Stacy Bonds on police abuse: listen and marvel

By John Geddes - Sunday, November 28, 2010 at 12:04 PM - 129 Comments

Would anybody blame Stacy Bonds—the Ottawa theatrical makeup artist who was arrested for no good reason by the city’s police, then abused in custody in the most outrageous manner—if she suspected the fact that she’s black influenced her mistreatment? Would anybody think Bonds, 27, was out of line if she roundly denounced the cops?

Yet in her first interview since this episode came to light, she does neither. “I don’t want to make it into a big black-white issue,” she tells the Ottawa Citizen’s Gary Dimmock. “I think it’s more an issue of questioning authority and I’d like to tell people don’t be afraid to ask police questions.”

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The life

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 5:39 PM - 0 Comments

Six second-year members of Parliament discuss the political life with Steve Paikin.

Campbell and Williams: transfer payments as they exit

By John Geddes - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 5:00 PM - 12 Comments

Mulling over this month’s two big political resignations, B.C.’s Gordon Campbell and Newfoundland’s Danny Williams, I got to thinking about their contrasting styles when it came to federal-provincial relations.

Williams presided over an unprecedented boom for Newfoundland and Labrador, and famously fought to maintain federal equalization payments to his province, even as its oil-fueled economy outgrew have-not status.

Campbell’s run coincided with uneven economic times for B.C., and he sometimes argued for a better deal on transfers—in mainly in the context of the broader “fiscal imbalance” debate of a few years back—but he never made fighting Ottawa a major focus of his politics.

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Opening Weekend: Made In Dagenham, Love and Other Drugs, Faster, The Nutcracker in 3-D, Waste Land

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 4:58 PM - 1 Comment

(from left) Andrea Riseborough, Jaime Winstone and Sally Hawkins in 'Made in Dagenham'

This being American Thanksgiving, I realize that Hollywood’s opening weekend kicked off Wednesday for a number of new releases. But we’re in Canada, so at Unscreened we’re sticking to the usual end-of-week ritual. The movie I’d most heartily recommend is Love and Other Drugs. Even though it’s a dog’s breakfast—a kooky contrivance that mixes Viagra, Parkinson’s disease and rampant nudity—the chemistry between Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal, two of the most watchable movie stars on the planet, makes it a guilty treat. And Hathaway’s performance is worth an Oscar nomination, though the movie may lack the gravitas to get her one. For more on Love and Other Drugs, and an interview with director Ed Zwick, go to: A romantic comedy—plus sex. Lots of it. There’s a glut of new movies out. I haven’t yet had a chance to see Tangled, the new Disney animated feature, which is getting rave reviews across the board, or Burlesque, which hasn’t generated much heat aside from landing Cher on the cover of Vanity Fair. But here are some thoughts on those I have seen:

Made in Dagenham

Hollywood gets a of flak for turning true stories into formula fables, but never underestimate the ability of the Brits to do the same thing. In the tradition of Calendar Girls and Pirate Radio, along comes Made in Dagenham, another spirited romp that converts history into a giddy jamboree of clichés. There’s a terrific tale at the heart of the film, the story of a 1968 strike by 187 female machinists who sewed car upholstery in a dilapidated Ford plant in the Essex town of Dagenham. After being reclassified as “unskilled” labour, the women—a tiny enclave in a company employing 55,000 British workers—defied both Ford and their union bosses as they walked off the job demanding equal pay. The result was a landmark settlement engineered by the Labour government’s Secretary of State Barbara Castle which led the way to Britain’s Pay Equity Act.

In this fictionalized account, the adorable Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky) stars as a composite character named Rita, a reluctant rebel who emerges from the shop floor to lead the strikers, a flamboyant array of sassy stereotypes, from the aspiring model (Jaime Winstone) to the renegade party girl (Andrea Riseborough). The male characters, who are even flatter, range from  Rita’s gormless, sad-sack husband—who holds the fort at home while extravagantly burning dinner—to a token sympathetic union rep (an elfin Bob Hoskins).

