Spain elects conservative government

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 21, 2011 at 10:25 AM - 0 Comments

Spanish voters handed the centre-right Popular party of Mariano Rajoy the biggest victory in its history on Sunday, the Financial Times reports. At the same time, the country’s general election made the incumbent Socialists the latest political casualty of the European Union’s sovereign debt crisis. The conservatives won 186 seats in the lower house of parliament, while the centre-left obtained just 110 in the 350-seat chamber. Spain faces 21.5 per cent unemployment and over $40 billion in cuts if the new government is to reduce the public deficit to 4.4 percent of GDP by the end of 2012.

Financial Times

The Associated Press

Too disunited to govern?

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 21, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

The Canadian Press finds increasing unease among Conservative MPs about the government’s support for asbestos.

The first public cracks in the Conservative party line came on Nov. 1, when five Tory MPs broke ranks and abstained from an NDP vote that would have banned asbestos exports. That was followed last Monday with a private Parliament Hill meeting that saw about a dozen Conservative parliamentarians ask some pointed questions of the Chrysotile Institute and industry scientists over several hours … Other Conservative MPs who were not at the meeting have told The Canadian Press they too are uneasy with the current position on asbestos. One Tory, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said some of his colleagues might have voted for the recent NDP motion if had been worded more narrowly and had actually been binding on government.

The idea that more Conservative MPs would’ve voted in favour of the NDP motion if it had somehow been binding is a novel one. If the government whipped the entirely symbolic vote earlier this month, one assumes they would whip a more consequential vote, meaning any Conservatives who voted with the opposition would almost certainly be punished.

Our Julia Belluz previously handled the question of whether asbestos could be handled safely.

A chance for the Liberals to take a chance

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, November 21, 2011 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

Peter Power/The Globe and Mail

The best way to understand the situation facing the Liberals is to think of the party as a hockey team. It has won several Stanley Cups in a row, but by the last of those cups, it was relying on a clutch of 43-year-old veterans. With their retirement, the team has no option but to spend a few seasons in the basement, rebuilding. If it learns patience, while the draft picks mature and the losses mount, the team may in time become a winner again. If it does not, it becomes the Leafs.

It is still not clear whether the party fully understands the predicament it is in. To be sure, it understands it lost the last election, and lost badly: the worst defeat in its history. But even if Liberals grasp the magnitude of their defeat, they do not seem to grasp its implications.

A case in point is the “road map to renewal” the party’s national executive released last week. The document is properly proud of Liberal achievements, and properly bracing about the task ahead. Yet it remains fixed in the belief that nothing fundamental has changed for the party, or needs to. It just has to do the same things, better: better fundraising, better organizing, better communications, better outreach.

Continue…

Like a young Pat Martin

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 21, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

On the afternoon of May 25, 1998, a young parliamentarian—a member of the opposition, not yet 30 years old and elected for the first time less than a year before—stood to speak on the Liberal government’s latest budget implementation bill.

I begin by expressing my regret that debate on this bill has been limited by the government’s time allocation motion. I understand this is the fourth time in this parliament alone that closure or time allocation has been implemented. It was done on Bill C-2 regarding the Canada pension plan, on Bill C-4 with respect to the Canadian Wheat Board, on Bill C-19, the Canadian Labour Code amendments which we dealt with before parliament broke, and now twice on Bill C-36 … This is parliament. The purpose of this place is to deliberate on legislation brought forward by the government. It is not to rubber stamp legislation brought forward by the bureaucracy or the executive branch. It is to deliberate, to debate, to amend, to consider, to ensure that those who pay the bills for the legislation we pass have their concerns fully and exhaustively expressed with respect to every single piece of legislation.

