A seven-point plan? Please. Mine has nine!

By Scott Feschuk - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 2 Comments

Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute

This week’s debate among Republican candidates for the U.S. presidency was sponsored by Tea Party Express, which sounds like something you’d find next to the Orange Julius but is in fact an umbrella organization for grassroots groups dedicated to the pursuit of low taxes, small government and—to judge from the debate audience—$8 haircuts.

Broadcast on CNN, the debate began with a display of the gravitas we’ve come to expect from American politics—a snazzy video montage in which each candidate was assigned a cute nickname. Michele Bachmann was introduced as The Firebrand. Newt Gingrich? The Big Thinker! One immediately lamented the absence of Sarah Palin, if only to discover which nickname she’d have been given. (The Little Thinker?)

The frontrunner in the Republican field is Rick Perry, who has the look of a man who’s just returned from hoodwinking J.R. Ewing in an oil deal. The Texas governor scored big with his opening line, in which he vowed to “make Washington, D.C., as inconsequential in your life as I can.” He should consider hooking up with a specialist in making things inconsequential, such as the person who wrote the final four seasons of Entourage.

Continue…

Bob Rae has 646 days to fix the Liberal party

By John Geddes - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 9:50 AM - 4 Comments

Sean Kilpatrick/CP

There’s no how-to guide for the renovation job Bob Rae has taken on. As interim Liberal leader, Rae has nearly two years to try to rebuild the once-dominant federal party before his permanent replacement is chosen in a spring 2013 convention, and Rae is being called on to do much more than merely serve as a placeholder. Skeptics doubt even this skilled and battle-scarred veteran can turn around a party that sank steadily through four national campaigns to post its worst-ever third-place finish in the May 2 election. But Rae sees brute necessity as his ally. “It takes a crisis to make change happen,” he told Maclean’s. “Everything I’ve seen in the public and private sector tells me that people make changes when they have to, and right now we have to.”

With the House returning for its fall session this week, Rae is bound to be rated to a great degree on how much question period attention he draws. Widely acknowledged as one of the best orators in Parliament, he’s expected to more than hold his own. Yet he vows not to be “eaten up by the 24-7 news cycle.” Instead, he’s concentrating more on hauling the creaky Liberal machine into the current era. Among other challenges, that means emulating the organizational efficiency Prime Minister Stephen Harper insists on for the Tories and that the late Jack Layton ushered in for the New Democrats. Unlike its more centralized rivals, the Liberal party is still largely run as an unwieldy federation of provincial and territorial party associations. “We do need a more unified approach,” Rae says.

The chance to make that key reform will come next January at a party convention in Ottawa. Among those urging Liberals to change their ways, few know the problems better than Steven MacKinnon, a failed candidate from the spring election, who lost a Quebec riding to the NDP’s “Orange Crush.” As national director of the party from 2003 to 2006, MacKinnon helped usher in reforms that gave the national Liberal machine control over membership and fundraising. However, provincial and territorial wings kept their hold over field organization and policy development. “No other party is hobbled by that,” MacKinnon says. “A radical streamlining is required.” Perhaps surprisingly, key Liberal insiders don’t see any pressing need for an overhaul of their fundraising apparatus. Even though they lag far behind the Tories when it comes to pulling in donations, Liberal officials say the U.S.-designed computer system they introduced in 2009 is up to the job. Improving its performance requires patiently collecting the data on Liberal members and donors that the system is designed to manage. “We’re just scratching the surface of how effective it can be,” says one senior party official. In fact, they need a lot of scratch: to replace the public subsidy to parties, which the Harper government is phasing out over the next four years, the Liberals must more than double the $6.6 million they raised in contributions last year. Rae stresses that no matter how up-to-date the party’s technology for reaching out to its supporters, fundraising will only ramp up when backers are inspired by ideas. “Money follows passion,” he says.

