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Meet the oldest grad from the U of S's Indian Teacher Education Program

Meet the oldest grad from the U of S's Indian Teacher Education Program

CBC26-05-2025
Louise Fraser achieved a long-time goal of receiving a teaching degree and plans to fulfill her dream of educating youth on the Cree language.
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Advocates say even knowing your neighbour is a step forward for climate action
Advocates say even knowing your neighbour is a step forward for climate action

CBC

time10 minutes ago

  • CBC

Advocates say even knowing your neighbour is a step forward for climate action

In the battle against an uncertain climate future, climate activists say strengthening communities is key. In a recent panel discussion on CBC's The Signal, climate advocates reacted to the latest climate news, such as this summer's devastating wildfires in Newfoundland and Labrador and across the country. The tone in climate change conversations has been sombre. Environmentalist David Suzuki has said to media that humanity has lost its fight against climate change. He told CBC News that the focus of the fight now should be on building communities — checking on neighbours and seeing who would " need help in an emergency." For Megs Scott, the importance of a community was clear on the day their hometown of Port aux Basques, N.L., was hit by Hurricane Fiona, a record-breaking storm that pulled entire houses into the ocean. The support was quick to follow. "I think about how literally the entire island came together," Scott said. The town received so much help that it deferred resources to nearby towns, they said. It was following that event that Scott joined the climate activism organization Fridays for Future. They say community work can be as simple as knowing your neighbours, joining a group with like-minded people, sharing knowledge, all so that if a climate disaster does hits, the community is stronger and able to help one another better. "It's not only the community work, but it's also the way in which community melds together in times of emergency," Scott said. An overall systematic change Leah Casey, a biology college student at Memorial University and a climate advocate, says the burden of climate action can't fall entirely on individual people. "I think it's the systems that have been built and structures that people can't get away from," Casey said, like the abundance of plastic products one might encounter while shopping for necessities. The Signal She says the change starts with the local communities people are part of, like her community in Conception Bay South, where her work in the community garden helped with food insecurity and added green spaces. "All of the communities around the world need to work together as one," she said. "There's elections coming up. We all need to work together to make sure that our elected officials are going to support our interests and make sure that there's going to be climate action on a large scale." "We're part of a whole" Richard Whitaker, a long-time climate advocate from Portugal Cove-St. Philips, says the issue lies with selfishness, greed and people's need to "have everything": a wasteful consumerist ideology that fuels climate change. "Two people living in a house that historically would have housed 20," he said. "We are self-centred and we don't realize that we're part of a whole, or don't act as if we're part of a whole, and we have a responsibility to hold." But facts and science knowledge don't often get to people's hearts, says Mary Tee, former director of the Mercy Centre for Ecology and Justice. "There has to be a moral, spiritual way into this because we have to have a change in consciousness, and I don't think rules and regulations will bring that about," she said. "It has to be tapping to our very hearts and our feelings ... we're not just individuals, you know, we're responsible not just for ourselves, but for our community."

LaSalle, Ont. siblings squeeze the day for charity
LaSalle, Ont. siblings squeeze the day for charity

CTV News

timean hour ago

  • CTV News

LaSalle, Ont. siblings squeeze the day for charity

Leah and Lindon seen with their lemonade stand in LaSalle, Ont. on Aug. 2, 2025. (Source: Brandi Liles) A pair of LaSalle, Ont. siblings manned arguably the busiest lemonade stand in town on Saturday to help support animals in need of a new home. As each customer approached, Leah Whited, 7, filled the cup with ice, and her brother Lindon, 11, poured in the lemonade. Along with sales of books and cookies, the siblings raised $500 for the Windsor/Essex County Humane Society. 'Leah has been asking for a long time for a lemonade stand. So, we decided to do a lemonade stand with cookies and books, and we decided that all the money is going to go to the Humane Society,' explained Lindon. To prepare for the day, Leah said they painted, made signs and, of course, lemonade. When asked why selling the ice-cold beverage was so important, she promptly responded, 'To help the animals.' Among the many visitors in attendance were members of the LaSalle Fire Service, who arrived in a firetruck. LaSalle lemonade stand for animals Leah and Lindon serve firefighters at their lemonade stand in LaSalle, Ont. on Aug. 2, 2025. (Source: Brandi Liles) 'All the money we're helping everyone when we donate, we're helping the animals. I know Leah really likes to help the animals because she loves them,' said Lindon. Next week, Lindon and Leah plan to hand-deliver the proceeds to the Humane Society. After squeezing out strong results in their first attempt, the siblings are planning to continue their efforts next summer with another stand.

