The great recalibration

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 12:58 PM - 30 Comments

A year ago, the Prime Minister asked the Governor General to prorogue Parliament so that he might “recalibrate” his government’s agenda and thus, one assumes, the very trajectory of the Canadian state. The resulting address to the nation set out the two wings of prosperity upon which our hopes would be borne: the creation of a national Seniors Day and the establishment of an award for volunteerism.

This past November, the Prime Minister made good on the former. And just now in Welland, a mere 12 months after the launch of our great recalibration, the Prime Minister has fulfilled his promise of the latter.

Let this transitional chapter in our dominion’s history now be considered closed, so that we might move forward, confident in the knowledge that our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren (and so on) will forever be in our debt.

CSIS director says foreign influence problem is real

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 12:32 PM - 17 Comments

In a confidential report to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, CSIS director Richard Fadden warned that “clandestine efforts by foreign governments to influence our officials, policies and communities” are ongoing, adding those targeted by the efforts are “subject to threats, coercion or potential blackmail.” Fadden wrote the report following a controversial interview with the CBC during which Canada’s top spy claimed that public officials in Canada are under the thumb of foreign governments. The investigation of foreign interference presents “several challenges” to CSIS, the director wrote, notably having to distinguish between foreign interference and legitimate lobbying.

CBC News

Renault suspends three top managers

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 12:21 PM - 3 Comments

Carmaker Renault fired three top managers who leaked “strategic, intellectual and technological assets” on Thursday. They gave no more details than that, but insiders told Le Figaro and AFP that details of the electric cars that Renault plans to launch in 2014 were leaked to a Chinese company. France’s Industry Minister Eric Besson said Thursday that the country is the target of an “economic war.”

France24

Air India convict to be sentenced today

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 12:12 PM - 2 Comments

Inderjit Sing Reyat will be sentenced today in the B.C. Supreme Court for lying at the trial of two men charged in the 1985 Air India bombings. On June 23, 1985, Air India Flight 182 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean after a bomb exploded killing 331 people. Reyat is the only man to have been convicted in connection with the bombing. He is expected to receive a sentence at the high-end of the 14-year maximum for perjury.

UPDATE: Reyat was sentenced to nine years in prison.

CBC News

CTV News

Positive signs in Canadian employment

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 12:07 PM - 2 Comments

Canada’s unemployment rate in December held steady at 7.6 per cent after declining slightly in November, according to Statistics Canada. The economy created 22,000 jobs in last month, with job gains in Newfoundland, Quebec and Ontario. Paul Ferley, assistant chief economist at RBC, said that the numbers “confirm that the Canadian economy continues to generate jobs.” Manufacturing, transportation, warehousing and natural resource jobs showed the biggest increases. Other provinces showed no change in the number of jobs created, while British Columbia showed a decline. Jobs were also lost in the construction, health care and social assistance, wholesale and retail sectors. While the numbers are slightly encouraging, economists believe the Bank of Canada will maintain interest rates at one per cent.

CBC News

Hey look: Why Guy Giorno is, approximately, smiling

By Paul Wells - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 12:04 PM - 6 Comments

Those of you who’ve stumbled across my column from this week’s magazine seem great in number, but stragglers can join the party by looking over here. I pronounce the Conservatives “in decent shape to fight an election… in a position, not of utter dominance, but of relative strength.” Chaos ensues in the comment boards.

Alberta oilsands explosion injures four

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 12:03 PM - 2 Comments

An explosion at the Horizon oilsands site in northern Alberta cast black smoke over the region and burned four workers, including two who went to hospital. The explosion happened Thursday afternoon at a site owned by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. Nearby residents of the Fort McKay First Nation told CBC News they were worried about what was spilling into the sky over their community as they watched the fire burn Thursday. Testing equipment showed that air quality was “good” as of 6 p.m. MT and Alberta Environment is on site today to assess risks. The fire started in an upgrader that converts bitumen into crude oil.

