Meanwhile, in Kingston

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 3:53 PM - 10 Comments

The Speaker will apparently announce tomorrow that he won’t run for reelection. So far as his seat is concerned, Pundits Guide has a handy primer. So far as his presiding over Parliament, one imagines he will go down as one of the more important Speakers in Parliamentary history, having served longer in the role than any other, overseen two minority Parliaments and delivered one of the more consequential rulings in the institution’s history.

When Milliken was last reelected as Speaker, the runners-up included Mauril Belanger, Joe Comartin, Barry Devolin, Royal Galipeau, Andrew Scheer and Merv Tweed.

Down to work

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 3:18 PM - 3 Comments

After the third of the day’s seven photo ops, the Prime Minister has just opened the working session of G8 and African leaders—his opening address a photo op in itself. He’s got about 45 minutes before he has to pose again for the cameras.

The Prime Minister’s director of communications has come by to clarify the government’s funding pledge. Canada will commit $1.1-billion in new money and renew $1.75-billion over five years. The official release says Canada “will focus its efforts on improving the services and care needed to ensure healthy pregnancies and safe delivery, while placing a particular emphasis on meeting the nutritional needs of pregnant women, mothers, newborns and young children. To address child mortality, Canada will work to increase access to the high-impact, cost-effective interventions that address the leading killers of children under the age of five.”

Peter Jackson, Shockingly, May Direct Movies Full of Special Effects

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 3:12 PM - 0 Comments

You may have heard — and if you hadn’t, you would have heard eventually — that Peter Jackson is in negotiations to direct the two-part The Hobbit prequel, which he was originally going to produce but not direct. If so, he’ll join a longish line of directors who tried to bow out of sequels/prequels only to be pulled back in when the studio couldn’t get someone else (in this case Guillermo Del Toro quit). One famous example, on a more exalted level, is Akira Kurosawa, who prepared the script for a sequel to his hit Yojimbo — his biggest box-office hit after a long line of critical successes — indending to give it to his assistant, Hiromichi Horikawa. Instead the studio talked him into doing the film himself.

Back to Peter Jackson, though, if he wants to make The Hobbit interesting, the only way I can think of is to do it as a musical. Fortunately a Mr. Nimoy and his associates have already made a start on an appropriate score.

World Cup 2010: Seeing red

By Daniel Squizzato - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 3:09 PM - 2 Comments

French midfielder Zinedine Zidane

The most enduring image of the 2006 World Cup might be the disgraceful end to the glorious career of French star Zinedine Zidane. After head-butting Italian Marco Materazzi during extra time of the final (allegedly, Materazzi insulted Zidane, whose parents are Algerian, by calling him a terrorist), Zidane was shown the red card and expelled from the game, which France ultimately lost on penalty kicks.

While the 2010 tournament will (hopefully) not be defined by a similarly ignominious moment, the opening round has produced a total of six straight red cards. Do any of them stack up to Zidane’s in terms of sheer needlessness? Were they deserved? And how did the teammates of those sent-off players react to their expulsions?

First up: Itumeleng Khune, South Africa

G20 diary: Live from the streets

By macleans.ca - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 3:01 PM - 26 Comments

CLICK HERE FOR MACLEAN’S G20 LIVE DIARY

A burning police car at Bay and King—the riot flares up (ha!).

CLICK HERE FOR MACLEAN’S G20 LIVE DIARY

Where have you gone, Terry Milewski?

By Andrew Potter - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 2:20 PM - 22 Comments

Twitter is all-a-twitter about the secret law passed by the Ontario legislature giving police extraordinary search and arrest powers, with many people comparing it to the War Measures Act.  A few comments:

1. No one should be surprised that McGuinty went along with the request. Nothing, absolutely nothing, that McGuinty has said or done in his time as premier should lead anyone to suspect that he gives a fig about civil liberties. We’re talking here about a man who won the last election by promising to retain special education funding for Catholics, but only Catholics.

