Getting Fired From a Show Before You Even Start

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 4:13 PM - 4 Comments

Remember when I said that Patton Oswalt had been cast in a show? Well, he was. Then. But that was a long time ago. Days ago. And now he’s not on the show any more.

And Oswalt is the second actor in the same week to get bounced from a major network comedy pilot after the first table read. The other was Kristin Kreuk, who was supposed to follow up her stint on Josh Schwartz’s Chuck with the lead on his first sitcom pilot, Hitched. She was replaced by Sara Fletcher, who has more comedy experience than Kreuk.

One thing I take away from all this is that I agree with someone in the Deadline Hollywood Daily comments section (not a statement I make lightly) — it may be a mistake to make big announcements about which actors have been cast in a pilot. It’s not new for pilots to be re-cast on demands from the network, the studio, or the producer. They have to do whatever it takes to increase the show’s chances of being picked up. But in today’s media environment, where more people than ever can pick up on these announcements, it creates negative buzz for the show when these changes are made.

Back in 1994, when NewsRadio replaced Ray Romano at the last minute (they replaced him with a character who didn’t even last past the pilot, and replaced that guy with Joe Rogan when the show went to series), nobody outside of the industry even knew about it; Romano wasn’t “that guy who got fired from NewsRadio.” A few years later, Riff Regan was replaced on Buffy the Vampire Slayer by the more experienced Alyson Hannigan, and that wasn’t really widely known until the show was successful and famous. Even in 2007, the publicity process wasn’t quite as advanced as it is now, and The Big Bang Theory managed to go through two separate pilots and lots o’ recasting without it becoming an issue. But none of this stuff is really under the radar any more.

Ashen skies

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 4:11 PM - 0 Comments

RELATED ARTICLES
No end in sight for havoc of Icelandic volcano — Planes are indefinitely grounded, and this eruption could trigger a larger volcano nearby

Mid-afternoon in Guergis

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 3:40 PM - 70 Comments

Dominic LeBlanc says the government didn’t act fast enough to guard the cabinet. The Globe tries to sort out exactly what the ethics commissioner was asked or told. Libby Davies formally asks the ethics commission to investigate. Mark Holland formally asks the lobbying commissioner to investigate. Mr. Gillani’s spokesman talks to the CBC. Doug Bell notes that spokesman is also a dog photographer. Alison Crawford notes the difference between “credible” and “serious and credible” allegations. The Prime Minister of New Zealand surmises that salaciousness is universal. Mr. Jaffer is scheduled to appear before a parliamentary committee next week. And the Ontario Provincial Police union wants to know why the charges against Mr. Jaffer were dropped.

Ash falls over Europe

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 2:53 PM - 1 Comment

As volcanic ash rains down over northern Europe, the World Health Organization is warning Europeans to stay indoors. It started Wednesday, when a volcano beneath the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in Iceland erupted, spewing up hot gases and ice chunks the size of houses. Those living nearby were  evacuated because of flash floods. WHO spokesperson David Epstein says the resulting ash cloud is potentially dangerous for people, because if inhaled, it could cause respiratory problems.

On Friday, about 28,000 flights were cancelled in Europe—more than twice as many as were cancelled on Thursday. The International Air Transport Association says those cancellations are costing a whopping $200 million a day. Some flights may resume on Saturday morning.

CBC

NDTV

Goldman Sachs accused of fraud

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 2:40 PM - 2 Comments

The one Wall Street investment bank to emerge from the mortgage meltdown relatively unscathed is now facing accusations of fraud, drawing new calls for tighter regulation of the U.S. financial industry. A civil suit filed by Securities and Exchange Commission in New York alleges that the bank marketed a sub-prime mortgage product without revealing vital information—specifically, that a major hedge fund had bet against the securities. Investors are said to have lost roughly $1 billion on the product, known as Abacus.

BBC News

I won't be resigning

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 2:27 PM - 5 Comments

Questions from the floor during a Progressive Conservative fundraising dinner last night in Calgary generated what must have seemed to beleaguered Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach some odd curiosities. “When are you resigning?” was one followed by, “Help us understand why we should stick with the PCs over the Wildrose?”—this last one in regards to growing support for the upstart conservative Wildrose Alliance Party led by Danielle Smith. Tory premiers in Alberta frequently don’t get posed such queries. Stelmach was game, however, responding off the cuff: “Well, I can tell you that I won’t be resigning,” and then, of the Wildrose Alliance, that the PCs aren’t fringe: “The Progressive Conservative party is a big party. It has room for Ted Morton. It has room for Dave Hancock,” he said. But how much longer will it have room for Premier Stelmach?

