The Stanley cup goes on vacation

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Sunday, August 22, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 0 Comments

Scott Strazzante/Chicago Tribune/ Mark L. Johnson/CP

On his day with the cup, Chicago Blackhawks star Patrick Kane took Lord Stanley’s mug to visit Niagara Falls, N.Y., a cancer hospital, and onto the stage at a Jimmy Buffett concert. But the lingering memory will surely be his holy crap moment with hockey’s Holy Grail. The 21-year-old winger—more than a little scared of heights—agreed to hop into a cherry picker belonging to his hometown Buffalo fire department. Up, up they went, three storeys above the street, so photographers could capture him hoisting the trophy against the scenic skyline. But when it came time to descend, the motor stopped working. It took 25 minutes for firefighters to manually lower the ladder. And all the while, Kane’s buddies stood below, heckling. Respect.

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Canada to match Pakistan flood donations

By macleans.ca - Sunday, August 22, 2010 at 2:42 PM - 0 Comments

In a move welcomed by aid groups, the Canadian government has announced that it will match private donations to registered charities for relief efforts in Pakistan. The fund-matching initiative is valid for donations between Aug. 2 and Sept. 12, and comes in addition to the $33 million the federal government has already committed to relief efforts. “For every eligible donation by individual Canadians to Canadian registered charities and earmarked for efforts to assist Pakistan relief efforts, Canada will contribute an equivalent amount to the Pakistan Floods Relief Fund,” House leader John Baird told reporters Sunday. The floods have killed nearly 2,000 people and left six million Pakistanis homeless, according to the latest United Nations estimates.

Wyclef Jean not eligible for Haitian presidency

By macleans.ca - Saturday, August 21, 2010 at 2:38 PM - 0 Comments

Haiti’s electoral commission ruled late Friday that Haitian-born hip hop artist Wyclef Jean would not be eligible to run for president. The 40-year-old former Fugees frontman, who had made an eager bid for presidency, responded in a statement: “Though I disagree with the ruling, I respectfully accept the committee’s final decision, and I urge my supporters to do the same.” While the commission gave no explanation for their ruling, Jean faced criticism over having no political experience and a vague platform. His charity, Yele Haiti, has also been criticised for mishandling its money.

CTV News

Organized crime is online

By macleans.ca - Saturday, August 21, 2010 at 1:20 PM - 0 Comments

Canada is moving into a new frontier of online-based fraud, according to the 25th annual Report on Organized Crime by Criminal Intelligence Service Canada. Hackers-for-hire are selling organized criminals the tools and services they need to break into brokerage accounts, reports the Vancouver Sun. Furthermore, criminals are using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to issue fake news releases and promotional material to potential victims. “Criminal groups are constantly adapting to exploit new opportunities for illicit profit and take advantage of communication and transportation technologies that increase the scope and range of their unlawful activities,” said RCMP Commissioner William Elliott.

Whatever happened to Intergovernmental Affairs?

By Philippe Gohier - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 5:39 PM - 0 Comments

For reasons I imagine have a lot to do with the 20th anniversary of Gilles Duceppe’s election, a lot of ideas are being floated about on how to get rid of the Bloc. For the most part, these appear to be based on the premise that the problem with the Bloc isn’t that its long-term goal of an independent Quebec is fundamentally incompatible with the survival of the Canadian federation; rather, it’s that the Bloc prevents the Conservatives or the Liberals from getting a Parliamentary majority. (For the record, since Duceppe got to Ottawa, he’s spent 14 years opposing a majority and six opposing a minority.)

Jeffrey Simpson has suggested the party be bankrupted into obsolescence; pollster John Wright, abiding by the time-honoured principle that if you ignore your problems they just go away, figures the federalist parties may be better off waiting for demographics to run their course; William Johnson recommends having Mel Hurtig take over the Quebec Liberal party and working in the phrase “le plusse meilleur pays au monde” into speeches more often; the Toronto Star‘s editorial board advises that either the Liberals should transform into credible Quebec nationalists or the Tories should go Bolshevik (what happens if they both take the advice?); the National Post, meanwhile, is stuck on the rather existential question of whether Quebec “matters.”

