Air Canada strike begins after talks fail

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 11:22 AM - 0 Comments

Sales staff and customer service workers for Air Canada went on strike early Tuesday morning, quickly causing travel delays and flight cancellations for passengers in Atlantic Canada, Montreal and Toronto. The Canadian Auto Workers union, which represents 3,800 Air Canada employees, said the strike is a response to disagreements on pensions and wages with the airline. Air Canada has said they will continue to operate a “full flight schedule,” by posting more than 1,700 managers in airports and call centres. But more workers for the airline may soon join the strike, since CAW has called on pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and baggage handlers not to cross the picket lines.

CBC News

O Kebek? Oh, Quebec

By Andrew Potter - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 11:15 AM - 31 Comments

The Societe St-Jean-Baptiste has commissioned an anthem for Quebec, called — oddly enough — O Kebek. It’s a terrible little song, completely unsingable (you can listen to it here.) But the worst part are the lyrics: “There are no patriotic calls to arms beneath the rockets’ red glare, or bragging about ruling over a vast empire, or any of the militaristic overtones of so many national anthems.”

So why have an anthem, then? Patriotism is essentially a form of brand loyalty, and the only way you’re going to get your preferred imagined community to coalesce around a proposed national identity is to make it clear not only who is included in the community, but — crucially — who is excluded. You have give the nation a narrative, either of triumph over enemies, or of ongoing collective suffering at the hands of oppressors. Instead:

“O Kebek” in its long version — which encompasses eight stanzas — references Quebec’s diversity and its natural wonders, announcing that “the St. Lawrence flows through our blood.” It pays tribute to the French, the English, the Irish, and the aboriginals as well as the Snowy Owl, moose and the Aurora Borealis.

I guess there’s no mention of the moneyed interests and the ethnic vote, so that’s something. But “under a rainbow of love we sing of liberty”? Sapristi.

I love national anthems, the more militaristic and confrontational the better. And I’m all for Quebec having one. But come on guys, give yourselves a proper anthem, instead of this Free-to-be-you-and-me, Hinterland-Who’s Who Trudeaupianism.  How about “drinking the blood of Don Cherry, we sing of liberty”. Or “By the fist of Rocket Richard, we beat the hated Leafs.” Or “The winter was cold, and the English humiliated us again”.

Here’s some inspiration.

On the matter of Libya

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 11:11 AM - 12 Comments

The House is presently seized with the country’s mission in Libya. Debate will continue through the day with a vote expected at 6:45pm. The motion under consideration, as tabled by the Foreign Affairs Minister is as follows.

That, in standing in solidarity with those seeking freedom in Libya, the House unanimously adopted a motion in the Third Session of the 40th Parliament on March 21, 2011, authorizing all necessary measures, including the use of the Canadian Forces and military assets in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973; and given that the House unanimously agreed that should the government require an extension to the involvement of the Canadian Forces for more than three months from the passage of the said motion, the government was to return to the House at its earliest opportunity to debate and seek the consent of the House for such an extension; therefore the House consents to another extension of three and a half months of the involvement of the Canadian Forces in accordance with UNSC Resolution 1973; that the House deplores the ongoing use of violence by the Libyan regime against the Libyan people, including the alleged use of rape as a weapon of war by the Libyan regime; that the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development and the Standing Committee on National Defence remain seized of Canada’s activities under UNSC Resolution 1973; and that the House continues to offer its wholehearted support to the brave men and women of the Canadian Forces who stand on guard for all of us.

The NDP’s Paul Dewar has proposed the following amendments. Continue…

Radiation hotspots challenge Japanese response to nuclear crisis

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 11:07 AM - 0 Comments

More than three months after Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant was rocked by an earthquake and tsunami, triggering a nuclear crisis, workers are finding “hotspots” of nuclear contamination that are relatively distant from the site, adding to the stress of cleanup. Fukushima is thought to have released only 15 per cent of the radiation of the Chernobyl disaster, Reuters reports, but the government’s software modelling system—designed to predict where radiation would drift—didn’t create an accurate picture of contamination. Officials have now promised a detailed survey of the evacuated area by October, and since last week, local governments have been helping provide daily reports of contamination. Public schools around Fukushima have been equipped with dosimeters, and teachers have been asked to record hourly radiation readings to make a contamination map. Even so, many observers say more can be done.

