Maclean's Interview: Claude Lemieux

By Charlie Gillis - Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 10:25 AM - 1 Comment

He may have finished second, but a creative, downright sensual Claude Lemieux was the big revelation of Battle of the Blades, the CBC show pairing retired NHL players with female figure skaters. He spoke to Maclean’s between practices for the finale.

Q: I hope you won’t be offended when I tell you I never associated you with graceful skating.
A: Hey, that’s fine. I’ve always been an underdog in some way. I believe people in hockey underestimated my skill level and my physique. I’ve read a few comments, you know: “This guy’s got a short little choppy stride,” and I knew that wasn’t the case—that I could skate pretty well.

Q: As a player did you ever give much thought to how you looked as you moved across the ice?
A: No, most of us players actually don’t like how we skate. Only a few enjoy watching ourselves play. We can always see something we could do better. There weren’t a lot of hockey players in my family background, and we never had the financial capability for me to take any special power-skating clinics the kids get today. It was just something I picked up and went with and loved.

Q: You did have a 18-season career in the NHL, though. That suggests a certain aptitude.
A: I was solid, really strong on my feet and I was always in balance. Sometimes that’s even better than having a graceful, straight-up kind of skating style.

Q: You were best known, of course, as an agitator, and sometimes a dirty player. You were routinely described as the most hated man in hockey. Was signing up for Battle of the Blades an attempt to show people another side of your personality?
A: That was one of the reasons. I thought it would be a fun experience, a journey, but I definitely did think this could be an opportunity to show the Canadian people, really, who I am. In hockey, you put on this suit of armour, you go out on the ice in your equipment and you perform as well as you can with the gifts you’ve got. But most of the tough guys are great people off the ice, real soft-spoken and sensitive guys. It’s the complete opposite of what one would expect.

Q: I think up until now—at least outside of Montreal—you may have been best remembered as the man who caved Kris Draper’s face by shoving him headlong into the boards. Have you ever spoken to him about that?
A: No, I’ve really never spent any time with him. People have said I should call the guy and apologize. But if something really bad happens to you, and the next day the person who did it calls and says, ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ you’re like, pfffft. You know what I mean? Maybe two or three years later, when it’s more sincere. But I can show you 5,000 hits that were worse than that. I played 1,500 games in the NHL and you remember me for one hit?

Q: You were also known as a relentless competitor. How has that aspect of your personality played into this contest?
A: When you’re a dedicated, focused, zoned-in type of person, you’re just going to do whatever it takes—within boundaries. In hockey, we pushed those boundaries further because we were physically confronting our opponents. Here, there is no mental or physical game against your opponent; you’re really competing against yourself. I’ve asked my partner and our coach David Wilson to push me as far as I can go. When the lights go up, it’s about your mental strength.

Q: Who first asked you to do the show?
A: It was [goaltender] Sean Burke, a former teammate of mine, who had committed to it. He’d gotten an opportunity to move into a full-time assistant coaching job with the Phoenix Coyotes, so he bailed out, and asked me if I’d be interested.

Q: What was your reaction?
A: [Laughing] ‘Uhhh, no. I think I’m busy.’ To be honest, there was fear about how good the quality of the production would be, and how the producers would try to portray us.

Q: What changed your mind?
A: I found out Tie Domi had committed. He’s been here in Toronto a long time and has a good image in the city, so I figured he would know whether it was going to be a good production. As it turned out, the producers have been great, allowing us to voice our opinions on how we felt we should present ourselves to the viewers. I think that’s part of the reason everyone from little kids to grandparents is enjoying the show. It’s fun, it’s entertaining, at times it’s sensual. But it’s all been done with a lot of class.

Q: What was your wife’s reaction?
A: She was very positive. We’ve had our ups and downs because the show’s been so demanding time-wise. She’s had to spend a lot of time here, and the kids have been back and forth a few times from our home in Phoenix.

Q: You did play hockey in China last year to prepare for an NHL comeback. Maybe this looked reasonable by comparison.
A: China was a crazy idea, but it was basically hockey with different people, and that was within our comfort zone. This was completely outside our comfort zone.

