Category: Canada

Lucy Maud who? Poll finds many Canadians can’t name achievements of famous women

A new poll suggests Canadians have a lot to learn about the accomplishments of some of the country’s most famous women.

The online survey, conducted by Ipsos on behalf of Historica Canada, found the majority of Canadians couldn’t name the achievements of such famous women as Emily Carr and Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Only 37 per cent of respondents to the poll could identify Carr’s accomplishments as a painter, while only 27 per cent knew that Montgomery’s fame sprang from her authorship of such Canadian literary classics as Anne of Green Gables.

When it comes to notable Indigenous women, recognition levels among respondents tumbled to between three and one per cent.

But the survey suggests Canadians are aware of the knowledge gap, with just 30 per cent of respondents saying the country is doing well at teaching youth about female accomplishment.

Historica Canada says the organization is seeing increasing demand to shine a light on women’s issues and successes.

Chief executive officer Anthony Wilson-Smith said Historica staff got a clear message from teachers and school boards who were asked where the organization needed to help fill in some key blanks from Canada’s past.

“People are saying, ‘look, yeah, tell us more about women’s history,”‘ Wilson-Smith said in a telephone interview. “‘Tell us more about who are the great Canadian women? What have they done?”‘

The survey presented respondents with a list of 15 women drawn largely from the ranks of Canadian artists, politicians and civil rights activists and asked if survey participants were familiar with their achievements.

Wilson-Smith said respondents were not asked to name individual works or recognize specific career milestones, only indicate whether they had a basic understanding of why the women were famous.

The number of poll participants who had never heard of any of the notable women surpassed the number who were familiar with one of Canada’s most famous artists.

The survey found 40 per cent of respondents were unfamiliar with any of the women compared to 37 per cent who had heard of Carr, a British Columbia-based painter celebrated for her depictions of Indigenous culture and Canadian nature scenes.

Montgomery, whose books about red-haired orphan Anne Shirley are globally renowned, received the second-highest recognition score of 27 per cent among respondents. Only 16 per cent had heard of suffragette Nellie McClung, who came third in the poll rankings.

Wilson-Smith said he’s encouraged by the finding suggesting people want to see more concerted efforts to step up education on women’s issues, saying the survey results should not be mistaken for lack of interest in Canada’s female icons.

“It’s not as though these are deliberate slights by people,” he said. “It just shows that … we have a lot of heroes and just a lot of very accomplished people whose work deserves to be known. We and other places have to continue to do everything we can to put them forward.”

The survey also explored Canadian responses to the #MeToo movement, finding that roughly half of respondents feel Canadians are succeeding at making women feel safe from sexual harassment on the job and in society at large. The survey found 51 per cent of male respondents felt Canada was making good progress on this issue, while 45 per cent of women surveyed held that view.

The poll of 1,001 Canadians was conducted online between Feb. 23 and 26. The polling industry’s professional body, the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error as they are not a random sample and therefore are not necessarily representative of the whole population.

O Canada official lyrics
O Canada! Our home and native land! True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise, The True North strong and free!
From far and wide, O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free! O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee
O Canada lyrics to be reviewed
Get ready to memorize new words to the national anthem.
Parliament is to be asked to review the “original gender-neutral wording of the national anthem,” says the throne speech delivered by Gov. Gen. MichaÎlle Jean on Wednesday.
O Canada includes the lyrics “true patriot love in all thy sons command,” and there may be interest in changing that line to something more inclusive.
O Canada, with music composed by Calixa LavallÈe in 1880, became the national anthem in 1980, replacing God Save The Queen.
Its English lyrics have been adapted several times over the years, but the current version is based on a poem written in 1908 by Stanley Weir.
It begins: “O Canada Our home and native land! True patriot love thou dost in us command. We see thee raising fair, dear land, The True North strong and free.”
The official English version now in use incorporates changes recommended in 1968 by a joint committee of MPs and senators that added the lines “from far and wide” and “God keep our land glorious and free!”
The surprise proposal to review the lyrics had parliamentary observers buzzing. The throne speech gave no indication what prompted the plan.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said the initiative to change the lyrics is the kind of “symbolic gesture” the Conservative government makes when it doesn’t want to do anything real.
“Anything that makes a national anthem more gender-sensitive is a good thing,” he told CBC News.
“But, I mean, no disrespect to those who feel strongly on this issue, but, for heaven’s sake, we have some very important challenges and every time the government is asked to do something real, it does something symbolic.
“There’s lots of things to do for women that are more important than changing the words of the national anthem, just as there are lots of things to do for pensioners and seniors that are more important than having a Seniors Day.”

