Idea alert

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 2:30 PM - 26 Comments

While clarifying that he does not support a full merger, Nathan Cullen proposes joint nomination meetings in Conservative-held ridings.

NDP leadership candidate Nathan Cullen today said he is seeking a mandate from New Democrats to co-operate with progressives across the political spectrum. Specifically, Cullen said as leader, he would seek joint nomination meetings with progressive, federalist parties in some Conservative-held seats … Cullen said he does not a support a full merger.  But also said that he senses a moment where people from across party lines are open to new approaches to defeat Harper, and asked people who feel that way for their support.

Canadians’ confidence in the economy at two-year low

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 2:02 PM - 1 Comment

Canadian confidence in the economy has hit a two-year low, a new survey shows. Pollster Nik Nanos says economic chaos in Europe and the United States have combined to drive pessimism among Canadians. Only 16 per cent of those surveyed believe the economy will improve in the next 6 months. Respondents in Ontario and Quebec were the gloomiest. Those in the Prairies were the most upbeat. The survey, of 1,209 Canadians, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 per cent. “[Politicians] have to be very careful from a straight economic perspective of this becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Nanos told the Globe and Mail. “If people think that the economy is going to actually see another downturn – that we might see a double-dip – they start saving money and stop spending money and that has an effect on the economy on the consumer side. That’s the risk.”

Globe and Mail

The media hates Obama?

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 1:44 PM - 14 Comments

The Pew Research Center released a survey of which U.S. candidates have received the most positive and negative coverage during the primary season so far, with Rick Perry and now Herman Cain getting particularly positive coverage and Newt Gingrich getting a particularly tough time. But the big news from the survey is this bit of information, which has people arguing over what exactly “positive” and “negative” means in this context: Continue…

Ukraine president: Opposition leader to stay in jail

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 1:31 PM - 0 Comments

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich suggested Monday that opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko will remain in jail, despite pressure from Western Europe and elsewhere to release her. Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison last week over her approval of a 2009 gas import deal with neighbouring Russia. The court’s decision was widely decried as being politically motivated. Yanukovich is preparing to visit other European leaders at the EU Parliament in Brussels on Thursday. Some analysts thought politicians there would be able to convince Ukraine to soften Tymoshenko’s sentence, since Yanukovich is hoping to strike a free trade deal with the EU. However, Yanukovich emphasized Monday that “Ukraine is an independent country” that will not bow to pressure from foreign powers. Meanwhile, leaders in Brussels have indicated that they may not meet with Yanukovich when he arrives on Thursday. The Ukrainian president said he intends to fly there nonetheless.

New York Times

Shalit released to family in Israel

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 1:16 PM - 0 Comments

Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is back home, 1,941 days after he was kidnapped by Hamas fighters and held in Gaza. Shalit was freed after the Palestinian group struck a deal with the Israeli government that includes the release of 1,207 Palestinian prisoners, some of whom had been convicted of terrorist attacks against Israel. “I know the pain of families [whose relatives were killed by those released] ….is beyond description,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote in a public letter, acknowledging the criticism he’s received for agreeing to the prisoner exchange. Shalit appeared weak and gaunt upon his release, bolstering reports that he was mistreated by his Palestinian captors.

The Guardian

The Canadian Wheat Board and everything after

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 1:02 PM - 43 Comments

The five-part act to reform the Canadian Wheat Board, as tabled today, is here.

The Harper government has prepared a series of backgrounders and an FAQ to explain it all.

Goldman Sachs posts $428 million loss

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 1:01 PM - 1 Comment

Goldman Sachs announced a third-quarter net loss of $428 million on Tuesday, only the second time the bank hasn’t reported a quarterly profit since 1999. The results were worse than many analysts had predicted, but did not seem to surprise investors, who’d been expecting a weak performance after the market turmoil this summer. Goldman’s revenues dropped for the third consecutive quarter to $3.59 billion, or 60 per cent lower than the same quarter last year. The decline reflected a slowdown in the bank’s activity underwriting stocks and bonds, as nervous investors held off on new stock and bond offerings. More red ink came from a loss of nearly $3 billion on investments in stocks, bonds and a stake in a Chinese bank.