Continue…

Third-party advertisers take the spotlight in the Ontario election

By Charlie Gillis - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 9:45 AM - 3 Comments

Andrew Tolson/Maclean's

Outsiders have never been terribly welcome in Canadian election campaigns. In federal votes, the 95 per cent of us who don’t belong to registered parties face a bulwark of laws restricting third-party campaign spending—rules rooted in the fear that, left unguarded, democracy will be sold off to the highest bidder. This theory has been an article of faith among left-wingers since the early 2000s, when a conservative activist named Stephen Harper waged a court battle against the limits, to the delight of Bay Street’s heavy hitters.

The Supreme Court of Canada ultimately upheld federal third-party spending limits. But few provinces have strong limits of their own. And if Ontario’s current election campaign is any guide, fears of big business stealing elections for conservative parties may have been laughably misplaced. As of last week, all six third-party advertisers registered with the province’s election watchdog were either labour organizations or coalitions who have in the past run attack ads against Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak. Meantime, an array of environmentalists, NGOs and green entrepreneurs have joined forces in hopes of saving the province’s two-year-old Green Energy Act, with plans for unprecedented forays into the ground-level campaign. Leaders of the ad hoc group deny they are acting for or against specific candidates or parties. But Hudak is the only leader committed to undoing the act’s key provisions.

The Tories might have seen this coming. Four years ago, they felt the full force of a labour-funded coalition called Working Families, which took advantage of Ontario’s loose laws on third-party advertisers by unleashing more than $1 million worth of anti-Conservative attack ads that helped propel Premier Dalton McGuinty to victory. The Tories later complained to the province’s chief electoral officer, claiming the group was a front for the Liberals. An investigation indeed revealed ties between Working Families and Grit campaign director Don Guy. But the probe found no evidence that the group was outright controlled by the party.

Continue…

Battle of the drones

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 9:42 AM - 0 Comments

Chantal Hebert reads Samara’s latest report and challenges the current roster of MPs.

On Monday, the 2011 class of MPs will settle in the Commons for the first four-year mandate in a decade. It will be their loss if they do not use that time to expend more energy than their predecessors on challenging a system that is turning them into drones.

See previously: The rebel sell

On the evils of wheat

By Kate Fillion - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 9:40 AM - 180 Comments

Jean-Marc Giboux/Getty Images

William Davis, a preventive cardiologist who practises in Milwaukee, Wis., argues in his new book Wheat Belly that wheat is bad for your health—so bad that it should carry a surgeon general’s warning.

Q: You say the crux of the problem with wheat is that the stuff we eat today has been genetically altered. How is it different than the wheat our grandparents ate?

A: First of all, it looks different. If you held up a conventional wheat plant from 50 years ago against a modern, high-yield dwarf wheat plant, you would see that today’s plant is about 2½ feet shorter. It’s stockier, so it can support a much heavier seedbed, and it grows much faster. The great irony here is that the term “genetic modification” refers to the actual insertion or deletion of a gene, and that’s not what’s happened with wheat. Instead, the plant has been hybridized and crossbred to make it resistant to drought and fungi, and to vastly increase yield per acre. Agricultural geneticists have shown that wheat proteins undergo structural change with hybridization, and that the hybrid contains proteins that are found in neither parent plant. Now, it shouldn’t be the case that every single new agricultural hybrid has to be checked and tested, that would be absurd. But we’ve created thousands of what I call Frankengrains over the past 50 years, using pretty extreme techniques, and their safety for human consumption has never been tested or even questioned.

Continue…

Google’s million-watt search

By Chris Sorensen - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

Google’s recent decision to reveal how much energy its data centres use—220 million watts, or about one-quarter the output of a nuclear reactor, according to a New York Times calculation—is being billed by the Mountain View, Calif.-based company as a small price to pay for the convenience of having billions of Web pages at your fingertips, not to mention funny YouTube videos. And it probably is. But the rare disclosure (Google had previously feared giving rivals clues about its internal operations) has also highlighted the degree to which the Internet is not necessarily the “free” service most people think it is. All that information comes with a cost. While the numbers sound big, Google claims the actual cost per user is actually tiny. It says the environmental impact of 100 searches is the same as running a laptop for an hour or turning on a light bulb for 28 minutes. Three days of watching YouTube? That’s the same as manufacturing, packaging and delivering a DVD. However, Google’s accounting of the cost of using Gmail for a year appears a touch self-serving: “less than the energy required to drink a bottle of wine, stuff a message in the bottle and toss it in the ocean.” Is that how we’re supposed to imagine a Google-less world?

