February, 2009

When Barry met Steve

By Andrew Coyne - Thursday, February 19, 2009 - 91 Comments

Thoughts on the two leaders’ press conference:

1) They’ll get along fine. They’re similar in some ways: roughly the same age, both policy wonks, both pretty no-nonsense. I got the sense they respected each other. But they’re also different, especially … culturally. Obama’s a member, not so much of the upper class, as the inner: he’s comfortable with the Harvard/New York Times set, people who consider themselves the elite, never mind what anyone else calls them. That’s especially the case in Canada, given the Liberals’ long dominance here — hence the obvious sympatico between Obama and Ignatieff. Harper’s emphatically not of that crowd: as a Conservative, he’s one of the “outs,” at least in his own mind and certainly in his rhetoric.

2) But good relations can’t paper over policy differences, particularly on

a) Afghanistan. As evidence, Obama’s intervention to the effect that he did not “press” Harper to extend Canada’s troop commitment. If he truly didn’t want something from us, he wouldn’t make such a show of saying that he didn’t. Harper, for his part, ducked the question when it was put to him.

b) NAFTA and Buy America. They really weren’t on the same page here. And Obama has constituencies to deliver for.

3) Thought Harper was very strong on Canada being just as vigilant against terrorist attacks as the US. It’s true that at one point we were appallingly lax (no pun intended) on this, but that hasn’t been true for some years, and Americans, especially the American right, needed to hear it from him.

4) Not sure what this Clean Energy Dialogue means, but it’s wholly in keeping with everything we’ve heard from Harper to date: emphasis on technological solutions, carbon sequestration etc. I actually think the two leaders are quite close on this one. Obama is not going to impose a carbon tax, and US public opinion will not stand for any international agreement on global warming that does not include China and India. Which has been Harper’s position: a “Son of Kyoto” that was less stringent, but broader in application, than Kyoto. Remember that it wasn’t Bush who vetoed Kyoto. It was the US Senate. 95-0.

5) That said, Harper certainly didn’t take long to throw Bush under the bus. To listen to him today, you’d think that his government had been champing at the bit to tackle global warming, but was held back by those laggards to the south: “Canada has had great difficulty developing an effective regulatory regime alone … It’s very hard to have a tough regulatory system here when we are competing with an unregulated economy south of the border…. I’m quite optimistic that we now have a partner on the North American continent that will provide leadership to the world on the climate change issue and I think that’s an important development…”

  • VIDEO: Who will – and who should – win an Oscar on Sunday

    By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 7:20 PM - 1 Comment

    Film critic Brian D. Johnson makes his picks

    For a list of predictions go to: BDJ’s Oscar picks

  • Brian D. Johnson on who will – and who should – win an Oscar on Sunday

    By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 7:18 PM - 0 Comments

    HQ Version

  • So, what did that all mean for a Canada-U.S. climate change strategy?

    By Nicholas Köhler - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 7:15 PM - 16 Comments

    The Obama visit left us with a lot of new questions on the file

    This afternoon’s Harper-Obama press conference left us with more questions than answers. In four years, will we share a carbon market? Will Canada retain its intensity targets while the U.S. commits to absolute reductions in greenhouse gases? Will we have cap and trade? It’s all still anybody’s guess. What we do know is, we’re likely going to get a new electric grid. Who saw that coming?

    The presser, in which Harper pleaded ignorance on the differences between absolute and intensity targets—”these are just two different ways of measuring the same thing,” he said—left an awful lot of room for criticism. “I think it was a pretty embarrassing day for Canada with respect to climate change policy,” says Marlo Raynolds, executive director of the Pembina Institute environmental group, who saw Obama’s reference to Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s interest in the issue as a rebuke to Canada. “Mexico,” says Raynolds, “a country with one-fifth of the GDP per capita than Canada.” Continue…

  • The 2011 Afghanistan exit date: carved in snow

    By John Geddes - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 6:38 PM - 11 Comments

    Everybody agrees that President Barack Obama didn’t put any pressure on Canadian politicians today to rethink Canada’s planned withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in 2011.

