Mitchel Raphael on why Michael Ignatieff got his own 'fake lake'
By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - 2 Comments
Too bad about the protesters’ cake
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff’s annual garden party for the media had its own special “water feature”: a child’s swimming pool was decorated to create that Muskoka-like feeling. Liberal strategist Kevin Bosch said he learned from the Conservatives that if you want to get the media out you have to have a “fake lake.” Capital Diary asked several TV journalists to stand in front of the backdrop for a photo; all politely declined. Ignatieff’s version of a “fake lake” included fake ducks and a mini remote-controlled boat, all of which cost around $80, thanks to some strategic shopping at Wal-Mart. The party was a sit-down dinner of pasta and meatballs, as opposed to the usual food stations. Steve Paikin of TVO’s The Agenda seemed mortified when the band, armed with an accordion, sang Happy Birthday
to him. Outside Stornoway, two groups of protesters arrived. The first were NDP supporters upset at how the Liberals helped the Conservatives pass their fifth budget bill by having several of their members absent for the vote. Unfortunately, an ice cream cake with Sesame Street’s The Count on it melted in one of the demonstrators’ hands, making the message written on it difficult to read. Then there were the anti-seal-hunt protesters who joined in with some of the NDP chants. When Capital Diary pointed out to the seal protesters that the NDP officially supports the hunt, the protesting NDPers claimed not everyone in the party is behind that position.
Her bodyguard money gone
When Liberal MP Irwin Cotler was in Geneva speaking at a conference to mark the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, he met Dr. Massouda Jalal on a panel. Jalal was the sole female presidential candidate during Afghanistan’s 2004 election and spoke out about the conditions for women in her country. Cotler was so impressed with her talk he invited her to Ottawa where she spoke to MPs. She pointed out that many of Afghanistan’s TV and radio stations are in the hands of warlords who use the media to suppress women’s rights. Jalal says most people in her country believe what the media tell them so she is advocating for a women’s TV station to combat the misogynist attacks. When she was in cabinet, she said, she expected a minister who had lived in the U.S. for 20 years would be progressive on women’s rights. Instead, he told her the reason he had come back to Afghanistan was: “In America I don’t have control over my wife and daughter.” Jalal was shocked. Amnesty International gave her some funds, which she used to hire bodyguards. But the money has dried up and she is now without protection. Cotler is hoping Canada can help her remain a voice for women in Afghanistan.
Could Ottawa get any smaller?
MPs whose homes are far away from Ottawa tend to get excited when their children move to the capital. Cape Breton Liberal MP Mark Eyking is delighted his son Josh Eyking is starting work as a real estate agent in the city. He is with Keller Williams Ottawa Realty, the same firm where Transport Minister John Baird’s mother Marianne Anderson works.
Bilingual judges
Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella recently spoke at the Yeshiva University Toronto convocation and dinner. Noting the controversy around a private member’s bill that any newly appointed Supreme Court judges must be bilingual, she said she wanted to say a few words in another language. She proceeded with remarks in Yiddish, much to the delight and laughter of the predominantly Jewish crowd.
They also have a real lake
The term “fake lake” is getting under the skins of some Tories. But one joke going around is that they in fact have a “real” lake too: Edmonton MP Mike Lake.
Photographs by Mitchel Raphael
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Robert Gates speaks out
By Luiza Ch. Savage - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 9:20 AM - 2 Comments
The defence minister goes after the Europeans, Turkey, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Robert Gates is not mincing words. With two wars to run and tensions rising in the Middle East and on the Korean peninsula, the usually mild-mannered U.S. secretary of defence has been speaking his mind. A former CIA director and president of Texas A & M University, Gates was brought in by President George W. Bush to replace Donald Rumsfeld in 2006. While his predecessor’s public pronouncements could be so terse and tart that they inspired a book of “existential poetry,” Gates, who was kept on by President Barack Obama, had until now brought a softer touch. But as the critical relationship between the U.S. and Turkey has deteriorated over the Israeli raid on the Turkish flotilla, Gates lashed out at the Europeans for denying the country membership in the EU, and suggested that the secular Muslim nation risks being pushed into the arms of eastern powers such as Iran and Russia.
