Joseph Pierre Adélard Lambert 1939-2009

By Martin Patriquin - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 12:20 PM - 0 Comments

Joseph Pierre Adélard Lambert was born in Joliette, Que., on Nov. 21, 1939, to Antonio Lambert, a tailor, and Yvonne Poirier, a secretary. Known as Pierre, he worked throughout his high school years, at one point as the projectionist at Cinéma Venus, Joliette’s movie theatre. He liked movies but liked being busy even more. Struck by the young man’s work ethic, Roger Cloutier, who ran the local farmer’s co-op, taught him the rudiments of running a business. Soon, Pierre was the co-op’s accountant.

He met Lise Lasalle at a baseball game in 1961. Baseball enthralled Pierre, but he noticed Lise’s green eyes, brown hair and (soon enough) her remarkable calm in the face of his bluster; they married in September 1962 and had three children together: Martine, François and Bruno.

Pierre left the co-op in 1975 and opened his own accounting firm. He was also president of the local chapter of Quebec’s construction association. This, his children joke, was a matter of convenience; their father could hardly hammer a nail into the wall. (He also owned a gas station, yet could barely pump his own gas.) His obsession was politics, and Pierre was a partisan among partisans whose red glasses, ties and shirts advertised his allegiance to the Liberal brand. “If you dressed a pig in red my dad probably would have voted for him,” Martine says.

He became an organizer for both the provincial and federal Liberals. His leanings made him a rare bird in Joliette, long represented federally by the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois afterwards. It was also the home riding of long-time Péquiste minister Guy Chevrette; Pierre spent years trying to find a Liberal who could unseat him,always in vain. During the 1980 referendum he worked for the No campaign, enlisting Martine to pass out buttons at her high school. He was so ecstatic at the victory that he let his daughter smoke in front of him at the after-party. (He came to regret this; Martine smokes to this day.) His own political ambitions were dampened by Lise, who was unwilling to lose her husband to Ottawa or Quebec City for a large part of the year. The stress, she said, would kill them both. Being a municipal councillor was an honourable compromise: Lise would keep her sanity, while Pierre could still keep the long-standing tradition of watching the Montreal Expos with his kids. He won a council seat in Notre-Dame-Des-Plaines, a neighbouring village to Joliette where the family lived, by acclamation in 1987. In 1992 he easily defeated his first opponent; he would only be challenged once more in his political career.

No one was ever indifferent to Pierre. Those who weren’t put off by his federalist sympathies (or his Fred Flintstone appearance and intensity) were often touched by his uncommon tenderness. He gave Alexandre Cantin, who lived in an apartment block Pierre owned and in whom Pierre saw a Lambert-like propensity to stay busy, his first job. He then helped him find work in Joliette once he graduated. “You are the most important person in my life,” Alexandre would later write.

Lise succumbed to breast cancer in 2004, and Pierre lost his life’s anchor and council. He stopped eating at home, often favouring caisses-croûte (snack bars)—or worse—for his meals. “My father was the only person I knew who could eat breakfast at a dépanneur,” says his son François. In Joliette, he often held court at La Belle Excuse, the local restaurant, whose owner would call him whenever chopped veal liver was on the menu. He guzzled Coke and drove around in his Cadillac with Shaggy, his 110-lb. Bouvier, happy but unhealthy. In 2007 he suffered an acute diabetic attack (a normal blood sugar level after a meal is between five and eight; when doctors tested Pierre’s it was at 57). He promised his kids he’d lay off the Jos. Louis cakes and try sugarless Coke.

Earlier this year, Pierre learned that Jean-Guy Forget, a former police officer, would run against him in the November elections. It was a tight race—voters were unhappy with the pace and quality of road work in town—and Pierre campaigned with even more intensity than usual. His knees hurt, he was tired all the time and, as he found out on the night of the election, the results were very close. At 10:25, François called Pierre and found him to be a nervous wreck. Minutes later, though, the good news: Pierre had won by 20 votes. Overjoyed, he drove to the community centre, where he thanked his well-wishers and volunteers. To the assembled journalists he acknowledged the close vote and said he would work for all constituents. He then suffered a heart attack and collapsed. No one could revive the freshly re-elected member for Notre-Dame-Des-Plaines. He was 69.

'Who's that in the back row?'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 12:13 PM - 9 Comments

This Hour Has 22 Minutes just yesterday uploaded to YouTube its skits from this season. Which is as good an excuse as any to post this.

There’s no way out of Nunavik

By Rachel Mendleson - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 12:00 PM - 8 Comments

For the 12,000 residents of Nunavik, the Inuit region that spans the northern third of Quebec, getting out of town is a major undertaking. With no roads linking the 500,000-sq.-km territory to the rest of the province, a trip south requires a plane ride, which can cost upward of $2,000. But that could change: Quebec is considering extending the provincial road network to several Nunavik communities—a move that would “have a drastic impact socially,” says Raymond Mickpegak, mayor of Kuujjuaraapik, an Inuit village on Hudson’s Bay. “It will open North America to us.”

According to Transports Québec official Denis Blais, the province began seriously exploring building a road last May, at the behest of community leaders in Whapmagoostui, the Cree village that abuts Kuujjuaraapik. If it goes ahead, Blais says the project, which would bridge the 250-km gap to the twin Inuit-Cree communities, could cost up to $300 million. But Nunavik residents remain skeptical: “It’s over 15 years that I’m living here,” says Claude Depars, bar manager at the Auberge Qilalugak Resto-Pub in Whapmagoostui, “and it’s over 15 years that I’ve heard about the road coming soon.”

While many in the region are excited about the prospect of more affordable travel and a lower cost of living—food and supplies, which must be shipped by barge or plane, are marked up accordingly—there is concern about drugs and alcohol. “I know it’s in the community already,” says Mickpegak, “but with a road, the door’s going to be wide open.” If the plan goes ahead, he says checkpoints should be put in place to “control what’s coming in.”