Wal-Mart hits a wall

By Chris Sorensen - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

With more than 4,400 sprawling stores in the United States and its pledge to provide “everyday low prices,” retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. would appear perfectly positioned to weather the tough economic times south of the border. Indeed, Wal-Mart has long been the destination for price-conscious shoppers searching for everything from US$3.50 packs of 16 “Frosted Blueberry” Pop Tarts to a US$119 flat-panel television.

But while the world’s biggest retailer is credited with single-handedly transforming the retail landscape by using its clout to demand low prices from suppliers, which are then passed along to customers, sales at U.S. stores have nevertheless slumped badly over the past few years. Meanwhile, some of its biggest competitors, including “cheap chic” rival Target Corp., have still managed to grow sales in the same tough environment.

Wal-Mart has placed most of the blame on a bad economy, which it argues has a disproportionate impact on its less affluent customers. But those outside the company are increasingly wondering whether there’s more to the story. Just as chains like McDonald’s and Starbucks were forced to retool after years of expansion, Wal-Mart appears to be heading toward a similar fate in the U.S. as its stores start to look increasingly bland compared to rivals. More importantly, it’s no longer clear whether Wal-Mart’s reputation for low prices continues to be a meaningful advantage in a world where everyone, from local supermarkets to daily deal websites like Groupon, are perceived to be offering huge savings—and without the need to drive to the outskirts of town and fight the crowds inside one of Wal-Mart’s blindingly-lit big box stores.

Continue…

Neither small nor big, but local

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 8:50 AM - 3 Comments

Brian Brown considers the future of governance.

This “localist” trend is beginning to reshape American politics as well. Among its other flaws, the rational planning model was based on the mistaken notion that science could be substituted for the practical knowledge of ordinary citizens. But the social sciences have simply never come close to approaching the physical sciences in their explanatory or predictive power. They cannot grasp or manage some of the most basic variables in public policy, including the human need for ownership over our stake in society — that is, the needs for belonging and participation. As a 2009 report for the James Irvine Foundation puts it, people “want the opportunity to be more than passive audience members whose social activism is limited to writing a check.” And as Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone (2000), has documented, communities whose citizens feel a sense of local empowerment report (among other things) better local government, less crime, and faster economic growth. Many citizens are more inclined to participate even in the most basic act of civic life — voting — when a particular issue seems to directly affect them, and they are convinced they can affect it back.

This is not far from something Michael Ignatieff briefly tried to articulate as Liberal leader. More concretely, this idea would seem to be central to the open data movement.

REVIEW: Easy to like

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 8:30 AM - 0 Comments

Canadian-born Elliot Jonson is a Hollywood screenwriter and vintner before events conspire to send him home. His penance? To become the vice-president of the CBC’s English-television programming. “It’s like PBS, but with commercials,” he explains to an American movie executive. That’s the kindest thing Elliot says about the CBC, but not the funniest, by far. The title of Riche’s hilarious new novel is a backhanded compliment to TV and wine, topics that find a surprising kinship in a story about a guy trying to simultaneously save his failing vineyard and a public broadcaster.

The book opens with Elliot schooling a couple of California trophy wives on wine appreciation. Elliot plays the straight man to their airhead banter, reassuring readers they’re in for a treat. The rest of the story races along, from FBI investigations to trouble with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. We learn that Elliot was served the ultimate, ironic punishment for moving to Tinseltown after film school: his son, once a child star, is currently in prison for drug possession and robbery. But Elliot isn’t jaded about Hollywood so much as he’s tired of rejection. He calls method actors dissociative psychopaths, more like “method humans.” When Elliot lands in Toronto, his powers of observation are lethal.

