Canada Letter: Trudeau Talks to Us, and a New Name

The Times’s recent Canada-related coverage with back stories and analysis from our reporters along with opinions from our readers. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Saturday, June 24, 2017 [NYTimes.com/Canada »]( [Trudeau Talks to Us, and a New Name]( By IAN AUSTEN Yes, you’ve come to the right place. As we showcase The New York Times’s expanded coverage of the country over this week and the next, Canada Today has become Canada Letter to reflect a freshened approach. [Catherine Porter, The Times’s Toronto bureau chief, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent, at an event in Toronto on Thursday.] Catherine Porter, The Times’s Toronto bureau chief, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent, at an event in Toronto on Thursday. Ian Willms for The New York Times In this issue, we’ll catch you up on what we’ve been doing. The highlight of the first week came on Thursday when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined Peter Baker, our chief White House correspondent, and Catherine Porter, our Toronto bureau chief, at a sold-out event at the University of Toronto. Mr. Trudeau has not lost his ability to draw a crowd. Well before his arrival, an expectant group surrounded a wide, pink staircase in the Rotman School of Management, which co-hosted the event with The Times. A roar erupted when Mr. Trudeau finally bounded his way up. The audience inside the auditorium wasn’t much more restrained. When the prime minister said he found President Trump to be a good listener, he was briefly interrupted by laughter. Some members of the audience, and a few readers on Facebook, were also able to quiz the prime minister. It was a vintage performance by Mr. Trudeau, similar to many I’ve [reported on in the past](. He was unambiguous on some issues, like the government’s commitment to the Paris climate accord despite the United States’ withdrawal. While he criticized Mr. Trump’s policy, he never criticized the president. And he smoothly talked around questions that he preferred not to answer, particularly one on how much of his image-making is contrived. The session was The Times’s second successful talk in Toronto. More are likely, and we are hoping to bring them elsewhere in the country. Read: [Trudeau on Trump: ‘He Actually Does Listen’]( Watch: [Trade in the Balance: An Interview With Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada]( Rollout As part of our Canada-related journalism festival, The Times’s Interpreter column, written by Max Fisher, looked at how Mr. Trudeau and provincial premiers [have been enlisting allies]( in the United States to counter Mr. Trump’s threats to cross-border trade and efforts to reverse climate change policy. [Tiisi Qisiiq, outside, and Adami Sakiagak, inside, demonstrated igloo construction techniques near Kangiqsujuaq, Nunavik, Quebec.] Tiisi Qisiiq, outside, and Adami Sakiagak, inside, demonstrated igloo construction techniques near Kangiqsujuaq, Nunavik, Quebec. Aaron Vincent Elkaim for The New York Times Craig S. Smith, a colleague who also covers Canada full time, was up in the Arctic region of Quebec to show, in both words and a 360 video, the dying craft of [igloo building](. (Is any subject better suited to 360-degree video than an igloo?) Also from Mr. Smith is a look into the comparatively new art of artificial intelligence through a profile of [Geoffrey Everest Hinton]( the pioneering computer scientist at the University of Toronto. If you dictate texts on your phone, you’re using some of his work. From Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Ms. Porter told the story of how a university headed by a president who describes himself as “as white as you get” is attempting to become a leader in [reconciling with indigenous Canadians](. [Albert Schultz, the artistic director of Soulpepper Theatre Company, in his office in Toronto.] Albert Schultz, the artistic director of Soulpepper Theatre Company, in his office in Toronto. Ryan Enn Hughes for The New York Times Laura Collins-Hughes from our Culture department looked into how a [field trip to New York]( by Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre Company turned into a major undertaking. And the art critic Jason Farago was in Montreal for five exhibitions marking the [50th anniversary of the Expo 67]( world’s fair (I’ll also be offering some thoughts about what Expo meant to me as a child and its legacy in an upcoming story). The writer Kelly DiNardo interviewed Dianne Whelan, a filmmaker who is making her way along the [14,900 miles of the Trans Canada Trail]( by foot, snowshoe, bicycle and canoe. In advance of Canada’s 150th anniversary we asked you to share stories of your family’s earliest history in the country and, appropriately, about 150 of you replied. Dan Levin presents [the highlights](.  Finally in Opinion, illustrator Graham Roumieu proposes shaking up Canada’s image as a nice place with some hard-edged updates to cherished national symbols. We’re not done yet. The special focus on Canada will continue through the coming week. Read: [Canada’s Trump Strategy: Go Around Him]( Read and watch: [A Lost Art in the Arctic: Igloo Making]( Read: [The Man Who Helped Turn Toronto Into a High-Tech Hotbed]( Read: [A College Built for Canadian Settlers Envisions an indigenous Future]( Read: [Here’s One Canadian Theater Company That Isn’t Afraid to Show Off]( Read: [Expo 2017: Utopia, Rebooted]( Read: [Why Dianne Whelan Plans to Conquer the Trans Canada Trail]( Read: [Tragedies and Triumphs: Canadians Tell Their Family Histories]( View:[Canada’s Edgy 150th Birthday Rebranding]( Airlift The New York Times David Dunlap, who often writes about The Times’s history, sent along a clipping about one of the paper’s earliest efforts to increase the number of readers in Canada. On June 15, 1929, The Little Times, the in-house publication back then, reported that The Times had started flying copies of the paper to Montreal for newsstand sale the next day. The planes landed in Montreal at 11:30 a.m. and were whisked downtown “by a special truck with a flag that gave it the right of way over other vehicles.” (I wish I had one of those when I’m stuck in Montreal traffic while on assignment.) The Little Times reported that paper’s Montreal representative said “the papers were ‘quite warm’ when they reached him and leaving it to be imagined whether this was due to the presses or the speed of the trip.” Today, my copy is trucked to Ottawa from a satellite printing plant in Buffalo. Raising Voices Mr. Smith has a special Canada Day request: We’d like to hear you sing “O Canada” to mark Canada’s 150th birthday. Please post on Instagram, with the hashtag #MyOCanada, a video of you singing the anthem in any language, style or setting you like, with or without accompaniment. Since you can post only one minute of video to Instagram, sing the first verse and use your caption to tell us what the words mean to you. (Don’t forget to include the hashtag #MyOCanada.) As you can see [in this video]( we asked Canadian cast members of the Broadway musical “Come From Away” to sing a version so you have an idea of what we’re looking for. We thought they did a pretty good job. Trans-Canada We keep a running tally of our Canada coverage [here](. Below are some of the other Canada-related stories from the past week: [Robert Campeau, Flamboyant Canadian Who Owned Bloomingdale’s, Dies at 93]( Robert Campeau, the real estate tycoon who made a fortune with cheap houses in Ottawa’s suburbs, loaded up on debt to create a department store empire that included Bloomingdale’s and then saw his company spectacularly fail, has died at 93. Essay [Still Chasing the Stratford Streak, 80 Years After He Left the Ice]( Eighty years after his early death, the hockey world hasn’t forgotten Howie Morenz. [A Tweet Stirs Up Canada’s Immigration Debate]( The Stratford Festival is performing a steamy, feminist version of “Bakkhai.” How steamy? It called in an adviser on matters like faking orgasms. A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for over a decade. Follow him on Twitter at [@ianrausten](. HOW ARE WE DOING? We hope you enjoyed this special edition of our Canada Letter. Tell us what you think and what you’d like to see, at [nytcanada@nytimes.com](mailto:nytcanada@nytimes.com?subject=Canada%20Letter%20Newsletter%20Feedback). A special thank you to everyone who approached me at the Toronto event to talk about this newsletter. Back next week with a Canada Day edition. LIKE THIS EMAIL? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up [here](. 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