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Bestsellers
By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 1 Comment
Top-selling fiction and non-fiction titles (week of June 21st, 2010)
Top-selling fiction and non-fiction titles (week of June 21st, 2010)
Fiction
1 THE GIRL WHO KICKED OVER THE HORNET’S NEST
by Stieg Larsson1 (5) 2 THE IMPERFECTIONISTS
by Tom Rachman2 (3) 3 THE DOUBLE COMFORT SAFARI CLUB by Alexander McCall Smith 10 (8) 4 INNOCENT
by Scott Turow6 (6) 5 THE HELP
by Kathryn Stockett3 (17) 6 BEATRICE & VIRGIL
by Yann Martel7 (11) 7 SOLAR
by Ian McEwan5 (5) 8 MAJOR PETTIGREW’S LAST STAND
by Helen Simonson4 (2) 9 ILUSTRADO
by Miguel Syjuco8 (6) 10 The PREGNANT WIDOW
by Martin Amis9 (6) Non-fiction
1
THE WORLD IS A BALL
by John Doyle1 (5) 2 NOMAD
by Ayaan Hirsi Ali2 (4) 3 WAR
by Sebastian Junger4 (4) 4 MEDIUM RAW
by Anthony Bourdain8 (2) 5 HITCH-22
by Christopher Hitchens3 (3) 6 THE BIG SHORT
by Michael Lewis7 (14) 7 OPERATION MINCEMEAT
by Ben Macintyre(1) 8 THE RATIONAL OPTIMIST
by Matt Ridley(1) 9 THE BOOK OF AWESOME
by Neil Pasricha6 (7) 10 THE GREAT REFLATION
by Anthony Boeckh9 (3) LAST WEEK (WEEKS ON LIST)
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Speaking of hyperventilating
By Mark Steyn - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 8:46 AM - 219 Comments
MARK STEYN: In his scathing attacks on Fox News, Don Newman sounds a bit bombastic himself
Nicholas Roberts/The New York Times
Fox News? Oh, c’mon, everyone knows it’s a “minaret for America First prejudice” and “hyperventilated extremism” “screeching to the converted” with “the none-too-bright persona of the schoolyard bully.”
So says Christopher Dornan, director of something called the Arthur Kroeger College of Public Affairs at Carleton University, writing in the Toronto Star.
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On truth in $enten¢ing
By Colby Cosh - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 4:11 AM - 97 Comments
The debate over the net costs of the government’s Truth in Sentencing bill is of the kind that makes me want to throw up my hands and whine “Aw, I don’t knowwwww…”. On the one hand, the Parliamentary Budget Office has presented an estimate of the costs that makes the bill seem demented. Kevin Page’s numbers don’t factor in the benefits of any potential deterrence effect; they admittedly rely, at many points, on wild assumptions; and they were assembled with the help of a lot of the sort of “independent” expert who sees prisons as inherently barbarous and would happily blow them all up if someone presented them with a big red button that would do it instantly. But as Page himself has pointed out, this is a fight between questionable evidence and no evidence. The government hasn’t really shown any good-faith sign of a serious effort to cost out the elimination of two-for-one credit for time in remand.
Penology, by and large, isn’t treated as a fundamental political issue in this country at all. We have a series of arguments over specific proposals; we don’t have explicit contending ideologies. Yet it’s discernible, surely, that those ideologies exist.