Q: Were you one of those players who admired figure skaters?
A: Yes, I always watched it during the Olympics—especially the pairs. I thought it was beautiful how they could be in such perfect sync and move so elegantly.

Q: Why do you think you’ve taken to it so naturally?
A: You have to have a good ear for the music, and I’m very musical. It’s all about the beat and when the stride happens. I’ll know, for example, if I’ve missed a step just from listening to the music; I don’t need my partner to tell me.

Q: One of the things the show has demonstrated is how important athleticism is in figure skating. Why do you think hockey players regard the sport as effeminate?
A: I think it’s been portrayed that way, and that’s wrong. We’ve done a lot of good with this show by bringing the two sports closer together, and I think Hockey Canada should be all over the opportunity to go recruit some of the Figure Skating Canada coaches who might have been viewed as people who don’t know hockey skating. I truly wish I’d done this 20 years ago. I would have been a better hockey player, and if a guy like me can improve his skating at 44, imagine if you could get this kind of education at a young age.

Q: Are there lessons for figure skating, too? I’ve long thought international skating could use, to be blunt, some bigger, stronger men.
A: Yes. I think we’ve broken the barrier, this belief that big, tough guys could not be figure skaters. Maybe we’ve brought out of the closet—so to speak—a lot of guys who wish they could just go out and be comfortable as figure skaters. Hopefully figure skating in Canada will be better because they will have bigger, stronger men who have been hiding, not making themselves available, not wanting to take on the figure skating world, because of their size.

Q: Speaking of masculinity, who makes your wardrobe selections?
A: I’ve really not had much say. The designers and wardrobe creators have been great at keeping it pretty basic.

Q: Any puffy pirate shirts get left on the dressing room floor?
A: Well, one time they did want me to wear a see-through shirt. I said, “Um, no. That’s not going to happen.”

Q: You were one of the first players in the competition to switch over to figure skates from hockey skates. Why did you do that?
A: I knew that as a fan watching the show, I would not be that impressed with a hockey player doing a few spins and carrying girls around in his hockey skates. I would be impressed with a guy who’s learned to make those turns, who’s learned to get comfortable with figure skates.

Q: What’s the principal difference?
A: A figure skate throws you forward right away. And your radius is different—it’s built to turn, so it allows you to get much better at that. It’s actually got two flat spots under the blade, one at the front and one at the back, because there are some moves you do on your heels and some on your toes. That really creates a different feeling from a hockey skate, which has one flat spot in the middle.

Q: What about those toe picks?
A: Oh, I did a couple of face plants right off the bat. My right knee still hurts.

Q: You lucked out with your partner. Shae-Lynn Bourne is one of the best ice dancers in the world. How does the dynamic between you two work?
A: I thought she lucked out with me [laughing]. No, the fact I’m older—I’ve got a good 10 years on her—has helped, because she’s been more like my little sister. The fact that she’s single, not married, could have been uncomfortable. But she’s very driven in her work and she’s got a good head on her shoulders. Somebody who leaves home at the age of 11 to go skate, living with other families so she can compete at the top of her sport, is going to be tenacious.

Q: People were floored last week when you skated to the sound of your own voice, a recording of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Are you a closet karaoke hero?
A: I do like karaoke. Usually we’d end up fighting for the mike. I grew up in a very musical family. My grandfather was a really good singer, and my sister won a music contest in Quebec when she was 12. I’ve sung in public, but before last week the highlight of my singing career was to sing to my wife at our wedding—Have I Told You Lately that I Love You, by Rod Stewart.

Q: In this case, there was a delay getting the rights to broadcast k.d. lang’s version of Hallelujah. How did the job fall to you?
A: They wanted a duet, featuring a male with a deep voice. My wife and I were out for dinner and she said, ‘Why don’t you do it?’ I was like, you’re crazy. I didn’t even know the lyrics. So I got home that night, and I was, like, [sings]: “I heard there was a secret chord . . .” It’s a difficult song in some ways, but it was a good register for me, and I think it showed we were willing to do that little bit extra.