Reuters

Why Romney Can Win

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 10:34 AM - 32 Comments

One of the things that surprised many people in last night’s Republican presidential debate, apart from the strong performance of Michele Bachmann, was that Mitt Romney is looking pretty strong. It was easy to write him off because of the fact that Obama’s health-care plan is, as Tim Pawlenty put it (but not to Romney’s face), “Obamneycare,” and because Romney refuses to disown his Massachusetts health-care program. (It’s been said about Romney that you can tell which issues he cares about and which ones he doesn’t really care about by which ones he’s willing to flip-flop on. He has completely changed his position on abortion because he doesn’t seem to be that interested in the issue. But he is genuinely proud of his health-care plan and won’t give up on it.) But Romney came off well, and there wasn’t a sense that the health care thing has made him radioactive. Maybe it’s too early for his opponents to take the gloves off, but it’s also possible that Romney is benefiting from a shift in emphasis: for the last few months, his party has been somewhat less interested in repealing Obamacare and somewhat more interested in arguing for Medicare privatization. Not that they will stop trying to repeal the health care law. But if Romney promises to support repeal at the federal level, and promises to support some form of Medicare privatization, he may be all right.

The other thing that indicates that Romney has a good chance of being President of the United States: he’s one of the few candidates who has bothered to notice that the biggest issue – and Obama’s biggest vulnerability – is unemployment. If Obama loses, and I have trouble seeing how he wins if the unemployment rate doesn’t drop drastically, it’ll be largely because of the (accurate) perception that his administration de-emphasized the jobs issue and spent too much time on things most people don’t care about, like deficits. (The deficit obsession even extended to the health care law, which delayed implementation – and therefore delayed bringing benefits that most people would actually enjoy – so it could appear deficit-neutral.) Most Republicans have focused on their own obsessions, usually high-end tax rates. But Romney has been hitting the “where are the jobs?” message pretty hard, and the ad he released yesterday is a very effective one because it plays on the perception that Obama is out of touch with the most important issue:

Romney is no populist, but then nobody in the race is a populist. But he seems to have noticed that there’s an opening for a candidate with a simple, effective strategy: run on the issue normal people care about more than Washington insiders do. Even if he has no plan to make things better, just acknowledging the importance of the employment issue gives him a leg up over the other candidates and, I think, over Obama.

Standing firm in Afghanistan

By Michael Petrou - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 10:30 AM - 0 Comments

CPL Tina Gillies/DND/MDN

The staccato chattering sound of machine-gun fire drifts over Canada’s forward operating base at Masum Ghar in Afghanistan’s Panjwaii district shortly after dusk. The prolonged bursts are answered by other angry shots until, after a couple of minutes, the echoes fade away and silence returns. “That’s probably Wilson killing somebody,” says a soldier relaxing on a makeshift bench outside the metal shipping containers where many of them sleep on stacked bunks. Wilson is an American patrol base a few kilometres north of Masum Ghar, across the Arghandab River in Zhari district.

At dawn, from the same direction, the muffled crunch of a distant explosion sends a mushrooming plume of dust skyward above the green cultivated fields and rough mud compounds that spread from Masum Ghar beyond the river. It might have been an improvised explosive device, discovered and intentionally triggered, or perhaps something deadlier. No gunfire follows the blast, only birdsong and the puttering hum of a man coaxing a motorbike along a rutted dirt path.

“It’s the Americans at Wilson,” says another soldier. “They get more contact than we do. It’s closer to the highway, and now, with the prison break, there are 400 more Taliban there.”

Continue…

Now I want to be an…editor

By Cynthia Reynolds - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

Korotayev Artyom/ITAR-TASS Photo/Corbis

Anna Chapman, the New York social climber turned spy babe turned Russian It Girl, has reinvented herself yet again. The 29-year-old beauty has been appointed editor-in-chief of the Russian magazine Venture Business News, tasked with promoting the country’s next generation of entrepreneurs. “I am sure that my knowledge and international experience in the venture capital business will come in handy,” she wrote to her readers, alluding to the online real estate company she ran in New York until last June, when she was busted for spying along with nine other suspected Russian agents operating in the U.S.

