The new accountability

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 13, 2010 at 12:16 AM - 12 Comments

OpenParliament.ca strikes me as an impressively ambitious and valuable project. I am, quite genuinely, excited about it. Go visit and support Mr. Mulley’s work.

Bookmark it alongside 308.com and Pundits’ Guide. Important things done by people who don’t seem motivated by the fame, power and money that comes from their efforts.

Also, if you use this little doohickey Mr. Mulley made you can figure out how many times various swears have been committed to the official House of Commons record since 1994.

Patton Oswalt Is the New Jimmy James

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 6:46 PM - 1 Comment

Update: Well, that doesn’t last long. This guy hasn’t had the best run of luck lately.

The news that Patton Oswalt has been cast as the eccentric millionaire in Paul Simms’ new sitcom is pretty exciting, even though he became available in perhaps the most humiliating way possible (he was in a play that closed during rehearsals, and according to some rumours it was because after the Will & Grace Karen person tried to have him fired). The part appears to be basically Jimmy James under a slightly different name (even the premise of the show, it has been noted, is Simms’ pitch for a re-tooled sixth season of NewsRadio, whre the characters would have moved to New Hampshire). And trying to follow Stephen Root, who turned in one of the greatest comic performances in television history, is a tough job for any performer. But Oswalt is a strong enough personality that he could give this role his own style. Just as Root took a character who, on paper, was supposed to be more of a traditional tough-but-fair sitcom boss, and changed him into more of a wild lunatic, with the writers taking their cues from his crazy inflections.

The Commons: A mysterious stranger enters the story

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 5:45 PM - 69 Comments

The Scene. Michael Ignatieff did not seem particularly enthused about the subject matter, but as he clarified for reporters afterwards, this is his job now and this is the place where these matters are meant to be aired.

“Mr. Speaker, on Friday the Prime Minister fired a minister, kicked her out of caucus, called in the RCMP and the Ethics Commissioner, and Canadians still do not know why,” he reviewed, trying to sound as serious as possible. “There are serious allegations surrounding the conduct of this minister, but we still do not know what they are. When will the government tell Canadians the truth?”

The government turned here to John Baird, their all-purpose refuter and obfuscationist. He did not, quite surprisingly, provide a date upon which the opposition could expect the truth to be tabled.

“Mr. Speaker, as the Prime Minister reported to Canadians this past Friday, allegations came forth from a third party,” Mr. Baird said, solemn and sober. “Those allegations were forwarded to officials at the RCMP and with the office of the Ethics Commissioner here in Ottawa. The RCMP and the Ethics Commissioner will come to their own conclusions, as is proper on this issue.”

Unfortunately, it was unclear to which prime minister Mr. Baird was referring. His prime minister, Stephen Harper, made no reference to this third party in his official statement last Friday. Nor does it appear the Prime Minister invoked any such mysterious source in speaking with reporters Friday afternoon. Continue…

How do you feel about Helena Guergis's departure from the federal cabinet?

By macleans.ca - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 4:43 PM - 42 Comments

Masters wrap: Left behind by Phil

By Colby Cosh - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 4:29 PM - 14 Comments

The gods of golf decided to go for cheap melodrama on Sunday, letting Phil Mickelson walk away from the field and take a third Masters as his cancer-fighting wife Amy looked on. Well, maybe we shouldn’t credit it to the gods, but to Mickelson’s all-around game, which only Tiger Woods can match at times when his morale and concentration aren’t shot to hell.

Insofar as fate or divine intervention had anything to do with Lefty’s win, they seemed to be against it. He had an extremely makeable birdie putt on the 2nd hole, but on his backswing a stamen from a pine tree plopped directly in the path of his ball. This was creepy, as Bill Simmons would say, on a Blair Witch level. As Jim Nantz and Verne Lundquist summoned their formidable intellectual powers to the task of figuring out what the hell happened, CBS cut to a wide shot of the hole. The day was sunny, without enough wind to stir a puff of pipesmoke; there were, and are, no trees within 70 or 80 yards of the hole. The offending vegetation appeared to have dropped vertically out of a clear sky. 81-year-old Dan Jenkins, the Twitterizing dean of the world’s golf writers, quipped “I’ve never seen that before, but this is only my 60th Masters.”

