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'He was the man on the moon': Gordon Pinsent remembered as trailblazer for N.L. artists – CBC.ca

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Artists throughout Newfoundland and Labrador are remembering Gordon Pinsent as a pioneering actor who paved the way for those who followed.

Pinsent died Saturday, surrounded by family. He was 92.

He was born in Grand Falls and began acting in the 1940s at the age of 17. Pinsent’s prolific career would go on to include more than 150 different film and television roles, earning him every major acting award in Canada.

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Actor and comedian Mark Critch says Pinsent remained young at heart despite his age.

“I got the call yesterday that he was quite ill and that this would happen, and I was shocked, you know, I’m like, ‘Gordon, what happened?’

“He was that youthful, always a twinkle in the eye…. To me, he was eternally 12 years old. He always had that twinkle and he always had that excitement for what’s next.”

Two men stand looking into the camera, one with his arm around the other.
Mark Critch says Gordon Pinsent always had ‘a twinkle in the eye.’ (Mark Critch/Twitter)

The two actors met in 2010 through a sketch Critch was working on for This Hour has 22 Minutes

“A young man by the name of Justin Bieber brought us together, really,” he said.

The pop singer had just put out a memoir, and Critch says he thought it’d be funny to have Pinsent do a dramatic reading for the show.

“And [since] then, we’ve just been very, very close friends. I’m a bit of an old soul and he’s a bit of a young one, so we met perfectly in the middle,” he said.

The pair also starred in the 2013 film The Grand Seduction together, which was shot around Newfoundland.

“Being with Gordon Pinsent in rural Newfoundland is a bit, what I would expect, like what being with Jesus in Bethlehem is like,” Critch said.

“People were just coming out of the woodwork.”

Gordon Pinsent was the beacon of N.L. arts, says friend and actor Mark Critch

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Duration 9:57

Canadian acting legend Gordan Pinsent, whose award-winning career spanned six decades, has died at 92. His friend, fellow actor and comedian Mark Critch said Pinsent was thoughtful, young-spirited and deeply loved by his fans and peers.

Pinsent was a loving and giving actor, Critch said, who was a trailblazer for all Newfoundland and Labrador artists who would follow.

“He was the man on the moon, right? He was the first of us to get anywhere like that, the first of us to make a big impact as an artist in Canada,” he said.

“He went there as an immigrant, he cut the path that we all followed through the woods and he was always looking over his shoulder to see if you were OK, if you need another hand, and I think I learned to tell Newfoundland stories and always reach back and pull somebody else up with you.”

‘It was like a dream come true’

Fellow actor Allan Hawco says Pinsent was an inspiration who left an important legacy with his work and dearly loved his province and his country.

“He set the tone for what was possible as a young artist in me, as a young writer, as a person who wanted to bring production and work back home and to celebrate the place in film and television,” said Hawco.

“He was the first person to show me that was possible.”

When Hawco was a young actor, he was cast in a play with Pinsent’s wife Charmion King, who introduced the two men.

“He just was so wonderful and so supportive and he made it clear that he was going to keep an interest in me and what I was doing.… It’s like they became my family overnight, and they behaved like they were my family, and that was the beginning of a very long friendship and a lot of professional interaction too,” Hawco said.

“It was like a dream come true. The old thing where they say ‘don’t meet your heroes,’ well, you know, in that case, Gordon nullified that rule. He was just the most gracious, he was the perfect example of what one should be when in that circumstance.”

One man holds a second man's face as they look at the camera on a red carpet.
Allan Hawco and Gordon Pinsent at a red carpet event in 2010. (WireImage/Getty Images)

He said Pinsent was generous, positive, respectful and an ambassador for his home, all things that Hawco took to heart.

“He never left Newfoundland behind even though he lived somewhere else, and that’s hard to do because when we don’t get to live at home and we’re somewhere else and we love the place, it carries a lot of weight,” he said.

“The way he described it to me was that going home and being associated with Newfoundland was the way to charge his own creative battery.”

And Pinsent was more than just a good actor, said Hawco, he was a great person.

“It’s not just for people in the industry to think about, you know, it’s just like, watching him be so decent to every person that he came across should be inspiring to everybody and I think we can all learn from a guy like that.”

‘He took you with him’

Playwright and performer Bernardine Stapleton said Pinsent was someone who made a special connection with everyone he met and he remembered those interactions.

“We all feel as if we lost somebody we were really close with … whether you spent a moment with him or an hour, you were the centre of the universe for that moment,” Stapleton said.

“I think the beautiful thing about Gordon Pinsent was he took you with him and kept you there. It’s a very special gift, very generous.”

She said he made time to perform for small, rural Newfoundland audiences long after he was a revered actor.

“A lot of his work was for love of it, I know he came to Grand Bank with me some years ago when I was running the tiniest theatre festival there,” said Stapleton.

