A Canadian Hero Comes to Town

I should say will be coming to town, but that would make the heading too long.

Stephen Lewis will be here, on November 3rd and will be speaking at St. Andrews Presbyterian Chuch, just down the street from me. Of course he'll be talking abou the AIDS crisis in Africa. He's been the U.N.'s special envoy to Africa for AIDS since 2001 and has worked tirelessly in his passionate and outspoken fashion to influence governments toward making effective changes. Rumour has it (and it's mentioned in this weekend's Globe and Mail article on him) that he may soon be fired for being direct and honest about the shortcomings of various powerful governments and the U.N. The Americans in particular are not happy about his honesty.

He's one of my heroes and true heroes are always in short supply.

On Monday, when the church office is open, I plan to pay the $25.00 which goes to the Stephen Lewis Foundation and get a seat for the evening. If the evening is sold out, and I hope it soon will be, I can look for Race Against Time (The 2005 Massey Lectures) when it comes out.

I only found out he was coming to town today when I saw a small squib about it in The Record but I hope that just means I don't buy the local paper often enough. He deserves an SRO crowd.