If Mickelson had lost by one shot, everyone would be making a big deal of the incident today; since it betokened nothing and is already being forgotten, let it serve an instructive lesson in how superstitions come about. But let’s also note that a stamen is the male reproductive organ of a plant. Apparently Phil has less trouble getting distracted by such things than some other golfers [rimshot].

I never liked the old Phil Mickelson much. Somehow, and I’m not at all sure this was ever a fair perception, he seemed to combine smugness, haphazard stewardship of his talent, and weak nerve; that he was liked by American galleries from the beginning only made matters worse. It was a source of wholly non-patriotic delight to me when fellow “lefty” Mike Weir beat him to a major-championship victory. (Weir, Mickelson, and New Zealander Sir Bob Charles, the only lefty swingers to win majors, are all right-handed in everyday life; the world is still waiting for a truly lefty Lefty.)

But in the face of the Tiger era, Mickelson buckled down, worked hard, and found another gear, without sacrificing his family, his cheerfulness, or his relationship with the fans. With each passing year he looks more impressive, more like someone who stands as a living rebuke to Woods—to say nothing of the Sergio Garcias, the David Duvals, and the Notah Begays, the players who had the innate gifts to match Mickelson’s tournament record but haven’t closed the deal. It’s doubly endearing that Lefty has been quietly trying to minimize the bathos of his wife’s and mother’s cancer diagnoses, subtly discouraging reporters from whispering at him as though they were huddled in the rear pews of a funeral Mass. (Journalists don’t equate cancer with death; they think it’s much worse.)

Before the fourth-round tee time, I heard some mike-wielding goofball actually approach Mickelson and attempt a lurid thumbnail sketch of a tumour-ravaged, vomit-flecked Amy feebly rising from her sickbed to watch Sunday’s golf from home. Mickelson, forgiving and full of pep, pointed out that the Mrs. had joined him in Augusta and would be in the gallery that very day. And so she was. She looked great.

The new face of the Conservative party

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 3:55 PM - 27 Comments

Helena Guergis has been banished to seat #153 in the far corner of the right side of the House.

Taking her seat in the place that will be immediately visible to TV viewers over the Prime Minister’s right shoulder is Denis Lebel.

Charest’s popularity nosedives

By macleans.ca - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 2:29 PM - 4 Comments

Massive tax hikes in his spring budget are killing Quebec Premier Jean Charest’s poll numbers. A whopping 77 per cent of Quebecers disapprove of the Liberal leader, according to a poll conducted for Le Devoir, with only 21 per cent saying they’re very satisfied or satisfied with his government. “We’ve never seen anything like it,” said Christian Bourque, spokesperson for the firm that conducted the poll. On Sunday about 50,000 people rallied against the budget, which includes two increases to the provincial sales tax, a four cent increase in fuel tax, a $200 charge for health care and a $25 fee for doctors visits, amongst other increases. Rejean Pelletier, a political scientist at Laval University, says Charest has “in some ways, given up,” and that “he doesn’t seem interested anymore by Quebec politics and might be looking for a way out before the next election.”

Montreal Gazette

Le Devoir

Where Did That Deal Go?

By Takeoffeh.com - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 2:25 PM - 1 Comment

A recent CTV article highlighted examples of an odd phenomenon in online travel shopping: prices for packaged sun vacations jumping considerably when you click to actually book the trip. How is that possible? No other online product abruptly changes prices mid-transaction.  Is it a trick? Do they think we won’t notice a sudden $200 difference in the package price?