What we have, I think, is a group of citizens who believe that penology contains no moral component whatsoever. They are, or the most logical ones are, pure utilitarians who believe that punishment has no inherent place in a justice system. If we had a pill for perfect deterrence, one that could eliminate criminal tendencies with 100% effectiveness and no ill effects or pain, they would argue that the ethical thing to do would be to give it to all convicts, even serial murderers and child rapists, and turn them loose to reintegrate with society, preferably with their identities protected. And on the other side, we have the moralists, people who do believe in punishment even where it has no necessary utilitarian or deterrent value at all. They believe that the function of a criminal justice system is to provide justice, in the schoolyard, eye-for-an-eye sense of the term. These people would want prisons, and perhaps other miserable and dire punishments, even if we had a deterrence pill.
The camps don’t challenge each other ideologically very often. It goes unstated that the overwhelming majority of those who actually administer criminal sentencing don’t really believe in punishment—this is fairly obvious, for example, from their shiny-happy trade literature. And it goes unstated that people like Vic Toews are, in a sense, beyond evidentiary arguments like Page’s. Toews is pursuing “truth in sentencing” and applying the statutes of the land, which are based on an idea of punishment favoured by much of the citizenry (and by the framers and re-framers of our Criminal Code) but by few among the bureaucracy or the polite social elite. Toews’ bill may be stupid or insane, but his basic claim to be pursing an abandoned or betrayed “truth” is serious, and it is even half-supported by some critics, who agree that two-for-one remand credit is a substantially unlawful kludge.
I suppose a law-and-order conservative, somebody who has a moralist ideology when it comes to crime and punishment, can’t very well complain about the inspired passion for austerity displayed by critics of Truth in Sentencing. But when the Globe picked up its unsigned-editorial stick and gave Toews a broadly justified hiding with it on Wednesday, I wondered about the lede:
It is unfathomable that the Canadian government would be preparing to more than double annual spending on the country’s jails at a time when almost all other government departments are being held in check, or cut. Never mind deficit reduction. Never mind health care or education. Never mind the environment. Only one thing matters: to be seen as tough on crime.
When Canadian justice went on a liberalization binge between about 1965 and 1985, nobody thought it was necessary to provide an accurate accounting of every penny of the cost of the new measures. And while we’re on the subject, Page’s report notes, in passing, that the cost per individual federal inmate in our corrections system grew by about 50% in nominal dollars between 2001 and 2009. Where were the complaints about this extravagance, the demands that we be shown where the money was going? I must say it is funny how every newspaper columnist suddenly masters the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles as soon as a Conservative government wants to “be seen as tough on crime”.
(And, frankly, I’m not sure why the “seen as” is in that sentence, since Truth in Sentencing really would lengthen criminal sentences for virtually everybody that is held in pre-trial custody and eventually convicted. Can it be argued that this is not genuine toughness on crime?)
Anti-moralist utilitarians betray their own cause when they fail to count the social costs or benefits of a change to criminal justice. Surely, according to either ideology, formal line items in the federal budget should really be marginal considerations compared to whether the measures in question lead to a safer society and less fear. For the moralists, of course, the bar is even higher: the measures must also be just in themselves. The utilitarians, for their part, have a pretty strong case that we need not consider morality or Old Testament-y justice at all.* (This is basically how the emergent field of law-and-economics approaches criminal justice.)
*But then again, you can’t be a half-utilitarian: it’s not fair to fake it because you’re concealing a specious, one-sided romantic concern for the welfare of criminals. If you are going to scream for efficient deterrence as the ultimate penological standard and insist on evidence, you must be prepared to be held to the judgment of the evidence even where it supports apparently unjust or objectionable procedures.
(In the U.S., for example, I would say a consensus is forming around the proposition that capital punishment might save a large, even double-digit number of potential murder victims for each execution; but there have, on statistical grounds, just not been enough executions since Gregg v. Georgia to warrant much confidence in the relevant interstate comparisons. In other words, the jury is still out until the sample grows. So what if the large deterrent effect is upheld over time? Will reality-based liberals in Canada circa 2060 A.D. acknowledge their forebears’ mistake and bring back the noose?)