Q: Was that your first recording session?
A: It was, and that was my first take!

Q: I heard that you are pretty good friends with Wayne Gretzky. Does he know you’re doing this?
A: I haven’t spoken to him lately, but he wouldn’t be surprised. He knows me. He’s even heard me sing.

Q: You should know you once put my father and me in grave danger. We’re Montreal Canadiens fans and in the late ’80s we went to see you guys play in Vancouver. You cross-checked Rich Sutter, and since the Canucks fans in our section couldn’t get at you, it looked like they were going to take out their anger on us.
A: That was in their old building, right? Are you sure it wasn’t when I suckered Stan Smyl in front of their bench?

Q: I thought it was Sutter, but I could be wrong.
A: Well, sorry, but I was lucky to get out of there alive myself.

The “Help Stephen Harper Name His Next Senator” Challenge

By Scott Feschuk - Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 9:49 AM - 127 Comments

*Update: Challenge winner announced in the Comments below.

In today’s Ottawa Notebook, Jane Taber describes Tom Flanagan as “super Tory strategist.”

Does she mean “super,” as in “especially good at what he does?”

Does she mean “super,” as in “possessing extra-human powers such as the ability to strategize faster than a speeding Stephanopoulos?”

Or does she mean “super,” as in “I’m sorry I had to take a whole day off from saying nice things about Laureen Harper or directly quoting Conservative talking points, so I’m doing this instead?”

More important, the Notebook points out that Senator Jerry Grafstein is soon retiring, which gives the Prime Minister yet another opportunity to appoint someone new, or the rest of Mike Duffy, to a seat in the upper chamber.

[Brief pause to allow outraged readers to use comments to assail fat joke...]

I’m actually pretty sure there are a couple senators stepping down before Grafstein, but the point remains – soon it will be time yet again for Stephen Harper to respect his promise never to fill a single Senate seat through patronage, except for all of them.

Suggestions:

Janine Krieber – Think of the play this would get: the disaffected wife of a former Liberal leader welcomed into Continue…

Where the votes are, aren't

By Andrew Potter - Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 8:52 AM - 32 Comments

Nanos released the results of a new poll overnight; the question was  ”what is your most important NATIONAL issue of concern?”

It turns out that healthcare is back on top as our number one priority (27.1%)  followed by jobs and the economy (23.6%). No other issue hit ten percent; the environment was third at 8.8% (which, probably not coincidentally, is pretty much where the Green party is polling these days).

In his analysis, Nik points to the improving economy and growing worries over H1N1 as factors affecting the shifting priorities, but the lack of concern for the environment is really surprising. As the chart shows, in early 2007 the environment was the most important issue of all, with 35 percent of Canadians listed it as number one.

But that was clearly an unnatural spike driven by Dionmania;  it looks like the environment is moving back to its long-term status as a matter of tertiary national importance.   Anyone looking for a sense of what is guiding the government’s complete indifference to Copenhagen need look no further. Harper doesn’t care, because Canadians don’t.

Two positions for debate:

1. The point of political leadership is to tell people truths they don’t want to hear.

2. You can only lead where the people will follow

Here’s the Nanos release:

Continue…

That'll teach them

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 8:43 AM - 15 Comments

U.S. nuclear sub surfaces near the North Pole; Canadian foreign minister promises to get tough on “countries like Russia” that snub our Arctic “sovereignty.” Why, it’s… it’s almost as though this whole Arctic “sovereignty” strategy were an ineffective charade. Who could have foreseen this? Who?

Oh, so now we're in favour of muzzling diplomats

By Andrew Coyne - Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 2:13 AM - 93 Comments

Opposition aims to block diplomat’s testimony on detainee case

UPDATE: To be clear, the committee has every right to demand whatever papers it deems necessary from the government, who in turn have certain prerogatives within the law as to what they choose to release to them. I’d prefer that Canadian parliamentary committees had greater powers of subpoena, or at least that would use the ones they have — if the Ethics committee is any guide, they’re strangely pusillanimous about asserting their authority.

