Navigator’s list of quintessentially Canadian diversions

GIMME SHELTER

CRANBROOK, BRITISH COLUMBIA
Located in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, between Banff and Glacier National Park, this region is ideally suited for activities ranging from horseback riding to river rafting. Stay at the Three Bars Guest Ranch, a dude ranch that creates an authentic rancher experience for guests.
Where to stay
Three Bars Guest Ranch   |   www.threebarsranch.com 

VANCOUVER ISLAND, BRITISH COLUMBIA
Located near Tofino in the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, Clayoquot Wilderness Resort offers guests a restorative, bespoke, turn-of-the-century outpost camping or “glamping” adventure. This world-class eco-safari-style resort works closely with the Ahousaht First Nation to make the reserve sustainable and accessible for visitors.
Where to stay
Clayoquot Wilderness Resort   |   www.wildretreat.com 

ORILLIA, ONTARIO
If you’re an adult who longs for the days of camp, and you want to get back to basics, try a digital detox at Camp Reset next summer. Enjoy a total break from technology, with camp programming that focuses on wellness, workshops and group activities—all designed to make you feel like a kid again.
Where to stay
Camp Reset   |   www.campreset.com 

NORTH HATLEY, QUEBEC
Founded more than 100 years ago, North Hatley is recognized as one of Quebec’s most beautiful villages. It is home to a number of century-old heritage buildings, one of which is Manoir Hovey, a five-star Relais & Châteaux property that has counted the Clintons among its guests.
Where to stay
Manoir Harvey   |   www.manoirhovey.com 

FOGO ISLAND, NEWFOUNDLAND
Newfoundland and Labrador’s largest offshore island has a long maritime history and a vibrant art scene. While Fogo Island is accessible year round, whale migration and sea-cliff footpaths make the island a perfect destination in the spring.
Where to stay
Fogo Island Inn   |   www.fogoislandinn.ca 

WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
Take an urban getaway to Winnipeg to visit the Canadian Museum for Human Rights’ Tower of Hope, which provides panoramic views of the city. While in “the Peg,” dine at Chef Mandel Hitzer’s internationally acclaimed Deer + Almond. Hitzer, who received attention this year for RAW:almond, his award-winning month-long pop-up restaurant situated on the frozen Assiniboine River, has put Winnipeg on the map for foodies far and wide.
Where to stay
The Mere Hotel   |   www.merehotel.com 

EXTRA TIP
Where to eat
RAW:Almond   |   www.raw-almond.com

---

GREAT CANADIAN LANDMARKS

---

BOOKMARK THIS… 

Notable Canadian reads 

The Book of Negroes
by Lawrence Hill

Life of Pi
by Yann Martel

Anne of Green Gables
by L.M. Montgomery

Room
by Emma Donoghue

Lullabies for Little Criminals
by Heather O’Neill

The Handmaid’s Tale
by Margaret Atwood

---

CANADIAN CONTENT

Best Canadian TV shows 

Being Erica

Kids in the Hall

Degrassi

Orphan Black

Schitt’s Creek

Heartland

Saving Hope

---

DASHING DINING

Canada’s best dining experiences

LE VIN PAPILLON, Montreal   |   www.vinpapillon.com 

 

ALO, Toronto   |   www.alorestaurant.com 

 

DEER + ALMOND, Winnipeg   |   www.deerandalmond.com 

 

PIGEONHOLE, Calgary   |   www.pigeonholeyyc.ca 

 

RAYMOND’S, St. John’s   |   www.raymondsrestaurant.com 

---

BEST WINERIES – BEST BREWERIES

---

STRONG & FREE

Here is a list of notable Canadians who have made their mark in 2017 in popular culture, sports, science and art:

DENIS VILLENEUVE   |   Canadian film director
French Canadian filmmaker and writer Denis Villeneuve has received international acclaim with his feature films Arrival (2016), Sicario (2015) and Prisoners (2013). Villeneuve’s star continues to rise this year with the release of Blade Runner 2049.

 

JULIE PAYETTE   |   Governor General
An engineer, science broadcaster and corporate director, Julie Payette has done everything from being an astronaut to carrying the Olympic flag during the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games. Payette was sworn in as Canada’s 29th governor general on October 2nd.

 

DENIS SHAPOVALOV   |   Canadian tennis player
Denis Shapovalov is Canada’s newest tennis sensation. After defeating veteran Rafael Nadal in a thrilling third-set tiebreak at this year’s Rogers Cup, and with vocal supporters like hockey great Wayne Gretzky, this 18-year-old seems to have what it takes to be a superstar.

 

KENT MONKMAN   |   Canadian artist
Kent Monkman is a Canadian artist of Cree ancestry who drew attention this year with the opening of his exhibit Shame and Prejudice: The Story of Resilience. Monkman’s pieces provide 150 years of perspective into the treatment of Canada’s Indigenous peoples from the beginning of the country’s history. The exhibit will display across Canada until 2020, with stops in Kingston, Charlottetown, Halifax, Montreal, Winnipeg and Vancouver.