Calgary Herald

Kaczynski, the backlash: Against him, against the entire cult of martyrdom

By Paul Wells - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 2:25 PM - 17 Comments

Two very good op-ed articles in the New York Times bring to this side of the Atlantic some of the debate that’s been stirred in Poland this week by the terrible plane crash in the Russian forest.

Wiktor Osiatynski points out, fairly gently, that Lech Kaczynski simply wasn’t a popular or well-liked president and that his chances of re-election were close to zero. This helps explain the Facebook group that sprung up to protest against the idea of burying Kaczynski at Wawel Castle, and the assorted other protests.

More broadly, and in an even better piece of writing, novelist Olga Tokarczuk critiques the very idea of romanticizing death and catastrophe — an entirely understandable reaction to Poland’s tragic history, but one she’d rather her country put behind it: “I am sick of building our common identity around funeral marches and failed uprisings. I dream of Poland becoming a modern society that is defined not by the crippling nature of history, but by our individual achievements, a sense of our own self-worth and ideas for the future.”

The eternal search for logic and consistency

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 2:16 PM - 34 Comments

From QP this morning, Wayne Easter attempts to put two and two together. Or connect the dots. Or whatever the appropriate phrase is here.

Mr. Speaker, Richard Colvin is a diplomat with 20 years of distinguished service to Canada. He remains a high-level employee of the government in perhaps our most important foreign mission, the embassy in Washington. When Mr. Colvin and others raised serious allegations, the government said he was not credible. However, when the Prime Minister got second-hand information from Mr. Gillani, known as Big Daddy G, the government fired the Status of Women minister, booted her from caucus and called in the police. Why the hypocritical double standard?

UK calls for ban on trans-fats foods

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 1:29 PM - 0 Comments

According to an editorial in the British Medical Journal, 7,000 deaths a year could be prevented by reducing consumption of trans fats by just one per cent, the BBC reports. Trans fats, the solid fats found in margarines, cakes and fast foods, are already banned in some countries, but the Food Standards Agency said the low consumption in the UK makes a total ban unnecessary. Trans fats now make up one per cent of the average UK adult food energy intake, below the two per cent that’s called dangerous, but some groups consume more than that, putting themselves at risk. Trans fats are used to extend shelf life but have no nutritional value, raising blood cholesterol levels and increasing the risk of heart disease.

BBC

NASA aims for asteroids

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 12:11 PM - 4 Comments

U.S. President Barack Obama has told NASA workers in Florida that they should focus on asteroids, Mars, and more robotic missions instead of planning a return to the moon. Visiting an asteroid would teach us a lot about space, Reuters reports: they can tell scientists how planets form, and might also contain primordial elements that helped make the early solar system. NASA could also learn how to break them up if needed. NASA’s Near Earth Object Program has identified over 1,000 potentially hazardous asteroids, although none are on a collision course with Earth.

Reuters

Obama: ailing gays and lesbians deserve loved ones at their sides

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 12:04 PM - 12 Comments

Barack Obama has issued a new order to state-funded hospitals: they must grant complete visiting rights to same-sex partners. On Thursday night, hours after ordering officials to issue the new regulations, Obama called Florida resident Janice Langbehn to say that he had been motivated, in part, by her story. In 2007, when Langbehn’s partner Lisa Pond was hospitalized with a fatal brain aneurysm, Langbehn was denied visiting rights (along with the four children she had adopted with Pond); Pond later died alone. The President’s orders will also allow gays and lesbians to make medical decisions for their partners. Explained Obama: “Every day, all across America, patients are denied the kindness and caring of a loved one at their sides.”

New York Times

China: 1,144 dead, 80,000 homeless

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 11:54 AM - 0 Comments

The official death toll is mounting in China, where earthquakes struck on Thursday. State media reported Friday that at least 1,144 died in the quake and that 417 are still missing; 11,477 people are reported injured and estimated 80,000 have lost their homes. The quakes (the strongest reaching a 7.1 magnitude, according to China’s earthquake administration) hit in a mountainous area of western China. There, rescue teams continue to dig‹often with bare hands—for survivors trapped under the rubble. Yang Xusheng, of China’s Red Cross Society, says they’re running out of time. “Temperature may drop below zero in the evening,” Yang warns. He also notes that the remote western areas are nearly inaccessible to rescue workers (it takes 12 hours to drive to the mountains from the main airport). The high altitude also complicates efforts, and some rescue workers are already showing signs of altitude sickness. Hundreds of bodies have been gathered for a mass cremation.

