Hon Peter Milliken Canadian Speaker of The House

The Speaker of the House of Commons is the representative of the House in its powers and proceedings, and my functions fall into three categories. First, I preside over the debates of the House of Commons and ensure the observance of all rules for preserving order in its proceedings. Second, I am the Chair of the Board of Internal Economy (BOIE), which manages the budget and administration of the House of Commons, and those areas of Parliament Hill which are under the jurisdiction of the House. Third, I am the spokesperson or representative of the House in its relations with the Crown, the Senate and other authorities and persons outside Parliament.In terms of ranking, the Official Order of Precedence lists the Speaker of the House of Commons as being in 7th place, immediately after the Governor General, the Prime Minister of Canada, the Chief Justice of Canada, former Governors General and Prime Ministers and the Speaker of the Senate. Distilled to its essence, the main function of the Speaker is as the servant of the House.

The Presiding Officer is, however, entitled on all occasions to be treated with the greatest attention and respect by the individual members because the office embodies the power, dignity and honour of the House itself.The office of Speaker of the House of Commons is the personification of authority and impartiality. The Mace, symbol of the authority of the House, is carried in front of the Speaker by the Sergeant-at-Arms and is placed upon the table when the Speaker is in the Chair. The Speaker calls upon Members to speak; when they do, their words must be directed to the Speaker. When she or he rises to preserve (or restore) order or to give a ruling the Speaker must be heard in silence.

Capt. Dr. Ray Wiss Canadian Combat Doctor in Afghanistan

A Line In The Sand. An impassioned insider’s view of the Canadian soldier’s war in Afghanistan and why it matters.

A Line in the Sand takes up where the bestselling FOB Doc left off—this time, with a focus on the Canadian soldier in Afghanistan. What Captain Wiss saw in Afghanistan during his first tour there in 2007–08 convinced him that this conflict was a rare example of a moral war. When the Canadian Forces asked him to return to the combat area, he agreed. Once again, he kept a diary. This time, he wrote something completely different.

The conflict in Afghanistan continues to command the nation’s attention. Written in an accessible and engaging style, A Line in the Sand’s goal is to ensure that the efforts, sacrifices and achievements of those Canadians who served with such distinction are never forgotten. Illustrated with over 50 colour photographs, A Line in the Sand tells us about virtually every kind of soldier fighting in Afghanistan: the bomb technician, the woman who lugs heavy artillery shells, the engineer, the tank driver, the combat medic, the “grunt.” We accompany Dr. Wiss as he treats the casualties of war—Canadian, Afghan (civilian and military) and Taliban. We follow combat patrols through dangerous terrain. We learn about the Afghans, from whom we are seemingly so different yet with whom we share so much.

All profits from A Line in the Sand will be donated to the Military Families Fund, created by former chief of the defence staff General Rick Hillier to assist military families.


Brent Holland Show 2010_10_13 Ray Wiss doc in... by BrentHolland

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Lawrence Hill The Book of Negroes

Lawrence Hill is the son of American immigrants — a black father and a white mother — who came to Canada the day after they married in 1953 in Washington, D.C. On his father's side, Hill's grandfather and great grandfather were university-educated, ordained ministers of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. His mother came from a Republican family in Oak Park, Illinois, graduated from Oberlin College and went on to become a civil rights activist in D.C. The story of how they met, married, left the United States and raised a family in Toronto is described in Hill's bestselling memoir Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada (HarperCollins Canada, 2001). Growing up in the predominantly white suburb of Don Mills, Ontario in the sixties, Hill was greatly influenced by his parents' work in the human rights movement. Much of Hill's writing touches on issues of identity and belonging.

Lawrence Hill's third novel was published as The Book of Negroes in Canada, Great Britain, South Africa and Jamaica and as Someone Knows My Name in the USA, Australia and New Zealand. It won the overall Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Ontario Library Association’s Evergreen Award and CBC Radio’s Canada Reads. The book was a finalist for the Hurston/Wright LEGACY Award and longlisted for both the Giller Prize and the IMPAC Award.

Hill is also the author of the novels Any Known Blood (William Morrow, New York, 1999 and HarperCollins Canada, 1997) and Some Great Thing (HarperCollins 2009, originally published by Turnstone Press, Winnipeg, 1992).

Hill's most recent non-fiction book The Deserter's Tale: the Story of an Ordinary Soldier Who Walked Away from the War in Iraq (written with Joshua Key) was released in the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and several European countries.