“It was always for the sake of the process and the love and his love of theatre and creativity.”

Pinsent’s love and passion also extended to his home province, Stapleton said.

“Gordon was about people, stories, creating stories, very much a sense of this place and he never lost it,” she said.

“He was Newfoundland and Labrador to the marrow and I think that that is probably one of many, many stories of where he just came in and flew under the radar for no other reason than to be supportive.”

‘Candour, poignant, full of advice’

In Pinsent’s hometown, the Arts and Culture Centre was renamed in his honour in 2005.

Dave Anthony has been involved in theatre in the town for years and has memories of Pinsent being an adjudicator at the provincial drama festival.

“For someone of his stature, he could have come in and just put the head up and blown everyone away, but no,” he said.

“It was the local boy coming home, wanting to do right by everybody and just handled everyone so wonderfully with his adjudications. Candour, poignant, full of advice.”

Anthony worked as a teacher in Bishop’s Falls. He said he convinced Pinsent to come to the school and speak to the students, most of whom knew him best as the voice of King Babar.

“All you had to do was mention a little trip and a little bit of food and Gordon was there, that was our experience,” said Anthony.

“He came, and, of course, a lot of the kids, they weren’t fully familiar with a lot of the stage stuff — but Babar, the first thing that came out of one of their mouths, ‘Sir, aren’t you the guy that did that?’ And of course, he was charmed by the whole thing.”

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Alberta's population surges by record-setting 202,000 people: Here's where they all came from – CBC.ca

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Alberta smashed population-growth records in the past year, mainly due to people moving to the province from across Canada and around the world.

The province’s population surged to just over 4.8 million as of Jan. 1, according to new estimates released Wednesday by Statistics Canada.

That’s an increase of 202,324 residents compared with a year earlier, which marks — by far — the largest annual increase on record.

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Alberta also broke a national record in 2023 for interprovincial migration, with a net gain of 55,107 people.

“This was the largest gain in interprovincial migration nationally since comparable data became available in 1972,” Statistics Canada said in a release.


Most of the interprovincial migrants came from Ontario and British Columbia.

Statistics Canada estimates that 38,236 Ontarians moved to Alberta last year, versus 14,860 Albertans who moved to Ontario, for a net gain of 23,376 people.

Similarly, an estimated 37,650 British Columbians moved to Alberta, compared to 22,400 Albertans who moved to B.C., for a net gain of 15,250.


All told, interprovincial migration accounted for 27 per cent of Alberta’s population growth over the past year.

That put it just ahead of permanent immigration, which accounted for 26 per cent, and well ahead of natural population increase (more births than deaths), which accounted for eight per cent.

The largest component, however, was temporary international migration.

Non-permanent residents from other countries accounted for 39 per cent of the province’s population growth in the past year, reflecting a national trend.


Canada’s population reached 40,769,890 on Jan. 1, according to Statistics Canada estimates, which is up 3.2 per cent from a year ago.

“Most of Canada’s 3.2-per-cent population growth rate stemmed from temporary immigration in 2023,” Statistics Canada noted.

“Without temporary immigration, that is, relying solely on permanent immigration and natural increase (births minus deaths), Canada’s population growth would have been almost three times less (1.2 per cent).”

Alberta’s population, meanwhile, grew by 4.4 per cent year-over-year.

Alberta now represents 11.8 per cent of the country’s population, its largest proportion on record. 

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Why Canada's record population growth is helping – and hurting – the economy – CTV News

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Canada has recorded the fastest population growth in 66 years, increasing by 1.3 million people, or 3.2 per cent, in 2023, according to a new report from Statistics Canada.

The country has not seen such growth since 1957, when the spike was attributed to the baby boom and an influx of immigrants fleeing Hungary.

The vast majority of Canada’s growth last year was due to immigration, with temporary residents — which includes foreign workers and international students — making up the largest proportion of newcomers.

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“We need people coming to Canada to help with our economy,” says Matti Siemiatycki, a professor of planning at the University of Toronto. “There are many jobs and professions where there are vacancies, and that is having an impact, whether in the healthcare sector or trades and construction sector.”

Siemiatycki adds immigrants also bring “ingenuity… resources… and culture” to Canada.

Newcomers are relied on to help keep pace with Canada’s aging population and declining fertility rates, but the influx also presents a challenge for a country struggling to build the homes and infrastructure needed for immigrants.

“It’s an incredibly large shock for the economic system to absorb because of just the sheer number of people coming into the country in a short period of time,” says Robert Kavcic. a senior economist and director with BMO Capital Markets.

“The reality is population can grow extremely fast, but the supply side of the economy like housing and service infrastructure, think health care and schools, can only catch up at a really gradual pace,” Kavcic says. “So there is a mismatch right now.”

The impact of that mismatch can most acutely be seen in the cost of rent, services and housing.