The Globe and Mail

CBC

Opening Weekend: Killer girls in 'Kick-Ass' and 'Dragon Tattoo'

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 11:25 AM - 1 Comment

Noomi Rapacee in 'The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo' and Chloe Moretz in 'Kick-Ass'

It never rains, it pours. We complain that there are no good female action heroes, and all of a sudden this weekend we’re being assaulted by two of them—ruthless female superheroes whose only superpower is fearless cruelty and an almost psychotic lust for vengeance. Two seriously screwed-up young ladies avenging violent crimes against their mothers after being robbed of their childhood. And in one case, the killer is still a child. Meet the new breed of female empowerment—Sweden’s Noomi Rapace is Lisbeth Salander, the chilly heroine of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, based on the blockbuster trilogy of novels by Stieg Larsson; and America’s Chloe Moretz is Hit Girl, the secret weapon in Kick-Ass, the anti-comic book adventure based on the graphic novel by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.

They’re very different movies. Dragon Tattoo is a gritty procedural epic filmed with a realist style in the stark land of Ingmar Bergman. Kick-Ass is a pop orgy of pulp exploitation that’s set in New York and unfolds as a parent’s worst nightmare. Dragon Tattoo poses as mature drama, Kick-Ass as delinquent comedy. Both dish up visceral brutality and are restricted to viewers aged 18 and over. Of the two, Kick-Ass is more fun. It’s a blast—a smart, refreshing, subversive spin on the super-hero genre. Dragon Tattoo is thoroughly engrossing, and a must-see for fans of the Larsson trilogy. Hollywood is planning its own souped-up American version of the franchise, but it’s hard to imagine anyone capturing its heroine with more fidelity, and ferocity, than Noomi Rapace.

I’ve written about both these films in the pages of the magazine. For my piece on the heroine of Dragon Tattoo, go to: The most seductive predator since Bond. And for this week’s story on the taboo-smashing provocations of Kick-Ass, go click on: Where no movie has gone before. Meanwhile a few more thoughts on these films:

Kick-Ass

The premise: when pop culture is so thickly populated by comic book superheroes, how come ordinary people haven’t tried to emulate them in real life, even if they have no super powers?  It’s an ingenious notion, but every Hollywood studio turned down the script from Scottish writer-director Matthew Vaughn, appalled by the prospect of an R-rated movie featuring a homicidal 11-year-old. This anti-superhero movie now seems poised to kick serious ass at the box office. And that must make Canadian filmmaker Peter Stebbings feel a bit glum. He employed a similar premise for his witty, well-crafted Defendor, starring Woody Harrelson as a bumbling vigilante in a makeshift superhero costume who heads out into the night with only a truncheon—just like the title character played by Aaron Johnson in Kick-Ass. Sadly, despite a winning performance from Harrelson, and a promising sale to an American distributor, Defendor died at the box office. It was, in the end, more  tender character drama than action movie, and that’s always a tough sell.

Kick-Ass, however, is one of those rare meta movies that works like a self-fulfilling prophecy of pop culture. It a tale of an absurdly amateurish superhero achieving unlikely celebrity. And in that sense, despite the adult-rated violence, it’s reminiscent of Ghostbusters. The story contains the pop phenomenon that will become the movie’s own blockbuster success. And although it feeds on all the tropes of comic book adventure, Kick-Ass also comments on them with a dark, subversive wit.

It’s hero, Dave Lizewski (Johnson) is the classic high school nerd, pining for a cute girl who thinks he’s gay, an assumption he’s willing to encourage just to keep her around. Meanwhile, he achieves instant notoriety as his half-baked alter-ego, Kick-Ass, when his shambling heroics in a parking lot brawl are immortalized on YouTube. The story has the token framework of a teen romantic comedy. But this sweet fable is wonderfully upstaged by the more hard-core superheroes that Kick-Ass encounters. Namely Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz), the 11-year-old daughter of an insane ex-cop whose alter-ego is a Batman clone called Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage). Cage is at his oddball best as this avuncular psycho who street-proofs his kid by strapping a bullet-proof vest on her and blasting her with rounds of live ammunition. There’s also a student super-villain, the crime lord’s spoiled son who suits up as Red Mist—he’s played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who will always be remembered as Superbad‘s ‘McLovin’.

