War crimes suspect arrested in Toronto

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 2:31 PM - 1 Comment

A third war crimes suspect has been arrested less than a week after the federal government launched a most-wanted-style website aimed at ferreting out abusers who may have entered the country illegally. Manuel De La Torre Herrara came to Canada from Peru in 2000 and was ordered deported in 2004. He was arrested in Toronto this week, said Public Safety Minister Vic Toews. Some have criticized Ottawa’s war-crime crackdown, arguing that it erodes the presumption of innocence. The government revealed a list of 30 war crimes suspects last week and asked for anyone with information on any of the accused to come forward.

CBC News

Jack Layton on the prayers sent his way

By John Geddes - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 1:38 PM - 4 Comments

The sight of Jack Layton, so thin, telling the country yesterday that he is again struggling with cancer, and, even more, the sound of his voice, so changed, will have many sympathetic Canadians feeling the urge to somehow express their best hopes for his recovery. But how?

I’m pretty sure Layton wouldn’t say no to some prayers. Early last month, when I interviewed the NDP leader for this profile, he talked about prayer in recounting what he experienced after he held a news conference on Feb. 5, 2010, with his wife, Olivia Chow, to announce that he had prostate cancer.

“When Olivia and I made the announcement,” Layton said, “I came home that night and I said, ‘I don’t know what I’m feeling here. I shouldn’t be feeling like I’m feeling. I’m feeling almost like a joyful feeling.’”

Continue…

Plan for the worst

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 12:59 PM - 25 Comments

Peter Devries says if Jim Flaherty is really worried about European and American debt, he needs to budget for it.

Good budget planning would include an adequate amount of “insurance” or “prudence” to guard against unforeseen events and inevitable forecasting errors. The purpose of the “insurance” is to protect the fiscal targets as much as possible and to give confidence to financial markets and stakeholders that the targets might actually be achieved. This enhances the credibility of the fiscal plan…

The Minister of Finance has expressed his concern about the debt crisis in Europe and the serious fiscal imbalance in the U.S. Despite the evidence that economic growth is slowing in the U.S., and that interest rates will not only rise in coming years but also be more volatile, he has a built a budget framework that offers very little protection against adverse international developments.

Galea’s assistant gets probation

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 12:15 PM - 0 Comments

Mary Anne Catalano, an assistant to convicted Canadian sports doctor Anthony Galea, has admitted to smuggling drugs and equipment over the U.S. border. As part of a plea bargain, Catalano was sentenced to one year of probation. She also cooperated with the prosecution, helping bring down the man she once described as a mentor. Galea has been accused of providing human-growth hormone and other unapproved or mislabeled drugs to star professional athletes. His clients have included Tiger Woods, Alex Rodriguez and the NFL’s Jamal Lewis. Galea pleaded guilty to bringing unapproved drugs into the U.S. earlier in July.

National Post

Loonie climbs as greenback falters

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 12:13 PM - 0 Comments

The Canadian dollar hit a three-year high Tuesday, climbing over 106 cents U.S. as worries over debt ceiling negotiations continued to plague the greenback. U.S. Lawmakers have so far failed to reach a deal to extend that country’s $14.3 trillion debt limit. They have until August 2 to come up with an agreement or the U.S. may default on loan obligations. The loonie reached 106.24 cents US, up 0.51 of a cent, in early trading Tuesday, it’s highest level since November 2007.

Canadian Press

78 people killed in Moroccan military aircraft crash

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 12:11 PM - 0 Comments

Seventy-eight people have been killed and 3 severely wounded, in a Moroccan military aircraft crash Tuesday, the BBC reports. The plane took off from Dakhla in the Western Sahara, and was on its way to Kinitra in Northern Morocco, when a local resident says a thick fog caused it to crash into a mountain. The plane was attempting to make a scheduled stop at a military base when it went down. Forty-two bodies have been found so far, while a search party persists for the others.

BBC News

UN gives $13.8 million to aid Kenyan drought victims

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 11:54 AM - 0 Comments

The United Nations has taken $13.8 million from its emergency fund to relieve millions of Kenyan people starving amid the region’s worst drought since the 1950s, Bloomberg Businessweek reports. On Tuesday the UN’s humanitarian coordinator told the press that “up to 3.5 million people will need food assistance in the coming months”. Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki officially declared the drought a national disaster, and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization says the country will need $1.6 billion of aid in the next six months. 385,000 children are currently malnourished, and 90,000 pregnant or lactating mothers are at risk of malnutrition. The Kenyan government and the UN World Food Programme are working together to establish a mobile health unit that will ensure health centres are adequately equipped with drugs and medical equipment.

