Auf Wiedersehen, Deutschland

By Jane Switzer - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

Ben Birchall/PA/Keystone Press

The British are leaving Germany. British Prime Minister David Cameron recently announced his intention to remove the last British troops, after 65 years on German soil, by 2020—15 years earlier than expected. The decision comes amidst the U.K. government’s struggle to tackle its budget deficit and restructure its army, which has maintained a presence in Germany since the Second World War. An estimated 20,000 soldiers and 23,000 dependants and British civilians currently work at 12 bases in North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony, many of them living as part of the local communities, and married to Germans.

The early withdrawal could be a blow to the German economy, which draws in an estimated $1.8 billion from the British presence each year. The town of Bergen is preparing for what Mayor Rainer Prokop calls a devastating situation. Prokop estimated the population of 16,000 would drop by a third once the British troops left, and between 20 and 40 per cent of local business could go under. “This is the most severe upheaval for us since the Second World War,” Prokop told the German news website The Local.

'You are the Weird Mom'

By Johanna Schneller - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Daniel Ehrenworth, Illustration by Taylor Shute

The first stop on the university road trip that my 17-year-old daughter Hayley and I took in August probably shouldn’t have been my alma mater, the University of Virginia. Her uni tour wasn’t about me. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.

I’m an American who has spent the last 16 years living in Toronto, raising two Canadian children. I’ve grappled with the politics (you don’t vote directly for the prime minister?), the history (you won the War of 1812?) and the baffling modesty (hey, the pursuit of happiness is my inalienable right). So I’ve long imagined that when Hayley applied to universities, some would be in the States. She spent her first year in Los Angeles, and I thought she should experience what it’s like to live in her birth country rather than next to it. But because even I have figured out that Canadian universities deliver an equal education at a much lower cost, I posited that the only schools worth heading south for were the Dream Team, the super-high-end institutions that offer the moon—and, not incidentally, generous financial aid.

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They spent it on what?!

By Sarah Boesveld - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 10:40 AM - 2 Comments

Christinne Muschi/Reuters

The story made headlines everywhere: it was Feb. 11, 2009, and Daniel Ferman was a member of Drop YFS, a group dedicated to overthrowing the York Federation of Students. Drop YFS was presenting a petition with 5,000 signatures—enough to stage a coup of sorts. They were protesting the student union’s support for a teachers’ strike, which would potentially leave students on the hook for missed class time. They were also against the union backing the Israeli Apartheid Week, which many pro-Israel students despised. As the press conference began, Ferman and his fellow Drop YFS members were faced with a crush of student union members who came in to denounce the petition rally. After a volley of shouting, the crowd moved to the Hillel student lounge where some of the Drop YFS members took refuge. “Students were barricaded in the lounge,” says Ferman, who was Hillel @ York’s president at the time and helped organize the Drop YFS effort. “It got very nasty. Police were called. There were racist slurs.”

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Mission Canadian

By Josh Dehaas - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 10:40 AM - 0 Comments

These engineering students will come to Canada to finish their degrees | University of Waterloo

The new campus of the University of Waterloo has lots of Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Iranian students, but none from Ontario. You’ll see more hijabs than Flames jerseys at the University of Calgary’s new nursing school. That’s because both schools are in the Middle East—and they aren’t meant for Canadians.

Waterloo’s new campus in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Calgary’s three-year-old nursing school in Doha, Qatar, reflect a new strategy by Canadian universities to recruit bright students, train professors, and build connections throughout the world. These new campuses aren’t just small universities either. They’re mini diplomatic missions. If you ask Amit Chakma, president of the University of Western Ontario, they’re also the key to Canada’s future place in the world.

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Ms. President

By Josh Dehaas - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 10:40 AM - 1 Comment

Chris Bolin Photography, Photograph by Andrew Tolson

When Elizabeth Cannon showed up for her first day of engineering school in 1979, women made up five per cent of the program. Now, as she takes the reins of the University of Calgary, women make up 23 per cent of the school’s future engineers and more than half of the university’s student population, a trend reflected in schools across Canada.