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'This should not have happened'
By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 11:03 PM - 12 Comments
The text of the Prime Minister’s address to a memorial in Toronto this evening for the victims of the Air India bombing is here.
It is not enough to say that the system failed. It did of course. But, this is to sanitize with words a succession of woeful inadequacies that Commissioner Major calls “a cascading series of errors.” No. that is not enough.
Commissioner Major delivered a damning indictment of many things that occurred before and after the fact. Things, ladies and gentlemen, that this Government of Canada cannot defend, has no wish to defend. And, Commissioner Major finds that, to make matters worse, the families of the victims were for years after treated with scant respect or consideration by agencies of the Government of Canada.
These are things for which honour and duty require that the Government of Canada, the government that called this inquiry, now apologize.
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Christopher 'Dudus' Coke arrested in Jamaica
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 5:23 PM - 6 Comments
Alleged drug kingpin to face charges in U.S.
Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, the alleged drug lord and gang leader in Jamaica whose supporters launched violent attacks after authorities set out to arrest Coke, is in custody. Coke was taken in peacefully by Jamaican police on Wednesday and is expected to be extradited to the U.S., where he’ll be accused of running an international drug ring. U.S. efforts to detain Coke has strained relationship between the U.S. and Jamaica after they exposed a longstanding partnership between drug dealers and the Jamaican country’s political leaders.
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The fake lake is officially unveiled
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 5:21 PM - 3 Comments
Journalists finally get a peek at what $57,000 bought the federal government
Journalists covering the G20 summit were finally given a peek at the fake lake in that has stirred so much controversy in Ottawa over the past month. The shallow pool inside the summit media centre is meant to simulate the scene in Huntsville, where the G8 is being held, and cost the government $57,000 to build. The exhibit also features a wooden deck, Muskoka chairs and stacked canoes, and is part of a $1.9 million tourism pavilion called Experience Canada. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called the pavilion a “$2-million marketing project.”
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DHS: border not just "a line in the frozen tundra up there"
By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 5:14 PM - 8 Comments
Early in the Obama administration there were fears that Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano saw the Canadian and Mexican borders as comparable. I don’t think that was ever the case — she had said she was under pressure from some quarters in Congress to treat them that way. Whatever the case, today she gave a speech today defending the Obama administration’s efforts on securing the border with Mexico, announcing several new policies, and arguing against individual states taking border and immigration enforcement into their own hands.
At a panel Q & A afterward, she was asked how many of the new measures would apply to the US border with Canada.
Secretary Napolitano: “The measures I’ve described today are for the Southwest border. However, we have other measures we we’ve apply at the northern border. Including more deployment of mobile-type radar systems, more agents – [to meet] the congressional mandate on the number of agents that have to be at the northern border. We have excellent cooperation with the RCMP and have an aggressive program under way now to improve and provide better equipment and technology in the ports of entry all along the northern border.”
Then David Aguilar, Deputy Commissioner, US Customs and Border Protection added:
“We don’t forget about the northern border …. One of the areas we are taking a look at more aggressively with them is looking at the border not as a juridical line – not just a line in the frozen tundra up there — but as it relates to flows – flows of people and flows of cargo. We are looking at those flows from the point of origin, as it transports to the US, at it arrives in the US. We work with foreign law enforcement and domestic law enforcement to make sure we do everything possible not just at the juridical line but throughout those flows.”
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Collect them all
By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 5:13 PM - 13 Comments
The Agenda’s Daniel Kitts has helpfully put together a slideshow of official portraits of Stephen Harper using the telephone, these photos regularly distributed to the press gallery by the PMO.
Lacking from the collection is this gem from March 2009, meant to depict the Prime Minister’s rapport with the President of United States.