Bloomberg Businessweek

Maid in Manhattan Redux: DSKNY

By Emma Teitel - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 11:51 AM - 7 Comments

Italian law once held that a woman wearing jeans couldn’t be raped because removing such form-fitting trousers must require “collaboration and consent” (the law was scrapped in 2005 amid feminist backlash and possibly the advent of Jeggings). It’s now 1102—excuse me—2011—and France has a similar edict: a woman cannot be raped by a powerful man. Or more specifically, Roman Polanski couldn’t rape a thirteen-year-old girl (1977), a member of the Qatari royal family’s entourage couldn’t rape a Paris hotel maid (2010), and Dominique Strauss-Kahn can’t rape anyone at all (ever.) Strauss-Kahn is of course, the former chief of the International Monetary Fund, who resigned this past May when he was charged with allegedly raping a chambermaid in the Sofitel NYC hotel. He was released from custody because of inconsistencies in his accuser’s story, and it appeared the case had crumbled before it began.

But this week brought another bombshell: DSK’s previously anonymous accuser gave her name (Nafissatou Diallo) in an attempt to clear it, appearing on television for the first time since the allegations were made against him. This new development appears to have revived the case. But whether DSK is guilty or not seems irrelevant, because what the French political elite has so clearly expressed these past months—barring a few decent citizens with de Beauvoir hangovers—is that no matter the shifting burden of proof, important people who touch without asking are untouchable themselves. The loi stops for superstars. Or as French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy put it so heart-warmingly in The Daily Beast, following his BFF’s arrest,

“…the Strauss-Kahn I know, who has been my friend for 20 years and who will remain my friend, bears no resemblance to this monster, this caveman, this insatiable and malevolent beast now being described nearly everywhere. Charming, seductive, yes, certainly; a friend to women and, first of all, to his own woman, naturally, but this brutal and violent individual, this wild animal, this primate, obviously no, it’s absurd. I hold it against the American judge who [delivered] him to the crowd of photo hounds…”

Unfortunately for Levy, DSK was likened to a primate long before his New York perp walk. On a Paris television show in 2007, a young journalist named Tristane Banon (the goddaughter of his second wife no less) called Strauss-Kahn a “rutting chimpanzee”, alleging that he tried to rape her five years before. Not surprisingly, DSK’s supporters maintain that Banon’s current charge against him is the opportunistic ploy of a serial attention-seeker, but her back-story, combined with many recent claims of the man’s habitual boorishness (one French publication had a running joke about sending young female reporters to interview him in private) make this highly unlikely.

What is likely is this: DSK is an enormous low-life, and the French don’t care. Since Diallo’s allegations surfaced and the case against him unraveled, his popularity has increased 5% in France; and the occasional murmur about a ‘turning point for women’s rights’ was overshadowed by the French media’s blatant support for him—not to mention the Socialist party’s hope that he’d run against Sarkozy in next year’s election. Most cynical of all though, is the apparent conclusion that DSK’s release amounts to an exoneration; that he isn’t a “rutting chimpanzee”, but one of the falsely accused. DSK, though, is no Dreyfus.

Strauss-Kahn’s semen was found on his accuser’s dress, and Sofitel reception staff witnessed him checking out in haste, with toothpaste around his mouth. His accuser was bruised and suffered torn ligaments; according to Reuters, authorities collected “circumstantial and forensic evidence which ‘strongly suggested something other than a consensual’ sexual encounter between the maid and Strauss-Kahn.” The contradictions in Diallo’s story and lies from her past weakened the legal strength of the physical evidence enough to prompt the District Attorney’s office to back down—not the legitimacy of the physical evidence, which was irrefutable. The trial isn’t stillborn because there’s no case to be made, but because the prosecution doesn’t think it can win it. DSK’s culpability, however, is a whole different ball game. “Not guilty doesn’t mean innocent”, NYC women’s rights attorney Jack Tuckner says. “I don’t know enough to know for sure, but my experience leads me to say that with this type of evidence, where there’s this kind of smoke, there’s usually fire.”

But this story is no longer about DSK’s smoke and fire; it’s about the smoke and mirrors of the supposedly superior, infinitely more sophisticated French attitude toward all things sexual. One neat bit of sophistry has been the French media’s rush to conflate the DSK allegations and the Clinton scandal. The argument goes like this: “France doesn’t care about its politicians’ sex lives the way the Americans do”. But while it’s one thing to look down your nose at America’s ‘accusatory’ justice system, it’s another thing entirely to brush off alleged rape—or at least a gross abuse of power—with a ‘(big) boys will be boys’ attitude. There’s a difference between a sex scandal and a sex crime. The former makes you a bad husband—the latter, a bad person. Electing an adulterer is not the same thing as electing a predator.

