Lester B. Pearson, Peace Maker, Diplomat, Nobel Prize Winner

Lester Bowles "Mike" Pearson, the 14th Prime Minister Of Canada (23 April 1897 – 27 December 1972) was a Canadian Professor, historian, civil servant, statesman, diplomat and politician. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for organizing the United Nations Emergency Force to resolve the Suez Canal Crisis. During his time as Prime Minister, Pearson's minority government introduced universal health care, student loans, the Canada Pension Plan and the Order of Canada. Under his government Canada finally got its own flag, took steps toward recognizing Canada as a bilingual nation, created a ‘race free immigration policy’ and started to investigate the status of women. It was during his tenure that Canada refused to send troops to Vietnam. With these accomplishments, together with his groundbreaking work at the United Nations and in international diplomacy, Pearson is generally considered among the most influential Canadians of the 20th century.


Pearson was born in Toronto and was the son of a Methodist Minister and his wife. He excelled at both scholastic and athletics while at the University of Toronto. When the First World War broke out in 1914, he volunteered for service as a Medical Orderly with the University of Toronto Hospital Unit. In 1915, he undertook overseas service with the Canadian Army Medical Corps as a stretcher bearer with the rank of Private, and had a subsequent commissioning to the rank of Lieutenant. During this period of service he spent two years in Egypt and Greece. In 1917, Pearson transferred to the Royal Flying Corps (as the Royal Canadian Air Force did not exist at that time), where he served as a Flying Officer until being sent home with injuries from two accidents; while training as a pilot at an air training school in Hendon, England. It was as a pilot that he received the nickname of "Mike", given to him by a flight instructor who felt that "Lester" was too mild a name for an airman. Thereafter, Pearson would use the name "Lester" on official documents and in public life, but was always addressed as "Mike" by friends and family.

After his military service he returned to university and completed his degree. He then spent a year in Hamilton and Chicago working in the meat packing industry but decided that was not the life for him. He received the Massey Scholarship and went to Oxford to gain a second BA in Modern History and an MA by 1925. He returned to Canada and became a Professor at the University of Toronto and married Maryon Moodie with whom he had one daughter and one son.

In 1927, after scoring the top marks on the Canadian Foreign Service entry exam, he then embarked on a career in the Department of External Affairs. Pearson was posted to London in the late 1930s, and served there as World War 2 began in 1939, until 1942 as the second-in-command at Canada House, where he coordinated military supply and refugee issues, serving under High Commissioner Vincent Massey. Pearson returned to Ottawa and he was assistant under secretary from 1941 until 1942. In June 1942 he was posted to the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. as ministerial counselor. He served as second-in-command for nearly two years. Promoted minister plenipotentiary, 1944, he became Canada's ambassador to the United States on January 1, 1945, until September 1946. He had an important part in founding both the United Nations and NATO. Pearson nearly became the first secretary-general of the United Nations in 1945, but this possibility was vetoed by the Soviet Union. In 1957, for his role in defusing the Suez Crisis through the United Nations, Pearson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The selection committee claimed that Pearson had "saved the world." The United Nations Emergency Force was Pearson's creation, and he is considered the father of the modern concept of peacekeeping. Leaders of the US, France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, all had vested interests in the natural resources around the Suez Canal. Pearson was able to organize these leaders by way of a five-day fly-around, and was by effect responsible for the development of the structure for the United Nations Security Council. His Nobel medal is on permanent display in the front lobby of the Lester B. Pearson Building, the headquarters of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa.

What it means to be Canadian –student project

Polar Bears vs. Canada

Beautiful Nova Scotia

The Canadian Tenors

Poster Inviting Immigrants 1880 To Canada

The Beautiful Yukon

The Spell of the Yukon

The Poem by Robert Service set to song.

Beautiful North West Territories

Thompson's View

Canadian Human Rights Commission

The Canadian Human Rights Commission administers the Canadian Human Rights Act. Section 3 of the Act prohibits discrimination based on "race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, disability and conviction for which a pardon has been granted." Section 13(1) addresses the issue of hate speech. The section states:

It is a discriminatory practice for a person or a group of persons acting in concert to communicate telephonically or to cause to be so communicated, repeatedly, in whole or in part by means of the facilities of a telecommunication undertaking within the legislative authority of Parliament, any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.

Section 13(2) makes clear that posting hateful or contemptuous messages to the Internet is prohibited. Section 54(1) allows a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to order a respondent to cease any discriminatory practice, to compensate the victim where the discrimination was wilful or reckless by an amount not exceeding $20,000, and to pay a penalty of not more than $10,000.

Canada's Parliament Buildings

On February 3, 1916, near 9 p.m., a small fire started in the original Parliament Building in the Commons Reading Room in the Centre Block. It soon grew to a raging blaze that claimed seven lives and reduced all but the northwest wing and the Library to a charred shell. After the fire, Canada believed strongly that its Parliament needed a permanent home. It began rebuilding the Centre Block while the First World War was still raging. The new structure, designed in the Modern Gothic Revival style by John Pearson and Jean Omer Marchand, was completed by 1922. An important part of the new building, The Peace Tower was finished later in 1927. The Peace Tower was named in commemoration of Canada’s commitment to peace. On the third floor is the Memorial Chamber which was built to honour Canadians who died in the armed conflicts in which Canada has fought since Confederation.

Stephen Lewis

Stephen Lewis was born in Ottawa, on November 11, 1937, to Sophie Lewis (née Carson) and David Lewis. His parents gave him the Hebrew name "Sholem", aYiddish derivation of the Hebrew word shalom, which means peace, because he was born on Armistice Day. Stephen Henry Lewis, became a politician, broadcaster and diplomat. He was the leader of the NDP in Ontario throughout the 1970s while his father was leader of the Federal NDP. In 1956, he entered the University of Toronto where he became a member of the Hart House debating committee, and in 1958, Lewis debated Senator and future American President, John F. Kennedy. He spent his third year of university at the University of British Columbia (UBC) before spending his final undergraduate year back at the UofT. He went to law school twice in the early 1960s, dropping out of both UofT and UBC's programs. He left his studies in the 1960s and took up a clerical position with the Socialists International, where he received an invitation to a conference in Ghana. He attended, and instead of returning to Canada, spent more than a year working, traveling, and teaching in various places in Africa. He recalled in his 2005 Massey Lectures that the relatively brief sojourn would be a key influence on his life, especially after the turn of the new millennium. He came back to Canada at the instigation of Tommy Douglas, and in 1963, at the age of 26, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Lewis was elected leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party.