According to industry experts, the problem is in the very nature of packaged holidays. It is a highly perishable product and package tour operators must maximize the revenue opportunity. If margins are met well ahead, the lead-in price is pulled and the operator raises it in order to maximize profit.

And, if it doesn’t sell within a certain time frame, it becomes a liability and is either pulled from the market or the price is dropped. A major operator can make up to 50,000 price adjustments in a day.

Dan Langevin is Vice President of Softvoyage, the Quebec-based company that builds the booking engine software powering the vast majority of Canadian online travel websites. Langevin describes the process of how Softvoyage engines access current pricing: “Our automated tools constantly seek out the latest prices and inventory from tour operators, airlines and consolidators and bring it to a centralized database, which we call our ‘shopping’ database. It’s not live, but it is updated frequently enough to be ‘virtually live.’”

And therein lies the problem. Many consumers may not know that when they search for a vacation package with an online travel agency such as Expedia or Red Tag Vacations, the prices displayed during their shopping phase are based on downloaded data that can be up to a few hours old. And in the meantime, the actual price may have changed up or down. Reaching into live inventory for every pricing query would result in unacceptably long wait times, says Richard Vanderlubbe, President of TripCentral.ca. “The fact is, to get the speed that’s necessary for online shoppers you have to use cached data; a real-time inventory search for every query would simply take too long.”

As a consumer, the only way to be sure you’re getting the actual price is to go to the last screen before the booking is confirmed, where the software actually accesses live pricing and inventory.

It’s interesting to note that because price changes are so frequent, even travel agents are experiencing the problem. A survey of travel professionals by industry website OpenJaw.com found that nearly 80% expressed frustration with price fluctuations between the ‘shopping’ and ‘booking’ stages of a packaged vacation transaction.

Communicating the difference between shopping and booking is essential for online retailers, Vanderlubbe says. “You need to inform customers that they’re looking at a ‘smart’ brochure, but it is not completely live. Our approach is to tell our clients as much as possible about what they can expect.”

Alex Handa, Vice-President of HandaTravelGroup.com, agrees with Vanderlubbe. “The language needs to change on the online travel agency websites. Consumers need to understand they are in the ‘research phase’ and the price may be different once they book. It may seem ludicrous, but it is the reality of the travel business.”

Langevin says the situation is improving, suggesting that pricing gaps between shopping and booking stages are better than they were three or four years ago. But as both travel agents and consumers have identified, rapidly fluctuating pricing is clearly still an issue.

The bottom line is that if you’re serious about purchasing a holiday package online, you need to go to the final booking stage to see the most current price. You’re still not under any obligation to complete the booking. And if you’re pretty sure the package is right for you and the price meets your budget, you may as well go ahead and book it. You’re better off dreaming about the good time you’ll have than losing sleep over whether the package price is going to drop $50 by next week – because it could just as easily go the other way.

By: Bruce Parkinson
Bruce Parkinson is a travel industry journalist and regular contributor to Takeoffeh.com as well as sister company, OpenJaw.com

Photo Credits: alexsl

Polish pilot under pressure to land?

By macleans.ca - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 2:21 PM - 4 Comments

An investigation into the lethal crash of Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s plane has officials asking why the pilot ignored warnings from air traffic control telling him not to land. There was extremely heavy fog at the airport in western Russia, and two attempts at touching down had to be aborted before the pilot went in for a deadly third try. It’s currently believed that there were no technical malfunctions, and Russian officials say pilot error caused the deadly accident. It’s been delicately suggested that Kaczynski may have pressured the pilot to land because he didn’t want to be late for a ceremony in the Katyn forest, where 20,000 Polish soldiers and civilians were murdered by Russians in WWII. The president has a history of fighting with flight crews—he once demanded that a pilot flying him to Tbilisi, Georgia, land despite bad weather, threatening consequences and saying, “if someone decides to become a pilot, he cannot be fearful.” The flight voice recorder has been recovered, but transcripts have not yet been released. Saturday’s crash killed 96 people, including the president and numerous senior military and government officials.