 

SHANIA TWAIN   |   Canadian singer-songwriter
Everyone’s favourite Canadian pop-country music star is back this year with the release of Now, her first album since 2002. Shania Twain will be hitting the road to promote the album with a 46- date tour scheduled for next year.

^{Canada’s 28th Governor General}

YOU RECENTLY STATED THAT WE ARE AT A HINGE POINT OF HISTORY AND THIS GIVES CANADA A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY TO LEAD. WHY IS THAT THE CASE?

DJ. First, with technological advances increasing at a geometric progression rate, the capacity of the human response to that is growing at a lesser pace. Secondly, globalization means the world is very connected. Thirdly, we have become even more powerful in our ability to destroy one another and that power has been wide spread. And fourthly, trust has diminished, eroded. More than 50 per cent of the population in the United States, United Kingdom and France, for example, prefer ideology or social media to get their information as opposed to more traditional sources.

The world looks for solutions to bring a kind of order out of chaos. Canada, which has been premised on the belief that diversity is a strength, and it can serve to develop a more resilient, more inclusive, more creative, and more cohesive nation, I think is in the spotlight. And I think we have to do everything we can to build on those strengths in our Canadian way, which is not to be arrogant, but to be persuasive, to demonstrate that we have some lessons for the world, in terms of avoiding extremes, of trying to find common ground, learning how to live with diversity and that inclusiveness is a strength.

ARE YOU CONCERNED AT ALL ABOUT THE WIDENING GAP IN INCOMES? FOR EXAMPLE, PEOPLE WHO CAN AFFORD IT, QUITE OFTEN, GIVE THEIR CHILDREN A BETTER CHANCE, PUT THEM IN A PRIVATE SCHOOL. IN THE LONG RUN, IS THAT AN UNHEALTHY TREND?

DJ. I worry a lot about inequality of the distribution of wealth in societies. I think over history you’ll find when that really becomes skewed, problems begin to emerge, and, ultimately, those societies begin to diminish and sometimes have more difficult consequences. I should say that the private educational initiatives are good, in a sense that diversity is helpful and that striving for excellence is helpful. Then, our public universities are of good quality, as well as being accessible. So, I don’t think it has become a major issue in Canada as it has become in some other countries, where through private education you do either develop or reinforce a class system.

 DO YOU THINK THAT IN TERMS OF A BETTER WORLD, CANADIANS HAVE NOT ONLY AN OPPORTUNITY, BUT ALSO AN OBLIGATION TO TRY TO INFLUENCE ORGANIZATIONS LIKE THE UNITED NATIONS, THE WORLD BANK, THE IMF, AND THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS, AND BE MORE COMPETITIVE FOR THE KIND OF JOBS THAT ARE THERE SO THAT WE CAN BRING THE CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE TO THESE ORGANIZATIONS?

DJ. Absolutely. You know I think we look at the leadership of Lester Pearson, for example, who for good reason won a Nobel Peace Prize, not simply for the Suez intervention, but representing the best of those Canadian values, which embrace the kind of institutions you’ve just spoken about.

And we have traditionally played a disproportionately large role in those organizations and I think that is to the credit of Canada. I guess I would also say that you do that not simply to make the world a better place, but to make your country a better place.
One of the things that concerns me about our complacency is only three per cent of our university students study abroad on exchange or work abroad in a volunteer capacity or some other capacity. That should be a much, much higher per centage because it’s important for young Canadians to be global citizens.

ONE OF THE THINGS I KNOW YOU’RE VERY INTERESTED IN IS INNOVATION, AND CANADA’S ROLE, OR LACK OF IT SOMETIMES, IN BEING AN INNOVATIVE COUNTRY. WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE WORLD CHARTS ON INNOVATION, CANADA DOESN’T EVER SEEM TO MOVE UP. WHAT DO YOU THINK THE PROBLEM IS?

DJ. It troubles me because the smart and caring nation, of course, is an important theme that we’ve been pushing, and learning and innovation have been one of the three pillars for that—philanthropy and volunteerism being another—and Canada does not perform as well as it should in a number of the measures, including productivity. I worry about the complacency that we sometimes don’t work, or feel we have to work as hard on the smart part, that we don’t push that excellence button along with the equality of opportunity button. And, I think, the best way to do that is by exposing yourself to the world, whether it be in trade or in cultural pursuits, or whether it be in contribution to international relations. Let’s take on the world in trade, let’s take on the world culturally, let’s take on the world in our international aid being larger in quantity than it is at the present time, but also sharper and more qualitative.

