A Mark McKinney Production

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 4:20 PM - 5 Comments

There are some TV producers who have such a strong track record that you look forward to any show they’re involved with (they may not always turn out to be great, but you at least expect them to be worthwhile). I think Mark McKinney has become one of those as far as I’m concerned; after Slings and Arrows and Less Than Kind, not to mention Kids in the Hall, I assume that a show he has some role in creating or producing will be worth watching.

Which is why my interest in the Comedy Network’s upcoming show, a sketch comedy vehicle for the Halifax comedy group Picnicface, increased considerably when I read that McKinney has signed on as an executive producer. The press release even gives him the title of “Showrunner,” a title that is rare in Canada — whether officially or unofficially — but seems to be getting slightly more common as networks (and production companies) start to understand the importance of having someone who can write for the show and make big decisions about it, since it’s hard to separate those two functions in a good show.

Not that McKinney is solely responsible for Slings and Arrows (for which he was one of several creators) or Less Than Kind (which he didn’t create). But his presence, like the great U.S. writer-producers, has become a sign that the show will be interesting. It’s a sign of slow progress when you can be intrigued by the choice of showrunner, and the show is a home-grown product.

EU launches antitrust probe of Google

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 4:10 PM - 0 Comments

The European Union has lauched a formal antitrust investigation into Google’s online search operations. The probe will look into accusations that Google abused its dominance in online search, exposing the company’s very private technology to scrutiny in Brussels. The investigation was brought about by complaints from smaller web businesses, which say Google downgraded their sites in its search results to weaken the competition. The European Commission will also explore whether Google gave its services “preferential placement” in search results. “Rigorous competition of all players, including smaller and innovative ones, must be preserved for the future,” Joaquín Almunia, the competition commissioner, told members of the European Parliament. He added that the decision to upgrade the investigation from a preliminary inquiry that was started this year did not mean “that there is definitely a problem.” Unlike in the U.S., where Google takes about 66 per cent of the online search market, in Europe, Google dominates with about 80 percent of the market.

New York Times

Clifford Olson denied parole

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 3:42 PM - 9 Comments

The National Parole Board has rejected serial killer Clifford Olson’s application for parole, which Olson said would be his final attempt at securing his release from prison. “This is the last one,” Olson said of his application, “never again.” Olson was sentenced to 11 concurrent life sentences for the murders of eight girls and three boys in the early 1980s. This was Olson’s first bid for parole since 2006, when he was deemed a “clear and present danger” to the public who would likely murder again.

CBC News

Medvedev says arms race may start without missile shield agreement

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 3:40 PM - 1 Comment

In his annual address to the nation, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said a new arms race could begin in the next decade if NATO and Moscow fail to agree on a joint missile shield. Medvedev stated that a joint shield would combine “the potentials of Russia and NATO and ensure the protection of all European countries from missile threats.” Medvedev also used the speech to urge Russian families to have three three children or more in order to keep the population from declining. One subject Medvedev didn’t touch on: his political future. With elections less than two years away, his predecessor Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is expected to run for the presidency again.

BBC News

Quebec Liberals lose by-election

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 3:32 PM - 0 Comments

Kamouraska-Témiscouata has changed hands. Long a Liberal stronghold, the riding has elected a PQ MNA for the first time in over two decades–thus becoming the latest example of the population’s dissatisfaction with Jean Charest’s governing Liberals. Worse still for the government: unlike Liberal candidate France Dionne, the PQ MNA-elect, André Simard, is a neophyte to provincial politics.

Montreal Gazette

Vic Toews poses with Salmon

By Mitchel Raphael - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 2:29 PM - 4 Comments

The Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance held a reception at the Westin Hotel in Ottawa. Below, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews and Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance Executive Director Ruth Salmon.

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Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Gail Shea.