Hill won the National Magazine Award for the best essay published in Canada in 2005 for "Is Africa's Pain Black America's Burden?" (The Walrus, February 2005). In 2005, the 90-minute film document that Hill wrote, Seeking Salvation: A History of the Black Church in Canada, Travesty Productions, Toronto (2004), won the American Wilbur Award for best national television documentary.

Formerly a reporter with The Globe and Mail and parliamentary correspondent for The Winnipeg Free Press, Hill also speaks French and Spanish. He has lived and worked across Canada, in Baltimore, and in Spain and France. As a volunteer with Canadian Crossroads International, he has traveled to the West African countries Niger, Cameroon and Mali. He has a B.A. in economics from Laval University in Quebec City and an M.A. in writing from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Hill now lives, writes and runs in Hamilton, Ontario.

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Mark Lane - Jim Jone's People's Temple Jonestown Massacre 1st person witness & survivor

Mark Lane is living history. Lane was present in Jonestown during the events of November 18, 1978, when more than 900 Peoples Temple members died in a murder-suicide by cyanide poisoning, and Congressman Leo Ryan and four others were murdered at a nearby airstrip.

During the visit of Congressman Ryan, Lane helped represent the Temple with its other attorney, Charles R. Garry.Late in the afternoon of November 18, two men wielding rifles approached Lane and Garry and told them bluntly they were to be executed. While waiting for their execution Lane heard the cries of children and gunshots less than 200 yards from where he was. The long black night of murder at Jonestown had begun.

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Brian Crowley The Canadian Century: Moving Out Of America's Shadow

For years Canada has lived in the shadow of the United States. No more. As the authors argue, while the United States was busy precipitating a global economic disaster, Canada was on a path that could lead it into an era of unprecedented prosperity. It won't be easy. We must be prepared to follow through on reforms enacted and complete the work already begun. If so, Canada will become the country that Laurier foretold, a land of work for all who want it, of opportunity, investment, innovation and prosperity. Laurier said that the twentieth century belonged to Canada. He was absolutely right; he was merely off by 100 years.

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Lawrence Kraus- renowned theoretical physicist The Physics Of Star Trek

What warps when you're traveling at warp speed? What is the difference between a wormhole and a black hole? Are time loops really possible, and can I kill my grandmother before I am born? Anyone who has ever wondered "could this really happen?" will gain useful insights into the Star Trek universe (and, incidentally, the real world of physics) in this charming and accessible guide. Lawrence M. Krauss boldly goes where Star Trek has gone-and beyond. From Newton to Hawking, from Einstein to Feynman, from Kirk to Picard, Krauss leads readers on a voyage to the world of physics as we now know it and as it might one day be.Lawrence M. Krauss is Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics and Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Center for Education and Research in Cosmology and Astrophysics at Case Western Reserve University. He is the only physicist to have received the top awards by the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Physics, and the American Association of Physics Teachers.

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Harvey Cashore The Truth Shows Up

Harvey Cashore has been a senior producer for CBC’s flagship investigative program, the fifth estate for twenty years where has prepared news-breaking documentaries on government mismanagement, international fraud, and justice-related issues. His in-depth work on the Airbus scandal began in 1994, and he is considered the top expert on the story. Cashore is the recipient of numerous awards including: The 2009 Gemini Award for Best Direction in a News Information Program or Series and The 2009 Canadian Association of Journalists' “Best Investigative Journalism” Award. He has been honoured with five Gemini Award nominations for Best Documentary and Best Information segment.  Canadians everywhere are familiar with the broad outlines of the infamous Airbus story. In recent years there have been countless news stories filed on what has become Canada’s biggest political scandal. What few know is the story of how this scandal was unearthed. How one determined journalist kept the story alive — kept picking at the pieces and posing the difficult questions the government would have preferred to avoid. The public had the right to know that millions of taxpayers’ dollars went missing in the sale of Airbus jets to a Canadian Crown Corporation, and they had a right to know where that money ended up. The Truth Shows Up is a compelling and fast-paced, behind-the-scenes journey with one journalist, and a team of colleagues, who followed this story from the very beginning. In 1994 Harvey Cashore, then an Associate Producer with CBC’s the fifth estate, was working on a news story about bribes in the airline industry. What he came across were the first fragments on what would become known as the Airbus scandal, a tale of bribes and kickbacks at the highest level of federal power.