Moretz may not be the protagonist, but she’s the movie’s revelation. It may seem perverse to watch an 11-year-old take gleeful delight in stabbing, slashing, and shooting her way through a gang of drug dealers—as if her idea of a play date was an all-out bloodbath. But the martial artistry of her stunts is dazzling. And her character is endowed with such an infectious innocence that there’s something weirdly uplifting about it all. It seems like a small miracle, that a movie so violent and dark can, in the end, feel lighter than air.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Since seeing this movie several weeks ago, I’ve devoured all three books of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, and  my memory of the film  has become somewhat confused with the source. What I can say, briefly, is that the film does a superb job of capturing both the main characters and the Byzantine complexity of Larsson’s narrative, even while compressing and conflating plot points. There are some episodes of brutal and searing violence, but the movie is largely a mystery. Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), a  journalist who has just been disgraced in a high-profile libel case, is hired by a member of the Vanger family, a wealthy clan of industrialists, to investigate the 40-year-old disappearance of  Harriet Vanger, who vanished from the family’s island home without a trace. To help him, Blomkvist hires Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), a tattooed punked-out computer hacker with almost supernatural intelligence and the instincts of a ruthless predator. Like Kick-Ass, this is another movie that traffics in a thrilling role reversal, by letting the putative hero, who is mild-mannered and warm-blooded, surrender the spotlight to a scarred and twisted female avenger with ice in her veins.

Meanwhile, however, there’s a massive plot to get through. It’s no small feat to make the minutiae of archival detective work compelling, as our detectives pour through photographs, Internet files and dusty records, even with the office romance that inevitably ensues. But Danish director Niels Arden Oplev holds our attention by borrowing a device from Michelangelo Antonioni’s New Wave classic, Blow-Up (which happens to be one of my favorite films)—the intrigue keeps circling back to an old photograph of Harriet Vanger that is repeatedly enlarged and re-examined, a photo in which she is being watch by a man in a crowd. The photo’s accidental composition becomes the key to the puzzle, and the director creates graphic suspense from the sheer cadence of pixels.

Without giving anything away here, we can say that investigation soon uncovers a grotesque litany of serial murder, and that’s as far as we’ll go. As the bodies pile up, Dragon Tattoo acquires the conventional rhythms of a serial killer movie, and oddly enough, as the action accelerates, the tension lags. But what makes this serial killer movie unique is the mesmerizing performance by Rapace. Usually a character this twisted would be the villain, not the heroine. There’s also something cooly Scandanavian and deadpan about the inappropriate sexual chemistry between the middle-aged journalist and his femme fatale colleague—which is by no means as creepy as it sounds, in case you think I’m overly identifying. And the movie’s stark locations are as exotic as the characters. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the most successful Swedish movie in history. It’s a long way from the cinema of Ingmar Bergman—it doesn’t even come close. But it does take place on an island, after all, and in its lonely landscape you can still see glimmers of Ingmar’s ghost.

Hey look: Thousands of American soldiers can sure change your summer

By Paul Wells - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 11:24 AM - 5 Comments

From the print edition, the promised account of my latest week in Afghanistan. A four-LAV convoy of fine men and women from the Canadian Forces hurtled me quite a distance forward, for a few days, from the cushy confines of Kandahar Air Field, where I was mostly confined on previous trips. A medic from Quebec City showed me how to perch my feet on a little rail hanging down from my seat so that if anything untoward happened, there’d be an extra six precious inches between the floor and my boots. The view, and the objective strategic circumstance, are radically different this spring. I did my best to tell you how.

'Kick-Ass' goes where no movie has gone before

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 10:32 AM - 14 Comments

Like any bona fide superhero, a comic-book movie that hopes to make a dent on pop culture needs a dual identity. On the one hand, it has to cloak itself in bright and shiny cliché; on the other, it has to stun us with something we’ve never seen before. That requires a tricky mix of safe formula and nervy invention, and Hollywood tends to have trouble with the latter. That’s why Kick-Ass, which opens this week with blockbuster hype, is not a Hollywood movie. Every major studio turned down the script. It was too violent, too profane, and no one knew what to make of its most sensational character—a savage 11-year-old caped superhero named Hit Girl who swears like a sailor and kills a whole lot of people with brutal relish. One studio executive told the filmmakers to turn Hit Girl into a 20-year-old, or lose her entirely.