One nice thing about the DSK fallout is the fact that his perviness toward women has finally put one in his place (Christine Lagarde, newly appointed head of the IMF). And it’s a place Nafissatou Diallo hopes he never occupies again: “I want justice,” she told ABC News this week. “I want him to go to jail. I want him to know that there is some places you cannot use your money, you cannot use your power when you do something like this”.

French analyst Anne-Elisabeth Moutet doesn’t entirely agree: “The American way of doing things would be, I am so sorry about this, I have a problem, I’m seeking therapy…But the French do not apologize. In this country, we have an ancient Roman attitude—you admit to a weakness and you’re down.”

We have an attitude in this part of the world too: When you ejaculate onto a chambermaid and flee the scene with toothpaste dripping from your jowls, chances are you’re down already.

Rebels say Gadhafi could stay in Libya

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 11:36 AM - 3 Comments

Libyan rebels said Monday that Moammar Gadhafi could remain in Libya if he steps down, even though the head of state’s departure from the country has long been a condition for ending the five-month civil war. Libyan opposition leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil’s announcement came as British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Gadhafi could stay if he resigns. Last week, France made a similar proposal. War erupted after a rebellion against Gadhafi’s long-time rule broke out in February. The Libyan government and rebels have made little movement in recent weeks, despite a NATO bombing campaign waged against government forces.

Associated Press

Obama, Boehner spar over debt crisis

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 11:31 AM - 0 Comments

U.S. President Barack Obama called for a compromise over the nation’s debt crisis in a primetime speech Monday night. Congress has been at odds on legislation to avoid a default, which will be triggered if legislation isn’t signed by August 2 to raise the debt ceiling. Obama said a Republican plan would only result in another debt emergency in six months’ time. The president has supported tax increases for the rich and spending cuts to reduce federal deficits. House Speaker John Boehner retaliated immediately following Obama’s speech with his own televised address, calling the “crisis atmosphere” the president’s fault and that the White House’s plan amounts to a giant tax hike.

CBC News

Federal agency handed four contracts without fair competition

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 11:27 AM - 1 Comment

The Public Service Commission of Canada cooked four employment contracts to make sure favoured workers got the jobs, according to a report released Monday by Ottawa’s procurement ombudsman. The four sole-source contract jobs were potentially worth as much as $80,000 over four years, The Globe and Mail reports. After a 16-month investigation, the government procurement ombudsman, Frank Brunetta, found that four people were hired by the Public Service Commission without there being proper external competition for the available jobs. The applicants had each already been given at least two contracts with the commission. Brunetta said the Public Service Commission “favoured existing contractors by tailoring requirements, all of which limited fair and open competition for other potential suppliers.”

The Globe and Mail

REVIEW: Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way

By Brian Bethune - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 11:15 AM - 3 Comments

One of the world’s best-known travel and adventure writers, Krakauer (Into Thin Air) was once an enthusiastic supporter of Mortenson, to the extent of donating $75,000 to the latter’s Central Asia Institute, dedicated to building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In that he was not alone: Barack Obama gave $100,000 of his 2009 Nobel Prize earnings to CAI; since 2006, total donations have topped $50 million. Krakauer’s subsequent disillusionment is not with Mortenson’s cause of improving life in one of the most poverty-stricken areas of the globe: all royalties from Three Cups of Deceit are going to another charity active there, the “Stop Girl Trafficking” project of the American Himalayan Foundation. Rather, he is troubled by the seat-of-the-pants way (at best) Mortenson has run CAI—marked by the resignations of financial officers unable to collect proper receipts from its founder—and, perhaps even more, by Mortenson’s backstory.

According to Krakauer, Mortenson’s explanation of how he came to devote his life to school-building—the version set out in his bestselling Three Cups of Tea, the story that brings First World audiences to their feet and millions to CAI—was a myth. According to Three Cups of Deceit, Mortenson did not, as he claims, take a wrong turn after a failed 1993 attempt to climb K2, the world’s second-highest peak; he didn’t end up in a Pakistani village called Korphe, where he was cared for with open-hearted kindness; he didn’t, before he left, promise to build the village a school; he wasn’t (later) kidnapped and held by the Taliban for eight days.