We created a Governor General’s Innovation Award with about 45 networking partners, each of whom was interested in innovation and would recognize it to try and magnify their effect. Those awards have been going for two years now.

WHAT I’M HEARING FROM YOU, IS WE HAVE A GOOD COUNTRY, WE COULD MAKE IT BETTER, WE HAVE TO CONTINUE ALL THE QUALITIES THAT HAVE SERVED US WELL SO FAR. BUT, WE DO HAVE TO, IN AN INTERNATIONAL SENSE, BECOME MORE COMPETITIVE, UP OUR GAME, AND COMPARE OURSELVES WITH THE BEST IN WHATEVER FIELDS WE THINK WE CAN COMPETE IN.

DJ. I would add that, you know we’ve been blessed, we have not had a shot fired in anger on our soil for 200 years. We’ve been protected in this North American continent. We have learned how to interact with a somewhat challenging environment and have developed an affluence that is the envy of many people in the world. So, we have not had the natural stimulus to innovate that other countries have had. Many countries have had challenges externally, and in responding to them they’ve been very inventive and creative. We haven’t had those same challenges, so we have to impose the challenge on ourselves and be sure that we’re upping our game accordingly.

This interview has been edited for length.

Money hates uncertainty and that’s a problem for the City of London

There has always been a certain swagger in London’s step. Now, the race is on to try to prevent the city from stumbling.

London, a hub of trading and money since Roman times, solidified its position as a global financial powerhouse over the last 30 years. Europe may have not always been comfortable with this, but London has effectively served as the continent’s financial service centre for decades.

With the United Kingdom now poised to leave the European Union, many are questioning whether London will survive as a financial hub. A number of cities, including Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Dublin and Luxembourg, are openly vying to replace it. Each of them can offer a single currency, a unified market and the free movement of capital, services, goods and highly trained people.

It’s no surprise that, following the 2016 Brexit vote, competitors started lining up to fill London’s shoes: In 2016, the city generated 30 per cent of the British government’s tax revenue and is responsible for thousands of the highest quality jobs in the country. Already, global banks are implementing plans to relocate almost 10,000 employees from London to Europe, with more to follow in the event of an unfavourable outcome.

Pressure is mounting on the U.K. government to negotiate a deal so that London-based banks, fund managers and traders are not locked out of the EU market. Currently, U.K. financial institutions conduct more than £1 trillion worth in transactions across national borders annually, but the arrangement that allows them the freedom to operate across borders (known as “passporting”) is likely to end in 2019. The government knows a huge number of financial contracts extend way beyond 2019, and financial institutions need clarity as soon as possible to ensure they remain legally compliant. The government is looking at negotiating a transition arrangement to allow the financial institutions time to restructure contracts. But the strength of London including this passporting freedom is economically critical. The government is acutely aware EU member states are looking to benefit themselves with any loss of confidence in London.

Until a transition arrangement or something more permanent is in place, London-based banks will continue to move jobs to the EU and the Eurozone.

Time is not on the side of financial services companies. They want a deal to allow passporting to continue, but, like everything else with respect to Brexit, this is up for negotiation. And the clock keeps ticking.

LITTLE KNOWN FACTS ABOUT CANADA

• Canada has 10 per cent of the world’s forests, and forest occupies nearly 30 per cent of Canada’s land mass.
• Canada has used over 10 different flag designs since 1497. The current design was adopted in 1965.
• Canada is bigger than the entire European Union.
• Canada’s coldest temperature was recorded as -63C in 1947 in the Yukon.
• Canada produces over 70 per cent of the world’s pure maple syrup.
• Canada is home to 18 World Heritage Sites.
• The Hudson’s Bay Company is the oldest chartered trading company in the world.
• Roughly 15 per cent of Canadians visit Tim Hortons every day.
• Wood Buffalo National Park in Alberta is bigger than Switzerland.
• St. Paul, Alberta, is home to the world’s first UFO landing pad.

Canada’s Odyssey, by political scientist Peter Russell, is a timely and important book in the year of Canada’s sesquicentennial. It offers an open and accessible path through a history of which too few Canadians are aware.

THE BOOK’S HISTORICAL narrative is key, and it serves to correct past narratives that view Canada’s founding as either a product of British imperial conquest or a compact of two founding nations. This book presents Canada as a product of incomplete conquests, which is why it remains a multinational and multicultural state. An excerpt from the review:

In his previous book, Constitutional Odyssey, Peter Russell focused on the mid 19th-century process of confederation via the British North America Act of 1867, but this focus obscured the importance of Canada’s pre-Confederation history. In Canada’s Odyssey, Russell begins a century before Confederation, and this leads him to a very different finding about both how Canada came to be and what it is today. He argues that, “the existence of nations or peoples preceding Britain’s imperial presence in Canada, and Britain’s decision not to attempt a complete conquest of these peoples, are the crucial facts about Canada’s founding.”