The best stuff is the author’s parody of the CBC bureaucracy and its adherence to regional balance and bland programming. Elliot’s job interview is laugh-out-loud funny, as are his speeches to the staff. In the book’s acknowledgements, Riche thanks the CBC employees who “sang”—boy, did they. While “the Corpse,” as some call it, admittedly is an easy target, Riche skewers the policy wonks with glee, just as he pilloried private school administration in The Nine Planets. That book’s protagonist, Marty Devereaux, is a classic antihero, but there’s something sweeter about Elliot, who strives simply to make a great bottle of wine. Elliot’s a dreamer: “You can chase taste all you want,” he says, “you’ll never catch it.”

REVIEW: Emus Loose in Egnar: Big stories from small towns

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 8:20 AM - 0 Comments

Pick up any weekly small-town newspaper and what will you find? More often than not an eternally sunny disposition, reflexive support for local endeavours, the occasional controversy and some rather relaxed editing standards. No surprise that a book celebrating small-town papers should display these same characteristics.

Emus Loose in Egnar is a pleasant, meandering trip through the weekly newspaper business in all its quirky splendour. With big-city papers under serious threat from the Internet and social media, Muller argues print journalism is “alive and kicking in small towns across America.” Her boosterism is infectious, if not always convincing. While Muller provides plenty of examples of feisty small-town editors keeping the print alive, those same editors are often delivering their own papers.

The most delightful moments of the book come from the ways local papers reveal small-town life in all its claustrophobic glory. From Nebraska’s Chadron Record police blotter: “Caller advised her neighbour has two Chihuahuas and he’s outside putting in an electric fence . . . that’s going to be too much for those little dogs.” And, “Caller advised that the batteries in her blood pressure machine are not working and is requesting an officer come over and change them for her.”

Continue…

The Commons: Carry on

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 5:22 PM - 25 Comments

The Scene. The Speaker called on the leader of the opposition and Nycole Turmel stood in her spot, just to the left of the conspicuously vacant chair. The New Democrat caucus stood to cheer and the Conservatives across the way offered a round of applause. After Ms. Turmel had finished with her first question, the Prime Minister stood and congratulated her on having done so.

The congeniality ended there, or at least very soon thereafter. And let us be thankful for that.

For however the passing of Jack Layton is to influence our politics from here on—and in many ways for various reasons it would be good if it did—it should probably having nothing to do with reducing Question Period to a polite exchange of demure musings and rhetorical hugs. A Question Period without accusations that one or another is in league with terrorists or criminals might be nice. But a Question Period without vigorous disagreement, raised voices and scathing indictments would be a silly legacy for a man who so often revelled in such stuff.

Credit then to Mr. Harper, who, with his second response, opted to suggest aloud that Ms. Turmel hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about. Here was the signal that it was okay to impugn again.

Continue…

Paul Martin’s prescription

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 2:15 PM - 16 Comments

In between cups of coffee—15 per day? Really?—Paul Martin explains how the world and Canada should be reacting to global economic turmoil.

In Canada, he would like to see the federal government take advantage of this country’s relatively strong finances to quickly make needed investments in infrastructure, education, and research and development. Those, he says, will be the key to Canada’s prosperity in a world where success will hinge on the ability to compete with, and tap into, Asia.

“Our economy is slowing down, we’re going to be affected by the [downturn in the] United States and we’re going to be affected by Europe,” he says. “We have to penetrate those rising Asian markets, and we’re not going to do that unless we have got the best-educated work force, unless we’ve got the best infrastructure, and unless we are creating our own Apples.”

Deep oceans may mask global warming

By macleans.ca - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 12:55 PM - 24 Comments

According to a new analysis from the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Earth’s deep oceans might absorb enough heat to flatten the rate of global warming for up to a decade, even during a longer-term warming period. The new study says ocean layers deeper than 300 meters are the main location of “missing heat” during periods like the past decade, in which global air temperatures didn’t show a major trend. The 2000s were our planet’s warmest decade in more than a century. But the year with the warmest global temperature, 1998, wasn’t matched until 2010, even though greenhouse gas emissions climbed during that decade. The new study suggests the heat may have been building up in the ocean.

