The measure of Jack Layton
By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, August 27, 2011 - 2 Comments
Tabatha Southey mines memories of the man and the politician.
These stories make more than a persona. They make a man. All of which is to say I was mistaken: Jack Layton was not an archetypal politician. He was more passionate, compassionate, shrewder, tougher and smarter than most. But – such is the curse of familiarity – years of accumulated evidence brought me to that conclusion with a thud only when I read of his death.
I’d taken it for granted that whether or not I believed he could realize it or applauded all the methods he used attempting to achieve it, Jack Layton would always be there, articulating, more often than not, my vision of what it meant to be just and Canadian.
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‘If they work hard to earn our trust, we just might let them’
By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, August 27, 2011 at 11:08 AM - 1 Comment
Adam Radwanski draws a lesson for politicians.
A cynic would say that we only love our politicians when they’re gone – and even then, only when they’ve left us in heartbreaking and terrifying ways that remind us of human frailties. But in the spirit of optimism, which seems fitting given Jack Layton’s much-quoted final words, it’s possible to see something else in his posthumous status as a hero. Perhaps we’re not really so inclined to look down on our politicians; perhaps we’re eager to look up to them, to like and occasionally even love them, if only they’ll give us the chance.
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“There isn’t a crazy appetite for sovereignty”—Pauline Marois
By Philippe Gohier - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 7:03 PM - 3 Comments
My colleague Alec Castonguay, who toils over at our sister publication L’actualité, posted a first-rate interview with Pauline Marois earlier this week that’s a must-read for anyone interested in the Parti Québécois’ ongoing travails. Among the things that stood out to me was Marois’s apparent doubling-down on the policies that drove away four members of her caucus earlier this summer—namely, her insistence that a referendum shouldn’t be top-of-mind for the party. Of the nascent Nouveau Mouvement pour le Québec, aka the new home of sovereigntist hardliners in Quebec, Marois says they “should start from where Quebecers are at… There isn’t a crazy appetite for sovereignty, even if polls have us at 40-45 per cent ,” she says. (CROP pegs support for sovereignty at 38 per cent and Léger at 36 per cent, but let’s not quibble.) “Renewal isn’t about waiting for the referendum.”
Good government—which, unfortunately for Charest, is more or less synonymous with “change” these days— is what Marois wants the PQ to focus on delivering. Creating a second chamber at the National Assembly that would focus on regional issues, taking over control of EI from Ottawa, increasing the constraints on companies who extract resources from Quebec’s northern regions, and broad efforts at democratic renewal are all part of what Marois describes as the PQ’s plan for “sovereigntist governance.” “The government’s actions are what will show that Quebec deserves to have all the tools to blossom.” Continue…
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What was lost and what goes on
By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 5:30 PM - 1 Comment
Thoughts on the passing of Jack Layton from Heather Cleland, Michael Valpy, Jaime Watt, Adam Giambrone, Jamie Bradburn, John Moore and Edward Keenan. Arthur Milnes recalls the words of Arthur Meighen.
“The story of a nation’s heroes is the fountain from which it draws the wine of later life,” he said at a 1925 dinner in Ottawa marking the centennial of McGee’s birth. “There is no inspiration that quickens the ambition of youth, stimulates public service and deepens love of country like the memory of great men who have gone … It will help marvellously the cause of unity in this Dominion when all of us can realize that we (Canadians) have our patriarchs, men and women who have lived great lives, given to their country the last measure of devotion.”
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Tonight’s special: nostalgia, with a side of authenticity
By Jessica Allen - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 5:14 PM - 1 Comment
While I was trying to think of a food-related idea to pitch for Maclean’s upcoming innovation issue, something occurred to me: there aren’t any, unless you count nostalgia as an innovation. Think about it: Denmark’s Noma, voted the best restaurant in the world last year, fashions most of its dishes from ingredients that have been foraged from the woods. Plus, it’s practically mandatory for all new restaurants to display homemade jars and cans of preserves on (ideally wooden) shelves, just like grandma had. (You’ll also find preserves in the pantries of any self-respecting 30-something food hound, myself included.) And the farm-to-table trend, not to mention the desire to find the most authentic of everything—from pizza to pasta to Peking duck—is so widespread it deserves parody. Continue… -
Songs I Only Know From Monty Python
By Jaime Weinman - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 4:45 PM - 3 Comments
I was discussing this with someone recently: there are certain songs I would never know if not for Monty Python. That’s true of every show that uses real songs, of course, but it seems like Python used or at least mentioned some songs that absolutely no one would remember otherwise. In particular, the sketch “The Attila the Hun Show” has single-handedly kept alive the cheesy theme song from The Debbie Reynolds Show, a flop sitcom (an I Love Lucy knock-off starring Reynolds) that John Cleese and Graham Chapman saw and decided to make fun of. Why pick this show and this theme song among all others for their parody of bad U.S. sitcoms? Because they happened to see it, that’s all. The guy who sang the song has posted his single of it on his YouTube channel, and mentions that it was used on Python – but not that it was used on The Debbie Reynolds Show, because who remembers that?
