Outside and in

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Steve Paikin talks to Alison Loat about Samara’s latest report.

“Nothing is more dear to me than my honour”

By Michael Friscolanti - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at 12:03 AM - 0 Comments

Michael Friscolanti is covering the honour killing trial for Maclean’s, filing regular reports from the Kingston, Ont. courtroom to Macleans.ca and weekly dispatches for the magazine. The reports will continue for the duration of the trial, which is expected to run into December.

Mohammad Shafia was blessed with seven children, praise be to God. Three are now dead, allegedly at his behest. Three are living under a different roof, allegedly for their own safety. And one is on trial with him, allegedly at the crime scene—along with his mother—on the night his “treacherous” sisters were dumped into the Rideau Canal.

Yet to hear him say it, Mohammad Shafia was the model Muslim father: generous, selfless and never “meddling” in his kids’ affairs. “We were not a strict family,” he insists to his wife and fellow murder suspect, Tooba Yahya, in one conversation captured by police. “We were kind of [a] liberal family.” He recalls how he let his children play at the park, took them on Friday afternoon picnics, and if they needed money, he never said no. “You and I, we carried these children on our backs,” he continues. “We subjected ourselves to hardships, we took on drudgery for them, we wash their sh– and pee, we wash their clothes.” Continue…

The Commons: Drawing a line at “stupid”

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 7:04 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. After some hurling of invective over other issues, the House turned to the matter of Dean Del Mastro’s apparent willingness to upend the constitutional order by which this country has functioned for more than 144 years.

“Mr. Speaker, in the past month the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister has been called out by the Canadian judiciary, the Ethics Commissioner, the bar association, but now the senior law clerk of the House of Commons is warning that his behaviour at committee is interfering in the independence of the courts that is both unconstitutional and ‘unlawful,’ ” the NDP’s Charlie Angus reported. “Either the government respects the constitutional limits of Parliament or it does not.”

In his seat across the way, Mr. Del Mastro slapped his own hand and laughed.

“I have a simple question,” Mr. Angus declared. “Will the government rein in this rogue member, yes or no?”

It was here Heritage Minister James Moore’s responsibility to clarify that it was, in fact, Mr. Del Mastro’s duty to do as he has been doing. Continue…

NBC’s Midseason Will Fix Everything

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 6:17 PM - 0 Comments

The big news online about NBC’s midseason lineup is that Community has been benched – temporarily, it must be said; NBC has guaranteed the studio a 22-episode order, and it’ll have to air them all at some point. But the network will put it on hiatus after Christmas, leaving the other half of the season to be aired at an unspecified time later this season.

I would also point out that additional slots will open up once something bombs, and this is NBC, so something will bomb. I don’t know what will happen with the show’s future, and it obviously suffers somewhat from not being owned outright by the network. (The network is pushing hard to make Up All Night a success, putting it into the only good time slot it has and moving it away from the coming of American Idol. It may not have the same incentive to push a show from another studio.) I’m not willing to predict anything about what will happen to it after this season, though. It could depend to a large extent on where NBC puts it when it does come back. Or, as we’ve mentioned before, on what kind of deal Sony – a studio desperate to get some shows into syndication – offers them for a fourth seaosn.

Still, if NBC wanted to get rid of the show, they would simply put it on Fridays or some other spot where its ratings would fall below replacement level. In fact, it seems like every year NBC does something like that with another show. Last year Outsourced got decent ratings after The Office, so NBC proceeded to put it in the worst possible time slot at midseason, thereby killing it. This year Whitney got decent ratings after The Office, so NBC is moving it to a time slot where it will almost certainly get killed. These are shows that got bad reviews and whose (relative) success sort of embarrassed the network. On a network like this, putting a show on hiatus is probably a sign of confidence.

My personal hope is that Are You There, Chelsea? (the sanitized name for what was originally Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea) flops while Whitney does okay; this might allow Community to follow Whitney in the most awkward pairing of shows in living memory. (Actually, Whitney, while not good, isn’t terrible – it’s turned out more watchable than 2 Broke Girls, and Chris D’Elia is giving a very good performance. But the show has an otherwise bland cast and Cummings’s character isn’t an appealing lead, so if NBC wants to crush it, I won’t mourn.) But really, no one can predict anything NBC is going to do.

