What shall we tell our children?

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 3:30 PM - 89 Comments

Apropos of not much, the Prime Minister offered the following interpretation of Parliamentary convention during QP yesterday.

Mr. Speaker, I gather it has been the will of the House to replace the government with an unelected coalition. If that is indeed the will of the House, they know that they have to get a mandate from the people of Canada, and they cannot tinker with the House rules to work around that reality.

Those who would like to attempt to put that in context can view the full exchange here.

Matters such as this are infinitely debatable, but, for the sake of argument and perhaps because it is worth taking seriously anything the Prime Minister says in this regard, we turn to How Canadians Govern Themselves, a guide written by the late senator Eugene Forsey, published by the Library of Parliament, approved by the Department of Canadian Heritage and posted to Parliament’s official website. Continue…

Week in Pictures: March 11th – March 17th 2010

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 3:02 PM - 0 Comments

"Serious conservative parties simply cannot shy away from values questions"

By Paul Wells - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 1:49 PM - 116 Comments

That piece of mine about social conservatism quotes from a 2003 Civitas speech by Stephen Harper. The only complete, non-firewalled online copy of it that I can find is at Cannabis Culture magazine. Insert joke here.

I’m amazed that I wasn’t familiar with this speech. I think it says something about how harried and distracted the denizens of Parliament Hill are that probably fewer than 50 staffers, MPs, journalists or other hangers-on in the whole town would be able to discuss the arguments in this speech. I mean, the guy’s been prime minister for more than four years. Surely it’d be handy for all his fans and detractors to know how he thinks. I hope you get a chance to read the speech.

You. Must. Watch. This.

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 1:38 PM - 15 Comments

In a break from his normal show’s pattern, Jon Stewart became Glenn Beck to show the insanity of the Fox host’s ideology—Beck’s latest riff is that any Christian who believes in social justice is actually a follower of Stalin or Hitler. As Stewart says: “If you subscribe to an idea, you also subscribe to that idea’s ideology and to every possible negative consequence that that ideology even remotely implies when you carry it to absurd extremes.”

Comedy Network

The 48-hour rule?

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 1:20 PM - 58 Comments

An exchange between the NDP leader and the Transport Minister this morning at Question Period.

Hon. Jack Layton (Toronto—Danforth, NDP): Mr. Speaker, a majority of members of the foreign affairs committee want to hear from the widow of Rémy Beauregard, president of Rights and Democracy before his untimely death. The government does not want to hear her speak, showing once again their contempt for the concept of discovering the truth. It would also be beneficial to hear from the first president of Rights and Democracy, Ed Broadbent, once a member, of course, of this Chamber, and also Joe Clark, who was the minister at the time that Rights and Democracy was created. How can the government refuse to hear from these very important individuals, including the Right Hon. Joe Clark?

Hon. John Baird (Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, CPC): Mr. Speaker, let me say that our sympathies are with Madame Trepanier and her family on their loss. I do hope that all members of the committee can put aside partisan politics and work together as to the number of witnesses who can invited to be heard on this matter. We hope that these disagreements can be resolved so that witnesses like Madame Trepanier may be heard.

What Happened To TV Insta-Knockoffs of Movies?

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 1:09 PM - 4 Comments

Parenthood is a well-made, well-acted show that doesn’t fully grab me, at least not yet. One thing that interests me about NBC’s decision to do a second TV remake of the movie is that it reflects the changing relationship of TV to feature films: it seems like there are fewer new shows that remake, or rip off, recent Hollywood features.

For a long time, a lot of studios and networks would respond to the success of a feature film by putting a similar television show into production, hoping to cash in on the fad. Sometimes this was a remake: M*A*S*H was a hit in 1970, and the studio had a TV version ready to go two years later. Uncle Buck, Parenthood and other 1989 movies became flop TV shows in 1990.

