No law bans kitten killing, experts say

By Rachel Mendleson - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 3:38 PM - 21 Comments

Two recent animal cruelty cases are drawing attention to a strange and grisly question: when is it okay to kill your pets?

Last week, animal rights activists in Nova Scotia were outraged when a woman who pled guilty to animal cruelty charges was fined just $5 for drowning two newborn kittens in a bucket of water. Meanwhile, last month, a New Brunswick man was acquitted of animal cruelty altogether in the deaths of his five Pomeranian puppies, which he killed with a hammer. (He was, however, found guilty of neglect, and of injuring a puppy that survived the blow.)

According to University of Ottawa law professor Daphne Gilbert, these cases aren’t as simple as they seem because it’s perfectly legal to kill pets in Canada. Animals are considered personal property under the law, and people have the right to dispose of their pets as they choose, she says, as long as it’s not done “in a way that was intended to inflict suffering.”

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Odd Couple

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 3:36 PM - 0 Comments

Atom and Ivan. Or is it Ivan and Atom? Either way, it has a certain ring. They could be a folk duo, a comedy act, or perhaps a tag team of professional wrestlers. But Atom Egoyan and Ivan Reitman are prominent Canadian filmmakers, and they are now, incongruously, joined at the hip—making a movie together. They couldn’t come from more far-flung extremes of cinema. Reitman is Hollywood’s erstwhile king of comedy, who patented the modern frat-boy farce with blockbusters like Animal House, Stripes and Ghostbusters. Egoyan is Canadian cinema’s resident architect of angst, an Oscar-nominated auteur who has explored grief and sexual taboo in narrative riddles like Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter and Where the Truth Lies. The notion of them working together would seem preposterous. But this month they are in Toronto shooting Chloe—an erotic intrigue about a woman (Julianne Moore) who hires a hooker (Amanda Seyfried) to test the fidelity of her husband (Liam Neeson).

Reitman is producing the film, a remake of a French movie called Nathalie that caught his eye at the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival. And he has hired Egoyan to direct it, as unlikely as it seems. “Ivan has very strong opinions about what makes something popular,” says Egoyan before shooting a scene of tense dialogue between Moore and Seyfried in a Queen Street café. “I’ve never given a second thought about what makes something popular. For Ivan, any barrier that’s created between the viewer and the movie is troubling, and in my work, that’s the zone I love to operate in.”

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Yes Indeedy, Producers Are Greedy And Needy For 3-D

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 3:34 PM - 7 Comments

Two articles in one day about the push to make 3-D the Future of Movies, one in the Wall Street Journal, the other just in Time.

I will confess to being on the side of the skeptics, like Leonard Maltin (briefly quoted in the WSJ article), who point out that every time 3-D comes around, producers and executives announce that it’s going to change everything, and it never, ever does. True, 3-D is more advanced now than it used to be, but having to wear glasses is still a major turn-off (particularly for people who are nearsighted and already need glasses to see the screen). Jack Warner was so certain that 3-D would be the new version of sound, something that would completely change the medium of film, that he shut down the Warner Brothers cartoon department in 1953; he’d decided that all films would probably be made in 3-D and that it was too expensive to make 3-D cartoons. He re-opened the cartoon studio a few months later when 3-D imploded.

Of course they also said that sound would never take over, but if the studios had been trying to launch sound for over 50 years, only to find every time that the public didn’t care whether a movie had sound or not, then I might also be skeptical of an announcement that now sound would take over because of an improvement in recording techniques.

And while I promise not to illustrate every post with a strip from the newly-discovered Peanuts archive, I just can’t resist this one from 1971, because it’s so darn relevant here:

I’ll admit, though, that I have a slight bias against 3-D because one of the things I love about movies is their kinship to painting; directors used to study their favourite painters and imitate their work on film in terms of composition and shadows and light. That’s already starting to get lost, and with 3-D the visual look of movies will be… already is, actually… kind of ugly. But again, you could say the same things about silent vs. sound. (And you’d be right: silent movies may not have been “better” than sound, but they were a unique art form, and it was sad to see them go, even though the popularity of sound made that inevitable. If 3-D takes over eventually, the loss of 2-D as a unique art form will also be sad.)