    Yet from both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, answers on the question of the exit date were far from emphatic. It’s reasonable to conclude that both are open to being persuaded to extend the mission. If they aren’t, they would have been firmer about sticking to the 2011 timetable.
    Continue…

  • A conversation about the battle over the Battle of the Plains of Abraham

    By Martin Patriquin - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 6:26 PM - 78 Comments

    wolfe-montcalm-2-1

    The planned, announced and now-cancelled recreation of the Plains of Abraham battle (you know: the English beat the French and, yadda yadda, the birth of Canada) has made for a highly-symbolic wintertime psychodrama. Citing undisclosed and nebulous “security threats”, National Battlefields Commission director André Juneau kiboshed the event, which was set to take place this summer. Too much has been written already, so Deux Maudits Anglais had a cross-border chat about it. (Which we have now put into written form. Damn you, cruel irony…) 

    MARTY: Well, I hope you’re happy, Philippe Gohier. I’d just bought a brand new tweed blazer, short pants and a proper sunhat in order to take in the festivities on the Plains of Abraham this summer. My God, what a show it would’ve been: The English storming the French, the smell of blood and gunpowder in the air, James Wolfe riding victoriously over the rotting remains of General Montcalm… I was even planning on streaking the field wearing nothing but my Union Jack cape. And now, thanks to all these naughty séparatiste ruffians, my summer plans are dashed. Don’t lie: I can practically see you out there in Toronto, shackled as you are to the English teat, happier than a clam that history has once again been papered over in Quebec.

    In all seriousness, though: what the hell?

    Continue…

  • Prepping for battle

    By Patricia Treble - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 5:55 PM - 0 Comments

    ‘Combat School’ follows a platoon of Canadian soldiers as they train for war in Afghanistan

    Prepping for battle

    As a group of Canadian soldiers walked through a village in Afghanistan, local kids threw stones at them. Some stood on rooftops, pointing out the patrol’s location to others ahead. At any moment, the soldiers could find themselves under attack. “You could feel the tension,” recalled cameraman Frank Vilaca, who accompanied the troops.

    The patrol was the culmination of months of intense training for the 40 soldiers of 1 Platoon, Mike Company, 3rd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment. Every step of it was captured by Vilaca for Combat School, a six-part series starting March 10 at 10 p.m. on Discovery Channel. (Vilaca is himself a former soldier, having served as a field cameraman in Rwanda and Bosnia.) The show is a raw look at the challenges soldiers face in preparation for the violent uncertainty of warfare.

    Continue…

  • How Harper fared at the Obama news conference

    By John Geddes - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 5:46 PM - 15 Comments

    Beyond the policy substance in what President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper had to say today, two questions were in my mind as I settled in to watch their joint news conference.

    Firstly, would Harper get what his staff clearly hoped for most out of this event—some telling sign of the beginnings of a personal rapport between the two leaders?

    Secondly, would Harper be entirely overshadowed, or might he succeed in putting his stamp on some aspect of the session, steering the give-and-take onto his preferred topics?

    To me, it sounded like Harper garnered a modest, but undeniable, personal allusion from Obama, and also managed, near the end of the session, to set a particular tone, and draw Obama into an exchange, on border security.
    Continue…

  • It's a Day For Canada To Be Validated By The U.S.

    By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 5:35 PM - 0 Comments

    First the President comes to Canada (he came here first! He likes us best! In your face, Mexico!) and now CBS announces that they’re following up on Flashpoint by picking up a second CTV cop show, The Bridge, starring Aaron “Tyrol” Douglas.

    The show is based on the reminiscences of former police union head and radio personality Craig Bromell. Since he’s a fairly controversial figure in Canada, there might be some controversy about the show (I said might) or its take on the nature of police work. But that shouldn’t be a factor in the U.S., where Bromell is unknown and where, more importantly, almost every cop show ever made features cops who are simultaneously battling scummy criminals and red tape from their superiors.