And sometimes a studio would produce a show that, while not a remake, was obviously an attempt to ape the success of a recent film. So Paramount had a big hit with Saturday Night Fever in 1977, and in 1979, the same studio unveiled Makin’ It, a TV show from their top producing team (the four-headed hydra of Garry Marshall, Tom Miller, Eddie Milkis and Bob Boyett) that had absolutely nothing in common with Saturday Night Fever except that it’s about young blue-collar guys who live out their dreams by going to a disco at night. Oh, and there’s a Travolta in it. The show starred and had a theme song sung by David Naughton, who later moved to London and became a werewolf.

But now, TV remakes of recent movies are rarer than they used to be, which is why the biggest new film-to-TV transition is an adaptation of a movie that’s over 20 years old. And there are some shows that are trying to cash in on the success of recent films — like the lame Apatow-influenced hijinks of Accidentally On Purpose — but not that many. Looking at the top-grossing movies of 2007, I don’t think a lot of them had obvious TV equivalents by 2009. Of course, a lot of this is because the big movies are mostly interchangeable blockbusters, or based on already-familiar properties that wouldn’t lend themselves to TV adaptation (or were imitated by all of popular culture, including TV, before they even became movies). But I certainly think there seems to be a trend away from networks looking at the latest big movie and saying “get me something like that.”

There are some exceptions, of course, particularly on basic cable, which operates in a more old-fashioned way than the broadcast networks. ABC Family was obviously thinking of Juno when they greenlit The Secret Life of the American Teenager — and it worked. Just like it worked for the parent network, ABC, when they responded to American Graffiti by dusting off a two year-old unsold pilot about the ’50s (Happy Days) and rushing it into production.

'I complied unequivocally'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 12:23 PM - 62 Comments

For those needing closure, the Veterans Affairs Minister issues the following statement.

On February 23 I was at the Ottawa airport and a bottle of alcohol was confiscated from me because it exceeded the 100 ml limit.

Since I had to leave the bottle behind, I asked that it be destroyed.

At no point did I request preferential treatment; it’s not in my nature.

Granted, I was definitely upset at what happened, and I apologize to those I could have offended.

That being said, the rule is clear.

The officers applied the rule.

And I complied unequivocally.

This actually happened

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 11:29 AM - 41 Comments

Still sorting out some thoughts in response to Mark Kingwell’s essay on political civility. In the meantime, here is the CP dispatch from yesterday’s meeting of the foreign affairs committee.

Suzanne Trepanier has requested permission to appear at the Foreign Affairs committee to defend her husband’s record and provide her version of events that she believes contributed to Beauregard’s fatal heart attack in January following an agency board meeting.

But Tory MP Jim Abbott’s hour-long filibuster Thursday ran out the clock on a committee decision, and Abbott made of point of reminding the committee chairman that he holds the floor when the group next meets. Abbott told the committee that hearing from Beauregard’s widow “would be an emotional reaction to a situation over which this committee has absolutely no control.”

According to the Toronto Star’s account, Abbott used the committee’s obviously precious time to discuss “CBC radio, bank regulations and the Export Development Canada.”

Mideast Quartet demands peace

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 11:28 AM - 3 Comments

Top diplomats from Russia, the United States, United Nations and European Union issued a formal statement from Moscow Friday demanding that Israel and Palestine restart peace talks and work to create an independent Palestinian state within two years. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon read the strongly-worded statement, which also criticized Israeli settlement building. The statement came as Israel launched air strikes in response to a rocket attack by militants in Gaza and follows the postponement of indirect talks scheduled to begin this week that stalled when Israel announced plans for new settlements in disputed east Jerusalem. The Quartet, represented by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, and special representative, former British prime minister Tony Blair, met primarily over concerns for the unstable condition and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

CBC News

Jessie James is sorry for "caus[ing] my wife and kids pain and embarrassment"

