How Ken Dryden’s Canadian dream came true in Calgary
John Ibbitson, Globe and Mail
Ken Dryden wants to make a point, and Naheed Nenshi just proved it.
The former hockey player and current Liberal MP has a new book, Becoming Canada, in which Mr. Dryden argues, with some passion, in defence of what could be called a new nationalism, a new way of seeing this country that leaves behind the tired animosities of the past and embraces the young, modern, incredibly diverse country that Canada has become.
“If we have the wrong story, we get the wrong future,” Mr. Dryden maintained Wednesday at an appearance hosted by the Ottawa International Writers Festival. The old story of Canada is too much rooted in the English-French divide, in a parochial anti-Americanism, in a whining uncertainty about what this country is and what it should be.
All that is being blown away by what Mr. Dryden calls Canada’s new “multiculture.” While in Europe, leaders lament the failure of immigrants to integrate, Canada’s immigrants are reshaping this land in their own image, and they like what they see.
Full article: How Ken Dryden’s Canadian dream came true in Calgary
Fifth-graders make the cut at international film festival
Kate Hammer, Globe and Mail
For proof of what a group of preteens can accomplish over two months of lunch breaks with the help of some popsicle sticks, a few light bulbs and a camera, see this year’s Ottawa International Animation Festival.
One official selection, a stop-motion short film called The Bright, the Bad and the Ugly was written, shot and directed by a Grade 5 class at Grosvenor Wentworth Park School in Halifax. Their tale of the town of Squander, a tumbleweed-infested homestead populated by energy-wasting light bulbs, beat out more than 70 other entries from across the globe to win one of five spots in the high-school category.
Chris Robinson, the festival’s artistic director, said they are the only grade-school class to ever win a spot in that category.
Read more: Fifth-graders make the cut at international film festival