Putting aside Krakauer’s serious allegations about Mortenson’s financial stewardship, does the mythic nature of his story matter? For Krakauer, a ferocious stickler for facts even when they keep a narrative bumpy and ambiguous, there’s no question it does. Among many of Mortenson’s admirers, however, appreciative of the good he has done, the answer seems to be no. For a slim, 75-page J’accuse, Three Cups of Deceit is remarkably thought-provoking.

REVIEW: The Way of Baseball: Finding Stillness at 95 mph

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 11:10 AM - 0 Comments

Shawn Green became a much better hitter after he started hitting a lot of balls at a practice tee. But it wasn’t the practice that mattered. The former Toronto Blue Jays player tells us he blossomed into an all-star after he developed a kind of mystical relationship to his tee work: it “became an object worthy of contemplation.” His fascination with the practice swinging allowed him to become a power hitter despite his skinny build. Later on, after an off year with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Green used another practice device, a contraption called “The Dinger,” to “recapture stillness and presence.”

The argument Green sometimes seems to be making is that hitting isn’t a matter of pure athletic ability or park conditions—it’s all about being at one with yourself. “I played the game from a deeper place than ever before,” he says of the 2001 season in which he hit a career high in home runs, and “as a result, my statistics improved and everyone loved me.” The message of the steroid era—which isn’t a major presence in this book—was that success in baseball goes to the biggest and strongest. Green’s story is a more pleasant one about statistical success going to people who are at peace with themselves.

Green can’t always make this argument successfully, in part because so many of the things he describes, including his statistical ups and downs, are standard for every player’s career. And his attempts to explain everything in a quasi-mystical way lead him to some odd conclusions: when he learns that all his tee practice has caused him to sustain an injury, he decides this was “the tee presenting me with yet another important lesson” about keeping the right balance between self-worth and self-deprecation. Or maybe he just swung the bat too many times and got hurt.

Enjoying the good life

By Cynthia Reynolds - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 11:05 AM - 1 Comment

While the return of Jean-Claude Duvalier to Haiti after 25 years in exile has generated ongoing calls for his prosecution—including a UN proposal earlier this month for a Truth Commission to investigate the human rights crimes he’s accused of overseeing during his brutal 1971-1986 rule—the former dictator known as Baby Doc continues to live in freedom. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon, as another round of political crises, deadly disease and scandal involving aid organizations pulls attention away from the 59-year-old, who, by all accounts, has had a pretty good year.

It’s suspected that before fleeing to France in 1986 following popular uprisings against him, Duvalier—who inherited the presidency at age 19 upon the death of his father “Papa Doc”—had looted $300 million in public funds. That made for a first-class exile, until he squandered the money on extravagant shopping sprees, luxury cars and a colossally expensive divorce. Before arriving back in Haiti on Jan. 16, Duvalier, reportedly broke, had been living in a one-bedroom Paris apartment.

Typically, most don’t go to Haiti in search of the good life, but his well-heeled network of supporters has boosted him back into it. He’s been spotted socializing with power players and dining at upscale restaurants. He’s said to frequently entertain visitors—staying in a mansion in the hills far above the wreckage of Port-au-Prince.

Continue…

Long forgotten

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 11:01 AM - 6 Comments

Christopher Moore reviews John Ralston Saul’s Lafontaine & Baldwin.

On this central question of parliamentary accountability, we today live once again in something like pre-1848 conditions. What Canadian party leader ever cedes power because his or her caucus is changing its mind? Today we accept that any party leader who wins a majority has, not constant accountability, but a four-year free hand, during which any caucus member who doubts or disagrees will be put out of caucus and probably out of politics. We have replaced LaFontaine and Baldwin’s hard-won achievement of leadership accountability with the perverse idea that legislators are once more accountable to leaders, rather than the other way around…

When the country doesn’t take parliamentary accountability seriously, that is, we should not be surprised that our historians do not trouble themselves to write about its origins. Why should we take the events of 1848 seriously when everything about our politics suggests we have actually regressed to a lower standard of parliamentary practice?

Mitchel Raphael on the ‘Hurricane’ MP and Layton’s makeup secrets

By Mitchel Raphael - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 4 Comments

Mitchel Raphael

When politicians don’t want to shine

NDP Leader Jack Layton has switched his brand of TV makeup from MAC to Cover FX. The effects have been so good that his assistant, who until recently did Layton’s makeup for him, has switched to the line herself. Better coverage and less shine were the main selling points. The plus side for the NDP is the fact that Cover FX is a Canadian company and one of the few camouflage makeup lines approved by PETA. Cover FX was developed first at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital to help burn victims and those with severe skin disorders. Now celebrities such as Angelina Jolie have adopted the line (she’s said to use it to cover her tattoos). Stephen Harper, according to a PMO staffer, uses MAC foundation; former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff also used MAC. Current Liberal interim Leader Bob Rae’s makeup tips remain a state secret.