For the foreseeable future, however, cars and trucks won’t be travelling in or out of Nunavik: a pre-feasibility study is slated to wrap up in 2010, but according to Blais, even if the proposal goes forward, it will be at least four years before construction can begin.

Since when?

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 11:55 AM - 11 Comments

Helena Guergis, responding yesterday to a question from Liberal Lise Zarac about Conservative Maurice Vellacott’s recent musings on abortion.

Mr. Speaker, I note for the member that all members of Parliament in the House are required to have their opinion.

The ‘Fiscal Four’ fight the deficit

By Nicholas Köhler - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 11:50 AM - 7 Comments

Four young right-wing Tory MLAs in Alberta have banded together to form what local media have dubbed the “Fiscal Four”—an all-for-one, one-for-all political unit dedicated to keeping the Alberta Tories on a tight fiscal leash.

Comprised of veteran MLA Doug Griffiths, from rural Alberta, and Calgary rookies Jonathan Denis, Rob Anderson, and Kyle Fawcett, the quartet wants a legislated fiscal framework that would reverse Alberta’s current deficit position by curbing spending, dictating a provincial savings plan and introducing a more competitive tax policy. They also want less red tape and more program reviews.

Alberta’s Tories have seen such groupings pop up in caucus before: Premier Ed Stelmach is himself a veteran of the Deep Six, which in the 1990s lobbied for deeper, faster cuts under Ralph Klein. But this cohort arrives at a delicate time for the Tories—the party has dipped to a 16-year low in the polls, due largely to a $6.9-billion deficit, and a recent poll showed the fiscally hard-nosed Wildrose Alliance outpacing the Tories in Calgary. Earlier this month, Stelmach survived a leadership review vote in which one in four delegates cast ballots in favour of tossing him.
So some see in the four a prelude to the balkanization of the Tories. Fawcett, for one, made headlines in September after criticizing Stelmach in the wake of an embarrassing Tory by-election loss. “We both agreed we need to do our jobs better,” he says. All claim they support Stelmach and reject talk they’ll soon join the Wildrose. Others see the four as a clever PR gambit by the premier’s office to safely trial-balloon policy.

Pollster Janet Brown, whose seat projection modelling is notoriously accurate, notes three of the four (those in Calgary) would have risked losing their seats had an election been held in late October. “They’ve come to the conclusion the party needs to make a hard turn to the right to win back the support they’ve lost to Wildrose,” she says. Which begs the question: are these musketeers really just into self-preservation?

Iraq on my mind

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 11:47 AM - 7 Comments

Christoher Meyer, the U.K.’s former ambassador to the U.S., has testified at a British inquiry into the Iraq war that Condoleezza Rice phoned him on 9/11 looking for a connection between the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and Saddam Hussein. Rice knew al-Qaeda was responsible, Meyer said, but was hoping that Iraq was also involved. He also testified that then-Prime Minister Tony Blair initially wanted to focus on Afghanistan, but minds had changed by the time Blair met George W. Bush at Bush’s ranch in 2002. Many war critics believe Blair pledged Britain’s support for the war at that meeting, a full year before Parliament approved any involvement.

CBC News

Vancouver police buy 'sonic gun'

By Jen Cutts - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 11:40 AM - 1 Comment

(Update: The Vancouver Police Department announced on Nov. 17 that it would disable the LRAD’s tone-emitting feature. A press release reassured the public that if Vancouver police “ever decided in the future to explore alternative uses for the device, the VPD would develop appropriate policy and training.” The BCCLA has responded by saying, “They’ve made the right call by taking this use-of-force option off the shelf.”)

Is it a sonic weapon? Or a super-powered megaphone? Either way, a B.C. human rights group says the Vancouver Police Department’s recent purchase of a long-range acoustical device (LRAD) in advance of the 2010 Olympics is an outrage.

The LRAD 500 is a portable device about the size of a searchlight that, according to its maker, American Technology Corp., can carry a voice a distance of 300 m in a crowd. More alarming, it can emit a beam of sound that reaches 146 decibels at one metre away. That’s like standing near a jet engine at takeoff, says Maha Atrach, an audiologist with the Canadian Hearing Society, and would cause pain and could lead to hearing loss. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association fears that what it is calling a “sonic gun” will be aimed at protesters during February’s Games.

Vancouver police say they bought the LRAD to “communicate more effectively in open-air conditions,” but spokesman Const. Lindsey Houghton acknowledges its sound-blasting function could be used “if it means keeping the public safe.” Police in Pittsburgh used a similar device to control protesters during September’s G20 meeting.

The BCCLA is comparing the LRAD to police use of Tasers, recently at the centre of a costly inquiry into the 2007 death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver’s airport. “Are we not doing things backwards again, by introducing a weapon to the streets first and then discussing policy and safety later?” asks executive director David Eby. American Technology Corp. insists their product is not a weapon, but can support police in dispersing protesters and potentially prevent the use of force. The company recently announced orders from the U.S. Army Reserves of over US$2.75 million.

A tyrant on trial

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 11:37 AM - 8 Comments

It can be lonely writing about and covering wars and humans rights atrocities in Africa. Nobody really cares – at least not as much as they might had the victims been from almost anywhere else on the planet.

Consider the coverage afforded to the civil wars in Liberia and in the former Yugoslavia. They happened at around the same time. More died in Liberia. How many reading this even know that Liberia was consumed by a horrific, anarchic conflict for much of the 1990s?

It was, and so was next door Sierra Leone. Charles Taylor – first a warlord and then president of Liberia – is now on trial in The Hague for his role in the latter conflict. He’s on the stand now. The Special Court for Sierra Leone is posting daily transcripts. They’re worth reading.

Good luck with that

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 11:17 AM - 3 Comments

Notwithstanding Canada’s well-publicized plan to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2011—and despite the clearly expressed reluctance of France and Germany to involve themselves further—the Obama administration will ask NATO allies in the coming days to commit another 10,000 troops to the war, according to the New York Times. Good luck with that. Even if Afghanistan weren’t a political millstone for most of these governments (it is), concerns about corruption in Hamid Karzai’s government have leaders in NATO countries wondering exactly what sort of regime their soldiers are dying for. In Canada, renewed controversy about the handling of detainees back in 2006 may stoke opposition to an extension of the country’s commitment. For better or worse, the Americans may soon find rebuilding this chronically broken country a very lonely job.

