Archive for October, 2008
Canada Corner
Heart Of The Market
George Tsioros—proprietor of the Olympic Food and Cheese Mart in Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market—can tell you the story of his life in a sentence, which is a small miracle of brevity when you consider that he was born in Greece, that he is now 64 years old, that he has run his own business since age 18 and that he has more than 600 different cheeses packed into his 75-square-metre (800-square-foot) shop, some of which sell for $100 a kilogram. “I came to Canada when I was 16,” he says. “I got off the boat in Montreal, caught a train [...]
October 28, 2008, by D'Arcy Jenish
Health & Lifestyle
Doctors In The Ranks
Why would a well-respected surgeon from a prestigious Canadian university decide, in his early 50s, to enlist in the Canadian Forces Health Services Group (CFHS)?
“It’s about the best surgical unit in Canada and I wanted to be a part of it, and the way to be a part of it is to join up,” says Dr. Vivian McAlister, a professor of surgery at the University of Western Ontario in London, who is now also a major who has served with 1 Canadian Field Hospital in Afghanistan.
The medical professionals who have responded to recent intensified recruiting efforts by the Canadian Forces [...]
October 24, 2008, by Sharon Adams
News
Camp Holiday For Veterans Brings Back Memories
Norm Carnell has his eye on a big rock about two feet under the surface of water in Lake Joseph. The Royal Navy veteran makes his cast out towards that and then waits.
It’s not long before his line begins to stretch and his fishing rod bends. A big smile lights up his worn face as he reels in a rock bass the size of his hands. He skilfully removes the hook from the fish’s mouth and tosses the squirming creature back into the water.
“I’ve been fishing all my life,” says the long-term resident of the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in [...]
October 20, 2008, by Tom MacGregor
Health & Lifestyle
Health File
Cutting Down On Salt
Although we know shaking our salt habit would be good for our health, it’s pretty hard for Canadians to do so when most of the sodium we ingest comes in food and drink not prepared in our own kitchens. Help is on the way.
A coalition of health groups has urged the federal government to gradually lower recommended sodium levels, provide incentives to the food industry to slash salt levels and educate Canadians about the health risks of high salt intake.
Canadians consume an average of over 3,100 milligrams of salt a day, most of which comes from processed [...]
October 17, 2008, by Sharon Adams
News
Combat Engineers Bring Relief From The Danger
These engineers say jokingly that they tell their wives and daughters that they’re in Afghanistan working as cooks, or building wells, or fixing schools, or anything other than what they really do.
They call it “recce by kaboom” and it could well be the worst job in Afghanistan.
With the threat of improvised explosive devices and mines extremely high, it’s the job of these brave Canadian combat engineers to drive out in front of Canadian convoys in their special blast resistant vehicles, literally proving the route safe by risking their own lives.
“We also call it ‘detection through detonation,’” says a smiling Sergeant [...]
October 12, 2008, by Adam Day
Canadian Military History in Perspective
Airmen Over Arnhem: Air Force, Part 29
Official Royal Canadian Air Force histories of the Second World War have, of necessity, concentrated on policies directly affecting the national contribution and with particular reference to personnel in RCAF units. Unhappily, this has meant the stories of Canadians serving in Royal Air Force units have been underwritten. These men and women, often referred to as the Lost Legion, have occasionally protested such oversights, but the fact is their adventures can be told thoroughly only by subtracting other material from the official histories or by producing more books.
In many instances, the experiences of the Lost Legion personnel were not markedly [...]
October 10, 2008, by Hugh A. Halliday
Canadian Military History in Perspective
The Newfoundland Escort Force: Navy, Part 29
Until the spring of 1941, the Royal Canadian Navy had no clear indication that it would find its calling in the broad reaches of the North Atlantic. The process of defining that role culminated in May, when the British Admiralty called upon the RCN to form the Newfoundland Escort Force (NEF), and concentrate its resources there in the defence of transatlantic convoys.
The establishment of the NEF not only brought together the main elements of the fleet that would fight—and win—the battle against the U-boats, it also brought together several key players who would lead the RCN’s escort and anti-submarine campaign [...]