Financial Times

Associated Press

Conservatives to dismantle Wheat Board

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 12:15 PM - 17 Comments

The federal government will table a bill aimed at ending the Candian Wheat Board’s monopoly on Tuesday. In announcing the measure, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz called the Canadian Wheat Board, which requires farmers to sell their wheat and barley harvests through the agency, “yesterday’s solution to yesterday’s problems.” The board’s chairman, however, isn’t taking the news sitting. Allen Oberg plans to take the move to court, saying “the government approach is illegal and it’s against the wishes of farmers.” Indeed, a mail-in vote conducted this summer found 62 per cent of wheat farmers and 51 per cent of those producing barley want to keep it in place. The federal Conservatives have said the board can survive as a voluntary outlet, but it will have to do so without government funding.

Calgary Herald

Journalism or politics?

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 11:45 AM - 4 Comments

From the recent Ontario election, The Agenda convenes a panel of journalists who decided to run for office.

Fusion research with oil sands dollars

By Colby Cosh - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 11:40 AM - 1 Comment

General Fusion Inc.

General Fusion Inc. of Burnaby, B.C., may look like a sophisticated nuclear research company. It’s also the manifestation of a mid-life crisis. A decade ago, physicist Michel Laberge and engineer-executive Doug Richardson were working together at another B.C. firm making software for print designers. When Laberge turned 40 he came to a realization, says Richardson: “[Michel] didn’t want to help cut down forests anymore.”

Today Laberge is the president and chief technology officer—with Richardson as CEO—of a small company that hopes to become the first to get more energy out of a man-made experimental nuclear fusion reaction than it puts in. General Fusion has raised more than $33 million to date from a mix of government eco-research programs and private investors, including Amazon.com CEO-founder Jeff Bezos.

Among the partners, one stands out as especially counterintuitive: this summer the company received funding from Calgary-based oil sands company Cenovus. In backing fusion research, Cenovus is supporting what could become an alternative to its own business, if fusion generation can ever shed its long-standing pie-in-the-sky status. “For us, the investment isn’t a large amount,” says Dave Hassan, who oversees the Cenovus eco- fund. “For a small research company with cash requirements it’s big.” Fusion is a long shot, Hassan concedes, “but it’s a game changer if it works—carbon-free energy, essentially, forever.”

Continue…

Third child? Make it a girl.

By Erica Alini - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 11:20 AM - 1 Comment

Wilfried Maisy/REA/Redux

Governments imposing population controls have a tendency to wind up like the sorcerer’s apprentice. Take the western Indian state of Maharashtra, one of the country’s most populous, where a two-child policy has led to such widespread gender selection through abortion that the local government is scrambling to boost the dwindling female population. In Maharashtra, there are only 88 girls for every 100 boys, compared to the world’s natural sex ratio of 98 per 100. State officials now want to encourage procreation—but only if it helps beef up the number of girls born. According to a recent proposal that could turn into law, couples will be encouraged to have up to three children, as long as the third one belongs to the gentler sex. These girls, the government promises, will be eligible for free public education and a number of unspecified financial perks.

It all amounts to a mixed message. Legislators are also fast-tracking a motion to outlaw prenatal sex selection. But human rights groups have warned that the promise of rewards for a third-born girl provides a strong incentive for couples to break the government’s own ban on selective abortions. Meanwhile, Maharashtra’s legislative twists haven’t dissuaded the southern state of Kerala from considering its own two-child policy, which would punish parents who have more than two children with up to three months in jail, and bar religious leaders from promoting large families.