New York Times

Ex-Tonight Show host to star on cable

By macleans.ca - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 1:56 PM - 0 Comments

Conan O’Brien has finally announced his post-Tonight Show plans: he has signed a deal to host his own show on the cable network TBS. His new show, airing Mondays through Thursdays at 11 p.m., will begin in November; the show currently occupying that slot on TBS, George Lopez’s “Lopez Tonight,” will move to 12 midnight. The announcement comes as a surprise, since most of the rumours about O’Brien’s future centred around Fox, and he was said to be in talks with the network. But basic cable has once again triumphed, and O’Brien can look forward to a proud future of following Tyler Perry shows and Seinfeld reruns.

LA Times

Strombo v. Duceppe

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 1:49 PM - 6 Comments

The host of the Hour and the Bloc Quebecois leader try to negotiate a settlement on this whole sovereignty thingy.

TBS Presents Tyler Perry's House of Conan O'Brien

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 1:22 PM - 17 Comments

Yes, you’ve probably heard. Yes, it’s true. No, I don’t think anyone saw it coming.

[vodpod id=Video.3414822&w=425&h=350&fv=]

Just for the heck of it, I did a Google News search and found there wasn’t a single mention of TBS in connection with “Conan O’Brien” in the last few weeks. It was all “Fox” this, and “Fox” that. Only now are we learning that the Fox deal didn’t look like it was going to work (we’ll learn more about why, but “affiliates didn’t want to give up an extra hour” seems like the obvious explanation), and O’Brien entered into talks with TBS instead. Maybe if I go back farther I could find someone, somewhere, saying something about TBS looking for someone to bump George Lopez. (What is happening to Lopez, of course, is what NBC originally wanted to do to O’Brien: bump him to a later time slot. And Lopez was doing quite well for the network.) But it’s definitely a brilliant cover-up feat on the part of the host and the network; you wouldn’t think these things could be kept secret this long in the internet era, but they did it.

Update: The L.A. Times has more on why Fox didn’t happen. In short, the network heads wanted Conan, but the affiliates were a tougher sell. And Kim Masters has more from O’Brien’s terrifying super-agent Gavin Polone.

This is also, obviously, O’Brien making a decision about what kind of host he is and what kind of audience he’s looking for. By going to basic cable and doing a show four nights a week, he’s openly saying that he’s not the equivalent of Leno or Letterman, but of Stewart and Colbert: they’re the ones he’ll be competing with directly, and it’s their audience he’ll be trying to cut into. It’ll be interesting to see how his absurdist humour does against their political humour; though they have a lot in common, their approaches are different, and it’ll be a fun test to see which the audience prefers.

Tories build up double-digit lead

By macleans.ca - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 1:10 PM - 65 Comments

The federal Conservatives have built up a 10-point lead over their Liberal party challengers thanks in part to a 3-point jump in the last month alone. The latest survey by Ipsos Reid Public Affairs has the Conservatives in a comfortable lead at 37 per cent to the Liberals’ 27 per cent. While the Liberals lost one point since March, the NDP dropped three to land at 15 per cent support. The Greens and the Bloc were tied for fourth at 10 per cent. The results are largely identical to those of the last election, says Ipsos president and CEO Darrell Bricker, “and we already know the results of that.”

Montreal Gazette

Russia says plane carrying Polish president had no problems

By macleans.ca - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 1:03 PM - 4 Comments

The Soviet-made plane that crashed and killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and dozens of political, military and religious leaders did not have any technical or other problems, say Russian investigators. The deadly crash, which killed all 96 people aboard the Tu-154, occurred Saturday as the pilot was trying to land at Smolensk airport in western Russia in the midst of dense fog. “The readings confirm that there were no problems with the plane,” said Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Bastrykin, “and that the pilot was informed about the difficult weather conditions, but nevertheless decided to land.”