The stunning decline of the intergovernmental affairs portfolio at the federal level is rarely, if ever, mentioned in the discussion. Is it possible the Bloc has become Canada’s de-facto Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs? Because they’re the only ones who seem burdened by the task.

Since 2006, four different ministers have handled the portfolio and Josée Verner has now held the job for nearly two years. During that time, Verner has made a grand total of one speech (I don’t count MPs talking about government work in the House of Commons as a speech). Of the three announcements made by the government’s Intergovernmental Affairs division over the past year and a half, two were for appointments to the Transportation Safety Board (apparently the true lynchpin of Canadian federalism) and the other about a grant to fix the water system in the town of Shannon. The picture above is the first one you’ll see if you go to the former ministry’s website. In case you were wondering, that’s Stephen Harper announcing upgrades to the Vancouver aquarium.

It’s not clear to me what the federal government and its institutions can do to regain their legitimacy in Quebec. Still, it’s striking how little interest they’ve got in even trying.

550 new jobs for Miramichi

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 5:14 PM - 0 Comments

Stephen Harper announced that the federal government will create 550 new jobs for Miramichi, assuring the community that any jobs that could be killed with the possible abolishment of the long-gun registry will be replaced. He said that the federal government is planning to spend $298 million over the next six years to consolidate the payroll system for civil servants, which would be centralized at a new centre in Miramichi. “I said the first time I was here that any jobs that were lost in the firearms centre, we would make sure there was federal employment for them here,” Harper said. “Today we have done what we promised.” Locals in the region would be recruited and trained to work at the centre. This announcement comes weeks before Parliament is set to resume debate of a Conservative private member’s bill that would kill the registry, if passed. All registration and licensing requests for restricted and non-restricted
firearms across Canada are currently processed at a Miramichi facility, which employs about 240 people.

Telegraph Journal

'Voiced with clarity'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 4:53 PM - 0 Comments

Gen. Walter Natynczyk comments on Col. Pat Stogran’s previously stated concerns.

“He has certainly voiced with clarity what the issues are,” said Natynczyk, who held the news conference with his Dutch counterpart, Gen. Peter Van Uhm, who has been on an official visit to Canada…

Natynczyk also encouraged soldiers to speak out, whether at parliamentary committees, to the media or in public, about the issues they face and the needs they have, because every soldier is different. ”Everyone’s had a different war, a different fight. Their family circumstances are different,” he said. “I think the bottom line is we can’t do enough for our soldiers, our wounded soldiers.”

Anti-HST petition ruled legal in B.C. Supreme Court

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 4:25 PM - 0 Comments

Former B.C. premier Bill Vander Zalm’s 700,000-signature petition against British Columbia’s HST will be allowed to proceed, according to the B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver. In a quick judgment on Friday, the Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman rejected the big business coalition’s bid to kill the controversial petition. This decision has been credited with ending the
stand-off about the petition, which has remained in limbo since business and industry challenged its legality. Justice Bauman dismissed all of the arguments raised by the coalition that included the Council of Forest Industries, the Mining Association and the B.C. Chamber of Commerce. “I would not give effect to any of [their] submissions and I dismiss this application,” Chief Justice Bauman concluded. The business groups said they would respect the decision and not appeal, though B.C. Chamber of Commerce president John Winter said he was disappointed with the decision.

Vancouver Sun

RCMP commissioner: long-gun registry ‘useful’

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 4:18 PM - 0 Comments

RCMP Commissioner William Elliott says facts demonstrate that the federal long-gun registry has been “useful.” But he added that he doesn’t feel it’s appropriate for the Mounties to take a position on the registry’s future because they are in the “unique position” of having to administer the Canadian Firearms Program, which includes the long-gun registry the Conservative government has long opposed. Elliott also said the use of the registry is increasing. He added, “But decisions of weighing costs and benefits is up to Parliament. We will stick to facts and not to advocacy, and we will leave it to others to advocate positions if they believe that’s appropriate for them.” He also said that the removal of the head of the firearms program, Chief Supt. Marty Cheliak (a vocal supporter of the long-gun registry) was politically motivated were “absolutely false.”