CBC News

The Pentagon's looming budget crunch

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 11:56 AM - 10 Comments

White House Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced yesterday the Pentagon will cut projected spending by $78 billion over the next five years, as well as reduce the size of the Army and Marines. Increases to the Pentagon’s budget will barely meet inflation rates over the next couple years, and by 2015 and 2016, it will be virtually frozen. The announcement comes after both Democrats and Republicans criticized the defense budget on Capitol Hill, though Gates said actually cutting the $553 billion defense budget would be “risky at best and potentially calamitous,” reported the Washington Post. However, leaders of a bipartisan deficit commission have recommended cutting $100 billion in defense spending by 2015.

Washington Post

Sorry, we tore down the wrong house

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 11:38 AM - 2 Comments

In a blighted area of Pittsburgh, Penn., Andre Hall was renovating a long-vacant house at 3224 Motor St. He’d already replaced the windows and done some drywall work. But on Monday, he arrived on site to see a backhoe sitting on top of his house. A contractor, under orders of the city, had demolished it. “I thought it was a dream. I thought this wasn’t real,” Hall told a local TV reporter. “I drove around the block to make sure I was at the right street and at the right address.” The city is blaming the contractor. John Jennings, acting chief of the city’s Bureau of Building Inspection, said only the house next door was supposed to be taken down—but the contractor also destroyed 3224, despite being notified in writing not to do that.

WTAE

Check back later

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 11:11 AM - 18 Comments

Peter Kent casts his eyes forward.

Canada, which has committed to roughly matching U.S. efforts on fighting climate change, is watching carefully as the Obama administration rolls out new emission rules for power plants and refineries. Mr. Kent said Canada will draw up its own emission standards for petroleum refineries – including oil-sands facilities – but added there’s no schedule yet. “Our focus for the next several years is going to continue to be on maintaining the economic recovery and we will do nothing in the short term which would unnecessarily compromise or threaten to compromise that recovery,” Mr. Kent said. “It is not our intention to discourage development of one of our great natural resources. We know it can be developed responsibly.”

… The minister added that he plans to follow up a Conservative pledge to regulate pollutants by unveiling a proposal – “I hope some time this year” – for national air-quality standards based on a provincial agreement reached in 2010 by his predecessor. This would include rules for public reporting, modelling and monitoring air quality.

Deck the halls—again

By Colby Cosh - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 9:20 AM - 6 Comments

Many non-Ukrainians enjoy the 12-course dinner | Photography Roman Petriw

Every year, Lisa Dusseault brings Ukrainian Christmas to Silicon Valley. In California, she says sadly, “frozen burritos seem to take the place of the Canadian-standard freezer space for perogies.” But Dusseault, a systems engineer from Edmonton who works on the Second Life virtual universe at San Francisco’s Linden Lab, agonizes annually over a 12-course, meatless, dairy-free dinner of the type Ukrainians traditionally eat on Jan. 6, the eve of their nativity. She makes perogies from scratch, soaks wheat for kutia pudding, prays the cabbage rolls won’t fall apart, and invites friends over when it’s all assembled.

Yet this busy chef has no Ukrainian ancestry. “My mom adopted Ukrainian cooking from living in northern Manitoba, from her neighbours,” says the French-Scottish-Canadian Dusseault. When she was a child, her family enjoyed a Ukrainian Christmas feast every year because her mother believed that “everybody should be able to adopt the culture of their choice.”

Continue…

Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

All’s well that ends well
Shania Twain tied the knot on New Year’s Day in Rincon, Puerto Rico, with Frédéric Thiébaud, the ex-husband of her ex-best friend, who apparently was too friendly with her ex-husband, Mutt Lange. Twain was escorted down the aisle by her nine-year-old son, Eja. “I’m in love!” she wrote in her blog last month.

Drummers, they get no respect
It’s no surprise the birthplaces of the Beatles have a special place in their countrymen’s hearts. Oxford Street Maternity Hospital, where John Lennon was born, has been preserved and converted into apartments. Walton Hospital, Paul McCartney’s birthplace, has likewise been maintained and converted into luxury apartments. People still live in George Harrison’s birthplace, 12 Arnold Grove. Then there’s Ringo Starr, whose childhood home faces the wrecking ball. British Housing Minister Grant Shapps has urged Liverpool council to reconsider plans to raze the rundown row house at 9 Madryn Street, where the former Richard Starkey was born, as part of a redevelopment plan. Ringo has said the house should be “done up” rather than knocked down. The campaign is on behalf of fans, who contribute millions to the local economy, says the group Save Madrin Street. It’s not for Ringo, “who has enough homes of his own.”