But as Canadians fret over the feminization of lecture halls and ponder affirmative action for males, they seem to have missed the fact that the number of women sitting in the president’s chairs remains stubbornly low. In the fall of 2000, 12 of the 68 leaders of Canadian universities—18 per cent—were female. A decade later, just 13 of 70—19 per cent—are women. The U.S. saw a similar rise and plateau: in 1986, women made up nine per cent of university and college heads; the number grew to 19 per cent in 1998 before growth stalled again, settling at just 23 per cent today. Female professors are being hired in almost equal numbers to men—45 per cent of new full-time teaching positions were awarded to women in 2008—but the upper ranks are still overwhelmingly male. Just 22 per cent of full-time professors are women, although they make up a majority of education departments and nearly half of arts teachers.

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Rira bien…

By Paul Wells - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 10:30 AM - 33 Comments

We are profoundly saddened to read today’s La Presse editorial.

[UPDATE: Okay, it was yesterday's. Rira bien qui rira un peu en retard.]

Introducing . . . our Student panel

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 1 Comment

PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW TOLSON

Ever wonder how we find out what students are thinking? We ask them. This year, these 20 students will post weekly video commentary at OnCampus.Macleans.ca.

ST. PATRICK SECONDARY (Vancouver) Erika Kinach, 17, has her sights set high—all the way to Mars. After touring a replica of the International Space Station at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Kinach decided she wants to be an astronaut. If she doesn’t make the cut, being a neuroscientist will do.	UBC (Vancouver) Jeremy McElroy, 22, noticed that there weren’t enough fun events for the under-18 crowd when he arrived at UBC, so he learned how to DJ and started promoting campus parties. “We’d always sell out of tickets,” says the vice-president of the student union. His next goal: getting rapid transit built out to UBC.	THOMPSON RIVERS (Kamloops, B.C.) Brian Payne, 21, says he’s not a homework person. Brian plays intramural basketball, plenty of video games, and is enjoying residence life (sometimes too much). “I’m in a quad so we end up being the hosts of the parties—even on nights when we don’t want to be.”
CALGARY (Calgary) Jennifer Abbott, 21, a B.C. native, wants to be a politician. The political science student recently spent two months working on a city council candidate’s campaign. “I learned that city politics is a lot like student politics,” says Abbott. “And the importance of door-knocking.” To get away, Abbott snowboards in the Rockies.	ALBERTA (Edmonton) Nick Dehod, 24, is focusing on mental health issues during his term as president of U of A’s student union. (He convinced the school to hire five new counsellors.) He’s also a bass guitar player. “That’s my venue to get my creative energy out and just relax,” says the sociology and economics student.	SASKATCHEWAN (Saskatoon) Ishmael Napoleon Daro, 21, legally registered his own middle name at the age of 18. Why Napoleon? “Through pure charisma, this ‘nobody’ changed the world,” says the fourth-year Afghani immigrant. Daro transferred to political science from English, “because English has a lot of reading.”
MANITOBA (Winnipeg) Shelley Halchuk, 30, was running a nail business when she took a friend for some dental surgery and the dentist showed her how his job was like working with nails. Now, she’s in year one of dentistry and heads the Aboriginal student association. She’s looking forward to her first sweat lodge.	WINNIPEG (Winnipeg) Chris Hunter, 21, almost took a music degree instead of communications and rhetoric. Luckily, he met musicians outside of class and was able to get his creative fix on the side, as a member of the band Amuse. Hunter is now focused on writing for local publication the Uniter, and his degree.	WESTERN (London, Ont.) Pascale Gordon, 21, spent 40 straight days this summer doing yoga, journalling, dieting and meditating. “It taught me that exams and stress are never as big a deal as we think they are.” Gordon, a third-year media student, reads style blogs and freelances in graphic design.

Where are they now?

By Josh Dehaas, Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

They don’t believe they’re on the Maclean’s cover until strangers start whispering or they get calls from long-lost friends. After all, many are chosen last-minute when a photographer notices a glint of future promise in their eyes. For our 20th anniversary, we’ve tracked them down. Turns out they had reason to be optimistic.