Directed by Nigel Cole, who also made Calendar Girls, the film is a frustrating mix of heart and hokum. The story seems to take place in a historical bubble. This is 1968, but you’d never guess that the capitalism is under siege by student movements, anti-war movements and epidemic strike actions. It’s as if the women are in their own little Broadway musical of a revolution. But behind the scrim of a didactic screenplay, there are some superb performances. Sally Hawkins is wonderful in the lead role, acting just on the brink of emotion, as if she’s shyly discovering her mission just as the words are being formed, could dissolve in a puddle tears at any moment, but is bravely keeping her cool. The deft, offbeat rhythm of her acting is no small triumph over the script. And while this comparison won’t mean much to younger readers, she could be channeling Rita Tushingham, the quirky It Girl of British cinema when these events were taking place, during the late 1960s. Also as Lisa, the wife of the factory boss who crosses class lines to befriend Rita, Rosamund Pike performs miracles with a slender role—in one fleeting, heartfelt speech of support, she steals the movie in less than a minute. And finally, Miranda Richardson makes a meal of her role as the Labour government’s feminist firebrand, Barbara Castle. It’s the kind of role that you imagine might have been first offered to Helen Mirren. Who knows if Richardson’s incendiary portrayal of the minister is at all accurate, but it’s a lot of fun. Too bad the movie does not live up to the skills of its stars.

Dwayne Johnson in 'Faster'

Faster

Dwayne (“The Rock”) Johnson stars as an ex-con on a homicidal revenge mission in this hard-boiled action movie that plays like something Quentin Tarantino might have made if he’d had a frontal lobotomy. Johnson is physically impressive, a flesh-and-blood Terminator without the irony, but when he opens his mouth, his acting makes Arnie sound like Olivier. Fortunately, it stays shut most of the time, while his character, The Driver, demonstrates his prowess behind the wheel of a vintage Chevy SS muscle car. It’s all so retro: this guy can’t go to the corner store without doing a wheelie and laying a mile of rubber. The plot of Faster is a slow-burn Mexican standoff, as two predators set their sights on The Driver: a dirty detective on the verge of retirement (Billy Bob Thornton) and a super-slick contract killer (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), who drives a Ferrari and acts like a GQ fashion ad come to life. Faster is not without a few guilty pleasures. As action porn, it receives a passing grade. And it’s not the worst movie I’ve seen this season. That honour goes to The Nutcracker in 3D.

John Turturro in 'The Nutcracker in 3-D'

The Nutcracker in 3D

Beware! Do not see this movie. Do not take your children to this movie. Do not be tempted by the title, or dancing visions of sugar-plum fairies. Do not put on the 3-D glasses. You will regret it, believe me. Even the 3-D is lousy. This is one of those movies that makes you wonder how on Earth it got made. I realize it’s hard to make movies, and it’s amazing that so many of them turn out as well as they do. But in this case, it defies imagination how a movie could turn out so badly. Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky (Tango and Cash, Runaway Train), it transplants the Nutcracker fable to Vienna in 1920, where young Mary (Elle Fanning, Dakota’s sister) sees toys come to life in a household ruled by an imperious father (Richard E. Grant), and subverted by a zany Uncle Albert Einstein. In the fantasy sequences, John Turturro plays a scary, repulsive Rat King, a fascist monster styled as a mincing cabaret queen in an Andy Warhol wig. It all unfolds like some orphaned Lynchian nightmare that’s been re-purposed as a sick Christmas story. Lyricist Tim Rice cake-decorates Tchaikovsky’s music with a lot of sugary rhymes. But there’s no ballet, and no magic, just a disjointed narrative with flashes of creepy, unsettling imagery. What the children are supposed to think, I don’t know. But if you’re looking for a family movie about toys that come to life and are trapped in an Orwellian concentration camp, you’d be a lot better off renting Toy Story 3.