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David Finkel- Pulitzer Prize Winner

David Finkel is a staff writer for The Washington Post, and is also the leader of the Post’s national reporting team. He won the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting in 2006 for a series of stories about U.S.-funded democracy efforts in Yemen. Finkel lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife and two daughters.An eternal tale—not just of the Iraq War but of all wars, for all time.It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, U.S. President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. He called it the surge. “Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences,” he told a sceptical nation. Among those listening were the young, optimistic, Army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the Battalion nicknamed The Rangers. About to head to a vicious area of Baghdad, they decided the difference would be them. Fifteen months later, the soldiers returned home forever changed. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David Finkel was with them in Bagdad, and almost every grueling step of the way. What was the true story of the surge? And was it really a success? Those are the questions he grapples with in his remarkable report from the front-lines. Combining the action of Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down with the literary brio of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, The Good Soldiers is an unforgettable work of reportage. And in telling the story of these good soldiers, the heroes and the ruined, David Finkel has also produced an eternal tale—not just of the Iraq War, but of all wars, for all time.

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Khaled Hosseini The Kite Runner & A Thousand Splendid Suns

Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. His father was a diplomat with the Afghan Foreign Ministry and his mother taught Farsi and History at a large high school in Kabul. In 1976, the Afghan Foreign Ministry relocated the Hosseini family to Paris. They were ready to return to Kabul in 1980, but by then Afghanistan had already witnessed a bloody communist coup and the invasion of the Soviet army. The Hosseinis sought and were granted political asylum in the United States. In September of 1980, Hosseini's family moved to San Jose, California. Hosseini graduated from high school in 1984 and enrolled at Santa Clara University where he earned a bachelor's degree in Biology in 1988. The following year, he entered the University of California-San Diego's School of Medicine, where he earned a Medical Degree in 1993. He completed his residency at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Hosseini was a practicing internist between 1996 and 2004.

While in medical practice, Hosseini began writing his first novel, The Kite Runner, in March of 2001. In 2003, The Kite Runner, was published and has since become an international bestseller, published in 48 countries. In 2006 he was named a goodwill envoy to UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency. His second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns was published in May of 2007. Currently, A Thousand Splendid Suns is published in 40 countries. Khaled has been working to provide humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan through The Khaled Hosseini Foundation. The concept for The Khaled Hosseini Foundation was inspired by a trip to Afghanistan Khaled made in 2007 with the UNHCR. He lives in northern California.

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Dr. David E Guggenheim - Ocean Doctor / The Ocean Foundation

Dr. David E. Guggenheim is a marine scientist, conservation policy specialist, submarine pilot and ocean explorer. He is president of 1planet1ocean, a project of The Ocean Foundation where he is a Senior Fellow and director of its Cuba Marine Research and Conservation Program. He is currently leading a major project to elevate collaboration in marine science and conservation among Cuba, Mexico and the U.S. to a new level and leading the first-ever comprehensive research and conservation program in Cuba’s Gulf of Mexico region, a joint effort with the University of Havana. Also known as the “Ocean Doctor” and host of the ExpeditionCasts podcast series, Dr. Guggenheim is currently engaged in a special “expedition” to all fifty U.S. states visiting schools and bringing special programs about ocean exploration and conservation to young students. So far he has traveled more than 35,000 miles, visited 13 states, made 39 speeches and reached more than 10,000 students in schools ranging from the northernmost community in North America, Barrow, Alaska, to Macksville, Kansas, close to the geographic center of the lower 48 states, to the southern tip of Florida.

In 2007 he served as a scientific advisor to Greenpeace for its expedition to map deepwater corals in the Bering Sea where he piloted the first-ever manned submersible dives into the Bering Sea’s largest underwater canyons. Guggenheim played a lead role in building the recently-formed Gulf of Mexico Alliance, a partnership among the U.S. Gulf states and 13 federal agencies and Mexico. Guggenheim is also working to introduce cutting-edge technologies for sustainable aquaculture practices to the Americas to reduce pressure on overfished wild fish stocks. Guggenheim previously served as Vice President at The Ocean Conservancy, President & CEO of The Conservancy of Southwest Florida, co-chair of the Everglades Coalition and president of the Friends of Channel Islands National Park.

