyed playing the game.
Finally, here is the text of the original game proposal, tucked away in the feedback section of Strategy & Tactics #60 (early 1977), presumably written by Terry Hardy:
Oh Canada! The recent provincial elections brought the Separatist party (Parti Quebecois) to power in Quebec. While some analysts may argue that this election was more of a voter rejection of the Liberal party than a mandate for secession, the facts are thea the platform of the new governing party led by Rene Levesque calls for eventual autonomy from the rest of Canada, with the eventual establishment of a “neutral-socialist” regime in Quebec. What the future holds is anyone’s guess. A peaceful resoluton of the nationalist aspirations of the French-speaking Canadians within the present federal framework is a strong possibility. After all, the Canadians have a history of responsible self-government within the traditional English spirit of accommodation and compromise. It may come to pass that the realities and responsibilities of governing well will mute some of the more strident separatiost objectives. On the other hand a policy of confrontation by Levesque et al combined with a hard-nosed Federal stance will lead to eventual civil war. It’s this prospect that the game Oh Canada! will address. The game will deal the the military possibilities, the structure of the Canadian military establishment and provincial constabularies. It will presume sub rosa aid to Quebec by the USSR and eventual intervention by the USA. The game system will be a hybrid of the Minuteman and Modern Battles sequences. The scale would be weekly game-turns for military events, monthly for political-subversive-guerrilla interaction. The map would cover southern Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes, northern New York and New England.
The last page of the issue invites reader submissions of local newspaper mentions of SPI and wargames! However, I have not been able to find any of the coverage in the Toronto and Montreal papers that Isby mentions.
However, I did track down a 4-page story appearing in The Canadian, a weekly magazine that appeared as an insert into a dozen city newspapers – the linked PDF is what appeared in the Winnipeg Tribune on October 28, 1978. Titled “C’est La Guerre: a US war game tycoon plots the path of civil war in Canada” by George Russell, it is a real hoot: go and read it, I had forgotten that people used to write like this about wargamers; it’s not so much a piece on the game as a hack-job on James Dunnigan (described as “scrawny, slouching, faintly baldish”) and anyone like him.
There were letters though, hoo boy… in Strategy & Tactics #62 (May/June 1977, itself containing the controversial game South Africa by Irad Hardy) in the “Big Tsimmis” section of Outgoing Mail, the extended editorial and newsy roundup in each issue of the magazine, Brad Hessel writes:
In last issue’s feedback section the most impotant question to me was the one that asked for your opinion concerning “the wisdom or morality of publishing games on contemporary conflicts.” In part, that question was prompted by letters like the following one from Guy Piedalue, a Canadian subscriber, who objected very strongly to our game proposal Oh Canada:
“I have never been more shocked or disgusted. Your firm seems to think that we in Canada are totally uncivilized and that we think that armed conflict will resolve all our problems. If you feel there is a strong possiblity of peaceful resolution of this problem, then why suggest this game?
By doing so, you are in a sense taking lightly a very serious situation. We in Canada realize the gravity of the situation and do not appreciate foreigners making fun of it, or exploiting it.
Up to now, we Canadians have managed to resolve our problems without resorting to war. There is no reason to suggest that this will not continue….”
My academic training was in history, and the issue of “contemporary games” brings to mind the philosopical debates of my undergraduate days over the validity of contemporary historical studies. There are a lot of historians who write of contemporary events from an identifiable bias, e.g. the leftist oriented Gabriel Kolko, who has interpreted the Cold War as an US government/ big business inspired plot. Other historians writing about the present less overtly or less consciously have an ax to grind, but the difficulty in achieving “objectivity” vis a vis events that are still unfolding, and which the historiam must, ipso facto, have some interest in, is unversally recognized. And that is completely aside from the problem of obtaining information. Daniel Ellsberg aside, key documents relating to high level decisions, and even more crucial, high level thinking , are seldom available. There are some who maintain, in this light, that any attempt at contemporary historical analysis is irresponsible. The contrary view holds that to ignore contemporary analysis, in view of its pertinence to our lives, is irresponsible.
The argument has obvious applicability to the question of whether or not SPI should do modern games. Personally, I am convinced that such games have imperative validity, just as I strongly believe in the importance and value of contemporary historical analysis in general. An understanding of the world we live in is a moral and practical imperative in modern society, I believe, and attempts to achieve such an understanding command my respect and serious attention.
I take very serious exception to Mr. Piedalue’s statement that in proposing to do Oh Canada we are “taking lightly a very serious situation”. Au contraire, in proposing to examinge the situation in Canada, we are acknowledging its gravity, even as Mr. Piedalue does. I am very sorry that Mr. Piedalue gained the impression that we were making fun, and I can understand his pique at the notion that someone would, but… it simply isn’t true!
Games on contemporary situations do suggest conflicts, but this is not a “suggestions” in the sense of “Oh, what a good idea!” Rather, the suggestion encompasses an attempt to expand people’s consciousness in a serious manner to attend to a possibility which could affect their lives, and which they therefore should be aware of. This is, precisely, the responsibility and the imperative whch is involved in modern historical analysis in general, and contemporary conflict simulation in particular.
Well, that was a lot of retyping on my part, but I do feel vindicated. I wanted to put up some example of someone taking the position that I tacitly took not long after I started wargaming in 1979/80, and which I started to explicitly explore on my own years later when I began to design in 1991… and which have resulted, 34 years later, in my exploration of the changing Canadian political Zeitgeist though it is not the study of kinetic action and foreign intervention that was originally proposed, nor is it quite as heavily abstracted and convoluted as the design that SPI eventually published.
Though I did nick the title, in the end.
Sorry, not sorry!
brtrain 
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