Waste Land

After tearing up the festival circuit, this epic documentary is opening in Toronto only at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. British director Lucy Walker (Countdown to Zero) follows renowned Brazilian artist Vik Muniz as he returns to his homeland to “give back” to the people. Muniz, who was born into a poor family in São Paulo, finds his material in Rio di Janeiro’s Jardim Gramancho, one the world’s largest garbage dumps. He creates installation-scale photos of freelance catadores, or pickers, who salvage recyclable debris from the mountains of trash. Then he enlists the pickers in “colouring” the portraits with recycled debris. There’s a certain Oprah effect at work as this art star elevates and beatifies the simple folk, and the film raises the issue of exploitation while giving the artist the benefit of the doubt. It’s too bad the art he creates isn’t better. The portraits assembled from the junk have an earnest ring of social realism. And there are some unanswered questions left dangling as Muniz seems to adopt attractive women from the catadore casting dump, while back home his marriage unravels. Nevertheless, Walker’s documentary is an eye-opening trip to a part of the world where garbage serves as liquid currency for people who salvage dignity from degradation with intelligence and grace. The scale and ambition of the project is extraordinary, and some of the pickers emerge as truly heroic characters. Without theorizing, the film amounts to an implicit essay on art as the commodification of trash. And Walker succeeds by questioning the morality of the project, even while projecting its inspirational message.

The hockey by-election

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 4:37 PM - 34 Comments

The Liberals have decided to counter Don Cherry‘s endorsement of Julian Fantino in Vaughan with a Ken Dryden endorsement of Tony Genco.

Cherry‘s Boston Bruins met Dryden‘s Montreal Canadiens in 1977 and 1978 Stanley Cup finals and the 1979 semi-finals—Dryden backstopping the Habs to victory each time.

Crowdfunding Evolution

By Andrew Potter - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 4:01 PM - 6 Comments

Earlier this year, the very excellent Baba Brinkman was awarded a grant from the Wellcome Trust to make a series of music videos for the Rap Guide to Evolution, to “promote the public understanding of science”. He’s been working on with a crew in London to shoot the videos; the above clip is a preview.

But over the course of making the videos, he’s upped his ambition. From an email he sent out the other day:

…we want to take them to the next level by weaving in original animation, digital effects, and high-quality nature footage licensed from sources like the BBC.  Imagine a four-minute short film, part Eminem-style rap music video, part David Attenborough-style nature documentary, illustrating themes such as the common descent of all human beings from African ancestors and the processes of natural and sexual selection that shaped our bodies and minds and the rest of nature.

To pay for it, Baba and his partners have decided to try “crowdfunding” — essentially you pay upfront for the DVD, when they get their target they’ll produce the videos. If they don’t reach the target in sixty days you get your money back. If you like the project and want to support it, you have options:  £10 gets you a download of the finished videos, £20 gets you a DVD, and £30 buys you immortality: they will put your photo in one of the videos, representing a branch on the human family tree. HOW COOL A XMAS PRESENT IS THAT?

Here’s the link to the crowdfunding site.

And here is the Rap Guide to Evolution

Rights and Democracy: We have a date

By Paul Wells - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 3:22 PM - 75 Comments

The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee met in camera yesterday, and when the members emerged, this appeared in the minutes:

“It was agreed, — That the Committee ask Gérard Latulippe, President of Rights & Democracy, and the Chair of the Board of Directors, Aurel Braun, to appear before the Committee on Thursday, December 16, 2010; and that members of the Committee be provided with the forensic audit report from Samson Bélair-Deloitte & Touche and the investigative report prepared by Sirco, no later than Monday, December 13, 2010.”

That gives our friends a bit more than two weeks to cough up the reports.

