Meaningful healthcare reforms are closer than ever

By John Parisella - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 7:03 PM - 15 Comments

The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Montana Senator Max Baucus, a Blue Dog or conservative Democrat, recently voted 14 to nine in favour of a healthcare bill that got the support of only one Republican Senator, Olympia Snowe of Maine. Barack Obama praised the efforts of the Baucus committee, though he indicated that there was still much work ahead, especially if he is to sign a bill before the holiday season. There are now five bills out of committee. Working from these, each House of Congress will produce one of their own that will end up either in a conference (resulting in a compromise bill worked out between the two Houses) or in reconciliation (resulting in a bill considered without the possibility of a filibuster even if it adds to the deficit). Either way, it seems likely Obama will have a health care bill to sign within his first year in office.

The bill which just passed the Finance Committee is noteworthy because it is the only one without a public option and the only one the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office expects will reduce costs over a 10 year period. The bill is also expected to feature near-universal coverage, with every American mandated to have health insurance, as well as eliminate some unsavoury practices by private insurers with respect to pre-existing conditions and other arbitrary insurance industry policies.

Continue…

A pipe dream

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 6:12 PM - 11 Comments

The Wall Street Journal‘s Keith Johnson, writing on the newspaper’s Environmental Capital blog, takes a brief, devastating look at carbon capture and storage, touted by the International Energy Agency as a method of cutting “the global bill for curbing greenhouse-gas emissions by 70 per cent.” That’s the good news, says Johnson. The bad? “Whatever changes are made to the regulatory and fiscal environment, they won’t change physics—carbon capture will still be inefficient and require more, not less, energy consumption.” The IEA’s just-released “roadmap” to putting carbon capture and storage into play internationally “throws trillion-dollar figures around with such abandon, it’s hard to measure the true cost.” Consider just one of the technology’s challenges: moving the carbon from source to underground destination. “The IEA figures 360,000 kilometers of pipeline should do the trick,” writes Johnson. “That’s nine trips around the earth. Somebody better lock up steel futures, if that’s the case.” The plan is also premised on getting 85 projects up and running every year until around 2050. Johnson doesn’t mention it, but Alberta’s Energy Minister Mel Knight is attending the CCS summit in London, along with federal Minister Lisa Raitt. Indeed, Canada (and Alberta and Saskatchewan specifically) is ground zero for the new technology, whatever its true costs. Just today, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach together announced the construction of one of the world’s first fully-integrated carbon capture and storage projects at a coal-fired power plant outside Edmonton. The two governments have committed $779 million over the next 15 years to the project–just a drop in the global bucket.

Wall Street Journal

Tories in hot water over novelty cheques

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 5:03 PM - 25 Comments

Oversized novelty cheques in hand, Conservative MPs have come to love bragging about the stimulus money they’re spreading around Canada. But while the funds are from the federal government, you might have a hard time knowing as much based on the attendant photo ops. Take Gerald Keddy, for example. Last month the Conservative MP from Nova Scotia was pictured handing over a $300,000 cheque with a Conservative party logo on it to officials in Chester, N.S. for upgrades to the local rink. When asked why a government cheque didn’t come with a government logo, Keddy was quick to pass the buck, saying “I didn’t order it, it wasn’t me. I’m not sure how that happened.” NDP MP Peter Stoffer, for one, is eager to that out, saying he plans to pursue the matter with the federal ethics commissioner. “I think they’ve broken every rule in the book in this regard,” Stoffer says.

Cape Breton Post

'Porky Pig is better suited to manage this economy'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 5:01 PM - 31 Comments

Rick Mercer’s rant this week.

Keeping them honest

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 4:19 PM - 47 Comments

Does this make the Chronicle-Herald the first media outlet to do its own check of how the government has allocated its stimulus spending?

Nova Scotians in Conservative ridings should be feeling a little action in their economic plan by now, because an analysis of federal stimulus spending in the province shows blue ridings are awash in pork.

In fact, more money — $162 million — is being spent in those three Tory ridings than in Nova Scotia’s other eight ridings put together. Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s riding of Central Nova is the big winner, with $87.7 million in stimulus money, 13 times as much as the $6.6 million being spent in Dartmouth, held by a Liberal. In fact, Mr. MacKay’s riding received more money than all five Liberal ridings in the province combined.