In the mid-1980s, after working as a labour mediators, columnist and broadcaster, he was appointed as Canada's ambassador to the United Nations. He quit in 1988 and worked at various United Nations agencies during the 1990s. From 1995 to 1999, Lewis was Deputy Director of UNICEF. From 2001 until 2006, he worked as United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. In his role as Special Envoy, he worked to draw attention to the HIV/AIDS crisis and to convince leaders and the public that they have a responsibility to respond. He has been widely praised for his effectiveness in this role. He is currently Social Science Scholar-in-Residence at McMaster University in Hamilton. In 2003, he was awarded to the Order of Canada. In 2005 he adapted his Massey Lectures in a book titled "Race Against Time", where he describes the disjuncture between what the international community promises and their actions in responding to the pandemic in Africa. In 2007, Lewis received the World Citizenship Award, from the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. In the same year he received the Health and Human Rights Leadership Award from Doctors of the World, USA.

Balad of Fake Lake

The Balad of Fake Lake

This guy is certainly no Gordon Lightfoot but the words of the ballad are interesting. $57,000 for a fake lake to give foreign correspondents an idea of Canada (while in Canada)for a media center is causing quite a stir!

Department of Peace

Did you know that there was a campaign to establish a Canadian Department of Peace?

http://www.departmentofpeace.ca/

Papineau- Rights of Jews to full citizenship in Canada, 1832

There is something about this country, perhaps it was the isolation from the old modes of thought, that permitted people to make decisions that were based on the reality of another person's humanity and not just a buncho of old assumptions. Canada has fought to shrug off the tainted old ways of thinking and has not always been successful but in the main part we are climbing to higher ground in recognizing the essential humanity of all people. Here is an early historical example where the first immigrant Canadians, the Canadians of Lower Canada, led the way.

Woodland Waterfall

Young Canadian Artists for Haiti

We have some amazing talent in this country and they have big hearts as well.

Great Big Sea

You just do not get more Canadian than Great Big Sea.

Nelson Mandella

I think all Canadians would wish to join me in offering our condolensces to Nelson Mandella on the loss of his great grand daughter, 13 year old Zellani.

Beautiful Prince Edward Island

Lucy Maud Montgomery

“I wrote it for love, not money, but very often such books are the most successful, just as everything in the world that is born of true love has life in it.”










Few people have done more to introduce Canada and our way of life to the world than Lucy Maud Montgomery, the writer of Anne of Green Gables. People from around the world flock to Montgomery’s birth place, the Anne of Green Gables house, in the province of Prince Edward Island. The book was drawn from Montgomery’s own lonely childhood and strict upbringing after her mother died and her father turned her over to her grandparents. Montgomery became a teacher and a successful author. Once published, Anne of Green Gables was an immediate success. The central character, Anne, an orphaned girl, made Montgomery famous in her lifetime and gave her an international following. The first novel was followed by a series of sequels with Anne as the central character. The novels became the basis for the highly acclaimed 1985 CBC television miniseries, Anne of Green Gables and several other television movies and programs, including the Road to Avonlea, which ran in Canada and the U.S. from 1990-1996.

Where did the Immigrants from Canada in 2004 come from?

Canada –The very beginning

Beautiful Nunavut

Controversy With India

There was a recent controversy where a Canadian from the department of Foreign Affairs tasked with screening visas for our country declined visas for members of the Indian military for reasons that the average Canadian would ceratainly agree with. It caused a great cafluffle in India that resulted in a diplomatic incident where, probably fearing declines in economic trade, our government did not stand by the decision and the person who had investigated the issues but disavowed the decisions and cowtowed to the Indian point of view.

In an Indian newspaper article Canada was acused of 'bogus moral posturing'. I tried to email the newspaper but the online link appears to have been 'bogus'- and I can only conclude that asking for feedback was just posturing.

I have posted the response I tried to send below:

Hello! Warm regards from Canada!
While very large in land mass, Canada has a small population in comparison to India. We also have a short history but we are trying to get that history right. We, as a nation, are attempting to do something we feel is important and that is to set up a country (we are less than 150 years old) where some fundamental things are observed and cherished. I refer now, not to the politicians or the professional opinion makers but average Canadians who cherish the things that your great leader Mahatma Gandhi cherished. We have many ways of living in this country. Many opinions are accepted and accommodated but we are trying to make a fundamental line in the sand for those things that are not acceptable. We want to err on the side of caution because we know we will not always get it right.
We cannot always know what other people have lived through, what the decisions of their lives led them to do but it is within our rights to say 'please do not bring those ways of being here because they are not our way and we are not equipped to understand or tolerate them." I ask you "Would Gandhi have embraced the people that were turned away from Canadian visas?" If so, I am sorry for the position we have taken and I hope you will forgive us for Gandhi said "Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes." If he would not have endorsed these people, perhaps you can understand why we fear those ways of thought or action enough to deliberately exclude them and the people who carry them. "I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent." Mahatma Gandhi Indian political and spiritual leader (1869 - 1948)
India and Canada have a bright and cooperative future ahead of us for we are both peoples of good will. I hope we will continue this dialogue in a positive manner because every choice we make affects the future of our relationship and of our world.
P.S.I have a favour to ask you. Could you help me understand why Gandhi is called Gandhi G? It would help me to understand your culture more fully.

Proud to be Canadian

Canada's Need for Energy

Recently, I was invited to participate in a focus group for the Ontario Power Generation Corporation. I learned a lot and it was a great experience. The group that I was in was asked to evaluate written materials that stated the stance and advocacy positions of the OPG. Some pertained to labour and investment in the province, some to green initiatives, and some seemed like advertising copy. Nuclear and renewable energy were a big part of what we were considering in this focus group. When we evaluated the need for power, the problems of pollution, the potential need for electricity in the future, I started to wonder if nuclear power might not be the way to go.


The debate that I posted from the TED talks, below, was a thought provoking experience but it was something else that helped me decide against nuclear power. The event that solidified my thinking was the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Why?

In reality, we all participated in or allowed the exploration and capturing of oil from the ocean floor to fuel our way of life. On some level we all knew that in spite of what they said, there was no way that the oil industry could really deal with the worst case scenario but we minimized the risks. We turned into the 'see no evil' monkeys. We ignored the warnings. BP could not deal with the oil spill. It cannot now, no matter what it does, restore that part of our planet. They cannot undo the wound to the planet, to the health of the ocean and to the people who encounter it or to the local economy. They cannot unkill the dead ocean life. We need to remember that this did not just happen in and to the Gulf of Mexico. In a closed system, like the planet we live on, the ramifications are world wide. The oil industry simply played dice with our home and they lost but in the end we all lost.

It is the same with nuclear energy. We cannot, as a planet, handle the worst case scenario with nuclear power generation. If an accident occurs, the people who profit from it, will not be able to 'fix' it. People who have no part in the profit or even the benefits will play with their health or their lives. If a terrorist decides to target it, all we need is one lapse in vigilance, one human error and the corridor to destruction is opened. The facts of human nature and of a science called Human Factors argues persuasively against such eternal vigilance. We are all paying the price for the mistakes of the past in terms of cancer rates and deaths of innocents. It is time to say 'NO' to technologies and to power generation sources where we cannot handle the worst case scenarios. Especially when we have such benign sources of power waiting in the wings.