In December, Kavcic wrote in a note that Canada needs to build 170,000 new housing units every three months to keep up with population growth, noting the industry is struggling to complete 220,000 units in a full year.

To address this, Ottawa has announced plans to cap the number of new temporary residents while also reducing the number of international student visas, a move economists say could offer some relief when it comes to housing and the cost of living.

“The arithmetic on the caps actual works relatively well because it would take us back down to 1 per cent population growth which we have been used to over the last decade and which is more or less absorbable by the economy,” Kavcic says. “The question is whether or not we see policy makers follow through and hit those numbers.”

Economists believe these changes could help ease inflationary pressures and may make a Bank of Canada rate cut more likely, but could also lead to slower GDP growth.

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Canada’s population hits 41M months after breaking 40M threshold – Global News

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Nine months after reaching a population of 40 million, Canada has cracked a new threshold.

As of Wednesday morning, it’s estimated 41 million people now call the country home, according to Statistics Canada’s live population tracker.

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The speed at which Canada’s population is growing was also reflected in new data released Wednesday by the federal agency: between Jan. 1 2023 and Jan. 1 2024, Canada added 1,271,872 inhabitants, a 3.2 per cent growth rate — the highest since 1957.

Most of Canada’s 3.2 per cent population growth rate stemmed from temporary immigration. Without it, Canada’s population growth would have been 1.2 per cent, Statistics Canada said.


Click to play video: 'Business News: Job growth fails to keep pace with population'

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Business News: Job growth fails to keep pace with population


From Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2023, Canada’s population increased by 241,494 people (0.6 per cent), the highest rate of growth in a fourth quarter since 1956.

Usha George, a professor at the Toronto Metropolitan Centre for Immigration and Settlement at Toronto Metropolitan University, told Global News in June a booming population can benefit the economy.

“It is not the bodies we are bringing in; these are bodies that fill in the empty spaces in the labour market,” she said.

“They bring a very-high level of skills.”


Click to play video: 'Canadian millennials surpass baby boomers as dominant generation: StatCan'

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Canadian millennials surpass baby boomers as dominant generation: StatCan


However, Ottawa has recently sought to ease the flow of temporary immigration in a bid to ease cost-of-living woes.


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Immigration Minister Marc Miller said on March 21 Ottawa would set targets for temporary residents allowed into Canada to ensure “sustainable” growth in the number of temporary residents entering the nation.

The next day, BMO economist Robert Kavcic in a note to clients the new limits will have a positive impact on Canada’s rental market and overall housing crisis.

“We’ve been firm in our argument that Canada has had an excess demand problem in housing, and this is maybe the clearest example,” Kavcic said.

“Non-permanent resident inflows, on net, have swelled to about 800K in the latest year, with few checks and balances in place, putting tremendous stress on housing supply and infrastructure.”

Alberta gains, Ontario loses: A look at Canadian migration in 2023

If Alberta is truly calling, then it appears more Canadians are choosing to answer.

Putting the pun on the provincial government’s attraction campaign aside, Canada’s wild rose country saw the largest net gain in interprovincial migration in 2023, Statistics Canada said in Wednesday’s report.


Click to play video: 'Is Alberta ready for population growth?'

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Is Alberta ready for population growth?


The agency said 55,107 Canadians moved to Alberta last year, which was the largest gain in interprovincial migration nationally since comparable data become available in 1972.

“Alberta has been recording gains in population from interprovincial migration since 2022, a reverse of the trend seen from 2016 to 2021, when more people left the province than arrived from other parts of Canada,” Statistics Canada said.

“Approximately 333,000 Canadians moved from one province or territory to another in 2023, the second-highest number recorded since the 1990s and the third straight year that interprovincial migration topped 300,000.”

Meanwhile, British Columbia had 8,624 more residents move out than in in 2023, meaning net interprovincial migration was negative for the first time since 2012, Statistics Canada said.

In general, the largest migration flows for British Columbia and Alberta are with each other, and most of the net loss from British Columbia in 2023 was to Alberta, it added.


Click to play video: '‘Enormous pressure’ expected in Ontario home care due to high growth of senior population'

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‘Enormous pressure’ expected in Ontario home care due to high growth of senior population


It also seems that good things may no longer be growing in Ontario; Canada’s most populous province lost 36,197 people to other regions in 2023, the biggest regional loss in 2023, Statistics Canada said.

That followed a loss of 38,816 people in 2022; the only other times a province has lost more than 35,000 people due to migration to other parts of Canada occurred in Quebec in 1977 and 1978.

Alberta aside, net interprovincial migration was also up in Nova Scotia (+6,169 people), New Brunswick (+4,790) and Prince Edward Island (+818), although all three Maritime provinces gained fewer interprovincial migrants in 2023 than in the two previous years, Statistics Canada said.

— with files from Uday Rana and Sean Previl

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