Jim Flaherty Maverick Watch

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, September 19, 2009 at 11:20 PM - 28 Comments

Days after a report that he’s been told to zip it, the Finance Minister dares express his personal opinion on sales tax harmonization.

Harmonization of the federal GST with provincial sales taxes remains the most important thing provinces can do to improve their competitiveness, says Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

“It’s good longterm economic policy for the people of Canada,” Flaherty said in Brampton, Ont., on Friday at the launch of the city’s new rapid transit bus service called Zum.

No prize for making Parliament work

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, September 19, 2009 at 12:26 PM - 104 Comments

Michael Ignatieff talks to the Star.

Ignatieff said he was immediately struck by the political irony – there were the Harper Conservatives, lashing out at the New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois, on the eve of needing their support in yesterday’s confidence vote in the Commons.

And the Liberal leader realized, once again, that this is what happens to parties who support the Conservatives in this fragile minority Parliament.

“While you’re propping the government up, they’re running ads saying, `He’s just in it for himself.’ How stupid do they think I am?” Ignatieff said in an interview with the Star yesterday, immediately after the Liberals, for the first time in nearly four years, voted against the government in a confidence vote.

Top 10 Best Moments at TIFF

By Tom Henheffer - Saturday, September 19, 2009 at 12:46 AM - 0 Comments

Click here for the Top 10 Worst Moments at TIFF

Mulroney goes where Harper will not

By macleans.ca - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 3:20 PM - 3 Comments

“Fifty years from today, Americans will revere the name, ‘Obama’.” A stirring endorsement of the U.S President and his crusade for health care reform – coming not from our current Prime Minister, but from a former one: Brian Mulroney. At a gathering of 1,500 Conservative supporters in Montreal, Mulroney praised Barack Obama for “fighting for a form of universal healthcare” amidst “ferocious resistance.” The remarks were made to a cheering crowd of conservatives, whose own chosen leader, Stephen Harper, has remained conspicuously quiet on the American health care debate. Notably, at this summer’s Three Amigos summit in Mexico – attended by Canada, the U.S, and Mexico – Harper was asked at a news conference whether the U.S should try emulating aspects of Canadian healthcare, such as universal coverage. But the PM’s response – that it was a matter for Americans to decide and that Canadian health care is a provincial, not a federal matter – skirted around the question. The relationship between the two politicians has been strained since Harper demanded a public inquiry into Mulroney’s interactions with German lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber and then instructed staff to sever ties with the former PM.

CBC News

Photo Gallery: Conservatives celebrate the 25th anniversary of Mulroney’s sweep to power

Péquiste with a Canadian soul

By Martin Patriquin - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 3:00 PM - 14 Comments

René Lévesque an “extraordinary Canadian”? Even the suggestion will make many in this country, not to mention legions of purs et durs Quebecers, cringe. Yet throughout his political career—and, indeed, even in his attempts to make Quebec a sovereign state—Lévesque demonstrated what are considered bedrock Canadian values: honesty, centrism, a commitment to democracy and non-violence. With groundbreaking transparency and anti-corruption legislation, Lévesque’s Parti Québécois effectively put an end to a political environment long dominated by graft, favouritism and barely concealed fraud; it has since been mimicked, to varying degrees, in several other provinces and at the federal level. Bill 101, the PQ’s landmark language law that Lévesque’s government ushered into existence in 1977, met with near-unanimous condemnation across the country. Today, language tensions exist largely in the minds of the fringes on both sides, and the wide-scale acceptance of Quebec’s French fact has shown, perversely, how Quebec can assert its will within Canada’s borders.

Lévesque the human being was much like Lévesque the politician: flawed, endearing, hopelessly romantic. He consumed everything—liquor, tobacco, women—with abandon; political strategy was more likely hashed out over all-night games of five-card stud than behind the walls of the National Assembly. Quebecers, even his political enemies, admired him as much for his canny political sense as his distinct lack of pretense. In an excerpt from René Lévesque—in this week’s Maclean’s—Daniel Poliquin, a leading Canadian francophone author, traces the origin of Quebec’s love affair with this frumpy little man with red eyes who trailed smoke and a hangover wherever he went.

To read an excerpt from Extraordinary Canadians: René Lévesque by Daniel Poliquin, click here.

