Canadian Collage
Spring 2026
Join us for this collage of interesting Canadiana – just the thing to celebrate spring!
This event is offered in-person and livestream
(and will be recorded)
Tuesdays, April 21 – May 19, 1:30 – 3:30
Tickets go on Sale March 11 9:00am
What does it mean to be Canadian — and why does it matter more than ever? This spring, Third Age Barrie invites you to explore the stories, challenges, and achievements that define our country.
Five distinguished speakers. Five fascinating perspectives on Canada. Just the thing to celebrate spring.
Canadian Fascination with the Weather…and What’s Different About Barrie’s Weather
April 21: Dave Phillips, Climatologist Emeritus, Environment and Climate Change Canada
Canadians have always been interested in and concerned with the weather. Weather has shaped our geography and history, our character and folklore. We love and hate the weather (sometimes at the same time). Canadians have such interest in the weather because we have so much of it, and because it’s so important to us. No subject, except our health, looms larger in our daily lives. At one time or another, weather can be a resource, a hazard, a challenge, a threat, a pleasure or a disappointment. … And Barrie has weather to both bless and curse.
Canada: A Leader in the New World Order
April 28: John Kirton, Professor Emeritus and Author
Is Canada a principal power, or a middle power – or both?
Twenty years ago, John Kirton argued that Canada had become a principal power, because of its rising ability to defend against external threats, its global, interest-based, autonomous international activity, and its divergence and diversification from the United States. It also leads in the global governance concerts of the G7 and G20, most recently when Prime Minister Mark Carney hosted the G7 at Kananaskis last June, with US president Donald Trump there. At Davos last month, Prime Minister Carney’s eloquent declaration that Canada take the lead in bringing like-minded middle powers to build a better, stronger and more just world order, showed that he shares this vision. Carney’s Canada is leading in many ways, and is about to again become an established principal power in newly ruptured world.
Nazis in Our Midst
May 5: Judy Lynne Humphries, Research Librarian and Author
In 1940, fearing Hitler’s planned invasion of England, the British government appealed to Canada to take the increasing numbers of German prisoners and confine them to the end of the war. On June 10, 1940, Canada’s War Cabinet agreed and found a property that would house them: officials would have 20 days in which to turn a 25-year-old sanatorium property in a secret location in Ontario into a secure, fully operational prisoner of war camp. Twenty-seven such camps would eventually exist in Canada with thousands of prisoners detained in them. On June 30, 1940, Gravenhurst citizens lined the streets to watch 489 German prisoners of war invade their community marching from train station to camp under the armed escort of soldiers of Lord Strathcona’s Horse. This is the story of Prisoner of War Camp 20 and the German officers who would be confined there for the next six years. It is the story of their lives and their attempted escapes as they struggled with prison life in a foreign land. It is also the story of a small Ontario community of citizens who learned to live with Nazis in their midst.
From Malton to Pearson: A Canadian Pilot’s Experience
May 12: Kent Smerdon, Retired Pilot
Kent Smerdon’s very first airplane ride was with his father, a former World War II RCAF Harvard instructor at Camp Borden, a Mosquito pilot overseas and member of the Toronto Flying Club. They took off from Toronto’s Malton Airport. Some 53 years later, Kent came full circle, touching down on his final retirement flight at Toronto Pearson Airport, Captain of his favourite airliner, the Boeing 767-300, ending a successful 37-year career in the air.
Kent shares his experiences piloting a wide variety of aircraft through his career and takes the audience behind the scenes to a world, both military and civilian, that few know about. From supersonic fighters and helicopters to VIP flights with politicians and Royalty, Kent shares some colourful and humorous anecdotes, trivia and other fascinating insights into the world of aviation.
The History and Future of Canadian Health Care
May 19: André Picard, Journalist and Author
Millions of Canadians don’t have a family doctor. ERs are overflowing. Wait times for surgery stretch for months and years. The elder system is collapsing.
There is no question Canada’s health system is in crisis. But how did we get there? And how do we fix Canada’s beloved medicare system?
André Picard has more than 40 years of experience covering healthcare in Canada. There is no better way to answer these burning questions and, above all, offer solutions.
His key message is a hopeful one: Everything is fixable.