Another song permanently associated with Python is Clodagh Rodgers’ Eurovision entry “Jack in Continue…
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Let’s not go to the Ex
By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 3:50 PM - 10 Comments
The government’s decision to skip Expo 2012 meets with criticism from various corners.
The Liberals say the Conservatives spent $50-million to bring the G8 leaders to Tony Clement’s Ontario riding, but don’t think it’s important to invest $10-million to showcase Canada to millions of visitors at the 2012 fair. The Liberals say snubbing South Korea is shortsighted and will hurt the Canadian tourism industry and the economic recovery in general.
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B.C. votes to repeal HST
By macleans.ca - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 2:55 PM - 27 Comments
Province will now have to pay back Ottawa
The results are in from B.C.’s HST referendum, and British Columbians have voted to repeal the controversial tax. In all, 54.7 per cent of voters in supported rescinding the tax, while 45.3 per cent voted in favour of keeping it, according to Elections B.C. The provincial government has said that repealing the tax would leave a $3 billion hole in the budget. It will now have to repay Ottawa the $1.6 billion compensation payment it received to introduce the tax in the first place. The HST was first introduced in 2009 after the re-election of then-premier Gordon Campbell, and its implementation sparked a province-wide populist campaign led by another former premier, Bill Vander Zalm, to repeal it.
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A final celebration
By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 2:36 PM - 1 Comment
The NDP has released the full details of Saturday’s “celebration of life” in honour of Jack Layton. The public visitation at city hall in Toronto will conclude at 11am Saturday morning. The procession to Roy Thomson Hall will begin at approximately 1:15pm, followed by the service at 2pm, with an overflow area outside Roy Thomson Hall and four video screens set up in David Pecaut Square, to the west of the hall.
The service will proceed as follows. Continue…
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State Dept.: no major enviro probs with oil sands pipeline
By Luiza Ch. Savage - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 2:14 PM - 6 Comments
August 26, 2011
The State Department today issued its final Environmental Impact Statement concerning TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf Coast. (Available for download here.)
While this is only one step in the review process that will lead to a decision on whether or not State grants a permit — a decision that will be made by Dec. 30th — it bodes well for TransCanada.
After a prolonged environmental review process that included several drafts that came under criticism from the Environmental Protection Agency, State concluded that there will be no major environmental impacts along the route of the pipeline, as long as TransCanada makes some small adjustments to the route.
The State Dept. ruled out requiring that the pipeline be re-routed around a large chunk of Nebraska despite concerns that the pipeline would cross a major acquifer there.
And despite concerns by environmentalists that the pipeline will lead to more development of the oil sands and therefore more carbon emissions into the global atmosphere, the State Dept. concluded that the oil sands will be developed regardless of whether or not the pipeline is built. Therefore, they reasoned, emissions will be unchanged. I asked on a State Dept. conference call whether State was assuming that the proposed pipeline to the West Coast would be approved, and the official said no, but that the assumption was that the oil would be removed one way or another — by truck or barge, for example.
Also in TransCanada’s favour, the State Dept. report noted that technology would help bring down emissions over time in the oil sands. The report also noted that State is not legally required to consider environmental impacts in Canada.
The State Dept. today emphasized in a conference call with reporters that this report is “not a rubber stamp” and that no final decision has been made. But it is hard to see this development as not pointing to eventual approval since the fiercest opposition to the pipeline has been on environmental grounds.
The next step in the process is a 90-day comment period in which government agencies and the public are invited to comment on whether the project is in the “National Interest.” This will include discussion of issues such as energy security and foreign policy, which cut in the project’s favor given turmoil in the Middle East, for example.