A summer of guns and Grisham

In the summer, Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner juggles several books. Right now she’s on John Ralston Saul’s Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin; she also intends to read John Grisham’s latest. Part of her summer is being taken up responding to letters of support for her private member’s bill to scrap the long-gun registry, which was defeated while the Conservatives had a minority. Before the summer break, Hoeppner was made parliamentary secretary to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, which many saw as a nod to her performance on the long-gun registry issue. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird called her “Hurricane Candice” because of the storm she whipped up when she went to town hall meetings. Hoeppner is still getting pressure from groups who want to see even less gun regulation. However, she anticipates that the government bill to scrap the long-gun registry will be pretty close, if not identical to, her private member’s bill, which had the support of some NDP MPs. This time around, she says, it will be interesting to see which NDPers still vote in favour of scrapping the registry. NDP MPs Malcolm Allen and Glenn Thibeault, who had been in favour of scrapping the registry and then changed their minds during the last session of Parliament and the final vote that killed Hoeppner’s bill, said their votes to keep it had minimal effects on them in the last election.

Continue…

A cop car towed and a granny robbed

By Emma Teitel - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

Prince Edward Island: A 45-year-old French Village farmer has been charged with obstructing an officer, uttering threats, assault with a weapon and mischief under $5,000. RCMP detained the farmer after he towed the local sheriff’s car off his property with a tractor. The sheriff was there to seize the farmer’s property; he maintains the warrant was not lawful.

Nova Scotia: A Halifax man has been charged with five criminal offences including breaking and entering, larceny and possession of stolen goods. The 39-year-old had been on the run for a year when Halifax police dogs tracked his scent to Country Club Road. He was carrying two white bags—alleged spoils from a recent robbery.

Ontario: A 46-year-old Toronto caregiver has been charged with 12 counts of fraud for stealing $100,000 from the elderly woman she was hired to look after. Police say the caregiver filled out cheques in her own name, then had the 87-year-old woman sign them. The caregiver was arrested when the victim’s family noticed large sums of money missing from her bank account.

Continue…

Norwegian police to release names of attack victims

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 10:57 AM - 0 Comments

Norwegian police are preparing to release the names of the 76 people killed in last week’s attacks. A spokesman said that once the victims’ families have been notified, their names, ages and addresses will be posted on the national police website at 6 p.m. local time Tuesday. Anders Behring Breivik, 32, has admitted responsibility for the bomb that rocked the political centre in Oslo, and for the shooting rampage at a Labour Party youth camp at Utøya. Breivik’s lawyer, Geir Lippestad, described Breivik as a “very cold person” and told reporters he is probably insane. He added that Breivik believes he is a crusader in a war that will rescue Europe from being taken over by Muslims. Breivik’s 1,500-page manifesto, published online shortly before the attacks, also carries some Canadian references. Among them, he mentions what he sees as the relative promiscuity of Canadian women, and details his vision of a “European Federation” with Canada and the U.S. as potential junior partners in a war against Islam.

CBC News

The Toronto Star

Newsmakers: July 14-21

By Nancy MacDonald, Cigdem Iltan, Emma Teitel, Alex Ballingall and Richard Foot - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 10:50 AM - 1 Comment

Kevin Winter/American Idol

He speeds for good deeds

When you imagine the record-holder for the fastest bicycle trip across Canada, you’re probably not picturing somebody’s grandpa. But as of this week, the title belongs to Winnipeg’s Arvid Loewen, proud grandfather of three. The 54-year-old, who has raised more than $1.5 million for Kenyan orphans by cycling, pedalled close to 500 km per day. After 13 days, six hours and 13 minutes, Loewen rolled into downtown Halifax, beating the previous record by more than three hours. In other speeding news this week, David Weber’s attempt to save his unborn baby was rewarded with a huge ticket and a licence suspension. The 32-year-old was driving in rural Manitoba with his wife Genevieve when she went into labour. Complications during her first birth meant natural labour could endanger future babies. Panicked, David hit speeds of up to 170 km/h to get to a hospital. But the RCMP pulled him over twice, earning him $1,000 in fines. “What would have happened if something happened to my wife, or my baby?” David told the Winnipeg Free Press. “It’s like there’s no compassion anymore.” Baby Anabela was born healthy via emergency C-section.