New York Times

Night-vision telescope promises new discoveries

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 11:10 AM - 0 Comments

Never-before-seen objects could soon be uncovered as NASA unveils a new telescope that will map the entire sky in infrared. NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), which was brought to the launch pad last week, is expected to find everything from cool, failed stars in nearby space to far more intense, 10-billion-year-old starburst galaxies. It will also be able to pinpoint asteroids and comets, distinguishing them from further stars, and should find about 100,000 new asteroids in the belt between Mars and Jupiter, as well as hundreds more that come close to Earth. WISE will also be able to see dark objects, now almost impossible to find with ground-based telescopes, since they radiate heat the telescope will pick up.

New Scientist

Where will he land?

By Michael Friscolanti - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 11:00 AM - 6 Comments

The exact timeline is still sketchy, but at some point in the coming weeks, a blindfolded Omar Khadr will be escorted out of his jail cell, shackled at the wrists and ankles, and carried onto a military cargo plane. Though he won’t have the pleasure of witnessing it with his own eyes, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba—Khadr’s prison for the past seven years, beginning at the tender age of 16—will disappear into the distance within a matter of minutes.

Where he will land is still a mystery. The White House announced last week that the 23-year-old is slated to face a military commission—somewhere on U.S. soil—for his alleged war crimes, including the murder of an American soldier in Afghanistan. Yet in the very same breath, Barack Obama’s attorney general left open the possibility that Khadr, a Canadian citizen, could be transferred to his home country before a trial ever begins. Fuelling such speculation is a separate hearing in front of the Supreme Court of Canada, which must decide, once and for all, whether Stephen Harper should be forced to at least ask the Americans to repatriate Khadr. The legal arguments are complex, but at the heart of the case is a growing sense that if the Prime Minister simply asked for his release, Washington would happily oblige.

In other words, that plane leaving Gitmo could fly straight to Canada.

It’s not quite that simple, of course. The Supreme Court may not issue a ruling until the new year, and even if it does order Harper to bite his lip and lobby for Khadr, there is no guarantee the Americans will hand him over carte blanche. But for a boy (now man) who has grown up inside Gitmo’s barbed wire, the end has never felt so close. Which means the biggest question of all—the one Harper is fighting in court to avoid—must now be answered: if Omar does return to Canada, what exactly do we do with him?

“I’m not going to argue that he hasn’t served enough time, but I might argue that he’s still a threat,” says Layne Morris, a retired U.S. army sergeant who lost his right eye in the 2002 firefight that ended with Khadr’s capture. “It comes down to security. Are we confident we can let this guy go and he’s not going to try to cut people’s throats next week? That’s the overwhelming question.”

There is no easy answer. To many, Khadr is still the loyal son of a senior al-Qaeda operative, a Toronto-born teenager who lived with Osama bin Laden and allegedly tossed a grenade that killed Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, a decorated Special Forces medic. To others, he is an innocent child soldier thrust into battle by his radical dad and tortured, over and over, until he confessed to a crime he didn’t commit. It’s no wonder the feds would rather let someone else (i.e., the Americans) figure out which label fits best.

If he is flown back to Canada, Khadr could—at least theoretically—face a bevy of criminal charges, including high treason (“waging war” against an army allied with Canada) and participation in a terrorist organization (al-Qaeda). But would a jury ever convict someone who was shot by U.S. troops at age 15, shipped to the world’s most notorious prison at 16, and who was clearly under the spell of his fundamentalist father? Even with a guilty verdict, it’s hard to imagine his young age would warrant a sentence other than time served.

The other option—allowing Khadr to reunite with his extremist family, where he is sure to become a folk hero for wannabe jihadists—is equally unattractive. His sister once wished she had “the guts” to be a suicide bomber, his eldest brother is an accused al-Qaeda gunrunner, and another brother is paralyzed from the waist down after being shot by Pakistani troops in the same clash that killed their father. The Cleavers they are not.

“Omar has been branded by the family,” says Dennis Edney, that family’s long-time lawyer. “When you talk about the Khadr brand, there is no distinction. But I have talked to Omar about not going back to his family, and Omar understands that and has agreed to that—and his family has agreed to that.” (Members of the family did not respond to emails from Maclean’s.)

Earlier this year, Edney released a so-called “reintegration plan” for his client that includes religious and psychological counselling, supervision by law enforcement officials, and a home-schooling program delivered by King’s University College in Edmonton. “I would take him home with me, in Alberta,” Edney says. “He’s just a kid who wants to be a doctor and who wants to just get on with his life. I’ve never met a more peaceful guy.”

It’s a difficult description to swallow; fellow Canadians have seen the infamous video of a young Omar smiling as he wires together land mines destined for the feet of coalition soldiers. Stephen Xenakis, a U.S. psychiatrist who has treated Khadr over the past year, has his own opinions about whether his patient is still a threat to society. And although he would prefer to save those opinions for a possible day in court, he does offer this much: “He is a really kind, decent, thoughtful, sensitive young man, and he cares about people. It’s really important to appreciate that he does not have any vindictiveness in his nature at all. There is not a hard edge to him at all, and there is no sense of vengeance.”

What Khadr wants, Xenakis says, is “fair justice.” Speer’s widow and two young children crave the very same thing.

Maxine Jones "didn't know"

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 10:52 AM - 2 Comments

The wife of disgraced Montreal financier Earl Jones recently gave her side of the story to lawyers overseeing the bankruptcy proceedings of Jones’ company. In short: she didn’t know much, even as hundreds of thousands of dollars flowed through her bank account every year. Ms. Jones, who recently filed for divorce from her husband, said ‘I don’t know’ 45 times in response to questions from bankruptcy lawyer Neil Stein.