Crosby’s goal wins gold, Canada beats US 3-2 in OT
VANCOUVER, British Columbia ñ This was the best possible way to end the Olympics for Canada.
Sidney Crosby, shut down most of the tournament, wristed a shot past Ryan Miller 7:40 into overtime after the United States tied it with 24.4 seconds left in regulation, and Canada survived a tense, taut game to beat the Americans 3-2 in the men’s hockey final Sunday. It capped Canada’s record gold rush in the Vancouver Games and set off a national celebration.
In one of the greatest games in Olympic history, Canada’s collection of all-stars held off a young, despecans, it was a monumental letdown.
Before the game, Crosby received a brief text message from Penguins owner Mario Lemieux that said: “Good luck.”
Now, Crosby joins Lemieux ó whose goal beat the Soviet Union in the 1987 World Cup ó and Paul Henderson, who beat the Soviets with a goal in the 1972 Summit Series, among the instant stars of Canadian hockey. At age 22, Crosby has won the Stanley Cup and the Olympics in less than a year’s time.
Minutes after the game ended, delirious fans chanted, “Crosby! Crosby! Crosby!” and IOC president Jacques Rogge gave a raise-the-roof sign to the fans before presenting Crosby with his medal.
“Our team worked so unbelievably hard,” Crosby said. “Today was really tough, especially when they got a goal late in regulation. But we came back and got it in overtime.”
To win, Canada withstood a remarkable and determined effort from a U.S. team that wasn’t supposed to medal in Vancouver, much less roll through the tournament unbeaten before losing in the first overtime gold medal game since NHL players began participating in the Olympics in 1998.
Miller, the tournament MVP, was exceptional, and Zach Parise scored a goal that ó if the U.S. had won ó would rank among the storied moments in American Olympic history.
With less than a half minute remaining and Miller off the ice for an extra attacker, Patrick Kane took a shot from the high slot that deflected off Jamie Langenbrunner to Parise, who shot it off Roberto Luongo’s blocker and into the net.
Parise is the son of J.P. Parise, who scored two goals for that 1972 Canada Summit Series team.
Three minutes before Parise scored, Kane ó who also set up Ryan Kesler’s goal in the second period ó knocked the puck off Crosby’s stick on a breakaway that would have sealed it for Canada.
Canada goalie Roberto Luongo didn’t outplay Miller, but still proved he is a big-game goalie ó something he has never been previously ó by making 34 saves in his own NHL arena. Luongo went 5-0 in the tournament and 4-0 after replacing Martin Brodeur following America’s 5-3 win the previous Sunday.

Canadian women earn hockey gold against U.S.
VANCOUVER ó Canada kept the medal momentum going Thursday as the womenís hockey team grabbed the gold in a convincing 2-0 win over the United States.
Marie-Philip Poulin of Beauceville, Que., scored twice and goaltender Shannon Szabados of Edmonton ó an Olympic rookie ó made 28 saves to notch the first-ever shutout win in an Olympic womenís hockey final.
The win followed a four-medal day for Canada ó matching the countryís best one-day showing in a Winter Olympics ó and came on the heels of a critical 7-3 win over Russia on the menís side to keep alive the possibility of a sweep of the hockey golds.
Earlier on Thursday, Finland beat Sweden 3-2 in overtime to win the womenís hockey bronze medal.
On Wednesday, Canada won a gold and a silver in womenís two-man bobsled, a silver in the womenís 3,000-metre short-track relay and a bronze for speedskater Clara Hughes in the womenís 5,000 metres, the last race of her career.
Canada has won four Winter Games medals in a single day only four other times: twice in Turin, Italy, in 2006, and twice in Salt Lake City in 2002.
Following Wednesdayís critical win over Russia, the menís hockey team returns to the ice Friday to face Slovakia to determine which team will advance to contend for Olympic gold.
Alexander Medvedev, the president of the Russian domestic league, was still stinging a day after watching his national team get bounced by Canada. He said he was surprised by the poor play of his countrymen.
ìObviously experts and coaches should analyze, but I have feeling the game was lost in the first five minutes,î Medvedev said.
Earlier Thursday, Canadaís already-shining medal hopes in womenís curling got even brighter as Cheryl Bernard moved on to the final by knocking off two-time silver medallist Mirjam Ott of Switzerland 6-5.
Bernard took a 6-4 lead into the 10th end and won when Ott missed on a takeout attempt with her final stone. Ott was able to knock Bernardís rock out of the rings but her shooter sailed too far, forcing the Swiss to settle for one.
Ott looked down at the ice in despair following the miss, while Bernardís rink hugged in celebration.
The 43-year-old from Calgary moves on to the gold medal game Friday against Swedenís Anette Norberg, the defending Olympic champion, who beat China 9-4 in the other semifinal.
Bernard would become the first Canadian woman to win Olympic curling gold since Sandra Schmirler in 1998.
ìIt wasnít a stellar game, but I think the nerves and maybe a little bit of the inexperience kind of crept through,î Bernard said of her rinkís performance.
ìWhat we did do is make the shots when we needed them.î
Kevin Martin, a perfect 9-0 in round-robin competition, advanced to the menís curling final with a 6-3 victory over 24-year-old Niklas Edin of Sweden, who did Martin a favour Wednesday when he knocked off reigning world champion David Murdoch of Britain.
Martinís rink will play Norway in the final on Saturday.
At the womenís free skate, Canada was waiting to see whether Joannie Rochette, the 24-year-old from Ile-Dupas, Que., could deliver another top-tier performance in the wake of the death on the weekend of her 55-year-old-mother, Therese.
After a heart-wrenching, teary-eyed routine in Tuesdayís short program, Rochette was sitting in third place, behind Korean superstar Kim Yu-Na, whose coach is former Canadian figure skater Brian Orser, and Mao Asada of Japan.
At Cypress Mountain, where Canada has had good medal fortunes so far, three Canadians were part of the 12-man field in the menís aerials: Steve Omischl, 30, of North Bay, Ont., and Warren Shouldice, 26, and Kyle Nissen, 30, both of Calgary.