But. There is also a public interest, and an ethical imperative, in having David Mulroney, and others named by Colvin in his testimony, appear before the committee as soon as possible. The public interest requires them to explain themselves; the ethical imperative requires that they be given a chance to defend themselves. For if Colvin is right they are potentially guilty of war crimes: not only deliberately acquiescing in the torture of scores of prisoners over many months, but leaning on him to keep it quiet. That’s about as serious as it gets. Yet they have not been charged, only accused, in a forum that, unless I’m mistaken, precludes them from suing to protect their reputations. They have both the right and the responsibility, therefore, to answer their accuser in the same forum, promptly, rather than leaving these charges to fester in the public mind for weeks on end. We were all properly concerned for Colvin’s reputation. We should be no less careful about the reputations of those he named.

No, Mulroney should not be able to dictate the timing of his appearance before the committee. But neither should the committee hold him hostage to their demands for more documents, the more so given the urgency of Mulroney’s duties as ambassador to China, where he is preparing the ground for the Prime Minister’s coming visit. Call him back later, if need be, but let him testify soon.

Looking back, looking forward

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 12:19 AM - 13 Comments

The CBC finds evidence of delays, going as far back as 2002, in reporting detainee transfers to the Red Cross. Opposition members of the special committee on Afghanistan say they want all relevant briefing notes and government documents related to Afghan detainees before they’ll hear from David Mulroney.

The NDP, the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois are demanding the Tories release a long list of documents linked to Mr. Colvin’s testimony before they allow Mr. Mulroney a public rejoinder…

Prime Minister’s Office spokesman Dimitri Soudas accused opposition parties of playing games on detainees by blocking Mr. Mulroney. “If the opposition were serious about finding answers, they would allow him to appear before the committee,” Mr. Soudas said.

Opposition MPs however say they can’t properly question Mr. Mulroney without access to the uncensored versions of e-mails, briefing notes and memos that make up the background story behind Mr. Colvin’s testimony.

The Liberals are particularly seizing on whatever it was the Defence Minister promised in Question Period this afternoon.

The road back

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 11:11 PM - 51 Comments

As he tries to find a way back to contention, there are two roads open to Michael Ignatieff. Here’s the first:

Michael Ignatieff isn’t a Tim Horton’s kind of guy – and that suits his new chief of staff just fine.

Peter Donolo has spent his first week on the job reminding Liberals that party icon Pierre Trudeau wasn’t exactly a donut shop everyman either and that didn’t stop Canadians from electing him four times as prime minister.

… According to party insiders with whom he’s spoken, Donolo’s assessment of the party’s sagging fortunes is as follows:

Ignatieff and his inner circle have allowed themselves to be spooked by the Tory attack ads. Consequently, they’ve “hidden his light under a bushel,” playing down Ignatieff’s lofty academic and intellectual credentials.

Donolo believes his task is “not so much to package (Ignatieff) as to unpackage him,” allow him to be himself and to build on his strength as a thoughtful, insightful deep thinker – the very qualities that initially excited Liberals and evoked comparisons to Trudeau.

His aim is to position Ignatieff as a leader who’s better able to grapple with the weighty issues and thorny challenges ahead, as opposed to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is so devoted to the appearance of the common man that he chose to attend the opening of a new Tim Horton’s shop rather than a speech to the United Nations general assembly on the environment…

Authentic. Classy. Taking Canadian politics to a higher level. The politics of the long game, of the “adult conversation.” The high road.

Now here’s the other road:

There is one potential game-changing issue out there that is becoming of increasing concern to a growing number of Canadians — the harmonized sales tax that will introduced in British Columbia and Ontario next July…

It appears that Mr. Ignatieff may have just awoken to the potential of the federal Liberals forming an unholy alliance with the Ontario Conservatives, in opposition to their provincial cousins and the federal Tories. He will have noted that the NDP’s robust showing federally and provincially has coincided with the party’s vocal denunciation of the HST.

