The price of government secrets

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 9:10 AM - 0 Comments

Access to Information laws are hardly a top priority for the average taxpayer. Most Canadians don’t even know that internal government documents are available for public viewing (if you pay $5 and are willing to wait months and months for a response). But for those who do take regular advantage of federal access laws‹especially researchers, academics, opposition politicians and journalists—this news is certainly disturbing: the Foreign Affairs department is under investigation for charging unwarranted “preparation fees” before responding to requests, creating a potentially illegal barrier between government records and a curious public. Essentially, someone asking for the minister’s briefing notes or assessments of the Afghan mission could be asked to pay hundreds of dollars to “prepare” the records, only to receive a package of papers that is completely censored. “They’re doing this to discourage Access requests,” says lawyer Michel Drapeau. “It’s fundamentally wrong because it goes against the spirit of the act itself.” The Information Commissioner is investigating.

The Vancouver Sun

A Holocaust backlash against Kate Winslet

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 9:07 AM - 0 Comments

First ‘Slumdog Millionaire,’ the feel-good melodrama of the year, stirred up controversy in India for its portrayal of Mumbai’s slums. Now Kate Winslet is feeling the heat from the Jewish community for her portrayal of a former Nazi guard who stood by as hundreds of prisoners perished. Movies about the Holocaust traditionally do well at the Oscars. But with the deadline for Oscar ballots looming at 5 p.m. today, could this last-minute protest hurt Winslet’s chances?  Spoiler alert: if you haven’t seen The Reader, this item divulges the movie’s final plot revelations.

Telegraph.co.uk

What a difference a loonie makes

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 9:05 AM - 0 Comments

According to the Department of Finance, a former Conservative staffer with Toronto-based consulting firm Playbook Communications was playing by the book when he landed an sole-source contract to help the minister’s office prepare for the budget, the Ottawa Citizen reports. Playbook founder Mike Van Soelen, who worked as communications director for then-Treasury Board president John Baird until he left government in 2007, provided “communications strategy and support” for the release of the 2009 budget.

Ottawa Citizen

Tough guy writer

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 8:50 AM - 0 Comments

An upcoming New Yorker profile will reveal new facts about one of the English-speaking world’s pre-eminent novelists. Ian McEwan, as it turns out, was one of the first to hide his friend Salman Rushdie—in his own Cotswold cottage—in the days immediately after the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa threatened Rushdie’s life 20 years ago. The article also explains that three friends read every one of McEwan’s novels before publication, a sometimes risky act of friendship. When poet Craig Raine described McEwan’s The Comfort of Strangers as “complete crap—put it in a drawer and forget it,” the novelist refused to speak to him for almost two years.

The Guardian

Khmer Rouge leader trial opens

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 8:40 AM - 0 Comments

The United Nations-backed trial of a former Khmer Rouge leader accused of overseeing the torture and murder of more than 12,000 inmates at an infamous prison camp opened today in Phnom Penh. Hundreds lined up to catch a glimpse of the accused, 66-year-old Kaing Guek Eav, better known as “Dutch,” who doesn’t deny the accusations against him and is now a born-again Christian. The Maoist Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 and controlled parts of the country for another two decades. The regime murdered an estimated 1.5 million people out of a population of less than 8 million.

Guardian.co.uk

The great leap backwards

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 8:40 AM - 1 Comment

Economic crises beget political crises, so we’re already hearing warnings about the impact‹domestic and geopolitical—of the global recession. Gideon Rachman, a columnist with the Financial Times, has taken things a step further, extrapolating a portrait of the world in 2012 from the current drift of events. In Rachman’s dystopian vision, the politics of fear and jingoism prevail, lifting Sarah Palin to power in the U.S., restoring Putin to the Russian presidency, and unleashing protectionist trade wars around the world. About the only thing that sounds farfetched is Nicolas Sarkozy’s divorce from Carla Bruni and marriage to Madonna. Stock up on canned food, people.

Financial Times

The Classy Jackson

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 8:30 AM - 0 Comments

Historians have condemned the project, which would include a theme park with a slave ship replica, casinos, shops, a golf course and condominiums, for exploiting a painful history. The resort, which will also house memorabilia from the glory years of the Jackson Five, will allow visitors to “walk the route their shackled ancestors walked before playing a round of golf or relaxing by a pool.”