2. This is hardly the first time a Canadian government has done something like this.  In 1997, the RCMP spent the better part of the APEC summit harassing, arresting, and pepper-spraying students who were annoyed at the presence of an Indonesian dictator on their campus. Terry Milewski — who should not have to buy himself drinks in this country — did  outstanding work on the way the government and RCMP had turned UBC into a “Charter-Free Zone”. For his work, the CBC thanked him by hanging him out to dry.

3. UBC law prof Wesley Pue wrote a number of  pieces, both journalistic and scholarly, on how deeply corrupt the whole thing was. He edited a book, Pepper in Our Eyes, that remains a must-read and will likely serve as a decent primer on what is going on in Toronto right now.

4. The Prime Minister of the day thought it was quite hilarious.

'I don't get any of that free time'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 1:42 PM - 25 Comments

The British Prime Minister, as evidenced by his comments to Mr. Harper at a photo op ahead of a bilateral meeting here, is apparently enjoying himself in Huntsville. This from the pool report.

Cameron: It’s good to be here. I even had a swim in the lake this morning.

Harper: Good for you!

Cameron: A good fresh start!

Harper: I don’t get any of that free time. I don’t know how you guys manage it.

Cameron: It just means you get up very early.

At the G8

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 1:31 PM - 1 Comment

Greetings from the heavily fortified Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville. The leaders arrived earlier and should be at their working lunch presently.

Mr. Harper is due to speak to reporters here this evening, apparently to promise aid for maternal health. Canwest says it’ll be at least $2-billion. CTV says it’s $3-billion, with $1-billion of that new money.

The Governor General is also here. She’s lunched with African Outreach delegation (including the leaders of Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa, Malawi, Senegal and Algeria) and will meet with the President of Haiti later.

Scared gophers: a tick tock of Obama in Muskoka

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 1:03 PM - 9 Comments

Below are the reports from the White House press pooler traveling with the president this morning. Pavement problems and Sarkozy wears lifts?

Lower down is the Robert Gibbs gaggle on the plane. Sounds like European leaders are scrambling for face time with Obama.

9:22

Potus arrived AAFB 9:13 a.m. on a bright mild and breezy day. Dark suit greyish test pattern striped tie, up the steps without sopping, quick one wave at the top. Wheels up 9:22 Gibbs, Gen Jones; Tom Donilon; Reggie Love with him.

Continue…

Supreme Court to rule on Insite

By macleans.ca - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 12:59 PM - 18 Comments

The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear the federal government’s appeal of a B.C. court’s decision to allow the safe injection site Insite to stay open. The B.C. Court of Appeal ruled earlier this year that the clinic, which allows addicts to inject their own drugs under the supervision of a nurse, has a constitutionally justified right to exist. The clinic aims to reduce the risks associated with using drugs on the street. The federal government has challenged the legality of a space where police aren’t allowed to arrest illegal drug users.

Toronto Sun

PMO shields Hu Jintao from Chinese-language media

By macleans.ca - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 12:54 PM - 20 Comments

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office bowed to a request by China to keep two specific media organizations away from four public appearances by Chinese Prime Minister Hu Jintao in Ottawa. New Tang Dynasty TV and The Epoch Times were both blocked from attending, sources told The Toronto Star. The Epoch Times has been particularly critical of the Chinese government in the past. Although not allowed to ask questions, Canada’s English-language media was allowed to attend the appearances to hear speeches and take pictures.