Montreal Gazette

Mitchel Raphael on who’s new at 24 sussex and why MP hall parties have been banned

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 10:50 AM - 3 Comments

The death of Transport Minister John Baird’s cat Thatcher caused international headlines when a “Thatcher’s dead” electronic message had Stephen Harper’s officials calling London to confirm whether Margaret Thatcher had in fact died. They discovered the former British PM was very much alive. The source of the confusion, Thatcher the cat, was a gift to Baird from four friends when he was a staffer in the Mulroney government. “She saw me through the defeat in ’93, then through four successful runs [provincially and federally],” says Baird. Thatcher even appeared on CTV News and Canada AM. No word yet if the transport minister will get another cat. Laureen Harper, who often fosters kittens at 24 Sussex, says Baird “needs time to grieve. Who knows how long that will take? But one day he will wake up and want a new four-footed companion. Until that time we have to wait.”

New pets, meanwhile, have moved in to the homes of party leaders. Rachel Harper got a new Russian dwarf hamster named Jasper. The latest 24 Sussex resident is “not too bright,” according to Laureen Harper, “but he loves Cheerios with peanut butter in the middle.” Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and his wife, Zsuzsanna Zsohar, got two kittens a while back and NDP Leader Jack Layton and his MP wife, Olivia Chow, recently welcomed two cockatoos into their Toronto home. The birds are yet to be named. Green Leader Elizabeth May says that when she moved to her new riding in Sidney, B.C., “I adopted a spider for a while. I called her Charlotte.” May’s dog Spunky went to university in Halifax with her daughter. Her cat Rosie moved with her to Sidney. Only one party leader has no pets, and never will. According to an official in Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe’s office, “Mr. Duceppe has many allergies, so he can’t have any pets.”

WHERE WAS THE HALL MONITOR?
NDP MP Peter Stoffer wanted to have a hall party to help increase the huge collection of hats and pins in his office. So huge is the collection that when he was asked to move offices a while back the officials took one look at the walls and told him to stay put. Hall parties are a tradition on the Hill. MPs often have them when a few decide to open their offices for a get-together and need the space for spillover. Unfortunately, at a recent bash an overenthusiastic partygoer threw up in the hall. Stoffer says he was told by Kevin Vickers, sergeant-at-arms of the House of Commons, that because of that incident there would be no more hall parties.

CRIME, JUSTICE and some CANNED TOMATOES
Neil Murphy, 22, has a front-row family seat when it comes to politics. He was recently on the Hill to visit his two MP uncles. Brian Murphy, a Liberal MP from New Brunswick, is Neil’s father’s brother. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson is his mother’s brother. Back in New Brunswick, Neil is doing a stint in Brian Murphy’s constituency office dealing with issues like crime concerns and other things constituents get upset about, like the person who came into the office demanding the health minister be called over a purchase of expired  canned tomatoes. Neil suggested the constituent speak to the supermarket first.

Iggy and the airport train
One of Michael Ignatieff’s favourite things to do in Vancouver is to take the SkyTrain’s new Canada Line, which carries people from the airport to downtown. He has done it twice now and promises he’ll always take it when he comes to town, even if he becomes prime minister. The RCMP may have something to say about that.

'The deliberate cover-up of unwanted truths is more the norm than the exception'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 10:25 AM - 33 Comments

Writing in the Ottawa Citizen, Nipa Banerjee, a former CIDA official described as the head of aid in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2006, explains what she’s been told about torture in Afghanistan and details her particularly experiences.

It seems to me the deliberate cover-up of unwanted truths is more the norm than the exception, especially on the Afghanistan file because of its high public profile. Hiding bad news from the media and the public are the standard operating procedures. What examples do we set while we demand eradication of corruption in Afghanistan? The track record is not pretty…

In 2005-’06, a fraud charge surrounding a CIDA-financed program (approximately $4 million) was brought to my attention by employees of the Canadian NGO charged with implementing it. At this time, against my strongest recommendations and a negative external evaluation, CIDA was considering a second grant to this politically valued NGO, so I was told. Upon receipt of my e-mail alerting CIDA headquarters about the alleged fraud, a superior instructed me to not write any more e-mails on the subject, specifically so as to not leave any written trail that might have to be made available to the Canadian public under the Access to Information Act. My attempts to probe the results of any audit on the NGO met with similar stern warnings. This NGO soon announced bankruptcy.

Am I the only one who’s seeing this?

By Scott Feschuk - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 10:10 AM - 38 Comments

Their economy is in decline, their military is bogged down in two wars and their Jon & Kate have split up, but Americans remain undisputed world leaders in one pursuit: the creation of conspiracy theories.

A building can’t be blown up, a prominent figure can’t be gunned down and a Marisa Tomei can’t be awarded an Oscar without a mistrustful minority of Americans blaming the shadowy hand of sinister forces beyond their sight and comprehension. The shootings at Fort Hood are just the latest example. Within hours, the attack was being described online as a Republican conspiracy to undermine opposition to the Iraq war, an Islamic conspiracy to undermine the Republicans or a CIA conspiracy to . . . well, that CIA is up to something.

Forget baseball and crystal meth: our neighbour’s real national pastime is paranoia. It’s as American as Mom, apple pie and childhood obesity. The assassination of JFK? A secret plot to install a New World Order. Efforts to fight climate change? A secret plot created by the New World Order. Discontinuing the McRib? You’ve gone too far, New World Order!

These skeptics have a number of things going for them. First, they have their moniker—conspiracy theorist. It makes them sound smart, and confers more credibility than, say, friendless shut-in. Second, they have the Internet. It’s hard to believe there was a time when the default domain of the conspiracy theorist was a blank sheet of foolscap crying out for cramped handwriting and spelling mistakes. Today, all that’s needed to disseminate one’s theory that the “moon landing” was filmed on Shelley Winters’ backside is an Internet connection and a knowledge of CAPS LOCK. (Because nothing makes you seem more rational than TYPING LIKE THIS.)