    CHIEF: You busted up that crack house pretty bad, McGarnigle.  Did you really have to break so much furniture?
    McGARNIGLE: You tell me, Chief.  You had a pretty good view from behind your desk.
    CHIEF: You’re off the case, McGarnigle!
    McGARNIGLE: You’re off your case, Chief!
    CHIEF: What does that mean, exactly?
    HOMER: It means he gets results, you stupid chief!
    LISA: Dad, sit down.

  • And now a word from Jessica Millen

    By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 5:20 PM - 2 Comments

    The 17-year-old girl who served the President his beavertail.

    “He’s a really down-to-earth guy.”

  • Better Know a Writing Staff: THE BIG BANG THEORY

    By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 5:15 PM - 8 Comments

    I haven’t done a writing staff post in several months, and returning to the format, I decided to do one of the CBS comedies. This one is as good a choice as any, because it’s one of their two most enjoyable comedies (the other being How I Met Your Mother) and because Chuck Lorre is building kind of a comedy-writing empire.

    Update: Bill Prady says in comments that this post is about 75% accurate, which, I have to say, is not as bad as I feared. (I should say again that unless there’s a full biographical article available online, these posts are based on Google searches, news items, credits on Imdb and TV.com, other blog posts, and so on. But one thing I need to do in future is provide more documentation so it’s clearer were each piece of information comes from.)

    As I said in an earlier post, Lorre uses his writing staffs differently from most other TV producers. Normally the staff beats out the story and then sends the assigned writer off to do a script, which is then rewritten by the whole staff. Lorre has cut out that middle stage, which is why his shows have three or four credited writers for every episode: the episodes are all room-written, and they then rotate the credits (union rules usually don’t allow an entire writing staff to be credited for writing an episode, except in very special cases). Whether this is a good or bad method is something I can’t judge without actually having been in the room. It arguably isn’t that big a change in practice, since most comedy shows are so heavily room-written that it’s almost useless to look for the individual personality of a particular writer in the script, no matter whose name actually comes after “written by.”

    Here are the writers who have been credited in the current season. As with any writing staff, there are certain “themes” you can detect in terms of who gets hired. The most important theme, obviously, is that the people who work on Chuck Lorre’s shows tend to be people who have worked for him before. (Lorre has created and produced a lot of shows — some of which he didn’t even get fired from — so that leaves a lot of people for him to hire.) Another is that he seems to go for writing staffs where the median age is a little higher than on most comedy shows (certainly higher than the median age in the youth-obsessed ’90s). And several writers are there from previous associations with the other creator/showrunner, Bill Prady.

    Bill Prady (co-creator, executive producer) – Prady’s Chuck Lorre connection is that he was a writer and producer on Dharma & Greg. When he was 22 he went to work for Jim Henson, writing for many Muppet projects including the short-lived Jim Henson Hour. (He also freelanced some scripts for You Can’t Do That On Television, adding to his ’80s cred.) After Henson’s death, Prady continued to return to the company occasionally to write material for the Muppets. He moved into sitcom writing, freelancing some episodes for shows like Married… With Children and getting staff writing/producing jobs on shows like Dream On, Caroline In the City and the aforementioned Dharma & Greg. Before re-teaming with Lorre, he was a co-executive producer on the fifth season of Gilmore Girls.

