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, Bill Curry, Tom Cardoso and Kristy Kirkup do a deep dive into the ArriveCan scandal, which began roughly two years ago with reporting on the sharp rise in federal spending on outsourcing. Curry says that over time, and with the help of people with inside knowledge who reached out to The Globe, coverage included detailed looks at specific companies and programs such as ArriveCan. Cardoso says it was “daunting” to understand just how many twists and turns this story would take. “At one point, I made a diagram to map out the relationships between the companies and people we wrote about for this story,” he says. “If I’d printed it off, it would have spread out across 20 pages!”
Also in today’s newsletter, Chloe Stuart-Ulin writes about how Monday’s solar eclipse is the event of the year in Quebec’s Eastern Townships.
And we get insight into the lives of DINKs (dual income, no kids), as Salmaan Farooqui speaks to four child-free couples about how their financial planning and lifestyle differs from those who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on their kids.
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.
How the sprawling ArriveCan scandal has led to questions about Ottawa’s procurement requirements
Illustration by The Globe and MailGetty Images
What began as a series of questions about the $54-million price tag for the glitchy and seldom-used ArriveCan app has evolved into a sprawling scandal – one that calls into question the federal government’s reliance on a throng of IT staffing companies, and more recently hints at abuses of a program designed to benefit Indigenous businesses.
Quiet region of Quebec in the path of totality prepares for thousands of solar eclipse visitors
François Gaudreau, a physics professor and Head of the Science Department at the Cégep de Sherbrooke, carries a telescope across campus.Nasuna Stuart-Ulin/The Globe and Mail
When the moon fully covers the sun on April 8 around 3:28 p.m. in the Eastern Townships, it will look and feel as though night has abruptly fallen. For four long minutes, birds will stop singing, automatic street lights will turn on, the temperature will drop several degrees and, if you look out toward the horizon, you might see a spectacular 360-degree sunset caused by the sunlight still reaching Earth outside of the moon’s shadow. Chloe Stuart-Ulin reports on the people and places lighting up the region during an event that some have compared to a celestial Super Bowl.
Read more:
- From Southern Ontario to the eastern tip of Newfoundland, people are preparing for the first total solar eclipse visible from Canada, beyond Nunavut, since 1979. The buildup has been frenzied and disorganized at times, but also bubbly with excitement.
- Opinion: What our souls can see in an eclipse’s darkness
Veronica Ochoa and Jamie Watson cycle along Vancouver’s seawall.Jennifer Gauthier/The Globe and Mail
Financial planning goals for most couples revolve around paying down debt, saving and investing, then leaving an inheritance for their kids. But what about the dual income no kid (DINK) couples who can take kids out of the equation? According to the most recent estimate from Statistics Canada, it costs $350,000 to raise one child from birth to age 17 – a figure that rises by 29 per cent if parents support that child through postsecondary education to 22 years old. When you take that cost out of the equation, you’re left with a lot more flexibility, but also some unique financial planning problems to keep in mind.
Canada has become a safe haven for officials from Iran’s monstrous regime
Samira Mohyeddin
Last month, Iran’s former deputy interior minister became the latest Iranian regime official to be deported from Canada. But why is Canada handing out visas to Iranian regime officials in the first place? Does Canada’s embassy in Ankara not have the ability to do a simple Google search? Samira Mohyeddin writes that it has become a running joke among Iranians that when the Islamic Republic government falls, half the officials will just make their way to Canada, because they already have a Canadian passport. Our immigration system, she says, shouldn’t be fodder for these types of jokes.
The Rogers Centre’s $400-million renovation is mostly about new chairs and artisanal hot dogs
A man walks by the Rogers Centre, home of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team, in downtown Toronto.Laura Proctor/The Globe and Mail
Some cities have good baseball teams. Cathal Kelly writes that Toronto has a hot new 40,000-seat restaurant instead. It’s always been obvious that winning at baseball does not feature high on the priority list of the current Jays’ regime – neither for management nor ownership, Kelly writes. But talking about how infrastructure affects baseball does matter to them. And in the meantime, artisanal hot dogs loaded with “shawarma and tzatziki” or “battered in rice flour” will be served.
MOCA’s Greater Toronto Art show struggles to put down roots
Artist Sin Wai Kin's 22-minute film A Dream of Wholeness in Parts features two figures with elaborately sexually coded costumes and painted faces.Courtesy the artist
The Greater Toronto Art project at the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art began in 2021, the second fall of the pandemic, with a show about cultural identity, virtuality and anxiety. It had interesting moments but was full of art that could have been made in any Western capital. This year’s exhibition, GTA 24, wrestles with what it’s about and what it wishes to achieve. Kate Taylor reviews the triennial of GTA art at MOCA, exploring how it still struggles to root itself in the city it aims to showcase.
Eighth grader Colton Dee qualifies for Drive, Chip and Putt final
Colton Dee practicing in Orlando, Florida in March, 2024.Supplied
Thousands try to qualify for the Drive, Chip and Putt final in Augusta each year through free events held all over the United States. To date, 80 children – 78 Americans, an Australian and one Canadian – have qualified to compete in the annual televised golfing skills competition for children aged 7 to 15. But despite being relatively new to the game and practicing indoors in winter, it was Canadian eighth grader Colton Dee who crushed the ball farther than anyone he faced in the boys’ 12-13 age group in qualifiers.
Which Canadian group performed the theme song for comedy series Big Bang Theory?
b. Arkells
c. The Beaches