IN THE MIND OF THE CONSPI—oops, sorry . . . In the mind of the conspiracy theorist, every government decree is suspicious. Every “fact” is likely to be proven phony. Every newspaper headline is the handiwork of the cigarette-smoking man from The X-Files. In the writing of the conspiracy theorist, there is no such thing as a lone gunman, a benevolent Jew or punctuation.

This is not to say that all such theories are hogwash. There is, for instance, abundant evidence to support my belief that having Kathy Bates appear naked in About Schmidt was a vast Hollywood conspiracy to turn me gay. And everyone who’s anyone knows that Oprah is an amphibian shape-shifter.

The root of the appeal of these theories isn’t the conspiracy itself—it’s what the conspiracy means. It’s weirdly reassuring to believe the planet is secretly run by Jews, seven-foot-tall lizard people or—to push all limits of believability—seven-foot-tall Jews. Think about it: if dark, menacing influences are behind our every failing and calamity, we’re not to blame for screwing the world up. It was all the fault of the lizard Jews!

But you want to be careful when picking a conspiracy theory to probe, support and ADVOCATE ONLINE. Some are too underwhelming to warrant the kind of hysteria you’re going to want to express. Take the “birthers.” They believe Barack Obama was born in Kenya and is ineligible to serve as president. Alas, it’s hard to get people interested in a “conspiracy” that was allegedly masterminded by someone with 50 cents and access to a photocopier at Office Depot.

Other theories have disreputable connections. Consider the 9/11 “truthers.” They contend the 2001 terrorist attacks were the work of rogue elements in the Bush administration, or possibly rogue elements in the intelligence community, or maybe rogue Jews, or most likely all these people sitting together in an underground lair stroking their cats. The 9/11 conspiracy is big and exciting and it would be an excellent theory to get behind were it not for the fact its most prominent advocate is—and I am not making this up—Charlie Sheen.

Sheen is a hero among truthers. He has spoken about his belief that the twin towers were brought down by “controlled demolition.” (He has also spoken about his belief that his latest wife is “smokin’ hot,” a theory that is not in question.) The actor has even sponsored a contest offering a $14,000 prize for the video that best makes the case for a new investigation of the events of Sept. 11. And hey, if that video somehow manages to include a three-way with hookers, he’ll investigate that too, bro.

While the U.S. advances its dominance in manufactured conspiracies, Canada continues to lag. We can’t afford to fall further behind in paranoia productivity. First step: we need to develop an alternate history of some our country’s seminal moments. The failure at Dieppe? Aliens. The failure of the Meech Lake accord? Really boring aliens. That time when Kim Campbell was prime minister for 20 minutes? It was all the doing of a seven-foot-tall, Jewish Charlie Sheen.

And this column? This column never happened.

Econowatch

By Peter Kelly - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 10:00 AM - 2 Comments

Remember “decoupling”? The idea that turmoil in the U.S. wouldn’t affect the rest of the world? In the history of overused recession-era catchphrases, it came just before “Worst since the Great Depression” and “green shoots,” but after “Don’t worry, everything’s fine, now go back to your shopping.” Yet after the latest data from Canada’s red-hot real estate sector, one might wonder if the idea is alive and well—as in “Have homebuyers decoupled from reality?”
Even as American policy-makers still grapple with who to blame for the massive housing bubble and crash in that country, the debate in Canada is back to how much higher house prices can go. As was widely reported this week, the Canadian Real Estate Association said home resales jumped nearly 42 per cent in October from the year before. Meanwhile, the average national house price climbed 20.7 per cent. That’s the biggest jump since 1989, and it caps one of the meekest housing corrections in Canadian history.

Not surprisingly, the news has left many people flummoxed and hollering “bubble.” Don’t homebuyers know there’s a recession going on outside their new cramped condos? Unemployment continues to rise, and far from improving, the Canadian economy shrank another 0.1 per cent in August. Doug Porter, the chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, perhaps captured the contradiction best when he noted the only other segment of the economy to thrive as well as housing over the last six months has been bankruptcy lawyers.

Yet homebuyers are only doing what should be expected. Mortgage rates are at record lows, thanks largely to the decision by the Bank of Canada to slash its key lending rate to 0.25 per cent and hold it there until the second half of next year. Some lenders are offering variable-rate mortgages for as low as 2.55 per cent, with the average five-year closed mortgage rate offered at 5.4 per cent.

The dangers are obvious. Once rates rise, even slightly, homeowners could see their monthly payments skyrocket when it comes time to refinance. Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney knows this. He’s already warned homebuyers not to take on more mortgage debt than they can afford. Yet by keeping rates so low, that’s exactly what the central bank is encouraging Canadians to do.

So don’t be surprised if the bank breaks its commitment to keep rates low well ahead of schedule. It may be the only way to recouple the housing market with reality.

The Good News

Trading up
Despite fears about the soaring loonie, Canada posted a 3.5 per cent rise in exports in September, the third time in four months there has been an increase. Statistics Canada said gains in automotive, machinery and industrial goods were partially offset by weak energy exports.

Off the dole
The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell by 12,000 during the first week of November, the lowest level since early January. The figures from the U.S. Labor Department have raised hopes that the tide of job losses may finally be turning.

Trucking along
Canadians aren’t shying away from big ticket purchases such as cars and trucks. Statistics Canada said sales of new vehicles rose 1.2 per cent in September. That’s still less than last year, but nevertheless continues a positive trend under way since early January.

New bonds
The wave of U.S. corporate bankruptcies may have finally peaked as companies are increasingly successful in refinancing debt. Some US$123 billion in new bonds have been issued this year by firms with junk status, more than double what was issued last year.

The Bad News

Growing trade gap
The U.S. trade deficit grew to its widest point since January. Exports rose by US$3.7 billion in September, but demand for imported goods such as oil and automobiles increased as well. That’s unlike Canada, where exports grew but import levels remained essentially flat, and threatens to slow down any U.S. economic recovery.