Chapman’s ability to use her infamy as a springboard into career opportunities has ignited comparisons to another self-promoter, Paris Hilton. In addition to her new position, Chapman—who holds a master’s in economics—hosts a reality show, is a creative consultant for a Moscow-based bank, and has patented her name for potential lines of clothing, perfume and vodka. She’s appeared on the cover of Russian Maxim, launched an online poker app and rubs elbows with Vladimir Putin. Next? Chapman is expected to run for parliament. Continue…

The trouble with city bats

By Kate Lunau - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 10:10 AM - 0 Comments

In flat and treeless Alberta, little brown bats flock to the big city—Calgary—where tall buildings and bridges provide ample space to roost, says Joanna Coleman, who recently completed her Ph.D. in biological sciences at the University of Calgary. But that doesn’t necessarily mean city bats are in good health, in spite of Coleman’s expectation that, if urbanization were to benefit bats anywhere, it would be in the Prairies. In a new study—the first to look at the urban life of Prairie bats—she actually found that city life might not benefit bats after all.

Coleman looked at 1,600 little brown bats, working in three different zones in and around Calgary: urban, rural, and a “transition zone.” Bats were captured in fine nets, weighed, measured—in the case of females, researchers checked whether the bat was lactating—and then released. “I was very uncomfortable with them at first,” says Coleman. In her previous work as a veterinary technician, “I’d handled all kinds of critters, but bats are very fragile,” she says. Up close, she adds, they’re also “extremely cute.”

Coleman caught the most bats in the city, but found these bats weren’t actually healthier than their country counterparts (those in the “transition zone,” she says, appeared to be in the best shape). Why bats don’t flourish in the city isn’t clear, but it could be because they’re facing more competition for food, or even urban annoyances like street lights. Even so, “I wouldn’t necessarily try to improve the urban habitat for bats,” she says, “until we understand why the city isn’t so great for them.” Now teaching biology at the University of Calgary’s campus in Doha, Qatar, Coleman admits she’s been scouring the desert city for any sign of bats—with no luck. “I walk around with my head up.”

The incomparable Kate Bush

By Elio Iannacci - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 10:10 AM - 1 Comment

Kate Bush wishes people would stop “prattling on” about divas. “I don’t understand why so many are against a ‘diva,’ ” the 52-year-old singer says via phone from her island estate, located in the thick of the Thames River near Reading, just west of London. “I think it equals mastery. If a woman is given this title, you know there is some serious work going down in her life.”

It’s apropos that Bush would be an advocate for the classic, operatic sense of the d-word, as few pop stars today are as cerebral about making music as she is. The English singer-songwriter is as notorious for making her fan base wait for new material (she’s released only one album of original material in 17 years) as she is for not talking to the media. To further put things into perspective, her latest disc, Director’s Cut—which reworks songs from past albums The Sensual World and The Red Shoes—is an encyclopedia of literary and cinematic references. In fact, the most intriguing cut on the just-released Director’s Cut—a song called Flower of the Mountain—has great history. Taking nearly 25 years to record the song “properly” (a past version was used as the title track to 1989’s The Sensual World), Bush has completely rewritten the track’s verses and choruses for the new CD.

“My original idea for the lyrics to Flower of the Mountain was to use text from James Joyce’s Ulysses and have it be the base of the song,” says Bush. “In the late ’80s, I approached the Joyce estate for permission to use the book and I was refused. When it came to starting up Director’s Cut, I thought I just had to go and ask again. I was enormously surprised that they said yes! The original is okay, but releasing it [in 1989] always felt like a bit of a compromise to me, really.”

Continue…

The women shortage

By Brian Bethune - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 10:05 AM - 4 Comments

Photography by Steve Simon

FLUENT IN CHINESE and Spanish, Mara Hvistendahl is a Beijing-based correspondent for Science magazine and a former journalism professor at Fudan University in Shanghai. She is the author of Unnatural Selection, about how and why rampant sex-selective abortion in Asia is skewing the entire world’s gender balance.