Telegraph.co.uk

A friendly note to Canada's science researchers: um…

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 8:13 AM - 75 Comments

This Globe story tells the sad (well, saddish) tale of a researcher who ran into trouble getting enough funding to do his ground-breaking work in Montreal and was sorely tempted by an offer to move his lab to Singapore.

It is the kind of tale that should ring all sorts of bells over here at Inkless: (a) a mismatch between research capacity and grant funding, which leads to (b) top-flight investigators sitting around twiddling their thumbs, or spending so much time on the treadmill chasing funding that they have no energy left over for science; (c) mounting pressure to leave, coming from other jurisdictions (even the Yanks!) that are Doing The Right Thing by funding science, and not just science infrastructure; (d) Canada in danger of retreating back to its 19th-century, Laurentian-hypothesis hewers-of-wood drawers-of-water fugue state.

I love this story. I have warned many times that it would happen: sure, it’s fun to give megabucks to the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and who doesn’t like to cut ribbons in front of a new university lab?, but after a while if you build shiny labs and fund shiny Canada Research Chairs and recruit legions of shiny grad students and then cut the budgets of the granting councils, you will have built a Mirabel archipelago (named after the Montreal airport that finally closed for lack of traffic): a coast-to-coast network of white elephants, lovely well-staffed research facilities in which nobody can afford to do any science. Eventually some of them (the researchers, not the facilities) will leave. Especially the ones who came here from afar precisely because the United States used to look (but looks less and less these days) like a place where science is frowned upon.

So here’s my problem: why has nobody in the research community been able to demonstrate that this is the case? With something more persuasive than anecdotes, I mean. The only problem with the Globe story is that it uses “researchers,” plural, in the headline, when in fact it’s just another anecdote about some guy who had a sweeter offer in Singapore than he did at home. Maybe the guy in the next lab is here in Canada because Singapore was chintzing him out and it all balances out in the end.

What I’m wondering is when Canada’s researchers, who depend in many cases on tax dollars for their work, are going to do some research about the distribution of those tax dollars. I asked a director of research at one of Canada’s most prominent institutions whether there’s any objective measure of research capacity vs. granting flow that would demonstrate the kind of mismatch today’s article hints at. He said he’s not aware of any. Well, that’s a problem, isn’t it? If our national science apparatus is overbuilt and underfuelled, rebalancing becomes crucial. But if the only people who think it is are researchers, and they can’t get their act together to prove their point, nobody will listen.

Want to win your office Oscar pool? Here's help.

By John Intini - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 7:50 AM - 1 Comment

Nate Silver, the math whiz who became a media darling by using his statistical skills to correctly predict the outcome of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election months in advance, has focused his numerical know-how on Hollywood this week. Having compiled and studied a database of Academy Award results dating back three decades, Silver predicts several sure things on Oscar night: Mickey Rourke will win Best Actor (71.1 per cent), Kate Winslet is a lock for Best Actress (67.6 per cent) and Slumdog Millionaire is a no-brainer in the Best Picture category (99.9 per cent). The biggest surprise is Silver’s prediction that Benjamin Button’s Taraji P. Henson (51 per cent) will beat Penelope Cruz (24.6 per cent) in the Best Supporting Actress category. About the only thing Silver can’t predict is what the stars will be wearing on Sunday night.

New York

Hard decision and cuts ahead for GM

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 7:00 AM - 1 Comment

General Motors and Chrysler submit their survival plans to the U.S. government today. While neither company is willing to consider bankruptcy, the deepening economic troubles are making that seem like more and more a possible outcome. Regardless what happens in the coming weeks, as the plans are reviewed by a new government task force, the future likely holds more plant closures and thousands more layoffs. The government has until the end of March to decide if the companies have restructured enough, or to call back the loans and let the auto makers collapse.

Freep.com

Leadership, somewhere up there

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 5:53 PM - 17 Comments

Also from David Emerson’s interview.

Mr. Emerson, stressing that he was speaking about his experience under both Canadian prime ministers as well as during his time in the B.C. government, said there is a “dangerous” domination of Canadian leaders by small groups of advisers.