With demonstrations and sit-ins in front of the White House this month, environmentalists are trying to put political pressure on the Obama administration to take a stand against oil sands imports on climate change grounds. But leading Republican presidential candidates are casting doubt on the very notion of man-made climate change, giving Obama political room to come down somewhere in the middle.
Environmentalists say their next step will be to take the battle to court.
National Wildlife Federation executive, Jim Lyon said, in a statement,“After two failed rounds of environmental review, this looks like strike three for the State Department. The document still fails to address the key concerns for landowners and wildlife. It is almost certain to be scrutinized in other venues, including a probable legal challenge. This only escalates the controversy in a process that is far from over.”
The Pembina Institute calls the report “unfathomable.”
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Twitter/luizachsavage
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The wisdom of crowds
By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 1:41 PM - 5 Comments
Nick Taylor-Vaisey considers the public response to Jack Layton’s passing.
Each of these campaigns was driven by the crowd, and each memorial, or tribute, saw authorities of some kind reacting to that crowd. It’s not what we’re used to. Often, when we hear news about crowds doing things, it skews negative. They’re rioting in Vancouver or, more recently, some parts of the United Kingdom. They’re irrational, or at least ill-meaning. Left to their own devices, they’re not to be trusted. They’re why we have authority figures, elected or otherwise, in the first place, right? Don’t we need them at times like these? Isn’t that why we have protocol? So that people can follow direction?
The last few days at least make the case that it doesn’t have to be so. The crowd that lined up on Parliament Hill to pay respects to Layton was sombre, and patient. They joined hundreds of strangers in that line, and advanced forward in unison. The sea of people set the tone. They took control of their Parliament, peacefully and respectfully, and then gave it back.
The Prime Minister commented on the reaction yesterday. Continue…
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Move over, Wal-Mart
By Erica Alini - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 1:21 PM - 2 Comments
Rivals are learning the hard way why Amazon is the next retail king
Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images
“Amazon,” one Morgan Stanley analyst proclaimed recently, “is the Wal-Mart of our era.” The Seattle-based e-commerce giant is expected to report revenues of US$49 billion this year, an eye-popping 43 per cent year-over-year increase that beats Wal-Mart’s memorable 1991 performance, when it registered $44 billion in revenues and a 35 per cent increase over the previous year.
The world’s largest online retailer has also managed gargantuan growth without the bad publicity that earned its bricks-and-mortar cousin the epithet of “evil empire.” But try to get between Amazon and its bottom line, and you’ll see the company’s Darth Vader side. Governments and competitors who’ve tried to out-muscle it recently are finding a surprisingly feisty, shrewd business with a special knack for getting what it wants.
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Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.
By Jesse Brown - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 1:06 PM - 81 Comments
Photo by Jesus Belzunce/Flickr
My fellow Macleans.ca tech blogger Peter Nowak is a fine journalist and a compelling writer. His ideas and opinions are always interesting, and always worth reading. But he’s off his nut when it comes to Apple.
Yesterday, after news of Steve Jobs’ resignation hit, Peter wrote:
“No company—probably not even Google—and certainly no individual has made as much of a difference or changed the way things work over the past 10 years as Apple has under Jobs”.
Huh?
Apple’s gargantuan success over the past decade is inarguable. Jobs is clearly a genius of form and function, an incredible leader, a brilliant marketer. He has an uncanny sense of what we will want, and then he creates it. As a businessman, he’s a titan.
But has he made a bigger difference to the world than any other individual of the past decade? Osama Bin Laden must be spinning in his grave. Continue…
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Canada “punched well above its weight” in Libya strikes
By macleans.ca - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 12:07 PM - 40 Comments
NATO official says Canadian Forces’ contributions disproportionate to its size
A NATO official speaking on condition of anonymity has said that Canada “punched well above its weight” in the air war against now beleaguered Libyan dictator, Moammar Gadhafi. NATO officials and academics agree that as one of the smallest powers among the handful of nations carrying out the air strikes, the Canadian Forces’ contribution was disproportionate to its size and outdated aircrafts. According the NATO, Canada’s battle contributions were just behind Britain and France; countries that have approximately three times as many aircraft as the Canadian Forces.