Liberal caucus members were set to debate the new tax last night but it certainly appears as if the party is back-tracking from the favourable reception it has given the HST in the past…

HST provides the kind of tantalizing opportunity to latch onto an easy-to-understand, populist issue that people oppose in their gut…

If Mr. Ignatieff did come out against the HST, it would certainly be portrayed as yet another flip-flop, since he is on record as saying he supports tax harmonization.

Still, if his slide in the polls continues, he may need to throw away his shiny sword and start bludgeoning Canadians with a blunt sales pitch on something they care about, namely their pocket-books.

The low road, in other words. The politics of cheap populism. Phoney, dishonest, and as transparent as a piece of saran wrap. If the Liberal leader goes back on hs previous support for the HST, he will not only set himself up for a messy fight with the McGuinty Liberals — he will destroy what lingering reputation he has as a straight shooter. He will convince no one — the public will rightly suspect that, whatever he says now, he would not withdraw federal enabling legislation once in power. It will be seen for what it is: a desperation play. It’s dumb policy, and dumber politics, for a candidate who wants to be known as “an insightful deep thinker … able to grapple with the weighty issues.”

Two roads. Which one will he choose?

Favourite Under-Quoted Simpsons Quote?

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 9:37 PM - 58 Comments

I haven’t written much about The Simpsons since my screed against “comedy writer jokes,” so here’s a more positive subject for discussion, sort of similar to the “Underrated Monty Python Sketches” thread. What’s your favourite Simpsons line that you haven’t heard quoted to death?

That is, some Simpsons quotes are so famous — “Worst episode ever,” or ” save me, Jeebus!” or “it’s a perfectly cromulent word” — that they have entered the language. Some equally great quotes, however, aren’t as famous. So what’s a quote you particularly love but that hasn’t yet been ruined by over-quoting?

My favourite under-quoted quote is from the season 2 episode “Homer Vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment” (still, after all these years, one of the best Simpsons episodes, a great combination of pop-culture jokes and family relationship stuff). The family is watching movies on cable, and with each movie, Bart gives the lead character the name of the movie. These get progressively less plausible:

BART: Oh, this is where Jaws bites through the boat.

BART: Oh, this is where Die Hard comes through the window.

BART: Oh, this is where Wall Street gets arrested.

To me, that’s just a perfect Simpsons joke on every level. It combines George Meyer-y, comedy-writer fascination with language (it might even be a Meyer joke) with real, observational humour about the way real people sometimes confuse characters with titles.  (Eg people used to think the round-headed kid in the comic strip was named “Peanuts.”) It’s a comedy-writer joke that also sounds like a human being might say it.

Colvin's toughest critic was an architect of Afghan detainee transfer policy

By John Geddes - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 9:14 PM - 28 Comments

A retired diplomat quoted frequently by Conservative cabinet ministers as they try to defend the government’s handling of detainee transfers in Afghanistan was himself closely involved in developing the policy governing those transfers.

Paul Chapin told Maclean’s that as director general of the Department of Foreign Affairs international security bureau from 2003 to the fall of 2006, he worked at a senior level on the 2005 agreement under which Canadian troops turned over detainees to Afghan authorities.

“I had some significant involvement in Afghanistan-related issues,” Chapin said in an interview today.

Continue…

Yaaaaaaaaay!

By Paul Wells - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 7:57 PM - 20 Comments

Lou Dobbs considering a run for the Presidency. Of the United States. Of America.

He made the remark on Fred Thompson’s radio show. Which only makes this whole thing even better, somehow.

The Commons: Prove it

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 6:23 PM - 38 Comments

The Scene. With the Prime Minister back on Canadian soil and allowed a few days to recover from the profound jet lag that comes with circumnavigating the globe, it seemed that today would be the day his presence would once more be registered in the House of Commons. Ah, but wouldn’t you know it, our national men’s lacrosse team was in Ottawa this afternoon and, obviously, it seemed only courteous that they be granted a brief audience with the PM at precisely 2:15pm.

