Publisher’s Message

It’s summer, and for many that means heading to the cottage, to the beach or to the local park to enjoy the sun, to read and to relax. This summer issue has something for everyone, whether it’s Lainie Towell’s sole-searching piece on Fluevog shoes or our Wood in Weird Places story. The Law and You series has some good advice on personal injury matters, the recent changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program announced by Jason Kenny have Paul Meinema, the National President of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW Canada), crying foul. The cover story is focused on Ottawa mom Sara Nita and her son Marcus whose Type 1 diabetes is being managed much better because of their ability to access Canada’s digital health highway.

Candice Vetter looks at Lac-Mégantic a year later and our Building a Better Canada series features stories on two of the most important Canadian cultural and institutional projects in the past decade; Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame (CSHOF) and the Mother Canada Memorial Project. The CSHOF building opened in Calgary on July 1, 2011 and is dedicated to preserving and celebrating Canada’s impressive and inspiring sport history. It is a true feather in the hat of the Conservative government that they managed to support the building of this national institution that is as important to Canada’s heritage as any of the national museums in Ottawa. The Harper government via Parks Canada is also backing the Mother Canada war memorial project in Cape Breton. The project will honour war dead from Canada and will be unveiled on the 100th Anniversary of the end of WW1. We’ve got three great travel stories — so take a journey with us to Ireland, Miami’s Eden Roc Hotel and Saint Lucia, then think about going there yourself. Finally we have a new guest columnist, Dr. Ian Milne, who is writing a feature as part of our Reason to Smile series about oral surgery and orthodontists and what they do. The advances in recent years in oral surgery and dentistry, both cosmetic and medical are astounding. Many of the world’s best dentists are right here in Canada and we are going to spend a year exploring their world, because everyone likes a smile.