Two days later, he challenged government MPs to remember their principles. Continue…

The minister making the UN move faster

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, November 21, 2011 at 8:30 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Mitchel Raphael

Canada fights for girls

The purpose of Plan International’s “Because I am a Girl” campaign is to champion girls in the developing world, ensuring they have access to education and food as well as advocating for their physical safety and basic human rights. Plan Canada and Plan U.K. have been pushing to get an International Day of the Girl recognized at the UN; they’ve found a strong ally in Rona Ambrose, minister for status of women. She was moved by the stories of youth representatives from developing countries after asking them tough questions such as why the day was needed when there is already International Women’s Day. The answers included female feticide, preferential feeding of boys, and higher HIV transmission rates. Ambrose is helping to navigate the resolution through the UN, building support among nations including Egypt, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Ambrose “is a force,” says Plan Canada CEO Rosemary McCarney. “She’s absolutely the champion on this. It’s quite impressive how fast this is happening from last year.”

Last month, Canada’s mission at the UN held a reception hosted by Ambrose. Fifty UN ambassadors attended and Ambrose worked the room, says McCarney. Now the resolution is an official initiative of the Canadian government, with opposition support. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has given Ambrose his support to work the resolution through. McCarney says another key supporter of the initiative is Tory Sen. Nancy Ruth, who brought other senators on board. McCarney says the UN vote should happen sometime in December.

Continue…

Maybe it should be renamed ‘Bad News Corp.’

By Leah McLaren - Monday, November 21, 2011 at 8:30 AM - 0 Comments

Jonathan Alcorn/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Last week the British public sat riveted through yet another episode in the ongoing, Hitchcock-worthy suspense thriller known as “Dial ‘M’ for Murdoch.”

Late Thursday morning, James Murdoch, the 39-year-old bespectacled heir apparent to the embattled News Corp. empire, was called for a second time to give testimony at a hearing led by backbench MPs on the House of Commons’s culture, media and sport select committee. The grilling was the latest chapter in the phone hacking saga that erupted into a full-blown scandal in July.

The catalyst then was public outrage over the revelation that 13-year-old murder victim Millie Dowler’s phone had been hacked by reporters from the now-defunct tabloid News of the World—which came after years of news of ill-gotten celebrity scoops and half-hearted police investigations into what we now know was a widespread London tabloid practice. Since then, the scandal has only snowballed. At last count, the list of potential phone hacking victims stands at around 6,000, about 2,000 more than previously thought, and the series of upcoming civil trials has not even begun. This week, the official government-sponsored inquiry spurred by the scandal kicks off. Led by Lord Justice Leveson, it is specifically tasked with examining the “culture, practice and ethics of the press,” and will probe the relationships between the country’s politicians, police and newspapers so as to “recommend on the future of press regulation and governance.”

Continue…

No grease for a squeaky wheel

By Jen Cutts - Monday, November 21, 2011 at 8:15 AM - 0 Comments

South Africa’s ruling party has rid itself of a squeaky wheel. The African National Congress (ANC) suspended the outspoken president of its youth league for five years earlier this month, after finding him guilty of “sowing division” within the party. Julius Malema, 31, says he will appeal, but observers predict he has little chance of success.

Malema is a controversial figure. He’s seen by some as a voice for poor black South Africans, who are frustrated with President Jacob Zuma’s inability to create jobs or deliver basic services. Others criticize Malema’s high-flying lifestyle, suspicious because of the modest pay he receives.

Either way, the last straw was Malema’s criticism of neighbouring Botswana’s government, which goes against ANC policy. Though it was more likely his threat to transfer support from Zuma to another candidate at a crucial party conference next year—putting a second term for the president at risk—that sealed his fate. Malema’s ouster will almost certainly lead to more division in the ANC as the scramble for the leadership intensifies.

The U.S. and Canada: we used to be friends

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Monday, November 21, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

No one was more surprised than TransCanada PipeLines Ltd. itself by the Obama administration’s decision to impose a fresh year or more delay on a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline—TransCanada’s proposed 2,673-km project that could transport more than 700,000 barrels of crude oil from the oil sands in Alberta to refineries in Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast of Texas. It had been heavily promoted by the governments of Canada and Alberta. And after two years of studies and drafts, the U.S. State Department had issued a final environmental assessment on Aug. 26 that had turned out to be even friendlier to the pipeline than supporters had been hoping for.