Shaq to work

It was a good week for retired athletes embroiled in controversy. Shaquille O’Neal was absolved of involvement in a titillating story about a group of gangsters who allegedly kidnapped, pistol-whipped and robbed a man claiming to be in possession of a Shaq sex tape. Court officials deemed the big man wasn’t involved in the incident. Shaq also inked a multi-year deal with broadcaster TNT. He’ll join Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Ernie Johnston on the network’s Inside the NBA program. Then there’s former baseball star Roger Clemens. After being charged with lying to Congress about steroid use, the former Yankee had his trial thrown out after the prosecution submitted evidence that violated a pretrial agreement. Judge Reggie Watson said afterwards a “first-year law student” wouldn’t have made the same mistake. Talk about dodging a knock-down pitch.

Continue…

Good news, bad news: July 14-21

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 10:45 AM - 0 Comments

Good news

>

Jo Yong Hak/Reuters

Corruption crackdown

A federal court judge this week granted the Canada Revenue Agency permission to launch a corruption probe in Quebec. It will examine the books of 176 municipalities, looking for irregularities in the $8 billion in contracts awarded each year to the construction industry. The Quebec government has resisted calls for an inquiry into alleged ties between the industry and organized crime. Perhaps tax officials can get to the bottom of what most Quebecers have long said is a deep-rooted problem.

Time for an explanation

A woman who was viciously assaulted by Russell Williams is suing the ex-colonel—and the Ontario Provincial Police—for damages. Laurie Massicotte was tied up, stripped naked and photographed for hours inside her home, less than two weeks after another neighbour endured a similar attack. At the time, authorities had no idea Williams was the culprit, but police have never explained why they chose not to warn the public after the first assault. Massicotte deserves an answer, and her lawsuit should force the OPP to provide one.

Continue…

You are invited to a tax party

By Nancy Macdonald - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 10:45 AM - 40 Comments

Glenn Baglo/PNG

This month, for the first time in B.C. history, every British Columbian has the chance to play finance minister for a day. HST referendum ballots have landed in mailboxes across the province. But not everyone is thrilled with the opportunity. Navigating the complexities of tax policy isn’t easy, and even the referendum question is causing confusion. Voting “no” means you want to retain the HST, which strikes many as counterintuitive. A “yes” vote, meanwhile, is a vote against the new tax. The last poll showed that almost 20 per cent of respondents misunderstood. And that was just the question.

Both sides of the debate—former premier Bill Vander Zalm’s Fight HST campaign, and the government and its allies, calling themselves the Smart Tax Alliance—are fighting hard, deploying TV, print, radio and Internet ads, automated “robo” calls, lawn signs and spin doctors galore in a last-ditch effort to pick up votes. Yet some British Columbians, grown weary of the din, are turning to more trusted sources: their friends, family and colleagues.

Vancouver writer Christine McLaren was so thoroughly confused, she decided to gather her informed friends for a party to try to make sense of the referendum. Despite closely tracking the debate, the self-described news junkie had “no idea” how to vote. A lot of her friends, including her housemates, a shiatsu therapist, and a yoga and meditation teacher, were equally stumped. So the trio invited pals from all walks of life—engineering, finance, the arts, a mix of low- and middle-income families—to their purple house in Strathcona, a gentrifying neighbourhood bordering the Downtown Eastside. By hashing out the arguments, and “picking each’s other’s brains,” McLaren hoped to help make the decision a little less, er, “taxing.”

Continue…

Inside Tim Hortons: Dark, rich and bitter

By Michael Friscolanti - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 6 Comments

Steven E. Frischling/Getty Images

Don Schroeder is in the early days of what his $6-million severance agreement describes as the “quiet period.” For at least the next three years, the ex-president and CEO of Tim Hortons is forbidden from uttering a public word about the closed-door discussions that led to his swift—and still unexplained—exit. He is not permitted to speak to the media. He cannot say or write anything “disparaging, derogatory or defamatory” about the company that canned him. And he has agreed, after consulting with a lawyer, not to sue.

Even during private conversations, Schroeder must choose his words carefully. Clause 17, for example, allows him to share the details of his abrupt dismissal with “immediate family”—but only on the condition that their mouths remain equally shut.