Scottish producer-writer-director Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, Stardust) wouldn’t compromise. Financing Kick-Ass independently, he shot it in Toronto and the U.K. on a relatively modest budget of US$30 million, then sold the finished movie to Lionsgate for a reported US$45 million—after a bidding war among the same studios that had rejected the script. You can see why it caused a fuss. To coin an obvious blurb, Kick-Ass kicks ass.

Based on the graphic novel by Mark Millar (Wanted), it’s about a teen comic-book nerd (Aaron Johnson) who tries his luck as a real-life superhero named Kick-Ass, armed with only a truncheon and a mail-order scuba suit. As his bumbling exploits win YouTube notoriety, and the girl of his dreams, he meets a pair of hard-core crime fighters—Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage), a demented ex-cop in a Batman get-up, and Hit Girl (Chloë Moretz), the daughter he has honed into a lethal weapon. She’s learned to play with guns and knives the way most girls play with dolls.

Continue…

Week in Pictures: April 9th – 16th 2010

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 10:18 AM - 0 Comments

In Afganistan the final battle begins

By Paul Wells - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 10:10 AM - 57 Comments

Louie Palu/CP

“This is the edge of the moon,” Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie told me as we dismounted from our armoured vehicles at the foot of the Soviet-built mountain fortress of Sperwan Ghar. He pointed westward. “If you go 100 m that way, you will die.”

For now, this little outpost, only 30 km from Kandahar City in the rolling farmland of the Panjwayi district, marks the outer edge of the territory Canadian troops control and patrol. It’s impenetrable: a steep man-made hill with heavy guns, a moat, and a tethered balloon whose cameras allow the 200-odd Canadian Forces soldiers there to monitor and sometimes target insurgent activity in every direction.

But to the west, Canadians have left the area to insurgent fighters. There are perhaps only a few hundred of them in a local population of 3,000, Maj. Wade Rutland told Leslie. But the bad guys have “complete freedom of manoeuvre” in and around three villages, Zangabad, Mushan and Talukan, that Rutland called the area’s “insurgent Axis of Evil.”

Continue…

How Helena Guergis went, so quickly, from promise to pariah

By Aaron Wherry with Chris Sorensen - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 49 Comments

Sean Kilpatrick / CP

As Parliament resumed on Monday, seat No. 46 in the House of Commons—the spot immediately visible to television viewers over Stephen Harper’s right shoulder when the Prime Minister rises to speak—was no longer assigned to Helena Guergis, the photogenic Conservative for Simcoe-Grey. The former minister of state for the status of women had been officially banished to seat No. 153, a spot about as far as one can get from the Prime Minister without leaving the House. In her place sat Denis Lebel, the generally unremarkable minister of state for economic development in Quebec.

“She was one of the breakthrough MPs in 2004,” says Tim Powers, a Conservative strategist. “Remember the history of the Conservative party. The argument was: when the party was united we’d win more seats, we’d win more seats in areas like her riding. She won a seat, she was a loyal performer for the Prime Minister, she was hard-working, at least it appeared in the early days. Certainly, she fit a demographic and gender profile that accelerated her chances of getting into cabinet. So she had some opportunities and she took advantage of them, until she lost sight of who she was.”

Seven months after her husband, former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer, was charged with drunk driving and drug possession, Guergis is now the subject of allegations serious enough to be referred to the RCMP. Whenever she next appears in the House, she will sit as an unwanted independent MP, unceremoniously ostracized from her party. And whatever else comes of the charges against her, she would seem now to personify the very antithesis of everything Conservatives hope to represent. “I think they truly became, in that old Reform term, ‘Ottawashed,’ ” Powers says of Jaffer and Guergis. “That they were given a lot of opportunities at a young age and they believed they were somewhat invincible.”

Continue…

Marijuana v. Asbestos

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 9:52 AM - 20 Comments

As part of a Mark series on what we should ban and what we should legalize, Liberal Keith Martin says decriminalize marijuana, while NDP MP Nathan Cullen says ban asbestos.

Separately, Progressive Conservative Senator Elaine McCoy recently wrote that Canada should consider legalizing marijuana with an eye to the potential revenue generated.

Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

The hair of the Mutt
Shania Twain is breaking her stoic and refreshingly dignified silence on her ex-husband’s infidelity. She’s signed on to star in a reality series on the new Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), which goes to air Jan. 1. The series, Why Not?, will explore the “life-altering heartbreak” of the end of her 14-year marriage to music producer Mutt Lange, and her recovery. Lange took up with Marie-Anne Thiébaud, a long-time secretary and house manager at Twain and Lange’s estate in Switzerland. Twain is recovering by dating Thiébaud’s ex-husband, Frédéric, which has a certain symmetry to it. “This is a very personal experience that I think is important to share,” she told Winfrey. One unlikely to agree is the highly reclusive Lange, which may be the point of the exercise.

That’ll teach them to follow the law
Wisconsin’s new sex education law, which requires any such courses to include lessons on birth control and sexually transmitted diseases, is “sick and shameful,” says Scott Southworth, district attorney for Juneau County. Southworth warns he’ll prosecute teachers who teach contraception, as mandated by law. The charge would be contributing to the delinquency of a minor, punishable by up to nine months (how appropriate!) in jail, and a $10,000 fine. “I didn’t pick the fight,” says Southworth, a Christian evangelical, “the legislature dumped it in my lap.” Coincidentally, it’s Teen Pregnancy Month, and Bristol Palin, 19, has filmed a public service message with her infant son Tripp. It’s a bit of a shift from her earlier strictly-abstinence line. “Pause before you play,” she warns.

Twin peaks
The NHL schedule being what it is, Vancouver Canuck forward Henrik Sedin has a limited profile in Eastern Canada. Expect that to change. Sedin won the league scoring title on the weekend, with 112 points, beating superstars Alex Ovechkin, in second, and Sidney Crosby, in third. Sedin scored four assists in his final regular-season game against Calgary on Saturday. In typical fashion, three of those passes fed his identical twin Daniel, who scored a hat trick. Daniel may have challenged for the points race if he hadn’t missed 19 games due to injury. He potted 85 points, or 1.35 points per game to Henrik’s 1.37. The brothers also finished the three previous seasons within one or two points of each other—an eerie accomplishment over 82 games. That and their no-look passes to each other cement the theory that some twins really are telepathic.

Continue…

Mitchel Raphael on Hill catering secrets and why Liberals are praying for Sheila Fraser

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 5 Comments

Give them meat, in bite-sized pieces
Prorogation was a big blow to receptions on the Hill. With Parliament again in full force the platters are being passed around once more. Groups holding events always want to get as many MPs out as they can. Good food creates a buzz, especially among underpaid staffers, who can sniff out a quality caterer and talk a party up to their bosses. (The prospect of good food can be even more motivating than the event’s cause.)

Two caterers who delight taste buds on the Hill are Tulips & Maple and Thyme & Again Creative Catering. Sheila Whyte, owner of Thyme & Again, says one of the big jobs is to help the client navigate Hill culture. Clients are often not aware that Hill maintenance people are seasoned at transforming a room from the venue of a Karlheinz Schreiber inquiry into an Israeli wine tasting or a reception for groups battling autism. “The maintenance people are amazing,” says Whyte, who recalls the year 300 litres of pumpkin squash soup tipped over and went down an elevator shaft. She makes sure to send them good Christmas gifts. Thyme & Again has been catering on the Hill since the ’90s. A typical request is “something to represent Canada” or the provinces. Some areas are easy: P.E.I. potatoes, Quebec cheeses. Some, such as the Prairies, are more of a challenge, says Whyte. She says prime ministers tend to not eat much at the few receptions they do attend. But there are cases when she’s been asked to put aside some food for a PM. Security has changed dramatically over the years: staff lists of who is working must now be sent in advance.

Mark van der Pas, the “visioneer” at the superb Tulips & Maple, which has been catering on the Hill for 18 years, says a key thing to have at receptions is meat. The reality, he says, is that most MPs and staff are men, and men tend to be carnivores. “They like beef on a bun,” he notes. The key to Hill receptions, van der Pas says, is to allow networking to occur. Small bite-sized portions allow for more schmoozing and keep MPs there longer. Also, he adds, the food must have bilingual signs. The recession has meant cutbacks on excesses such as shrimp trees and a move toward comfort foods, although comfort food here means macaroni and cheese “with lobster and good cheese from Quebec.” MPs are appreciative of the effort of caterers because their schedules mean a reception often ends up being their dinner. Also, adds van der Pas, “the higher they are up in the government, the more courteous they are to the servers.”