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Securities commission backtracks on Sino-Forest ruling
By macleans.ca - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 11:55 AM - 1 Comment
OSC had ordered company execs to resign
In an unusual reversal, the Ontario Securities Commission has rescinded an order to top officials from beleaguered timber firm Sino-Forest to resign amid continued allegations the company misrepresented assets. The commission had put a 15-day freeze on trading in Sino-Forest shares as part of the move, which prompted Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the company’s stock. Sino-Forest shares first tumbled in June after a short seller’s report accused the firm of being little more than a Ponzi scheme. The OSC did not explain why they had reversed their position.
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Thousands of Blackberrys nabbed from Ontario warehouse
By macleans.ca - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 11:49 AM - 0 Comments
Theft comes as RIM officials meet with U.K. government
Thieves in Mississauga, Ont., made off with more than $1 million in Blackberry smart phones last weekend, demonstrating a rare show of interest in the flagging Canadian brand. About 2,700 of the phones were nabbed from a warehouse, according to Peel Regional Police. PIN numbers for the stolen white and grey handsets have been recorded, police say, and anyone caught with a pilfered phone could face charges. News of the poached harvest came as officials from Blackberry-maker RIM were meeting with authorities in the U.K. to discuss the role played by the phone’s messenger system in recent riots.
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Man claims to be the son of former PM
By macleans.ca - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 11:43 AM - 3 Comments
DNA test give hope to possible Diefenbaker “lovechild”
John George Dryden—a Toronto man who claims to be former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s biological son—has moved one step closer to unveiling his true paternity after a DNA test proved the man who raised him (former Liberal politician George Dryden) is not his biological father. John George Dryden believes that his mother, once a prominent Conservative socialite, had an affair with Diefenbeker that resulted in pregnancy after which she signed a fake birth certificate “due to the social stigma and political sensitivities prevalent in Canadian society in 1968.” Dryden’s claim that he is Diefenbaker’s son is based on family hearsay and his first name. Dryden’s lawyer, Stephen Edell, says the University of Saskatchewan’s Diefenbaker Centre (home to a number of Diefenbaker artifacts) is considering a request for a DNA sample, and should provide Dryden with an answer next month.
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Japanese PM Naoto Kan quits
By macleans.ca - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 11:36 AM - 0 Comments
Former foreign minister most likely successor
After five months of record-low approval ratings since Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami, Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced his resignation. The country is now set to get its seventh leader in six years when the governing Democratic Party of Japan elects its new leader next Monday. Former foreign minister Seiji Maehara is the most likely successor, though he could face up to five opponents, according to Japanese media. Kan was criticized for the way he handled the country’s nuclear disaster and resulting humanitarian emergency after the tsunami.
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Irene closes in on North Carolina
By macleans.ca - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 11:35 AM - 0 Comments
Hurricane expected to move up coast to New York
Residents in North Carolina’s coastal communities are facing mandatory evacuation as Hurricane Irene’s strong winds and waves move in on the east coast. At 8 a.m., EST on Friday, Irene was about 600 kilometres southwest of North Carolina, but tropical storm-force winds are expected to arrive by late morning or afternoon. The U.S. Navy has sent 38 ships to sea, while emergency preparations further up the coast are already underway. New York officials have created evacuation maps for the city, while residents are stocking up on bottled water, flashlights and generators.
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Are home births safe?
By Danielle Bochove - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 174 Comments
Home births may need less intervention and cause fewer injuries for mom. But they may be riskier for babies.
Photo: Jon Lowenstein/Noor/Redux
Jon Barrett is accustomed to dealing with anxious mothers-to-be. As chief of maternal-fetal medicine at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, one of the main concerns he hears from patients involves unnecessary medical interventions during delivery.
He acknowledges that the rate of Caesarian sections and episiotomies is far too high in Canadian hospitals. “A healthy young woman, coming into this hospital now for delivery, has almost a 40 per cent chance of having some sort of intervention that is not desired.” But he’s more unnerved by what that phenomenon appears to be triggering: a surge in demand for home births.
In Ontario, midwives performed 2,360 home births in fiscal 2008, an increase of 23 per cent in just five years. There are no national home birth statistics but the percentage of non-hospital births more than tripled in Canada between 1991 and 2007 (the latest year for which statistics are available), although they remain well under two per cent of total births. That rate is typical of much of Western Europe and the U.S.; the notable exception is the Netherlands, where roughly a third of women give birth at home.
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The genius of Westminster
By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 13 Comments
Fareed Zakaria wonders if America would be better off with a parliament.
