Good morning, and welcome to the weekend.
Grab your cup of coffee or tea, and sit down with a selection of this week’s great reads from The Globe. In this issue, we take to the skies in an iconic Second World War aircraft. The Lancaster bomber gives its caretakers and passengers at a Hamilton museum a hands-on way to remember an era of conflict and courage.
The latest in Mission Critical, a Globe series on whether Canada can become a mining superpower in critical minerals, explores how mining has lost its lustre in the Canadian market.
And European bureau chief Eric Reguly tells us about how Ukraine kept its financial system running with the birth of the “Power Banking” project, which aims to ensure banking doesn’t stop for a single moment during the war.
If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for Great Reads and more than 20 other Globe newsletters on our newsletter sign-up page. If you have questions or feedback, drop us a line at greatreads@globeandmail.com.
In a restored Lancaster bomber, Canada’s wartime history takes flight again
A Lancaster Bomber, foreground, and a Corsair fly over the Hamilton area in 1989.Erik Christensen/The Globe and Mail
Only two of more than 7,300 Lancaster bombers from the Second World War remain airworthy today. At the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton, passengers can pay nearly $4,000 to board a piece of living history for a one-hour tour above downtown Toronto, Niagara Falls and back. Fifty flights are offered each year from June 1 to Nov. 11 on one of the most iconic aircrafts.
How Canada – and Bay Street – squandered the chance to finance a critical minerals revolution
Photo illustration by the Globe and Mail/Getty Images
How did Canada fumble its natural resource advantage? The first reaction is to blame the federal government. But as Tim Kiladze reports, ask around and mining executives and bankers, even those who lean right, admit there’s much more to it.
The National Bank of Ukraine set up a shelter inside its main office for any power-deprived employees who wanted to spend the night; the shelter included a children’s playroom.Supplied by National Bank of Ukraine
The second Monday in October, 2022, was literally a dark day for Ukraine, as Russia’s cruise-missile and suicide-drone attacks were launched on the country’s power grid. Weeks of relentless destruction left millions of homes and businesses with no electricity or heat. The blackouts threatened to shut down the country’s banking system, just as Andriy Pyshnyy began his role as governor of the National Bank of Ukraine. Pyshnyy swung into action. In came the “Power Banking” project, where Ukraine’s largest banks and their branches were shunted into one network with connectivity, backup power and access to cash.
Artscape tried to launch a ‘game changer’ for artists. Now it’s on the brink of collapse
A Globe and Mail analysis, which included an examination of a decade of Artscape’s finances, found that Launchpad was the primary reason for the non-profit’s financial collapse.Christie Vuong/The Globe and Mail
Artscape had three decades of providing affordable living and studio space for artists in Toronto. Then in 2015, the nonprofit announced that it intended to build a much different kind of facility: a new co-working and creative project called Launchpad. It was a left turn that would bring Artscape, and its original mission, to the brink of demise.
Opinion: Pakistan and Iran are Afghanistan’s neighbours, but their treatment of Afghans is shameful
Afghan nationals with their belongings sit on a truck as they head back to Afghanistan from Pakistan.NASEER AHMED/Reuters
Shoaib Rahim is based in Toronto and served as the acting and deputy mayor of Kabul from 2016 to 2019. Last month, Pakistan gave an estimated 1.7 million undocumented Afghans fewer than 30 days to return to Afghanistan or face deportation. Now he asks why there is no legal path to naturalization for Afghans in Pakistan or Iran: “Is it too much to ask for the same treatment that Iran’s and Pakistan’s citizens ask of other countries elsewhere?”
Water bungalows at Nayara Bocas del Toro on the tiny private island of Frangipani, about an hour by plane from Panama City.Brice Ferre Studio/Image Courtesy of Nayara Resorts
It only took Lara Pingue 24 hours to shed her skepticism about “paradise” vacation spots after landing on the remote Panamanian island of Frangipani, where she stayed at an off-the-grid luxury adults-only resort.
Barbra Streisand is setting the record straight (and it only took a 970-page book)
Pierre Trudeau with Barbra Streisand at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa in 1970.CHUCK MITCHELL
Pierre Trudeau gasped when she came down the stairs in a fur-trimmed white gown. Bob Dylan wrote a song about his lust for her. She’s the only artist with number-one albums (10 of them) in six different decades. Yet despite her massive success, Barbra Streisand had to fight her record company for every idea, dollar and credit. Streisand spoke to Johanna Schneller this week about her extremely thorough autobiography, My Name is Barbra.
Take our arts quiz to test your knowledge of arts and culture news.
Bonus: Which Grammy Award-winning Canadian musician will host the 2024 Juno awards?
c. Shania Twain