The advantages of 3-D movies, as described in the articles, have less to do with the technology and more to do with the fact that these movies are booked for high-cost, limited-run engagements. They are, in other words, a modern version of the “roadshow” movie, those big-budget ’50s and ’60s movies like Ben-Hur or The Sound of Music where studios would book movies into relatively few theatres, at high ticket prices and with an intermission, and make lots of money by making moviegoing into a high-end entertainment like live theatre. This practice died out in the late ’60s, and even at its height it depended on the prosperity of the ’50s and ’60s (charging huge ticket prices in the ’30s or ’70s would not have worked).

Anyway, here is the one cartoon that Warner Brothers made in 3-D, though it hasn’t actually been seen in genuine 3-D since 1954. (And the only thing to indicate that it was in 3-D is the opening gag with the WB shield.)

Americans are angry, increasingly armed

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 2:58 PM - 5 Comments

While the U.S. economy is crashing, gun sales are up 26 per cent in January and February compared to last year. That’s 2.5 million Americans who have bought guns in two months. Gun dealers suggest this has something to do with fears of growing social unrest as unemployment soars. Third World-like refugee camps are popping up in major American cities. Meanwhile, the FBI has carried out over a million background checks on new gun buyers. Of course, no one knows the precise reason why so many people are arming themselves, but polls show Americans are in a very foul mood these days.

Reuters

Risk homeostasis, or why big accidents make for bad law

By Andrew Potter - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 2:54 PM - 16 Comments

Inevitably, in the wake of the very sad death of Natasha Richardson, Quebec is toying with the possibility of a mandatory helmet law for all skiers; in the meantime, there are anecdotal reports about increased helmet use at Tremblant already.

There are some obvious questions to ask here about proper risk assessment, along with a legitimate debate about the balance of personal freedom and corporate liability. But I also wonder if, beyond this, a helmet law might be counterproductive.

Queen’s psych prof Gerald Wilde popularized the notion of “risk homeostasis,” the idea that everyone has his or her own fixed level of acceptable risk. When the level of risk in one part of your life goes up, you compensate in other areas by engaging in more risky behaviour. So the idea is this: downhill skiing is largely a form of thrill-seeking, with the degree of thrill determined by how much you push your risk envelope. Putting a helmet on merely expands the size of the envelope, so in order to achieve the same thrill level with a helmet on, you need to ski faster, more recklessly, on steeper pistes, and so on.

Most significantly, it seems to me that back-country skiing has killed far more people this year in Canada than routine downhilling. If a helmet law pushes a significant number of people off the safety of Tremblant and into the dangers of back-country, it might end up leading to more deaths and injuries.

I have no data at hand on this. Thoughts?

Week in Pictures: Mar. 13th – Mar. 20th, 2009

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 2:44 PM - 1 Comment

Well, this is certainly stimulating

By Paul Wells - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 2:16 PM - 24 Comments

Congressional Budget Office projects that Barack Obama’s budget understates deficits by an aggregate of $2.3 trillion over the next decade; that deficits will never fall below 4% of GDP during that time; and that the debt-to-GDP ratio is therefore on track to double, to 82% of GDP.

Trouble.

MUSIC: Manny Ax doesn't mind if you clap

By Paul Wells - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 1:55 PM - 1 Comment

The formidable pianist wonders why audiences can applaud at the opera but not between movements (or in the middle of the action) at symphonic concerts.

A future for the CBC: multi-channel, subscription-based

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 1:19 PM - 143 Comments

Last night on the CBC, we discussed … the CBC. (As, it seems, are a lot of people these days.) I got a little tongue-tied, possibly due to the effects of an unfortunate haircut, but here are the points I would have made if we’d had the time and I’d had the presence of mind…

- The CBC is caught in a perpetual dilemma: whether to be an elite service providing programs presumably too high-brow for the private networks, or a broad, inclusive service that draws the nation together around the televisual hearth. It has traditionally resolved this conflict by being neither. It has not produced consistently high-quality programming, and has seen its average audience share dwindle over the years.

- The current leadership has tilted strongly to the populist option, offering fare that is often indistinguishable from what’s on the private networks (what is Jeopardy!). While this strategy has broadened the corporation’s audience somewhat — ratings have been rising in the last couple of years, to 8.7% of prime time viewers — it has only made its existential dilemma more acute: If there was ever a case for public funding, it was to produce programming that the private networks wouldn’t.