Toronto Star

Wall Street Journal apologizes to Conrad Black

By macleans.ca - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 12:28 PM - 6 Comments

Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling’s successful bid to have the U.S. Supreme Court rein in the “honest services” statute that has served as a backbone to several white-collar convictions south of the border was “a long overdue victory for the rule of law,” according to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. Moreover, the decision has prompted a bout of self-reflection among the Journal‘s editorial board members, especially in light of the revised statute’s application in Conrad Black’s case. While the reversal of Black’s fraud convictions is primarily an indictment of the prosecutors who abused the “honest services” statute, it is also a wake-up call to the nation’s media, whom the Journal‘s editors write were too quick to hop on the anti-business bandwagon.  “The Black and Skilling cases are precisely the kind involving high-profile, unsympathetic defendants in which willful prosecutors like Mr. Fitzgerald are inclined to abuse the honest services law,” reads the editorial. “They know the media won’t write about the legal complexities, and they know juries are often inclined to find a rich CEO guilty of something. We regret that in the case of Mr. Black, that failure of media oversight included us.”

Wall Street Journal

RIM stock sinks, despite a profit jump of 20%

By macleans.ca - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 12:07 PM - 2 Comments

RIM’s stock dropped 5% in early trading this morning despite having announced a 20% increase in profit after the May quarter ended. The stock dropped after investors reacted to lower-than-expected sales and handset shipments. The latest results are suspected to be a result of new handheld companies eating into RIM’s smartphone market. The tough competition from Apple’s new iPhone and Google Andriod software has led to an almost 30% decline of RIM’s stock in the past three months. However, RIM does intend to fight back (it will announce new software and handsets late this summer) and forecasts continuing growth.

MarketWatch

G20 police get more powers

By macleans.ca - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 12:05 PM - 3 Comments

Starting this past Monday, police in Toronto were granted additional powers for the duration of the G20 summit after Ontario’s cabinet quietly passed new legislation without debate on June 2. Officers can now search anyone who approaches the security fence surrounding much of the downtown core and anyone within five metres of the security area is obliged identify themselves and state the nature of their business. Police are also allowed to refuse access and use whatever force they deem necessary to keep people out. Anyone that refuses to identify themselves can be fined up to $500. “We’re bound by duty to protect the people that are going be within that fence line,” said Sgt. Tim Burrows of the G8/G20 Integrated Security Unit. “If you refuse to tell us [why you're there], then we have to assume that your purposes are not of a peaceful nature.” There have already been several arrests made under the new rules.

CBC News

Day One: Scenes from outside the summit

By Julia Belluz, Josh Dehaas, Stephanie Findlay, and Jane Switzer - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 11:58 AM - 34 Comments

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3

5:59 pm [Stephanie]

Still at University and Elm, where more police have come in. Helicopters are overhead, with police on horses and sirens going. Follow me on Twitter: SJFindlay

5:47 pm [Stephanie]

The scene at Elm and University.

5:36 pm [Stephanie]

Dallas Goldtooth (left), 27, and Adam Thomas, 24, are up from From Minneapolis, Minnesota to protest oil drilling in B.C.

5:12 pm [Josh]

Saw at least one protester detained by police near the Winners at College and Yonge. I didn’t see what he did, but protesters say he was shoved by police and that the female with him was also arrested. Police won’t cofirm anything.

4:47 pm [Stephanie]

"G20 policies of supposed open market are just bad for women, indigenous people... everyone," says Lacey MacAuley, climate change activist visiting from Washington, D.C.

4:18 pm [Josh]

Carlton St. & Jarvis St.: Crowd stops police car with sirens on who tried to drive through the crowd. About 50 cops at the front of the parade, almost all with bikes. Parallel lines of cops on bikes flanking protesters at the front. “I think Canada is an illegitimate concept,” says one person dressed as a clown, when I ask where she’s from. Front of protest approaches Yonge St.

4:04 pm [Josh]
Carlton St. & Sherbourne St.: Protesters are shouting “Free Palestine” and using vuvuzelas. The median age is about 20. Everyone looks confused, but people are starting to March east along Carlton St. Now big band tuba music is drowning out the free Palestine chants. Shouts of “no one, no one is illegal.”

4:00 pm [Stephanie]

"I'm here today because history has shown us that protesting works," says Jonathan Allan. It's an "opportunity to send a message to the leaders of the G20."