Worst case scenarios do happen on this small planet.

Quantifying Evil- Robert Hare, PhD

Quantifying Evil - Robet Hare, PhD.

Robert D. Hare (born in 1934) is considered the world expert in psychopathology. He is a Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia and he earned his PhD at Western in London, Ontario. He advises the FBI's Child Abduction and Serial Murder Investigative Resources Center (CASMIRC) and consults for various British and North American prison services. He has advocated for a specific diagnosis of Psychopathy for specific characteristics of criminal behavior. Currently the DSMV manual considers this to be part of the antisocial personality category.

The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) is a diagnostic tool designed to rate an adult male’s psychopathic or antisocial tendencies (newer forms also assess female and adolescents). People who are psychopathic prey ruthlessly on others using charm, deceit, violence or other methods that allow them to get with they want. The symptoms of psychopathy include: lack of a conscience or sense of guilt, lack of empathy, egocentricity, pathological lying, repeated violations of social norms, disregard for the law, shallow emotions, and a history of victimizing others. The PCL-R is used for diagnosing psychopathy in individuals for clinical, legal or research purposes. Because psychopaths are often repeat offenders who commit sexual assaults or other violent crimes again and again, the PCL-R is now being used in the courtroom and in institutions as an indicator of the potential risk posed by subjects or prisoners. The results of the examination have been used in forensic settings as a factor in deciding the length and type of prison sentences and the treatment subjects should or should not receive.

The Hare PCL-R contains two parts, a semi-structured interview and a review of the subject's file records and history. During the evaluation, the clinician scores 20 items that measure central elements of the psychopathic character. The items cover the nature of the subject's interpersonal relationships; his or her affective or emotional involvement; responses to other people and to situations; evidence of social deviance; and lifestyle. The material thus covers two key aspects that help define the psychopath: selfish and unfeeling victimization of other people, and an unstable and antisocial lifestyle. The interview portion of the evaluation covers the subject's background, including such items as work and educational history; marital and family status; and criminal background. Because psychopaths lie frequently and easily, the information they provide must be confirmed by a review of the documents in the subject's case history. When properly completed by a qualified professional, the PCL-R provides a total score that indicates how closely the test subject matches the "perfect" score that a classic or prototypical psychopath would rate. Each of the twenty items is given a score of 0, 1, or 2 based on how well it applies to the subject being tested. A prototypical psychopath would receive a maximum score of 40, while someone with absolutely no psychopathic traits or tendencies would receive a score of zero. A score of 30 or above qualifies a person for a diagnosis of psychopathy. People with no criminal backgrounds normally score around 5. Many non-psychopathic criminal offenders score around 22.

The twenty traits assessed by the PCL-R score are:
• glib and superficial charm
• grandiose (exaggeratedly high) estimation of self
• need for stimulation
• pathological lying
• cunning and manipulativeness
• lack of remorse or guilt
• shallow affect (superficial emotional responsiveness)
• callousness and lack of empathy
• parasitic lifestyle
• poor behavioral controls
• sexual promiscuity
• early behavior problems
• lack of realistic long-term goals
• impulsivity
• irresponsibility
• failure to accept responsibility for own actions
• many short-term marital relationships
• juvenile delinquency
• revocation of conditional release
• criminal versatility

Michael Buble - The Maple Leaf Forever

Acting Out Art

I discovered the work of this young Canadian artist online today at her blog: ActingOutArt.blogspot.com
Acting out Art. TANYA GWEN MINNICK, KINGSTON, CANADA

This one is a mandella made up of trilliums, Ontario's Provincial flower. I hope to post others in the future.

More alike than different

Indentured 'white slavery' in Canada - My familial story

Canada is a young country and as such has a number of missteps included in the way many people came to Canada and in the way we treated each other. We are aware of the history of mistreatment of various groups in early Canada but most of us are not aware of the history of how many ‘white’ ancestors arrived here. Today I will tell the story of my paternal grandmother, Alice Pickering.


Alice was an orphan. While her history is not documented, I can relate some of what she told me when I was a child. She shared that she had been told that her father died first and then her mother died about a month later ‘of a broken heart’. She loved that story. Alice was born in England, perhaps in Birmingham,  in the year 1898. She once told me that the people of the orphanage actually named her by an established practice of rotation of letters. When it was her turn, A and P were the letters of the day so she became Alice Pickering. This leads me to believe that the story of the broken heart may have been some sort of fiction because she would have at least have had a name if it were true. I think she may have been the product of a British soldier who had served in India and an Indian mother. She had only a few pictures of her family and I vividly remember seeing women in saris among men dressed in suits and military uniforms. I remember once telling my father that he looked just like a middle-eastern man on the cover of a National Geographic and it upset him terribly. My dad had swarthy skin and deep brown eyes but that is another story. However, it came about, Alice was placed in an orphanage from infancy and until the time when she was told that she was 18 that is where she lived. At that point she was sent to Canada as a bonded servant.

These orphans or ‘Home Children’ as they were called represented a handy solution for the British government of the time. Canada needed labourers and Britain had an excess of people to provide for in workhouses and orphanages. Emigration was seen as a sensible solution. I fear that it also became a business for the unscrupulous. Because of the squalor and lack of support for poor families in urban areas, the local governing boards allowed religious zealots, social reformers, philanthropists and others to train and ship vagrant children and orphans, averaging the age of 10, to Canada where they were placed onto farms as domestic servants or farm workers. Luckier ones were adopted into families. Emigration of children became controversial when it was discovered that many of the children who were being sent overseas were sometimes taken without permission from existing relatives or profited upon. The agencies were not held accountable for the children once the children were placed.

Indentured labour was a form of contract employment usually with a three- to seven-year time frame. A person became an indentured servant by agreeing to work off a debt during a specified term. “Debt slaves” is another phrase to describe the arrangement, especially in the case of prisoners and youth who had no choice and no other opportunity to repay the debt. This is where Alice’s reality got even more complicated. When she was sent to Canada from the orphanage, her papers said that she was 18 and that she had entered into an agreement to be a bonded servant for seven years. It was not until she applied for old age pension in Canada at the age of 65 that she was told that she was actually only 60 years old so she did not qualify. Thus, a child of 13 in 1911 was sold into a form of slavery as a farm and domestic servant.

One estimate claims half of the white settlers of North America were indentured servants. Destitute, they agreed to work for the purchaser of the indenture upon arrival in Canada. Jim Struthers, chairman of the Canadian Studies Department at Trent University, says that employers in Upper Canada used indentured servitude as a means of maintaining a labour force. It was a legal contract that held people to a particular employment, to a place, at least long enough to pay back the initial cost of the passage. Some contracts were similar to apprenticeships while the terms of others were harsh. Some felt indentured servants were treated worse than slaves. They only needed to keep the worker alive for the term of the contract; if they died shortly after, it was not their loss. Contracts varied from situation to situation with no standard form. Permanent employment, a learned skill, the promise of land, tools, any and all of these might be promised for those who stayed for the duration of their contract.