- You could make that case in television’s technological infancy, when it was impossible to charge audiences directly for the programs they watched. Selling advertising was one solution to this problem. Public funding was the other, one that many people came to prefer as the failings of the advertising model became clear. That is, there was no way to measure the intensity of viewer preferences — how much they wanted to watch a show, not just whether they had the set tuned to it. So advertising buys, and therefore programming decisions, were biased to the median viewer, ie to the largest number of eyeballs. Instead of selling programs to viewers, television networks sold audiences to advertisers.

- This tended to produce a lot of very safe, very similar programming, all aimed at the same mass audience, and as such gave private TV a bad name — an example, it was said, of the philistinism of “the market,” viz. you and me. But in fact it’s not true of “the market.” It’s only true of TV. In most markets, there is an almost limitless variety of tastes served, from high to low, narrow to broad. You don’t have to take what the largest possible audience wants when it comes to, say, sweaters. You can buy a cheap mass-market sweater, or an expensive designer item. If your tastes are very particular, you can have one hand made.

- So the case for public funding (and, analogously, regulation) was not to supplant the market, but to create one: to replicate that diversity that exists in most other markets in the supply of television programming. That’s why it is so contradictory to have advertising on CBC TV: if there’s one thing that everybody should agree on, it’s that the Corpse has to kick the advertising habit.

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The Subject who is truly loyal etc: Galloway to Sue Harper

By Andrew Potter - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 1:14 PM - 59 Comments

UPDATE: The group bringing Galloway to Ottawa says the show will go on:

The Ottawa Peace Assembly — the city-wide coalition of groups committed to peace and human rights — affirms today that we will defy this travel ban. One way or another – whether by streaming video or in person – Canadians are going to hear what George Galloway and the peace have to say, whether the Harper government likes it or not.

*********

George Galloway isn’t too pleased with the Federal government’s decision to ban him from the country:

“We’ll be in court soon to try and overturn this,” Galloway said. “Canada remains a free country with an independent judiciary. They will have to review whether he has acted reasonably in these circumstance.”

And this:

“I’m not a supporter of terrorism,” Galloway told the Citizen from his London office on Friday.

Recession the Stampede way

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 1:06 PM - 0 Comments

What may be the most colourful economic indicator in Canada, the annual Rangeland Derby tarp auction tanked last night. What’s that, you ask? Let the Calgary Herald’s Rob Remington explain: “Thirty-six chuckwagon drivers were soliciting bids at the auction, where advertisers compete to emblazon corporate logos on their blank canvases.” The horse-drawn jalopies then compete with each other in speed and daring-do round the Stampede track in July. But last night they competed for the high prices at the tarp auction. There was, Remington notes, some disappointment but little surprise. Famed driver Kelly Sutherland took the top price with “$110,000, exactly $100,000 less than last year,” Remington reports. Overall the auction, “long a bellwether of the Calgary economy, brought in bids … totalling $1,692,000, down from $2,516,000 last year and less than half the 2004 record of $4 million.” So it’s official. “We’re in a recession,” Remington writes.

Calgary Herald

Calgary Herald

UPDATED: And the award for quickest opposition response to the Galloway ban goes to …

By kadyomalley - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 12:36 PM - 58 Comments

… the NDP:

HARPER GOVERNMENT CONTINUES TO LIMIT FREE SPEECH

Minister of Censorship Jason Kenney denies entry to British MP Galloway

OTTAWA – Canadians interested in hearing international experts deliver anti-war messages will now have to leave the country to do so. British MP George Galloway, who was schedule to talk on resisting the war in Afghanistan, was banned by Harper’s government from entering Canada.

“Harper’s Conservatives are wrong to bar MP George Galloway,” said New Democrat Immigration Critic Olivia Chow.  “The Minister of Immigration is becoming the ‘Minister of Censorship’. This bunker mentality indicates a government afraid of hearing contradictory points of view.”

Minister Kenny’s reasons for denying George Galloway entry are an affront to freedom of speech and show the Harper government is frightened of an open debate on an unpopular war. A spokesperson for the Minister said Galloway is “inadmissible” to Canada due to his opposition to the deployment of NATO troops in Afghanistan.

