HALIFAX – A trio of siblings from Halifax have won this year’s Young Entrepreneur Award for Nova Scotia. The award was presented Oct. 20, by the Business Development Bank of Canada, to Kim Hong Dao, 27, and her brothers Bang Gia Dao, 31, and Niem Gia Dao, 26, owners of Talay Thai Restaurant in Halifax.   

When the three siblings, who came to Canada from Vietnam as children, opened Talay Thai in 2005, they never expected to see crowds lining up daily less than a year later. What’s more, two years later they opened another equally popular establishment.

ANTIGONISH, N.S. – As part of its ongoing efforts to invest more money into Canadian communities through small and large-scale infrastructure projects, the Government of Canada has announced that it’s investing $157,048, from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) and the Department of Canadian Heritage, into the Festival Antigonish in northeastern Nova Scotia. The Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway, made the announcement this week.

“The Government of Canada is pleased to invest in state-of-the-art facilities for Bauer Theatre and Festival Antigonish,” said Minister MacKay. “The commitment is another demonstration of our government’s unparalleled investment in Canada’s arts and culture sector of more than $2.3 billion a year.” Through Canada’s Economic Action Plan, more than half-a-billion dollars in stimulus funds are being put into in the arts and culture sector.

TORONTO – Nancy Smithers, of Naturally Nova Scotia, was recently recognized with the Organic Achievement Award at the annual Canadian Health Food Association’s Expo East held in Toronto in early October.

In accepting the award, Smithers remembered her start producing herbal tinctures in her Nova Scotia kitchen in 1993: she chopped the tough roots of plants such as yellow dock, which was thought to benefit the digestive tract, liver and skin. She started Naturally Nova Scotia a year later and, today, the company is Canada's leading manufacturer and distributor of certified-organic, whole-food natural health products with a 30,000 square-foot manufacturing facility on a 250-acre organic farm, employing more than 30 people.