“I think in Canada generally there is an under-appreciation of the degree to which small cadres of advisers kind of close in on the leader, and keep him or her probably too insulated from sort of your average Canadian,” he said. “And that’s dangerous.”

Rest assured, that description is in no way applicable to our current prime minister.

Found! Canada's envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan

By Paul Wells - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 5:42 PM - 12 Comments

Won’t you give a warm welcome to Wajid Khan, currently not over-burdened with official work, but whom Prime Minister Harper named as his Special Advisor on South Asia and the Middle East two and a half years ago. This makes Khan the Canadian equivalent to two of Barack Obama’s special envoys — Richard Holbrooke and George Mitchell — and more valuable than both of them put together because his appointment came so far ahead of the curve!

“Canada has an increasing number of interests in both South Asia and the Middle East,” Harper announced when he named Khan. And this appointment shows precisely how seriously Harper took those challenges. And I do mean precisely. As Obama’s advance team scrambles to prepare him for his first foreign trip, they can use the whole Wajid Khan affair as their best gauge of Canada’s ability to be a serious, reliable partner for the United States on the world stage.

Khan wrote a report for the Prime Minister after his travels in the region, and unfortunately, it was just so good that Harper didn’t dare make it public. I have every confidence, however, that the Prime Minister will have a copy ready to hand over to President Obama on Thursday. Because when it comes to our American friends, we care enough to send the very best.

At last the two-way wrist radio

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 5:06 PM - 2 Comments

LG shows off video watch phone

… only 62 years after Dick Tracy. But it has video! Tracy didn’t get that till ’64!

Canada, way back

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 4:50 PM - 3 Comments

David Emerson looks back fondly.

“Certainly when I travelled abroad… people would say, ‘Where’s Canada been? Why aren’t you out more?” said Mr. Emerson, who was trade and Foreign Affairs minister under Mr. Harper.

“There was a real kind of noticeable impression out there in the world community that Canada is not as visible as we used to be, and should be,” he told Canwest News Service in an interview.

Paul considers the hilarious irony.

Put Bleeding Gums Murphy Back In the Opening!

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 3:28 PM - 3 Comments

The Simpsons and King of the Hill have both made the switch to HD, and both of them needed to create new main titles for the new format. The new KotH title is not online at the moment (or if it is I couldn’t find it), but it was basically exactly the same as the original, even including the bit where Luanne hops on the back of Buckley’s motorcycle. (Buckley has been dead since the beginning of the third season, but he’s still in the opening credits every week. Personally I’d still rather see him than Lucky.) I guess since this is the last season, it wouldn’t have made much sense to pay for a whole new sequence. But The Simpsons, which is in this for the long haul, created a new sequence with new gags and characters — including, finally, taking Bleeding Gums Murphy out of the opening sequence, though they do include his portrait in Lisa’s classroom as a memorial tribute. (Bleeding Gums has been dead since the sixth season.) Here it is, including another one of those tiresome extra-long couch gags.

This is actually the third Simpsons title sequence; they had a different one in the first season, and created the “definitive” version in season 2.

I like the new intro; it’s not as good as the familiar one, because some of the gags are kind of lame (always a problem with everything The Simpsons does now) but mostly because the animation is not as good as it was in 1990. No, really.  Look at the original animation of Homer when he sees Marge’s car coming at him; he “acts” in a convincing way that rarely happens on the show now, or even in the movie. This doesn’t have a lot to do with the switch to digital ink-and-paint or HD; it’s just that the rough edges of the animation have been smoothed away and replaced by mostly standard poses — so you rarely get the kind of expressiveness you got in the Krusty sequences animated by Brad Bird, or the animation of Homer’s heart attacks in “Homer’s Triple Bypass” (season 4).

Talk it out

By macleans.ca - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 2:57 PM - 1 Comment

Feel upset? Let it all out, says Matthew Lieberman, a neuroscientist at UCLA. His research has revealed that putting feelings into words activates a part of the brain—the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex—capable of regulating emotion, thus helping to put a “damper” on them. His work is the first to demonstrate the neural basis for the therapeutic nature of “talking something out.”