Q: The natural sex ratio at birth, resulting in equal numbers of men and women, is 105 males to 100 females. But in Asia, that ratio has been skewed for a generation, and demographers calculate there are now over 163 million women “missing” from the continent’s population. Which countries have been most affected?

A: The areas most affected are eastern China and northwest India—the most developed parts of those nations—as well as South Korea, Taiwan and northern Vietnam. The important thing is that it’s beginning to appear in other parts of India and China.

Continue…

Less white, less old, less male

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 10:02 AM - 14 Comments

Alison Loat considers the 41st Parliament’s diversity.

Furthermore, Canadians also elected a higher number of women and visible minorities than in the previous Parliament. There are 76 female MPs – the most in history — meaning women are roughly a quarter of Parliament. Much of this is thanks to the NDP, whose caucus is 39 per cent female (the Liberals is 18 per cent and the Conservatives’ 17 per cent).

This Parliament is also home to a record number of visible minority MPs, with 29 or just over 9 per cent of Parliament. Again, the NDP is behind this increase, with nearly double the number of visible minority MPs than the other two national parties.

Toronto's war on fun

By Andrew Potter - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 9:35 AM - 36 Comments

Jessica Darmanin

You can interpret a city’s ambitions by the face it presents to the world. When it comes to Toronto, its streets fretted with bars called Harlem and Brooklynn, the skyline spiked by condo developments with names like The Manhattan, and the Legoland imitation Times Square installed at the corner of Yonge and Dundas, it is clear that the city wants to be New York. Which is funny, because there are few large cities in the world that are less like New York than Toronto. Where New York is dense and chaotic, Toronto is sprawling and orderly. New York has endless canyons of stunning architecture, while Toronto’s flat streetscapes look like they were designed by blindfolded six-year-olds. And while New York is resolutely devoted to upholding its rep as the city that never sleeps, Toronto wages a relentless war on fun.

Let’s start with an old favourite, the municipal ban on ball hockey on city streets. Every Canadian kid plays street hockey, but only in Toronto is it a furtive activity, occurring under the reproachful gaze of signs declaring “Ball and Hockey Playing Prohibited.” Defenders of the bylaw argue it is harmless because it is so seldom enforced, and that trying to get rid of it might cause more problems than it solves. But that misses the crucial point, which is that it is a fundamental principle of a free society that what is not explicitly prohibited is permitted. A city that feels the need to prohibit many things is one that deep down does not trust the citizens with their freedom.

It isn’t only homegrown pastimes the city finds objectionable. Last summer, Toronto became one of the few jurisdictions on Earth—along with the Taliban regime that terrorized Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001—to prohibit kite flying in a park. The ban was a response to complaints about debris left from kite-fighting competitions held by members of the city’s Afghan and South Asian communities­—the leftover string was apparently disrupting lawn mowing and fouling trees, and there were concerns that some of it was embedded with glass shards that could endanger birds. A year later, city officials are trying to come up with a compromise. Part of the proposed solution involves a prohibition on “competitive kite flying in parks that have significant bird activity,” though the definition of “significant” remains unresolved. At any rate, it doesn’t appear to concern anyone that the freedom to fly a kite without being harassed by petty little officials was one of the reasons many of these people moved their families thousands of kilometres away from their homelands in the first place.

Continue…

The most famous Canadian photographer you’ve never heard of

By Jody White - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 9:02 AM - 6 Comments

Photograph by Simon Bell

Wandering through George Hunter’s Mississauga, Ont., studio, one gets the distinct impression of flipping through Canada’s scrapbook. Portraits of smiling Inuit huddling in igloos, steely-eyed miners, and fleet-footed draveurs prying open log jams adorn every inch of available wall space. Anyone who grew up in Canada in the 70s and 80s has probably seen at least one George Hunter photograph. His images have appeared on currency, stamps and in textbooks and galleries across the country.