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Ignatieff and Kenney on what matters

By John Geddes - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 1:19 PM - 165 Comments

Beyond the inevitable and inescapable scrutiny of the supposed defining traits of the party leaders, what will the next federal election be about? In the wake of yesterday’s by-elections, here’s what a key Conservative cabinet minister and the official Opposition leader had to say on the matter.

In the foyer of the House, commenting to the media on the by-elections, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney: “The next election will be a fight between a stable Conservative government that can continue to focus on economic growth and a risky and unstable opposition coalition. That will be the choice. I can tell you we think job number one is continued economic growth. And Michael Ignatieff suffered a terrible loss last night; it may in part be because his party is concerned with everything but the economy.”

Down the street at the Chateau Laurier, answering questions at a meeting of the Association of Canadian Community Colleges, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff: “I don’t have 20 priorities. I’ve got to do something about health care; we just can’t sit here and not sustain, defend and improve our national health care system. I’ve got to do something about education and research. I’ve got to make sure we get pension security for Canadians. And I’ve got to do something about rebuilding our prestige on the world stage. That’s four, it’s not 26.”

Scientists produce four clones of Dolly the sheep

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 1:05 PM - 5 Comments

Four clones of Dolly the sheep, the original cloned sheep, are alive and doing well at Nottingham University in England. Known as the “Dollies,” the four sheep are pets of Professor Keith Campbell, a scientist who was part of the team who first cloned Dolly in 1996. Dolly was able to be recreated after scientists discovered they could convert her adult sheep cell into an embryo. She was put down in 2003 after contracting lung disease, and for years prior suffered numerous health issues, including premature arthritis.

The Telegraph

WikiLeaks' next target is a "major American bank"

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 12:51 PM - 34 Comments

In an interview with Forbes, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange says his site is in possession of a trove of secret bank documents that will likely “stimulate investigations and reforms.” “For this, there’s only one similar example. It’s like the Enron emails,” he said. When asked how high impact these documents are, he responded, “I mean, it could take down a bank or two.” Over the last year, Wikileaks has released 76,000 secret Afghan war documents and 392,000 files from the Iraq war, constituting the largest classified military security breaches in history. On Sunday, it released the first of 250,000 classified U.S. State Department cables, which has exposed sensitive conversations between America’s top diplomats.

Forbes

Those who do not remember history

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 12:42 PM - 138 Comments

From the Prime Minister’s statement today on last night’s by-election results.

“Though it is rare for a governing party to win by-elections, we are buoyed by the fact that the Conservative Caucus in the House of Commons has increased.”

As noted previously, and according to Wikipedia’s records, heading into last night 31 seats last held by the incumbent government have been contested in by-elections over the last 30 years, 22 of those—71%—remaining with the government.

Since taking office in 2006, the Harper government has now picked up four seats that were held by opposition parties. The Chretien government won an equal number of opposition seats between 1988 1993 and 2004. The Mulroney government retained six two of its nine six seats and picked up two opposition seats.*

You have to go back to the The Trudeau government to find an incumbent administration that significantly struggled in by-elections—between 1968 and 1979 1984, 20 25 Liberal government seats were contested, 11 13 of those going to the opposition by my count. Over But over the same period, the Liberals picked up three four opposition ridings.

Going back to 1968 then, a total of 57 53 seats last held by an incumbent government have been contested, 34 32 of those retained by the incumbent. Over that same period, the governing party has picked up a dozen seats held by opposition parties.

*Wells checked my math and it seems I took a slightly wrong turn somewhere in the 80s. Larger trend still holds.

