He said, he said

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, July 25, 2010 at 3:13 PM - 0 Comments

Whatever Tony Clement has already said Statistics Canada officials said to him, he really can’t say what they said, except to say that they never said they had any misgivings about the new census. That Mr. Clement said anything about what Statistics Canada said is said to have led to Munir Sheik’s resignation. Which is all, you might say, ironic, because, as Jay Hill said, this is a government that believes ministers, and only ministers, are responsible for the policies, decisions and operations of government.

Let’s gaze into my crystal ball

By Scott Feschuk - Sunday, July 25, 2010 at 2:34 PM - 0 Comments

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY TAYLOR SHUTE

Anyone can tell you what happened last week in Canadian politics. But only this column can give you . . . Political News From the Future!

Ottawa (Aug. 27, 2010)—Inspired by “carbon offsets” designed to fight climate change, Michael Ignatieff has announced that he will try to reverse his party’s dismal standing in the polls by purchasing “popularity offsets” from more successful political figures. Under the plan, Ignatieff will buy excess goodwill, charisma and competence from politicians such as Sarah Palin and David Cameron—thus compensating for the sense of despair and fruitlessness emitted by his own activities.

Continue…

Alberto Contador wins Tour de France

By macleans.ca - Sunday, July 25, 2010 at 2:21 PM - 0 Comments

For the fifth year in a row, a Spanish rider has won the Tour de France. Alberto Contador is now a three time winner of the Tour—this year edging out his rival, Andy Schleck of Luxembourg. Lance Armstrong, a seven-time winner, completed his final Tour, finishing 23rd. Canadian Ryder Hesjedal of Victoria placed seventh, Canada’s best showing since 1988, when Steve Bauer came in fourth.

New York Times

TSN

Hayward is out at BP—and Dudley is in?

By macleans.ca - Sunday, July 25, 2010 at 1:47 PM - 0 Comments

BP CEO Tony Hayward is said to be in meetings this weekend finalizing his exit deal—reportedly a one-million pound package and a 10-million pound pension. While the company denies any change, the Guardian newspaper reports that the reins will be handed over to Bob Dudley, who is overseeing the cleanup operation in the Gulf of Mexico. The company came to realize that in order to repair their dealings with the U.S., Hayward would have to go. Dudley is a U.S. citizen, with a strong track record at BP and Amoco before that.

The Guardian

'An impossible position'

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, July 24, 2010 at 5:29 PM - 0 Comments

Alex Himelfarb, formerly the highest ranking civil servant in Ottawa, reflects on the resignation of Munir Sheikh.

Let me be clear about what this was not. This was not a public servant substituting his own judgment for that of the government or in any way being disloyal. Quite the contrary: in the face of criticism from colleagues, Statistics Canada seemed poised to implement the voluntary approach and, in the traditions of public service, Munir was and continues to be publicly silent about his advice. Nor was this an instance of a public servant fighting for turf or more resources. This is not about defending big government or public service jobs as some critics of government and public service will immediately assume … No, it was none of these things. This was about the integrity of Statistics Canada and of the public service. The decision to replace the long form census with a voluntary version put the Chief Statistician in a difficult position. The way the decision was handled put him in an impossible position.

How the census went from a quinquennial chore to a national crisis

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, July 24, 2010 at 4:00 PM - 0 Comments

Rick Eglinton/TORONTO STAR

“Wrong,” Tony Clement typed to an entity calling itself Harbles. “Statisticians can ensure validity w larger sample size.” A week into the Great Census Uprising of 2010, the industry minister had taken to Twitter, as he often otherwise does to detail both his travels and his music tastes, in hopes of making the case for changes to the national head count.

“Wrong,” countered Stephen Gordon, an economist at the University of Laval. “Large samples can’t fix sample selection biases.” Clement tried again, tweeting that “proper weighting” would be used. “Where will the weights come from?” Gordon shot back. “Other voluntary surveys get their weights from the census.” After another exchange of tweets, the minister fell silent for the night.

Continue…

Reality and perception

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, July 24, 2010 at 12:12 PM - 0 Comments

The Globe and Star survey the reach and impact of the census. CP considers the political calculation.

While belief in the change runs deep in the government, communicating that belief could have been much better, said Tim Powers, a conservative strategist. But the Conservatives see no reason to back down, despite the outcry.

“The Prime Minister is not going to be heart broken over a division between elites and Main Street,” Powers said. Till now, the experts have been good at putting forward their arguments, while the Tories have been less together, he said.

Will Palin run in 2012?

By John Parisella - Saturday, July 24, 2010 at 10:44 AM - 0 Comments

Like her or not, Sarah Palin will play a decisive role in who gets the Republican nomination in 2012. Since being plucked out of relative obscurity by 2008 GOP nominee John McCain, Palin has emerged as a celebrity in her own right. Anyone longing for the nomination will have to deal with her persona, her influence, and her supporters.