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 11:24 AM - 5 Comments

Jessie James, Hollywood’s sorriest horn dog, has his tail between his legs. Yesterday, the celebrity mechanic apologized publicly to his wife, Oscar winner Sandra Bullock, for his extra-marital amour: “There is only one person to blame for this whole situation, and that is me. It’s because of my poor judgment that I deserve everything bad that is coming my way.” It all came to a head this week, when Michelle “Bombshell” McGee, 32—a tattoo-covered stripper with a five-year-old son and an alleged addiction to
“pills, booze and stripping”—went public, revealing that she had an 11-month-long affair with James while Bullock was filming her blockbuster hit, The Blind Side. Bullock reportedly moved out of her home on Monday and has canceled plans to attend her film’s premier in London. Meanwhile, “Bombshell” has been making the media rounds, posing for pictures clad only in panties and a hot pink push-up bra.

New York Post

Jamaica: The New 'It' Island

By Takeoffeh.com - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 11:14 AM - 7 Comments

Canadians are flocking to Jamaica. There has been a 100% increase in arrivals since 2007 with numbers hitting just under 300,000 Canadians in 2009. What puts an island on the ‘must go’ list of Canadian tourists? Not that long ago, Jamaica was shunned for being unsafe and tired.

Dan Hamilton, District Sales Manager of the Jamaica Tourist Board in Canada, puts it simply. “Jamaica is going through a rebirth.”

TakeOffeh.com can’t help but wonder how you ‘remake’ an island. We talked to some experts about what is contributing to Jamaica’s newfound “It” status among Canadian tourists.

First and foremost, she’s hot, hot, hot
Some popular sun destinations can experience variable winter weather patterns, whereas for the most part, Jamaican weather is constant – which is an important criterion when a year’s worth of stress release is packed into one week on the beach.

Location. Location. Location
Ease of access is always a factor in selecting sun destinations. With most holidays structured around a seven day window, Canadians don’t like wasting precious holiday time with lengthy stopovers. So having a good choice of non-stop air service has an immediate impact on traffic to a destination. Ontario and Quebec have always had good schedules to Jamaica. But Dan Hamilton says Jamaica Vacations, the route development arm of the tourist board, “has succeeded in encouraging airlines to fly from Canadian cities not currently served.” Out of Western Canada, tour operators have added more weekly flights to Jamaica than ever before. He points specifically to success from cities like Calgary and Vancouver.

As seen on TV
“We have beefed up our presence in Canada with more TV and print than ever before,” Hamilton said. With the U.S. economy in turmoil, much of the promotional spending that would normally have been directed there has been reallocated to Canada.

Fresh faces
There is more to see and do in Jamaica than ever before, with new attractions and tours, along with an investor friendly environment that has seen the construction of a number of new resort properties. Hamilton believes new Spanish owned properties offering well-known brands have been a big help. “Brands like the Fiesta Palladium, Bahia Principe and Iberostar are recognized by Canadians for their quality accommodation and service,” says Hamilton. The combined synergistic effect of additional ad dollars and new and improved facility offerings is paying off.

At your service
The Toronto office of the Jamaican Tourist Board does its homework. Rather than pull back during tough times, as did some tourist boards, seven full time employees, and dedicated representatives in Montreal, Calgary, and Toronto reinvested in spreading the “One love. One Heart” message to Canadians.

I shot the sheriff
As seen with other sun destinations, crime news can empty beaches faster than red tide. While Jamaica has never been seen as a haven of security, murder and mayhem against tourists is rare, and has not hit the front pages for several years.

Ultimately, it’s like any product – it’s all in how you sell it. For Jamaica, having frequent non-stop flights from all across Canada has been key in renewing interest in the destination. Combine that with concentrated marketing, resort development, and a tourism department committed to a Canadian presence and, voila, the island is ready for its close up.

By Ron Pradinuk
Ron Pradinuk is president of Journeys Travel & Leisure SuperCentre, a travel products retail outlet www.journeystravelgear.com , as well as Winnipeg based Renaissance Travel. He is past national president of the
Association of Canadian Travel Agencies.