3:56 pm [Stephanie]

Kate Chung, of Raging Grannies, on the G20: "The criminalization of dissent has become really bad," she says. "Regular people who don't know about the issues are afriad...we need to speak up because Canada is tending toward facism." Raging Grannies started in the eighties in Victoria, BC. Chung has three grandchildren.

3:28 pm [Stephanie]

Mr. Turmer, an engineer, protests against interest

2:07 pm [Julia]

Jane Rozell is a grandmother who has never protested anything in her life—until today. "One day, you realize you have to get out there and speak up," she says. She's upset there are children going to school hungry, and that while abortion is legal, it's difficult to get one. But most of all, she wants the "sane" voice of a mother and grandmother to be heard by the mostly male G8/G20 delegates.

1:45 pm [Jane]

Free massages and hugs for all at Allan Gardens.

1:40 pm [Jane]

Allan Gardens is over-saturated with journalists and photographers more so than actual protesters.

1:30 pm [Jane & Julia]

At the midday protests in Allan Gardens, we caught up with a group of women who were peacefully calling for gender equity. Sonya Sangster, a Vancouverite who paid for a flight to Toronto and took time off work to attend G20 protests, says, “We want to remind leaders to keep their promises, and to make sure women are a priority when they are making decisions.”

She also made the trip to demonstrate her solidarity with the cause. Though sometimes “the cause” among protesters in the park was a bit blurry or unclear—there were anti-capitalists, gay rights activists, communists of Iran, and people asking for an end to the tar sands—Sangster was quite adamant that her main concern is maternal health: “I would like to see if they are going to offer a maternal health package that includes abortions because women die from illegal abortions everyday.”

Another protester, Torontonian Jen S., sat nearby in a red casket decorated with coat hangers. The word “CHOICE” was painted on the side of the casket, making clear her feelings about abortion. In addition to maternal health, the G20′s billion-dollar price tag also roused her because so many Torontonians are living in poverty.

“I live in a rooming house, and there’s people who just got off the street and are living in sub-standard housing, including myself, while they’re spending tons of money having $700 lunches. I don’t have $700 to spend for the whole month.”

Opening Weekend: 'This Movie is Broken,' 'Knight and Day'

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 11:49 AM - 2 Comments

Getty Images

As the G20, the anti-matter festival, sucks the soul out of Toronto this weekend, if you want to be reminded that this city has a pulse, check out Bruce McDonald’s exhilarating hometown escapade, This Movie is Broken. McDonald, the rock’n’roll rebel who made Highway 61 and Hard Core Logo, has become the de facto godfather of Canadian indie cinema.  He’s evolved into one of the country’s most prolific and adventurous filmmakers. In addition to directing  for television, he’s made three movies just in the past year—This Movie is Broken, Trigger (created for Tracy Wright, who died June 22) plus a sequel to Hard Core Logo. And McDonald is no self-absorbed auteur; lately he’s been serving as the let’s-make-it-happen guy for a broad community of Toronto filmmakers, playwrights, actors and musicians. Here’s a video of an interview I did McDonald recently in Toronto:

This Movie is Broken is a modest picture, an impressionist watercolour, but it has terrific spirit. It’s a fleeting romance wrapped around a robust concert film of Broken Social Scene as the band performed a free gig at Toronto’s Harbourfront last summer, during the garbage strike. The project was thrown together in a matter of days, and it has the kinetic energy and verité flair of a film made on the fly. At its core is a dynamic performance by the band, playing by the lake as dusk falls. Scripted by Don McKellar, it’s the story of a guy who can’t believe his luck, then tries to chase it.  Bruno (Greg Calderone), our narrator, wakes up on a rooftop next to Caroline (Georgina Reilly), the girl of his dreams, then takes her to the Broken Social Scene concert and their date becomes unraveled in the crowd. Reversing the usual perspective, in this case the romance is really just the backdrop for the music and the scene. For Canadians who just don’t get the appeal of Toronto, no film has ever captured the street-level summer-in-the-city vibe here as well as this one.

