We lost Jack Layton this morning. He wrote this letter to us when he knew the end was near. Dear Friends, Tens of thousands of Canadians have written to me in recent weeks to wish me well. I want to thank each and every one of you for your thoughtful,
24/7 Wall St. has named "The Happiest Countries in the World". Canada finished in second place. Canada scores extremely well in the majority of metrics used to calculate “well-being.” The country has the tenth greatest life expectancy of all OECD countries. Furthermore, 88% of people in Canada report being
I should play more tennis. I really like playing tennis and I almost never play. Does anyone want to play this summer? Speaking of tennis, in July of 2009 I wrote about Canada's male singles tennis failure. Here's a snippet. Canada's inability to produce a single excellent men's singles tennis
Late last night, Arcade Fire upset Lady Antebellum, Lady Gaga, Eminem and Katy Perry to win the most prestigious Grammy Award, for album of the year. Most people, it seems, hadn't heard of Arcade Fire. In fact, a website is collecting America's response to Arcade Fire's big win. You've got
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,
I'm watching a bit of the Bills game. It's here in Toronto, so the broadcasters just went through the obligatory "Canadians in the NFL" segment. That got me wondering, how many Canadians are playing in the NFL today? Surprisingly few, it seems... Cory Greenwood, KC, Kingston, ON Vaughn Martin, SD,
On Canada Day, 2007, I listed what I believed to be the top 100 Canadian songs of all time. It was a 1.5 month endeavour to assemble that list, and I was pretty proud of it. A new book by Bob Mersereau has reignited this great debate. Bob lists
Most of us in Canada have the day off today. It's a Civic Holiday, or as I like to call it, Contrived Summer Holiday. Essentially, with a whole summer between Canada Day and Labour Day, we needed a summer holiday. The first Monday of August sounded good, and most provinces
Happy Birthday, Canada, you're 143 years young today. Over the past 7.5 years I've written quite a bit about you. All of those posts can be found at http://www.torontomike.com/o_canada/. But here are a few of my favourites, in the order I wrote them. Vimy
American musicians re-recorded We Are The World to raise money for Haiti and now we have a Canadian response. The collective is called Young Artists for Haiti and they've recorded K'naan's Wavin' Flag. Here are the soloists: K'naanNelly FurtadoSam RobertsAvril LavignePierre BouvierTyler ConnollyKardinal OffishallJully BlackLIGHTSDeryck WhibleySerena RyderJacob HoggardEmily HainesHawksley WorkmanDrakeChin
It's hard to believe it was less than a week ago that I wrote Own The Podium Should Have Under Promised and Over Delivered. It had become apparent that our total medal count was going to be much lower than the United States' and we were going to fall short
I'm willing to bet the vast majority of people reading this entry will be watching Canada face the United States tonight in Olympic hockey action. The puck drops at 7:35pm ET and I can't wait. In this clip from NBC, Tom Brokaw explains the relationship between Canada and the
John Babcock, Canada’s last known First World War veteran, has died. John Babcock was 109 years old. John Babcock was ready to fight in the Great War so we can live in a country where the great national stress is a shootout victory over Switzerland in Olympic men's hockey.
On Friday night at 7pm, CBC, CTV and Global Television will air "Canada for Haiti", a fundraiser to support earthquake relief for Haiti. The one-hour, commercial-free event will also be streamed online at the networks' websites and broadcast on CBC Radio Two. Joining hosts Cheryl Hickey, Ben Mulroney and George
What was Pepsi thinking? That's what I want to know. I work in marketing. I'm shocked Pepsi's "Cheer Nation" campaign got off the drawing board. I totally understand why Pepsi would want to associate their beverage with our national game, that's just smart business sense, but asking us to abandon
On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, Canadians are asked to pause and remember the thousands of men and women who sacrificed their lives fighting for freedom and democracy during the First World War, the Second World War, the Korean War, the Afghanistan conflict and
For the life of me, I can't remember who sent me the "Buy Canadian" email this morning. I think it was Mike from Lowville, please correct me if I'm wrong... I got the instant message while balancing four burning issues. I thought it was a valid point and worthy of
As a teen, I played a lot of tennis. I used to follow tennis pretty closely, rooting for John McEnroe then Boris Becker. I always held out hope Canada could develop a top notch mens singles player. We never did. Canada's inability to produce a single excellent men's singles tennis
In 2000, a certain beer company launched an ad entitled "The Rant". You may have seen it. It starred Jeff Douglas as Joe, a proud Canadian with something to say. Here's the ad. On July 1, 2000, I was at Molson Park for an Edgefest when Jeff Douglas actually delivered
Happy Birthday, Canada, you're 142 years young today. Over the past 6.5 years I've written quite a bit about you. All of those posts can be found at http://www.torontomike.com/o_canada/. But here are a few of my favourites, in the order I wrote them. Vimy
McGill University has a great collection of Canadian war posters online. The holdings of the Print Collection in the Rare Books and Special Collections Division include some 250 Canadian posters from the two World Wars. The posters are accessible to researchers who visit the Division's Lande Reading Room; a printed
CBC has unveiled their 49 Canadian Songs for Obama's iPod. These 49 won out over their top 100. I can't really speak to the French songs or the non-pop songs, but they seem to have hit most of the essential tracks from my definitive Cancon list. Still, how does The
I'm a sucker for all these Canadian music features the CBC like to throw at us every few years. The latest is from CBC Radio 2. Starting this morning, CBC Radio 2 is inviting us Canadians to help select the top “49 songs from north of the 49th parallel” that
When they taught us in primary school about our Governor General, they always referred to the position as symbolic and merely a figurehead with no actual power. Canada is, after all, a democratic nation, and the Governor General is merely a tip of the hat to the Queen of England.
Humble posted this today. It's a piece by NBC News on our Highway of Heroes.