Toronto Star

HBC boss retiring

By macleans.ca - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 12:58 PM - 0 Comments

The CEO of Hudson’s Bay Company is retiring. Jeff Sherman, who oversaw a major restructuring at Canada’s oldest retailer after it was bought in August 2008 by New York-based NRDC Equity Partners, will be leaving the company on June 1. Rather than replace Sherman, company owner Richard Baker will fill the role of CEO from his New York office. Sherman’s tenure saw dramatic changes at the HBC. The company has cut more than 1,000 jobs and $400 million in expenses, and executed a wildly successful Olympic apparel campaign.

Toronto Star

Quebec woman told to unveil or leave class

By macleans.ca - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 12:54 PM - 5 Comments

A niqab-clad Muslim woman was asked to leave a Quebec classroom last March and told she’d be booted out of the government-run French class unless she unveiled. The 25-year-old, referred to only as “Aisha” is a permanent resident from India and has been described by classmates at her suburban Montreal school as a model student. The Immigration Department’s decision that her veil represented a “pedagogical” barrier has “upset the whole class,” according to Mustapha Kachani, the executive director of the Centre d’intégration multi-services de l’Ouest de l’Île. “I’m sure we could have found a solution instead of isolating her and marginalizing her,” he said. “Maybe we would have convinced her to remove her veil.” Aisha, however, has rejected requests to remove the veil, saying it would be akin to “someone asking me to take off my clothes.”

Globe and Mail

Wash like a man

By Katie Engelhart - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 12:38 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Liz Sullivan

Gillette made its first razor in 1902—a year after its founder, inventor King Camp Gillette, was awarded a patent for the world’s first disposable blade. More than a century later, Gillette is ramping up for the launch of one of its newest creations: the Fusion ProGlide (with, count ’em, five ultra-thin blades), developed at its innovation centre, where experts assess over 20,000 shaves a year. “We have more Ph.D.s than MIT and most of the Ivy League schools put together working on this product,” boasts Derek Baker, a Gillette spokesperson.

That might sound a tad excessive, until you consider the stakes involved in the now-flourishing men’s grooming industry. Packaged Facts, a U.S. market research firm, valued the industry at US$19.7 billion in 2009, and estimates it will grow to US$28 billion by 2014. Last year, in Canada alone, the men’s care industry pulled in $1.6 billion in total sales, according to the firm Datamonitor. And it’s not just the razor blades and deodorant sticks of yesteryear that are selling. Instead, traditionally female brands like Dove and Nivea are entering the men’s ring, pushing products like just-for-men sensitive skin body bars and thermal scrubs. “It’s a beautiful time to be a man—or at least to market to men,” opines Advertising Age, “as personal care marketers rev up for what looks to be the biggest array of product launches for men in nearly a decade, and maybe ever.”

Once upon a time, personal care goods were gender-neutral—generic, modest-smelling products that were marketed to families. But lately, there’s been what marketers call a “genderization.” And there’s no place where that’s more apparent than the toiletry aisle. It’s toiletries—body wash, hair care and skin care—that is the fastest growing product category for men. “Men are increasingly demanding products that are specifically targeted at them [instead of] borrowing from their spouse,” says a Datamonitor report.

Continue…

Check this out, dad

By Charlie Gillis - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 12:36 PM - 9 Comments

Photo by Julia Kuskin/Getty Images

One eye on your three-year-old and another on the football game isn’t exactly textbook parenting. But take heart, inattentive dads: new research suggests you may be giving your kid a leg up. A study led by researchers at the Université de Montreal found that fathers, more so than mothers, tend to give toddlers the leeway to take risks and explore, and that equips youngsters for the challenges of life that lie ahead. “The less protective the parent, the more exploratory the behaviour in the child,” says Daniel Paquette, a psychology professor at the university. “For a child to become self-confident, the parent mustn’t be too far or too close.”