Output down
U.S. industrial production, including output from mines, factories and utilities, rose by just 0.1 per cent in October, which was less than had been forecast. The Federal Reserve said manufacturing production fell for the first time in four months. Meanwhile, the automotive sector, which had been bolstered earlier this year by the cash-for-clunkers program, posted a decline in October following its biggest three-month surge since the 1970s.

Savings slump
The number of Canadians who managed to sock away retirement savings last year dropped 1.8 per cent, according to Statistics Canada. In fact, only two provinces—Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador—recorded gains in the number of people who made contributions to registered retirement savings plans. While New Brunswick also posted a decline in the number of people who saved, there was some positive news. Those who did contribute put in nearly 11 per cent more than a year earlier.

Same-sex couples fight to adopt

By Katie Engelhart - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 9:50 AM - 7 Comments

When the French lesbian known to the public as “Emmanuelle B.” first applied to adopt a child in 1998, she was rejected; the adoption board cited the “lack of a paternal figure in [B.’s] household.” That explanation spurred a legal standoff that pitted French courts against gay rights advocates, who saw the rejection as a statement about their ability—or, more accurately, inability—to be parents. Last week, 11 years after the case began—and one year after the European Court of Human Rights condemned France for sexual discrimination—a French court overruled the 1998 verdict, conceding that it could not “legally justify the decision to reject [B.’s] request.”

B.’s supporters say the case is a flagrant example of high-level prejudice, because, since 1966, France has explicitly allowed unmarried individuals to adopt. And given that the now-48-year-old B. is a nursery school teacher, it would be hard to claim she is an unqualified caregiver. So last week’s reversal is being celebrated as a landmark. “This groundbreaking ruling means governments can’t use sexual orientation to stop someone from adopting a child,” charged Scott Long, director of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights division program at Human Rights Watch. L’Est Republicain, a French newspaper, dubbed the decision “the end of hypocrisy.”

For others, the victory is tainted. If B. does apply to adopt again, she will still have to designate herself as a single parent, despite the fact that she is in a 20-year relationship. That’s because French law still bars same-sex couples from adopting. And that view does not look poised to change: “The government and president have on several occasions expressed our position,” said spokesman Luc Chatal, “which is that we are not in favour of the adoption of children by same-sex couples.”

Translation: one gay mother is okay, but not two.

Long-legged, and looking for friends

By Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 9:40 AM - 2 Comments

Just a decade ago, the giraffes of West Africa, famous for their large orange-brown spots and skinny white legs, were on the verge of extinction. From Senegal to Chad, the breed had been over-hunted, and displaced by human populations and advancing deserts during the last century. In 1996 it was estimated that a mere 50 still roamed the continent.

Yet despite predictions that they could vanish for good, the giraffes have made a remarkable comeback: in just 13 years, it is estimated that the population has quadrupled in size. Credit for the turnaround is being attributed to government intervention, conservationists and locals, who are working together to protect the towering creatures while also striving to live harmoniously with them.

Once, the giraffes were hunted and poached for their skin, meat and even hair, but now many countries prohibit such practices and are handing out severe punishments to anyone who breaks the law. Killing a giraffe in Niger, for example, can result in a five-year prison sentence, with fines of more than 100 times the yearly income of a farmer. That represents a dramatic shift in mentality, considering that in 2004 the country’s president, Mamadou Tandja, requested that a pair of giraffes be captured and given to Togo’s long-standing dictator, Gnassingbé Eyadéma, as a gift. Giraffe meat, a delicacy cooked on giant skewers, has also been taken off the menu in restaurants that are frequented by tourists to reduce the potential of poachers trying to turn a profit.

Those who live near giraffes are also being convinced that it’s worth their while to help out. The Association to Safeguard the Giraffes of Niger is handing out loans to villagers living around the western town of Koure, who allow guides to bring visitors through the area to look at the animals. The revenue from the tours also goes toward building wells and planting trees so the giraffes can continue to prosper. In the wild, giraffes have no natural predators. With the human predators neutralized, there is reason to believe the population could swell to even greater numbers.

Playing spy games

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 2 Comments

During the later stages of the Cold War, East German and other Soviet bloc spies developed a “fragmented and selective, but also very accurate” knowledge of Canadian intelligence services, according to two researchers who have mined the voluminous archives of the East German secret service, the Stasi. In an unpublished paper, Thomas Wegener Friis of the University of Southern Denmark and Helmut Müller-Enbergs, who works in the Stasi archives, say that East German spies also viewed Canada as an “operational spearhead”—meaning that while Canada was a valuable espionage target on its own, it was especially useful to Soviet bloc spies as a gateway to funnel agents into the United States.

Placing such an agent was a massive operation, for which the Stasi would budget 15 years or longer. The first step would involve settling an agent in Canada. In the early days of the Cold War, it might have been possible to construct an entirely new Canadian identity for such a spy, but as Canada’s ability to trace and spot false documents improved, it was more likely that a Soviet bloc agent would adopt the identity of a real Canadian who was living in Europe, often because he had fallen in love and moved in with a European woman. If the real Canadian was in East Germany, known as the German Democratic Republic, his travel rights, phone and mail could be cut off so he could not blow the agent’s cover by resurfacing in Canada. “The agent’s goal would then be to move to the United States and marry an American. Now he has real papers,” Müller-Enbergs said in an interview with Maclean’s. “His job would then be to infiltrate the military and political sphere.”

Before an agent could be given his new identity and smuggled into Canada, however, the Stasi needed to be sure he could pass himself off as a Canadian. One option was for the agent to play the role of a West German immigrant, who could not have been expected to know the ins and outs of Canadian society. But this was a well-known ruse and often raised suspicions in Canada. Instead, the East German Ministry for State Security sent agents to Canada to act as scouts by gathering what was dubbed “regime materials,” or information about everyday life in Canada.
Agent “Siegfried,” for example, filed 69 reports between 1981 and 1989 about everything from renting a house to collecting unemployment insurance. These details would form part of a potential agent’s training before he was dispatched to Canada. “The person would have to act exactly like a Canadian,” says Müller-Enbergs. “He would have to know the language and even the dialect. He would need to know what was taught in Canadian schools. That’s why an agent’s education was so complex.”