Wired

We are such ouinies

By Andrew Potter - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 2:03 PM - 12 Comments

www.yesouicanada.ca

The Hitman versus ‘The Wrestler’

By Bret “Hitman” Hart - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 1:44 PM - 98 Comments

The Wrestler is being lauded as the definitive portrayal of pro wrestling, but I submit that’s only because no one has asked a real wrestling champion about it—until now. In the movie, Randy “The Ram” Robinson was a main-eventer who sold out Madison Square Garden. So was I. The movie opens with a montage of clippings and event posters eerily similar to the ones in my personal collection. I lived that life for real. I liked the movie, and I’m disturbed by it.

In director Darren Aronofsky’s astutely layered vision there are glimpses into a shrouded world considered fake by all but those who live in it—for them, it’s the only reality they know. Nuggets of truth make the story believable. Mickey Rourke’s clairvoyant performance makes it compelling.

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Ending the myth of the frugal Canadian

By Steve Maich - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 1:40 PM - 2 Comments

One of the most comforting and oft-repeated truisms of this financial crisis is that, as bad as things are, we Canadians are far better off than our neighbours in the United States. This is generally and unquestioningly attributed to the fact that Canadians are more responsible and modest than Americans. Most importantly, we never ran up the massive debt loads that are typical south of the border. And so, we smugly shake our heads at the mess in America and congratulate ourselves on our culture of restraint.

Well, so much for all that.

Turns out that while we were happily soaking in the myth of the frugal Canadian, we were celebrating at the malls and treating ourselves to new home theatre systems and a few extra fancy restaurant meals. The global consulting giant Deloitte issued a report on Canada’s debt levels last week, and though it received only passing attention, it should have been more than enough to blow up our smug self-image for good. According to the report, Canada’s household debt-to-disposable-income ratio now exceeds that of the U.S. As of the middle of last year, the typical Canadian household now owes a little more than 1.3 times its annual disposable income, whereas the average American household owes a little over 1.2 times its income. That’s all debt, including mortgages, when compared to our income after taxes and interest costs.

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Ottawa food bank anniversary and a plate of nachos

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 1:17 PM - 9 Comments

The Ottawa Food Bank had a reception on the Hill marking its 25th anniversary. In 1984, Gerard Kennedy, now a Toronto Liberal MP, was executive director of the food bank in Edmonton. He came to Ottawa to help them set up their food bank.

Tim Powers of Summa Strategies, who helped organize the event,  gets some Liberal love.

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The PQ was right

By Martin Patriquin - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 1:09 PM - 5 Comments

They say three times of anything is a trend. Here are a few choice cuts from the recent past, for your edification.

—

ON QUEBEC’S BUDGET…

“At a news conference, [Pauline] Marois dismissed [Jean] Charest’s assertions of fiscal responsibility and charged that his government was hiding a large budget deficit.”

-New York Times, 05.11.2008

“Because of our reserve I am announcing that Quebec’s public finances will remain balanced this year and next.”

-Monique Jerome-Forget, 04.11.2008

QUEBEC PLANS DEFICIT IN SPRING BUDGET

-cbc.ca headline, 11.02.2009

—

ON THE CAISSE DE DEPOT MISERY

“Mr. Charest should be very transparent about what is happening at the Caisse.”

-Pauline Marois, 21.11.2008

“For us to act [in such a fashion] would be political interference in the business of the Caisse. It would be the worst thing.”

-Jean Charest reacting to Marois’ suggestion, 21.11.2008

CLEANUP AT THE CAISSE DE DEPOT?

-February 9, 2009 Radio-Canada headline on a story describing how the Charest government was set to sack two-thirds of the Caisse’s mandarins

—

EQUALIZATION PAYMENTS

“The facts have been hidden from us. We have been manipulated to make us believe things are going well.”

-Pauline Marois on how the new equalization payment system will mean $1 billion less for Quebec, 29.11.2008

“When all is said and done, Quebec is expected to receive another $1.5 billion in equalization, or $7 billion a year, up from $5.5 billion, an increase of about 30 per cent.”

-Federal-provincial agreement, as quoted by columnist L. Ian MacDonald, 19.01.2007

CHAREST SAYS HARPER BROKE HIS WORD ON FEDERAL TRANSFER PAYMENTS

-16.01.2009 headline in which Charest says Harper made him a liar

UPDATED – GiornoWatch Family Day Edition: C'mon, baby, let the nonpartisan times roll!