EurekAlert!

As the Mulcair turns

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 12:48 PM - 3 Comments

Having previously said he wouldn’t be able to seek the party’s leadership unless the vote was scheduled for the spring, Thomas Mulcair now says the NDP’s low membership numbers in Quebec may prevent him from mounting an effective campaign and that the party should fund a membership drive to correct the problem.

“We are disadvantaged, it’s not a complaint, it is a simple observation,” the NDP leadership hopeful said.

“The party should look at the possibility of having a membership drive in Quebec in a non-partisan way and not sectoral way. This wouldn’t be about one candidate over another but it would compensate the mathematical fact that Quebec is the only province that does not have provincial wing of the NDP. And perhaps it would be a question of putting some resources aside so that the party could seek out memberships,” Mulcair said.

Child abuse increased during recession, study says

By macleans.ca - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 12:27 PM - 2 Comments

Hospitals admitted more abused kids with brain injuries as the U.S. economy started to struggle, according to a new study. Published on Monday in the journal Pediatrics, the findings come from hospital data on children under age 5 from four states, Reuters reports. From 2004 to 2009, 422 kids were diagnosed with “abusive head trauma,” and 16 per cent of them died of their injuries. In the three years before the crash in December 2007, the rate of abusive head injuries was 8.9 per year per 100,000 kids. After the crash, that number climbed to 14.7 per 100,000.

Reuters

Rescue workers try to reach areas hit by quake in Himalayas

By macleans.ca - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 11:48 AM - 0 Comments

Indian rescuers continued their efforts to reach remote Himalayan villages on Monday after a 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck the region on the weekend. At least 40 people were reported dead in India, while at least 6 others are dead in Nepal, according to the New York Times. Officials in the region said tens of thousands of homes and businesses have been destroyed. Mudslides in the Indian state of Sikkum, where the quake’s epicentre was located, blocked access to several mountain regions that have been damaged. India’s home secretary told reporters on Monday that it is unlikely that the death toll will rise significantly since the state, bordered by Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan, is one of India’s most sparsely populated areas.

The New York Times 

Remembering Jack

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 11:38 AM - 3 Comments

The House of Commons is presently toasting the memory of Jack Layton, with speeches so far from Stephen Harper, Bob Rae, Louis Plamondon and Elizabeth May.

According to the new seating plan released just now, the seat normally reserved for the leader of the opposition will be left vacant. Nycole Turmel, who will become the second woman to face the House as the leader of Her Majesty’s official opposition, will occupy the front row seat to the left.

No harm to national security due to Dechert emails: security officials

By macleans.ca - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 11:21 AM - 0 Comments

An internal government investigation into the Bob Dechert affair has concluded that the Conservative MP did not breach national security when exchanging amorous emails with a correspondent for the Xinhua news agency, which reports directly to the Chinese government. CTV News reported Monday that the RCMP and the CSIS have found no evidence suggesting Dechert’s behaviour has compromised national security. Still, one security official told the broadcaster that Dechert displayed a “colossal lack of judgment,” and that he was “incredibly stupid,” for getting involved with Xinhua reporter Shi Rong. Dechert, MP for Mississuaga-Erindale, is parliamentary secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird. Earlier this month, several emails he sent to Shi were made public. In them, the MP describes Shi as “cute” and expresses his love for her. Dechert later apologized for the “flirtatious” messages, saying his relationship with Shi was nothing more than an “innocent friendship.”

CTV News

House set to resume with Layton tributes

By macleans.ca - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 11:06 AM - 1 Comment

A series of tributes to the late NDP leader Jack Layton will kick off a new session of Parliament Monday. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, interim NDP Leader Nicole Turmell and interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae will all speak about Layton before his widow, the MP Olivia Chow delivers a speech. Layton’s seat, across the aisle from the Prime Minister, will remain empty.