Along with Palin’s notoriety, the rise of the Tea Party movement has created a number of inviting venues for the Palin message. She is now a regular commentator on Fox News, adroitly uses social media to comment on current issues, and has a knack for picking eventual winners, even among opponents of Republican incumbents (the only exception being New York’s 23rd district, where Democrat Bill Owens benefited from a GOP party split ).

Does that make her the obvious Republican pick for 2012? Not quite.

Continue…

Stockwell Day, amateur statistician

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, July 24, 2010 at 10:10 AM - 0 Comments

The President of the Treasury Board seems to indicate the census could just as easily be outsourced to 12-year-olds with Internet connections.

“We live in an information age where any 12-year-old kid can push any button on the Internet and find out any information he or she wants without threatening a citizen that they’re going to go to jail.”

A late note on Samara's list of best Canadian political books

By John Geddes - Friday, July 23, 2010 at 5:57 PM - 0 Comments

I’m arriving very late to the party over at Samara, where they took on the fun task of drawing up a list of Canada’s best political books. Some of the titles that made the cut are favourites of mine (Michael Bliss’s Right Honourable Men, Christina McCall’s Grits), while others (Charles Taylor’s Radical Tories, Wayne Johnston’s The Colony of Unrequited Dreams) remind me that I’ve got some reading to do.

I might quibble here (Lawrence Martin’s Iron Man: The Defiant Reign of Jean Chrétien, but not the revelatory preceding volume Chrétien: The Will to Win?) and there (Leaders and Lesser Mortals by John Laschinger and Geoffrey Stevens, but not Stevens’s fine solo bio The Player: The Life & Times of Dalton Camp?), but by and large I find the Samara lists comprehensive and persuasive.

Still, casting an eye over their catalogue, I’m reminded of how often the most penetrating political insights are found in books that we would not put on the politics shelf. I’m sure examples would spring to any reader’s mind. For me, Northrop Frye’s slim The Modern Century, published in 1967 to coincide with Canada’s centennial, is the prime case of a book that made me think differently about politics, even though it’s not about parties or elections or leaders. Continue…

Dinner and a movie

By Julia Belluz - Friday, July 23, 2010 at 5:09 PM - 0 Comments

(Movieweb.com)

With the rise of the celebrity chef and the cult of food shows, the films of late have reflected this fashionable and delicious obsession. While classics like Babette’s Feast (1987), Big Night (1996), and Like Water for Chocolate (1992) continue to inspire foodie film-buffs, here we look at more recent contenders, and imagine recipes for dishes that are the un-credited screen stars—driving plots, inspiring passions, and consoling lead characters.

I Am Love (2009):

Food is integral to the plot in Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino’s new melodrama, I Am Love. In the film, the married Emma Recchi (played by Tilda Swinton) experiences an awakening while eating a plate of succulent prawns prepared by the talented chef Antonio, who becomes her lover. Later, a delicate Russian soup—Ukha—leads to the plot’s unraveling. Here’s a recipe for the pivotal soup:

Russian Salmon soup (Ukha)

Ingredients:
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 small carrots (1 chopped, 3 thinly sliced)
8 black peppercorns
4 sprigs flat-leaf parsley
4 sprigs dill
2 leeks (white parts only), thickly sliced crosswise and washed
2 ribs celery, roughly chopped
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 1/2 cups white wine
1 lb. fish bones, such as snapper, rinsed
1 salmon head (about 1 lb.), gills removed
3 medium yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/4″ chunks
1 lb. skinless boneless salmon filet, cut into 1″ cubes
1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4 scallions, thinly sliced on the diagonal

Click here for method

Next: Honey lavender ice cream from It’s Complicated

"One of the most incompetent and harmful governments this country has ever known"

By Philippe Gohier - Friday, July 23, 2010 at 4:43 PM - 0 Comments

André Pratte has an absolutely devastating editorial in today’s La Presse, in which he essentially calls for an anti-Harper mutiny by cabinet ministers he otherwise lambastes “for having such a poor handle on their files, they unjustly make the federal government look profoundly incompetent.” You really should go read the thing for yourself, but here are some translated bits:

The controversy surrounding the terms of the census is typical of the pillaging the conservatives have engaged in since coming to power. Not only is their behaviour dictated by simplistic ideology, the Conservatives impose their politics while displaying a exceptional degree of incompetence.

A competent right-wing government would have asked Statistics Canada to do an in-depth comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of mandatory and optional census forms. It would have then submitted the proposed solution to consultation, as is done with all modifications to the census. Instead, the government decided to change its approach in spite of the reservations of Statistics Canada on the sole basis of phone calls to MPs’ constituency offices. School boards are run more seriously than that.