    Lee Aronsohn (executive producer) appears to be Lorre’s right-hand guy. He co-created Two and a Half Men with Lorre and was a writer-producer on two of Lorre’s previous shows, Grace Under Fire and Cybill. His first job as a TV writer was on The Love Boat, where he was a staff writer in the second and third seasons; his claim to fame there was writing the episode that introduced Captain Stubing’s illegitimate daughter Vicki (named after his dog). Throughout the ’80s he contributed scripts to many sitcoms, including Charles In Charge (which Chuck Lorre also wrote for, but at different times). He was a writer/producer on Murphy Brown the year she had her baby, and he once wrote an interesting post on rec.arts.tv about why Murphy’s baby vanished from the show. (“I was really excited about what this could mean for the character, and I wrote an episode about the conflict she feels between pursuing her career and caring for her child (“Midnight Plane to Paris”). However, at the end of that season, network testing discovered that people were not interested in seeing Murphy as a mother — they wanted to see Murphy being Murphy — so the kid was shoved into the background.”) After producing Grace and Cybill, both successful but troubled shows, he created a show for CBS called Life… and Stuff, a vehicle for comedian Rick Reynolds, a slightly bitter domestic comedy in the Everybody Loves Raymond vein; he was removed from the show during production and it only lasted a few episodes as a summer replacement. I don’t know what he was doing between that and Men, but in any case, he re-emerged as co-creator and co-showrunner of CBS’s biggest post-Raymond hit. He also is, or was, a big fan and collector of Mad magazine memorabilia, and contributed some items from his personal comic book collection to Leonard’s Continue…

  • After the O: Liveblogging Michael Ignatieff's post-meeting press conference

    By kadyomalley - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 5:04 PM - 21 Comments

    Yoyoyo, ITQians! We have one more Obama-related event to get through, and then I promise it’s back to business as usual, whatever that means. Anyway, apparently the Ignatieff-Obama chinwag went slightly longer than usual — careful, Mr. President, you’re going to miss your flight! — so the presser that was originally scheduled for 5pm will be slightly delayed. I’ll keep y’all posted, so check back regularly.

    5:25:25 PM
    Well, we’re back on familiar, cosy parliamentary turf – the Charles Lynch Press Theatre, to be exact, which feels awfully homey at the moment. Apparently, the meeting ended at around 5pm, which means that barring any really spectacular traffic tie-ups, Ignatieff should be here by — I dunno, quarter to six? I’ve lost all track of time. I hope he realizes that the general feeling of nervous exhaustion in the room isn’t personal — it’s just been a really long day.
    5:34:02 PM
    Continue…

  • Just like being there (III)

    By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 4:54 PM - 5 Comments

    Pool report #3.

    Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae and Obama made small talk about Democrats, ice skating and Beavertails as the photographers came in. A couple of other officials sat in on the meeting.
    Ignatieff seated directly to Obama’s left and Rae sitting to the left of Ignatieff.
    Both Obama and Ignatieff had their legs crossed and seemed at relaxed and at ease.

    Obama repeated his remarks from the end of his news conference with Harper that he was greatful for all the Canadians that came tro
    “We don’t ice skate on lake michigan,” Obama said with a chuckle
    “And no beavertails,” someone else said.
    “No we don’t have beavertails, but we do have the equivalent,” Obama said

  • The Commons: He was here

    By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 4:38 PM - 12 Comments

    The Commons: He was here

    When all is said and written, that much is clear. For whatever else follows from this, that is what seems to have mattered most. Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States of America, came to Ottawa today. He moved in our midst. This much we can absolutely confirm.

    The rest of a bewildering and remarkable, poignant and underwhelming day is details.

    The first set of police officers was positioned at street level. If the appropriate credentials were hanging from your neck you were allowed to proceed up the stairs, across the path and through the front doors of West Block. There stood two more members of law enforcement. If your credentials were deemed sufficient at this point, you were allowed to turn right, walk down a hall, then turn left and walk down a second hallway, where another officer gave the same badges a third review. Then you were asked to remove your personal effects and pass through a metal detector.

    Through the underground tunnel that connects West Block to Centre Block, up one floor by elevator and up another by stairs, one arrived at the scene. There, police officers were positioned an average of every 15 feet. Reporters were directed to a committee room to the right of Parliament’s main hall. Admittance to this place required at least a third badge. Those lacking that were told they could turn around, go back to wherever they’d come from and watch the proceedings on television.