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Maybe Petraeus could also plug that hole in the Gulf
By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 4:45 PM - 13 Comments
Below is Obama’s statement. Reasonable people disagree, but I don’t think he had much choice in replacing McChrystal. If he hadn’t, Obama would have looked personally weak and, worse, he would have tolerated an undermining of the civilian leadership of the military and the role of Commander in Chief. Also, the national security team would have looked divided. And tolerating the incident would have sent a message not only to the military but to the entire machinery of government about the kind of behavior that is acceptable.
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Eliot Spitzer gets CNN show
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 4:43 PM - 2 Comments
Disgraced governor to co-host political talk program
Prostitute scandals can’t keep Eliot Spitzer down. He may have been forced to resign from office two years ago after the public learned that he slept with a hooker, but he’s back on his feet and set to co-host a daily political talk show with Kathleen Parker, a conservative columnist. “CNN will be offering a lively roundup of all the best ideas—presented by two of the most intelligent and outspoken figures in the country,” said CNN president Jon Klein. The show starts in the fall and is meant to compete with Fox’s popular and controversial show, “The O’Reilly Factor.”
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And Richard Fadden wants to be taken seriously
By John Geddes - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 4:07 PM - 74 Comments
Richard Fadden, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, has made himself look ridiculous on precisely the sort of national security issue about which he has, in the recent past, lectured the media and “opinion leaders” for failing to take seriously enough.
Fadden is backpedaling awkwardly today from the startling remarks he made in a CBC interview about provincial cabinet ministers, and other public servants, being “under at least the general influence of a foreign government.”
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Seven dead in Quebec City plane crash
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 4:02 PM - 1 Comment
Pilot reported engine difficulties moments before crash
Seven people were killed when a small plane with engine trouble crashed and burned after takeoff early Wednesday at Quebec City’s Jean-Lesage airport. Authorities at the international airport said the pilot contacted the control tower shortly after takeoff at 6 a.m. ET to report engine trouble with the aircraft. The chartered twin-engine Beechcraft King Air plane crashed moments later in a private field about two kilometres northwest of the airport and burst into flames. Five passengers and two crew members on board were killed.
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Gen. McChrystal steps down
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 3:43 PM - 4 Comments
Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, to take over
A day after his disparaging comments about America’s civilian leadership in the Afghan War surfaced in an interview for Rolling Stone magazine, Gen. Stanley McChrystal—the top commander in Afghanistan—has stepped down. President Barack Obama accepted his resignation “with considerable regret” and nominated Gen. David Petraeus, the head of the U.S. Central Command. “It is the right thing for our mission in Afghanistan, for our military and for our country,” Obama said. Earlier, the president also noted that McChrystal’s remarks in Rolling Stone demonstrated poor judgment and undermined the civilian control of the military “at the core of our democratic system.” Obama urged the Senate to quickly confirm Petraeus, who would leave his Central Command position.
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U.S. fast food chain swaps burger buns for grilled cheese sandwiches
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 3:39 PM - 3 Comments
Friendly’s Grilled Cheese Burger Melt tops out at 1,500 calories and 97 grams of fat
U.S. fast food chain Friendly’s latest creation is a fast food fat feast. The Grilled Cheese Burger Melt, whose bun consists of two grilled-cheese sandwiches, tops out at 1,500 calories, including 97 grams of fat and 2,090 milligrams of sodium. It lards on nearly three times the calories and fat of KFC’s notorious Double Down, which is made up of white meat chicken filets instead of buns, two pieces of bacon, two melted slices of Monterey Jack and pepper jack cheese and Colonel’s Sauce. But the Grilled Cheese Burger Melt isn’t the most high-calorie item on Friendly’s menu. That honour goes to the Clamboat Basket, which contains 1,710 calories, 102 grams of fat and 3,070 milligrams of sodium. Friendly’s does not have any restaurants in Canada, but those looking for the worst-of-the-worst burgers can chow down on Chili’s Jalapeno Smokehouse Big Mouth Burger, which has 1,750 calories, 40 grams of fat and 5,250 milligrams of salt. Any amount of salt over six grams can be considered a lethal overdose.