Hey, Hill denizens! Got a few minutes to spare this afternoon?

By kadyomalley - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 2:27 PM - 22 Comments

If so, you should totally pop out for a few minutes and do the jellybean test. It’s for science — and democracy! When ITQ crossed paths with them earlier this afternoon, the pair of budding political sociologists were camped out by the Flame, but they may have relocated since then. Keep your eyes peeled for a girl carrying a big jar of jellybeans.

Canadian democracy is broken

By Andrew Coyne and Paul Wells - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 2:00 PM - 80 Comments

On Sept. 23, Maclean’s will present a round table discussion on the subject “Our Democracy Is Broken: How Do We Fix It?” at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts in Toronto, to be broadcast live nationwide on CPAC, the public affairs channel. Guests will include former NDP leader Ed Broadbent, former prime minister’s chief of staff Eddie Goldenberg, and author John Ralston Saul. Maclean’s columnists Andrew Coyne and Paul Wells will host the evening.

To get things started, this week they discuss what’s wrong with Canadian democracy.

Andrew Coyne: Paul, the title of our little show in Toronto on the 23rd is “Our Democracy is Broken.” This might strike some as provocative, even over the top. Surely “Is Our Democracy Broken?” would have been more, um, Canadian? Continue…

Up in Doug Fisher country

By John Geddes - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 1:17 PM - 7 Comments

Back in the 1972 federal election campaign, Robert Stanfield flew to Red Lake, Ont., to give a stump speech. With all due respect to the memory of the late Tory leader, he made absolutely no impression on me as an 11-year-old.

But after his rally at the Polish Hall, my parents let me go next door to a tiny, cluttered variety store to look through the stack of LPs for sale there. The store had a pay phone, and a giant of a man was using it to dictate a story about Stanfield’s speech in a commanding voice to some faraway news desk. And he most certainly was impressive.
Continue…

Parliament Hill is lovely this time of year

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 12:57 PM - 70 Comments

Helena Guergis and some of her colleagues go for a casual late summer stroll around the Hill.

To the world beyond our borders

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 12:43 PM - 12 Comments

Shauna Sylvester reflects on Michael Ignatieff’s speech in Ottawa this week.

Some might argue that a speech at the Canadian Club does not a platform make, and they may be right. But when was the last time we heard a national political party leader use a major speech to address global issues? Even during the worst global economic recession in decades, all speeches were domestically focused.

I know that every Poli Sci 101 course says that “elections are always won on domestic issues,” but I’m not convinced – if no global issues are raised, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. What I have noticed, is that fewer Canadians are going to the polling stations, especially younger Canadians. While the reasons for this are complex, I think every political party should be looking at how they can speak to more Canadians. Given that Canadians are focused more globally than their government, perhaps it’s time for federal political parties to wake up and see the world.

Top 10 Worst Moments at TIFF

By Tom Henheffer - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 12:27 PM - 5 Comments

Click here for Top 10 Best Moments at TIFF

To the extreme

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 12:24 PM - 9 Comments

Brian Topp, in conversation with Douglas Bell, considers what declining voter turnout means for our politics.

Steadily lower turnout … encourages extremism in political parties, since the key to victory becomes turning out motivated partisans instead of moderate-minded folks. In many parts of North America (rural ridings, the southern United States) this hands politics to angry, elderly white men of the sort who turned up in town halls to yell about ‘death panels’ all across the U.S. this summer. The antidote is more civility where the tone of national politics are set — on the floor of the House of Commons. But all the forces converging there (internal and external, politic and substantive) pull it apart, rather than knitting it together.

Hopefully his sense of humour remains intact

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 12:15 PM - 13 Comments

Courtesy of the Sun’s Elizabeth Thompson, video of Jack Layton’s poignant performance at the press gallery dinner in 2005.