Conservatives pick up two of three by-election seats

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 12:05 PM - 5 Comments

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is likely very relieved after his party managed to win one of the three seats up for grabs in Monday’s by-elections. Liberal Kevin Lamoreaux easily took Winnipeg North from the NDP, garnering 46.3 per cent of the vote to Kevin Chief’s 26.3 per cent. The Liberals weren’t so lucky in the closely-watched riding of Vaughan in suburan north Toronto, which they lost to the Conservatives’ star candidate, Julian Fantino. Fantino, the former Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner and one-time Toronto Chief of Police won with 49.1 per cent of the vote to Liberal Tony Genco’s 46.6 per cent. Vaughan — like most seats in the Greater Toronto Area — was considered a Liberal strong-hold until now. It was held by the Liberals for the past 20 years and was visited by Ignatieff four times during the campaign. CBC hockey commentator Don Cherry campaigned for Fantino in the riding while Liberal MP Ken Dryden made phone calls on Genco’s behalf. Meanwhile, the central Manitoba seat of Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette went to Conservative Robert Sopuck, as expected. He took 57 per cent of the vote. As Prime Minister Stephen Harper pointed out early Tuesday morning in a statement, it’s rare for the governing party to win any seats in by-elections. “Ours was the only party to make a net gain last night,” he wrote, adding that he sees the wins as an endorsment of the Conservative’s handling of the economy.

CBC News

National Post

The right kind of open

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 11:58 AM - 36 Comments

Taylor Owen considers how Wikileaks fits into the open data discussion.

By highlighting a core tension in the open data discussion, however, Wikileaks puts much of this progress in jeopardy. While few would argue that leaked data is open data, or that all data should be open, the case of Wikileaks reminds us that data exists on a continuum from highly classified to open. In certain policy areas, we need to think carefully about who we want making the final decision over secrecy—the governments that we elect, or individuals over whom we have no control. No issue better exemplifies this dilemma than national security data.

Children in war and in prison

By Michael Petrou - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 11:38 AM - 16 Comments

Anti-Taliban soldier Abdul Azam, 14, cleans his weapson in his barracks (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

The first soldiers I met in Afghanistan were teenagers who had been fighting since they were 15 or 16 years old. There were three of them. They manned a machinegun nest on a lonely hill a kilometre or two from where the Taliban were dug in a short horse ride away. This was in October 2001. The kids belonged to the Northern Alliance militia, which had been fighting the Taliban for years and were on the verge of defeat when the Taliban’s al-Qaeda guests bombed America and changed the course of the war.

Now it is that teenagers’ allies who ostensibly run the government in Kabul. I have no doubt that their ranks continue to include minors, as do those of the Taliban. Children fight and kill and die violently in Afghanistan. The world would be a better place were this not the case, but it is. And in the course of battling the Taliban Canadian soldiers encounter and capture such minors, and must figure out what to do with them.

It’s a difficult dilemma without easy answers. Those such as the NDP’s Thomas Mulcair, who implicitly accused Canadian soldiers of handing over children to be tortured, aren’t offering any. Continue…

What are we doing here?

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 11:12 AM - 17 Comments

Samara has released its second report based on exit interviews with former members of parliament.

The MPs acknowledged arriving in Ottawa feeling largely unprepared for what lay ahead. They recall their initial orientation to Parliament as hurried, slap—dash or altogether absent. They had little initial sense of where to focus and their assignments seemed to be allocated at random … Perhaps more worryingly, the MPs that we interviewed held often—conflicting ideas regarding the role and purpose of a Member of Parliament. Their interviews revealed that they didn’t agree on what they were elected to accomplish or what the essential purpose of their role was intended to be.

Justin Trudeau, tripping on his arse

By Martin Patriquin - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 10:40 AM - 19 Comments

The fun starts at 1:52.

After a very good interview with some dude from La Presse (who moonlights as a Franc Tireur), Justin Trudeau channels his inner Pierre and falls down some stairs for fun and giggles.

Lisée says it looks bad. I disagree: purposefully falling on one’s ass on camera is a welcome change for someone who takes himself too seriously too much of the time. At the very least, this little tumble almost makes up for the fact that he’s going for the ol’ Urban-Zoro / Cyrano-de-Bergerac-in-jeans look these days. (I know, I know. It’s Movember. But still…)

Thoughts, anyone?