Indeed, the State Department concluded that there are “no significant impacts” to the environment along the route of the pipeline. The department also concluded that the pipeline would fill a need: even under a “low demand” outlook for oil, and even if there was increased fuel efficiency and a greater use of alternative energy sources, the hunger for Canadian crude oil would continue to grow among Gulf Coast refineries because supplies from countries such as Mexico and Venezuela are declining. Alternative transportation methods, such as trucking or rail, would add more emissions and run a higher risk of accidents than a pipeline. The project would not increase greenhouse gas emissions, State reasoned, because the oil would be produced for somebody to use in any case. And State also looked at 14 alternative routes and decided that none of them was preferable to the one proposed by TransCanada.

Then, little more than two months later, on Nov. 10, the State Department abruptly balked and declared the need for an additional study—one that would take a year or more—to look at an alternative pipeline route within the state of Nebraska that would avoid the Sand Hills area. That is a region of grass-covered sand dunes that covers a quarter of the state—and also Nebraska’s Ogallala aquifer, one of America’s largest underground sources of fresh water. The study is expected to delay a permit decision, which State had said would come by the end of December, until 2013. Had the project been approved on schedule, it could have started operating by then; the delay will push final approval for the project past the presidential election.

TransCanada was stunned. “We actually found out about it after others did,” company spokesperson Shawn Howard told Maclean’s. “It was a surprise. We thought the conclusions reached in the final environmental impact statement were pretty clear.” The company believed it had picked the best route. “The biggest issue was distance. This was the shortest route through that part of the state, and as a result it had the least amount of land disturbance and affected the fewest land-owners,” he said.

Continue…

It’s time for Canada to seek other friends besides the U.S.

By the editors - Monday, November 21, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Charles Dharapak/AP

From no-brainer to brainless in just a few weeks—Canada’s best interests have once again been trumped by American politics.

Just a few weeks ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper was calling the approval by the United States of TransCanada’s Keystone XL oil pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico a “complete no-brainer.” The benefits to both countries in terms of employment, energy security and trade from the $7-billion project were so obvious and manifest that U.S. President Barack Obama’s consent seemed a sure thing.

Then Hollywood got involved. Superannuated stars such as Robert Redford and Daryl Hannah added their names to over-the-top civil disobedience protests against a “tar sands” pipeline from Alberta. Among the few coherent complaints expressed by green groups was concern the pipeline would cross the Ogallala aquifer that provides several Midwest states with drinking water. The project quickly became a test of Obama’s environmental credentials.

Continue…

This is the week that was

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, November 19, 2011 at 3:42 PM - 0 Comments

Pat Martin tweeted a bad word. But refused to apologize. And claimed a kind of victory.

The government’s investments weren’t as advertised, but the future looks expensive. Supply management was put on the table and duly debated. The Royal Society asked us to think about euthanasia, but no one wanted to talk about it. The Conservative party has some reimbursements it might return. The NDP got set to debate itself as the contenders peddled their thoughts. The Liberals offered to realign the House at no extra expense. And a multi-party committee came together to consider matters of life and death. Continue…

Occupy protests & the Falun Gong precedent

By Colby Cosh - Saturday, November 19, 2011 at 6:14 AM - 0 Comments

As Occupy Toronto gets a slightly bumpy ride in court from Superior Court Justice David Brown, I’ve been waiting for just one legal analyst, amateur or professional, to stumble across what appears to me to be the best, highest-level judicial treatment of the Charter issues that the Occupy movements raise. The case, Vancouver v. Zhang, is all of a year old, and involved a unanimous decision of the B.C. Court of Appeal.