Child migration to Canada peaked from the 1870s until the start of World War I and was triggered by desperate economic conditions over the previous few years. It was during this period that Annie Macpherson, Thomas Barnardo, and William Booth (the founder of the Salvation Army) commenced their work among the poorest and most destitute in the East End of London. To them, and to many other religious workers, emigration, including the forced migration of abandoned children, seemed the one certain way for the desperately poor to better themselves. Some eighty thousand children were sent to Canada during those years. By the time my grandmother came along it was an established and exploited practice.

The first group of these orphans or Home Children, as they were called at the time, came to Belleville in 1870. In the city, the children were accommodated in a temporary home called Marchmont before they were placed in foster care or sent along to be indentured. Alice arrived in Canada and was placed with a farm family in the Trenton area with the obligation to serve that family for seven years. It was not a happy arrangement for Alice and at the end of the time she married a much older man to escape her situation.

Life was hard in early Canada. So while it is true that many injustices happened, we can surely see from this one example that most of the people in Canada were in desperate situations, just trying to survive.

Canada’s Really Big

Michael Buble gives as good as he gets with Manifest Destiny

Canadian Culture

Canadian culture

Governor General Medal Recipients Feb, 10, 2010

More modern day Canadian HEROES.

Medal recipients
Star of Courage

•Petty Officer 2nd Class Drew D. Dazzo, Elizabeth City, N.C.

Medal of Bravery

•Ryan Cecil Atwin, Oromocto, N.B.

•Provincial Const. Daniel Bailey, Fort Frances, Ont.

•Mark Barnard, Regina, Sask.

•Jerrica Lynn Bartlett, St. Stephen, N.B

•Capt. Denis Beaulieu, Bushell Park, Sask.

•Gerard Beernaerts, Winnipeg.

•Gary Victor Brown, Bella Coola, B.C.

•Benjamin Loren Correos, Whitehorse, Yukon (posthumous)

•Const. Aaron Courtney, Abbotsford, B.C.

•Const. Frédéric Couture, Montréal.

•Michael Cruz, Holyoke, Mass.

•Master Cpl. Jonas Denechezhe, Lac Brochet, Man.

•Robert Joseph Kyle Donelle, Fredericton, N.B.

•Kimpton Gagnon-Després, Whitehorse, Yukon

•Evan John Michael Green, Oromocto, N.B.

•Robert Hardy, Conception Bay South, N.L.

•Shaun Harper, West Vancouver.

•Michel Harvey, Saint-Constant, Que.

•Raphaël Harvey Bérard, Saint-Constant, Que.

•Andrew Douglas Hilderman, Regina, Sask.

•Gerry Kuczek, Winnipeg.

•Wayne Kuczek, Winnipeg.

•Michael David Landry, Regina, Sask.

•Const. Martin Langlois, Montreal.

•Nicholas Levi Francis Lannigan, Oromocto, N.B.

•G. Gregory Lawlor, Conception Bay South, N.L.

•Scott Lee Joseph Moody, Bella Coola, B.C. (deceased)

•RCMP Cpl. James Allan Munro, Dauphin, Man.

•Provincial Const. Gino Nolet, Hearst, Ont.

•Provincial Const. James D. Orser, Campbellford, Ont.

•Harry Prymak, St. Clements, Man.

•Daniel Reynolds, Hamilton.

•Robert Ringuette, Hearst, Ont.

•Kelsey Jessica Roy, Carleton Place, Ont.

•Sharanjit (Shawn) Sangha, Abbotsford, B.C.

•Tanya Silveira, Vancouver, B.C.

•Cody Brian Sloot, Castlegar, B.C.

•Provincial Const. Bruce A. Thompson, Campbellford, Ont.

•Tony Niels Tingskou, Surrey, B.C.

•Clifford Tssessaze, Lac Brochet, Man.

•David Glenn Virgoe, Angus, Ont. (posthumous).

•Provincial Const. Darrell Wagner, Pembroke, Ont.

•Tanya Lee Waldriff, Arnstein, Ont.

•Robert A. Walker, Dundas, Ont.

•Caroline Young, Conception Bay South, N.L.

•Const. Kevin Wade Zeh,

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/02/04/canada-bravery-awards-governor-general.html#ixzz0qIH5Nxal

Canadians Decorated by the Governor Gerneral for Acts of Heroism in 2009

I was trying to sort through the brave acts of these people to decide which one should be the feature of today's post when it became clear that each and every one deserves our appreciation and recognition. So here is the entire list from the Governor General's announcement in November of last year.

Jimmy Victor Beardy, M.B., Manitoba

Paul Linklater, M.B., Thompson, Manitoba

Medals of Bravery

On December 18, 2004, Jimmy Beardy and Paul Linklater rescued two children from a burning house, in Thompson, Manitoba. Arriving at the scene, Mr. Linklater kicked open the door and felt his way through the smoke-filled house to find the occupants, but was forced back out to get air. Joined by Mr. Beardy, Mr. Linklater then ran upstairs, yelling loudly to wake the sleeping family of five. The rescuers located two of the children and rushed them outside. Two of the other residents made their own way outside to safety, while the last boy was rescued by firefighters.

Constable Patrick Benoit, M.B., Kingston, Ontario-Medal of Bravery

On March 29, 2008, off-duty Constable Patrick Benoit, of the Kingston Police Force, rescued an injured man following an accident on highway 401, in Kingston, Ontario. A tractor-trailer had hit a communications tower, crashed into a rock wall and burst into flames. Alerted by the loud noise as he drove nearby, Constable Benoit stopped to assist. The injured driver was on the rock wall above his burning rig and was in danger of falling. In complete darkness, Constable Benoit managed to climb up halfway, but fell as stones on the wall came loose. Persevering, he reached the victim and pulled him a safe distance away until help arrived.

Ryan Sterling Burry, M.B., St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador- Medal of Bravery

On January 6, 2008, Ryan Burry rescued his aunt and her three-year-old daughter after their snowmobile had broken through the ice, in Boyd’s Cove, Newfoundland and Labrador. During an excursion in the harbour, Mr. Burry, in the lead machine, turned to check on his aunt and cousin just as their vehicle began to sink. He rushed to the scene and crawled to the edge of the ice. He reached for the child and brought her to safety, then raced back to his aunt, who was clinging to the edge, weighed down by her waterlogged clothing. Mr. Burry pulled her up onto the ice, and drove her and the child to safety.

