Hope Is Better Than Fear is a newly released eBook about Jack Layton's legacy. Contributors to the book volunteered their time and effort and Random House of Canada Limited is donating the net proceeds from the sale of the eBook to two charities, as designated by Jack Layton's widow, MP Olivia Chow: the university and college bursaries and scholarships program of the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation and Shannen's Dream, named in honour of Shannen Koostachin and dedicated to continuing her fight for equal school rights for First Nations children.

In this excerpt from her book, writer and activist Helen Forsey remembers her father, senator, constitutional expert and rabble rouser, Eugene.

One of my favourite pictures of my father appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on a September day in 1974. It showed him picketing in front of the Chilean Embassy on the first anniversary of the bloody military coup that overthrew that country's democratically elected socialist government and launched the brutal Pinochet regime. He was carrying a sign that read: "RESTORE CIVIL LIBERTIES IN CHILE."

The notion that it should be possible to become a billionaire is rooted in the idea that there are some uniquely talented individuals whose contribution is so great that they deserve to be hugely, fabulously rewarded.

The Fraser Institute launched a program in 1988 that would have far-reaching impact on advancing the corporate agenda. This program, aimed at students, is actually a half-dozen initiatives through which the institute "is cultivating a network of thousands of young people who are informed and passionate about free-market ideas and who are actively engaging in the country's policy debate," as the organization's publication Frontline puts it. The initiatives are separately funded but work together as a comprehensive package of recruitment and intellectual grooming. These programs outgun in magnitude, scope and longevity anything that the progressive left has mounted through unions and social justice organizations.

Gender identity, coding, and socialization remain at the forefront of my consciousness, especially because I have a daughter. The data about the nose-dive in our daughter's self-esteem during adolescence, teachers short-changing them in the classroom, widespread sexual harassment and violence against females, and the links between stereotyping and a disturbing loss of competence and confidence as girls approach adolescence are no strangers in the headline news. And because adolescence is something that creeps up, sneaking in with its unpredictable makeover, the poor things can barely get a grip on why they're left feeling the way they do. I know I couldn't when it happened to me.

A friend and her little brother were left alone one day to eat their bowls of tomato soup. They soon discovered that although the soup looked pretty neat just sitting in the bowl, it looked even better splattered on the wall. Spoons, it turned out, made excellent catapults. Choosing beauty over appetite, they launched great dollops of the stuff onto the white walls. They admired the beautiful red splotches, no two alike. They enjoyed the tomato soup thoroughly until their mother came back to the room and they saw her face. Food is so much more than sustenance.

Food gathers meaning like an insatiable sponge. To paraphrase Claude Lévi-Strauss, food is good to think with.