Japa dog takes on the Big Apple

By Alex Ballingall - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 11:10 AM - 0 Comments

Japa Dog has become a mainstay of downtown Vancouver’s food scene since Noriki Tamura began selling his trademark Japanese fusion hot dogs at the corner of Burrard and Smithe streets six years ago. Now Tamura is ready to expand his brand beyond the confines of the West Coast city, and realize his dream of taking on the seasoned vendors of New York City. “People from around the world come to the Big Apple to achieve their dreams,” Tamura wrote in an email to Maclean’s. “We want to achieve our dream—to become the number one hot dog business in the world.”

Japa Dog, which sells its goods from street carts and indoor restaurants, specializes in hot dogs that take on distinct characteristics of Japanese cuisine. Customers can gorge on edamame-stuffed bratwurst for $5. There are also all-beef hot dogs topped with soy or teriyaki sauce, bonito fish flakes and a special Japanese mayo. Most of the ingredients, aside from the buns and meat, are imported from Japan. Tamura is always hard at work on new East-meets-West culinary fusions, sampling new combinations in an effort to expand the menu. “Sometimes, I eat 10 sausages a day,” he says. Vancouverites can’t get enough. He’s hoping Manhattanites will feel the same way.

The first-ever Japa Dog location outside Vancouver is set to open in New York’s East Village by early December. Next, Tamura hopes to take the brand across Canada, into Los Angeles, Hawaii and, eventually, Asia—but only if things go well in New York. Tamura, for one, has no doubt New Yorkers will fall for his unique take on street meat. “Nobody beats our hot dog,” he says. “I believe 300 per cent.”

All talk, no yeti

By Alex Ballingall - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

Saurabh Das/AP

Everyone from ancient Aboriginal legend-tellers to pimpled camp counsellors have propagated the notion that, deep within the backwoods of the world, beyond the grasp of certain discovery, there dwell hairy humanoid beasts—sometimes called sasquatch; sometimes Bigfoot. For a group of scientists who met this month in a remote Siberian town, the elusive creature is called the yeti.

From Oct. 6 to 8, the town of Tashtagol held an international yeti conference, hosting representatives from countries such as Russia, China, Canada and the U.S. Described by Voice of Russia as anthropologists, geneticists and biologists, the attendees gathered to share “surprising findings, unique photographs and audio recordings” that suggest the apelike animals are real.

The mountainous region where the conference was held has a reputation for yeti sightings. Local authorities have even issued “yeti warnings” out of fears that wildfires might drive the creatures down from the hills in search of food, Der Spiegel reported.

After sharing their evidence, participants were scheduled to embark on an expedition to search nearby caves where sightings have been reported. Want to guess what they found?

Shadow shuffle

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 10:31 AM - 1 Comment

As noted from the outset of the race, any NDP MP seeking the leadership must give up his or her critic portfolio. The resulting shuffle to date goes as follows:

Helene Laverdiere has replaced Paul Dewar on foreign affairs, Claude Gravelle has replaced Romeo Saganash on natural resources and Joe Comartin replaces Thomas Mulcair as House leader. Jack Harris then takes Mr. Comartin’s spot on Justice and David Christopherson takes Mr. Harris’ spot at Defence.

Matters will get still more complicated if Peggy Nash and Robert Chisholm both enter the race, forcing the NDP to name new critics for finance and international trade.

More conservative than Texas

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 9:30 AM - 40 Comments

Terry Milewski travels to Texas to compare crime policy here and there.

Adds Rep. Jerry Madden, a conservative Republican who heads the Texas House Committee on Corrections, “It’s a very expensive thing to build new prisons and, if you build ‘em, I guarantee you they will come. They’ll be filled, OK? Because people will send them there. ”But, if you don’t build ‘em, they will come up with very creative things to do that keep the community safe and yet still do the incarceration necessary.”

Who will pay for these statues of Jack Layton?