The “Sirco” report refers to the report of a private investigator who was brought in to investigate the theft of computers from the Rights & Democracy offices , a theft which apparently took place on the day of Rémy Beauregard’s funeral. I’ve never found the assorted contradictory speculation about who might have done that theft very useful, and since there have been no arrests, one presumes the Sirco investigation was inconclusive. That report will not be without interest, however. The first time the staff of Rights and Democracy heard of the firm was after three staff members had been questioned by R&D board appointee Jacques Gauthier in the presence of Sirco principal Claude Sarrazin — whose business affiliation and role was not disclosed to the staffers when they were questioned. They were later fired and are suing for wrongful dismissal.

This is, by my count, at least the fourth time the committee has asked for the Deloitte audit (and, I believe, also the fourth time it has asked for the Sirco report, about which I have written less often). Now they have put a time limit on their request. We’ll see how the Rights and Democracy board responds.

Justin Trudeau's evil twin

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 3:13 PM - 43 Comments

Meet Pedro Alvarez, star of Mexico’s most popular telenovela, La Casa de Intriga.

A day of debate

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 1:09 PM - 6 Comments

Debate concerning the Bloc’s motion on the Afghan mission begins here and, after a break for Question Period, resumes here. Notable speeches include those of the Foreign Affairs Minister, the Defence Minister, Bob Rae, Jack Harris, Claude Bachand and the incomparable Ken Dryden.

Sun TV News application approved

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 12:38 PM - 29 Comments

Sun TV News has been green-lit by the CRTC after a long war with the regulator and critics who are opposed to the 24-7 news-and-opinion channel nicknamed “Fox News North.” The CRTC had previously refused to grant the Quebecor property a category one license that would force cable and satellite providers to carry the channel, like CTV News Channel and CBC News Network. Instead, it received a category two license, which is granted to most specialty channels. The channel is expected to be modeled after the right-leaning and opinion-heavy Fox News. In the past year, Fox News has regularly attracted more than three times the viewership of its main competitor, CNN. In September, Kory Teneycke, the former spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper and chief spokesperson for Sun TV News resigned after prominent Canadians, including Margaret Atwood, signed their name to a petition trying to block the channel’s license.

National Post

Foreigners spending more money in Canada

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 12:35 PM - 3 Comments

According to Statistics Canada, Canada’s international travel deficit fell by $235 million between the second and third quarter. The agency says the deficit dropped to $3.4 billion from $3.7 billion, its highest level ever. Spending by foreigners rose 2.3 per cent to $4.1 billion. Canadians spent less abroad—down 1.8 per cent to $7.5 billion. American visitors spent $1.8 billion here, a jump of 1.2 per cent from the second quarter. Canadians, meanwhile, spent $4.4 billion visiting the United States, a drop of 4.9 per cent from the previous quarter. Spending by Canadians in countries other than the United States reached a record high of $3.2 billion in the third quarter, an increase of 2.7 per cent from the previous quarter.

Toronto Star

Election probe in Afghanistan leads to nine arrests

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 12:32 PM - 3 Comments

Afghan authorities have arrested nine people and are seeking the arrest of four election officials in connection with allegations of fraud relating to September’s parliamentary vote. According to Deputy Attorney General Rahmatullah Nazari, authorities are also looking for a UN worker in Afghanistan. The investigation could cause tensions among members of the Karzai administration, election officials, and even the international community at a crucial moment in the war. As U.S. forces rid southern Afghanistan of Taliban fighters, these gains will only be lasting if the Afghan government is reliable. The Sept. 18 parliamentary elections, many hoped, would have a boosting effect on the government’s credibility, improving last year’s fraud-ridden presidential vote, which returned President Karzai to office. But it seems these fraud-filled parliamentary vote and the undemocratic tallying process—total results are now more than a month overdue—have only highlighted the fragility of Afghanistan’s young democracy. As one Western official put it: “We are very worried.”

Wall Street Journal

Kevin Sorenson Maverick Watch

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 11:52 AM - 21 Comments

A Conservative manages to discuss a piece of legislation related to the justice system without either claiming total righteousness or depicting the opposition parties as unholy.