O Canada!
O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Zombie romance, sci-fi horror, singing vampires among Canadian flicks for ’09
Genres collide in next year’s crop of Canadian films, with upcoming storylines incorporating trailer park hijinks, teen tragedy, zombie romance and rock ‘n’ roll vampires.
Projects in the offing include Bruce McDonald’s Pontypool, Mike Clattenburg’s Trailer Park Boys sequel, Atom Egoyan’s Adoration, and newcomer Rob Stefaniuk’s musical vampire comedy Suck.
“There’s some really, really exciting things happening,” Telefilm Canada’s Dan Lyon said of the broad spectrum of films slated for 2009.
“What we’ve noticed is increasing genre diversity. In other words, a little less reliance on traditional drama and moving more toward comedies, thrillers and other genres.”
One of the most highly anticipated films is McDonald’s Pontypool, about a zombie-like invasion that traps the staff of a small-town radio station in a church basement studio on a snowy Valentine’s Day.
McDonald, the renegade director behind cult favourites Hardcore Logo and Highway 61, is loathe to slot the picture in the horror genre, insisting that Pontypool is more of a love story with an edge.
“We’re sitting down with the marketing dudes and the company that’s going to present it to the world [and there’s] a lot of thought [such as]: ‘Well, what is it going to look like? What’s the poster and the trailer? What’s the vibe we put out there?”‘ he said at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.
“It shares some things with zombie movies, but they’re not zombies and we don’t want to disappoint the zombie people.”
All-star appearances
The melding of genres continues with the outrageous Suck, a wild romp billed as a rock ‘n’ roll vampire comedy starring Rob Stefaniuk (who also writes and directs) and Jessica ParÈ, with appearances by Malcolm McDowell, Alice Cooper, Moby, Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins, Carole Pope and Dave Foley.
“I’ve been watching dailies and it is absolutely a crowd-pleaser,” said Lyon, who expects Suck to be ready for theatres next fall.
Big things are also expected of the sci-fi/horror movie Splice, directed by Vincenzo Natali of Cube, and starring Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley.
“It’s about a couple of scientists, played by Adrien and Sarah, who are crossing ethical lines in creating a human-animal hybrid, with disastrous results,” Lyon said, noting that the film is now in post-production.
Steve Gravestock, with the Toronto International Film Festival, said he is most excited by the scheduled May release of Egoyan’s family drama Adoration. Starring Scott Speedman and Rachel Blanchard, the politically tinged tale touches on lies, technology and racism. It garnered mixed reviews on the festival circuit last year, but netted Egoyan the Ecumenical Jury Prize, which honours directing, at Cannes.
Other TIFF-screened films hoping to find audiences include the Inuit film Before Tomorrow, by directors Madeline Piujuq Ivalu and Marie-HÈlËne Cousineau, which will screen at the Sundance Film Festival next month, and Michael McGowan’s road movie One Week, starring Joshua Jackson, which is due in March.
Coming-of-age story
First-time feature filmmaker David Bezmozgis is preparing to debut his coming-of-age story, Victoria Day, at Sundance in January. The story follows 16-year-old Ben as he grapples with budding romance, family pressures and the role he may have played in a boy’s mysterious disappearance.
“It’s not a genre film, it’s not an either-or film, it’s not a comedy, it’s not a tragedy,” Bezmozgis said earlier this year about the movie, which takes place over the course of one week in 1988.
“With teenage life you have all these roiling emotions ó the romantic, the domestic and all the things happening with friends. So that was really the impetus ó to write a good film about teenage life.”
Also in production is Defendor, with first-time director Peter Stebbings. Starring Woody Harrelson, Elias Koteas, Sandra Oh and Kat Dennings, it’s about a man who thinks he’s a superhero and tries to clean up his city.
More arty fare comes by way of Cairo Time, directed by Ruba Nadda and starring Patricia Clarkson as a Canadian woman who joins her husband in Cairo but ends up forging a close friendship with an Egyptian man.
Those looking for sheer escapism have the Trailer Park Boys sequel to look forward to, and some are already predicting boffo box office success for the delinquent Julian, Ricky and Bubbles.
The foul-mouthed, pot-smoking troublemakers scored big with fans and critics with 2006’s Trailer Park Boys: The Movie, and are slated to return to the big screen next fall with Trailer Park Boys ñ Countdown to Liquor Day.
Lyon says the recent box office success of Paul Gross’ war epic Passchendaele and the smaller film, YPF (a.k.a. Young People F—ing), has many in the movie business optimistic that homegrown fare can thrive.
“We’re feeling pretty inspired by the success of`Passchendaele,” Lyon said, noting that the film hit $4.4 million at the Canadian box office. “It’s just given them a tremendous spike of confidence, for films at all levels.
“The tide is really changing in Canada in terms of English language film,” Lyon continued, noting that last year’s Oscar nominations for Away From Her and Eastern Promises were an added morale boost.
“When you combine that kind of success with the continuing good news of all the Canadian films coming up at Sundance in January, and the commercial success of Passchendaele and YPF and so on, we have really a lot of reason to be optimistic.”