I’m no lawyer, but Zhang seems awfully instructive. The BCCA was presented with a question of crucial importance to the Occupy situations: can a non-artistic structure, in itself, have protected expressive content? Falun Gong protesters had erected a “meditation hut” and a billboard in front of the Chinese consulate on Granville Street. The City Engineer ordered it torn down as an admittedly minor, hypothetical sort of traffic “obstruction”, and the city argued that removing a structure didn’t unduly restrict the protesters’ free-expression rights. City officials weren’t making a political distinction between types of speech, the lawyers contended; they simply had an inflexible mandate to smash any structure that was on city property without a permit. Continue…

And finally

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 18, 2011 at 5:42 PM - 0 Comments

Here, courtesy of Althia Raj, is Justin Trudeau stripping down to his undershirt for charity.

This week has three sketches

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 18, 2011 at 5:03 PM - 0 Comments

Monday. Drawing a line at “stupid”
Wednesday. Down with inequality, up with the price of cheese
Thursday. Darkness in the mid-afternoon

TV’s Back-Lot Future

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, November 18, 2011 at 4:31 PM - 0 Comments

Television seems to go back and forth when it comes to the idea of location shooting. So do movies, but television’s budget and time constraints mean that the producers necessarily have to focus even harder on what type of shooting is the most cost-efficient. Few shows, of course – except pilots and special vacation episodes – can afford to shoot all around the world. But wherever the show does shoot, there may be a choice between shooting on real city locations and staying on studio-owned property. And we seem to be heading into an era where studio and backlot shooting is becoming more prominent:

L.A. is home to dozens of TV dramas like “Franklin & Bash,” “The Mentalist,” “CSI: New York” and “Parenthood.” But, in order to save money, such dramas are filming more days on studio lots rather than on location.

The article says these shows are shooting “more days” on the lot; location shooting (often disguised as another city) is not out. But the amount of work that’s being done on backlot scenery – requiring the producers to find Continue…

How Nickelback brings us together

By Ian Gormely - Friday, November 18, 2011 at 4:14 PM - 0 Comments

A funny thing happened on the way to Detroit’s Ford Field a few weeks ago. After the Lions scheduled Canadian rockers Nickelback to play the NFL team’s Thanksgiving halftime show, University of Michigan grad student Dennis Guttman started an online petition to have the band booted from the bill. More than 54,000 people have signed on.

It’s long been assumed that the source of Nickelback’s popularity was the American Midwest, where blue-collar workers can connect with the band’s brand of everyman post-grunge. But a month before they revolted in Detroit, sports fans in Manitoba—pretty much the Canadian equivalent of the American Midwest—were similarly freaked out at the thought of Nickelback giving a free concert at their resurrected Jets home opener last month, prompting past and present music critics for the Winnipeg Free Press to pen an open letter to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman denouncing the choice. Continue…

It takes a swear word

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 18, 2011 at 4:03 PM - 0 Comments

Speaking with reporters after QP this morning, Pat Martin claims a kind of victory.

I think it’s great that Canadians are engaged in a subject like the integrity of their Parliamentary democracy.  I’ve never seen so many people talking about the value of Parliament since the Charlottetown Accord … I think it’s great that Canadians are engaged in a subject like the integrity of their Parliamentary democracy.  I’ve never seen so many people talking about the value of Parliament since the Charlottetown Accord…

It’s a very fragile balance. The whole institution of Parliament is a very fragile construct.  Both players have to stipulate themselves to a set of rules to make it work. The Conservatives have to cooperate and consult and to accommodate the legitimate concerns of Opposition or it’s going to go up like a tinderbox. We have to keep a lid on it because it is worth fighting for. Sometimes civility is sacrificed but today this is a very heated debate. We’re dealing with closure yet again in the Canadian Wheat Board.  Emotions are going to rise unless the Conservatives back off and cooperate a little bit.