Remember, the political battle surrounding the debt ceiling is actually impossible in a parliamentary system because the executive controls the legislature. There could not be a public spectacle of the two branches of government squabbling and holding the country hostage.
If we’re in for another five years of this squabbling in the U.S., we are going to make presidential systems look pretty bad indeed.
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Killer co-workers?
By Kate Lunau - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 11:25 AM - 0 Comments
Developing healthy relationships with your peers at work could save your life
Office workers often complain about bad bosses, but it turns out that having obnoxious co-workers might actually be worse. New research suggests that supportive relationships with peers in the workplace have a powerful impact on our health, affecting even how long we live. Similar support from these workers’ supervisors didn’t have the same effect.
In the new study, published in the American Psychological Association’s journal Health Psychology, a team from Tel Aviv University followed 820 adult workers over two decades, from 1988 to 2008. Drawn from some of Israel’s biggest firms in finance, public utilities and manufacturing (to name just a few sectors), the subjects worked an average of 8.8 hours a day; one-third were women and 80 per cent were married with kids.
The study’s findings were startling. Workers who felt they had strong peer social support—in other words, that their co-workers were friendly and helpful when it came to solving problems together—actually seemed to live longer than those who don’t have this kind of network. Having a supportive boss, meanwhile, didn’t have any impact on workers’ mortality. Next time co-workers are bonding over an after-hours drink, it seems that it might be wise to join them—even if it means skipping the gym.
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Suicide bombing kills at least 16 at UN office in Nigeria
By macleans.ca - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 11:11 AM - 0 Comments
Bomber drove car through two gates before detonating explosives
At least 16 people have been killed in a brazen car bombing at a United Nations building in the capital of Nigeria. A suicide bomber reportedly drove a sedan laden with explosives through two separate gates before detonating near the centre of the complex. “I saw scattered bodies,” said Michael Ofilaje, a UNICEF worker speaking with the Associated Press. “Many people are dead.” The UN building houses offices for the UN Development Program, UNICEF and the UN Population Fund. There are about 400 employees who work there. It is the latest incident in a series of recent violent episodes in Africa’s most populous country, as tensions rise between the largely Christian south and the Muslim north. Boko Haram, a radical Islamist militant group from northeastern Nigeria, has conducted several attacks and assassinations in recent months. Another militant sect has sprung up in the Niger Delta to the south. It has also carried out bombings and attacks in Ajuba, the capital city. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the bombing of the UN Building.
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The next frontier for beer: women
By Chris Sorensen - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 11:05 AM - 0 Comments
As British brewers target women, Canadian companies find beer plays a broader role in our culture
Photograph by Andrew Tolson
With beer consumption falling for seven straight years and neighbourhood pubs closing at a rate of 29 per week, traditionally suds-soaked Britain is facing a beverage identity crisis while brewers are left scrambling to find new markets for their products. And at least one, Molson Coors Brewing Co., believes it has found the answer: women.
Molson Coors, the company that resulted from the merger of the storied Canadian brewer and Coors Brewing Co. in 2005, is rolling out a new brand in the U.K. and Ireland called Animée, aimed directly at the fairer sex, which currently accounts for just 17 per cent of beer sales there. Described as “lightly sparkling and finely filtered with a delicious fresh taste,” Animée contains four per cent alcohol by volume and comes in three flavours: “clear filtered, crisp rosé and zesty lemon.”
“We are way behind almost every other beer drinking country in the world when it comes to women,” says Kristy McReady, a spokesperson for Molson Coors in Britain, noting that 79 per cent of women in the U.K. say they never, or rarely, drink beer—in part because it’s viewed as being high in calories. “Beer is seen as very masculine, the way it’s marketed and sold. It’s drank from pint glasses and sold in big boxes.”
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How dangerous is celebratory gunfire?
By Jody White - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 10:54 AM - 17 Comments
What goes up must come down, right?
From watching just a few minutes of footage of the fighting in Libya, two things become clear: the rebels have plenty of bullets, and they like to use them for more than simply mowing down regime diehards.Celebratory gunfire is a cultural staple in the Middle East, South Asia, the Balkans and Latin America—as well as certain parts of the United States. While the practice is usually restricted to small arms such as pistols and assault rifles, the Libyan rebels have taken the idea to the extreme, sending rounds from .50 caliber anti-aircraft guns skyward to mark their victories.