Photo Credits: visitjamaica.com

Girl Guides hit the Hill

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 11:06 AM - 5 Comments

The Girl Guides of Canada were on the Hill celebrating their 100^th anniversary by handing out cookies to MPs and then holding a reception in 200 West Block. Below, Liberal MPs Mark Eyking (right) and Denis Coderre sample the goods.

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Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe.

. Continue…

Obama makes good on sudsy bet

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 11:01 AM - 4 Comments

There’s nothing like a cool, refreshing beer to toast a victory—especially when it’s delivered on behalf of U.S. President Barack Obama. Obama made good on his Olympic hockey bet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper Friday, with U.S. Ambassador David Jacobson hand-delivering two cases of beer to 24 Sussex Drive. Jacobson, who told Harper there were “no hard feelings” over Canada’s 3-2 victory over the U.S., brought over 24 bottles of Molson Canadian and a case from the Pennsylvania-based Yuengling brewery. Harper, however, won’t be sampling his spoils: according to a spokesman, the beer is being donated to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

CBC News

Acupuncture patients risk infection, experts warn

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 10:45 AM - 17 Comments

Acupuncture patients are at risk for bacterial infections, hepatitis B and C and maybe even HIV infection due to contaminated needles, cotton swabs and hot packs, according to experts writing in the British Medical Journal. Microbiologists from the University of Hong Kong have warned that the number of acupuncture-related infections worldwide was just the tip of the iceberg, calling for better infection control measures like disposable needles, skin infection procedures and aseptic techniques, the BBC reports. One of the most widely practiced types of alternative medicine, acupuncture is based on the notion that inserting and manipulating fine needles at certain points in the body helps promote the flow of “Qi,” or energy. It’s used for everything from obesity, pain treatment and arthritis. Needles are inserted several centimetres beneath the skin at times, say experts, who warn that up to 10 per cent of bacterial infections resulting from acupuncture end up with problems like joint destruction, multi-organ failure, flesh-eating disease and paralysis.

Reuters

Successful windpipe transplant performed

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 10:39 AM - 0 Comments

A 10-year old UK boy is the first child to receive a windpipe transplant with an organ made from his own stem cells, the BBC reports. Using his own tissue should reduce the risk of rejection, doctors hope, who say he is doing well and breathing normally. This is the first time a child has received a stem cell organ transplant, and the longest airway to be replaced (the first-ever tissue-engineered windpipe transplant was done in Spain in 2008, but with a shorter graft). The boy has a rare condition called Long Segment Congenital Tracheal Stenosis, where parents are born with a narrow airway; when he was born, his airway was just one millimetre across. To build a new airway, doctors took a donor trachea, stripped it to collagen scaffolding and injected it with stem cells from bone marrow.

BBC News

Double murder in Old Montreal

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 10:21 AM - 1 Comment

Two people were gunned down mid-afternoon in Old Montreal yesterday, a brazen (and bizarre) killing that is allegedly tied to the shooting death of mobster Nicolo Rizzuto Jr. Two gunmen entered Flawnego, a women’s clothing store in the chic strip of St Jacques in Old Montreal and shot dead Peter Christopoulos and an unnamed victim. The alleged target, Flawnego owner Joseph Ducarme, managed to escape. Ducharme is reputed to have ties to Montreal’s underworld, notably as a bagman for construction magnate Antonio Magi, an associate of Rizzuto, who was gunned down in late December. Christopoulos is alleged to have been Ducharme’s bodyguard.

Montreal Gazette

Talks with the Taliban derailed, Eide says

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 10:11 AM - 1 Comment

Talks to try to coax at least some Taliban factions into a peace deal have apparently been derailed by Pakistan’s decision to arrest key leaders of the insurgent group. Kai Eide, the former special representative for the United Nations secretary general, told the BBC in an interview broadcast today that United Nations talks, conducted quietly in Dubai, were disrupted by the arrests of key Taliban figures, including the group’s second in command, in Pakistan. Eide suggested the move was not the result of Pakistani authorities being in the dark about the negotiations. The strategy of bringing Taliban leaders to the table in an attempt to end the war in Afghanistan has gained support among Western diplomats and governments in recent months.