By Alex Derry - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 9:20 AM - 6 Comments

Photograph by Jessica Darmanin

When Lea Vivot heard that Jack Layton had died, she went to find some clay. Sculpting a life-sized likeness of the late NDP leader would be the renowned Czech-born artist’s way of mourning his death. She went to the studio in her 100-acre Kleinburg, Ont., farm to dig up the grey-coloured clay she had always used, only to find it had all dried up. Then Vivot, whose statues are found in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Prague, discovered what she calls her divine inspiration: the only usable clay in the studio was orange. “Only a higher force can commission the true artist,” Vivot, who has begun work on three statues of the late NDP leader, told Maclean’s. “Everything else falls into place.”

The statues are bound for Toronto, Ottawa and Layton’s hometown, Hudson, Que., yet neither sites nor payment for them has been secured. Vivot, after all, has developed a reputation as a provocateur in Canada’s arts scene for the way she installs her art. Many of the heavy sculptures are simply dropped off by Vivot and an assistant using a crane without the knowledge or approval of city governments or building owners; Vivot then asks for payment from proprietors, though not all have paid up. One such statue, Lovers Bench, was actually ordered removed from its Bay and Bloor location by the city of Toronto in 1979, and bounced around Montreal and New York until it was finally bought for $250,000 by Toronto developer Murray Goldman in 1991. In 1989, Vivot was also asked to remove The Secret Bench from its impromptu location outside the National Library of Canada due to the artist not having “gone through the right channels.” But a public campaign to have the bench reinstalled resulted in the Department of Public Works and the Canada Council Art Bank allowing her to unveil a recast version of the sculpture outside the library five years later. “It lent warmth and humanity to the front of the building,” said library spokesman Randall Ware.

Continue…

The new Canadian literary odd couple

By Brian Bethune - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Steven Price, Danny Palmerlee, Getty Images; Photo Illustration By Sarah Mackinnon

Young, talented, recently jolted from obscurity to the media spotlight and seemingly joined at the hip: the Canadian literary odd couple of Patrick deWitt and Esi Edugyan are having quite the year. DeWitt and Edugyan, who have never met, are usually mentioned in that order because of the tendency of literary prizes to list nominees alphabetically, and award nominations—where the pair are both a remarkable four for four—are what have put them in the news. They have been shortlisted for all three major Canadian fiction honours, the $40,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize, the $25,000 Governor General’s Literary Award and the $25,000 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, as well as the Man Booker Prize. The most prestigious literary award in the English-language world, the Booker is also one of the richest: $80,000.

But the approval of literary juries is not all that links Edugyan and deWitt. Their books—whether about an African-German jazzman in occupied Paris (Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues) or a fraternal pair of American killers on the hunt during the California Gold Rush (The Sisters Brothers by deWitt)—could scarcely be less Canadian in setting and characters: the most talked-about new Canadian novels in years are not CanLit as it once was and many still think it is. And their authors are almost as removed from the Canadian book world’s mainstream, something encapsulated in the startling fact that deWitt has never been in Toronto. Millions of other Canadians haven’t travelled to the centre of English-Canadian publishing either, of course, but it’s beyond likely that he’s the first of them to find himself on the Giller short list. DeWitt and Edugyan’s unusual twinship is set to last at least until Oct. 18, when one may be chosen as the Booker winner at the same London gala where the two Canadians will first meet. The Canadian prizes will announce their winners in November.

Regardless of distance—geographical, psychological or literary—deWitt and Edugyan are still writers as Canadian as they come. Born on Vancouver Island, deWitt, 36, switched homes frequently between British Columbia and California as his construction engineer father moved from project to project along the Pacific Coast; he now lives in Portland, Ore., with his American wife, Leslie, and their son Gustavo, 6. Edugyan, 33, the Calgary-born and raised daughter of Ghanian immigrants, lives in Victoria with her husband, poet Steven Price, and newborn daughter. Each wrote a first novel that critics admired, particularly in the U.S.—Edugyan’s The Second Life of Samuel Tyne was named by the New York Public Library as a Book to Remember in 2004, while Ablutions by deWitt was a 2009 New York Times Editors’ Choice book—but that created little stir among readers.