Opening Weekend: Shape shifting with Megan Fox and Matt Damon

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 11:54 AM - 3 Comments

Jennifer's Body

Jennifer’s Body: Written by Diablo Cody (Juno), and starring Megan Fox as —who acts like Angelina Jolie in her Billy Bob Thornton phase—Jennifer’s Body throws a feminist kink into the old blonde/brunette, saint/slut high-school horror movie formula. Evil arrives in the form of an indie rock band called Low Shoulder, which comes to the town of Kettle Falls and commits a cult murder to achieve stardom. Fox is, well, a fox, and teenage boys all over North America will be trying to sneak in under the film’s R rating to drool over her. The sex is strictly soft-core (no nudity, boys). But there’s a long, lingering lesbian kiss, framed in profile as extreme-close-up, between Fox and co-star Amanda Seyfried. And while Fox devours her flesh-eating role with great gusto, Seyfried’s performance is the film’s revelation. She plays the good-girl heroine opposite Fox’s carnal cannibal. But in a modern twist on the formula, this sweet blond is far from virginal. She knows her way around a condom, and may even be having more sex than the bad girl. Seyfried also stars in Atom Egoyan’s Chloe, where she gives a dynamite performance in a shape-shifting role as a hooker that allows her to demonstrate remarkable range. Continue…

Out of the frying pan

By macleans.ca - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 11:46 AM - 8 Comments

Canadian’s won’t be going to the polls just yet. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government will remain in power thanks to the passing of a crucial financial ways-and-means motion in the House of Commons. As promised, the Liberals voted against the motion, but both the Bloc Québécois and the NDP supported it, temporarily preventing a fall election.

CBC News

Halifax cops nab suspected "sleepwatcher"

By macleans.ca - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 11:39 AM - 0 Comments

As fetishes go, it seemed more scary than harmful. But women in Halifax can sleep easier after police made an arrest in the case of a man who’d been sneaking into bedrooms, watching female occupants while they slept before quietly leaving. The man had pulled the routine with at least 14 women, police say, and while there have been no instances of sexual assault, the man was said to have brushed one woman’s leg before she woke up and scared him off. So the police weren’t taking any chances, and were on high alert when a 20-year-old woman reported a man in her bedroom at 4:19 a.m. today. She provided a description, and not long afterward, they captured a man a few blocks away. No word on when they might lay charges.

The Chronicle Herald

Hey, big spender

By macleans.ca - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 11:34 AM - 0 Comments

The Russian oil tycoon Roman Abramovich is a billionaire, and he’s not afraid to spend his riches. He recently shelled out $90 million for a house in St. Bart’s, one of the most expensive private home sales of all time. He’s in the process of building a house in London that could be worth $200 million. Construction of his 540 ft., $300 million yacht is almost complete. Abramovich started his career as an oil trader in the early 1990s and rose to become the owner of one of Russia’s largest oil companies, OAO Sibneft. A Kremlin insider, he also became governor of a remote Russian province (where he spent some of his fortune on philanthropic projects). In 2003, he bought London’s Chelsea Football Club and he owns the Chateau de la Crose on the French Riviera (the former home of the Duke of Windsor). He has also spread his fortune around the art world, spending over $30 million for a nude portrait by Lucian Freud (the most expensive work sold by a living artist). That, however, paled in comparison to the $86 million he spent on a painting by Francis Bacon, which depicts a man being eaten by birds.

Wall Street Journal

Attention NDP: In case y'all didn't catch the end of Jim Flaherty's scrum …

By kadyomalley - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 11:33 AM - 32 Comments

From today’s Globe and Mail:

NDP MP Joe Comartin, whose Windsor, Ont., area riding includes many unemployed auto workers, said the government’s bill – and the NDP’s support – will be short lived unless the government agrees to NDP amendments.

“Unfortunately for communities like mine, the auto sector generally as well as forestry are going to be pretty extensively, if not completely excluded from being able to access the extended benefits under this bill,” he said.

Mr. Comartin said the bill applies only to people who first applied for EI in 2009, leaving out those who lost their jobs at the start of the recession.

Peggy Nash, the president of the NDP who also works for the Canadian Auto Workers, agreed the bill must be changed.

“Is it enough? Absolutely not,” she said in an interview.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s response, when asked whether the government would be open to amending the bill earlier today:

“We don’t plan to amend the bill.”

Over to you, NDP.

And things were going so well

By macleans.ca - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 11:32 AM - 0 Comments

Los Angeles’ notorious gang wars aren’t what they used to be—homicides have fallen to about a third of their late 1980s’ peak. But the city’s 66 gangs coexist in uneasy peace. And it doesn’t take much for violence to flare. In this case, a crass remark at a party has set off a chain of events that resulted in the death of a 13-year-old boy.

