82 years ago, 14,000 Canadians landed on Juno Beach, many of whom would never come home.
On the anniversary of D-Day, we pause to honour those who served and sacrificed. We remember that our rights, our freedoms, and our way of life were fought for and were won by those who answered the call.
PM Carney on the economy: "The data's going to be uneven and we see some weakness in part because of clear decisions by the government ... But we're also seeing at the same time the foundations coming into place, settling in for that stronger, more resilient economy."
The reason we think dandelions are weeds is because of a 1950s marketing campaign.
Dandelions, native to Europe and Asia, were brought to North America in the 1600s by European colonists who grew them deliberately.
Every part is edible. The leaves are a salad green, the flowers were made into wine, and the roots were roasted as a coffee substitute and used medicinally for liver and kidney conditions for thousands of years. They were a kitchen-garden staple well into the 1800s.
The shift happened after World War II, when 2,4-D (originally developed for chemical warfare research) was approved as a residential herbicide. Companies like Scotts built the modern lawn-care industry around the idea that a perfect green lawn meant zero broadleaf plants.
Dandelions, being bright yellow and resistant to mowing, became a visible enemy, and the campaign worked. By the 1970s, "dandelion-free" was synonymous with "well-kept."
They aren't native, but they aren't doing significant ecological harm either. The herbicides used to kill them, on the other hand, kill bees, contaminate groundwater, and have been linked to non-Hodgkin lymphoma in humans.
If you hate dandelions, it's most likely due to a marketing campaign that ran before you were born.