Guggenheim holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Public Policy from George Mason University in Virginia, a Master’s in Aquatic and Population Biology from University of California, Santa Barbara, and a Master’s in Regional Science and Bachelor’s in Environmental Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

For additional information, please see: www.1planet1ocean.org and www.OceanDoctor.org

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John Ortved The Simpsons- An Uncensored, Unauthorized History

The story of TV’s longest-running sitcom and the characters who created it, marking twenty years on the airThe Simpsons will celebrate its twentieth anniversary this fall. No other TV show has had the enduring popularity or cultural influence that The Simpsons has. When it premiered in 1989, the enthusiastic reaction to its subversive humor was instantaneous. It is one of the most astounding successes in TV history. John Ortved’s unauthorized history—the first ever to look behind the scenes of this pop culture phenomenon—tells how the series grew from a controversial cult favourite to a mainstream powerhouse thanks to a group of intense, thoughtful, and creative people who came together to make something unique in the history of American culture. The writers, animators, producers, and network executives—as much a dysfunctional but loving family as the show’s stars themselves—are all here. It’s an intriguing yet hilarious tale full of betrayal, ambition, and love. More than an amusing narrative of the making of The Simpsons, this is an intimate look at the characters behind this cultural juggernaut—their creativity, intelligence, hubris, ego, and passion. The result is a book that is as amusing, dramatic, and compelling as the show itself. John Ortved is a 28-year-old writer and former editorial associate at Vanity Fair who lives between New York and Toronto, where he was born and raised. Growing up, he was no good at hockey, and was forced to find other ways to impress girls, like writing, working out, and smoking weed – none of which worked. At McGill University, where he earned his BA in English Literature (with a little economics), he wrote a weekly column, The Art Dummy, for The McGill Daily, which 6 out of 10 students considered “pretty awesome.”

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Alan Dershowitz Human Rights Lawyer

Israel Apartheid Week on University Campuses Professor Alan M. Dershowitz is Brooklyn native who has been called “the nation’s most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer” and one of its “most distinguished defenders of individual rights,” “the best-known criminal lawyer in the world,” “the top lawyer of last resort,” “America’s most public Jewish defender” and “Israel’s single most visible defender – the Jewish state’s lead attorney in the court of public opinion.” He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Dershowitz, a graduate of Brooklyn College and Yale Law School, joined the Harvard Law School faculty at age 25 after clerking for Judge David Bazelon and Justice Arthur Goldberg.

He has also published more than 100 articles in magazines and journals such as The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post. The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, The Nation, Commentary, Saturday Review, The Harvard Law Review and the Yale Law Journal, and more than 300 of his articles have appeared in syndication in 50 national daily newspapers. Professor Dershowitz is the author of 27 fiction and non-fiction works with a worldwide audience. His most recent titles include Rights From Wrong, The Case For Israel, The Case For Peace, Blasphemy: How the Religious Right is Hijacking the Declaration of Independence, Preemption: A Knife that Cuts Both Ways, Finding Jefferson – A Lost Letter, A Remarkable Discovery, and The First Amendment In An Age of Terrorism, and The Case For Moral Clarity: Israel, Hamas and Gaza.

In addition to his numerous law review articles and books about criminal and constitutional law, he has written, taught and lectured about history, philosophy, psychology, literature, mathematics, theology, music, sports – and even delicatessens.

In 1983, the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith presented him with the William O. Douglas First Amendment Award for his "compassionate eloquent leadership and persistent advocacy in the struggle for civil and human rights." In presenting the award, Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel said: "If there had been a few people like Alan Dershowitz during the 1930s and 1940s, the history of European Jewry might have been different." Professor Dershowitz has been awarded the honorary doctor of laws degree by Yeshiva University, the Hebrew Union College, Brooklyn College, Syracuse University and Haifa University. The New York Criminal Bar Association honored him for his "outstanding contribution as a scholar and dedicated defender of human rights."

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Dr. Peter MacCleod- Northern Armageddon: The Battle of the Plains of Abraham

The Battle of the Plains of Abraham is one of the pivotal events in North American and global history. This clash between British general James Wolfe and French general Louis-Joseph de Montcalm on September 13, 1759, led to the British victory in the Seven Years’ War in North America, which in turn led to the creation of Canada and the United States as we know them today.Rooted in original research, featuring quotations and images that have never appeared before, Northern Armageddon immerses the reader in the campaign, battle and siege through the eyes of dozens of participants, such as British sailor William Hunter, four Quebec residents enduring the bombing of their city and a teenage Huron warrior.

Shifting from perspective to perspective, we move from the bombardment of Quebec to the field of combat, where Montcalm and Wolfe gave their orders but thousands of individual soldiers determined the outcome of the battle. In the final chapters, MacLeod traces the battle’s impact on Canada, the United States, both countries’ Aboriginals and the world, from 1759 into the twenty-first century.