The argument that Canada is best understood as a multinational democracy (as opposed to a nation-state) is by no means a new one. There is a well-developed body of literature on this that spans law and the social sciences. In fact, the basic conceptual structure of the Westphalian nation-state (i.e., that there is a singular nation or people that is absolutely sovereign within their territory) has been contested over the last 250 years.

Canada’s Odyssey integrates various historical narratives and presents them in a manner that is engaging to a wide audience, both academic and popular. Russell’s writing is accessible, and when combined with the sheer scope and detail of the project, serves to reach and hold the attention of a diverse set of readers.

The book is divided into six parts: parts one and two focus on the 18th century and the transition into the 19th century; part three focuses on the process of Confederation that took place in 1867; parts four and five focus on the first and second half of the 20th century respectively; and the final part offers us a contextual perspective on the present and on possibilities for the future.

THE EXISTENCE OF NATIONS OR PEOPLES PRECEDING BRITAIN’S IMPERIAL PRESENCE IN CANADA, AND BRITAIN’S DECISION NOT TO ATTEMPT A COMPLETE CONQUEST OF THESE PEOPLES, ARE THE CRUCIAL FACTS ABOUT CANADA’S FOUNDING.

Of particular importance, Canada’s Odyssey serves as a clear response to the general confusion about the place of Indigenous peoples within the constitutional structure of Canada. Over the last 150 years, a vast colonial administration was created to dissolve Indigenous peoples as peoples and unify the Canadian body politic.

This was unilaterally imposed on Indigenous peoples who had extensive and well-defined treaty relationships with the British imperial crown that extended back to the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and the Treaty of Niagara in 1764. This project was driven, in large part, by the presumption that a state was defined as a single nation within a bounded territory. This has left a legacy of confusion regarding the nature of Indigenous peoples and the meaning of aboriginal rights and title that were recognized and affirmed in Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.

As Russell helpfully points out, “multinational, multicultural Canada might offer more useful guidance for what lies ahead for the peoples of this planet than the tidy model of the single-nation sovereign state. Indeed, Canada might be more like a civilization than a nation-state. As an example of how diverse peoples can live together in freedom and peace, this loose, never settled alliance of peoples called Canada could replace empire and nation-state as the most attractive model in the twenty-first century.”

Joshua Nichols is a professor in the School for Public Administration at Dalhousie University and a fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

PETER H. RUSSELL  |  Historian, author 

FUN FACTS ABOUT CANADA’S NEW(ISH) BANK.

In the 2016 fall fiscal update, Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced the creation of the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB). The government has committed to investing $35 billion over 11 years in infrastructure projects across Canada. The objective is to attract four to five dollars in private-sector investment for every dollar of federal funding.

WHO 

• The CIB’s first board chair will be Janice Fukakusa, former chief financial officer of the Royal Bank of Canada.
• Oversight of the CIB is shared between the departments of finance and infrastructure. It is also overseen by the Advisory Council on Economic Growth, chaired by Dominic Barton, global managing director of McKinsey and Company.
• Glenn Campbell is the assistant deputy minister of the Canada Infrastructure Bank transition office. Most recently he was director, financial institutions in the Finance Department.
• Tim Duncanson (on secondment from Onex) is senior adviser to the deputy minister of finance.
• Jim Leech is special adviser to the Prime Minister on the Canada Infrastructure Bank. He was previously the president and CEO of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
• Michael Sabia, president and CEO of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, also sits on the Advisory Council on Economic Growth.

WHERE 

• The bank will be headquartered in Toronto.

WHAT

• There is more than $186 billion invested in infrastructure projects across Canada. This has grown by more than $25 billion over the last year alone.
• There are five main infrastructure themes:
  • Public transit;
  • Green infrastructure;
  • Social infrastructure;
  • Trade and transportation infrastructure; and
  • Rural and northern infrastructure.
• The CIB replaces the former Conservative government’s 2008 Private-Public Partnership (3P) initiative.
• The $5.5 billion REM (Réseau électrique métropolitain) train project in Montreal was slated to be the first CIB project, but the timing was off. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on June 15, 2017 that Ottawa would match Quebec’s $1.283 billion investment in the project. The Caisse de dépôt, Quebec’s public-sector pension fund with $286 billion under management, is investing $3.3 billion in the REM.

WHEN 

• The CIB is slated to be up and running by the end of 2017.

WHY 

In the Liberals’ own election campaign words:
“We will establish the Canadian Infrastructure Bank to provide low-cost financing for new infrastructure projects.The federal government can use its strong credit rating and lending authority to make it easier and more affordable for municipalities to build the projects their communities need. Where a lack of capital represents a barrier to projects, the Canada Infrastructure Bank will provide loan guarantees and small capital contributions to provinces and municipalities to ensure that the projects are built.”