CBC News

Insite insight

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 3:16 PM - 0 Comments

Our John Geddes looks inside the battle over British Columbia’s safe injection site and finds a remarkable series of events.

There’s a striking contrast between the government’s waging of a public campaign against Insite, while top RCMP officers simultaneously engaged in private bridge-building sessions with Montaner. As the politicians sought the power to close Insite, senior Mounties quietly learned about the research into supervised injection. They seemed—based on Harriman’s email to Montaner on Oct. 28, 2008—to accept the centre’s findings supporting Insite. And they appeared—based on Souccar’s letter to him on Feb. 12, 2010—to regret the RCMP’s attempts to cast doubt on that research. The question now is whether these revelations about the undisclosed evolution in the RCMP’s perspective on the Insite experiment will have any impact on the government’s determination to end it.

Opening Weekend: ‘The Switch,’ and ‘Lebanon’

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 3:03 PM - 0 Comments

Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston in 'The Switch'

Re-entry! After weeks of gazing at the cinemascope expanse of a empty lake, my endless summer is over. Now it’s back to the crowded screen and the biz of forming opinions. The juggernaut of the 35th annual Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 9-19) looms, with advance screenings already in gear and the newspapers going ape with banner front page headlines announcing visiting celebs (“Clint takes aim at TIFF!” – Toronto Star). Meanwhile the last of the summer movies stagger into the multiplex. This weekend offers one of the best movies of the year, Lebanon, and one of the most dismal, The Switch—representing that classic divide between cutting-edge world cinema and bland Hollywood formula. Both films induced a kind of claustrophobia in me, for different reasons. Lebanon, which won the top award at last year’s Venice festival (the Golden Lion), a harrowing drama about a four-man Israeli tank crew trapped behind the lines of the 1982 war in Lebanon. It’s like Das Boot, but we’re stuck in a tank instead of submarine. Almost the entire movie is shot from the POV of the tank’s interior, and through the roving cinematic eye of its periscope. The Switch is packaged as a romantic comedy, but it’s neither romantic nor comic. It’s one of those movies that’s trying to be cheerful but is secretly dour and misanthropic. It’s like being stuck on a bad date with Jennifer Aniston, who looks like she’d rather be somewhere else.

But I was distracted, because I wanted to be somewhere else. Allow me to digress. People often ask me how, as a critic, I watch movies in advance. I explain that I see some at private press screenings, some on DVD (usually just small indie films and docs)—and I tend to see Hollywood movies at invitational promo screenings staged by studios, which want us to see comedies and action movies with a mass of civilians in the hope that their manic enthusiasm will rub off.  But promo audiences are often even more ill-mannered than the regular multiplex crowd. Perhaps because the tickets are  free. I arrived almost an hour early for The Switch to get a good aisle seat, went out for a snack, and came back to find a family picnicking next to me: an obese woman with a bouncy daughter who looked to be about five years old, and a baby. A baby! Now, The Switch is a movie about a single woman (Aniston) who lines up a sperm donor and has a baby, but I don’t think it was designed for a baby. As it turned out, the baby behaved fairly well, and wailed just a couple of times during the movie. But the little girl was bored, confused and restless. And as phrases like “killer sperm” and “cervical mucus” spilled from the over-amped dialogue, I couldn’t help wondering what she thought. So essentially, part of me was watching the film from the POV of a five-year-old girl. Great. Continue…

RCMP and the truth about safe injection sites

By John Geddes - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 2:42 PM - 120 Comments

Austin Andrews/Zuma/Keystone/ Arlen Redekop/The Province/ Tom Hanson/CP

It would have been quite a news conference, and it very nearly happened. Last fall, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, after months of intense, private talks, agreed to face the media together to declare their agreement that research shows the “benefits” and “positive impacts” of supervised injection sites for intravenous drug users.