A video game that hits back

By Jesse Brown - Friday, November 18, 2011 at 3:55 PM - 0 Comments

Gamers are fetishists for realism. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent every year developing virtual worlds into ever more realistic simulations of our own. Every follicle of hair, every machine gun blast, every enemy’s cry for mercy is noodled and tweaked by engineers and artists for maximum verisimilitude. The first-person shooter genre seems particularly obsessed with realism–gamers want to actually feel like they’re fighting in every way. Well, in almost every way–the one aspect of war that developers have never shown much interest in recreating is pain. That, though, may soon change.

The Gadget Show, a surprisingly well-resourced program on the U.K.’s Channel 5, recently built and documented what is perhaps the world’s most realistic battle simulator, complete with virtual enemies that can actually hurt you–via real-life paintball guns. Here’s a video of it: It’s all worth watching, but the heavy action comes around 9:30.

While this is all very technically impressive, what I find most interesting is that host Jason Bradbury genuinely seems to enjoy getting shot. Unless Bradbury is faking it (or just is into that sort of thing) the possibility of pain seems to radically amp up his sense of immersion. His fear seems real, as does his elation. The pain-game seems fun, and I kinda want to try it.

So is this the future of gaming? And if we set off in this direction, will gamers need ever higher levels of pain to get their kicks?

I shudder to think.

Jesse Brown is the host of TVO.org’s Search Engine podcast. He is on Twitter @jessebrown

FDA revokes approval on blockbuster breast cancer drug

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 18, 2011 at 2:23 PM - 0 Comments

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced on Friday it will revoke its approval of blockbuster drug Avastin for use in breast cancer patients, saying it found no evidence that it prolongs their lives, while it has serious side effects. The FDA had initially approved Avastin to treat metastatic breast cancer in 2008 under an expedited approval program that grants patients early access to promising drugs even as additional clinical trials are carried out. “Unfortunately the additional studies failed to confirm Avastin’s initial promise,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg told ABC News. The additional evidence showed that Avastin patients lived no longer than those taking standard chemotherapy. The drug, however, can cause serious conditions such as severe high blood pressure, as well as bleeding and perforations in the nose, stomach and intestines.

ABC News

With statistics

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 18, 2011 at 2:08 PM - 0 Comments

Rob Nicholson, July 2008. “We don’t govern by statistics in our government.”

Rob Nicholson, July 2009. “We don’t govern on the latest statistics.”

Stockwell Day, August 2010. “We’re very concerned . . . about the increase in the amount of unreported crimes that surveys clearly show are happening. People simply aren’t reporting the same way they used to.”

Rob Nicholson, September 2011. “We’re not governing on the basis of the latest statistics.”

Jeff Watson, this morning in the House. “Madam Speaker, with our tackling violent crime act, measures to strengthen parole, pardons and sentences for violent criminals, funds for more frontline police and to prevent at-risk youth from a life of crime, only this Conservative government is making our communities and streets safer. According to StatsCan’s just released 2010 crime severity index, Windsor–Essex is the safest region in Canada. Among the safest Canadian communities over 10,000 people, the town of LaSalle ranks 2nd, Tecumseh 4th, Kingsville 7th, Lakeshore 8th, Essex 12th. Windsor is the 7th safest big city of 32, and topping the list of 238 safest towns and cities is my hometown, Amherstburg. Thanks to our dedicated police, strong community involvement, our government’s investments to prevent crime and tough laws to crack down on criminals, Windsor–Essex is the safest region in Canada.”

Local officials in Windsor and Essex County have cited a number of possible explanations for the recent success there, including shifting demographics, community assistance, police involvement in schools and “luck.”

Invoking the memory of Jack Layton

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 18, 2011 at 12:54 PM - 0 Comments

Via Twitter, Conservative backbencher Stephen Woodworth is profoundly saddened by Pat Martin.

Isn’t the real question whether Pat Martin’s foul language was momentary lack of self-control or reflecting ordinary quality of thought?

Is whether one responds to frustration and defeat constructively or destructively an indicator of character?

