I remember when Marc Garneau was appointed to cabinet 10 years ago.

I remember it not for his appointment as much as for everyone else’s.

• The minister of justice was a lawyer.

• The minister of health was a doctor.

• The minister of defence was a military guy.

• And the minister of transportation…. was an astronaut.

It was as if we were trying to say to the other democracies in the world: Like, what more do you want from us?! 

Marc Garneau was Canada’s first astronaut. He flew in the American space shuttle in 1984 and did a bunch of scientific experiments on the effect of low-gravity on muscle tone and heart function.

It was kind of low-key because, well, Canada.

But that first flight wasn’t about conquering space. It was about a country planting its flag on something bigger: proof that science matters.

Today, more than 40 years later, science is being attacked around the world.

Facts are politicized. Science gets mocked, defunded, the vacuum filled with conspiracy theories about microchips in vacinnes. Nations that once built the future are now retreating into the past.

Garneau was just our first astronaut. Roberta Bondar. Julie Payette. Chris Hadfield. Each of them proving that you can serve your country not just with courage, but with curiosity.

Maybe now, maybe again, with truth under siege in so many places, Canada has a role to play. Not just as a participant in global science—but as its defender. Its steward. Its lighthouse. (Even if that lighthouse is running on a grant that needs to be renewed every fiscal year.)

Because at least today, science still matters here.

We send kids to school with questions, not answers. Classrooms still teach evolution and climate science without apology. We pour funding into research, because we believe that science is not a talking point.

If the world keeps turning away from knowledge, someone has to keep the flame alive. That could be us. If we choose to.

Marc Garneau died this week. He was 76.

An astronaut, a cabinet minister, a naval officer, a doctor of engineering.

But the title I suspect he was most proud of: A Canadian.

One who touched the sky not to conquer it, but to understand it.

We All Need a Little Good News😊

• He started multiplying as a toddler: A six-year-old boy from Bedford, N.S., is now one of only 50 Nova Scotians accepted into Mensa International, a high-IQ society reserved for those who score in the top 2% on standardized intelligence tests.

• The Toronto Blue Jays’ Rogers Centre was featured in a Jeopardy! clue this week. The question referenced an April 2018 MLB game postponed after ice fell from the CN Tower and punctured the Rogers Centre roof. 

• And you skipped leg day: A 95-year-old man in Lethbridge has walked nearly 20 million steps, the equivalent of crossing Canada twice, since 2022 all to stay healthy after being diagnosed with stage four liver cirrhosis.

Sporty Spice ⚽

• A trans ally’s song about the gay bar scene is now Edmonton’s unofficial anthem in their Stanley Cup run. Even Wayne Gretzky’s getting in on the “Pink Pony Club” hype...  though at first, he had no idea if "Pink Pony" was a band or a song.

• Gracey Hemstreet made mountain bike history as the first Canadian woman to win on the World Cup downhill circuit.

Entertainment 🎬

• A documentary on late Canadian comic John Candy will open the 50th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival.

• Is your favourite show Canadian enough? The CRTC is rethinking what counts as Canadian content as streaming giants push back on policies. 

• The search for Marty McFly’s missing guitar is back on: Four decades after Back to the Future’s debut, Gibson has relaunched the hunt for the iconic Cherry Red Gibson ES-345 and is asking the public for help tracking down the long-lost time-traveling six-string.

Wild Wonders 🐘

• A tiny injured bear cub near Trail, B.C., was rescued in a pillowcase and has become a symbol of hope

• For more than a century, reports of homosexual behaviour among Antarctic penguins were kept under wraps.

• Beat it, humans: A family visiting the shores of West Vancouver was left speechless after witnessing a killer whale seemingly “moonwalking.”

• A Toronto woman and her partner have been banished to their second bedroom thanks to a family of raccoons taking over the walls. 

• A buzz in the air: 14 million honeybees escaped after a truck carrying 70,000 pounds of honeybee hives overturned near the B.C.-Washington border.

• Cougar vs bear: A B.C. couple filmed a bear calmly at a blackberry bush before it suddenly fled down a trail… chased moments later by a cougar.

Sorry, Is This Dumb-Ass Trade War Still Happening?! 🥊

• Now hiring: Ontario is tweaking its registration rules for health-care professionals to make it easier to poach nurses from the U.S.

• Loblaw's has pulled Folgers coffee from stores over ‘unjustified’ price hikes (says the grocer with $10 lettuce…)

• A new poll shows more than a quarter of Canadians view the U.S. as an “enemy country.”

• U.S. trips? We’ll pass: Fewer Canadians are flying to the U.S. compared to last year, while most major Canadian airports exceeded their pre-COVID numbers. 

• Domestic tourism could gain up to $8.8 billion as Canadians scale back U.S. trips

Science Breakthroughs 🧪

• Not your average party favour: Ketamine therapy is helping some Nova Scotians find relief from depression. 

• Canadian researchers have advanced quantum error correction techniques, tackling the challenge of noise in quantum computing and reinforcing Canada’s leadership in quantum science.

The First Peoples 🛖

• History up in smoke: Hundreds of priceless Indigenous artifacts were destroyed after a wildfire’s embers sparked a fire inside the shuttered Robertson Trading building in downtown La Ronge, Sask.

• The government released its annual report on addressing the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQI+ people. 

• First Nations leaders are threatening highway blockades if the Ford government moves forward with Bill 5.

Across Canada 🍁

• Flipped out: Delta Air Lines is facing 16 lawsuits over a crash at Toronto Pearson Airport that left several Canadians injured after flipping upside down

• A new report looks at how passengers injured during turbulence on international flights may be entitled to compensation under the Montreal Convention

The Dystopian Hellscape 🔥

• A Donald Trump biopic just won Best Motion Picture in Canada... yes, really. The Apprentice, a film chronicling Trump’s early real estate years and mostly shot in Toronto, took top honours at the CSAs, with its producer pointing to censorship attempts by Trump as proof of the need for cross-border collaboration to tell bold stories. 

• Enforcement TBD: A bill banning “chemtrails” has passed in the Louisiana House and now moves to the Senate. (This is a wacko conspiracy theory claiming governments or groups release chemicals from an aircraft to be used for mind manipulation.)

• Bro, it’s literally your job: The acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency reportedly admitted he didn’t know the U.S. has a hurricane season. 

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