New York Times

All in (III)

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 10:08 AM - 35 Comments

Bob Rae was asked yesterday how far the opposition was willing to go to obtain documents related to the Afghan detainee affair and, paraphrasing Pierre Trudeau, responded, “Just watch us.”

Jack Harris was asked about the possibility that the government might declare any vote on the matter to be a confidence vote. His response: “Well, you know, the government and the Prime Minister can declare any motion a confidence motion.  They may decide that this is a confidence motion. If so, so be it.”

Make of this what you will.

Hey look: It's morning in Harper's Canada

By Paul Wells - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 9:08 AM - 25 Comments

From the print edition, a longer and I suspect more controversial piece than you’d seen from me lately, connecting a bunch of dots in the social-conservative corner of the Harper 3-D Vulcan chess board. I’ll be adding context, extra information, documents that didn’t get into the final article or that I refer to only in passing, on this blog over the next several days.

Mitchel Raphael on Lisa Raitt’s hostessing badge, the girl guides and the anthem

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

It’s hard to run away from girl guide cookies

Photograph by Mitchel Raphael

On the day former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer was given “a break,” in the words of Justice Douglas Maund, the media were in a Hill frenzy. All the MPs were being approached for a reaction to the case. Usually on such days, MPs just scurry into the House to avoid answering questions. But that day the Girl Guides of Canada were on the Hill celebrating their 100th anniversary. So as reporters shouted out questions about “cocaine possession,” “drunk driving charges,” and “double standards in the justice system,” the young Girl Guides stood by the entrances to the House offering MPs cookies and pins. “Let’s trade,” said Defence Minister Peter MacKay to one very delighted Girl Guide who got the pin he was wearing on his lapel. Transport Minister John Baird took a cookie, even though he is on a no-carb diet. (The cookie was later passed to his aide James Kusie, who ate it.)

Photograph by Mitchel Raphael

NDP Leader Jack Layton also took a cookie, noting, “You can never eat just one,” and telling the Girl Guides to please “not tell Olivia [Chow, his MP wife].” Layton is on a strict diet as part of a comprehensive plan to tackle his recently discovered prostate cancer. Later that day, the Girl Guides held a reception in 200 West Block.  Labour Minister Lisa Raitt brought along her old Girl Guide sash, which included badges for baking and hostessing. Other former Girl Guides in attendance included Human Resources Minister Diane Finley. When the Girl Guides were asked to sing O Canada, Justin Trudeau shouted out, “Which version?” When they got to “in all thy sons command,” Trudeau turned to the Guides hovering around him and added, “and girls, too.”

Who’s funnier: Holmes or Harper?

Photograph by Mitchel Raphael

The Writers’ Trust of Canada handed out its annual $25,000 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize honouring political writing excellence to John English for Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968-2000 at the annual Politics and the Pen gala dinner in the Fairmont Château Laurier ballroom. This A-list event had Laureen Harper chatting with Margaret Atwood and Jack Layton schmoozing with Preston Manning. The former Reform party leader was one of the first people to call Layton when the NDP leader announced he has prostate cancer, a disease Manning successfully battled. The PM sent a video greeting for the first time to the event, and noted that both he and the late Liberal MP Elizabeth Shaughnessy Cohen, for whom the award was named, were both elected in 1993. He then joked: “If she was here, she’d be really ticked off I’m Prime Minister.” Comedian Jessica Holmes entertained at the event. In the character of a Russian immigrant, she asked audience members questions, including this one to Michael Ignatieff: “If hot air rises then why doesn’t John Baird float?”