Who is stalking gail Shea?
Anti-seal-hunt PETA protesters are on the tail of Fisheries Minister Gail Shea when she attends Ottawa events. They continue to spread misinformation that baby seals are killed in the hunt, when it is actually illegal to kill the white-furred babies. One shaggy-haired protester yelling into a megaphone outside an event Shea was attending seemed obsessed with seal penises, repeating over and over that Shea is peddling seal penises to China. A spokesperson for the minister says there is no push for any one part of the seal.

Why Baird likes to talk about Dalton McGuinty
Gerard Kennedy, the Liberal critic for infrastructure, cities and communities, can’t wait for Sheila Fraser’s stimulus spending fall audit. He is hoping an interim report from the auditor general will come soon. With billions of stimulus dollars pouring out of Ottawa, the hope is Fraser will uncover something to give the Grits some heavy election-worthy ammo. When Kennedy asks him questions, Transport Minister John Baird likes to stress he is working well with the provinces and in particular with “my Premier Dalton McGuinty.” Kennedy, we might recall, lost the top spot to McGuinty when the two battled for the leadership of the Ontario Liberal party in 1996. Kennedy led for four ballots before losing to McGuinty on the fifth.

Tonight in Guergis

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 12:10 AM - 35 Comments

Ms. Guergis and Mr. Jaffer visited Belize in 2008. Ms. Guergis encouraged her cousin, a Simcoe politician, to consider a company connected to Mr. Gillani and Mr. Jaffer. Canadian Press investigates Ms. Guergis’ club-going days. The private investigator whose allegations led to Ms. Guergis’ exit from caucus has liabilities totalling $13-million. A friend says the PI is a “skillful” investigator. Mr. Gillani’s spokesman says Mr. Gillani did not boast of having pictures of Mr. Jaffer and Ms. Guergis partying with cocaine and prostitutes, nor does he possess any pictures of Mr. Jaffer and Ms. Guergis partying with cocaine and prostitutes. And Gilles Duceppe visits Edmonton and makes a joke about Mr. Jaffer.

Charest's credibility gap

By Philippe Gohier - Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 5:56 PM - 25 Comments

Never mind that the inquiry Jean Charest called to look into judicial nominations in the province doesn’t get at the heart of the controversy surrounding his government—namely, that a former justice minister says he saw Liberal bagmen collecting cash donations to circumvent party donation rules. Even when it comes to the limited scope of Michel Bastarache’s inquiry, it’s getting hard to believe Charest isn’t already sunk, whether or not his government is eventually exonerated.

Consider the government’s confusion over whether or not the judicial nomination process was indeed changed after Charest’s election in 2003. The current minister’s own assistant tells Le Devoir the list of potential candidates for judgeships is shared with the provincial cabinet before the nomination is made. After the justice minister makes his or her recommendation, “the cabinet will look at the other candidates and make a decision,” she says. Under the previous system, the justice minister alone would make the final decision, though it would be presented to the cabinet as a “recommendation” which would then invariably rubber-stamp it.

Continue…

The Commons: Too little, too late

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 5:39 PM - 67 Comments

The Scene. Bob Rae stood with nothing to say about Helena Guergis. Alas, the good news ended there.

Each day, he said, there were new allegations, new information about this country’s handling of detainees in Afghanistan. None of this is being resolved. So why not a public inquiry to sort it all out?

Here came the Defence Minister, quite ready for this. “Mr. Speaker, the key word in the honourable member’s question was ‘allegations,’” Peter MacKay said. “In fact what we knew yesterday was the witness before the committee made allegations, and when specifically asked about these allegations he said he had no specific evidence to support the claims. In fact it was the honourable member who posed questions to him that elicited that response. When specifically asked if he was even in the area when these alleged incidents occurred, he said ‘no.’”

This is, you might note, just about the same tack the government employed five months ago after Richard Colvin’s initial testimony. And that was, you might’ve noticed, not particularly successful in bringing this matter to a conclusion.

Mr. Rae tried again. “Mr. Speaker, it is not going to do,” he offered, somewhat exasperatedly, “to not recognize the seriousness of the allegations which were made by the individual yesterday.” Continue…