The study is part of an emerging line of inquiry called “activation theory,” which stresses the importance of risk-taking and competition in early childhood development. It’s the flip side of 20th-century “attachment theory,” which focused exclusively on nurturing the belief that primary caregivers fulfill a child’s emotional needs and guarantee survival. To test their hypothesis, Paquette and his colleagues, whose study appears in the current issue of Early Child Development and Care, placed kids aged 12 to 18 months, each with a parent, in risky situations—near toys at the top of a stairway, say, or in a room where a strange adult enters. They then measured the responses of both parent and child, and found fathers were more likely to give the child space to take risks. More importantly, they identified a link between this arm’s-length style of parenting and the intrepidness of the kids.

That doesn’t mean men should take a nap when on daddy duty. No one’s interests are served when a child falls down the stairs. But it does suggest hidden virtue in hands-off child-rearing—and a little less guilt when the big game demands a fellow’s attention.

Boomeritis

By Cathy Gulli - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 12:22 PM - 2 Comments

Getty Images

The day that Gordon Ritchie turned 57, he showed up at his orthopaedic surgeon’s office in Calgary for arthroscopic surgery on his right knee, which had been banged up after years of playing sports. It was an unusual way to celebrate his birthday, but for Ritchie, an investment banker and avid cyclist, golfer and skier, the surgery was the best way to usher in a new year of pushing his body to the limit. “It was,” he says, “a wonderful birthday present.” Within weeks, Ritchie began planning his next helicopter-skiing trip.

Ritchie represents a growing phenomenon among baby boomers, those individuals born between 1946 and 1964. For the first time, middle-aged people and those approaching retirement are more fit and physically active than ever—and they’re putting in massive amounts of money, time and effort to keep it that way for as long as possible. “I see quite a few soccer players, skiers, runners, tennis players, curlers, just about everything,” says Dr. Cy Frank, president of the Canadian Orthopaedic Association, referring to his high-performance boomer patients. He’s also treating more of them—including Ritchie, who rearranged his schedule to have surgery in a hurry. “Dr. Frank is going to keep me going,” says Ritchie. “His goal is to get two or three more years out of these knees before I have a replacement.”

Such enthusiastic fitness goals were unheard of a generation ago, when few people in their 50s and 60s would have worked out at such a high level, or expected so much out of their aging bodies. “We’ve dispelled this myth that as you get older you can’t participate in exercise-type activities,” says Liza Stathokostas, a researcher at the Canadian Centre for Activity and Aging in London, Ont. Now, “there’s no question that you can, and you should.”

Continue…

Pardon him? Understanding Graham James's controversial case

By Colby Cosh - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 12:11 PM - 10 Comments

Bill Becker/CP

The revelation last weekend that the National Parole Board had pardoned Graham James, the former junior hockey coach convicted in 1997 of sexually abusing Sheldon Kennedy and other teenage players, was met with rage and bewilderment. “Pardon” is a word that, in ordinary lay use, denotes forgiveness and exoneration. It is not easy to use it comfortably in connection with James, who defended himself by insisting that his relationship with Kennedy was “consensual,” and who has been accused of molesting other players during his coaching career, ones not involved in his 1997 trial.

Canadian parole officials see things differently. To them, a “pardon” is an administrative formality, one available virtually as a matter of right to ex-convicts who have displayed lawful behaviour outside of prison.

More than 99 per cent of pardon applications that reach the adjudication stage are granted by the NPB. But to get that far (as only three-quarters of filed applications do), an applicant has to pass several tests, be fingerprinted, compile his own records, and pay fees. Although the volume of pardon applications is expanding fast, it still seems modest—roughly 36,000 were filed in fiscal 2008-09—in a country where over three million people are thought to have had a criminal record.

Continue…

'Phenomenal work'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 12:06 PM - 20 Comments

Among the allegations in Graeme Smith’s reporting this weekend was that, in regards to Asadullah Khalid, “the generals knew exactly what was going on.” When concerns about Khalid were raised two years ago, Gen. Rick Hillier, then chief of the defence staff, was asked about the governor and commented as follows.

