Tags: Philanthropy

SALVATION SPONSORSHIPS.

If we can slag organizations when they fail us, surely we can thank them when they go out of their way to help us. And this summer, both the Weston Family Foundation and the National Bank of Canada helped Canadian literature and Canadian women in big ways and just in time.

For 20 years, the Giller Prize was the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Riding the bank’s rising commitment, the Giller became one of the best sponsorships in the land. Its purse grew from $25,000 to $100,000, its televised Gala became CanLit’s one big night, and a middle-sized fiction award became Canada’s richest literary award. Indeed, The Giller Effect boosted book sales for all the prize’s nominees.

Then in the Fall of 2023, authors and jurors began withdrawing over Scotiabank’s stake in an Israeli arms manufacturer, Elbit Systems. One author, Madeleine Thien, returned her prize from 2016, though not her $100,000 prize money.

Read on…

SOMETIMES YOU’RE JUST WRONG.

And when you’re wrong with 6,000 people reading why you’re wrong, well, I’m gulping the gulp you gulp when all you can say is: “My arguments may have been wrong, but at least they were well put.”

I was wrong about expanding Billy Bishop Airport and letting jets take off and land there. I said it was a good idea. Lots of readers disagreed. The longer runway would have all kinds of knock-on effects that would change what’s wonderful about the waterfront. One of these readers, the indefatigable and relentless Anne Golden, threatened me with an invitation for coffee, which I attended and was well finger-wagged.

Anne was actually in despair. For her, the prospect of taking on Doug Ford’s government was Everestian. Everybody knows that the dice were loaded. Everybody knows that the fight was fixed. Everybody knows the good guys lost.

Until of course, they won.

Last Friday, after the polls showed Doug Ford sitting in the mid-20s in public opinion brought on by his fumbled effort to buy and sell a private jet, and his fumbled effort to rationalize his government’s efforts in fighting the forest fires raging in the North, Ottawa announced that it would not allow Billy Bishop to be expanded to accommodate jets.

Read on…

TRUE NORTH STRONG AND EXPENSIVE.

Yachting, polo, squash and fencing are what I call upper class sports. You need a lot of money, or go to prep school with it, in order to play or want to even watch.

But two sports that used to be proudly middle class are in danger of being played and watched mainly by rich people. It’s worse that hockey and skiing are the very sports Canadians love and excel at – and are at the heart of being Canadian.

But the news last week that the cost for a family of four to go to a Toronto Maple Leafs game will be $1,000 this season sparked protests from thousands of fans who resent the20%+ jump in season ticket prices in a city that’s already the most expensive in the world to watch pro hockey. The Leafs are a unique subset of what economists call a Giffen Good, a product or service whose demand increases as its price rises. Because the Leaf’s home ice attendance averages 99.8%, with occasional rises to 105%, and has for decades now, they are not just immune to the laws of supply and demand, but to the idea that a better product will draw a bigger audience.

Read on…

Is being nice a civic virtue?

If so, Canadians should be the most virtuous people on earth. But does virtue count for anything these days? I mean, aside from offering a retiree your seat on the subway, which is its own reward. Like chopping wood once, virtue warms you twice.

Let me raise my aging hand to say I believe being nice is better than being loud and even better than being right. Saying “please” and “thank you” is the lubricant for lots of life.

So I was relieved last week that a group of Worthy Canadians™ penned an open letter to our political leaders that they “address urgently the rise of incivility, public aggression and overt hatred that are undermining the peace and security of Canadian life.”

Read on…

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