Cowichan Tribes considering suing the Hudson’s Bay Company

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 4:01 PM - 7 Comments

Incensed that the Hudson’s Bay Company is using a “knock-off” Cowichan sweater in its new line of Olympic clothing, the Cowichan Tribes are considering legal action, reports the Victoria Times Colonist. Last week it was revealed that The Bay chose not to use Cowichan knitters to produce 700 to 750 of the traditional sweaters, opting instead for a more expensive version produced by knitters in Eastern Canada. Band manager Ernie Elliott says his people want an apology for the missed opportunity to showcase the sweaters and takes issue with The Bay’s claim that the Cowichan Tribes didn’t have the resources to complete the order. “We knew it was going to be difficult but we sure wanted to give it a whirl,” he said, adding that they would have enlisted relatives up and down Vancouver Island. “Some of these ladies knit 24 hours a day when they’ve got orders,” he said. Chief Lydia Hwitsum calls The Bay’s version “a knock-off” that “disrespects the fact our sweater is a unique piece of art recognized around the world and is a registered exclusive trademark of the Cowichan people.”

Times Colonist

Paikin v. Martin

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 3:32 PM - 6 Comments

The former prime minister sits down with Steve Paikin to discuss the G20, the global economy and Africa.

Who's always got time for Tim Hortons?

By kadyomalley - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 3:03 PM - 42 Comments

Jim Flaherty’s staff, that’s who!

According to lobby communications logs (and yes, ITQ wishes there was a slightly less clunky way to refer to it, but there just isn’t), earlier this week, Flaherty’s chief of staff Derek Vanstone and policy advisor Sophia Arvanitis met with a lobbyist for the Tim Hortons Advertising and Promotion Fund to discuss, of all things, the Ontario HST — something that federal Conservatives have been increasingly loath to laud, given the simmering disgruntlement that it has provoked on the part of their provincial PC cousins.

(Presumably, the subject didn’t come up when the prime minister dropped by Tim Hortons headquarters earlier this month to take credit for luring the company back to Canada with the promise of rock-bottom corporate tax rates.)

This being Ottawa, the coincidences don’t stop there, though:  the lobbyist in question is Tom Trbovich, once the chief of staff to Brian Mulroney’s finance minister, Michael Wilson, who brought in the GST in the first place, and who was a senior advisor to Mulroney himself when the tax was first proposed in 1989. He left before it became law, but at least he can provide tea and sympathy to the current minister should the prime minister go ahead with what the NDP’s Nathan Cullen keeps insisting is his secret plan to induce an election by bringing in legislation to formalize the HST deal with British Columbia before the end of the year. (Seriously, does that make any sense to anyone at all? Because from the perspective of the government — or, really, any party other than the NDP, ITQ can’t think of a worse way to go down.)

Sorry, went off on a wee bit of a tangent there. Anyway — look! Donuts! Lobbyists! The HST! Share and enjoy!

UPDATE – This isn’t really an update, but an admission: ITQ has tried to get over it, but she can’t — it really, really unsettles her that there is no apostrophe in Tim Hortons. (For the record, Red Squiggle doesn’t seem terribly impressed with it either.)

Recession? What recession?

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 2:40 PM - 1 Comment

Happy days are here again, at least in the U.S financial sector where major banks and brokerages “are on pace to pay their employees about $140 billion this year—a record high that shows compensation is rebounding despite regulatory scrutiny of Wall Street’s pay culture,” the Wall Street Journal reports. The paper analyzed securities filings for the first half of 2009 and revenue estimates through year-end to deduce that workers at 23 top investment banks, hedge funds, asset managers and stock and commodities exchanges can expect to earn even more than they did the peak year of 2007. Morgan Stanley, for example, is on pace to pay out about $16 billion for 2009, up 33 per cent from last year, despite a projected 6 per cent decline in revenue. The heady compensation growth can be attributed to “Wall Street firms’ rapid return to pre-crisis revenue levels” as well as “growing confidence by some Wall Street firms that they can again pay top dollar for top talent, especially once they have repaid the taxpayer-funded capital infusions they received at the height of the crisis,” the WSJ reports. Financial companies contacted didn’t refute the results, but said it was too early to speculate.