This Year’s Cover GIRL: Deanna Jarvis Jarvis, 19, is from Toronto, where she graduated from the drama-focused Etobicoke School of the Arts. Now studying adult development, families and well-being at the University of Guelph, Jarvis hopes to one day be a counsellor. She’s very happy with Guelph. “The minute I walked on to campus, I had the feeling that this is my school,” she says. “You should see the fall leaves. I visited Laurier, too, but it felt like a concrete jungle.” Jarvis hopes to be acting again soon. “I actually tried out for a production of ‘Hamlet’ that Judith Thompson was directing but it conflicted with a mandatory course.” Next year, perhaps. “I need my hobby back,” she says.
2009 – Alena Ivanova While growing up in Russia, Alena Ivanova dreamt of being a model and “always wanted to be in a magazine,” says the 24-year-old, who immigrated to Canada five years ago and graduated from York University with a B.A. “But I never dreamed of being on a cover of Maclean’s. And of course it is an awesome feeling when not only your friends and relatives call you and tell you, ‘Wow is that you on a cover?’ but also complete strangers recognize you.” No modelling scouts recognized her, unfortunately. She’s back at York studying to be a chartered accountant.
2007 – Jacqueline Hoyt So proud was he to see his daughter on the front cover of our 2007 rankings issue, Jeff Yuill bought about 20 copies of the issue, then drove to the Department of Agriculture where his daughter was working to show her. “He called first and said the magazine was ready and told me he had a surprise,” says Hoyt, 28, who currently lives in Truro, N.S., and is finishing up her maternity leave. “I was happy for myself but felt bad for the other people who stood there for an hour and never made it on the cover.” Hoyt is a graduate of Nova Scotia Agricultural College.
2004 – Sara Metwally Shorty after graduating from Queen’s University with an economics degree, Sara Metwally moved to Cairo, where the rankings issue isn’t quite as popular. “I wasn’t stopped on the street or anything, but I will admit I did take a copy of the issue to my first interview at Starcom.” Metwally is still with Starcom, a media communications agency, and recently returned to Cairo after a stint in Dubai.
2003 – Karen Yam Running late for class one day, Karen Yam and her friend were forced to sit at the front of their bacterial pathogenesis class, which happened to be right in the sightlines of our photographer, Christinne Muschi. Yam graduated from McGill’s microbiology and immunology department in 2004 and stayed on to earn her Ph.D. Yam’s sister managed to get an enlarged version of the cover, which her parents hung on the wall of her childhood bedroom in Toronto. “I think it’s very cute when my mom says that when she looks into my old room with the poster, it is as if I’m still there, even though I now live in Montreal.”
2002 – Nicolas Pratt What Nicolas Pratt remembers most about the picture, which was taken at his high school, was photographer Sandy Nicholson. “He was Australian and found it quite amusing that his national anthem was playing over the PA. So he got the three of us to sing the anthem for him.” Pratt graduated from Queen’s University with a B.Sc.E. in mechanical engineering and now works as a sustainable design consultant in the building industry. He lives in Mississauga, Ont.

The verdict, Dr. Smith?

By Kate Lunau - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

In 1991, Smith said universities must better prepare students for 'the real world'. Now, he says: 'I think that remains a question.' | Photograph by Andrew Tolson

Canadian universities look strikingly different than they did just 20 years ago. For one thing, there are more students populating the hallways and dorm rooms of virtually every institution: since 1995, full-time enrolment has grown by 57 per cent, according to the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC). More than half of today’s faculty members were hired within the last 15 years. Technology has enabled new teaching methods and models. And provincial funding for operating budgets has more than doubled since 1995, the AUCC says, while government research funding has increased almost fourfold. With all this fresh blood, new tools and money, you’d think higher education would have changed a lot. But in some ways, argues Dr. Stuart Smith, a long-time observer of the system who was featured in the first-ever Maclean’s ranking issue almost 20 years ago, things look remarkably the same as they did back then.

A medical doctor and psychiatrist by training, Smith has been a politician, a student, a professor and administrator (he now serves on the board of governors at Humber College). In 1991, he penned a controversial report for the AUCC on the state of Canadian universities—and didn’t spare them from criticism. Here, Smith revisits some of his points, and takes a look at how they stack up today.

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Express yourself

By Maggie Gilmour - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 12 Comments

Photography by Andrew Tolson

First year students arrive on campuses with their laptops, an iPod, an iPad, a Twitter account, a personal blog and a Facebook page. “They are so expressive and they have so much to share,” says Margie Clow-Bohan, director of the writing centre at Dalhousie. “But the writing skills need work.”

Most of Clow-Bohan’s colleagues would say she is too kind. The class of 2011 is opinionated and expressive but they can’t structure an essay, don’t know how to write an introduction, write paragraphs that are two pages long, and have murderously bad grammar. This is the lament of professors from Victoria to St. John’s. “The grammar sucks and the writing is awful. ” So says Paul Budra, associate dean and English professor at Simon Fraser University, about the quality of the essays he sees: fragments, comma splices, apostrophe, pronoun and agreement errors, and tense mistakes. High school teachers are failing students, he says. “There’s this emphasis on expressing yourself, on this idea that if you get it on the page, it will be fine,” he says. “It’s not.”

