The 14th annual Canada’s Walk of Fame

Burton Cummings is the only individual to be inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame two times.


The class of 2011 includes seven new inspiring and celebrated Canadians who have excelled in their fields and are a part of Canada’s legacy.

The 14th annual Canada’s Walk of Fame will add the following Canadian icons to its current list of 131 inductees:



>> Burton Cummings

>> Dr. Roberta Bondar

>> Daniel Nestor

>> Sandra Oh

>> Russell Peters

>> Ryan Reynolds

>> Mordecai Richler



“Each one of our inductees has made their mark on Canada’s colourful landscape and helped define to the world what it means to be Canadian,” said Peter Soumalias, President and Founding Director, Canada’s Walk of Fame. “We are thrilled to honour and celebrate our inductees’ dedication and passion to both their craft and community at this year’s ceremony.”



Joining the 131 existing inductees, the 2011 honourees will be added to Canada’s Walk of Fame, which annually recognizes individuals for their achievements in various fields, including music, sport, film and television, science and innovation, in addition to the arts: literary, visual and performing. Commemorating the 2011 inductees, the Canada’s Walk of Fame Awards will feature special guest performances and celebrity presenters.



“Canada’s Walk of Fame truly champions Canadians and their pursuit of excellence across all disciplines, and Shaw is a proud supporter of this important cultural initiative,” said Barb Williams, Senior Vice-President, Content, Shaw Media. “We look forward to our 3rd consecutive broadcast on Global and Slice™ highlighting another exemplary list of inductees this fall.”



Once again, one of this year’s inductees will be honoured with the Canadian Legends Award, sponsored by Cineplex Entertainment This year’s recipient is acclaimed author and screenwriter, Mordecai Richler. The Legends Award is given posthumously to Canadian pioneers in film and television, music, sport, arts and innovation. Cineplex Entertainment is proud to sponsor the Legends Award as well as Canada’s Walk of Fame.



Potential candidates of Canada’s Walk of Fame must have been born in or spent the totality of their creative or formative years in Canada. A minimum of 10 successful years is required to qualify, as well as a recognized body of work that has had a significant influence on our cultural heritage.



“As a sponsor for a third consecutive year, RBC Visa Infinite Avion is proud to be a partner of Canada’s Walk of Fame and its commitment to allow Canadians to share and celebrate the achievements of those talented individuals that continue to inspire us all.” said Karen Leggett, SVP, RBC Cards & Payment Solutions.



The 2011 Inductees



Dr. Roberta Bondar O.C., O.Ont, MD, PhD, FRCP, FRSC Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie, ON

As the world’s first neurologist in space, Dr. Roberta Bondar has been globally recognized for her pioneering contribution to space medicine research. As an author, educator and celebrated landscape photographer, Dr. Bondar has also earned a reputation as a leading speaker and consultant within the medical and scientific communities, and in the field of corporate social responsibility as well as the environment. Recently created, The Roberta Bondar Foundation aims to help people see their environment in a positive light. Some of her numerous accolades include the Order of Canada, Order of Ontario, the NASA Space Flight Medal, Honorary Patron for Canada of UNESCO’s International Year of Planet Earth, and inductions into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame and the International Women’s Forum Hall of Fame. Dr. Bondar has received 24 honorary doctorates from Canadian and American universities, and in 2003, TIME magazine named her among North America’s best explorers. Dr. Bondar served two terms as Chancellor of Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. She is also an Adjunct Faculty Member in Trent’s Environmental & Life Sciences Graduate Program.



Burton Cummings Hometown: Winnipeg, MB

Few artists have achieved the level of success and critical acclaim that Burton Cummings has enjoyed in a dazzling career spanning more than 40 years. Whether as lead singer and songwriter with the Guess Who or on his own, Burton Cummings has amassed more hit records than just about any other Canadian performer in history. “These Eyes,” “Laughing,” “No Time,” “American Woman,” “Share The Land,” “Clap For The Wolfman,” “Stand Tall,” “My Own Way To Rock” and “You Saved My Soul” all bear Burton’s distinctive stamp. As a member of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, Canada’s Walk of Fame with the Guess Who, Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame, Prairie Music Hall of Fame, six-time JUNO Award winner, recipient of the Order of Canada, the Order of Manitoba, the Governor-General’s Performance Arts Award, 22 SOCAN Awards and several BMI (Broadcast Music Industry) Awards for over 1 million airplays of his songs, Burton Cummings is one of the most celebrated rock artists in Canadian music history. He earned the first US platinum album by a Canadian artist with the Guess Who, and on his own, the first quadruple platinum Canadian-produced album. Altogether Burton has earned some 80 platinum and gold record awards. Recently, the bestselling book The 100 Top Canadian Singles ranked “American Woman” the greatest Canadian single of all time. His most recent album, 2008’s critically-acclaimed Above The Ground, was his first ever to feature all original songs. Canadian rock music royalty, Burton Cummings remains at the top of his game as an unrivaled singer, songwriter and recording artist with the extraordinary gift for entertaining and delighting audiences the world over.