Continue…

Have we given up on legislatures?

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 8:30 AM - 9 Comments

Scott Stinson wonders whether we care about our legislatures (or whether our legislatures give us anything to care about).

The speaker was explaining that she didn’t think much of the work conducted in the provincial legislative assembly. “Most of my issues are around the quality of debate and the research and the fact that you can pretty well get up in the house of assembly and say whatever it is you like,” she said. “You don’t have to be concerned with truth.”

… It’s not an uncommon sentiment among members of the public, and if the statement was from one of those ubiquitous morning-radio bits where they stick a microphone in front of someone who is filling their gas tank to measure “the public’s” opinion, it would have been unremarkable. But this was the Premier speaking. Kathy Dunderdale, the newly elected Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador.

I won’t repeat everything I’ve said before (I’ll just link to it), but here’s one measure to consider. Continue…

REVIEW: Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest

By Brian Bethune - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 8:10 AM - 0 Comments

It is a tribute not only to the power of Davis’s theme but to the grace of his writing that he has brought home anew, almost a century after it began, how unbearably sad the Great War was for contemporaries. A war like no other, it left Western Europe’s infrastructure largely intact, while blowing a gaping wound in its male demographic and an arguably larger one in its psyche. The British Empire emerged victorious, but at a cost its privileged elite were loath either to accept or to admit was too high. As mountaineer Geoffrey Young later wrote, witnessing the Western Front’s first gas attack shocked him more than the Second World War news of the Nazi death camps, “for then we still thought all men were human.”

One response to the war, from those in Britain’s climbing community who had survived it intact, was a series of attempts to scale Mount Everest, the world’s tallest peak. (Young, who had lost a leg to artillery fire, didn’t take part, although he later scaled the Matterhorn on a prosthetic.) The aim of the 28 men involved was both traditionally patriotic—they wanted to fly the Union Jack from the roof of the world—and, as Davis painstakingly shows, inchoately personal. A sense of cleansing redemption was in the air, and the very real possibility of death, to men who had survived the Somme, was scarcely worth mentioning. Ascending Everest was of no practical use, and that made it a “vindication of the essential idealism of the human spirit,” according to John Buchan, novelist, future governor general of Canada and ardent backer of the expeditions. George Mallory’s famous throwaway explanation for the climb (“Because it’s there”) fit their aims to an exquisite T, and so too did his equally famous disappearance—vanishing into the mountain mist on June 8, 1924, not to be seen again until his body was recovered 75 years later.

REVIEW: The marriage plot

By Anne Kingston - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

If the student essay title “The Interrogative Mood: Marriage Proposals and the (Strictly Limited) Sphere of the Feminine” summons a smile and an eye roll (especially the parenthetical part), then Eugenides’s new novel will likely strike a major chord. This baby Bildungsroman traces three characters who meet in the 1980s as students at Brown University: the lovely, rudderless Madeleine Hanna, author of the aforementioned essay; her friend, Mitchell Grammaticus, a twitchy, brilliant religious studies student who believes he and Madeleine are fated to be together; and Leonard Bankhead, the charming, hyper-articulate, manic-depressive lost boy who captures Madeleine’s heart.

Eugenides’s skill depicting disparate worlds with pitch-perfect authenticity and wit is in full force. The former Brown alum captures student life against a backdrop of Talking Heads, impassioned arguments about Jacques Derrida, getting drunk and agonizing over the next big step. They all venture into thorny terrain—Madeleine and Leonard’s stormy marriage, a lithium-doped Leonard exploring the wondrous, complex mating habits of yeast in the lab of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Mitchell wandering the world and landing for a time at Mother Teresa’s home for the dying in Calcutta.