The Wall Street Journal

'Practically naked in their straightforward sincerity'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 2:30 PM - 6 Comments

Chart notes one of the more curious inclusions on the Harper family iPod mix—Rural Alberta Advantage. Here’s how Pitchfork summed up the band’s debut record last summer.

Given his reedy tones and preoccupation with the past, it would be easy to compare RAA to Neutral Milk Hotel (the death-haunted lyrics of horn-studded “Luciana” make it the track most easily confused for a lost Jeff Mangum opus). But with more intensely vigorous drumming, more obviously personal lyrics, and a more blatant interest in glossy electro-pop, Edenloff’s band carves out their own niche. It is one that masterfully blends the masculine and the feminine, the refined and the coarse, the dark and the bright.

Not all eyes are on the Prizes

By Noah Richler - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 2:20 PM - 0 Comments

Gil Adamson’s The Outlander, Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road, Steven Galloway’s The Cellist of Sarajevo, Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes, Guy Vanderhaeghe’s The Last Crossing, Alistair MacLeod’s No Great Mischief, Yann Martel’s Life of Pi—and, this year, Michael Crummey’s Galore. What a fabulous Giller list, a litany of some of the best (and bestselling) Canadian novels of the last several years—but not one of them shortlisted for the prize! Drat.

Instead we must debate these five—Kim Echlin’s The Disappeared, Annabel Lyon’s The Golden Mean, Linden MacIntyre’s The Bishop’s Man, Colin McAdam’s Fall, and Anne Michaels’s The Winter Vault—and, if you’re into the game of it, whose choices they might be. Linden MacIntyre? An Alistair MacLeod pick, surely. Anne Michaels? Victoria Glendinning, chair of the Booker bunch that gave Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient half the prize, must have backed her floating prose, no? And Kim Echlin’s Cambodian romp—well, isn’t Russell Banks a fan of the Caribbean and other steamy, politically charged places? And who, tell me, is the one who cares for McAdam’s libidinous and truncated teen dialogue? Continue…

Fleury to file complaint against James

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 2:14 PM - 0 Comments

Theoron Fleury is looking into launching a criminal complaint against Graham James, the former junior hockey coach he alleges sexually abused him for years. The accusations come on the heels of the launch of Fleury’s autobiography, in which the former star player claims the alcohol and drug use that marred his rocky NHL career were triggered by the abuse. “But when I decided to write this book,” Fleury said on Wednesday, “I knew that if that [proceeding with legal action] was part of it, then it’s part of it. I’m ready for it. I’m strong enough now to handle it.” James has already been convicted of molesting two other young hockey players, including Fleury’s friend Sheldon Kennedy, and spent three years in prison.

National Post

So, anyone have any bright ideas?

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 2:05 PM - 4 Comments

What better place to think deep thoughts than Montreal in the dead of winter? The Toronto Star reports that the Liberal Party will hold hold its long-awaited (by some) “policy-renewal gathering” early next year. The plan? To kickstart languishing party morale—not to mention those flagging poll numbers—with a Kingston-style ideas conference. So, what does that actually mean? Not even the Star seems to know for sure; the agenda is still very much up in the air, although MPs have apparently received a questionnaire from Ottawa MP Mauril Belanger, which asks them to suggest possible topics and speakers. The confab is slated to take place from January 14th to 16th, barring a sudden election.

Toronto Star

Chris Bosh: "Cyber-hero"

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 2:03 PM - 3 Comments

All-star hoopster Chris Bosh has just won a very different kind of court battle: a lawsuit over who owns the Internet domain that bears his name. A few years ago, the face of the Toronto Raptors tried to set up a site at chrisbosh.com, only to discover that someone else had already registered the name. It turned out that the owner, Luis Zavala, had also claimed the rights to hundreds of other celebrity domain names, including Carmelo Anthony, Rashard Lewis, and even the son of pop singer Britney Spears (prestonmichaelfederline.com). Bosh sued Zavala, claiming a violation of his rights under a U.S. statute known as the Federal Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. A federal court in California has since ruled in Bosh’s favour, awarding him $120,000 in damages—and the rights to all 800 celebrity domain names. This morning, Bosh announced that he will return the websites, free of charge, to their rightful owners. “From my perspective, Chris is a cyber-hero,” says his Chicago lawyer, Brian Heidelberger.