“By the Minister’s own twisted logic anyone who opposed the war in Afghanistan should be barred entry to Canada,” continued Chow.  “Would the Minister do the same to veteran British Conservative MP Sir Peter Tapsell, who called the war ‘unwinnable’ and once said it was ‘widely understood’ that the Taliban were ‘not international terrorists’?” (London Times, July 2, 2008)

“Canadians are able to make their own judgement on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and freedom of speech is critical in a democratic country,” said Chow.

Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has a history of banning people from Canada who do not support his views on war. In October 2007 US Peacemakers Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CodePink and retired Colonel Ann Wright were barred from speaking at a Toronto peace conference.

-30-

UPDATE: An ever so slightly more cautious, but still critical response to the news from Liberal Leader Michael Ignatief via Canadian Press here – and thanks to Commenter BCinTO for the link:

In Winnipeg, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff suggested that, on the face of it, the decision does not appear justified. But he cautioned that security officials might know something he doesn’t.

“I have never in a long life of listening to George Galloway heard a single sentence out of his mouth that I believed,” said Ignatieff. “But that’s not the issue.

“We let into Canada all kinds of people who say ridiculous and absurd things and Galloway has said his share of ridiculous and absurd things. The issue … is whether the security services know something about George Galloway that I don’t.

“If he’s being barred on free-speech grounds, that’s an outrage. He can come to Canada and talk rubbish all day long, as far as I’m concerned. If there’s a security threat, that’s another matter. I’ve heard no evidence yet that he presents a security threat.”

Why presidents should never do late-night TV

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 12:23 PM - 8 Comments

An offhand remark made by Barack Obama on the “Tonight Show” last night has the White House press team in major damage-control mode. Host Jay Leno asked the President if the White House bowling alley had been “burned and closed down” after his gutter-ball embarrassments on the campaign trail last year,  ”No, no. I have been practising. I bowled a 129,” he said to audience laughter, adding: “It’s like—- it was like Special Olympics, or something.” His spokesman Bill Burton quickly provided “clarification” to reporters flying on Air Force One after the taping. “The President made an offhand remark making fun of his own bowling that was in no way intended to disparage the Special Olympics.”  Before the show aired, Obama called Special Olympics chairman Tim Shriver to apologize and invite him and some Special Olympics competitors over to the White House for basketball or bowling. He’d better start practising.

Politico

3-D is back

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 12:18 PM - 1 Comment

Dreamworks’ new “Monsters vs. Aliens” is the first of a series of high-profile Hollywood movies in full-fledged 3-D. Moguls like Jeffrey Katzenberg predict that improved 3-D technology will revolutionize the medium and improve the movie business. But Hollywood moguls said exactly the same thing in 1953. And it turned out that most people didn’t want to pay extra for the privilege of watching movies with multi-coloured glasses on. And while the glasses are nicer now, you still have to wear them.

The Wall Street Journal

Gmail's new "undo send"

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 12:06 PM - 5 Comments

Most people have sent an email or two they later regretted—either to a boss, a friend or an ex. Gmail is now offering a safeguard: its new “Undo” feature puts a five-second hold on all outgoing mail. Although the new feature can’t withdraw mail that’s already gone out, the  hold does provide a window to withdraw messages after hitting the “Send” button, bringing users back to the “Compose” screen, Wired reports. (Doing nothing means the email will send after five seconds.) Gmail users can turn on the new feature by hitting “Settings,” and then the “Labs” tab.

Wired

Quebec embraces deficits

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 11:34 AM - 0 Comments

For the first time in a decade, the Quebec government will lurch back into the red. Yesterday’s budget projects a deficit of $3.9 billion for 2009-10 and the province’s finance minister, Monique Jérome-Forget, predicts Quebec won’t return to balanced budgets for five years. The Liberal government says the $15 billion it has committed to stimulus spending–only $242 million of which is new, according to the Parti Québécois–is necessary to mitigate the effects of a 1.2 per cent drop in economic output and an unemployment rate that’s expected to reach 8.9 per cent by the end of the year. In order to climb out of deficit, Quebec plans to hike its sales tax by one per cent beginning in 2011 and increase user fees on most government services.

The Gazette

Star power

By Doug McArthur, Takeoffeh.com - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 11:06 AM - 0 Comments

Your hotel has a 5-star rating, but you would be hard pressed to give it 3. The pool was closed evenings, the check-in clerk was surly and the last guest’s dirty socks were still in the dresser drawer.