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A life lost and a life destroyed

By Nicholas Köhler and Michael Friscolanti with Stephanie Findlay - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 81 Comments

Brian Tobin and wife Jodean leave court in Ottawa with son Jack, who is charged with impaired driving causing death | Pawel Dwulit/CP

Adam Rabolt and Darren McMullin were both 25-year-old labourers from small-town Shelburne, Ont., and had been best friends since the third grade. On the night of June 15, 2007, Rabolt, who had had a few beers that day while playing in a local golf tournament, was roused from a nap by McMullin, who had also been drinking and who persuaded his buddy to go out on the town. The two friends climbed into Rabolt’s Ford Focus and headed for a strip club about an hour and a half away in Vaughan, just north of Toronto. Some hours later, while driving home on Highway 400, Rabolt’s Ford left the road, travelled across a grassy shoulder and slammed into a grove of trees. Rabolt walked away; McMullin, who was not wearing a seat belt, died at the scene.

When police administered a breath test, Rabolt blew over twice the legal limit. He was later convicted of impaired operation of a motor vehicle causing death and operation of a motor vehicle with a blood-alcohol concentration exceeding 80 mg. In considering an appropriate sentence, Justice Cary Boswell faced a myriad of options. There is no mandatory punishment for fatal drunk driving cases, and sentences have ranged anywhere from a few months of house arrest to life behind bars. The Crown sought at least three years in prison, while Rabolt’s lawyer asked for a conditional sentence: two years less a day, to be served in the community.

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The incredible hunk

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 4 Comments

Bardem with Penélope Cruz at the Cannes film festival in May 2010, Bardem unleashes the most powerful performance of his career in ‘Biutiful’ | Yves Herman/Reuters, Everett Collection

Hollywood is thick with fine actors and glamorous stars, but there’s one thing that’s even rarer than a good original script: the kind of strong leading man who takes your breath away. One contender after another has proved lacking. Tom Cruise has become a freak, a machine-like movie star whose vanity overrides his sex appeal. Johnny Depp is adorable, but seems content to play a pirate for life, and when given a shot at cracking Angelina Jolie’s cool in The Tourist, he looked like he couldn’t wait to get back to his ship. Jolie’s mate, Brad Pitt, seems strangely neutered. Canada’s Ryan Reynolds inherited the title of Sexiest Man Alive, but he has yet to prove it onscreen, and now even Scarlett Johansson isn’t buying it. Leonardo DiCaprio shook off his stigma as Titanic’s teen heartthrob, and matured into a formidable actor, but he seems allergic to romantic roles. Same deal with George Clooney. For a while, he appeared to be the Great White Hope, so boldly debonair and adult, until we began to notice that his career was virtually devoid of love scenes.

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Would you mind not turning the page yet?

By Julia McKinnell - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 6 Comments

Photograph by Jessica Darmanin

According to a book of manners published in 1737, “It is barbarous, and argues the height of indiscretion to peep over anyone’s shoulder when he is writing; and ungenteel when he is reading.” Rutgers English professor Jack Lynch unearthed the above tidbit, and tells Maclean’s, “I’ve been able to find literary references to reading over shoulders going back at least to the early 18th century.”

Sensing a stranger’s gaze on his page makes Lynch personally uneasy. “I find myself thinking, ‘Can I turn the page now? Is this person finished with this page?’ ” Nevertheless, the professor admits he does it himself. “I’m a bookish person. Every time I see a book that looks a little bit interesting, I find myself peeking and doing my best not to get caught.”