Elaine Dare, M.B., Port Loring, Ontario- Medal of Bravery

On February 29, 2008, Elaine Dare rescued two people whose snowmobiles had broken through the ice of Lake Restoule, Ontario. During an excursion, the snowmobilers had lost sight of the marked trail in the dark and snowy conditions, when two of the riders ended up half-submerged in the freezing water. With her friends gripping the edge of the ice to stay afloat, Mrs. Dare immediately drove off to get help. She followed a set of distant lights towards a house, where she obtained a rope and then raced back to her friends. Standing on the slippery, unsafe ice, Mrs. Dare threw the rope to the victims until she succeeded in pulling them both to safety. They were then brought to a nearby building, where they waited until an ambulance arrived.

Frédéric Dufresne, M.B., Trois-Rivières, Quebec- Medal of Bravery

On August 1, 2005, Frédéric Dufresne risked his life to prevent a young boy from being hit by an oncoming truck, in Sainte-Monique, Quebec. Mr. Dufresne and his Scout troop were at a roadside rest stop when they noticed a three-year-old boy running towards the roadway, with his father trying to catch him from behind. As Mr. Dufresne joined the chase, the boy ran directly into the path of a transport truck filled with logs. Mr. Dufresne sprinted and tackled the boy, rolling with him until they cleared the road, just as the truck whizzed by.

Kimberly Friesen, M.B., Quesnel, British Columbia-Medal of Bravery

On May 23, 2007, Kimberly Friesen rescued a boy from a possible drowning, in Quesnel, British Columbia. The boy, who had been cycling with his family along the Quesnel Riverfront Trail, had missed a turn and ended up in the water. Mrs. Friesen was rollerblading nearby when she heard the child’s mother call out for help. Although not a strong swimmer, Mrs. Friesen took off her skates and, without hesitation, jumped into the freezing waters of the swollen river. Battling against the strong current, she reached the unconscious victim and pulled him to shore, where others helped to resuscitate him.

Gillian Irene MacAulay, M.B., Trenton, Nova Scotia-Medal of Bravery

On August 10, 2007, Gillian MacAulay rescued two girls from a possible drowning at Melmerby Beach, in Pictou County, Nova Scotia. One of the teenagers had been swimming in waist-deep water, when she was suddenly caught in a strong undertow and pulled out to sea. Ms. MacAulay heard the girl’s cries and, without hesitation, swam out to her. She grabbed the girl and fought against the pounding waves to bring her to shore. Ms. MacAulay then went back in to assist the other panicking young girl who struggled in the water, bringing her to safety.

Sylvain Joseph Marcoux, M.B., Montréal, Quebec-Medal of Bravery

On October 16, 2007, Sylvain Marcoux placed himself at considerable risk to come to the aid of a man who was being attacked by a thief, in Montréal, Quebec. Mr. Marcoux had entered a convenience store when he heard the clerk yelling and signalling with blood-stained hands towards a room at the back of the building. He followed the sounds of a scuffle and found two blood-covered men fighting in a back room. Mr. Marcoux pushed the victim away and jumped on the attacker, knocking a knife and a broken bottle from his grasp. He was able to restrain the man until police arrived.

Constable Sean Ralph, M.B., Ottawa, Ontario
Constable Alain Rochette, M.B., Ottawa, Ontario
Medals of Bravery

On December 8, 2005, Ottawa Police constables Sean Ralph and Alain Rochette risked their lives in an effort to rescue a woman who was being stabbed by a man armed with a hunting knife, in Ottawa, Ontario. When the officers arrived, the attacker grabbed the victim, dragged her inside her basement apartment and locked the door. After numerous attempts to break down the heavy door, the constables succeeded in kicking out a small opening at the bottom of it. Uncertain of what they would encounter on the other side, they crawled into the dark apartment. They spotted the aggressor, who finally responded to the officers’ commands and surrendered his weapon. Sadly, the victim did not survive.

Sergeant Bryant Wood, S.C., M.B., Port Hope, Ontario-Medal of Bravery

On September 8, 2006, Sergeant Bryant Wood, of the Port Hope Police Service, rescued an eight-year-old boy from a burning house, in Port Hope, Ontario. Arriving at the scene, Sergeant Wood saw heavy smoke billowing from the home and spotted an unconscious man lying inside the doorway. Sergeant Wood helped bring the man outside, where others were able to revive him. Suddenly, the family dog ran into the house, with a young boy chasing after it. Without concern for his own safety, Sergeant Wood ran into the smoke-filled house, located the boy and his dog in the living room, and carried them outside to safety.

* Sergeant Wood also received a Star of Courage for a separate incident.


Sergeant Bryant Wood, S.C., M.B., Port Hope, Ontario -Star of Courage


On September 9, 2007, Sergeant Bryant Wood, of the Port Hope Police Service, rescued a woman from a burning house, in Port Hope, Ontario. Dispatched to the scene, Sergeant Wood and a colleague found the main entrance engulfed in flames and a secondary door blocked from the inside. They opened a window, and through the thick, black smoke, they pulled a man and two women to safety. Another woman remained inside, unwilling to exit until she found her cat. As the fire quickly worsened, Sergeant Wood climbed inside to search for her. Fearing that the second floor could collapse at any moment, he searched through the apartment and finally located the victim in a bedroom. He grabbed the resisting woman and brought her to a window, where his colleague helped pull them both out.

Benjamin Franklin Youngs- Hero of the American Civil War

In May 2010 Canadian Benjamin Franklin Youngs was honoured for bravery exhibited about 150 years before. He distinguished himself when at only 19 he left the family farm west of Toronto in 1863 and enlisted with the Michigan Sharpshooters.  He had  aspired to be a carpenter until he felt the pull toward enlistment. Youngs was awarded the Medal of Honor — the highest military decoration in the U.S. — for his battlefield bravery the next year.During a pivotal push through Confederate Virginia in 1864, Youngs led a Union advance through enemy lines near the city of Petersburg and captured the flag of a surprised North Carolina regiment. He was “promoted to sergeant on the spot,” according to family biography, and was later presented a medal that only 1,500 other soldiers received during the Civil War, and fewer than 3,500 in all of U.S. history.The May 15 event in Los Angeles was organized by the California Medal of Honour Project, a group led by veterans’ advocate Debbie Peevyhouse that locates the burial sites of forgotten war heroes and erects special grave markers to which Medal of Honor recipients are entitled under U.S. law. After his daring action at Petersburg, B.F. Youngs fought several more Civil War battles before being wounded and sent home to Canada. A record-keeping error listed him as being dishonourably discharged at the time — a mistake finally corrected when the U.S. Congress passed a special resolution restoring Youngs’ good name in 1925. By then, he was an elderly man who’d moved from Ontario to live with relatives in California. He died at the Old Soldiers Nursing Home in Los Angeles in 1927 at the age of 82.And there he was buried, without fanfare, beneath a footstone that recorded only his name and the years he had lived. Youngs was one of thousands of Canadians who volunteered to fight across the border when the fight over slavery and states’ rights tore America apart in the 1800s. IN the ceremony a new memorial stone  was unvieled— flanked by wreaths from the Canadian government and the Woodstock, Ont.-area township of Zorra, where he grew up.