CBS News

Family planning progress

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 2:02 PM - 2 Comments

Contraceptive use is up worldwide, and with that has come a decline in abortions and unintended pregnancies, according to a report by the New York-based Guttmacher Institute. Between 1995 and 2003, the number of abortions performed worldwide fell from 45.5 million to 41.6 million. The global rate of abortions fell as well: from 35 abortions for every 1,000 women of reproductive age (15-44) in 1995, to 29 per 1,000 women in 2003. The decline corresponds with a growth in contraceptive use worldwide. The proportion of married women practising contraception rose from 54 per cent in 1990 to 63 per cent in 2003, Guttmacher reports. Unmarried, sexually active women are also more likely to be using contraception. The report found that the incidence of abortion does not correlate to its legal status. Legal or not, abortions take place at roughly equal rates. Illegal abortions, however, entail significant safety issues—especially in developing countries.

The Christian Science Monitor

Obama’s new pastor?

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 2:01 PM - 0 Comments

One hundred kilometres from Washington’s prying eyes, Barack Obama has been attending church from time to time at Camp David, where services are led by a 39-year-old Navy chaplain with a famous last name, a compelling life story and a fervent belief in a God who works miracles. Carey Cash, the great-nephew of singer Johnny Cash and the younger brother of a former Miss America, sees the hand of God in every part of his journey: from the football fields where he once aspired to the NFL to the medical facilities where he learned he’d never play again; from the battered Humvee where he came under fire on the streets of Baghdad to the tiny chapel where he preaches to the country’s commander in chief in the Western Maryland mountains. Although Cash was assigned to Camp David by the Navy, the president really likes the guy. Cash, Obama told religion reporters this summer, “delivers as powerful a sermon as I’ve heard in a while. I really think he’s excellent.” But the imposing 6-foot-4 Southern Baptist chaplain is not, officially, the president’s pastor. Obama says the Jeremiah Wright controversy is part of the reason he and his wife have been hesitant to pick a permanent church in Washington. And unlike Wright’s megachurch in Chicago, Camp David’s tiny Evergreen Chapel is off limits to the public and the media.

The Washington Post

John A. was here. At some point.

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 1:59 PM - 0 Comments

The Star’s Matthew Hart reports from Glasgow on efforts to save, or at least commemorate, John A. Macdonald’s birthplace.

Part of the problem with remembering Macdonald in Glasgow is deciding where to do it. It is not certain that he was born in Brunswick Lane. Records show his father worked there, at two addresses, and families often lived in rooms attached to the breadwinner’s business.

In a black-and-white documentary shot in a crowded pub in Brunswick Lane 40 years ago, Saskatchewan’s Hugh Gainsford, who claims to be Macdonald’s only living descendant, says his great-grandfather was born on the top floor. A commemorative tablet put up by the Ontario government on a church wall two blocks away asserts that Macdonald was born in the local parish.

But some believe Macdonald was born on the other side of the River Clyde, where the birth was registered. An early Macdonald biography also puts the birthplace there, “in a row of stone tenement houses near the ferry landing,” an area razed long ago. Wherever he was born, the only address in Glasgow incontestably connected to him is the shabby street now waiting for the wrecker.

Will we ever know what happened in Afghanistan? (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 1:19 PM - 4 Comments

Richard Colvin’s affidavit is unsealed.

A former Canadian diplomat warned the federal government in May 2006 of “serious” and “alarming” problems with the handling of Afghan prisoners in Kandahar. Richard Colvin, now deputy head of intelligence at the Canadian embassy in Washington, filed several reports throughout his roughly 18 months in Afghanistan…

The Conservative government repeatedly said in the spring of 2007 that it had received no credible reports of prisoner abuse. But Colvin said he warned the deputy commander of the provincial reconstruction base after he became aware of problems upon arriving in Kandahar in April 2006.