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First women inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 3:34 PM - 16 Comments
Angela James and Cammi Granato first two female inductees
Torontonian Angela James and American Cammi Granato have become the first two women to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, announced the Hall yesterday. The ceremony will take place this November. “This is a day I never really thought would ever happen,” said James to the Toronto Star. “I look at this as being a great day for female hockey.” The 18-member, all-male committee selected the women following a change in the selection criteria which made it more inclusive for women. Bill Hay, chairman of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s board of directors said, “It’s time for females to be in,” and that the voting changes reflect the long-range plans of the hockey institution.
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In case you were wondering
By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 3:31 PM - 25 Comments
Despite a bit of rumbling, the Ottawa bureau of Maclean’s remains intact, or at least as intact as it was before the quake. The main buidlings on Parliament Hill have apparently been evacuated and are being checked. Langevin reportedly was not evacuated, but the Prime Minister was on his way to the airport at the time.
A news conference by the NDP’s Don Davies here at the National Press Building was interrupted, as recorded below.
The bars on Sparks Street, when last I checked, seemed to be doing brisk business with so many seeking comfort.
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Prince of Monaco to wed
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 3:27 PM - 0 Comments
Prince Albert to marry South African former Olympic swimmer
Prince Albert of Monaco is engaged to marry South African former Olympic swimmer Charlene Wittstock, the royal palace announced in a statement Wednesday. The palace did not indicate a wedding date, but palace
spokesperson Laetitia Pierrat said under protocol, royal couples must wait at least six months between the announcement of the engagement and the wedding day. Pierrat said Albert, 52, met Wittstock, 32, in 2000 when she was visiting Monaco for a swimming competition. Wittstock has lived in Monaco since 2006. Colombe Pringle, executive editor of the French celebrity magazine Point de Vue, said she hasn’t heard any rumours that Wittstock might already be pregnant, but said there would “obviously” be an heir. Albert has never been married, but has two children from previous relationships. Neither can assume the throne because they were born out of wedlock. -
Canadian government infiltrated by spies, CSIS director says
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 3:23 PM - 9 Comments
Intelligence agency suspicious of two provincial cabinet ministers
At least two provincial cabinet ministers and a number of other government officials and employees are under the control of foreign countries as part of espionage schemes, Canada’s top security official said in an exclusive interview on CBS’s The National. CSIS director Richard Fadden would not name the provinces the cabinet ministers are from, but said foreign powers are infiltrating Canadian political circles and influencing public servants, raising concerns about economic espionage in Canada. Economic espionage, the trading, sharing or theft of federal secrets, can be considered a crime. A report that accompanied the interview said about five countries are casting their hands into Canadian politics, including China and some countries in the Middle East. Fadden said in the interview that these countries may target university students and influence them early on in their careers, keeping in touch with them and eventually providing money and covert guidance. He added the CSIS is closely watching these politicians.
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Childhood cancer not linked to cell-phone towers
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 3:16 PM - 1 Comment
Study finds children whose moms lived near cell tower while pregnant weren’t more likely to get sick
Researchers have found that no matter which way they punched the numbers, having a cell phone tower nearby while pregnant doesn’t appear to increase the number of childhood cancers. The team from Imperial College in London tracked down all cases of childhood cancer in Britain from 1999 to 2001. They matched 1,397 of the sick children with healthy children of the same age, gender and demographics. The ones whose mothers lived near the towers were no more likely to have been sick. In fact, in the case of brain cancer, living near a cell phone tower was correlated with a reduced risk.
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Nothing to see here, please move along
By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 3:15 PM - 12 Comments
Earlier today, the Prime Minister’s Office had been punting questions on the matter—”We have no knowledge of these matters. CSIS directs its own operations. Questions should be directed to CSIS.”—and just now, Mr. Fadden has attempted to punt his own allegations of foreign interference in Canadian politics.