Who assigned those stars, you wonder. The question is straightforward enough – the answer is a little murkier. If Michelin ranks a hotel a “4″, you can reasonably expect a certain level of service, but the reality is, no one body oversees all hotel ratings. In fact, it isn’t unusual for the same hotel to get 2 stars from one organization and 4 from another. Travel corporations, hotel associations, tourist boards and local governments all hand out stars. Some hotels even rate themselves – all in the name of selling rooms and scoring tourist dollars.

What’s more, each grading system looks for different things. Some are based on simple checklists of available amenities. Others involve anonymous inspectors who evaluate service. Still others, such as Canada’s package tour operators assign their own ratings to Southern sun destinations. The reason that 5 star hotel in Cuba didn’t measure up to its cousin in the Bahamas? According to Sue Cavallucci of Air Canada Vacations, it’s because ratings are based on the best-available­ facilities in each specific region.

Confused? You aren’t alone.

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Smoke 'em if you got 'em

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 10:46 AM - 0 Comments

Just to be clear: these aren’t the same Smarties sold in Canada. They are powdery candy sold in a tube-like wrapper rather than candy-covered chocolate treats in a box. According the Wall Street Journal, the kids are crushing these things up in the packaging, inhaling the ultra-fine dust and blowing it back out like puffs of smoke. As multiple YouTube videos illustrate, the effect is shockingly authentic. Some kids have perfected the art of blowing smoke rings, and blowing the dust out through their noses. The long-term effects of candy dust on the lungs and airways aren’t yet clear (so far, there have been reports of minor irritation and burning), but needless to say, parents are not pleased.

The Wall Street Journal

YouTube

Obama sends New Year’s greetings to Iran

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 10:24 AM - 0 Comments

U.S. President Barack Obama has reached out to the Iranian people and government by releasing a videotaped holiday greeting that calls for a new relationship between Iran and the United States that is “honest and grounded in mutual respect.” Obama also warned Iran that it cannot join the community of nations “through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization.” A spokesman for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad welcomed the message but said the United States must apologize for a long list of grievances dating back to 1953, and reverse its support for Israel, before reconciliation can take place. Obama’s message was timed to coincide with Nowruz, the Persian New Year.

The Washington Post

Big shots, bigger rivalry

By Colin Campbell - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 9:55 AM - 1 Comment

UPDATE: Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin, the NHLs two undisputed superstars, will meet in the second round of the playoffs this Saturday. There has been much chatter this year about the bad blood that runs between Pittsburgh’s boyish-looking captain and the flashy Russian star. They clashed and exchanged words in the regular season, fueling their rivalry, and questions among fans and analysts over who really is the greatest player in the game today. Maclean’s was at the duo’s final regular season match-up. Here’s our report on the Ovie-Sid showdown from earlier this year. 

(March 20, 2009)  It’s game day in the suddenly hockey-mad city of Washington, and the Verizon Center has been transformed into a shrine to Alexander Ovechkin. Fans wearing his red, No. 8 Capitals jerseys pour through the gates by the thousands. Inside, his gap-toothed, mop-headed likeness is everywhere, from the centre-ice video screens to the life-size cut-out in the concourse. The 23-year-old Russian superstar has helped lift his team into the third spot in the Eastern Conference and has single-handedly made hockey the sport to watch in the U.S. capital. This city can’t get enough Ovie.

But the Pittsburgh Penguins are in town on this Sunday afternoon, and there’s also a few Capitals jerseys sporting the No. 87 with “Crosby Sucks” on the back. Anti-Sidney Crosby signs are pressed against the glass and waved in the stands, from the clever (like a swimmers’ “No Diving” sign) to the crass (“Crosby is a douche”). It might surprise Canadian hockey fans who know Crosby as the sweet kid from Cole Harbour to see this kind of ardent reaction, but there’s a real rivalry here, and real animosity.

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This Is Not a Well-Thought-Out Concept For a DVD Box Set

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 9:42 AM - 4 Comments

If you thought there was fan controversy over the idea of having to buy a complete Mary Tyler Moore box set to get the last three seasons, Sony’s announcement of a “Norman Lear Collection” will cause more controversy, or at least it should, because it’s a very strange and poorly-thought-out concept for a set. It appears to be one big box set with the first seasons, and only the first seasons, of all the hit Norman Lear shows that Sony owns — All in the Family, Good Times, Maude, The Jeffersons, Sanford & Son, One Day at a Time, Mary Hartman.