The Conservative chairman of the Commons public safety committee says a proposed law that would bar thousands of Canadians from ever applying for a criminal records pardon may have to be amended … The minister has said we’ll have to look at this,” Sorenson said this week. “There can be amendments.”

After impugning Liberal Mark Holland earlier this week, the Public Safety Minister went after the NDP’s Don Davies yesterday (Mr. Davies, like Mr. Holland, felt it necessary to correct the record). For sheer bloody-minded obsessiveness though, Mr. Toews topped himself this week during an interview with Steve Paikin, in which, when questioned about the current difference in crime policy between the Liberal opposition and the Conservative government, referred, while mispronouncing the man’s name, to comments made by solicitor general Jean-Pierre Goyer in 1971. Mr. Toews was 19 years old when those remarks were uttered. The Liberal party’s current public safety critic, Mr. Holland, wasn’t even born at the time.

Meat and milk from cloned cattle are safe, scientists say

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 11:46 AM - 6 Comments

Meat and milk from cloned cattle and their offspring are safe to consume, according to independent scientists reporting for the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes, the BBC reports. They found no substantial difference between meat and milk from cloned animals, and those from conventional livestock. This comes after three cases of meat linked to a cloned cow being sold in the U.K., two of them bulls from embryos of a cow cloned in the U.S. The third was meat from a male calf sent to a London butcher’s shop. In the U.S., South America and Asia, farmers can breed from cloned cows, sheep and pigs, but farmers in Europe need specific authorization.

BBC News

Passive smoking causes 600,000 deaths a year

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 11:44 AM - 12 Comments

According to the World Health Organization, passive smoking causes 600,000 deaths each year—one-third of them among children, who are often exposed to smoke at home. The WHO study looked at 192 countries, and found that passive smoking is especially bad for children, putting them at higher risk of sudden infant death syndrome, pneumonia and asthma, Reuters reports. It also causes heart disease, respiratory illness and lung cancer. The lungs of kids who breathe in secondhand smoke might also develop more slowly than those of kids who grow up in smoke-free homes.

BBC News

What do Guardian readers think of Canada?

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 11:36 AM - 12 Comments

Want to know what the rest of the world really thinks of us? The Private Lives advice column in today’s Guardian features a reader with a dilemma—job offers in two different Canadian cities. The first location is described as a frigid Prairie town, “quite a large place but in the middle of nowhere.” The second, a ville in more “cosmopolitan and cool” Quebec, but the reader has heard that the people can be “very insular and frosty.” The Guardian’s commenters are proving more than ready to lend a hand however, burning up the website with frank appraisals of Canada’s charms. Let’s just say that most of them won’t be featured in any upcoming tourism ads.

The Guardian

Ontario casinos adopt facial recognition scans

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 11:29 AM - 0 Comments

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Cooperation will install facial biometric cameras at entrances to its slot rooms and casinos in an attempt to prevent people who have self-identified as gambling addicts from gaming. The project will start in early 2011 at the Woodbine racetrack in Toronto, and works by analyzing the faces of patrons and alerting staff when it recognizes problem gamblers. Staff then ask addicts to leave, and call security to issue a trespass notice if they refuse. The system is specifically designed to protect privacy, and has the approval of the province’s information and privacy commissioner.

CBC News

Saudi forces crack down on al-Qaeda

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 11:21 AM - 1 Comment

A Saudi official says the country’s security forces have arrested 149 al-Qaida suspects in a series of sweeps conducted over the past eight months. The raids are said to have prevented an attack that was in “advanced stages,” and led to the seizure of weapons and more than a half-million dollars. The arrests show extremists have been able to maintain or rebuild an organizational structure inside Saudi Arabia with close links to al-Qaida leaders in Yemen.