Continue…

Iran warns against travel to Canada

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 10:19 AM - 18 Comments

What commentary can one add to a story that’s beyond parody?

Tony Clement sends his regards to Thompson

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 10:16 AM - 25 Comments

However awkwardly and ridiculously the Industry Minister has handled questions and criticism in the past, he perhaps outdid himself yesterday with the following tut-tutting of two questions from the NDP’s Niki Ashton.

For whatever reason, after Ms. Ashton had asked her first question rather haltingly, Mr. Clement decided the proper tone for the moment was “patronizing.” When he turned, with the last bit of his second answer, to direct scorn on Ms. Ashton his voice was entirely overwhelmed by a torrent of shouting from the opposition side. Continue…

Sen. Linda Frum in conversation

By Cathrin Bradbury - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 3 Comments

Photography by Yvonne Berg

In 1987, Linda Frum travelled across Canada to write The Guide to Canadian Universities. She was 24. The book was funny, political and personal and an instant bestseller. Fast forward 23 years: Sen. Frum is about to see her twin children launch their own university careers.

Q: Your book may be 23 years old, but it’s still right on. A lot of it is about how you make the right choice for you. You chose McGill.
A: My mother and my father had one rule only, which was that I wasn’t allowed to stay at home. I graduated from high school in 1981. It was just a terrible time in Quebec’s economic history and, as a result, in McGill’s history. The place was completely decrepit. It was in a struggle with the provincial government; they were trying to choke it to death, just get rid of any remnants of English society, and my mother thought that I would learn a lot from witnessing this death struggle in person. I just worship my mother, and if she thought it was a good idea . . .

Q: Did you do the tour before you went?
A: No, I didn’t. I don’t think I was unusual. I did not visit any school. As a result, a parent’s advice had such influence, because what else would help you make that choice?

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Retaining Success

By Carson Jerema - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 9:20 AM - 0 Comments

Stephanie Hamway went from F's to A's | Photograph by Yvonne Berg

At the end of her first year at Carleton University, Stephanie Hamway was struggling with poor grades and a program she didn’t like. “I rushed into university before I fully realized what I wanted to do,” she says. But after spring finals, she got an email from the school’s Student Academic Success Centre, offering to help her create a plan to fix it. Today, in her third year, she has an A average.

Identifying at-risk students and getting them the help they need to stay on track is an obstacle all universities encounter, though some more than others. Retention rates, measured as the number of students who go on from first year to second year, range from a low of 70.3 per cent at Brandon University to a high of 95 per cent at Queen’s University.

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Loose lips

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 9:17 AM - 26 Comments

The Defence Minister attempts to demonstrate his government isn’t nearly as secretive as its detractors allege.

According to Mr. Proussalidis, Mr. MacKay walked up to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Senator Meighen Wednesday morning after the journalist had started chatting with the pair. “It was all small talk until Defence Minister Peter MacKay walked up and joined the conversation, wearing a red ‘Fly Emirates’ baseball cap on his head and a grin on his face,” Mr. Proussalidis wrote.

“As I stood with the group, Senator Meighen asked about the cap, and that’s when the conversation became interesting. MacKay joked that he wore the cap for [minister John] Baird,” he wrote … “MacKay went on to tell Meighen that Canada could have continued to use a military base in the UAE for free … if only it had granted those slots. Then the defence minister suggested it would take 10 years to repair the relationship with the UAE.”

Adventures in polling

By Paul Wells - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 9:03 AM - 37 Comments

Here’s the key question in the new Nanos poll:

“QUESTION: Thinking of our current national political scene [Rotate] some people think that political change would be risky to our economic stability while others think that if the government changed it would have no impact on the stability of the economy. Which of these two views, if either, best reflects your personal opinion?”

Just to be clear, the “[Rotate]” simply means that about half the sample was asked, “Thinking of our current national political scene some people think that if the government changed it would have no impact on the stability of the economy, while others think that political change would be risky to our economic stability. Which of these two views, if either, best reflects your personal opinion?”

Now. Do you think political change would be risky? Or do you think that if the government changed it would have no impact on the stability of the economy?