Olympians and Gold Medal Plates

By Mitchel Raphael - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 10:15 AM - 3 Comments

The National Arts Centre hosted Ottawa’s Gold Medal Plates dinner to raise funds for the Canadian Olympic Foundation. Local chefs prepared special meals and high profile Olympians attended including Alexandre Bilodeau (below), the first Canadian to win gold on Canadian soil.

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Labour Minister Lisa Raitt.

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MPs meet city folks

By Mitchel Raphael - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities held their Ottawa reception at the Fairmont Château Laurier. Below, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty (right).

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NDP MP Yvon Godin (left) and NDP leader Jack Layton (second from left).

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Does Branding Really Matter?

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, November 29, 2010 at 10:11 PM - 5 Comments

Tim Goodman of the Hollywood Reporter has his own theory of what ails Terriers (approaching the last episode of its first-maybe-but-hopefully-not-last season): it’s a branding problem. The show just doesn’t fit what viewers consciously or subconsciously expect from the network.

I don’t know. I have an ambiguous relationship to the concept of branding. On the one hand, I know it’s real, and have talked about it as real. A network, especially an ad-supported cable network, has to deliver certain things that its viewers — and advertisers — expect. Especially the advertisers; the average viewer might not have expectations of a network, but an advertiser certainly does have expectations of the kind of viewers their commercials are going to reach. (HBO also has a “brand” but defines it more eclectically, in terms of shows that have the feel of being “stuff the other networks won’t do.” That’s because they’re selling their service to the viewers, rather than to advertisers.) That’s probably the biggest factor in creating the existence and importance of a brand, since the average viewer does not — and shouldn’t — care what channel something is on as long as it’s entertaining.

But I’m sure the brand does influence the way viewers choose their shows, if only because a network’s brand is defined in opposition to whatever else is on television. If FX or AMC has shows that are “off-brand” then they might be too close to something else that’s on at 10 o’clock. In the case of Terriers it’s up against The Defenders on CBS and Psych on USA, two mystery dramas with a lot of humour. It’s darker than those shows, but still might bleed more viewers to the competition than a completely different, “alternative” kind of show might. That’s part of the point of original cable programming, to provide alternatives for people who don’t find that the other stuff is quite right for them.

My problem with jumping from that to saying that a network needs a brand, all the time, is that, first of all, it’s not really borne out by the evidence. Goodman has to bring up and explain away a lot of exceptions to the rule, and it’s hard to explain all of them away before the idea of branding starts to seem extremely nebulous. So for example, he talks about Fox’s comedy brand, yet their most successful half-hour live action comedy of recent years (not that that’s saying much) was ‘Til Death, which was certainly going against their brand. Over on FX, Justified just isn’t that different from Terriers, and its greater popularity can be explained more in terms of its greater bad-assedness than any extra edge that it possesses. In other words, never use “branding” to explain what can be more plausibly explained by pointing out that a show has more action and a cooler hero.

On the big networks, when they try too hard to brand themselves, it hurts them as often as it helps. NBC’s self-image as the hip, urban, affluent network may have kept them afloat with some advertisers but certainly hasn’t helped them build a stable lineup of shows, not compared to the more diverse (in every way) lineups they fielded in the ’80s and early ’90s. And of course if Fox had wanted to remain true to its brand as the edgy network, it would never have picked up American Idol. Or Bones, which could fit on any network. A true broadcaster can’t limit itself to shows that fit the way the executives would like to be perceived. Otherwise you can wind up like the CBC the year they announced they were going to build their lineup of original shows around the theme of being “sexy” and young-skewing.

Branding does work for broadcast networks at two extremes: finding the most viewers and dealing with having the Continue…

By-election brouhaha

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 29, 2010 at 9:02 PM - 118 Comments

You are looking live… at your computer, where, if you so desire, by-election results for Vaughan, Winnipeg-North and Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette will be posted gradually after polls close at 9:30pm EST.