The Spirit of India should also be the Spirit of Canada

This is a serious departure from my normal postings on this site but this ad from India tells such a wonderful story, one that I believe is the way forward for all nations and one that we in Canada are particularly able to embrace. Please watch! Canada Day is coming up. Maybe we could all commit to giving our country and our world a birthday present.

Our Canadian Flag

Gail Latouche- In Her own words

I found this story on an internet site. I thought you might like to meet this Canadian woman and so I have transferred her story exactly as she wrote it below.












Government of Canada

Gail Latouche Deputy Director

January 2009 – January 2010 - KPRT

Today I depart Kandahar with mixed emotions. I am very much looking forward to reuniting with my family after having been away for one year. However, I will truly miss all the wonderful Afghans and colleagues I worked so closely with while deployed in Kandahar as part of the Provincial Reconstruction Team.



As Deputy Director for the Correctional Services Canada (CSC) team at the PRT, I was one of four team members who had the responsibility to advise, mentor and train Afghan correctional staff at Sarpoza prison. This task was not without challenges. The language, culture, lack of literacy, security and logistics, were a few of the barriers that stood between us and those who so eagerly wanted to learn. Those I trained and mentored had an insatiable hunger to learn and improve the environment in which they worked. This was the rule and not the exception. When I arrived I was unsure how I would be received, but I soon learned that I had nothing to worry about. Sarpoza staff, men and women alike, opened their hearts and their minds to what they could learn. I too learned a lot from them in kind. The Afghans are a very sociable, generous and sincere people.



In addition to mentoring while at Sarpoza several days a week, I had the pleasure of teaching sixteen senior managers during an Executive Leadership course. I was in awe of how much they gave back in class and shared with me their own knowledge, challenges and fears. Often, when I would return to the prison, several class participants would quote what they learned in class and would explain how the lesson applied to their work that day.



My greatest personal accomplishment, while at the KPRT, was the training of female correctional officers. Even through the language barrier we connected as women. As correctional staff we connected on a professional level. I was very proud of their skills and they were so pleased to have been finally taught the same course as their male counterparts. It is difficult to describe the emotion the women demonstrated in the classroom when they listened to various lessons on law, conflict resolution and manipulation by inmates. Their faces were beaming; they left the class room ten feet tall, head held high, shoulders back, confident, proud and eager to apply their new knowledge. And they did. Upon returning to subsequent classes, the women shared many examples of how they applied their skills and how well they worked. One woman actually said, "I was blind, but now I can see". I also noticed a change in the inmates as the months progressed. Where in the past they would be confrontational or complain about the staff, now they didn't. The staff and inmates on the women's ward seemed to be more at peace. I witnessed on a daily basis the resilience of all of these people and how much they all wanted their country back.



I will sincerely miss working in Afghanistan, and though I will miss the friends I have made, I will always have what I learned from the experience. I am honoured to have been a small part of corrections in Kandahar. There is still work to be done, there is no doubt, but as long as we are there, they too are grateful for our contributions and commitment.



Gail Latouche

Deputy Director

January 2009 – January 2010

KPRT

Sylvia Olga Fedoruk

Sylvia Olga Fedoruk. Born Canora, Saskatchewan May 5, 1927. Fedoruk grew up in rural Saskatchewan, and was taught by her father in a one-room schoolhouse. Later, while living in Windsor, Ontario, during World War II, she was encouraged to go into science by her English teacher and she entered the University of Saskatchewan’s medical program. Fedoruk graduated in physics in 1951, and for 35 years she was chief medical physicist for the Saskatchewan Cancer Foundation. During this time, Fedoruk was involved in the development of both the Cobalt 60 unit and one of the first nuclear scanning machines. She established her reputation for achievement in nuclear medical research early in her career. She was instrumental in the development of the first cobalt radiation unit which is now in side use as a chemotherapy treatment for cancer. She was the first woman named to the position of Chancellor at the University of Saskatchewan. She was also the first woman trustee of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and in 1973 she was the first woman appointed to the Atomic Energy Control Board of Canada. She was Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan from 1988 to 1994. A balanced achiever she enjoys sports and is a member of Canada’s Curling Hall of fame. She was appointed to the Order of Canada in 1986.

Could You Pass the Canadian Citizenship Test?

Could You Pass the Canadian Citizenship Test?

Fleur de Lis

Only recently did I learn that the Fleur de Lis, a symbol of the French and of French Canada, actually represents my favourite flower, the iris. As they have been bloomin in my yard for the last few weeks, I am sharing Van Gogh's image of the flowers with all of my Canadian friends.

Canada's Answer to Missile Defense

Jeremiah Jones- Heroism has no colour

At age 50, he actually had to lie about his age in order to enlist. "He would laugh," Francis said, recalling her grandfather's antics of telling the story about his enlistment in the First World War. "He said 'those fellers didn't know how old I was.'"Jeremiah Jones enlisted with the 106th Battalion of the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force on June 19, 1916 in Truro and was discharged in Halifax on May 8, 1918 after being found medically unfit to serve.


The act of heroism, for which he was finally recognized after his death, dates to the spring of 1917 during the Battle of Vimy Ridge when he single-handedly took out a German machine gun nest. Amid a raging and bloody battle that had Canadian troops pinned down by machine gun fire, Jones volunteered to attempt to silence the German gun.

"I threw a hand bomb (grenade) right into the nest and killed about seven of them," he was quoted as saying in a Canadian Press story. "I was going to throw another bomb, when they threw up their arms and called for mercy." The remaining half dozen enemy troops then surrendered to Jones, who forced them to carry their machine gun back across the battlefield to the Canadian lines where they dropped it at the feet of his commanding officer. Wounded in the action, and again during the battle of Passchendale, Jones was recommended for the Distinguished Conduct Medal - an award for valour, second only to the Victoria Cross. But, faced with the discrimination that failed to recognize the deeds of he and other black soldiers of his time, Jones was passed over for recognition time and time again.

The late Nova Scotia Senator Calvin Ruck worked without success for more than a decade to get the Canadian government to award a medal posthumously to his friend. During that campaign, Ruck argued that the racist climate of the time precluded Jones or other black soldiers from getting their due recognition and he felt that it would be appropriate for the government to award the medal to Jones on behalf of all black veterans.

Over the years, family members continued to fight on his behalf and, despite the passing decades, they never really gave up hope that his day would come. "We were trusting that it would," Francis said. "We knew that it was going to happen, there were a lot of people who were advocating for this."


"It's long overdue but in the fullness of time it's always the right time in God's eyes," a family member was quoted as saying.

The Order Of Canada

The Order of Canada was created in 1967 (our centennial year) to recognize outstanding Canadians who have made substantial contributions to Canada in any field of endeavor.