For another class of escapism altogether, the action-comedy Knight and Day, which opened Wednesday, offers a reality-free zone of Hollywood nonsense. This hectic vehicle for Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz—whose only mission is to look like movie stars—is a spy flick for those who find James Bond too deep. Directed by James Mangold (Walk the Line), this has a vastly overqualified cast, including Peter Sarsgaard and Viola Davis, who play it utterly straight as a federal agents, as if they’re in another movie. Paul Dano merrily mugs his way through the movie as an eccentric scientist whose MacGuffin-like invention (a battery that never runs out of juice) is the object of an nutty global intrigue that never even tries to makes sense.

What is there to say about Knight and Day? How about some plot summary:

See Tom.
See Cameron.
See Tom run.
Run, run, run!
See Cameron run.
Run, run, run
Hear Cameron scream.
Scream, scream scream.
See Tom smile
Smile, smile smile . . .

Sorry, but I just can’t get bring myself to write a grown-up review of this cynical caper flick. There are some nifty stunts, chases in all kinds vehicles, and postcard views of luxury destinations around the globe. In his tongue-in-cheek role as an international man of mystery who never stops moving, Cruise is as charming as he gets. And as the terrified damsel who’s dragged along for the  ride, then inevitably learns to kick ass, Cameron Diaz is watchable enough that you wonder where she’s been in the last few years. As a time-waster, Knight and Day is entertaining enough. It sets the bar low then clears it effortlessly. But as I creep into the damning- with-faint-praise department, reviewing this film feels as pointless as watching it.

Title Changes That Work

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 10:57 AM - 0 Comments

I haven’t had a lot to say yet about the summer series Rookie Blue (ABC’s entry in the Canadian Cop Show sweepstakes), though TV-Eh has had a lot of good coverage of it. The show debuted last night to pretty good ratings, retaining most of its lead-in.

One thing I can say about it now is that if it continues to do well, it will be an example of a show whose last-minute title change helped, rather than hurt it. I’ve had the feeling for a while that when a show goes on the air with a title that’s different from the one that was originally announced, it’s a warning sign: Kelsey Grammer has been in two flop shows in a row that were announced under one title and aired with another; and as I’ve said repeatedly, Knights of Prosperity was doomed as soon as it was no longer called Let’s Rob Mick Jagger. But sometimes a title change is necessary. This show was originally picked up by ABC when it was called Copper, a title that is problematic for a number of reasons: it sounds like it might be about metal, for one thing. Rookie Blue implies that the show is about young and beautiful people (well, if they’re young, they’ve got to be beautiful; it’s TV, after all) and implies a kinship to that other “Blue” show that used to be on ABC. (Plus having “blue” in the title always implies something dirty, even if the show itself isn’t.) People stayed around last night to “sample” the show; I can’t see that they’d have stayed around in the same numbers for a show called “Copper.” It’s hard to say definitively what kind of title does and does not work, but I think it does help for the title to imply something fun or appealing.

Hey look: Distinguished visiting fellow

By Paul Wells - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 9:11 AM - 8 Comments

From the print edition, this week’s column chronicles the public part of Stephen Hawking’s visit to Perimeter Institute in Waterloo.

I have stayed on at Perimeter and will continue to do so for a while, not really following Hawking but simply trying to better understand what its scientists and visitors do here. I will tell you all about it later this summer.

The smartest guy in the room

By Paul Wells - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 10 Comments

Photograph by Cole Garside

Last Sunday an array of VIPs—Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, Kevin O’Leary, the angry guy on the CBC reality show Dragons’ Den—convened in a theatre at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo to pay tribute to Stephen Hawking. The British astrophysicist sat in his wheelchair while the politicians buttered him up. Then he delivered a lecture through his speech synthesizer about his early years in physics.

The next day a bunch of physicists took a lunch break from a conference where they were discussing what happens when black holes of various sizes orbit each other. A caregiver pushed Hawking to a place at one of the cafeteria tables, where he ate some lunch and listened to the chatter and gossip among his colleagues.