In the meantime, as the 65-year-old settles into his new role as a well-paid (and tight-lipped) Hortons consultant, the full story behind his bizarre firing remains as much of a Bay Street mystery as it did that morning two months ago, when Canada’s favourite coffee shop announced it was suddenly in need of a new boss. “It was the oddest press release I’ve ever seen,” says Brian Yarbrough, an analyst at Edward Jones. “It didn’t say: ‘This gentleman is resigning’ or ‘This gentleman is pursuing other opportunities.’ It was just: ‘He is no longer with the firm.’ We were all sitting here scratching our heads.”

Continue…

A gaunt face and a wry smile

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 1 Comment

Chris Selley takes in Jack Layton’s announcement.

Looking back on the day, my dominant thought is: Wow. So that’s what it’s like to be a high-profile public figure and get cancer. Bad enough your component cells are conspiring to murder you, now you’ve got a pack of hounds dissecting your every utterance and demanding to know your most intimate medical details. It’s awful. And yet, it matters. Mr. Layton and his party matter, far more now than ever before. Canada needs its leader of the opposition. And the NDP doesn’t just need a leader — it needs Mr. Layton…

Nothing any journalist, politician or press flak says will change what happens. But if I had to pick an optimistic moment from the press conference, it would be a wry little smile that crossed Mr. Layton’s face when he spoke, in both English and French, of “replac[ing] the Conservative government, a few short years from now.” Haggard as he appeared, he very much seemed to be imagining himself not as an ill leader of the opposition, but as a fit prime minister. The man’s never wanted for optimism. And he is, after all, on a winning streak.

The Queasy life of independent games

By Peter Nowak - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

While down at Sony’s PlayStation holiday preview event in New York last week, I came across a pleasant surprise. One of the launch titles for the upcoming PlayStation Vita, the portable game system that will succeed the PlayStation Portable by the end of this year, is being developed by Queasy Games, a tiny Toronto startup.

Queasy is the brainchild of Jonathan Mak, a 28-year-old game designer who studied computer science at the University of Toronto. Mak saw his first success a few years ago with Everyday Shooter, which was picked up and offered by Sony as a downloadable game over the PlayStation Network. That led to the upcoming Vita release Sound Shapes, an intriguing idea that marries gaming with music creation.

I wrote about some of the better Vita games last week and also had a chat with Mak about the world of independent games. Here’s an edited version of that conversation:

Q: How did you get into games?

A: My parents started a computer business in the eighties so we always had a computer lying around and my older brothers would be playing video games. Somewhere around grade 7 or 8 I met a friend who taught me how to make programs, how to code. That’s when I started making video games. Back then it was a lot harder to make games because you had to do all this weird computer hackery just to draw a pixel.

I was trying to think of how to break in [to the business], but there was no indie scene or at least I wasn’t aware of it. All I knew about was whatever was in PC Gamer. Someone in the industry told me to go to university, so I did. I don’t know how helpful that was but I did meet a fellow game developer there, they’re now Metanet [creators of the popular game N+]. They were a year or two ahead of me and they showed me the indie scene back then. They started working on N and I thought, hey—maybe I could make a game on my own instead of working for some gigantic company.

When I graduated I took a year off to try to make a game that I could sell and break in [with], but that [Gate 88] didn’t do very well at all. From there, I got a job. [Gate 88] had a chat program built in and someone offered me a job in that chat program. I did that for a couple of years and during that time I worked on Everyday Shooter, which was my first commercial game and the first that actually came out and made money. After that, I hooked up with Shaw-Han Liem, a musician from Toronto, and we started collaborating on a project. It was very simple, we were working on a visualizer and started dabbling with some game prototypes. We did like nine prototypes and then we hit upon an idea that would become Sound Shapes. Since then we’ve hired some people to help us out.

Q: When did you form Queasy?

A: Queasy was the name I would release games under when I was a kid, in grade 7 and 8. When I put out Everyday Shooter I just called the company Queasy Games.

Q: Are you still in a basement or do you have an office?

A: We have an actual office, but we were in a basement until we had our first hire, which was a year and a half or two years ago.

Q: How did you get hooked up with Sony for the Vita?

A: [Everyday Shooter] happened because I was showing that game at the [Independent Games Festival] and got nominated as a finalist. A bunch of Sony guys were there and I guess they liked it and offered to publish it. So with [Sound Shapes], since we’d already done business with Sony, it made sense to go back to them to see what they thought. When we showed them, they flew us down [in 2009] and showed us the early prototype Vita hardware. They were like, “It’s a good fit, what do you think?” and we were like, “Okay.”

Q: How has working on Sound Shapes been?