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Marie Wadden "Where the Pavement Ends"

Where the Pavement Ends: Canada’s Aboriginal Recovery Movement and the Urgent Need for Reconciliation

Marie Wadden began her journalism career in 1977 at CBC television in Newfoundland. The following year she took a boat trip along the Labrador coast for a holiday and saw the Innu community of Davis Inlet at the height of its addiction crisis. She's never lost sight of the needs of Aboriginal people since that time. In 1991 her D&M book, Nitassinan: The Innu Struggle to Reclaim their Homeland, won the Edna Staebler award for creative non fiction.Her radio and television work in Newfoundland and Quebec has also been recognized with Canadian and U.S. awards. In 2005, Wadden received the Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy and published her research in a Toronto Star series entitled "Tragedy or Triumph: Canadian Public Policy and Aboriginal Addictions." She is CBC Radio's network producer in Newfoundland and lives in St. John's with her husband Chris Brown and their two children, Nicholas and Naomi.

Links:
Aboriginal Healing Foundation

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Rodney Stark "God's Battalions: the Case for the Crusades"

In God's Battalions, award-winning author Rodney Stark takes on the long-held view that the Crusades were the first round of European colonialism, conducted for land, loot, and converts by barbarian Christians who victimized the cultivated Muslims. To the contrary, Stark argues that the Crusades were the first military response to unwarranted Muslim terrorist aggression.Stark reviews the history of the seven major Crusades from 1095 to 1291, demonstrating that the Crusades were precipitated by Islamic provocations, centuries of bloody attempts to colonize the West, and sudden attacks on Christian pilgrims and holy places. Although the Crusades were initiated by a plea from the pope, Stark argues that this had nothing to do with any elaborate design of the Christian world to convert all Muslims to Christianity by force of arms. Given current tensions in the Middle East and terrorist attacks around the world, Stark's views are a thought-provoking contribution to our understanding and are sure to spark debate.

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Abraham Bolden- The true story of the first African American Secret Service Agent

From the first African American assigned to the presidential Secret Service detail comes a gripping and unforgettable true story of bravery and patriotism in the face of bitter hatred and unthinkable corruption. Abraham Bolden was a young African American Secret Service agent in Chicago when he was asked by John F. Kennedy himself to join the White House Secret Service detail. For Bolden, it was a dream come true-and an encouraging sign of the charismatic president's vision for a new America.

But the dream quickly turned sour when Bolden found himself regularly subjected to open hostility and blatant racism. He was taunted, mocked, and disparaged but remained strong, and he did not allow himself to become discouraged.More of a concern was the White House team's irresponsible approach to security. While on his tour of presidential duty, Bolden witnessed firsthand the White House agents' long-rumored lax approach to their job. Drinking on duty, abandoning key posts-this was not a team that appeared to take their responsibility to protect the life of the president particularly seriously. Both prior to and following JFK's assassination, Bolden sought to expose and address the inappropriate behavior and negligence of these agents, only to find himself the victim of a sinister conspiracy that resulted in his conviction and imprisonment on a trumped-up bribery charge.

A gripping memoir substantiated by recently declassified government documents, The Echo from Dealey Plaza is the story of the terrible price paid by one man for his commitment to truth and justice, as well as a shocking new perspective on the circumstances surrounding the death of a beloved president.

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Sandra Chu "The Men Who Killed Me; Rwandan Survivors of Sexual Violence"

Sandra Ka Hon Chu is a lawyer and senior policy analyst with the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. She has worked in East Timor, Libya, Hong Kong, Canada and the Netherlands.A searing testimonial to the horrors of sexual violence in war—a little-known aspect of the Rwandan tragedy.In the hundred days of genocide that ravaged Rwanda between April and July 1994, an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 women and girls were raped. No one was spared. Grandmothers were raped in the presence of their grandchildren; young girls watched the massacre of their families before being taken as sex slaves. To a lesser extent, boys and men also fell victim to sexual violence.Fifteen years after the Rwandan genocide, The Men Who Killed Me features testimonials from seventeen survivors. Through their narratives and portraits, sixteen women and one man bear witness to the crimes committed against hundreds of thousands of others. In their strength and courage, they challenge the stigma of surviving sexual violence and living with HIV/AIDS (an astonishing 70 per cent of survivors are HIV positive).

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