Continue…

Let’s not have a revolution

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 23 Comments

Jim Bourg/Reuters

The last time the leaders of the Group of 20 met, in Pittsburgh in September of last year, there was comparatively little disagreement. The world was still reeling from the shock of the 2008 financial crisis, and the unity of purpose the group had found at its first meeting in Washington that calamitous autumn was still in evidence.

But now it’s 2010, and the G20 will likely discover its members, without a worldwide crisis to lash them together across their vastly different cultures, interests, ideologies and economic circumstances, are less likely to agree on a common approach. Indeed, several European states are now heartily repenting of the group’s earlier consensus in favour of massive fiscal stimulus: government deficits there are now widely seen as the biggest threat to the economy, rather than the saviour of it. They will be unwilling to defer to the Obama administration’s more leisurely deficit reduction schedule.

Continue…

The Royal brothers in arms

By Anne Kingston - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 11 Comments

Roberto Candia/AP

This month, a cold-blooded African rock python provided the British royal family with its most heartwarming photo op in years. In a gesture that suggests relaxed regard for the future of the monarchy, the deadly reptile was draped around the necks of a smiling Prince William and a decidedly trepidatious Prince Harry during their visit to Botswana. The snake, too, was apparently nervous, urinating on the floor. Then, in a classic younger-brother moment, Harry grabbed the snake’s head and mischievously pushed it toward his older sibling as they both laughed, and camera flashes popped.

Such affectionate gestures punctuated the brothers’ African trip, their first joint overseas tour. William showed the same easy warmth and charm for which his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, was famed; Harry followed his lead, as he bonded with orphans and visited an orphanage funded by the Sentebale AIDS charity he helped found in Lesotho.

Continue…

Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 1 Comment

The call of the aisle
Swedes were less outraged by Princess Victoria’s decision to wed a “commoner” than her desire to have King Carl Gustaf walk her down the aisle, a tradition gender-equal Sweden views as outdated. Nine bishops begged Victoria to abandon the plan, fearing a “bridal handover” trend. In the end a compromise was met: Victoria, in line to become regent, walked halfway down the aisle with her father. She and Daniel Westling walked the rest of the way hand in hand, following Swedish tradition.

Continue…

Good Lord! Will Conrad Black walk?

By Philippe Gohier - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 10:19 PM - 27 Comments

The U.S. Supreme Court has cast serious doubt on Conrad Black’s convictions on three counts of fraud and sent the case back to a lower court, which could decide to altogether clear the former press baron of fraud charges. Black’s appeal hinged on the government’s use of what’s called the “honest services” component of the U.S. fraud law to convict him. In their appeal to the top court, Black’s lawyers argued the definition of “honest services” as it applies to fraud cases was too broad to be meaningful. On Thursday, the Supreme Court announced it agreed with them.

In its ruling, the Court wrote the “honest services” statute should apply only to “schemes to defraud that involve bribes and kickbacks,” rather than all cases in which a defendant is accused of breaching an intangible promise of loyalty to a company. Most significantly for Black, by narrowing the scope of the statue, the Court removed it as a justification for his conviction on three counts of fraud since the case against his involved neither bribes nor kickbacks.

Of course, Black isn’t out of the woods yet. As the judges noted in their ruling, jurors were presented with three options with respect to the fraud charges at Black’s initial trial: they could find Black innocent; they could find Black guilty because he collected bogus fees from Hollinger for noncompetition agreements; or they could find him guilty because he shirked his duty to provide “honest services” to the company. Thursday’s ruling only knocks out the third option given to jurors—that Black was guilty of disloyalty to Hollinger—and the Supreme Court justices are leaving it up to the Court of Appeals to decide “whether the error was ultimately harmless.” In other words, the Appeals Court could still decide there was sufficient evidence upon which to convict Black even if prosecutors had never uttered the phrase “honest services.” And even if he’s cleared of fraud, Black would still have his conviction for obstruction of justice hanging over his head, though his lawyers have argued “spillover prejudice” from the inappropriate use of the “honest services” provision corrupted that charge, too, and the Supreme Court remitted the case to the Appeals Court along with the fraud charges.