For the RCMP, making such a statement would have been a turning point: the Mounties would have had to distance themselves from dubious studies, commissioned by the force itself, that were critical of Insite, Vancouver’s pioneering safe injection facility. And that would have been a politically awkward move for the federal police, since Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government is firmly committed to shutting down Insite.

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Two more for the list

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 2:22 PM - 0 Comments

Here is a letter from the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations expressing opposition to the government’s changes to the census. And here, on the same note, is a letter from the Waterloo Students Planning Advisory.

Say no more

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 1:52 PM - 0 Comments

RCMP commissioner won’t take a position on the gun registry and won’t comment on the removal of Chief Supt. Marty Cheliak (and, contrary to previous reports, he has a lot to say about the removal of Chief Supt. Marty Cheliak), but he will say the following.

RCMP Commissioner William Elliott says facts demonstrate that the federal long-gun registry has been “useful,” but he doesn’t believe it’s appropriate for the Mounties to take a position on the registry’s future…

“We will stick to facts and not to advocacy, and we will leave it to others to advocate a positions if they believe that’s appropriate for them.”

Meanwhile, the former ombudsman for victims of crime suggests the current ombudsman should feel free to express support, if she does in fact feel supportive, for the gun registry.

If the people do not support you loudly enough, create your own people

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 12:35 PM - 0 Comments

Helena Guergis, March 30. Mr. Speaker, with respect to the staffer in question, she called me today. She advised me of the situation. We discussed it. We did discuss that it was inappropriate. She apologized and assured me that it will not happen again.

Sandra Buckler, last month. “Have your campaign manager write it,” she replied. “You have your wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, child, next door neighbour, treasurer …. And I’m a fan of letters to the editor, it’s good to have them printed, because then you can send them out as a campaign piece.”

Inflation rate rises due to HST

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 12:29 PM - 0 Comments

Canada’s inflation rate rose to 1.8 per cent last month due largely to the implementation of a harmonized sales tax in Ontario and B.C., and a two-point rate hike to the HST in Nova Scotia. Prices were up 2.9 per cent in Ontario and 2 per cent in B.C. Though the 1.8 per cent inflation rate was considerably higher than June’s rate of one per cent, it was lower than the 2.1 per cent rate economists had expected, which could give the Bank of Canada more leeway before it looks at raising interest rates. “While the HST made all the noise last month, the fact is that underlying inflation remains quite tranquil, neither threatening to dip into deflation terrain nor pushing above the [Bank of Canada's annual] two per cent target.”

CBC News

Tories groom the rank-and-file at right-wing boot camp

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 12:03 PM - 0 Comments

A speaker at a boot camp for right-wing candidates running in municipal elections suggested Ontario Progressive Conservatives would gladly look the other way should local campaign organizers manage to get their hands on secret voter lists. “You know, ‘Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil,’” Brian Patterson told those in attendance at a candidate school co-chaired by Progressive Conservative MPP Steve Clark and Conservative MP Patrick Brown “You never heard me say this—and I’ll deny it in a room full of lawyers—that if you can somehow get it, you know, we don’t care.” Audio from the invitation-only event in Toronto was leaked to the Globe and Mail. Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives have distanced themselves from Patterson’s statements, saying “We absolutely do not share our lists.” During another session, Stephen Harper’s former head of communications, Sandra Buckler, suggested candidates get acquaintances to write letters to local newspapers to support them, a tactic that landed former cabinet minister Helena Guergis in hot water earlier this year. “Have your campaign manager write it,” Buckler said. “You have your wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, child, next door neighbour, treasurer …. And I’m a fan of letters to the editor, it’s good to have them printed, because then you can send them out as a campaign piece.”

Globe and Mail

North Korea creates Facebook account

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 11:58 AM - 0 Comments

After joining YouTube and Twitter, North Korea appears to have created a profile on Facebook to fuel its propaganda war against South Korea and the United States. The account opened late Thursday under the Korean username “uriminzokkiri,” meaning “on our own as a nation.” Access to North Korea’s Twitter account is blocked in the South for containing information that is illegal under South Korean security laws, an official at South Korea’s Communications Standards Commission said. Commission official Han Myung-ho said authorities are investigating the account to determine its authenticity, and will block access to the page if it has content that violates South Korea’s National Security Law. The Facebook account, which describes itself as male, says it is interested in men and is looking for networking.