LA Times

Iranian reformers rally in Tehran

By macleans.ca - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 11:30 AM - 0 Comments

For the first time since riots broke out in Tehran in the wake of Iran’s disputed presidential election, pro- and anti-government forces clashed in the Iranian capital early Friday at an annual anti-Israel rally. Thousands of supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated reformist presidential candidate, amassed in northern and central Tehran for “Qods (Jerusalem) Day” where they were met with police who reportedly used tear gas to disperse them. Some were also reportedly beaten and arrested by Iranian security forces. Mousavi, along with cleric Mehdi Karoubi and former president Mohammad Khatami, briefly joined the rally, but were forced to flee after being attacked by supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Reuters

Which cruise is right for you? Part 4: River & Specialty Cruising

By Bruce Parkinson, Takeoffeh.com - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 11:26 AM - 2 Comments

Overview
While still much smaller than ocean cruising in terms of passengers carried, river cruising and other specialty cruise options are among the travel industry’s fastest-growing and highest-profile sectors. There are river cruises offered all over the world, on a diverse array of vessels including steamboats, barges and Chinese junks. Mainstream river cruise ships are long, lean wonders, carrying far fewer passengers than ocean-going cruise ships.

The newest models floating down the rivers of Europe, China and Egypt offer spacious staterooms, expanded facilities and often balconies offering ever-changing views as the banks slide by. River cruise ships can often dock downtown in riverside cities, so guests can easily explore on foot or ship-supplied bicycle. River cruising is generally sold on a more inclusive basis than mainstream ocean cruising, with most shore excursions included in the fare, and often wine with meals.

Specialty cruising covers a broad range of smaller-ship cruise choices from casual Caribbean sailing to adventures from the Arctic to the Antarctic, the Galapagos islands to the Great Lakes. The ships you’ll sail on are almost as interesting as the destinations, from tall sailing ships to converted icebreakers. We’ll look at a few examples to give you an idea of the wonderful experiences available –you can take it from there. Continue…

Double the kids, double the money

By macleans.ca - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 11:25 AM - 10 Comments

An Ottawa couple with twin girls has convinced the government that both mom and dad deserve full parental leave. In a groundbreaking decision, Christian Martin and Paula Critchley successfully argued that each should be able to claim full Employment Insurance benefits for one of the children, born in April. The department originally denied the claim, but it was overturned by the Employment Insurance Board of Referees. “I believe this issue to be one of fairness,” Martin said. “It is not about multiple birth parents getting more benefits than parents of single births, but rather to get the equivalent treatment since there are more babies to care for. Caring for two or more babies at once brings a lot of joy, but it is also very difficult, as I am sure most people can appreciate.” It is unclear whether the decision must be followed in all cases of multiple births.

CBC.ca

The Mulroney lovefest

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 10:11 AM - 20 Comments

Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of his sweep to power that resulted in two back-to-back majority governments. The Ballroom at the Sheraton Hotel was packed with past and present Tories. Click each image to enlarge.

Unhealthy men die 10 years sooner

By John Intini - Friday, September 18, 2009 at 10:02 AM - 1 Comment

According to a new UK study, middle-aged smokers with high blood pressure and cholesterol levels are at risk of dying 10 years before healthier peers. The study looked at over 19,000 civil servants aged 40 to 69, the BBC reports, and followed them over 38 years. It found that men with those risk factors could expect a life that’s 10 years shorter after 50 years of age. The study, which began in 1967, checked participants’ height, weight, blood pressure, lung function, cholesterol and blood glucose levels. It also gave them a questionnaire about medical history, smoking habits, employment and marital status. About 42 per cent of the men were smokers, 39 per cent had high blood pressure and 51 per cent had high cholesterol. By 2005, 13,501 had died. “We’ve shown that men at age 50 who smoke, have high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels can expect to survive to 74 years of age, while those who have none of these risk factors can expect to live until 83,” said Robert Clarke, who led the study.”If you stop smoking or take measures to deal with high blood pressure or body weight, it will translate into increased life expectancy. ”

BBC