Why Miss Newfoundland wasn’t talking

Photograph by Mitchel Raphael

A seal lunch was organized by Liberal Sen. Céline Hervieux-Payette to launch the addition of seal meat to the menu of the Parliamentary Restaurant. A private dining room off to the side of the main restaurant was packed with reporters, politicians such as Michael Ignatieff, and the very outspoken seal hunt supporter Sara Green, who as Miss Newfoundland had to literally just look pretty because she lost her voice that morning and couldn’t speak. The room quickly became very hot, and then stinky: munching on seal pepperoni appetizers apparently has an adverse effect on people’s breath. Not present at the event was the PETA activist who used to dress as a seal and follow Stephen Harper around. The activist’s name is Emily and, according to one PMO staffer, her job was to keep up the protests until the Olympics. When someone that day asked where Emily was, the PMO staffer quipped, “She’s on the menu.”

Harper’s hard right turn

By Paul Wells - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 465 Comments

Photograph by Chris Wattie/ Reuters

It says in all the papers the well has run dry. The commentators keep writing that Canadian conservatism has died on the vine, that four years into his reign of tactical obsession and fiscal profligacy, Stephen Harper has forgotten why he ever went into politics.

“Where’s the big, strategic agenda for the next election?” John Ivison quoted a senior Conservative in the National Post. “I haven’t found one yet.” In the same paper, Terence Corcoran ran a string of columns identifying programs the feds should cut, because Harper seems unwilling to do the work himself. And Andrew Coyne delivered his annual post-budget verdict of despair and mourning. “Those Conservative faithfuls who have been hanging on all these years, in the hopes that, eventually, someday, with one of these budgets, this government would start to act like conservatives, must now understand that that is not going to happen. Conservatism is not just dead but, it appears, forgotten.”

But it’s a funny thing. If Canadian conservatism is dead, somebody forgot to tell Canadian conservatives.

Continue…

Oh What a Lovely War

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 12:29 AM - 2 Comments

(from left) Jason Patrick Rothery, Ryan Field, Doug Price, Gregory Prest,Oliver Dennis in Soulpepper's 'Oh What a Lovely War'

Occasionally I find myself in a theatre staring at flesh-and-blood actors instead of a movie screen. It makes me nervous. I’d much rather be trapped in a bad movie than a bad play, which can quickly become claustrophobic.  But that tension between the audience and the stage is also what makes live theatre a thrill, when it works. And at Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre, I’ve recently had the pleasure of seeing two exhilarating shows in a row— both musicals about the First World War. The first was a remount of the 1978 Canadian classic Billy Bishop Goes To War, with John Gray and Eric Peterson reprising their original roles. The second, which opened Wednesday and runs to April 10, was the 1963 British classic, Oh What A Lovely War, created by Joan Littlewood and Charles Chilton. I’d never seen either of them before, and frankly I dragged myself to both with a canonical sense of duty—the combination of “musical” and “crowd-pleasing classic,” and “World War I comedy” sounded deadly. Boy, was I surprised. Both plays felt fresh, stylish, and spiked with contemporary relevance.  Eric Peterson’s solo tour de force as Billy Bishop is one of the most astounding  feats of live performance I’ve seen outside of Cirque de Soleil. And while Oh What a Lovely War is not as strong a play as Billy Bishop—a case of ensemble satire versus the loco-locomotion of an anti-heroic high-wire act— it’s richly entertaining, and still resonates after all these years.

I chatted with Peterson briefly as we filed into the premiere of Lovely War. Even though he was “on the other side,” as a spectator rather than performer, he was nervous, knowing what the cast and their director, Albert Schultz, would be going through backstage. Like an anxious parent waiting to see the kids perform. And there was a substantial quotient of youth in the troupe—seven of the 15 member cast members were trainees from the Soulpepper Academy, as was set designer Ken MacKenzie. But if there were opening-night jitters, they were not visible. Soulpepper veteran Michael Hanrahan broke the ice by shattering the fourth wall the moment  he took the stage,  transforming the theatre in a music hall as our vaudevillian emcee. All the performers play multiple parts. They act, sing, dance and play musical instruments—accordion, drum, violin. At one point four upright pianos span the proscenium. It’s one thing to see the young actors finesse British accents, and quite another to see three of them morph into a violin trio. The sheer density of talent onstage is dazzling.