Good luck for him as he apparently managed to win a very handsome jersey in the process. But poor luck for the House. And, indeed, for the Prime Minister’s Defence Minister, a man whose knees must be nearly worn completely out from all the sitting and standing.

The first of what would be 20 questions for Peter MacKay this day was tabled by Michael Ignatieff, the Liberal leader returning to the House after a few days away himself. Why, Mr. Ignatieff wondered en français, had the Canadian Forces, as disclosed by the chief of the defence staff over the weekend, decided on several occasions to halt the transfer of detainees to Afghan authorities?

Across the way, John Baird chirped about “coercive interrogation.”

Mr. MacKay attempted to explain. “Mr. Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question,” he said. “As he would know, and as he has indicated, decisions to stop transfers are operational decisions taken on a case-by-case basis in a theatre of operations by military personnel. In this instance, and it is now on the government web site, there were three operational decisions taken that resulted in pauses of transfers. Most recently, I want to indicate, the reason that the transfers stopped was because the Afghan officials were not living up to their expectations, not living up to the expectations set out in the transfer arrangements. The decision to stop was based on the fact that they were not living up to those expectations.”

Mr. Ignatieff returned with an assertion. “Mr. Speaker,” he said, “in other words it is reasonable to assume that detainees were being abused.”

“Nooo!” moaned various Conservatives. Continue…

Aside of the Day

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 5:56 PM - 8 Comments

Jack Layton’s third question this afternoon.

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to this whole question of torture, unlike other party leaders, we are not going to stand for denying of the evidence, we are not going to cover up the truth, and we are not going to write books justifying torture in any way, shape or form. Nothing can justify torture and nothing can justify the full-scale denial mode that we see from the Conservatives right now. Why will the government not do the right thing and launch a public inquiry, as we have called for, so that we will have all the facts on the table?

About those times the transfers were halted

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 5:52 PM - 2 Comments

The government has released a statement to explain General Walter Natynczyk’s disclosure that transfers have been stopped more than once.

Since the May 2007 Supplementary Transfer Arrangement was implemented, Canada has temporarily paused transferring detainees once in November 2007 and on three occasions in 2009.  The first two pauses in 2009 were related to allegations about treatment, the last pause was related to access to facilities.  All three pauses were for brief periods of time.  The first allegations in 2009 were investigated by Afghan officials and appropriate corrective actions were taken.  In the latter case, Afghan officials moved quickly to restore unrestricted access to facilities.  When Canadian officials were satisfied that the original concerns were appropriately addressed, the transfer process resumed.

Age of Persuasion

By Andrew Potter - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 5:24 PM - 7 Comments

My review of Terry O’Reilly and Mike Tennant’s book, sort-of-based on their very excellent CBC radio show Age of Persuasion, was published this weekend.

Meanwhile, I’m back for another round on the Ad Missions panel at the Post. We looked at the Subaru ad that makes fun of the Snuggies infomercial. If you haven’t seen the ad, here it is:

From the Republic of Gall, apparently

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 5:13 PM - 16 Comments

The first Bloc Quebecois student club outside Quebec has been formed at the University of Ottawa:

Les Bloquistes de l’Universite d’Ottawa, recently approved by the university’s student federation, is now eligible for a variety of services, such as use of rooms at the university, and up to $1,000 a year in funding from the student federation to help it promote its goal of a sovereign Quebec.

“Now we can organize conferences to promote the Bloc Quebecois’ ideas and the sovereigntist movement,” said Jean-François Landry, president of the Bloc Quebecois’ youth wing, Forum Jeunesse, and a student at the university…

In fact, two of the Bloc youth wing’s nine-member executive attend the University of Ottawa, as well as a third student who was, until recently, on the executive.

Landry, who describes himself as a foreign student, is quick to point out they all live in Quebec.

Naturally, as a “foreign student” he pays the differential fees charged to visiting undergraduates.