[...]

Before this government does even more harm to the institution that is the government of Canada, the intelligent people within the federal cabinet have a duty to rise up and stop the pillaging. Otherwise, the Harper government may be remembered as one of the most incompetent and harmful governments this country has ever known.

I think it’s probably safe to say Pratte would like to politely withdraw his paper’s 2006 endorsement of the Conservatives.

Everything's a Spoiler Now

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, July 23, 2010 at 4:35 PM - 0 Comments

To follow up on my post about Mad Men “spoilers,” Matt Weiner gave an interview today where he solemnly pronounced himself “shocked” by the New York Times review, and where he basically redefined a spoiler as being anything that describes any of the story points at all:

“I was shocked – really shocked,” Weiner says of the piece, which disclosed the status of Don and Betty Draper’s relationship and key details about the employees of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. “I would love to have it known that this was done totally without my approval.”

…“Ninety-nine percent of the reporters who wrote about the show did not write about the story,” Weiner says. “A lot of people told me they were blindsided by (the Stanley article).”

Normally a “spoiler” constitutes giving away something that’s supposed to be a surprise, or an outcome that is in doubt in the story. Telling us what someone is doing at the beginning of the season, or describing the general story of the episode, is not usually a spoiler. Writing how and why the Empire Strikes Back is not a spoiler. Writing “Darth Vader turns out to be Luke’s father” is a spoiler, or it would be if I had been writing that in 1980.

Weiner is trying to change the meaning of “spoiler” to encompass any and all story and character details, even the ones that are presented up-front without any suspense, which is just weird. I stand by my belief that there’s an element of marketing gimmickry in this (even if it’s not intended as such, it works that way), but I guess there’s also some delusions of grandeur mixed in there, the sense that his show is not part of the common herd and that everyone should watch and write about it exactly as he wishes.

Frank Stronach's billion-dollar-baby

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 23, 2010 at 4:19 PM - 0 Comments

Three-quarters of Magna International’s shareholders voted to approve a controversial plan to pay founder Frank Stronach about $1 billion to give up control of the company. The deal needs still to be approved in Ontario Superior Court, but if it goes through, it would mean his family would lose control of the auto parts giant. Stronach would receive $300 million US in cash, $120 million in consulting fees over four years, nine million single-vote shares of Magna, and control over a new joint venture focused on electric vehicles. The fairness hearing for the deal is scheduled for Aug. 12 and 13.

CBC

Conrad Black can't return to Canada just yet

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 23, 2010 at 4:14 PM - 0 Comments

For the time being at least, Conrad Black will have stay in the U.S. Chicago judge Amy St. Eve ruled on Friday that Black would not be allowed to return to Canada yet because she wants more financial information from his lawyers before making a ruling. The judge gave Black until Aug. 16 to provide a “complete and thorough” accounting of his personal fortune so that she can rule on whether he should be allowed to leave. Black’s lawyer Miguel Estrada told the court his client should be permitted to return to Toronto because of the undisclosed medical condition of Black’s wife, Barbara Amiel. Mr. Estrada said the condition is not too serious, but that it makes living in Palm Beach difficult.

The Globe and Mail

What we're talking about when we talk about affirmative action

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, July 23, 2010 at 3:15 PM - 0 Comments

The government seems to have ordered a review of affirmative action—”employment equity” in Canadian terms—policies in the public service. But the government reportedly supports affirmative action. So, more specifically, it would seem that the government is concerned with jobs that are specifically and explicitly restricted to minority applicants. Of 5,000 jobs posted in 2008, this criteria reportedly applied to 91.

One in five English teenage girls pregnant by age 18

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 23, 2010 at 3:15 PM - 0 Comments

A government survey by England’s Department of Education has revealed that one in five sexually active teenage girls in England has been pregnant by the age of 18. The survey, the first of its kind, reported that 83 per cent of girls had lost their virginity by age 18, and that 18 per cent of these girls have been pregnant at least once. More than 1,300 18-year-old girls have been pregnant three times. Figures released earlier this year revealed that pregnancy rates for girls 18 and under in England were higher in 2008 than they were in 2001. The data has reignited the controversy over Britain’s teenage pregnancy rate, which is the highest in Western Europe. Family values campaigners have criticized easy access to contraception and poor-quality sex education that doesn’t teach abstinence for fueling the problem. Girls are less likely to have been pregnant by 18 if they did well at school and their parents have degrees, and children who live with both parents are half as likely to engage in under-age sex, according to the study.