All these first seasons have been released on DVD already, but more importantly, most of these shows have not been completed on DVD. (All in the Family, Lear’s best show, is still stalled at season 6.) All of the DVD releases are without extras, but this box set has a bunch of interesting new extras for each show, including interviews with Lear and the two unaired pilots of All in the Family. So if you love All in the Family but aren’t quite as big on some of these other shows, you’d have to get the box set to get AITF extras, all the while wondering where the rest of the seasons are. Even if they make these shows available separately, there’s still the weirdness of having to buy the first season again to get the extras while the later seasons aren’t available yet. And of course the first seasons are not the best seasons for most of these shows; AITF, like most great sitcoms, experimented in its first season and really hit its stride in the second season.

So this is just a strange idea for a set. The extras look really good, but this is one case where a “best-of” collection would have been a better idea; if they had included the “best” episodes from each series, including episodes that haven’t been on DVD before, that would have been more like Sony’s Larry Sanders box set (where elaborate new extras were affixed to a selection of new-to-DVD episodes). But this makes no sense.

Everybody Loves a Good Manufactured Outrage

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 9:26 AM - 13 Comments

Last night President Obama was on Jay Leno, normal enough for a candidate but unusual (if not unprecedented) for a President, and when Jay Leno mock-complimented him on his higher (but still low) bowling score, Obama said: “It’s like the special Olympics or something.”

The line was immediately picked up by commentators, was walked back by a Presidential spokesman, prompted a Presidential apology, and became a top blog issue within the hour. The internet and the 24-hour news cycle have turned word-parsing into a science, but it’s also become, in a strange way, a “scoop.” Jake Tapper, who “broke” this story on his ABC News blog, is basically obsessed with turning up mis-statements or gaffes that others have ignored; he’s ABC’s Senior Trivia Correspondent. In this case, the story may get even more play because it fits into an emerging media narrative, that Obama can’t say anything right without a teleprompter. Gaffes get more play when they fit an overall narrative.

I have to admit I’m not terribly outraged by the manufactured outrage machine in this case. Powerful political figures do need to watch what they say and choose their words carefully. It’s a different matter when someone says something that is not stupid but is then wilfully misinterpreted to mean something else, like Al Gore with his internet comments (he never said he invented the internet, but a whole media narrative was created around the idea that he did). But this is just standard-issue stuff where somebody makes a poor choice of words, it becomes a 24-hour story and is then forgotten. Besides, I suspect that politicians don’t always mind this kind of outrage, since it creates a distraction from the genuinely controversial or embarrassing things they say. So Obama probably considers himself lucky that he’s getting more outrage over that than his statement that Tim Geithner is doing an outstanding job.

Is that a ringing in my ears or just the sound of bells coming off?

By kadyomalley - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 8:30 AM - 9 Comments

After all, it’s been, a decade and a half since former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney made the fateful decision to go into business with wily Austrian German weapons dealer turned pasta salesman Karlheinz Schreiber — what’s another few days between what opposing attorneys always – and nearly always with a straight face – refer to as friends?

And so, on the agenda today: A motion filed on behalf of the former PM that would postpone the public hearings scheduled to start at the end of the month, by two weeks – until April 14 in order to give the commission sufficient time to respond to his other, more contentious motion: a request for clarification and direction on last month’s ruling on standards of conduct, which is the subject of a separate special hearing set for next week.

9:25:17 AM
I’m here! Which is not just a statement of fact today but a celebration of a hard-won triumph over adversity; the adversity in this case being my failure to notice that today’s hearing would not be taking place at the usual location of Old City Hall, but the Government Conference Centre, several very, very, very long blocks away. Cue frantic hailing of cab outside the Lester B. Pearson building.

Anyway, I made it to the *actual* hearing just in time, and am now somewhat breathlessly trying to figure out which lawyer, exactly, is currently proposing a compromise on timing.

Oh, it’s Richard Wolson, the lead counsel for the commission. He is sympathetic to Pratte’s request for delay, but notes that some witnesses wll be difficult to reschedule.

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"Conservative heavyweights squabble over what went wrong in Quebec"

By Paul Wells - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 8:12 AM - 34 Comments

Whatever it was, it was pretty bad, because by the time it was over, Christian Paradis and Leo Housakos were Conservative heavyweights.