Watching those two is sheer torture

By Paul Wells - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 5:00 PM - 3 Comments

Coyne and Wells, in one of our none-too-frequent podcasts (we’re working on increasing the frequency; sorry ’bout that), on detainee abuse and the never-ending battle between political parties to accuse one another of anti-Semitism.

Coyne v. Wells on Afghan prisoners and Tory flyers

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 4:51 PM - 24 Comments

Download | Feed | iTunes

Prison break: Royals edition

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 4:50 PM - 0 Comments

Crime doesn’t get much more English than this. Jane Andrews, a long-time personal assistant to Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, has escaped from prison. The 40-year-old is serving a life sentence for the 2001 murder of her boyfriend, a wealthy businessman whom she whacked across the head with a cricket bat, then stabbed through the chest with a kitchen knife. (He had apparently refused to marry her.) Andrews walked away from a minimum security jail in Maidenstone, Kent sometime yesterday. Where’s Miss Marple when you need her?

The Guardian

In other news, dog bites man

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 4:43 PM - 5 Comments

Canada Post struggles to innovate

A few kind words for harmonization

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 4:40 PM - 51 Comments

Do the people leading the charge against harmonizing the sales taxes of B.C. and Ontario with the federal GST imagine this is the first time such a reform has been introduced? Do they suppose the public does?

It would be one thing to attempt to whip the population into hysterics against a “risky, untried scheme” that had never been implemented elsewhere. It would be tiresome—essentially an endorsement of the doctrine that Nothing Should Ever be Done for the First Time—but it would at least be coherent, as demagoguery goes.

But the forces arrayed against the plans to convert the two provinces’ existing sales taxes next July into a broader, GST-style value-added tax—a ragtag army of special interests and opposition parties that includes the federal NDP and the National Citizens Coalition, the Ontario NDP and the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, the B.C. NDP and Bill Vander Zalm—must confront the troublesome fact that four provinces (Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and New Brunswick) have already done so, without ill effect. And not only them: at last count, 143 countries around the world had implemented similar value-added tax regimes. Not one of them has renounced them.

Continue…

Just give the man his baguel and no one will get hurt

By Philippe Gohier - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 3:37 PM - 32 Comments

At this weekend’s PQ brainstorming session—don’t call it a convention!—party members spent much of their time debating just how far they should extend Bill 101′s tentacles. As reported by Le Devoir‘s Antoine Robitaille, party president Jonathan Valois even made a strangely personal plea to Montreal’s wretched Anglos, whose doughy delicacies he just can’t resist:

[That French is disappearing] is a feeling many Montrealers share. Sometimes, it annoys us when I can’t buy a bagel in French. It annoys me. And that’s part of daily life for Montrealers.

It’s all true. In fact, that’s why I moved to Toronto. My last apartment in Montreal was just a few short blocks away from both St-Viateur Bagel and Fairmount Bagel, and the stress was overwhelming: O lord, when will you finally deliver Jonathan Valois from the modern-day calvary that is bagel shopping in this godforsaken place?

Thankfully, where I live now, bagels aren’t worth buying in any language. Deliverance at last.

'I would like to have the opportunity to appear before the Committee'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 3:31 PM - 8 Comments

David Mulroney writes a letter (pdf file) to the special committee on Afghanistan.

Four things I enjoyed about the Krieber mani-facebook-o

By Scott Feschuk - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 3:26 PM - 57 Comments

1. The use of the word “dictatorship” to describe the government of Stephen Harper. (Like all dictators, Harper can only be removed from office by military coup or, failing that, a bunch of elected people standing up and asking him politely.)

2. The sheer elegance of its tortured logic. The Liberal party is falling apart. It will not recover. But we must take action now to help it recover. Which it won’t do because the party is dead. It died before our very eyes. Which is why we must now make the choice to save it. (Wait a minute – if we save it now, won’t that make it a … zombie party! One upside: I won’t have disinterred Louis St. Laurent for nothing.)

3. The idea that somewhere upon the Canadian political landscape Continue…

Who should shoulder the blame for the alleged torture of suspects transferred to Afghan authorities by Canadian troops?

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 2:50 PM - 65 Comments