Whatever happened to “My friends, love is better than anger”(or hopes to that effect).Perhaps PMartin didn’t get that memo

Perhaps politicians who don’t tweet & act consistently with “love is better than anger” should apologize to the memory of JLayton 

This is the not the first time a Conservative has invoked Mr. Layton’s final words to scold a New Democrat.

Clinton to visit Myanmar

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 18, 2011 at 12:33 PM - 0 Comments

U.S. President Barack Obama announced on Friday that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be visiting Myanmar next month, marking the first time in over half a century that a secretary of state will set foot in the country, the New York Times reports. The news came as pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi said on Friday that her party was ready to register for future elections, underscoring the opposition’s confidence in recent political changes in the country. “After years of darkness, we’ve seen flickers of progress in these last several weeks,” Obama said, acknowledging reforms recently undertaken by Myanmar’s ruling military junta.

The New York Times

Down with taxes, up with inequality

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 18, 2011 at 12:20 PM - 0 Comments

Stephen Gordon troubleshoots a proposal—championed by the New Democrats and Conservatives in Ontario, but also the federal NDP—to cut the sales tax on home heating bills.

Removing the HST on heating will cost a certain amount of money – apparently on the order of $350m. The share of those foregone revenues that will go to households in the highest income quintile is almost three times the share that will go to the low-income households that the measures’ proponents loudly insist are its focus. More than half of the money will go to people in the top 40%; only a quarter will go to the bottom 40%. As redistributional measures go, it’s more progressive than offering free yacht maintenance, but not as progressive as actually giving more money to those with lower incomes.

More from Livio Di Matteo.

Mounties, airport security accused of privacy rights violations

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 18, 2011 at 12:07 PM - 0 Comments

The federal privacy commissioner blasted the RCMP and the agency that guards Canadian airports on Thursday, accusing both of violating the privacy of citizens in unnecessary and possibly illegal ways. In an audit released to Parliament, Jennifer Stoddart said the Mounties were holding on to private information on wrongly accused or pardoned Canadians. Under privacy laws, that data should be scrapped. Stoddart also had harsh words for the Canadian Air Transport Security Agency. Stoddart said the air security agency is too focused on solving crimes, not keeping planes safe, and may be encroaching on privacy rights as result.

National Post

Virtuosity and passion in ‘Café de Flore’

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, November 18, 2011 at 12:07 PM - 0 Comments

Evelyne Brochu in 'Café de Flore'

Of all the films I saw at TIFF in September none had a more electrifying impact on me than Café de Flore. The film’s ending, which I could not begin to divulge, hit me like a hammer to the chest. I walked out of the cinema physically transformed, still feeling goosebumps. As a critic, I’m wary of succumbing to that kind of extreme response during a festival. It’s like getting sucker-punched—the last time I was knocked for such a loop was at a TIFF screening of Black Swan, and I’ve been struggling to defend that film ever since. And while I “fell” for Café de Flore, I also felt I’d been drawn into something wild and outlandish, a metaphysical leap of faith. But when a movie hits you with a such a visceral punch, you have to go with your gut. I haven’t seen a more powerful Canadian film all year.

Café de Flore comes from Quebec writer-director Jean-Marc Vallée. After The Young Victoria (2009), his restrained fling with British royalty, Vallée re-embraces the French language, the musical euphoria, and the cinematic virtuosity that made C.R.A.Z.Y (2005) such an intoxicating triumph. It’s a daredevil drama of shattered love that dances a tightrope between two far-flung and seemingly unrelated storylines: a single mother (Vanessa Paradis) struggles to raise a Down Syndrome boy in 1969 Paris; a celebrated DJ (Kevin Parent) in present-day Montreal navigates a painful divorce while sharing custody of two resentful daughters. (For my interview with Paradis, a French chanteuse who has two children with Johnny Depp, go to: Vanessa Paradis on motherhood, Johnny Depp and Café de Flore). Continue…