Washington Post

North Korea warns it’s on the "brink of war"

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 11:15 AM - 6 Comments

North Korea’s state news agency is warning that U.S. and South Korean military drills being run in the Korean peninsula are increasing tensions between the countries. “The situation on the Korean peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war,” according to a dispatch from the Korean central news agency. The statement comes three days after four South Koreans on Yeonpyeong Island were killed by North Korean artillery fire. General Walter Sharp, the U.S. military commander in South Korea, is set to visit the area on Friday.

The Guardian

Week in Pictures: November 19th – 25th 2010

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 11:03 AM - 0 Comments

'A new scandal all the time'

By Martin Patriquin - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 14 Comments

Arsenault, the FTQ head, wants an inquiry into the construction industry; Laval Mayor Vaillancourt responds to bribery accusations | Mathieu Belanger/Reuters; Ryan Remiorz/CP

La Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ) has never been keen on having eyeballs, governmental or otherwise, peering in on its affairs. Part of the reason is pragmatic: as the largest union federation in the province, it represents the lion’s share of workers in Quebec’s construction industry, a notoriously rough-and-tumble industry in which big egos and strong arms traditionally rule the day.

No longer. Last week, FTQ president Michel Arsenault essentially reversed his federation’s year-long opposition to become part of the growing cry for an inquiry into the construction industry and more. With the FTQ now onside with a growing list of fellow unions, political parties, legal and law enforcement organizations and citizens’ groups, there remains one ever-stubborn holdout: Premier Jean Charest, whose governing Liberals this week are expected to (barely) survive a non-confidence motion from the opposition Parti Québécois. Apparently, Charest’s intransigence is hurting him: nearly two out of three Quebecers believe their elected officials have something to hide, while roughly 75 per cent believe their province is corrupt.

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The war at home

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 9:44 AM - 13 Comments

Alex Himelfarb suggests we can’t export democracy if our own democracy is lacking.

This is partly about electoral reform, as hard as that has proved, and partly about institutional reform and we have seen some of the first modest stirrings across partisan lines.  It is partly about new tools, new technologies that create new possibilities for engagement, open government and networks of state and non-state actors.  It is also about greater civic and social equality without which democracy cannot flourish.  And it is about leadership  across all sectors.  If we are looking for the next big national project, why not revitalising our democracy.  What could be more important – and more difficult?  Export democracy?  Maybe.  Renew our own democracy?  For sure.

Why should polygamy be a crime?

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 306 Comments

Joe Sales/CP

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I’m against polygamy. I think it’s wrong, and harmful, for all the usual reasons: that it devalues women, impairs the trust on which marriage and family life depends, upsets the sexual balance in society at large, and is broadly incompatible with the egalitarian, individual-based political values of Western civilization.

So when it came to opening statements in the landmark British Columbia Supreme Court reference on the issue, the government lawyer had all the best arguments, in my view. And yet I found myself agreeing with the conclusions of the amicus curiae, the lawyer hired by the court to represent the other side of the case.

The specific question the court is being asked to answer is whether the Criminal Code ban on polygamy is in violation of the Charter of Rights. But at bottom the issue is the role of the criminal law in regulating conduct. If the reference helps to clarify our thinking on that, it will have served a much broader purpose.

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You don't protect freedom by confiscating it

By Paul Wells - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 8:28 AM - 90 Comments

What an excellent column in this morning’s New York Times by Roger Cohen, the paper’s only foreign-affairs columnist who can still surprise readers with his choice of topic or improve their day with the elegance of his prose. (Was that a dig at the others? Why yes it was.) The topic is airport scanners and pat-downs. Cohen makes his own points best, but to sum up, he says they’re (1) humiliating; (2) counterproductive; (3) precisely what the terrorists wanted, beyond the immediate slaughter: to hobble the enemy for the very long term.

There’s been a debate around Ottawa about whether Michael Ignatieff was serious this week when he was scrummed about these issues. All I know is, he missed a chance to make these arguments, so by my lights he was about as serious as John Baird ever gets.