Much of the Stasi’s information on Canada didn’t come from its agents or informers in the country. In fact, the espionage unit within the East German Embassy in Ottawa was still in its start-up phase when the Soviet empire began to disintegrate. But the espionage unit within the German Democratic Republic’s Ministry for State Security received hundreds of reports on Canada from partner intelligence agencies, such as those of the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Poland.

The German Democratic Republic also penetrated Canadian political and military circles through its agents in West Germany. As a member of NATO, Canada shared a lot of sensitive material with its West German ally, whose government was infiltrated by East German spies. An agent known by the codenames “Katja” and “Gerald” worked in West Germany’s foreign office and filed some 37 reports on Canada during the 1970s and ’80s, including what positions Canada took at NATO summit meetings, what the Chinese foreign minister spoke about during a visit to Canada, and how the Canadian government viewed Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Canadian intelligence agencies, including the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, were a predictable focus of East German espionage efforts. While there is no evidence that its agents were able to penetrate CSIS, which was created in 1984, the German Democratic Republic learned much about Canada’s intelligence agencies through an agent in West Germany and from allied Soviet and Polish spies. This information included the names of suspected Canadian agents as well as reports on the “internal workings” of CSIS.

The Stasi archives stretch some 180 km, and there is much more within them waiting to be exposed for the first time. Knowing where to look is a challenge. Friis and Müller-Enbergs are particularly anxious to get their hands on index cards with numerical codes that reveal the identities of East German agents and informers in Canada. These ended up in the hands of the CIA and, Friis and Müller-Enbergs presume, CSIS. With these codes, the researchers would know where to dig in the Stasi archives to discover the full extent of East German espionage in Canada. There could be a much bigger picture to be revealed. Müller-Enbergs says that his entire world, “in the morning, in the day, and in the evening,” is consumed by spies. And he’s only uncovered a fraction of the story.

What should have been known and when?

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 20 Comments

Gen. Michel Gauthier made reference Wednesday afternoon to the Globe and Mail’s reporting in April 2007 as to when he first became aware of allegations of torture. Without the transcript of his comments it’s unclear—from my memory and what’s being reported elsewhere—how precisely he qualified that statement, whether he was referring to specific allegations of general torture, specific allegations related to detainees transferred by Canadian Forces, or something else entirely.

In terms of third-party sourcing—and in lieu, so far, of Mr. Colvin’s full reporting—there are at least three general reports that precede the Globe’s investigation. On March 3, 2006 UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, a Canadian, reported that complaints of “arbitrary arrest, illegal detention and torture” were common in the Afghan justice system. The U.S. State Department’s 2005 report on Afghanistan appears to have been published on March 8, 2006. It states that “credible observers reported that local authorities in Herat, Helmand, and other locations routinely tortured and abused detainees.” And on June 2, 2006, a Canadian Press story was sent out on the wires that cited a spokesman for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission who estimated that human rights violations were experienced by approximately 30 percent of transferred prisoners.

Bestsellers

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Top-selling fiction and non-fiction titles (week of November 24th, 2009)

Fiction

Non-fiction

LAST WEEK (WEEKS ON LIST)

Making money

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 8:50 AM - 7 Comments

For the past few months, businesses in the tiny port town of Comox, on Vancouver Island, have been trying something a little different when it comes to the currency that ends up in their tills. Along with loonies, toonies and colourful Canadian bills, many have been accepting something called Community Way Dollars, which instead of the usual miscellany of faces on the back feature a photo of snowy mountaintops.

This new, alternative currency is the brainchild of Michael Linton, who’s been busily trying to encourage businesses and shoppers to use the money to buy and sell local goods and services. After working out printing hiccups, Linton says that there are now approximately $80,000 Comox Community Way Dollars circulating the valley, creating something akin to a big collective credit system that people can use to supplement regular dollars in these tight economic times. Local businesses donate the dollars to community organizations and charities, which in turn put them into the hands of individuals and into circulation. It cost $4,000 (in real money) to get up and running, and is solely managed using Google spreadsheets. “I’m fed up with people saying there isn’t money,” says Linton, “There is money, you just have to create it.”

The project might sound a little pie-in-the-sky, but many communities have turned to these made-up currencies in times of recession as a way of minimizing the impact of tightening credit standards and lost income. In operation since 1991, Ithaca HOURs, the oldest and largest local currency in the United States, is accepted by over 400 businesses and is used to pay for rent, groceries, car repairs and legal services. In Canada, there is also the Salt Spring Dollar, in Salt Spring Island, B.C. Britain has the Brixton Pound, among other local currencies that have popped up recently. Maybe the best known in the world, the Swiss Wir, was founded in 1934 in response to the 1929 stock market crash. It has grown to include over 62,000 people and turns over approximately $2 billion annually.

These currencies are not illegal. There are no laws in Canada governing the production or use of these payment instruments by individual organizations, says Julie Girard, a spokesperson with the Bank of Canada. They’re just not currency “in the legal sense of the word,” she adds, though companies do collect and pay taxes on the alternative currencies. So just as Canadian Tire money can be used to complement the loonie for purchases in Canadian Tire stores, alternative currencies aim to do the same in a town or region.

There are some big macroeconomic benefits to these made-up currencies. James Stodder, an economist at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Connecticut, says they can be a stabilizing force in times of crisis, acting as a buffer to volatile national currencies. For example, the volume of the Wir network expanded when bank credits were limited, and diminished when the “official” economy recovered, providing greater price flexibility. “Almost everyone would agree that doing business in one of these community currencies is less desirable,” says Stodder. “But when you can’t get any or enough of the primary currency, this can be a lot better than nothing. It can keep the business going, and the family fed.”