CBC News

Layton goes Greek

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 11:58 AM - 0 Comments

Jack Layton was at Taste of the Danforth, the annual festival in Toronto’s Greektown area which is located in the NDP leader’s riding.

Continue…

India gives Pakistan $5.2 million in flood aid

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 11:55 AM - 0 Comments

In a rare expression of goodwill between feuding neighbours, India has given Pakistan $5.2 million in aid for flood victims. The flooding, which began on July 29 after heavy monsoon rains, has affected one-fifth of Pakistan’s territory. At least six million people are homeless, and the cost of flood damage is expected to run into the billions of dollars. Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told India’s NDTV that the government had accepted the money from India, though it took several days for Islamabad to reach the decision in light of the countries’ poor relationship. India also provided aid to Pakistan after the 2006 Kashmir earthquake that killed more than 70,000 people.

CBC News

American Apparel teetering on the brink of bankruptcy

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 11:50 AM - 0 Comments

American Apparel, the hip clothing company built by flashy Montreal native Dov Charney, may be on its last legs. With the company’s shares tanking and regulators raising questions about its bookkeeping practices, American Apparel said this week its ability to stay afloat is a “going concern,” suggesting it could soon file for bankruptcy protection. Sales at the L.A.-based retailer’s stores have seen double-digit drops over the past two quarters and American Apparel was carrying $120-million in debt as of June 30. Analysts speculate bringing the company back from the brink of collapse may very well require putting Charney out to pasture. “I would not be at all surprised if it was recapitalized and came back on the other side as a smaller, more focused company,” says Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, adding “the changes could best be implemented under new management.”

Financial Post

Six in 10 say Tamil boat should have been "escorted back to Sri Lanka"

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 11:36 AM - 0 Comments

Six in 10 Canadians say the recent boat of Tamil migrants should have been “escorted back to Sri Lanka by the Canadian Navy,” according to a poll by QMI Agency, taken from August 2-4. Only 17 per cent agreed they should be “accepted into Canada as political refugees.” However, 24 per cent were unsure or did not want to answer the question. Albertans were, by far, the most likely to agree that the boat should be sent back, at 74 per cent. The Canadian Tamil Congress said it believes the poll results reflect general feelings toward the immigration system, rather than opposition to the Tamils themselves. “People may be reacting to certain words such as queue-jumpers and human smugglers,” spokesperson Manjula Selvarajah told Sun Media. “If people understood the immigration and refugee system and the process in place, they may have a bit more faith in the system.” Initial hearings for the 490 migrants on board the MV Sun Sea have mostly wrapped up and the migrants are being housed in BC jails until their refugee hearings take place.

Canoe

Increasing number of Americans say Obama is Muslim

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 11:29 AM - 0 Comments

An increasing number of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim, according to a new poll by the think tank Pew Research Centre. The share of Americans who believe the president is Muslim has increased from 12 per cent in 2008 to 18 per cent today. Also, the number of people that believe he’s Christian has decreased significantly—34 per cent compared to 48 per cent in March 2009. Though the American public thinks that Obama isn’t reliant on his faith as say, George W. Bush, they are more likely to report higher levels of satisfaction with his approach to religion.

Pew Center

Last U.S. combat troops leave Iraq

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

American commanders announced that the overall American mission in Iraq is complete. The announcement comes 12 days earlier than expected. In September, the U.S. plans to begin “Operation New Dawn,” a strategy that will see a transfer of power from the United States to Iraq. Critics say that the pullout is premature and that Iraq’s dysfunctional government and ill-prepared army will be unable to assume control. 56,000 U.S. forces remain in Iraq, 6,000 more are scheduled to leave before September 1, and the rest will be phased out gradually between September and December 31, 2011.

Guardian