Companion


Companions of the Order of Canada have demonstrated the highest degree of merit to Canada and humanity, on either the national or international scene. Up to 15 Companions are appointed annually, with an imposed limit of 165 living Companions at any given time. The constitution of the Order of Canada also specifies that the reigning monarch, the incumbent governor general and his or her spouse, and former viceroys and viceregal consorts are to be included as Companions of the order, though these individuals also do not count towards the 165 person maximum. As of July 2009, there were 170 living Companions, including four honorary.

Officer

Officers of the Order of Canada have demonstrated an outstanding level of talent and service to Canadians, and up to 64 may be appointed each year, save for those inducted on an honorary basis, with no limit to how many may be living at one time. As of July 2009, there were 1,012 living Officers, including four honorary.

Member

Members of the Order of Canada (post-nominals: CM, in French: Membre de l'ordre du Canada) have made an exceptional contribution to Canada or Canadians at a local or regional level, group, field or activity. As many as 136 Members may be appointed annually, save for those inducted on an honorary basis, and there is no limit on how many Members may be living at one time. As of July 2009, there were 2,037 living Members, including four honorary.

In future posts, I hope to share the achievements of many of these  fine human beings.

Johnny Canuck

Johnny Canuck first appeared in early political cartoons dating to 1869 where he was portrayed as a younger cousin of the United States' Uncle Sam and Britain's John Bull. He was created as a lumberjack and national personification of Canada. Dressed as a habitant, farmer, logger, rancher or soldier, he was characterized as wholesome and uncomplicated man and was often depicted resisting the bullying of John Bull or Uncle Sam. He appeared regularly in editorial cartoons for 30 years before declining in usage in the early twentieth century. Maybe it is time to bring him back and add a female counterpart as well.

I am glad I am Canadian

I am glad I am Canadian

Oh Canada! Les Stroud, Survivorman

As surprising as it might seem, few people have done more to introduce Canada to the world than Les Stroud, Canada's premier survivalist. A Canadian diplomat who has recently returned from Saudi Arabia told me that Les Stroud is a star in that country and that his survival program is a number one rated TV show. In this clip, he tells his 'best story ever' for 'The Hour'. Enjoy!

Anderson Abbott Ruffin Canada’s First Black Doctor

"It is just as natural for two races living together on the same soil to blend as it is for the waters of two river tributaries to mingle." Anderson Ruffin Abbot

Anderson Ruffin Abbot was born in 1837 in Toronto to a prominent black family. His parents were ‘free people of colour’ who had left Alabama after their store had been ransacked. Wilson, his father was an active real estate investor and he was active in politics. His family’s prosperity allowed Anderson to attend excellent schools where he excelled. He went to Oberlin College in Ohio. He also went to the University of Toronto and studied at that Toronto School of Medicine graduating in 1857. He then studied under Alexander Thomas Augusta another Black doctor and obtained his license to practice from the Medical Board of Upper Canada in 1861 to become Canada’s first Canadian born Black doctor.


During the Civil War in the United States, Abbott served as a civilian surgeon in Washington D.C from June 1863 to August 1865. He was one of only eight Black surgeons. While there he developed a close relationship with Abraham Lincoln so close in fact that he stood vigil at his bedside after the President had been shot keeping the minutes of Lincoln’s condition as he died. In gratitude, Mary Todd Lincoln presented Abbott with the plaid shawl that Lincoln has worn during his 1861 inauguration. Abbott received many commendations for his service during the war. In 1866, Abbott returned to Canada. In 1871, he married Mary Ann Casey and moved to Chatham.

He was appointed the coroner for Kent Country in 1874. After some time spent in Chicago he returned to Toronto.Abbott became an important member of the community in Toronto and he fought against racially segregated schools. In Chatham, he contributed to the newspaper and was associate editor of the journal for the British Methodist Episcopal church. He was also president of the Chatham Literary Society, the Medical Society and the Debating Society. He moved his practice to Dundas in 1881 and became a trustee of the high school and chairman of the town’s internal management committee from 1885 to 1889.

He remained a prolific writer and advocate throughout his life believing that Blacks should be culturally assimilated not segregated. At the age of 76, Abbott died in 1913 at the Toronto home of his son-in-law Frederick Langdon Hubbard.

Merging Canadian and American Currency

I love Rick Mercer's take on things!

The Changeable Canadian Weather

Susan Aglukark- Hina Na Ho

Inuit singer of great beauty

Dr. Ron St. John - Pandemic Detective

The GPHIN Project

Have you ever heard of one of the worlds unsung superheroes? His name is Dr. Ron St. John and he and his team are responsible for an amazing system for the early detection of disease pandemics. Dr. Larry Brilliant has taken his TED prize money and his GOOGLE contacts and parlayed Dr. Ron St. John's work that orginanated in Canada and was truly responsible for halting the SARS epidemic. Dr. St. John's project is called GPHIN.

GPHIN took early advantage of advancements in communication technologies to provide coordinated, near real-time, multisource, and multilingual information for monitoring emerging public health events. In 1997, a prototype GPHIN system was developed in a partnership between the government of Canada and WHO. The objective was to determine the feasibility and effectiveness of using news media sources to continuously gather information about possible disease outbreaks worldwide and to rapidly alert international bodies of such events. The sources included websites, news wires, and local and national newspapers retrieved through news aggregators in English and French. After the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a new, robust, multilingual GPHIN system was developed and was launched November 17, 2004, at the United Nations.

Data Acquisition
Automated Process The GPHIN software application retrieves relevant articles every 15 minutes (24 hours/day, 7 days/week) from news-feed aggregators (Al Bawaba [www.albawaba.com] and Factiva [www.factiva.com]) according to established search queries that are updated regularly. The matching articles are automatically categorized into >1 GPHIN taxonomy categories, which cover the following topics: animal, human, or plant diseases; biologics; natural disasters; chemical incidents; radiologic incidents; and unsafe products.

Articles with a high relevancy score are automatically published on the GPHIN database. The GPHIN database is also augmented with articles obtained manually from open-access web sites. Each day, GPHIN handles ≈4,000 articles. This number drastically increases when events with serious public health implications, such as the finding of melamine in various foods worldwide, are reported.

Human Analysis Process Although the GPHIN computerized processes are essential for the management of information about health threats worldwide, the linguistic, interpretive, and analytical expertise of the GPHIN analysts makes the system successful. Articles with relevancy below the "publish" threshold are presented to a GPHIN analyst, who reviews the article and decides whether to publish it, issue an alert, or dismiss it. Additionally, the GPHIN analyst team conducts more in-depth tasks, including linking events in different regions, identifying trends, and assessing the health risks to populations around the world.