Gen. Hillier confirmed he was aware of allegations against the governor, but said it is up to the Afghan government to deal with them. He also praised Mr. Khalid for the work he has done in Kandahar.

“Governor Asadullah has been doing some phenomenal work in Kandahar province. Obviously, we have worked with him because he is the governor there. And we have seen some incredible changes in the province, and if there’s an issue of any kind of impropriety whatsoever, that’s an issue for the Afghanistan government.”

The health care time bomb

By John Geddes - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 12:04 PM - 81 Comments

Jacques Boissinot/CP; Ryan Remiorz/CP

Experts who have been pleading for an urgent debate on fast-rising health costs might secretly have welcomed the appearance of irate demonstrators outside Raymond Bachand’s Montreal office last week, two days after the Quebec finance minister proposed a new health tax, and even user fees, in his March 30 budget. And when Montreal police in riot gear clashed with the protesters, those worried experts—doctors and economists who’ve long argued that Canadians must face up to the hugely expensive needs of a rapidly aging population—wouldn’t have been out of line if they thought, “Finally, this issue can’t be ignored any longer.”

Bachand’s daring budget, and the angry reaction to it, gave those who’ve been issuing warnings about the cost of care a flashpoint to talk about. Quebec faces relentless growth in hospital, drug and doctors’ bills, similar to most provinces. Health will devour 45 per cent of Quebec’s budget this year, up from 31 per cent in 1980, and on track to consume 67 per cent by 2030. So Bachand announced a health tax slated to rise from $25 per adult in 2010, to $100 in 2011, and $200 in 2012. Even more provocatively, he said Premier Jean Charest’s Liberal government will study the idea of imposing a so-called “health deductible,” perhaps $25 per medical visit, which would be incorporated into the income tax system. It took two days for anti-tax, anti-user-fee protests to erupt outside his office in Montreal’s old city. Bachand didn’t back down, succinctly summing up his motivation for making the cost of care more directly apparent to Quebecers: “Nothing is free.”

Of course, Canadians realize health care is expensive, when they think about it. But government insurance means they usually don’t. Anne Doig, the Saskatoon family physician who is also president of the Canadian Medical Association, said Quebec’s surprise move might signal the moment when politicians across the country finally begin to confront costs. “We are pointing out the problem, a stinking elephant in the middle of the room, that our governments have been able to sidestep up to now,” Doig told Maclean’s. “I think we’ve reached the tipping point where they can no longer sidestep it.”

Continue…

African science slowed by brain drain, low investment

By macleans.ca - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 11:56 AM - 4 Comments

Africa could be contributing far more to the global body of scientific research and benefiting its own population, according to a new report from Thomson Reuters. Like India and China, the continent suffers from a “hemorrhage of talent” as many of the top researchers leave to study abroad and don’t return. “The African diaspora provides powerful intellectual input to the research achievements of other countries, but returns less benefit to the countries of birth,” said Jonathan Adams, director of research evaluation at Thomson Reuters. Using a database to track scientific populations, they found South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria dominate research output, but the continent’s overall volume of activity remains small. And it’s not just due to money: “The resources available in some African countries are substantial, but they are not being invested in the research base,” Adams said.

Reuters

Teen drinking linked to breast disease

By macleans.ca - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 11:45 AM - 1 Comment

According to a new study, young women who drink alcohol could put themselves at higher risk of developing the breast disease that is a known risk factor for cancer, Reuters reports. In a study from Harvard Medical School, researchers looked at nearly 6,900 women aged 16 to 23 and found those who drank six or seven days a week had more than five times the odds of developing benign breast disease years later. This disease is characterized by hard lumps in the breast which can turn cancerous, as well as irregular cysts, sensitive nipples, itching and discomfort.

Reuters