Elections Canada results will appear here. Wikipedia profiles for the respective ridings are available here, here and here. 308′s election day projections have the Tories taking Vaughan, the NDP holding Winnipeg and the Tories holding Dauphin. Vaughan will be your narrative-defining contest of the evening.

For however long as seems necessary, I’ll be here with updates, tangents and the like. Feel free to leave questions in the comments below and I’ll try to offer snappy or thoughtful responses as time warrants. Continue…

The Commons: Lawrence Cannon's lips are sealed

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 29, 2010 at 6:39 PM - 16 Comments

The Scene. It is entirely possible that when all has been, said, done, investigated and disclosed that Canadian officials will be found to have done a largely admirable job of handling, seizing, transferring and monitoring those individuals detained during this country’s mission in Afghanistan—and that that conclusion will do very little to redeem this government’s various cabinet ministers for the various things they have said about the matter these last four and a half years. To understand why is to get at perhaps the central paradox of so much about this place and these times: the serious, complex nature of modern problems set against the increasingly simplistic, largely evasive way we seem compelled to talk about those problems.

The latest cause for incoherence is a report from the CBC, based on a secret government briefing note, that Canada has been transferring children to Afghan authorities. For sure, this sort of news raises all sorts of complicated questions about law, human rights, war and foreign affairs. For sure, none of these complicated questions will ever properly be addressed here.

Here though stood Thomas Mulcair, the first to state for the benefit of the House a series of varyingly inflammatory questions—”Why is Canada transferring children to the Afghan torturers, NDS? How many children have been arrested? How many children have been transferred? How many children have been tortured?”—to which he couldn’t possibly have expected to receive answers. Continue…

First Canadian WikiLeaks cable

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Monday, November 29, 2010 at 6:10 PM - 49 Comments

In July 2008 2009, James Judd, then the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, complained to an American diplomat that Canadians and their courts had an “Alice in Wonderland” worldview that was endangering efforts to stop terrorism in Canada, according to a secret American diplomatic cable included in the Wikileaks release.

The cable, which was posted by The New York Times on Monday afternoon, quotes Judd as telling an American State Department official, Eliot Cohen, that Canadian judges “have tied CSIS ‘in knots,’ making it ever more difficult to detect and prevent terror attacks in Canada and abroad.”

CSIS, Judd also told Cohen, was “was ‘sinking deeper and deeper into judicial processes,’ making Legal Affairs the fastest growing division of his organization. Indeed, he added, legal challenges were becoming a ‘distraction’ that could have a major ‘chill effect’ on intelligence officials,” the cable said.

Judd also predicted that the release of a video showing Omar Khadr, a Canadian detainee at Guantanamo, crying during an interrogation by Canadian officials “would no doubt trigger ‘knee-jerk anti-Americanism’ and ‘paroxysms of moral outrage, a Canadian specialty,’ as well as lead to a new round of heightened pressure on the government to press for Khadr’s return to Canada. He predicted that PM Harper’s government would nonetheless continue to resist this pressure.”

(Khadr pled guilty to terrorism offenses last month at a military commission in Guantanamo under a deal that would allow him to eventually be transferred to Canadian custody.)

The full cable is here.

Toronto is least happy city in Canada: study

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 29, 2010 at 4:58 PM - 11 Comments

Compared with dwellers of Quebec and P.E.I., Ontarians are a glum bunch, according to a new study by the Canadian Centre for the Study of Living Standards. In fact, Torontonians fell at the bottom of the pack in a ranking of cities based on life satisfaction and happiness. Some factors that led to Toronto’s low ranking include high stress, a diminished sense of community, and employment worries. But let’s not lose perspective: the Toronto Star notes that Canada as a whole consistently ranks among the five happiest nations in the world, and is the happiest member of the G7.