This is not a musical in the conventional sense, thank God. The songs aren’t concocted to tell the story. The music is plucked from the period and intensely familiar, at least for a certain generation—numbers like “Pack Up Your Troubles in an Old Kit Bag,” “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” and “Keep the Home Fires Burning.” The cast is largely costumed in white Pierrot clown suits, which are endlessly absurd in the scenes of military discipline. Oliver Dennis performs a hilarious routine as a Brit drill master who puts a squad of recruits through their paces, yelling indecipherable orders through an iron stiff upper lip. Whether he’s playing a pompous officer or the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dennis nails the flamboyant delusion of English snobbery with Monty Python precision. Continue…

Maternal health: What does "no debate on abortion" mean?

By Paul Wells - Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 11:42 PM - 72 Comments

Well, everyone was so chuffed after Question Period, because at last the government had got its message straight viz-a-viz the whole maternal health initiative!

To wit: “We are not closing the door to any option, and that includes contraceptives,” the prime minister said in so many words. Bev Oda said precisely the same words: “As we have been saying all along, we are not closing the door on any options that will save the lives of mothers and children, including contraception.”

Got it. No doors closed, including to contraception. But what about abortion? Here, too, the language was peculiar and meticulously deployed. Harper: “But we do not want a debate, here or elsewhere, on abortion.” Oda: “And as we have been saying all along, we are not opening the abortion debate.”

Well, what the hell does that mean? Continue…

Maternal health: France

By Paul Wells - Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 11:03 PM - 2 Comments

I’m going to be parsing the prime minister’s comments on this whole no-condoms-for-Africa thing in a few minutes, but first, partly from courtesy (because I asked and because good people took a day to find out) and partly for completeness, I’m going to add the French embassy’s response to the question I was putting around the embassy circuit yesterday, which was, roughly, huh?

A spokesman wrote to me this morning, and here’s my translation of what that message said:

“We are right in the process of discussing with Canada and other G8 members about the Canadian initiative on maternal and child health. A reunion was held on March 8 and 9 and others will take place in the months ahead as the G8 approaches, June 25 and 26.

“On this major question whose scope is very wide, France believes a priority must be put, among other things, on reproductive and sexual care and services, including voluntary family planning. This is a well-known position which we defend in every international forum and which is also upheld by French NGOs.

“Here is a document which sums up our priorities and actions on health. [The document makes no mention of abortion -- pw]

“Like Canada, France is a signatory of the Beijing Platform which provides for the respect of women’s right to sexual and reproductive health.”

It’s worth quoting the relevant paragraph from that 1995 Beijing Platform, which is complex but telling, in full:

“In the light of paragraph 8.25 of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, which states: “In no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning. All Governments and relevant intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations are urged to strengthen their commitment to women’s health, to deal with the health impact of unsafe abortion [16] as a major public health concern and to reduce the recourse to abortion through expanded and improved family-planning services. Prevention of unwanted pregnancies must always be given the highest priority and every attempt should be made to eliminate the need for abortion. Women who have unwanted pregnancies should have ready access to reliable information and compassionate counselling. Any measures or changes related to abortion within the health system can only be determined at the national or local level according to the national legislative process. In circumstances where abortion is not against the law, such abortion should be safe. In all cases, women should have access to quality services for the management of complications arising from abortion. Post-abortion counselling, education and family-planning services should be offered promptly, which will also help to avoid repeat abortions”, consider reviewing laws containing punitive measures against women who have undergone illegal abortions;”