Daniel Nestor Hometown: Toronto, ON

Born in Yugoslavia, Daniel Nestor moved to Toronto in 1976 where he proudly became a Canadian citizen. Today, this Canadian tennis player is recognized as the third most decorated doubles champion in tennis history, winning multiple titles over the span of his epic career. Nestor has won 73 ATP Tour doubles titles, including 7 Grand Slam events, 2 mixed doubles Grand Slam titles, not to mention 3 Masters Cup Doubles titles. Nestor proudly represented Canada at the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games, bringing home Gold at the Sydney Olympic Games. His continual athletic success has made him the only player in tennis history to win all four Grand Slams, all of the Masters Series events, the year-end Masters Cup and an Olympic Gold medal in doubles at least once. Ranked number one in the world in 2002, 2004 and 2008, Nestor continues to impress, recording his 800th career victory at the 2011 French Open.



Sandra Oh Hometown: Ottawa, ON

Born and raised in our nation’s capital, Sandra Oh is a life-long performer, appearing in her first play at the age of 10 and kick-starting her professional career at the age of 16 in television, theatre and commercials. After only three years at the National Theatre School of Canada, she landed the coveted title role in The Diary of Evelyn Lau, earning her a Gemini nomination for Best Actress, as well as a 1994 Cannes FIPA d’Or for Best Actress. Her career then continued to soar, as she won, the Screen Actor’s Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture for the Fox Starlight film, Sideways. Further awards include two Genie Awards, a Cable Ace award for Best Actress in a Comedy, a Theatre World Award and a Golden Globe, Screen Actor’s Guild Award and five Emmy nominations for her role as ‘Dr. Christina Yang’ on the hit series Grey’s Anatomy. With numerous awards and outstanding performances under her belt, Oh continually showcases her ability to shine both on-stage and on-screen. Although she can be seen in various award-winning feature films and television series, including Rabbit Hole and HBO’s Six Feet Under, she never strays far from her theatrical roots, starring on New York stages in Dogeaters, Stop Kiss and Vagina Monologues.



Russell Peters Hometown: Toronto, ON

Russell Peters is a global comedy rock-star and internet sensation. His Youtube clips have been viewed over 60 million times and he has performed to sold-out crowds from Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, to New York’s Madison Square Garden, to the Sydney Opera House to London’s O2 Arena where he established a new attendance record. Over the course of his 20-year career, he has headlined comedy festivals throughout North America and has performed sold-out arena tours worldwide. Peters has appeared on Showtime, Comedy Central, HBO, the CBC, BBC, CTV, CNN, TBS, CBS, ABC and NBC. His DVD releases, Outsourced and Red, White and Brown have sold in excess of 300,000 units. In 2009 and 2010 he was listed on the Forbes list of top earning comedians in the United States along with Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld. His first book, Call Me Russell was a number one bestseller and his new DVD / special, The Green Card Tour LIVE from the O2 Arena is in stores now.



Ryan Reynolds Hometown: Vancouver, BC

Ryan Reynolds commenced his acting career at the age of 12 in the series, Fifteen. In 1993, Reynolds landed his first feature film role in the Canadian made Ordinary Magic (1993), for which he was nominated by the Young Artist Foundation for Best Young Actor Co-starring in a Cable Series. After working on several television shows including Serving the Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Reynolds landed his breakthrough role, co-starring on the hit sitcom, Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place. This series landed him the lead role in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder (2002), for which he earned an MTV Movie Award nomination for Breakthrough Male Performance and a Young Hollywood Award for Next Generation-Male. Since then, he’s become a sought-after Canadian actor and big-screen regular, starring in movies such as Definitely, Maybe (2008) and X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). His starring role in The Proposal(2009) earned him two MTV Movie Award nominations including Best Comedic Performance and People’s Choice Awards nominations for Favourite Movie Actor, Favourite Comedic Star and Favourite On-Screen Team. Reynolds has also been recognized by the Teen Choice, Goya, Saturn, and Scream Awards, and won People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive in 2010. His success continues with his latest lead role in Green Lantern (2011).