Toronto Star

What a Girl Wants with Justin Trudeau, Laureen Harper and a drag queen

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, November 29, 2010 at 4:52 PM - 5 Comments

The fourth annual What a Girl Wants charity dinner held in the Fairmont Château Laurier ballroom raised money for the Canadian Liver Foundation with the help of local firefighters peeling off their uniforms, a fashion show and a performance by Ottawa drag queen Dixie Landers who lip-synced Better Midler’s cover of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. Below, Landers with Vancouver Liberal MP Hedy Fry.

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Montreal Liberal MP Justin Trudeau.

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(Left to right) Labour Minister Lisa Raitt, National Post columnist Don Martin and Laureen Harper.

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Why Wikileaks will lead to more secrecy, not less

By Taylor Owen - Monday, November 29, 2010 at 4:17 PM - 7 Comments

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange

Wikileaks has struck again. This week’s release of thousands of diplomatic cables from U.S. embassies follows the publication of hundreds of thousands of documents containing operational information about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. These massive data leaks, while lauded by many, underline the tension between a government’s justifiable need for secrecy and the public’s demand for more open and transparent governance. Ironically, Wikileaks will likely lead to less public knowledge of government actions rather than more.

In recent years, there has been an exciting and growing movement pressuring governments to make more of the data that they collect public. Many rightly argue that these data, if released in a machine readable format, can be put to a wide range of beneficial uses. And it is catching on. Many municipal governments have begun to release a wide range of data sets, including property, public transportation, traffic, and crime data. The Liberal party of Canada and the Conservative government in the UK, have both put forward initiatives which would take significant steps in making government more transparent and help citizens to build on the data they have a right to use. This is all unquestionably positive.

By highlighting a core tension in the open data discussion, however, Wikileaks puts much of this progress in jeopardy. While few would argue that leaked data is open data, or that all data should be open, the case of Wikileaks reminds us that data exists on a continuum from highly classified to open. In certain policy areas, we need to think carefully about who we want making the final decision over secrecy—the governments that we elect, or individuals over whom we have no control. No issue better exemplifies this dilemma than national security data.

There are undoubtedly benefits to these latest data releases. First, the more we know about the torture perpetrated by Iraqi and American forces, the less likely we are to give future governments the legal or political authority to do so. Second, the more we know about the shocking levels of civilian casualties, and the strategic and moral consequences of such folly, the more attention we are likely to pay to how and whether our governments fight wars. Third, the data released will provide journalists and scholars with a previously unavailable view into war fighting. Finally, and most importantly, seeing the blunt, gory, and often grotesquely mundane details of war, provide us with a level of honesty about the actions that we as citizens sanction. We are surely better for this.

But there are also costs, two of which will have implications for those seeking more transparent government. First, there is a very real potential that these data will lead to the deaths of Afghan and Iraqi citizens. While Wikileaks founder Julian Assange claims the website scrubbed out information that could harm western forces, ordinary Afghans and Iraqis weren’t as lucky. As a result, the names and locations of people who have risked their lives to help us have been made public. Even if none of these people are ever harmed, shouldn’t it be our democratic government making this decision, not a disgruntled junior soldier or a highly secretive organization? Leaving such decisions to the discretion of Assange is grossly irresponsible.

Second, these releases of data will likely lead to a more closed government. While many interpret it as progress when any and all data is made public, these national security releases will likely have the opposite effect. Much of the information released was classified at a low level. This means that it was widely available to, and presumably used by, a very large number of people in the U.S. military and the diplomatic community. It also makes it susceptible to leaks. The certain result of the leaks is that this type of data will be more highly classified from now on, making it of less use to those tasked with protecting us. Another possibility is that this type of data will no longer be recorded at all, with governments doing more and more of their business verbally, or in absolute secret.

These are bad outcomes for those that want more open and transparent government, as well as for those that believe, as I do, that much more information about how our government fights wars on our behalf should be subject to public scrutiny.

Taylor Owen is a post-doctoral fellow at the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia. Read more at TaylorOwen.com.