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The knives are out for Ahmadinejad

By Michael Petrou - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 13 Comments

Facing criticism on all sides, Ahmadinejad is spending billions to secure the loyalty of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards | Mehdi Ghasemi/Document Iran/Redux, Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters, Natalie Behring/Reuters

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faces a regime-buffeting revolt—not just from secular-minded students and youth who continue to gather at universities to denounce him as a traitor and call for his death—but also from the very heart of the Islamic Republic’s conservative establishment. Conservative members of Iran’s Majlis, or parliament, recently tried to summon Ahmadinejad for questioning, which in theory could have led to his impeachment. According to a letter sent by a parliamentary committee to the chairman of the Guardian Council, another governing body, they “refrained from the questioning and impeachment of the president” only because they were ordered not to do so by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The parliamentarians accuse Ahmadinejad of concentrating power in his office. They say he withdrew $590 million from the Central Bank’s foreign reserve fund without parliamentary approval, that he illegally imports oil and natural gas, and spends government money without transparency. These specific allegations reflect deeper and more fundamental opposition. Already scorned by reformists who believe he stole the presidency in a rigged election last summer—not to mention Iranians who want an outright end to the country’s theocracy—Ahmadinejad has now alienated many influential political and religious figures in the country.

The reasons for his break with the clergy may seem odd to those in the West who associate Ahmadinejad with radical Islam. He is a religious extremist—but not one cut from the same cloth as most of the country’s mullahs.

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Should you be using a salt substitute?

By Cathy Gulli - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 9 Comments

The dangers of consuming too much salt has become an international health issue, with governments setting new intake targets | Photograph by Jessica Darmanin, Illustration by Taylor Shute

The question seemed simple enough: “What does the test kitchen think about salt substitutes?” Diane Boeri of Worcester, Mass., had sent a letter to Cook’s Illustrated, the Boston-based magazine that employs chefs and scientists to develop foolproof recipes and compare products. Her request, which was published in the latest issue’s “Notes from Readers” section, was for help making sense of the ever-growing variety of salt alternatives occupying supermarket shelves.

In reality, it’s a loaded question. Fanatics insist there is no substitute for salt—that the taste and texture and the way it changes food can’t be replicated. Health nuts argue that using no salt or an imitation substance is the best choice—and swear that quitting cold turkey isn’t so bad.

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NFL Picks: Wild Card Weekend

By Scott Feschuk - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 8:10 AM - 8 Comments

Scott Feschuk Last week: 9-7 Season: 129-102-9

Scott Reid Last week: 8-8 Season: 112-119-9

A note: There may possibly be some NFL-based tweeting this weekend perhaps. Follow Scott Feschuk at @scottfeschuk. Maybe this will coax Reid into actually joining Twitter. I ask you: What possible trouble could Scott Reid get into with an unfiltered outlet for his musings?

•••

New Orleans (minus 10) at Seattle, Saturday 4:30 p.m. Eastern

Feschuk: Did you see how coaching mastermind and Up With People alumnus Pete Carroll waited to tip his hand about who’s going to start at quarterback for his Seahawks. That left New Orleans at the disadvantage of having to prepare for both Dumb and Dumber. That’s some sneaky maneuverin’! It’s too bad Seattle couldn’t bring in The Most Sought After Man in the World, Jim Harbaugh, to coach this game. Or quarterback it. Or use his heavenly powers to part the Saints D-line while curing leukemia with his farts. Because according to sports talk radio Harbaugh could totally do it. HE’S A MICHIGAN MAN! Alas, the Seahawks are stuck with the roster that managed exactly one victory this season against a team that finished with a winning record. Every single one of Seattle’s nine losses this year was by more than 10 points. Every. Single. One. Why? Because they are terrible. TERRIBLE. Do not let yourself forget this: They are a terrible football team that is awful! Although in their defence Mike Williams has had a nice season and Carroll’s hair has never Continue…

How Stephen Harper will survive in 2011

By Paul Wells - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 234 Comments

Blair Gable/Reuters

On New Year’s Eve, his last day as Stephen Harper’s chief of staff, Guy Giorno wrote a farewell memo to Conservative government staffers and launched a Twitter account. Ottawa started poring over his 140-character Twitter bursts and ignored the memo. Let’s read the memo.