Mordecai Richler Hometown: Montreal, QC

Mordecai Richler was a controversial writer who penned the truth as he saw it. His work included numerous novels, essays, short stories, children’s books and hundreds of journalistic articles published in Canada, the U.S. and Britain. His most successful novels include The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959); St. Urbain’s Horseman (1971; Governor General’s Literary Award), Solomon Gursky Was Here (1990; Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize) and Barney’s Version (1997; Giller Prize for Fiction, Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humor). Richler wrote several screenplays and his adaptation of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974) earned him an Academy Award nomination. Richler’s popular children’s book Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang (1975) received Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award and the Ruth Schwartz Children’s Book Award. Richler was working on a script forBarney’s Version when he died and the film premiered in 2010, winning seven Genie Awards. Richler was made a Companion of the Order of Canada shortly before his death on July 3, 2001.



About Canada’s Walk of Fame

Established in 1998, Canada’s Walk of Fame (CWOF) aims to educate, inform, and inspire through the permanent celebration of achievements in Canadian music, sport, film and television as well as the literary, visual and performing arts, and science and innovation. In 2010, CWOF expanded to include a four-day festival of music, comedy and film featuring some of Canada’s most popular and iconic performers. The annual celebration culminates in a televised awards special that honours Canada’s finest stars from the worlds of arts, entertainment and sports. Each inductee is immortalized, their names forever cemented into the sidewalks of Toronto’s Entertainment District. To-date, 131 Canadians have been honoured, including Margaret Atwood, Howie Mandel, Steve Nash, Michael J. Fox and Blue Rodeo. A complete list of inductees along with more information on Canada’s Walk of Fame can be found at www.canadaswalkoffame.com.

Avoiding the Flu.

Hello to anyone reading this and if you  are reading this, I hope you're doing well!




If you're like me, you hate catching a cold or flu. So I thought you'd be interested in some tips on eliminating germs in your home. These are based on recommendations from the U.S. and Canadian departments of health.



• You're much more likely to catch a bug from a handshake than a cough. So wash your hands regularly.



• You are 200 times more likely to pick up a germ in the kitchen than in any other room in the home -- including the bathroom. So give your kitchen top priority with cleaning.



• Most people keep countertops clean and sanitized. But don't forget other surfaces that can also carry germs, like computer keyboards, children's toys, phones, and door knobs.



• If you need to cough or sneeze, and don't have a tissue handy, use the shoulder of your sleeve rather than your hand.



By taking some simple precautions, experts say you can reduce yours, and your family's, risk of getting a cold, flu or bacterial infection by as much as 50%.



That's something to think about!



As I said, I hope you're doing well -- and I also hope you stay well!



Lisa Portolese, Sales Representative

Royal LePage Kingsbury Realty, Brokerage

30 Eglinton Avenue West, Suite 200

Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

Bus (905) 568-2121

Cel (416) 953-9714

Email LisaMovesYou@Rogers.com

Website www.lisamovesyounow.com

Cineplex Community Day

Cineplex Community Day


On Saturday, October 22, Cineplex will be hosting its first ever national Community Day at all of their theatres across Canada to support Starlight Children’s Foundation.

The morning event will begin at 8:30am with a selection of FREE family films.

Guests will be able to purchase regular popcorn, regular drink and selected Mars product candy items for $2 per item.

100% of the funds from these special concession items will be donated to Starlight.



Visit www.cineplex.com/starlight to find the theatre and movie selections in your community!

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

Stanford Report, June 14, 2005


'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.



I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.



The first story is about connecting the dots.



I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?



It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.



And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.



It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:



Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.



None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.



Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.



My second story is about love and loss.



I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.



I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.



I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.



During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.



I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.



My third story is about death.



When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.



Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.



About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.



I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.



This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:



No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.



Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.



When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.



Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.



Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.



Thank you all very much.

Ontario Election, VOTE October 6th/2011

I want to encourage you to get out and vote on October 6 and make your voice heard. You have an opportunity to help send candidates to Queen’s Park who will best serve the interests of our province.
The polls are open Thursday, October 6, 2011 from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM. For more information on when, where and how to vote visit the Elections Ontario website at www.elections.on.ca or www.wemakevotingeasy.ca.

Scotiabank Nuit Blanche October 1st, 2011 to October 2nd 2011

Scotiabank Nuit Blanche


For one sleepless night, experience Toronto transformed by artists. The familiar is discarded as the city becomes the artistic playground for a series of exhilarating contemporary art experiences. One night only. All night long. All free. Experience the magic of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche once again on Saturday, October 1, 2011.