Daily Mail

Clinton warns China over disputed islands

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 23, 2010 at 2:56 PM - 0 Comments

Speaking today in Vietnam at an Asian regional security meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned the U.S. is prepared to intervene in a dispute involving China’s claim to islands in the South China Sea. The 200 islands have been a source of conflict ever since China took full control of one group of islands, the Paracels, from Vietnam in 1974. This January, China announced that it was going to develop the Paracels as a tourist destination. Clinton’s announcement comes at a particularly tense time between the U.S. and China. On Thursday, she irked Chinese officials by announcing joint U.S.-South Korea naval exercises off the Korean Peninsula. Beijing officials told two U.S. diplomats last March they would not stand for any interference in the South China Sea.

New York Times

'Greater social goods are at stake'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, July 23, 2010 at 12:36 PM - 0 Comments

Archdeacons Michael Pollesel and John M. Robertson wrote to Industry Minister Tony Clement earlier this week on behalf of the Anglican Church of Canada. Here is their letter.

As you are well aware, a great deal of the charitable work carried out in this country is done in support of the sick, the poor, the marginalized, and on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children who are in dire need of a loving human response on a daily basis.

In spiritual terms this loving human response comes by the Grace of God, but in practical terms it is emboldened and upheld by reliable information and sound methodologies that are pillars of our social infrastructure.  The Anglican Church of Canada recognizes the power our country’s statistical information has to help transform thought into action in profound and life giving ways.  Indeed to potentially compromise the integrity of a system – one that is recognized as global leader – without a broad consultation with other levels of government, nonprofits and the private sector seems unnecessarily risky, particularly when greater social goods are at stake.

'When greater social goods are at stake'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, July 23, 2010 at 12:21 PM - 0 Comments

Archdeacons Michael Pollesel and John M. Robertson wrote to Industry Minister Tony Clement earlier this week on behalf of the Anglican Church of Canada. Here is their letter.

As you are well aware, a great deal of the charitable work carried out in this country is done in support of the sick, the poor, the marginalized, and on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children who are in dire need of a loving human response on a daily basis.

In spiritual terms this loving human response comes by the Grace of God, but in practical terms it is emboldened and upheld by reliable information and sound methodologies that are pillars of our social infrastructure.  The Anglican Church of Canada recognizes the power our country’s statistical  information has to help transform thought into action in profound and life giving ways.  Indeed to potentially compromise the integrity of a system – one that is recognized as global leader – without a broad consultation with other levels of government, nonprofits and the private sector seems unnecessarily risky, particularly when greater social goods are at stake.

AFN Report says natives should control own schools

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 23, 2010 at 12:12 PM - 0 Comments

The Assembly of First Nations has issued a report that says native Canadians should have total control over native schools and that non-native schools should be “required to teach aboriginal language and culture.” The federal government and native leaders first agreed to work together to improve native education in 1972 with the Indian Control of Indian Education agreement. But according to the AFN, not much has improved. They say high school graduation rates for native children have only reached 48 per cent. The report blames low graduation rates on non-native curricula.

CBC News

What time do you leave for work? Ottawa’s never actually asked

By John Geddes - Friday, July 23, 2010 at 12:06 PM - 0 Comments

If there’s one thing about the long-form census that apparently bothers Tony Clement, besides the way it asks folks about how many bedrooms they have in their homes, it’s the prying into what time honest Canadians leave for work in the morning.

The industry minister has red-flagged this particular census question repeatedly during the controversy of the past few weeks. On July 13, Clement said, “The government does not think it is necessary for Canadians to provide Statistics Canada with the number of bedrooms in their home, or what time of the day they leave for work, or how long it takes them to get there.”

Continue…

Ontario Parks experimenting with wireless Internet

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 23, 2010 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

Camping used to be a great excuse to ignore e-mail on holidays, but Ontario Parks is now considering bringing e-mail right to people’s tents. Pinery Provincial Park, near Grand Bend, Ont. has installed Wi-Fi service for campers at one location and is seeking input from campers about the service. “We’ve had people call and say they are going to a private campground like KOA because they do have wireless,” John Salo, southwest zone manager told the Canadian Press. Parks Canada said last fall that it was considering wireless Internet as a way to combat a steady drop in visitors.

Hamilton Spectator

Storm forces workers to leave BP spill site

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 23, 2010 at 11:54 AM - 0 Comments

Workers building the relief well to permanently stop the BP oil leak are heading back to safety on shore today as Tropical Storm Bonnie blows west over Florida in the direction of the spill site. The leaking well has been capped for a week but officials say it’s only a temporary solution until the “static kill” procedure is performed or the relief well is completed. Bonnie is expected to delay work on the relief well for 10 to 12 days, making mid-August the new target for completion, says BP. The storm is expected to reach the well site late Saturday or early Sunday.

New York Times