Ceremony held for RCAF pilot killed in Cape Breton crash while training in 1944
Ceremony held for RCAF pilot killed in Cape Breton crash while training in 1944

CBC

timean hour ago

  • CBC

Ceremony held for RCAF pilot killed in Cape Breton crash while training in 1944

According to his Royal Canadian Air Force service records, 21-year-old Pilot Officer Bill Bennet was a fine airman. Described as tall and wiry, his commanding officer noted in March 1944 that the Montreal man was also "enthusiastic and intelligent." And as the Second World War in Europe entered its final phase that summer, Bennet was made a staff pilot at the RCAF station in Summerside, P.E.I., where he started training to fly reconnaissance aircraft or bombers. On Aug. 6, 1944, Bennet was tasked with flying a twin-engine Avro Anson V training aircraft carrying two navigators and one radio operator. Their routine mission that Sunday was to fly east from Summerside to a point over the Gulf of St. Lawrence north of Cape Breton and then return. But something went wrong over the water. The aircraft was well south of where it should have been. As it entered a thick bank of fog, Bennet began a descent that he hoped would bring the plane below the haze. Instead of emerging above the vast gulf, the aircraft suddenly plowed through a stand of small trees. Its wings, tail and one engine were torn off as it slammed into the side of Jerome Mountain on the western edge of Cape Breton Highlands National Park. Bennet was badly injured, having suffered a fractured skull. Incredibly, the other three men had only minor wounds. The rescue effort Given the steep, boggy terrain, it wasn't until the next afternoon that a search party reached the remote crash site northeast of the Acadian community of Chéticamp, N.S. The volunteer searchers, most of them local men from the fishing village, were told Bennet had died during the night. With the help of their rescuers, the three survivors — 20-year-old navigator John Robert Ogilvie and 22-year-old navigator William John Astle, both of Edmonton, and 22-year-old communications officer Jack Roy Burke of Wallaceburg, Ont. — managed to hike down the mountain by late Monday. But it would take another day before Bennet's body could be recovered. A local doctor and a member of the military stayed with Bennet's corpse through the night. Jeff Noakes, Second World War historian at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, said an RCAF inquiry later found the plane's compass wasn't working properly. As well, he said investigators determined the navigators and the pilot weren't communicating as well as they should have been. "The RCAF ultimately concluded that they weren't 100 per cent sure why there was an error in the navigation," Noakes said in an interview. Saturday ceremony On Saturday, more than 80 years after the crash, a non-profit group based in Chéticamp — Les Amis du Plein Air — held a public ceremony to unveil two commemorative panels at a campsite in the shadow of the mountain. One panel is dedicated to the aircrew, the other to the local men sent to rescue them. Among those in the crowd of about 50 people was one of Bennet's nephews, 63-year-old Bill Bennet of Ottawa, who was named after his late uncle. He said it was important for him and his two children, Liam and Nora, to travel to Cape Breton to be part of the unveiling. "My son is 21," Bill Bennet said, his voice cracking with emotion as he recalled his uncle was the same age when he died. "I want to make them aware of our family's connection to the war and what that means. It's also a chance to connect with the people of Chéticamp about the efforts [their ancestors] made to rescue these men in this very rugged terrain. I think of the sacrifice of my uncle, but there are so many more people involved in this whole story." British Commonwealth Air Training Program Bill Bennet's 65-year-old brother Doug, who travelled from Toronto with his wife Nancy and their children Nathan and Eliza, said his uncle's tragic story illustrates the sacrifices made by those who took part in the British Commonwealth Air Training Program, often described as among Canada's most important contributions to the war effort. By the end of the war, the program had graduated more than 131,000 pilots, observers, flight engineers and other aircrew for the air forces of Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. More than half joined the RCAF. It was often dangerous work. In all, 856 trainees were killed, though some sources suggest the number is much higher. "It was a huge cost," Doug Bennet said before the ceremony began. "And they were almost all in their late teens and early 20s." Erin Gregory, curator at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa, said most Canadians are more familiar with the sacrifices made overseas during the Second World War. "It's important to mark this moment of service and sacrifice at home, which is at least as important as what happened overseas," Gregory said. "As part of the war effort, it was extremely important and it was dangerous."

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