By kadyomalley - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 1:00 PM - 9 Comments

It may be Family Day in Ontario, but it’s business as usual for the data entry crew over at Langevin Block, where the newly appointed, ostensibly non(or at least slightly less than hypermanic)partisan Paul Wilson has finally turned up in GEDS, where he is now listed as director of policy, just as foretold by the oracles of the Globe’s parliamentary bureau.

(For more on Wilson’s background, check out this Hill Times profile from last March, and try to rationalize to yourself how a longtime Reform/Alliance staffer who worked for both the Manning and Day OLOs, and was a “key player in writing of the 1997 and 2000 election platforms” could possibly be described as ‘nonpartisan’. Not that there’s anything wrong with not being nonpartisan, particularly when you work in politics.)

Stricken from the roll, meanwhile, is Lynette Corbett, who up until last week was listed as director of strategy under Patrick Muttart, whose omnipresence seems to fade a little more each day, like a Cheshire Cat without the grin.

UPDATE: As of Tuesday morning, Patrick Muttart is once again listed as a Deputy Chief of Staff, which makes us wonder what the official protocol is that decides whether he or Darrel Reid  assumes active command of the office during those rare moments that the Giornoverseer General is out of BlackBerry range.

Meanwhile, today’s Hill Times has a slightly-less-obsessively-detailed-than-ITQ roundup of the major changes at PMO that were chronicled by GiornoWatch over the last week or so, which then somewhat inexplicably turns into a somewhat futile attempt to track down a single Conservative willing to give a scintilla of credence, on or off the record, to the theory that the Prime Minister may be considering shuffling himself out right out of the leadership before the next election. The short version: Fear not, caucus, for the PM still has “the grip” on y’all – but if it turns into a hug, you might consider panicking.

"Distasteful". Yeah, that seems to sum it up.

By kadyomalley - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 12:08 PM - 106 Comments

Courtesy of the Hill Times, we now know what Tom Zytaruk thinks about the is-it-or-isn’t-it-a-gag-order settlement agreement that ended the Prime Minister’s lawsuit against the Liberal Party: 

Tom Zytaruk, author of the book that prompted sensational Liberal allegations of bribery against Prime Minister Stephen Harper and subsequently the Prime Minister’s unprecedented $3.5-million defamation lawsuit against the Grits, says it’s a “distasteful concept” that the Conservatives and the Liberals have now agreed to never disclose details of the settlement after Mr. Harper suddenly dropped his lawsuit earlier this month.

“A lot of Canadians would disagree with that, that everything should be tidily forgotten about,” Mr. Zytaruk told The Hill Times last week. “The whole concept of two political parties just deciding that this isn’t up for discussion anymore is kind of a distasteful concept.”

Distasteful is, indeed, one word for it, although given the contradictory statements from one Liberal party spokesperson, “incoherent” would do nicely as well. From the same article:

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At last the pizza through the TV set

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 12:05 PM - 23 Comments

Back in 1994, I wrote the first editorial for the Globe and Mail trying to explain this “Internet” thing (or as it was known then, the Information Superhighway) to befuddled readers. “What is the Internet?” it began. “Is it, as Dave Barry says, like CB radio, only with typing?” (Which, come to think of it, is not far wrong.)

Anyway, in the course of my research I kept coming across the same example of the Internet’s alleged wonders, the same cribbed illustration of the fabulous new era we were about to enter.

“You’ll be able to order a pizza,” it ran, “through your TV set.”

As technological revolutions go, I should say, this left me somewhat cold. What did my TV set, with its ready signal and friendly, 13-number dial, have to do with the Internet, which required detailed knowledge of a forest of secret computer codes (PPP, TCP/IP, etc.) and a willingness to sit through 45 seconds of earsplitting modem chatter just so you could get a blank screen. And how exactly was this an advance over, say, the phone? When you can deliver a pizza through my TV set, I found myself saying, then I’ll be impressed.

Nevertheless, there it was, a shimmering golden vision, beckoning us toward a future of limitless pizza-visual convenience….

So it is a pleasure to report that, a decade and a half later, the future has finally showed up:

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