Photographers get a raw deal in Canada, where they’re just barely more famous than poets. Apart from the late Karsh brothers or Ed Burtynsky (of Manufactured Landscapes fame), the average Canadian would have a hard time naming a top photographer. Despite his extensive body of work, Hunter is as inconspicuous as they come. Continue…

'This government is not going to be interested in user fees'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 9:01 AM - 10 Comments

Having both raised and dismissed the possibility of new user fees last week, Industry Minister Tony Clement confirmed to reporters yesterday his government’s disinterest.

We’re not really looking at user fees … We don’t see that as part of – I mean, look, you look at everything but the reality is this government is not going to be interested in user fees as the way to to balance the budget … we don’t think that taxpayers should be taxed more or should be user-feed to death.  There’s lots of way that we can get to balanced budget without – without additional user fees on Canadians.

The Commons: The anachronistic idea of accountability

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, June 13, 2011 at 6:38 PM - 39 Comments

The Scene. “I think we always answer the questions to the best of everybody’s ability at the time,” Government House leader Peter Van Loan explained to reporters one day last week, “with the information they have on hand and I think that hopefully if the tone continues we’ll see more and more clarity.”

It is on this basis, one assumes, that it was decided it would be to the best of everybody’s abilities at this time for Tony Clement to remain seated and say nothing more to the House about this business of the G8 Legacy Fund. Presumably this decision was finalized soon after Mr. Clement peaked out from behind John Baird at a news conference last Thursday to suggest that the process by which the government of the day receives the consent of the people’s representatives to spend public funds is “anachronistic” and that this somehow explains why he and a half-dozen small town mayors were compelled to divvy up money authorized for the Border Infrastructure Fund to build gazebos and public toilets in Muskoka.

A year ago Mr. Clement was only too proud to tout his government’s capacity for publicly funded trinkets and landscaping, but so as to avoid any more incidents of polysyllabic rumination, the government has delegated all House comment to John Baird. Officially, because it was he who ultimately had to sign off on Mr. Clement’s gazebo selection. Unofficially, one presumes, because no one can dance a rhetorical jig quite like the current Foreign Affairs Minister. Continue…

Do you support the extension of Canada's military mission in Libya?

By macleans.ca - Monday, June 13, 2011 at 6:10 PM - 20 Comments

Can Romney win?

By John Parisella - Monday, June 13, 2011 at 4:54 PM - 8 Comments

Shortly after Mitt Romney’s official announcement he would run for the Republican nomination for 2012, some polls put the government in a very competitive race against Barack Obama for the White House. One survey showed Romney leading, and most others paint him as a serious challenger to Obama. Romney also has a solid lead over his fellow Republican aspirants.

From the outset, many Republican veterans have given Romney the advantage based on the decades-old tradition of choosing the runner-up from the previous race. Romney is far from a sure bet, but he is experienced and has some serious financial backing. Moreover, the rest of the field is weak by comparison at this stage in the race.

The race is only beginning and potential new candidates, such as former ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, Michelle Bachmann, and, less likely, Sarah Palin, are bound to surface and make this race more unpredictable and more competitive. Continue…

Cigarette exposure can hook preteens on nicotine

By macleans.ca - Monday, June 13, 2011 at 3:37 PM - 10 Comments

Non-smoking preteens who are exposed to secondhand smoke may exhibit symptoms of nicotine dependence, according to a new study from Concordia University and the University of Montreal. Tweens who often observe a parent, sibling, friend or neighbour smoking cigarettes are more likely to smoke as adolescents, because they don’t perceive the habit as unhealthy. This is one of the first studies showing that increased exposure to secondhand smoke leads youth who have never smoked previously to report symptoms of nicotine dependence, like craving cigarettes and finding it hard to go without them.