Globe and Mail 

Palestinians prepare for UN statehood bid

By macleans.ca - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 11:04 AM - 0 Comments

Palestinian officials are gathering in New York in preparation for their anticipated bid for statehood at the United Nations. President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority may face a U.S. veto in the Security Council if he submits a bid for full UN-membership on Friday. Abbas has indicated he will seek recognition for a Palestinian state that comprises the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Already, police in the West Bank are preparing for the possibility of violence if the statehood bid fails, while Abbas is cautioning Palestinians against high expectations. Being recognized by the UN as a state would be largely symbolic, as Palestinian territory remains occupied by Israel. However, Abbas and other Palestinian leaders hope it will give them a stronger position in peace negotiations. The U.S. and Israel are opposing the bid for statehood, arguing that bilateral negotiations are the best route to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Abbas, however, sees no contradiction between seeking recognition at the UN and negotiating with Israel.

CBC News

Cuts, taxes highlight Obama’s deficit plan

By macleans.ca - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 11:01 AM - 0 Comments

U.S. President Barack Obama will announce a wide-ranging deficit reduction plan Monday that includes higher taxes for the rich, lower spending and more than US$1 trillion in savings from the drawdown of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama’s plan is the opening gambit in a new deficit fight with congressional Republicans. He has vowed to veto any legislation that tries to close the spending gap through spending cuts alone. House Speaker John Boehner, meanwhile, plans to oppose any plan that includes an increase in revenues.

New York Times 

Canadians killed in Nevada air show disaster

By macleans.ca - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 10:58 AM - 0 Comments

A retired Canadian pilot and his wife were among nine people killed at an air show in Nevada Friday. George Hewitt, 60, and his wife Wendy, 57, were in the crowd when P-51 Mustang crashed nearby, killing them instantly. Hewitt worked for Air Canada for about 40 years. The couple had moved to Arizona from Washington State last years according to the Seattle Times.

Associated Press

Where are the women?

By Kate Lunau - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 10:40 AM - 1 Comment

Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

Following her dismissal as Yahoo’s chief executive officer last week, Carol Bartz—who was unceremoniously fired over the phone—didn’t go quietly. Barely a day after she was sent packing, Bartz gave an interview to Fortune, calling the company directors “doofuses.” (She may have to pay for those remarks; her contract had a non-disparagement clause.) Even if Bartz wasn’t well-liked, some lamented her departure: now that she’s gone, there are no female CEOs left at major Silicon Valley firms.

Of course, it isn’t just the tech sector that suffers a dearth of women. Among Fortune 500 companies, women now hold just 2.8 per cent of CEO roles, according to Catalyst, a non-profit think tank. Bartz’s firing sparked debate over whether her treatment was sexist, with industry observers describing her as overly blunt and aggressive. Yahoo’s moribund shares rallied at her departure.

Is Obama finished?

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 10:20 AM - 53 Comments

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Two and a half years into Barack Obama’s presidency, Obamamania has given way to Obamamisery. Fourteen million Americans are out of work. The unemployment rate remains stuck above nine per cent. The net number of new jobs created last month was exactly zero. And nearly one in six Americans live in poverty—the most in 27 years.

Sure, the former Illinois senator was dealt a raw hand—elected in the midst of an economic crisis and two long, costly wars, at the burst of a credit and real estate bubble that would take years to unwind. In his inaugural address, the new President acknowledged “a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable.” But Obama had promised to be the man of hope and change. “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America,” he told the millions people who had travelled from around the country and the globe to witness him take office and end the era of George W. Bush.

In January 2009, the unemployment rate was 6.9 per cent and Obama’s approval ratings were over 60 per cent. The question that framed his presidency was whether he would lead the country out of crisis the way Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the country out of the Great Depression, or whether he would become the next Jimmy Carter—a weak, one-term president done in by economic malaise and failures abroad.

Continue…