The other show that gets the shaft in this schedule is the new show Awake, generally considered to be the best drama pilot of the season. It hasn’t been given a spot on the schedule yet, and this follows a period where the network and studio temporarily shut down production so they can rework the scripts. But The Firm, which actually is airing, isn’t in that good a position either: Thursday at 10 on NBC is a spot that young viewers have displayed very little interest in watching, and if Prime Suspect bombed there, it’s hard to see why a lawyer show would do any better.

I sometimes wonder if NBC wouldn’t be better off just giving up on must-see Thursday. Not giving up on programming stuff on Thursday, I mean, just accepting that the structure of Thursdays in its golden age, four comedies followed by a hit procedural, is never coming back. They’ve toyed with giving up the 10 pm hour, of course, but they always come back to a structure that recalls the Good Old Days, and it’s part of what gives NBC the feeling of being trapped by its past: looking for a comedy anchor at 8 on Thursdays is almost pointless, and will become still more pointless next year if CBS expands to two hours on Thursday. CBS and Fox own Thursdays now, and NBC might be better off trying to find a comedy foothold on some other night.

On the other hand, I said “if” CBS expands to two hours; they obviously want to, but they can’t come up with enough workable comedies. The network’s decision to pick up Rob Schneider’s sitcom is an example of how strapped they are for comedies. (This may explain why CBS has started to pick up a few more single-camera pilots: though single-camera doesn’t really work on CBS, there just aren’t enough good multi-camera pitches out there. Not yet anyway.) So NBC may be saved temporarily by CBS’s inability to seize its opportunity: it can’t take over Thursday unless it finds some other Thursday hits besides Big Bang Theory, and Rob Schneider’s show hopefully isn’t it.

Finally, if you want to see a show being treated really badly, look at Rules of Engagement. I don’t like that show; it’s become the epitome of an “is that still on the air?” show. But even though I don’t like Rules, I can objectively say it’s being treated badly: CBS originally scheduled it on Saturday, putting it on Thursday only after How to Be a Gentleman bombed. Rules got solid ratings and saved the slot for CBS. Which responded by cutting the show’s season order and benching it at midseason. That’s a network that, for whatever reason, just doesn’t like a show.

Stepping boldly into the future

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 3:47 PM - 0 Comments

Sheila Copps, currently running to be president of the Liberal party, explains her plans for reform.

She’s planning to hold a “Very Scary Stephen party,” complete with Stephen Harper masks (if she can find some), as part of her bid to become the party’s president. “We want to try to make the party fun again,” she said. “And make it a go-to place for people who want to make change and have fun can get involved.”

Norway mass killer admits to murders, denies guilt

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 2:16 PM - 0 Comments

Anders Behring Breivik, the man who carried out July’s Norway massacre, made his first appearance in a public court without a publication ban on Monday. Breivik, 32, admitted to killing 77 people in a car bombing and shooting rampage, but refused to accept guilt, saying he rejected the court’s jurisdiction because it “supports multiculturalism.” He attempted to address survivors of his massacre at the Utoya island youth retreat who were present in the Oslo courtroom, but was cut off by the judge. Breivik also claimed to be part of a network of far-right nationalist militants fighting against the Islamification of Europe. “I am a military commander in the Norwegian resistance movement and Knights Templar Norway,” Breivik told the court. He has been in solitary confinement since his arrest in July. Breivik’s trial is tentatively scheduled to begin in April.

Reuters

Pressure mounting on Syria to halt bloodshed

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 1:45 PM - 0 Comments

Speaking of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Jordan’s King Abdullah told the BBC: “I believe, if I were in his shoes, I would step down.” It’s the latest sign that pressure is mounting on the Syrian regime to halt its brutal crackdown on protests inspired by the Arab Spring. On Monday the European Union also turned the screw on the Syrian government by approving more sanctions. On Sunday, Arab leaders suspended Damascus from membership in the Arab League due to its violent attacks on civilians. Syria, however, still enjoys the support of Russia, who condemned both the Arab League and the West for aiding opponents of Syria’s regime.

BBC

Reuters

Italy set to form technocratic cabinet

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 1:27 PM - 0 Comments

European Commissioner Mario Monti was in frenetic talks with political parties, trade unions and employers on Monday, as he rushes to appoint a largely technocratic cabinet that Italians hope will restore faltering investor confidence in their country’s ability to repay its debt, Reuters reports. Monti is expected to seek a vote of confidence for the new government by Friday. However, the Financial Times writes that Silvio Berlusconi, who resigned from the post of prime minister on Saturday, struck a defiant note, noting that support from his People of Liberty party is essential for Monti to be able to govern. “We are ready to pull the plug,” Berlusconi reportedly said.