Speakers
-
André Picard
André Picard is one of Canada’s top health and public policy observers and commentators. He has been a part of The Globe and Mail team since 1987, where he is a health reporter and columnist. He is also the author of six bestselling books.
André is an eight-time nominee for the National Newspaper Awards, Canada’s top journalism prize, where he has twice been named the country’s top newspaper columnist. He is past winner of the prestigious Michener Award for Meritorious Public Service Journalism, and the Centennial Prize of the Pan-American Health Organization, awarded to the top health reporter in the 17 countries of the Americas.
André’s work has been recognized by a number of health advocacy groups. He was named Canada’s first “Public Health Hero” by the Canadian Public Health Association and a “Champion of Mental Health” by the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health. He received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for his dedication to improving healthcare.
In 2023, André was appointed to the Order of Canada for his lifelong dedication to advancing public health understanding and practices within the nation.
A graduate of the University of Ottawa and Carleton University, André has received honorary doctorates from eight universities, including UBC and the University of Toronto.
-
Kent Smerdon
Raised in Toronto, Kent holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Applied Science and Engineering from the Royal Military College, Kingston, Class of 1973. He is a retired RCAF Major and Air Canada Captain having flown, during a career spanning 37 years, a wide variety of aircraft from helicopters and supersonic fighters to the Boeing 747-400. He retired with over 19,000 flight hours.
He is Vice President of Aeroserve Technologies Ltd, maker of the patented Airtab vortex generator drag reduction device for ground vehicles, author of “Flight Lines, Assorted Lies, Recollections and War Stories”, Friesen Press ©2017, and is currently in his 3nd 2-year term as President of the Retired Airline Pilots of Canada Association. His theory of the disappearance of Malaysian Flight 370 has appeared in Slate Magazine.
Kent is currently a life member of the RMC Club of Canada, The Royal Canadian Military Institute, The Barrie Veterans Club, the 441 Huronia Wing of the RCAF Association in Barrie, the Legion Barrie Branch and the Grey & Simcoe Foresters Honourable Guard. He lives in Barrie with Liz, his bride of 54 years.
-
Judy Lynne Humphries
With degrees in English from Western University and Education from Queen’s, Judy Lynne Humphries began a teaching career in high schools in Brockville, Toronto and Gravenhurst. She married a colleague and left teaching to raise a son (now a professor of history) and a daughter (now a biology teacher). She was asked by the Fire Marshal of Ontario to open a library at the Ontario Fire College and thus began an immensely satisfying third career of 20 years as a Research Librarian for the fire service of Ontario. In retirement she began another career as volunteer and then head of Gravenhurst Archives, a 50-year-old organization which collects, preserves and shares the incredibly rich history of Gravenhurst. She has recently published her first book.
-
John Kirton
John Kirton is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Toronto. He taught Canadian foreign policy for over 40 years, as well as international relations and global governance, and served as the director of the International Relations Program at Trinity College several times during his teaching career. He and David Dewitt, a political scientist at York University, published Canada as a Principal Power: A Study in Foreign Policy and International Relations in 1983. In 1987, Kirton founded the G7 Research Group, and then, later, the G20 Research Group and the BRICS Research Group as well as the Global Health Diplomacy Program. He has published widely, and has advised the Canadian and Russian governments, the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization on G7 and G20 participation and summitry, international trade and sustainable development.
-
Dave Phillips
David was employed with Environment Canada’s weather service for over 57 years. In 2024, he transitioned from Senior Climatologist to Climatologist Emeritus. (He says dropping Senior from his title immediately made him feel younger.) His work activities relate to the study of the climate of Canada and to promote awareness and understanding of meteorology.
He authored several books, papers and reports, including a book on The Climates of Canada, and two bestsellers: The Day Niagara Falls Ran Dry and Blame It On The Weather. He was the originator and author of the Canadian Weather Trivia Calendar. David frequently appears on national radio and television as a commentator on weather and climate matters.
He has been awarded the Commemorative Medal for the 125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada, the Queen Elizabeth Golden and Diamond Jubilee Medals and has twice received the Public Service Merit Award. David is the recipient of three honorary doctorates from the universities of Waterloo and Windsor and Nipissing University. In 2001, David was named to the Order of Canada.