Data Dissemination

Machine Translation English articles are machine-translated into Arabic, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Farsi, French, Russian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Non-English articles are machine-translated into English. GPHIN has adopted a best-of-breed approach in selecting engines for machine translation. The lexicons associated with the engines are constantly being improved to enhance the quality of the output. As such, the machine-translated outputs are edited by the appropriate GPHIN analysts. The goal is not to obtain a perfect translation but to ensure comprehensibility of the essence of the article.
Information Access Users can view the latest list of published articles or query the database by using both Boolean and translingual metadata search capabilities. In addition, notifications about events that might have serious public health consequences are immediately sent by email to users in the form of an alert.

Project Results
As an initial assessment of data collected during July 1998 through August 2001, WHO retrospectively verified 578 outbreaks, of which 56% were initially picked up and disseminated by GPHIN.[9] Outbreaks were reported in 132 countries, demonstrating GPHIN's capacity to monitor events occurring worldwide, despite the limitation of predominantly English (with some French) media sources.

One of GPHIN's earliest achievements occurred in December 1998, when the system was the first to provide preliminary information to the public health community about a new strain of influenza in northern People's Republic of China.[20] During the SARS outbreak, declared by WHO in March 2003, the GPHIN prototype demonstrated its potential as an early-warning system by detecting and informing the appropriate authorities (e.g., WHO, Public Health Agency of Canada) of an unusual respiratory illness outbreak occurring in Guangdong Province, China, as early as November 27, 2002. GPHIN was further able to continuously monitor and provide information about the number of suspected and probable SARS cases reported worldwide on a near real-time basis. GPHIN's information was ≈2–3 days ahead of the official WHO report of confirmed and probable cases worldwide.

In addition to outbreak reporting, GPHIN has also provided information that enabled public health officials to track global effects of the outbreak such as worldwide prevention and control measures, concerns of the general public, and economic or political effects. GPHIN is used daily by organizations such as WHO, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization.

Just as the world has owed a debt of thanks to the CDC, it now owes a debt of gratitude to GPHIN and to Dr. Ron St. John

First Box of Raspberries Award

Why Tucker Carlson is a worthy first recipient of the Box of Raspberries Award:

1. For representing the worst stereotypes of his country so well
2. For his amazing capacity to disrespect Canadians (and anyone else who disagrees with him)
3. For fitting right in at Fox news (hint: louder and more abrasive is not a better argument, Tucker)
4. For his insensitivity toward the mentally disabled
5. For his name calling (he must have gone to school when bullying was still the way to be cool)
6. For his bow ties
7. For being falsely accused of rape ('limpid, flacid nature' came from somewhere)
8. For having Wolf Blitzer steal his TV show's name and report his antics
9. For losing without grace to George Stombolopolis
10. For believing that Canada needs American protection (with nukes!)

The top ten Greatest Canadians in alphabetical order, Nominated in spring 2004.

Frederick Banting

He’s known as the man who discovered insulin, bringing new hope to diabetics the world over. Frederick Banting’s groundbreaking research in the early 1920s brought him worldwide acclaim and earned him a lifetime annuity from the federal government, a knighthood in the British crown and Canada’s first ever Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Alexander Graham Bell

History was made when the first words were transmitted via telegraph on March 10, 1876, “Mr. Watson, come here, I need you.” After patenting the invention and staging a demonstration of the telephone at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, Bell went on to form the Bell Telephone Company in 1877.

Don Cherry

Starting out as a hockey player, then a successful NHL coach, Don Cherry soon found his niche on the television screen. Outspoken, outrageous and at times outlandish – Cherry has been called many things during his 24 years with CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada, but he’s never been accused of being at a loss for words.

Tommy Douglas

For more than 50 years, his staunch devotion to social causes, rousing powers of speech and pugnacious charm made Tommy C. Douglas a popular political force. From his first foray into public politics in 1934 to his post-retirement years in the 1970s, Canada’s ‘father of Medicare’ stayed true to his socialist beliefs.

Terry Fox

On the morning of April 12, 1980, Terry Fox began his Marathon of Hope. Fox’s journey took him through the Atlantic provinces, Quebec and Ontario, until he stopped just outside of Thunder Bay. He had run 5,376 kms, and by February 1981, raised $24.17 million. Fox died, with his family beside him, on June 28, 1981. That September, the first Terry Fox Run was held.

Wayne Gretzky

He is the greatest scorer in NHL history, breaking over five-dozen records and racking up nearly 3,000 points. He’s won four Stanley Cups and has held or shared 61 NHL records. He serves on countless charities and his foundation helps disadvantaged children from North America participate in hockey.

Sir John A. Macdonald

Macdonald is best known as the founding father of Canada, who united the French and the English and who facilitated the construction of Canadian Pacific Railway. The characteristics that made him such an effective leader are the same ones that define Canada as a nation.

Lester B. Pearson

During his five years in office Pearson oversaw the introduction of the Canada Pension Plan, national Medicare, the Bilingualism and Biculturalism Commission, a national labour code, and the Maple Leaf flag. The crowning achievement was his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1956.

David Suzuki

As the host of CBC’s The Nature of Things and the author of more than 30 books, David Suzuki has been called a ‘gladiatorial geneticist’ who mixes education with entertainment. The passionate Suzuki has earned a well-deserved reputation as an environmental guru for two generations of Canadians.

Pierre Trudeau

Trudeau’s unique blend of charisma and fierce intelligence managed to keep him in power for nearly 16 years. During that time, he never wavered from his goal to create a unified and “just” Canada. He worked to promote bilingualism, stamp out separatism and create a Canadian Constitution and Charter of Rights.


I wonder if it would be the same top ten if we nominated today?

Canadian Town

Canadian Geography

This is an excellent student presentation and teaching tool. (One small correction is that the maritime province of Newfoundland includes Labrador so that the province's name is Newfoundland and Labrador.)

Marshall Mcluhan

The global village


In the early 1960s, McLuhan wrote that the visual, individualistic print culture would soon be brought to an end by what he called "electronic interdependence": when electronic media replace visual culture with aural/oral culture. In this new age, humankind will move from individualism and fragmentation to a collective identity, with a "tribal base." McLuhan's coinage for this new social organization is the global village.

The term is sometimes described as having negative connotations in The Gutenberg Galaxy, but McLuhan himself was interested in exploring effects, not making value judgments:
"Instead of tending towards a vast Alexandrian library the world has become a computer, an electronic brain, exactly as an infantile piece of science fiction. And as our senses have gone outside us, Big Brother goes inside. So, unless aware of this dynamic, we shall at once move into a phase of panic terrors, exactly befitting a small world of tribal drums, total interdependence, and superimposed co-existence. [...] Terror is the normal state of any oral society, for in it everything affects everything all the time. [...] In our long striving to recover for the Western world a unity of sensibility and of thought and feeling we have no more been prepared to accept the tribal consequences of such unity than we were ready for the fragmentation of the human psyche by print culture
 Mcluhan was born in Edmonton Alberta, edcuated at the University of Manitoba and at Cambridge. He taught at the University of Toronto for many years.

IMAC