“I have not apprised the Privy Council Office of the cases I mentioned in the interview on CBC. At this point, CSIS has not deemed the cases to be of sufficient concern to bring them to the attention of provincial authorities. There will be no further comments on these operational matters.”
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Losing, and discovering, Tracy Wright
By Brian D. Johnson - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 3:10 PM - 7 Comments
Tracy Wright (1959-2010) • photo by Guntar Kravis
She was the quintessence of the character actor who is beloved and acclaimed by her peers, and whose formidable talent consistently outstrips her fame. Tracy Wright died Tuesday morning at her home in Toronto just six and a half months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She was 50. Wright was a stage and screen actress would routinely deliver the kind of unique and memorable performances that get called “gem-like.” Even if her name does not sound familiar, chances are you would recognize her. She brought an idiosyncratic clarity to even the smallest roles, along with a sense that there was so much more of her simmering just below the surface, or just off screen. Wright had a way of conveying an entire personality, and a motherlode of wit, through a word or a look. She worked with some of Canada’s most inventive writers and directors, including Bruce McDonald, Patricia Rozema, Daniel McIvor, Daniel Brooks—and her longtime companion Don McKellar, who became her husband shortly after her cancer diagnosis. It was a treat to see her work alongside McKellar, as the cat-crazy Dizelle in the TV series, Twitch City, or as a cycling, pot-smoking ex-radical in Monkey Warfare. And I doubt any actress has held her own in the clubhouse of Kids in the Hall as beautifully as Wright, who appeared as a sex-mad adulterer ravishing Bruce McCulloch at an art gallery opening in this hilarious episode titled The Affair:
While Wright was rooted in Toronto’s theatrical and film community, her reputation went far and wide. Plug her name into Google, and the appreciations that pop up range from Texas to Scotland. American director Miranda July was so captivated by her small role in McKellar’s 1999 film Last Night, that she wrote a part for her in You Me and Everyone We Know, as an art curator who has an unwitting online affair with a child.
While Wright was chronically under-appreciated, an actress whose talent seemed to merit more generous roles, she was gaining increased recognition in the past year or two. She won acclaim for her final stage role, co-starring with Caroline Gillis in the 2009 Tarragon Theatre remount of Daniel MacIvor’s A Beautiful View, as a straight woman who becomes involved with a lesbian. And after her diagnosis, MacIvor raced to write a screenplay that would give her a starring role opposite Molly Parker in another two-hander—a rock’n'roll My Dinner With Andre about two women who catch up with each other after meeting at a concert. The movie, directed by Bruce McDonald, is called Trigger, and most likely it will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.
Until then, you can get a glimpse of Wright in another of those fleeting, gem-like roles, in McDonald’s This Movie is Broken, a romance wrapped around a Broken Social Scene concert movie; it opens on Friday.
Meanwhile here’s sweet glimpse of Tracy Wright on a park bench in the final scenes of You and Me and Everyone We Know:
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Péladeau was for taxpayer subsidies before he was against them
By Philippe Gohier - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 3:07 PM - 9 Comments
If there was a recurring theme to Pierre Karl Péladeau and Kory Teneycke’s press conference announcing Sun News, it’s that their new channel would not be anything like the CBC. Said Teneycke:
We’re taking on the mainstream media. We’re taking on smug, condescending, often irrelevant journalism. We’re taking on political correctness. We will not be a state broadcaster offering boring news by bureaucrats, for elites, and paid for by taxpayers.
As it turns out, Quebecor boss Péladeau doesn’t have a problem with taxpayer-subsidized television after all. At least, he didn’t in a June 14 letter to James Moore:
The CEO of Quebecor, Pierre Karl Péladeau, is threatening to sue the federal government if the heritage minister doesn’t intervene to change the admissibility criteria for the Canada Media Fund to allow shows like the [Quebecor-produced] Star Académie to benefit from it.
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This Is What We Just Felt…
By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 2:09 PM - 11 Comments