A: The design of it is so difficult to comes to terms with because of the tight integration with musical gameplay. If you change one little thing, like you make one thing move faster so that it’s more fun, that breaks the music. You do one thing to the music and that breaks the game. That’s been the hardest part, is figuring that out. It’s not a resource-intensive thing, it’s just that someone has to sit down and go through it.

Q: What’s the biggest challenge you find as an indie game developer?

A: It may not be the answer you’re expecting, but it’s just about making a good game. Once you’ve made a good game, people want good games, publishers want good games, your audience wants good games. From a business point of view, it’s easy to market a good game. People will pay money for that. The hardest part is coming up with a good concept and executing on it. There’s a balance between the amount of time it takes to do that and the amount of money you have in the bank. I’ve gone through the process twice now of having no money to make a game. It’s about not giving in to tangential jobs just to pay for your project.

Sometimes you might make something that you think is really awesome but that the public just doesn’t get or isn’t ready for and then you have to make a decision of, “Oh I can take this path and dumb it down or be true to myself and figure out why nobody is getting it. Can I change it in a way that it’s accessible but doesn’t destroy the original vision of the game?” That’s something I hope as a game creator that I learn to do better and better because that would help to make the game better.

Q: Why did you decide to stay independent rather than working for a big company?

A: It wasn’t like I was sitting there and thinking, “Okay, I could work for a triple-A game company or I can start my own business and make a game.” It was more like I have this idea for a game, so how do I make it? I guess by definition at the time, that was independent. I also thought that it’d be hard to get a job. After that first year where I made the game that didn’t do very well, I actually tried to get a job in a triple-A game company and they didn’t hire me, which I think was a good decision on everyone’s part. I don’t think I would have done well there. It’s so specialized and I have no desire to specialize.

Q: It seems like many good independent game companies eventually get bought up. Can they survive on their own or do they inevitably get acquired?

A: There are people who are in it just to make video games and there are people in it to start a business making video games. For me it’s never been about making money. The only reason Queasy Games is incorporated is because there’s a technical issue where if I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t get money. From a business point of view I know tons of people who don’t get bought out, who stay small. It’s kind of surprising when you say that most small companies get bought up because I don’t know anyone who would want to get bought. The business entity exists for negotiating their next game and that’s it, it’s not to grow or for turning a profit. They’re secondary to making a great game. For me, if one day I burn all the cash and the capital is gone, I’m perfectly okay with finding a job and making my games on the side until the next game I make makes money. I wouldn’t go and work on a game that I have no interest in because life is too short to do something you don’t want to do.

In Canada, we do have a lot of grant programs and that really helps keep companies alive to make their games. It’s a very good buffer. There’s a couple granting agencies and there’s also arts grants, which I haven’t had much luck with because I don’t think games are generally recognized as art in the arts-granting community in Toronto and Canada.

Q: Some people, like film critic Roger Ebert, have said video games aren’t art. How do you weigh in on that debate?

A: When I was a kid coming out of university I totally got into that debate, but it was very academic. Now, I don’t really care. Whether people think it’s art or not doesn’t concern me. For many years now, I’ve thought that you decide whether it’s art, it’s not for Ebert to decide. You look at a painting and that can mean nothing to you or something to you, or you walk down the street and you hear that wind rustling through the trees. That can have meaning for you. For some people, it’s just, “Oh, it’s breezy today.” People should just think for themselves. I’ve been able to read meanings into games and also not, depending on the game. Same for movies, novels. For me, it’s beyond that question now. When I think of that debate, it’s like looking at a photograph where I’m like 19 or 20 thinking about those things. It’s as absurd as asking a musician, “Why are you doing this? Is it art that you’re doing?” Maybe what I’m doing isn’t art to you, but who cares, it’s just what I do.

Q: That said, what’s your favourite game?

A: My favourite game is probably Tetris. It’s a game I’ve been playing since I was like 8, and I’ve never stopped playing. When I started playing it, I actually didn’t like it, but then I saw my brother’s friend playing it and he was speed running it. I was like, “There’s this whole other side to this simple game that I didn’t see.” I started reading into it. I was going through some stuff when I was kid and I thought, “Oh, this game is like life. Sometimes you get really bad pieces and you just have to deal with it.” Then I started to think of it in terms of probability, which is when that poker craze happened – at least in Canada – where poker became a thing and people were talking about odds and stuff. I was like, “Oh yeah, sometimes you have to rearrange the play field so that odds are you’ll have a piece that you can use somewhere.” It’s something that has always grown with me and once in a while I’ll think of a new meme for it.