EurekAlert.org

Update on Cindor Reeves

By Michael Petrou - Monday, June 13, 2011 at 2:29 PM - 6 Comments

Cindor Reeves, the Canadian refugee claimant who risked his life to help build the legal case against his brother-in-law, the former Liberian warlord and president Charles Taylor, has received a removal order from the Canada Border Services Agency and may shortly be deported.  Continue…

Christchurch hit by earthquakes once again

By macleans.ca - Monday, June 13, 2011 at 2:24 PM - 0 Comments

Four months after an earthquake killed 181 people in New Zealand, 5 tremors hit the country again June 13th, destroying infrastructure, cutting power lines, and injuring 10 people in the city of Christchurch. The national dollar has dropped since the quakes, making plans to rebuild the city—New Zealand’s second largest—ever more dubious. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand is expected to keep interest rates stagnant until further notice. Weather experts anticipate that multiple aftershocks with magnitudes in the 4.0 to 5.0 ranges will strike the country in the near future. The city’s tallest building, the Grand Chancellor Hotel, has been deemed unstable and will be demolished shortly; a necessary precaution in a place prone to devastating seismic activity.

Reuters

UofA med school dean admits to copying speech

By macleans.ca - Monday, June 13, 2011 at 2:07 PM - 3 Comments

The dean of the University of Alberta’s medical school is apologizing after students caught him plagiarizing a speech to the graduating class at the convocation banquet on Friday night. Students were apparently quick to notice the similarities between Dean Philip Baker’s speech and a medical school graduation address delivered by Dr. Atul Gawande at Stanford University in 2010. One attendee said his brother used his smartphone to find a copy of the original and was following along as Baker delivered the address. In an apology letter released Sunday, Baker admitted Gawande’s words “inspired me and resonated with my experiences,” adding “`I hope you accept my heartfelt apology and although you may not be proud of me as the dean of your school, please know that I am very proud of all of you.” The students, however, aren’t exactly eager to forgive him. “It was a blatant word for word copy,” said attendee Amy Christianson. “I just graduated with my PhD and if I did something like that, I would be expelled.”

Calgary Herald

Canadian calls the shots in Libya

By macleans.ca - Monday, June 13, 2011 at 2:01 PM - 0 Comments

A Canadian is at the head of NATO’s Naples-based regional command, leading the alliance’s most difficult campaign yet in Libya. Gen. Charles Bouchard, a helicopter pilot from Chicoutimi, Que., is responsible for approving every target in the complex air and sea battle. It’s a job that can get tricky when dealing with the fine balance between the pursuit of victory and political considerations. He rejects criticism circulating that the nearly two-month-old mission has lost momentum, though he won’t reveal NATO’s future campaign plans. “I do not accept that this is a stalemate,” he says.

The Globe and Mail

Hashtag history

By Erica Alini - Monday, June 13, 2011 at 1:41 PM - 5 Comments

Via the New York Times style section, Jack Layton officially takes his place in Twitter history.

Hashtags, words or phrases preceded by the # symbol, have been popularized on Twitter as a way for users to organize and search messages. So, for instance, people tweeting about Representative Anthony D. Weiner might add the hashtag #Weinergate to their messages, and those curious about the latest developments in the scandal could simply search for #Weinergate. Or Justin Bieber fans might use #Bieber to find fellow Beliebers. But already, hashtags have transcended the 140-characters-or-less microblogging platform, and have become a new cultural shorthand, finding their way into chat windows, e-mail and face-to-face conversations.

This year on Super Bowl Sunday, Audi broadcast a new commercial featuring a hashtag, #ProgressIs, that flashed on the screen and urged viewers to complete the “Progress Is” prompt on Twitter for the chance to win a prize. Then, in Canada’s English-language federal election debate in April, Jack Layton, the leader of the New Democratic Party, set the Canadian Twitterverse aflame when he attacked Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s crime policies, calling them “a hashtag fail.”

War of words escalates between Canada Post and CUPW

By macleans.ca - Monday, June 13, 2011 at 1:20 PM - 32 Comments

The rotating strikes by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers have cost Canada Post about $65 million in revenue so far, according to a spokesman for the Crown corporation. Jon Hamilton warned union members on Monday that their job action may be accelerating the decline of Canada Post by pushing prospective and existing customers to look elsewhere for mail service. Earlier Monday morning, union president Denis Lemelin accused Canada Post of trying to provoke a general strike by cutting back mail service to three days a week, which Lemelin described as a “partial lock-out.” Lemelin also disputed Hamilton’s claims about the impact of the strike, saying the work stoppages don’t affect more than 30 per cent of the country on any given day.

Canadian Press