Without the “honest services” theory attached to its case, though, the prosecution faces a much more stringent burden of proof, according to Scott Hutchison, a Toronto-based lawyer who’s worked on a number of white-collar crime cases. After all, Black has long defended the contentious payments, no matter how exorbitant, as money he was entitled to. “If that’s true,” Hutchison says, “there’s no fraud. Companies are allowed to structure their transactions in ways that are mutually beneficial to everyone involved. The only way it would be a fraud is if there was an act of dishonesty perpetrated against the owners of the newspapers.”

Despite the setback, at least one of those who built the case against Black doesn’t appear worried. In an online chat with Globe and Mail readers, Eric Sussman, the former lead prosecutor in Black’s case, suggested Thursday’s ruling “will have very little impact” on Black’s convictions. “One ‘theory’ of fraud is gone, but not the other,” Sussman wrote. “As for spillover [onto the obstruction of justice conviction], the Supreme Court did not opine on this issue and the Court of Appeals seemed unmoved by the argument last time.”

Still, to long-time critics of the “honest services” statute, the ruling is a significant victory—not just for Black, but for everyone. A groundswell of opposition to the provision had built up in recent years over concerns it amounted to little more than a legal safety net allowing prosecutors to press ahead with—and ultimately win—what were otherwise weak cases. Chicago-based lawyer Marc Martin, a one-time member of Black’s legal team, estimates the statute was so overused the Supreme Court decision could affect as many as 80 or 90 per cent of mail fraud cases pressed in the city. “[Thursday's ruling] closes a loophole where prosecutors could come up with a theory about how some fiduciary duty was violated or some arcane non-criminal law was violated and use that as a basis for an ‘honest services’ prosecution,” he says. “It precludes prosecutors from prosecuting breaches of ethics as criminal offences.”

In fact, in light of Thursday’s ruling, it may no longer matter whether Conrad Black’s behaviour was unethical, and it’s entirely possible it was never supposed to be criminal in the first place. “I always said—in Black’s case and in other cases like it—that they’re pushing the envelope, that this is going beyond what the statute was ever intended for,” Martin says. “Up until today, no court ever agreed with me, but today we were vindicated.”

Music: Memoirs

By Paul Wells - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 9:24 PM - 1 Comment

I found myself thinking about this tonight and I suppose it must have been about 17 years, from 1985 to 2002, that I consciously sought out Mark Miller’s coverage of Canadian jazz festivals — always Montreal, usually one or two others — in the Globe each summer. He’d already been the Globe‘s jazz writer for nearly a decade by the time I twigged. There was nobody writing about jazz with more knowledge of the field or a more graceful prose style.

Relax, he’s fine. Mark and the Globe parted ways in 2002, or rather he kept going the way he’d always been, the Globe went somewhere else, and he found he no longer needed to be in it. Graham Fraser, Susan Delacourt, Bruce Little and others could tell similar tales. It happens. These days Miller writes books, obviously likely to find only a small audience, but carefully researched and judiciously written. Here are the latest several. A Certain Respect for Tradition collects much of his Globe writing and it is a marvel. Most of the others are histories of the smaller moments and the less cocky characters in the music, subjects with which Miller, who can be ornery but who never raises his voice, may feel a kindred spirit.

Anyway, festivals in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver begin this week. Music fans in Calgary are improvising after that city’s festival was canceled on two days’ notice. Today Miller’s old paper features an interview with 16-year-old Nikki Yanofsky in which she is asked her opinion of the paper’s review of her last album and then invited to debate the meaning of Billie Holiday’s lyrics. So today I miss having Mark Miller in my morning paper. I suppose people who used to read Bruce Little on public finances every morning sometimes feel something similar.