“After exactly two-and-one-half wonderful years,” Giorno wrote, it was time to leave Harper’s side. He reminded his colleagues of the government’s successes. Only one item on his list was about policy: “A sweeping, affirmative Economic Action Plan to protect the economy.” The result? “Our economy is outperforming the economies of many countries of the world.”

The rest of Giorno’s list was about partisan political achievements. “We won a general election, only the eighth time in 40 elections that a governing party has increased both its seat count and its share of the popular vote. We eliminated the so-called gender gap”—the Liberals’ former advantage among female voters—“and made inroads into communities that have not voted Conservative for decades . . . Today, our standing in the polls is stronger and higher than when I first arrived.”

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The Pitch: It's Like Mad Men With Skimpy Outfits

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 6:32 PM - 1 Comment

Some form of that phrase must have come up in one of the meetings that led NBC to order a pilot for a drama about Playboy bunnies in the ’60s. It’s really not such a bad idea, though period pieces have not done well in recent years. I just find it to be a reminder that when networks follow trends, it’s not always the trend set by the shows that are the most successful or make the most money.

Mad Men is winning all the awards, so networks are more open to period-style pitches than they have been in a long time. You sometimes hear it said that network executives don’t want to hear about AMC or HBO shows as points of comparison, since most of those shows don’t get the kind of numbers a broadcast network needs. But executives are TV viewers just like the rest of us, and I suspect that they do respond well to pitches that remind them of shows they like. It also helps that Mad Men is a show that can be imitated on broadcast without worrying much about censorship: content-wise, most of what happens on Mad Men could pass muster with the FCC (there’s plenty that broadcast networks wouldn’t do anyway, but it’s due to timidity or advertiser pressure, not censorship per se), so it’s not like trying to imitate Boardwalk Empire, where you have to explain how you’re going to cut out the nudity.

As to what approach I’d like to see for this show if it gets picked up, that’s simple: it should be a bit like this. Even the showtune-style theme song could pass for something that was written in the ’60s.

What is the most important issue facing Canada in 2011?

By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 5:40 PM - 103 Comments

The complicating simplification

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 4:56 PM - 19 Comments

Bill Curry looks at the practice and impact of targeted tax credits.

The Public Transit Tax Credit was one of the most high-profile tax expenditures announced by the Conservatives in 2006. It was originally projected to cost more than $200-million a year, but has so far been coming in under budget at around $130-million a year. Four years in, experts are unable to say whether the program is encouraging new transit users or simply rewarding those who were taking transit anyway.

Michael Roschlau, president of the Canadian Urban Transit Association, said it’s a great idea to reward people for taking public transit, but the statistics do not show that the credit produced a spike in ridership. “We have not been able to attribute a direct correlation between the ridership trends and the tax credit,” he said.

Jeff Jedras laments.

Sadr back in Iraq

By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 4:37 PM - 7 Comments

Moktada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric whose militia displayed the toughest resistance against the American military, returned to Iraq on Wednesday following a three-year exile to cries of “long live the leader!” Sadr’s militant movement fractured following his self-imposed exile to the holy city of Qum in Iran in 2007, when his militia was defeated and divided. But in the 2009 local elections, they made an impressive comeback and proved to be shrewd political negotiators. Sadr is said to be the only viable opponent to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. His arrival in Iraq was eerily reminiscent of Ayatollah Khomeini’s triumphant return to Tehran following Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Whether he stays in Iraq long enough to become the leader his followers are hoping for is uncertain. At the very least, Sadr’s return to Iraq is an event that will certainly complicate Iraqi democracy, its stability already fragile in its infancy.

New York Times

No "drastic cuts" to federal spending in budget: PM

By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 3:56 PM - 48 Comments

Stephen Harper promised on Thursday his government’s upcoming budget wouldn’t include “drastic cuts” to programs or tax increases, even as Ottawa struggles to pay down a record deficit. The prime minister specifically identified transfers to the provinces, as well as spending on health and education, as being shielded from any efforts to reduce public. “We said those things are protected,” Harper told reporters at a forestry funding announcement in Windsor, Que. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is expected to annouce the date his new budget will be presented when Parliament returns on Jan. 31.

CBC News