Mary Jeys, the founder of the Brooklyn Torch, an alternative currency launched in Brooklyn, N.Y., argues there are healthy social benefits too. To her, the Torch has put some much-needed emphasis on fostering connections within the community, especially among artists and immigrant groups. She says she was surprised at how responsive business owners were to her idea.

One major difficulty in any alternative currency scheme, however, is to get citizens to trust the system. Nevertheless, even some governments are slowly warming to the idea. Stodder says the central bank of Brazil has invited him to look into developing local currencies to address the country’s huge regional inequalities. “The bank “thinks it’s worth studying,” says Stodder. “And although they may not necessarily back [local currencies] explicitly with their own national currency, they are considering ways of supporting them.”

Part of the attraction is that because the alternative currencies don’t leave the local area, and are traded in small circles, the incentive to spend is increased and so is the flow of capital. “We’ve heard that these local currencies can circulate faster than national currencies,” says Ted Mallett, the vice-president of research at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

The alternative currency has been paying off so far for Tomiko Collins, co-owner of the Broken Spoke Coffee House and Bicycle Centre in Comox. Collins, who opened the shop four months ago, says that using the Community Way Dollar is part of a larger business strategy to connect with the community. But it also provides an added incentive for consumers to choose her store over others. “We want to be competitive with other bike shops and attract consumers to buy things from us as opposed to Wal-Mart,” says Collins. “We’ve met some amazing business contacts that we probably wouldn’t have met if it wasn’t for the project.”

What was reported?

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 8:45 AM - 13 Comments

The generals say there was nothing in Richard Colvin’s memos to warrant action. The CBC, Star and Globe review a couple of Colvin’s early memos and find concerns about the reporting of detainees and the “unsatisfactory conditions” in Afghan prisons, and the suggestion that the Dutch, British and Canadians might consider building a joint prison of their own.

Separately, the CBC finds that, after handing them over to the Afghan authorities, Canada lost track of two Afghans accused of killing Canadian soldiers in 2003.

Nutty actor meets ideal director

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 8:10 AM - 1 Comment

On the set of Bad Lieutenant in New Orleans, director Werner Herzog was alarmed to see Nicolas Cage snorting what looked like cocaine. In the movie, inspired by Abel Ferrara’s cult classic, Cage inherits the Harvey Keitel role as a drug-addicted cop. It was only the second day of shooting, and Cage was trying to get into character. “He sniffs from a vial of white powder,” Herzog recalled during a recent interview, “and the moment it’s up his nose, he’s so scarily different I walk up to him and say, ‘Nicolas, what is that you snorted?’ ” As the actor explained in a separate interview, “I couldn’t answer the question because it would have broken all the prep I’d been doing. I had this little vial of something really benign. I would snort that and try to pretend I was getting high so I could play the scene. So I told Werner, ‘It’s coke.’ Just to not break that.”

This is what happens when the nuttiest Hollywood star this side of Joaquin Phoenix joins forces with a European director who has a reputation for being a madman. Let’s compare their mythologies.

Insanity has been good to Nicolas Cage. He’s done his finest work playing obsessed, manic and deranged individuals—the mad lovers in Moonstruck and Wild at Heart, the delirious alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas, the demented twin screenwriters in Adaptation. But Cage has also learned to compress his trademark intensity into one hack role after another, with paycheque performances in formula thrillers, from Gone in 60 Seconds to National Treasure. Then again, the man has some crazy bills to pay. Hit with US$6.6 million in unpaid taxes, he saw his two New Orleans mansions auctioned off last week after foreclosures. And his Michael Jackson-like extravagance is legendary. Cage’s purchases over the years include two castles, a dozen mansions, two yachts, a jet, some 50 cars (including a half-million-dollar Lamborghini), a pet octopus, two albino king cobras—and a dinosaur skull that he bought for US$276,000, outbidding Leonardo DiCaprio.

Herzog is notorious for a different kind of excess. When shooting Fitzcarraldo (1982)—starring Klaus Kinski as an obsessed colonist who built an opera house in the Peruvian jungle—the director risked life and limb to haul a 350-tonne working steamship over a small mountain in the Amazon. And in making Rescue Dawn (2006), this “method” director shed 35 lb. to show solidarity with his star, Christian Bale, who lost 65 lb. to play an emaciated prisoner of war. As a director who likes to shoot drama with documentary realism, no wonder Herzog thought his star was snorting real cocaine on the set of Bad Lieutenant. After all, Cage famously ate real cockroaches for his role in Vampire’s Kiss (1988).

But the 45-year-old actor insists he was totally sober on the set, and drew on his experiences with drugs 25 years ago. “I was shocked Werner didn’t know the process by which a film actor uses the imagination,” he says. “It was an impressionist performance, in that I had to look at this landscape of something that happened so long ago and try to recall what that might have been. Werner was saying, ‘Let’s do the bliss of evil.’ But I wasn’t trying to glamorize drugs in any way. I wanted to show the effect they had, the ticks and facial expressions. They can really contort the face.” And the voice. As Cage’s character gets more drug-addled, his voice gets weirdly pinched, until he starts to sound like Jimmy Stewart on helium.

Let off the leash in this darkly comic film noir, Cage delivers one of his wildest performances in ages, as a homicide cop with a lucky crack pipe who hallucinates iguanas while trying to solve a mass murder. In Herzog he has an eager accomplice, a director fascinated with men who lose their minds in jungles real or imagined. “Sometimes I would nudge him to the brink,” says Herzog. “But I didn’t have to push him. When he sees me next to the camera, he knows he can go to the outer limits. He can turn the pig loose.”

Although Bad Lieutenant was touted as a remake, it’s a different script. And while Cage isn’t as nasty as Keitel, he has some great gonzo moments—like when he snatches an oxygen tube from a wealthy matron in a wheelchair, sticks a .44 Magnum in her face, and says, “You’re the reason this country’s going down the drain.” But compared to the protagonist of Herzog’s next film, he’s a pussycat. My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is the true story of an actor in a Greek tragedy who becomes consumed by his role and kills his mother. Now that’s method acting.