CanWest's literacy fundraiser nets $2.24 million

WINNIPEG – CanWest’s Raise-a-Reader national fundraiser collected nearly $2.24 million for literacy programs across Canada last Thursday. Thousands of volunteers and CanWest newspaper and TV employees in all 10 provinces took to the streets to raise money for local literacy programs in each of the 18 participating markets: Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Toronto, Hamilton, Windsor, Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax, Saint John, Moncton, Fredericton, Charlottetown, and St. John's. They were joined by celebrity hawkers such as former NHL coach Jacques Demers in Montreal, Alex Steen of the Maple Leafs in Toronto, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell in Vancouver, and Laureen...