It’s a trick question. Because whatever you answer, I’m going to give your answer to the Globe and Mail and they’re going to say you were talking about a coalition government.

No, really. I know it sounds hard to believe, but trust the evidence of your eyes. Continue…

Bestsellers

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Top-selling fiction and non-fiction titles (week of November 15th, 2010)

Fiction

Non-fiction

LAST WEEK (WEEKS ON LIST)

A, B, C or D?

By Mary Dwyer - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

At Victoria, students use remote control ‘clickers’ to participate in class. Employing technology is considered a best practice. | Photograph by Deddeda Stemler

There are many ways to measure a university’s performance. The Maclean’s rankings have been crunching the data on a wide range of factors for 20 years. Another approach is to ask those on the receiving end of an education—the students—what they think. In recent years, a growing number of universities have been doing exactly that. The following pages contain results from two major student surveys: the National Survey of Student Engagement and the Cana­dian University Survey Consortium—NSSE and CUSC for short. Between them, these surveys examine the undergraduate experience—in the classroom and beyond. The findings show that while students are generally happy with their university education, there are key areas of discontent. In particular, a significant number of students feel they don’t fit in at their university, more often in the larger schools than the smaller ones.

Commissioned by the universities, the survey results help administrators ass­ess the quality of their programs and services, which in turn can help them design and implement strategies for improvement. Recognizing that this student feedback can also be useful for prospective students trying to decide which university is right for them, Maclean’s has been publishing CUSC and NSSE results each year since 2006.

Continue…

This pretty much says it all, doesn't it?

By Martin Patriquin - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 8:44 AM - 7 Comments

As the front page of La Presse helpfully points out this morning, Jean Charest and the Liberals are the sole political party in the province to be against a public inquiry into the construction industry. Two of the province’s four major union federations, the provincial police association, the association of public prosecutors, the Union of Quebec Municipalities (and many more!) are all in favour–including longtime holdout FTQ, which given its presence in the construction industry, stands to be awfully embarrassed by such a thing.

Yikes.

I don’t know enough to jump whole hog on the public inquiry bandwagon. My knowledge of the things extends to having read much of the Cliche Report, which in 1974 outlined in near-surgical detail the level of mobbed-up, strong-armed corruption within the province’s construction industry. The Cliche hearings, co-wrote an idealistic young lawyer named Brian Mulroney at the time, “offered a daily fare composed of tricksters, crooks and scum.” The ensuing report arguably set back the cause of said tricksters, crooks and scum by a decade or more. Surely that’s a good thing, right?

No ivy here

By Martin Patriquin, Josh Dehaas, Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze, Erin Millar - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 8:40 AM - 1 Comment

Photography Christinne Muschi/ Deddeda Stemler

Concordia University

Like Rodney Dangerfield and rolling in the mud, Concordia University has a tendency to be underappreciated. Long considered the red-headed stepchild of Montreal’s two English universities, it is often lost in the ivy-tinged shadow of McGill. Many wear their alma mater’s scruffier-than-thou reputation on their sleeve. “Concordia is to McGill what the United Church is to Catholicism,” says one-time contemporary dance major Amy Blackmore. Still, the university has consistently found itself on the wrong end of Maclean’s rankings.

But while the numbers may show the 30,000-student university has certain challenges, they obscure many of the innovative aspects of a Concordia education that attract people like Amy Blackmore. Case in point: the faculty of fine arts, based in the glass-and-steel confines of the university’s new Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex. By design, the roughly 3,700 fine arts students live and work in one of Montreal’s busiest strips—from which students and faculty alike draw inspiration. “There’s no sense of there being an ivory tower here,” says Chris Salter, a computer design professor. “There are no closed-off spaces. There’s more of what I’d call seepage.”

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Students Unite!

By Sarah Elton - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 8:20 AM - 1 Comment

PHOTOGRAPH BY JESSICA DARMANIN

Top tips from Canadian local food movement leaders Sarah Elton, author of Locavore, and Nick Saul, executive director of The Stop, a Toronto-based organization that strives to make healthy food available to everyone through community building, cooking, gardening, and food banks.

Get organized: “Students are great at pushing policy forward and getting their administrations to change,” says Elton, food writer and columnist for CBC Radio’s Here and Now in Toronto. She suggests students push to get “the university to have food procurement protocol that guarantees a certain percentage of food comes from local and sustainable farms.” Which is exactly what Local Food Plus, a non-profit organization committed to creating local sustainable food systems, did when they first teamed up with Aramark food services in 2005: a partnership that resulted in 10 per cent of the food served at U of T’s Aramark venues being certified local and sustainable, a figure they hope to increase to 25 per cent this year.