It’s a patchwork, and reads like one at times. Eugenides teases out big ideas like a cat with yarn. Early on, one of the characters makes the observation that all books are about other books, a truism believed ardently by students. It’s definitely true here: the novel’s title itself is derived from a literary term describing 18th- and 19th-century novels focused on complications of courtship that end with the nuptial payoff, once the focus of Madeleine’s research. Eugenides’s bold attempt to reframe the “marriage plot” for the 21st century may not succeed fully, but it’s only a minor failure. He has created an absorbing universe of a book—so much so readers will turn the last page still hoping for more.

Taiwan’s 100th National Day

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, October 17, 2011 at 11:32 PM - 3 Comments

Reception at the Fairmont Château Laurier for Taiwan’s 100^th National Day: Double Ten Day – put on by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Ottawa.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

Conservative MP Bob Dechert (left).

When ministers of the crown tweet

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 17, 2011 at 7:26 PM - 8 Comments

After QP this afternoon, Liberal MP John McCallum tweeted a little mockery of Tony Clement.

JohnMcCallumMP Minister Raitt responded directly to allegations against her, why does @tonyclementCPC stay seated when he is asked about his conduct?

TonyclementCPC @JohnMcCallumMP The Minister who made the decisions on G8 funding answers the questions in Parliament: John Baird.

JohnMcCallumMP @TonyclementCPC Does this mean you will not answer G8 Legacy Fund questions at your long-awaited appearance before committee?

As of this typing, Mr. Clement has not responded to this last provocation.

The minister’s argument here is that, though he and his mayors came up with the list of projects to be funded and though he took questions during QP about the G8 Legacy Fund a year ago and though he took questions about the G8 Legacy Fund from reporters in the House foyer last month, since it was Mr. Baird who, in his previous portfolio, signed off on the funding of those projects, it is thus now Mr. Baird’s responsibility to stand inside the House and account for the spending.

Obama sticks to his jobs plan

By macleans.ca - Monday, October 17, 2011 at 5:43 PM - 0 Comments

After seeing his jobs plan blocked in the Senate last week, U.S. president Barack Obama is trying to force feed it to Congress by slicing it into smaller parts. “Maybe they [Congress] just couldn’t understand the whole all at once. So we’re going to break it up into bite-size pieces so they can take a thoughtful approach to this legislation,” he told a cheering crowd on Monday during a campaign-style tour of North Carolina and Virginia, two key swing states in the 2012 presidential election. This week, for starters, the Obama administration is preparing to push through Congress a measure to give states money to hire teachers, firefighters and police, one of the many proposals contained in the president’s original jobs plan. The strategy is aimed at jumpstarting the faltering economy as much as embarrassing Republicans for repeatedly blocking jobs bills in the run up to next year’s poll.  

Financial Times

The cost of crime

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 17, 2011 at 3:38 PM - 8 Comments

Bruces Foster and Ravelli argue the government is pursuing crime from the wrong angle.

Canada’s Criminal Code is already thick with laws that have lengthy sentences, yet people commit crimes every day. What our laws do not address are the root causes of crime, and the under-reporting of these crimes. For example, there is nothing in Bill C-10 that will assist an abused spouse to leave their relationship, nothing to support the child who is abused by their parent, nothing to address alleged systemic racism in the criminal justice system, nothing to address why people choose to not report their victimization, nothing to deter white collar crime.

When we hear the government is “getting tough on crime”, we want to believe the result will help improve the overall safety and wellbeing of Canadians. However, if we were to review the research (much of which was funded by the Government of Canada), we would understand that a more sound approach would be to take the billions of dollars earmarked for this bill and spend it on prevention and support programs. Every dollar wasted on ineffective law-and-order measures is money that could have been spent addressing the social and economic forces that drive the desperate into lives of crime.

Dan Gardner notes one potential absurdity of the government’s omnibus crime bill. Continue…