    In hindsight, this was exceedingly rational advice. Continue…

  • What kind of house can $500,000 buy you?

    By macleans.ca - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 3:53 PM - 72 Comments

    We searched real estate listings in 20 Canadian cities to see what half-a-million dollars gets you these days

  • 21 questions (III)

    By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 3:22 PM - 6 Comments

    As you might have just noticed, neither of the press gallery’s two questions concerned Omar Khadr.

    He came a distant third in the vote.

    Which seems about right. altogether fitting.

  • Just like being there (II)

    By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 3:04 PM - 0 Comments

    Pool report #2.

     Rotunda:
     Media pool is in place 20 minutes in advance of arrival.
     Sgt-at-Arms Kevin Vickers (sp?) ambles over to talk to media.
     Only visible non-official person (media, security, PMO, embassy staff) present behind the secure area appears to be Sen. Patrick Brazeau, who stands at back of media area surveying        scene.
     Lone PMO photog has prime position in alcove/catwalk above and behind the signning area in rotunda.
     Hush descends once PM arrives and casually greets the assembled parliamentary officers:
     Usher of the black rod; senate speaker; senate clerk; commons speaker; Commons clerk; and sgt at arms.
     President and PM enter and formally greet the officials. Inaudible.
     Harper leads Obama to a desk where the president sits and signs two guest books.
     ”Thanks so much. It’s a great honour,” says Obama.
     The two leaders walk down hallway to their right toward PM’s office.     Continue…

  • Carbon sequestration: the critics are raving!

    By Paul Wells - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 2:46 PM - 106 Comments

    Reports are indicating the leader of the free world and President Obama will announce an accord “to work together on clean energy technology,” in the words of one of my colleagues’ source. “It will include elements like carbon capture and sequestration and the smart grid.”

    This is very popular stuff among people who want to solve global warming without changing human behaviour. Paul Martin was all about this sort of thing too: “Clean technology,” which would cancel out the effect of all the dirty technology by seizing carbon dioxide from the air and burying it underground. Well. If that’s an option, why hasn’t been done before?

    Because it’s not clear it’s an option, is why. Assorted critics have called carbon sequestration “horribly expensive,” a “false hope;” if implemented on a scale large enough to make a difference — a scale thousands of times that of current pilot projects — it would make carbon dioxide “the world’s largest transported good;” and that, while it does have considerable potential, it “simply hasn’t been put through enough paces to know yet.”

  • O Canada…

    By Andrew Coyne - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 2:35 PM - 211 Comments

    O Canada...

    This is Just. So. Embarrassing. If there is anything less attractive than the anti-American streak in our national character — a trait made worse, one suspects, for our neighbours’ sunny indifference to our seething — it is our tendency to prostrate ourselves before American celebrities. And they don’t get any more celebritous than Barack Obama. Okay, I get that he’s a likeable fellow. He avoids excessive partisanship, he comes across as thoughtful and decent, he connects with people — yes to all that.

    But people, really: camping out at 4:30 in the morning on Parliament Hill for five seconds of waving from behind plexiglas two hundred yards away (and five seconds longer, at that, than scheduled)? Hours and hours of television coverage given over to a few brief clips of the President a) landing, b) walking with the Governor General, c) sitting with the Governor General, d) flashing by in his motorcade, and e) walking, sitting and standing with the Prime Minister?

    Have we all taken leave of our senses? The CBC interviewed some lunatic woman who gravely informed us that, with the election of Barack Obama, she now knew that “everything was going to be okay.” A sign in the crowd read “First God, then Obama,” which was positively restrained compared to some of the comments one overheard. And I don’t just mean from the reporters.

    I find all this openly worshipful behaviour more than a little disturbing. I don’t like it when I see it directed to rock stars — What possesses people to chant their names in unison? Is it not enough to be a slave? Why do you have to advertise it? — but I really mistrust it when it slops over into the political arena. And is it not all just a bit more loathsome for being attached to a foreign leader? Could we be more craven? Usually we reserve such spinelessness for Quebec separatists.