Buy in bulk: “It’s an affordable way of buying local,” says Elton. “Or buy directly from farmers. If a group of people share a purchase, it can ease the financial burden of a one time pay-out.”

Start or join a co-op: That’s what Elton did in university. “Choose one that focuses on buying local and sustainable food. I was able to buy great food at a price I could afford.”

Ask questions: Nick Saul of The Stop says, “Do a bit of a food audit on campus; that could extend to asking, ‘Why do we have these crappy pop machines?’ Or, ‘Why is the cantina serviced by these big bad companies?’ Doing a bit of muckraking in that sector is really important and can make a big change fast.”

Start a cooking collective or garden: “The food movement is pretty robust,” says Saul, “and I can’t imagine it not finding its way onto campuses, whether that’s more individually expressed through a house on campus where everyone is interested in local, organic, sustainable food and they figure out a cooking collective, or they take over a green space and have collective gardens or individual plots—that could easily make a pretty big mark.”

4 students + 1 pot = yum

By Jessica Allen - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 1 Comment

U of T students Tingting Zhang and Karen Sohn learn cooking isn't hard | Photography Jessica Darmanin

Four 21 year-old University of Toronto undergraduate students are gathered around the table in their Woodsworth College residence’s communal kitchen on a recent Friday night inspecting a bounty of fresh vegetables. “Leeks!” shouts Tingting Zhang, a psychology and neuroscience major who could point out the difference between a ganglia and an axon in her sleep, but takes childlike delight in recognizing the ubiquitous vegetable before her roommates do. Karen Sohn, an economics and psychology major, holds a bunch of thin grass-like spears. “Chives?” It’s more of a question than an answer. Aaron Shapland, who studies Middle Eastern civilization and geographical information systems, takes the easy road and correctly identifies the lone red onion. Meanwhile, the bag of baby arugula stumps Dorin Manase, who studies biology and computer science. In fact, they’re all baffled. “Is that leaves?” asks Tingting. “It tastes like nuts.” In an age when all things gastronomic are featured front and centre in television, movies and blogs, you might think this bunch would be more food-savvy. But as Karen pops a yellow-coloured cherry tomato into her mouth, she confesses, “you couldn’t find four people who make more disgusting food.”

Continue…

MPs and veterans book

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 7:00 AM - 0 Comments

The Historica-Dominion Institute recently launched We Were Freedom: Canadian Stories of the Second World War, a collection of 65 of the veteran stories collected in a book as part of the Institute Canadian oral history project. Below, Heritage Minister James Moore.

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Liberal Senator Terry Mercer.

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NDP MP Peter Stoffer.

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The book.

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The food.

The Commons: Just laugh it off

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 at 7:07 PM - 51 Comments

The Scene. Last week, the Foreign Affairs Minister called the Liberal foreign affairs critic to discuss the future of this country’s mission in Afghanistan. Yesterday, after an extension to that mission had been announced, the Prime Minister noted that “the decisions we have taken are very close to what the Liberal Party in fact recommended, so I am glad that we actually agree on this particular matter.”

And so it was today that the Prime Minister stood and identified the Liberals as enemies of the state. “The opposition is simply playing politics with the lives of Air Force members,” Mr. Harper cried this afternoon when Michael Ignatieff dared persist in asking him to justify the multi-billion-dollar purchase of new warplanes.

That the Prime Minister would, even indirectly, cooperate with anyone so treasonous as to show callous disregard for the lives of Canadian servicemen and women seems preposterous. Even that he would be comfortable finding himself in agreement with such scoundrels on something as important as the deployment of Canadian troops into a war zone seems beyond the realm of belief. So perhaps the Prime Minister is simply better than most of us at maintaining contradictory feelings for others. Perhaps he, possessing a generous understanding of others, believes that the Liberal side is capable of both making a responsible decision about the deployment of our military and being flippant about the lives of our soldiers. Perhaps there is no contradiction or disconnect between what this government did in one case and what Mr. Harper has said here.

Or perhaps the lesson here—the moral of this story, the message of this week, the theme of these last five years—is that it is counterproductive to place much more than passing importance on the words that come from the mouths of this government. Continue…