Readable, teachable news.
Friday, April 19, 2024
Leonard Cohen, one of Canada’s best-known songwriters and poets, has died at the age of 82.
He wasn’t “born with the gift of a golden voice,” as one of his songs famously put it. In fact, his voice was deep, gravelly and could even said to be tuneless. But that was part of his charm.
Soon, people in Toronto may be able to enjoy a hot chocolate or a coffee in a “cat café.”
Two groups of people in the city are trying to raise enough money to open cat cafés.
Eugenie “Genie” Bouchard from Montreal, Quebec, recently made tennis history for her country.
She made it to the semi-final round of a tournament called the Australian Open.
Bouchard is the 30th ranked female tennis player in the world.
On Monday she played against Ana Ivanovic, the 14th ranked female tennis player in the world.
Ivanovic had just recently beaten the world-number-one ranked female tennis player, Serena Williams. With that huge win, Ivanovic seemed poised to beat Bouchard.
However, Bouchard had other plans.
Montreal is known for its fine and unique culture. Visitors flock to the city for its art galleries, high fashion and excellent cuisine.
Now, people in Montreal have a special treat in store for them.
The city’s mayor, Michael Applebaum, recently announced that the ban on food trucks has been lifted. That means that people may now be able to sample the city’s unparalleled cuisine from special food trucks on the street.
In many big cities, street vendors offer hot dogs and sausages from food trucks.
In typical Montreal style, the food trucks in that city will be a little different. The “street food” in Montreal will be “of a quality that is going to be highly respected and renowned,” the mayor said at a news conference, according to the Globe and Mail newspaper.
After the announcement, the mayor approached a food vendor called Grumman 78, which served him a Vietnamese-style taco and tomato salad with cornbread croutons.
Some of Cirque du Soleil’s performers will soon have their feet on the ground.
That’s because the fantastical circus company is laying off 400 employees.
Cirque employs about 5,000 people around the world, doing more than 100 types of jobs including performing.
Most of the lay-offs will be at the organization’s Montreal headquarters, according to an article in the Globe and Mail.
Cirque du Soleil is a famous Canadian performing troupe. According to Wikipedia, they describe themselves as “a dramatic mix of circus arts and street entertainment.”
They were founded by two former street performers, Guy Laliberte and Gilles Ste-Croix, about 30 years ago.
Last Sunday Kateri Tekakwitha (known as Lily of the Mowhawks) became a saint in the Roman Catholic religion. She is the first North American First Nations saint.
More than 1,000 Canadians attended the “canonization” ceremony, conducted by the Pope Benedict XVI (16th) in the Vatican City in Italy.
Many of the people at the ceremony wore feathered headdresses and beads and sang songs to Tekakwitha.
University students continue to protest in Montreal.
The students had started out protesting a tuition hike.
However, the protests have grown and broadened to be about more than tuition.
The Royal Visit — Charles, the Prince of Wales, and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, are touring Canada.
They are taking a four-day tour of the country to commemorate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
Two major strikes are affecting services in Canadian cities including Toronto and Montreal.
A “strike” happens when workers, who are banded together in a “union,” decide to stop working until they get something they think is fair, such as raises, health coverage or money for their retirement.
A strike puts pressure on a company to talk to the union and possibly give the workers what they want.
Usually there is a “compromise,” in other words, the workers and the company get some things they want but perhaps not everything.
The company and the union try to find a solution that pleases both sides.
With only a few games left to play in the National Hockey League season, it’s a good time to look at how well or in some cases, poorly the Canadian teams performed.
Canada has a total of six hockey teams. From east to west they are: The Montreal Canadiens, The Ottawa Senators, The Toronto Maple Leafs, The Edmonton Oilers, The Calgary Flames, and The Vancouver Canucks.
The Montreal Canadiens had quite a good season. They won 43 games and earned 93 points. This success guaranteed them a spot in the playoffs and a chance to win the Stanley Cup. All that remains to be seen is who they will play in the first round.