    Continue…

  • 21 questions (II)

    By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 2:22 PM - 4 Comments

    The serious journalists have been escorted to the press conference room. The question debate required a vote. Results will not be posted here so as not to spoil the surprise.

  • Advice for the Information Commissioner: Do your job.

    By Michael Petrou - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 2:00 PM - 2 Comments

    Longtime readers of this blog may be familiar with my ongoing battle with the Canadian International Development Agency over an access-to-information request I made in April 2007. I wanted to know about CIDA programs in Zimbabwe, but when CIDA claimed such a supposedly broad request would require thousands of dollars in “research fees,” I narrowed the request to one phase of one program – in other words, nothing too broad or onerous.  

    Almost two years later, CIDA still hasn’t completed the request. Every few months or so, I check in with CIDA or the Office of the Information Commissioner, where I registered a formal complaint more than a year ago, mostly just to get my blood boiling, because nothing productive ever results. I did so again this week.

     The Access to Information Act gives the Commissioner the power to subpoena recipients of complaints to give oral evidence and produce records. I asked someone in the office of the new Commissioner, Robert Marleau, how many times Marleau has done this since his appointment in January 2007. The answer: zero. Not once. Apparently, he wants to use a “collaborative” rather than a confrontational approach.

    How’s that working out for him? Not so good. 

  • A word about those Obama-Harper backdrops

    By John Geddes - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 1:45 PM - 4 Comments

    Who knows what Barack Obama and Stephen Harper are talking about or how they’re getting along? We’ll try to figure it out later. Right now, all we’ve got is pictures. But about those pictures—don’t the Parliament Buildings look magnificent?

    I can’t help it. I’m feel good whenever our neo-gothic showplace gets a bit of international TV exposure. And the best is yet to come, when Harper walks Obama into the Library of Parliament.
    Continue…

  • Rebranding Conservatism

    By Andrew Potter - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 1:41 PM - 10 Comments

    Bush’s party seeks ‘hip-hop’ image overhaul
    WASHINGTON (AFP) — Former president George W. Bush’s…

    Bush’s party seeks ‘hip-hop’ image overhaul

    WASHINGTON (AFP) — Former president George W. Bush’s Republicans, groping their way from their November elections rout, need a “hip-hop” makeover to court younger voters, the party’s chief said in an interview published Thursday.

    “We need to uptick our image with everyone, including one-armed midgets,” Michael Steele, elected in late January as the first black chairman of the Republican National Committee, told the Washington Times.

    link

  • 21 questions

    By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 1:32 PM - 6 Comments

    Rather feverish negotiations now in the press room over what will be asked with the precious two questions allotted to the Canadian reporters.

  • Alberta's "dirty oil" problem

    By John Intini - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 12:53 PM - 0 Comments

    The province has diligently defended its oil sands projects, but it appears to be having little impact

    Despite Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach’s best efforts, the Alberta oil sands still have a terrible reputation when it comes to their environmental impact. A compelling, if not particularly revealing, cover story by National Geographic argues the province is sacrificing its long-term environmental viability for short-term economic benefits. From a purely financial perspective, the oil sands are a no-brainer. Using clean-burning natural gas to pump oil out of the ground may make the process 15 to 40 per cent “dirtier” than conventional oil extraction, but a barrel of crude “contains about five times more energy than the natural gas used to make it, and in much more valuable liquid form.” However, from an environmental perspective, the industry causes such widespread damage to local forests and rivers that the money it generates may not be worth it. A poll taken in 2007 found that 71 per cent of the province’s residents would support a moratorium on new oil sands projects. But Stelmach, to the National Geographic‘s dismay, has already dismissed such an option, preferring to let the “free market” solve the dilemma.

    National Geographic

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