Latest news with #Maritimer
Hamilton Spectator
2 days ago
- General
- Hamilton Spectator
Marc Garneau was the first Canadian in space — but what he achieved on Earth is worth remembering, too
If Marc Garneau wasn't the beau ideal of Canadian character, accomplishment and aspiration, then he was surely on the short list. Canada's first astronaut in space, who died on Wednesday at 76 after a short illness, made his name travelling to the heavens. But his was a life that meant so much more, one shot through with examples of courage, adventure, service and resilience here on Earth. 'I didn't set out to be an astronaut, but that's what I became,' Garneau wrote in his 2024 memoir, A Most Extraordinary Ride. 'I also didn't set out to be a politician, but that also happened.' What he did set out to do 'was to live to the fullest of my capabilities rather than shrink from the challenges life threw at me, to stay curious, and to carry myself with dignity.' Garneau also wrote about the odd burst of youthful hell-raising. 'I was immature and lacked judgment,' he later recalled. 'Fortunately, it worked out, and I was able to learn from those experiences.' The son of a francophone infantry officer from Quebec City and an anglo-Canadian nurse from Sussex, New Brunswick, Garneau considered himself a product of both of Canada's fabled two solitudes. 'I was half Quebecer and half Maritimer,' he wrote. 'I believe I get my passion and tendency to argue from my Quebec ancestry and my pragmatism and can-do attitude from the Maritimer in my DNA.' Garneau joined the Royal Canadian Navy at 16, relishing the challenge of navigating vast spaces, relying on his wits. 'I like challenges; I like adventure,' he said last year. 'I'm willing to tolerate a certain amount of risk in my life. Failure does not throw me off, and I learned from failure.' While serving in the navy, he read a newspaper ad from the National Research Council. It was looking for astronauts. Garneau applied. In 1983, he was selected from more than 4,300 applicants to a class of six astronauts. A year later, he became the first Canadian to go to space, as a payload specialist on the NASA shuttle mission. 'I have often used the word euphoria to describe the moment I first saw Earth from space,' Garneau wrote. 'The view that greeted me left me not only breathless, but speechless. Words like incredible, amazing and extraordinary couldn't do justice to what I was seeing.' He wanted NASA to be pleased with his work. And, he said, 'I wanted Canadians to be proud of me.' That they were, and Garneau returned to Earth a national celebrity. He left the astronaut corps after two more missions and became president of the Canadian Space Agency before being recruited into politics. 'The possibility of making decisions that would shape Canada's future appealed to me,' he wrote. Although he lost his first bid for the House of Commons, in 2006, he won in 2008 and remained in office until his retirement, in 2023. He sought the Liberal leadership in 2013 but dropped out of the race that Justin Trudeau eventually won. He would go on to serve as Trudeau's minister of transport and then foreign affairs. Garneau had an edge, disagreeing with his leader on several aspects of foreign policy. He wished that the astronaut culture of honesty, openness, making no excuses and admitting promptly to error prevailed in politics. When he was left out of Trudeau's cabinet in 2021, Garneau more or less masked his sense of betrayal. 'It felt like a punch in the gut,' he wrote — but he carried on. Many of the tributes that have poured in since Garneau's wife, Pam, announced his passing have mentioned his fundamental virtues: humility, modesty, thoughtfulness, grace, courage, hopefulness, decency. Bob Rae, Canada's ambassador to the United Nations and one of Garneau's former colleagues, called him an 'old-fashioned, upfront guy, wise, incredibly hard-working, with deep humility and quiet sense of humour.' Garneau said that when he sat down to write his memoir, 'I realized, my goodness, I did pack a lot in 75 years.' Not least of all inspiring and making proud an entire country.
Toronto Star
3 days ago
- Business
- Toronto Star
This ‘hero' took an airline to small claims court over cancelled flights and won — a victory for all travellers
A recent small claims court decision in Nova Scotia has called out a troubling and growing business practice among Canadian airlines. And consumers can thank Maritimer Jason Hennigar for this. Three years ago, Hennigar bought round-trip tickets to Florida from Halifax through Sunwing. Not once, but twice, the airline cancelled his scheduled flight for 'unanticipated business or operational constraints.' Baloney, a small claims adjudicator ruled in a decision issued in April. Hennigar just wanted to go on holiday — a trip to Disney he'd been planning since September 2022. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW After Sunwing cancelled his first flight and offered to rebook him on another plane — for $500 more — Hennigar agreed. When the airline cancelled the second flight and ignored his requests for the airline to get him on another plane, Hennigar felt he had no choice but to dig deeper into his pockets. Sunwing did not respond to the Star's emailed request for comment. The Advocate Is Sunwing responsible for reimbursing travellers after fire near resort? It says no — but a lawyer says not so fast Star advocate Diana Zlomislic takes a deep dive into Ontario's Travel Industry Act and wonders With his scheduled vacation just weeks away, he forked over $5,155.92 to Air Canada to get him to Florida — twice the amount he had already paid Sunwing. Hennigar read Canada's Air Passenger Protection Regulations, and knew that when an airline cancels a flight for reasons within its control, as Sunwing did, the law says a carrier must provide customers an alternate flight at no additional charge. But he also knew that time was running out and that he wasn't likely to convince a company that had stopped communicating with him that it was in the wrong. So he took his vacation and filed a legal action against Sunwing in a small claims court in Nova Scotia when he returned home. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW The case, which Hennigar won, shines a light on a 'highly problematic and growing business practice by airlines,' says Gabor Lukacs, president of Air Passenger Rights, a Canadian advocacy group. The group, Lukacs says, had no involvement in the case. The Nova Scotia man compiled a 16-tabbed binder of evidence for his Zoom hearing and represented himself. Lukacs, who has never met Hennigar, calls him a 'hero.' At the hearing, Sunwing's claims director testified that the second plane the airline cancelled — a 737 — was scheduled to carry 189 passengers from Halifax to Orlando in February 2023. In a public decision issued in April, small claims adjudicator August Richardson took Sunwing to task. Evidence presented in court, he wrote, shows the airline's business model 'was premised on selling enough tickets for a particular flight or destination to fill a plane.' If the airline failed to reach its target number of passengers by a specific date, it would cancel the flight. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW 'The best that could be said was that the defendant thought it would be too expensive to fulfil its obligation to the claimant to find an alternate flight at no additional cost,' Richardson wrote. 'But the fact that a contract proves more expensive than a contracting party thought it would be does not excuse that party from performance. A bad deal is still a deal.' Lukacs loves that last line and repeats it several times during our interview. 'It's the first time this practice has been called out,' he says. 'When an airline says your only option is to cancel or pay more, that's not acceptable. That's illegal.' The Advocate Air Canada placed this family's 20-month-old on standby — then the real problems began Airline apologizes and offers flight compensation and a travel voucher after family's rough ride Before taking his case to small claims court, Hennigar submitted a request for damages to Sunwing. The airline, without discussion, eventually refunded $2,503 to his credit card. In his small claims case, which he filed in September 2024, Hennigar asked the court to order Sunwing to pay him the remaining cost he incurred as a result of the cancellations, which totalled $2,652.76. Sunwing argued that the federal air passenger regulations upon which Henningar's case relied pertained primarily to 'large carriers' and that it was not a large carrier. Hennigar agreed. He turned to another piece of legislation, the 1999 Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air — commonly referred to as the Montreal Convention. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW He successfully argued that the word 'delay' in Article 19 of the Montreal Convention included the cancellation of a flight — that a cancellation by definition amounts to a delay of the intended arrival date and time. Richardson agreed. The Advocate Airline compensation horror stories take flight. Here's why it may get a whole lot worse After sharing a traveller's odyssey for compensation from Turkish Airlines last week, readers He ordered Sunwing to pay Hennigar for the extra cost of the substitute tickets he purchased himself from Air Canada and layover expenses for a total of $2,652.76 plus costs of $200. There are a surprising number of people named Jason Hennigar in Nova Scotia. I left phone and Facebook messages with three of them but never connected with the right one. If you're reading this Jason, I'd still love to talk with you.
CBC
06-04-2025
- Sport
- CBC
Making moves: Halifax teen is a rising star in the world of chess
Calix Marchand, 13, is youngest Maritimer to earn national chess master title Calix Marchand learned a new game at daycare when he was four. "I remember coming back home and telling my dad about it and saying, like, I played this game with a king and a queen and a knight," he said. Since then, Marchand, 13, has since won many chess tournaments across Canada and competed in matches all over the world. In December, Halifax's Marchand became the youngest player from the Maritimes to earn the lifelong title of national chess master by the Chess Federation of Canada. He missed being the youngest chess master in Canada by just 23 months. The game has taught Marchand a lot about life, he said. "I really like how it's just a cool complex game and there's always … room for improvement," he said. "I also really like the competitiveness [of the game]." The adults in his life have also noticed how Marchand's success in chess has influenced who he is as a person. 'Unmatched' skill In his young career, Marchand has won events like the Canadian Youth Chess Championships and Canadian Chess Challenge. He also represented his country at the World Cadet Chess Championship in Italy last November. Chris Felix, president of the Nova Scotia Scholastic Chess Association, described Marchand as "unmatched." "I've witnessed a few rising stars over the years in Nova Scotia and Calix is progressing faster than all of the others in the past," Felix said. Despite being ranked in the top 100 in the world for his age group, Marchand's attitude is what impresses Felix the most It's not only Marchand's success that has rubbed off on other young players in Nova Scotia, but how he approaches the game," said Felix. That's made him a role model. Celeste Lefebvre, Marchand's mother, believes it has helped her son's confidence. "It's probably the biggest thing," she said. Chess has many different levels that allow a player to continue to evolve, Lefebvre said. She said she and her husband never played the game. But they're more than happy to support their son's passion as they've noticed the lessons he's learning as a player and a person. For one thing, Marchand has learned how to lose, his mother said. "I think it's actually been really good from an emotional management perspective for him as well — learning how to lose and how to realize that failure allows you to learn from it and move on." Marchand hasn't been losing much lately, however. He won the Nova Scotia Scholastic Chess Association annual grand prix last month for the second year straight. He's competing in the Nova Scotia provincial championships in Halifax this weekend in hopes of winning a spot at the nationals in Ottawa next month. Even though he's always thinking four moves ahead, Marchand doesn't get too far ahead of himself and always respects his opponent. "In a game of chess, anything can happen. So you just can't underestimate anyone."