Michael Jackson's kids to appear in reality show

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 1:15 PM - 2 Comments

What could be healthier for a child’s development than having Michael Jackson for a father? Having TV cameras come into your home and make a series out of your grief. There’s some controversy in the Jackson family about A&E’s upcoming series about them and how they’re adjusting to the death of the pop superstar, specifically, the decision to include Jackson’s three children in the series. Jackson’s oldest sister Rebbie, who didn’t agree to appear on the show, said that “Michael would spin in his grave if he knew his kids would be on this show.” For their part, the creators of “The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty” says that the whole Jackson family has “done a great job opening up about losing a brother.” So why shouldn’t the kids get as much chance as the siblings to be exploited on national television?

Us Magazine

Polanski finishing latest film in jail

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 1:12 PM - 0 Comments

Roman Polanski may be in a Swiss jail cell for that thing he did, but at least he’s not idle. Robert Harris, who wrote Polanski’s upcoming film The Ghost, says that Polanski is spending his prison time making decisions about the editing and post-production of the film so that it’ll be ready in time for its February premiere. Harris says that while Polanski isn’t allowed to make phone calls, he can still “make his wishes known from his cell.” Harris, who is good friends with Polanski and thinks he “was left with little choice but to flee,” doesn’t say whether this is the optimal way to edit a movie. As for whether Polanski’s troubles will have a bad effect on the film’s reception, Harris isn’t sure, but he thinks that the premiere of The Ghost at the Berlin Film Festival will be an interesting test case: “We will test to the upper limits the notion that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

The Times

Alberta Tories in free fall

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 1:11 PM - 6 Comments

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach will appear on television Wednesday night to outline exactly how his Progressive Conservative government will deal with the province’s ballooning deficit and an unwieldy healthcare revamp. It better be good. According to a telephone poll conducted by Calgary consulting firm Return on Insight, Tory support is down to 30 per cent, a hefty drop from the 54 per cent approval rating they enjoyed not long after Stelmach captured the leadership race in late 2006. Worse, almost six out of 10 respondents disapprove of how the premier has steered Alberta over the past year, with a similar number adding that their opinion of the party has diminished over the same period. Numbers like that suggest Stelmach’s unpopularity is seeping into the bones of the venerable PC party, which has been in power since 1971. There’s more, too: the poll also shows the Wildrose Alliance Party nipping at the Conservatives’ heels with 22 per cent support, even though the upstart party has yet to elect a leader and boasts only one MLA.

Calgary Herald

Heavens, how did that get there? (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 12:55 PM - 24 Comments

Upon further review, Gerald Keddy notices the Conservative logo on that giant novelty cheque and apologizes.

On the other hand, as Rosemary Barton notes, Conservative MP Larry Miller seems to have his own brand of giant novelty cheques.

The truth about Canwest’s collapse

By Steve Maich - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 12:40 PM - 1 Comment

There are certain archetypical characters that come up again and again as we rush to scribble out the first draft of history. In business, the roles are particularly well-worn: the iconoclastic entrepreneur, the maverick gambler, the sage manager, the disruptive outsider, the establishment man, and, of course, the dilettante heir. We organize these characters into familiar storylines—the heroic rise, the humiliating fall, the tragic miscalculation—again and again, not just to elevate the mundane details of commerce into dramatic narratives, but because these storylines serve a purpose. People are good or bad, smart or stupid, and everything makes sense.

We never tire of these familiar fables because they impose a tidy order on the chaotic events of life. They reinforce certain ideas that make the world seem less arbitrary, less random, and less frightening. Triumphs are always the result of human genius, and failures are generally flaws of character written in our DNA. Everybody deserves their fate. Continue…

Jaycee Dugard speaks

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 12:16 PM - 0 Comments

Jaycee Dugard, the alleged victim of an 18-year kidnapping, has spoken out publicly for the first time since her August rescue. “I’m so happy to be back with my family,” Dugard told People magazine. “Nothing is more important than the unconditional love and support I have from them.” In 1991, when Dugard was just 11-years-old, she was abducted from her bus stop in South Lake Tahoe. This summer, police uncovered a secret compound belonging to Phillip Garrido and his wife Nancy, where Dugard was allegedly held captive for 18 years‹along with her two daughters, likely fathered by Garrido during that time. People’s online edition also shows the first photo of Dugard as she is now. Dugard and her daughters are now “living in seclusion” with Jaycee’s mother and sister in northern California, where Jaycee spends time riding horses and cooking. She is reportedly thinking about collaborating on a book.

BBC News