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915. Here is the story of the making of that poem:
Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South African War, it was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and the blood here, and Major John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime.
As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major McCrae, who had joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto, had spent seventeen days treating injured men — Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans — in the Ypres salient.
It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae later wrote of it:
“I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days… Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done.”
One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae’s dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.
The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l’Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry.
In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook.
A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. “His face was very tired but calm as we wrote,” Allinson recalled. “He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer’s grave.”
When McCrae finished five minutes later, he took his mail from Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO. Allinson was moved by what he read:
“The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene.”
In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915.

Sam the Record Man sign to be lit up
TORONTO – The iconic Sam the Record Man sign in downtown Toronto will be turned on one last time for the city’s Scotiabank Nuit Blanche festival.
For decades, two giant neon spinning records served as a beacon to music lovers shopping on Yonge Street.
But the legendary flagship store closed last year and the site is now owned by Ryerson University.
Ryerson says the sign will be lit Oct. 4 in celebration of Nuit Blanche, an all-night art crawl.
The university plans to build a student learning centre on the site.
It says the sign, which consists of more than 800 lights, will be taken down beginning Oct. 6 and remounted in a new home on the Ryerson campus.

Toronto’s ROM Crystal celebrated by slew of Canadian talent
The Royal Ontario Museum celebrated the official unveiling of its new addition with a showcase of Canadian talent including David Foster, K’naan and Natalie McMaster on Saturday evening.
The gala celebrated the public opening of the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal; the ROM’s bold new $135-million addition that juts out over Toronto’s Bloor Street.
Legendary composer David Foster shared one of three stages with singers Deborah Cox, Jann Arden, rapper K’naan, Canadian Tenors, jazz singer Dione Taylor, and fiddler Natalie McMaster.
Actor Gordon Pinsent and environmentalist David Suzuki also made appearances, while Governor General MichaÎlle Jean dedicated the structure’s opening.
Suzuki took the opportunity to speak to the country’s determination to battle climate change.
“I believe we’ve turned a corner, that we’re on our way to a more sustainable Canada,” Suzuki said.
Thousands of people of all ages lined the streets for the concert entitled “A World of Possibilities,” which was hosted by actor Paul Gross.
Tickets for the event were issued at noon on Saturday but crowds began to gather early in the morning.
The event, which also featured a stunning fireworks display, was designed to tell the story of humankind’s evolution through the ages.
The 75-minute show marked the end of the six-year development project for Canada’s largest museum that cost $270 million to complete.
Conceived by architect Daniel Libeskind, the crystal has been met with both scorn and adoration.
The 175,000-square-foot aluminum-and-glass-covered structure reaches 10 storeys in the air and houses seven galleries.
Architectural buffs chided the addition saying it does nothing to enhance the streetscape and fails to blend with the rest of the heritage building.
Supporters believe the bold design will promote experimental architecture in the city, something Toronto has lacked for a number of years.