The Financial Times
Reuters

U.S. Supreme Court agrees to look at ‘Obamacare’

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 1:12 PM - 0 Comments

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a constitutional challenge of President Barack Obama’s hard-fought health care reform package. The challenge hinges on whether the legislation breaches the individual rights of American citizens by forcing them to carry health insurance. The law, dubbed ‘Obamacare’ in the media, stipulates that, starting in 2014, individuals without health coverage will be forced to but it or pay a penalty. The challenge was brought forward by governors and attorneys general from 26 U.S. states, the National Federation of Independent business and two individual plaintiffs. The court will begin hearing arguments next March, paving the way for an election-year showdown over a piece of legislation championed as a major achievement by the Obama administration.

The Wall Street Journal

Asia a priority, Harper warns Obama

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 1:04 PM - 0 Comments

Echoing Finance Minister Jim Flaherty who had made similar remarks, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Chinese President Hu Jintao on Sunday that stepping up Canada’s energy supply to Asia was an important priority. The message contained a thinly veiled jab at U.S. President Barack Obama, after Washington postponed a decision on whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline to transport Alberta’s oil to Texas until after the 2012 elections.

Reuters

The House of Rubber Stamps

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 12:45 PM - 0 Comments

Peter Van Loan complains that the opposition parties continue to oppose the Harper government’s agenda and explains his general approach to House debate.

Besides, Mr. Van Loan argues that three or four hours of debate is sufficient for bills. “During an election leaders debate on all the issues … that might go two hours. I hear very few people say it wasn’t long enough – and that’s to decide the whole election.”

That Dern Cat, or “Enlightened”

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 12:24 PM - 0 Comments

I’ve found myself really enjoying the new HBO series Enlightened, starring Laura Dern and written by Mike White (Dern and White share co-creator credit, but White writes every episode). It’s not a big hit, and from the description, you wouldn’t expect it to be: it’s a half-hour show where [fill in name of actress in her 40s] has [fill in serious problem] and both comedy and drama ensues. It’s lucky to be on HBO, which is more patient with shows it likes than Showtime, but it is, at first glance, doing a type of show that Showtime already used up. Also, descriptions of the show – including White’s descriptions in interviews – often make it sound like a New Age-y show about a person learning to get in touch with her spiritual side. But the actual show is a lot more interesting than that makes it sound.

The setup of the show is that a high-powered female executive finally snaps, recovers from her nervous breakdown at a New Age centre in Hawaii, and returns to her old life determined to give everything – her life and everyone else’s – a makeover. This includes trying to communicate more with her mom (played by Diane Ladd, of course) and raise consciousness at the evil corporation she works for. Of course most people don’t want their lives forcibly improved, and the people at an evil corporation don’t want to be handed a bunch of printouts about all the evil their bosses are doing. Self-fulfilment and self-realization are often the point where a story reaches a happy ending; this show demonstrates what happens after that, including the massive costs of going to a New Age treatment centre (costs that actually keep Dern’s character trapped at the evil corporation, since a more fulfilling job wouldn’t pay enough to discharge the debt). In terms of imagery, the show is on the side of spirituality, of believing in something beyond yourself, but in terms of the practical realities of the world, spirituality isn’t very useful. Part of the interest of the show is watching her try to rebuild her life in little and big ways at the same time, how she can’t fulfil her grand ambitions until she starts by becoming a better person on an everyday, local level.

The second episode also introduced an element that wasn’t in the pilot, an office-comedy element. This sure seemed like a retool, especially with the addition of a new bunch of regulars (including the always-welcome Continue…

Ladies and gentlemen Quebecers, your future has arrived

By Martin Patriquin - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 12:23 PM - 0 Comments

Here’s the new logo of Coalition Avenir Québec, former péquiste minister François Legault’s big tent party comprised of what he called “sovereignists and federalists who want to put the debate behind us.” Legault’s coalition, which only officially became a party on November 4th, has been ahead in the polls for the better part of a year—meaning Quebecers saw him as a leader even when Legault himself wasn’t sure. Kind of a neat logo, actually.

The question is, why do Quebecers always seem to look for a political saviour to pull them out of the doldrums? Read the next edition of Maclean’s to find out…

Law class

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 0 Comments

The House of Commons law clerk considers Dean Del Mastro’s demand that the CBC turn over documents related to a matter already before the courts.

The sub judice convention is based on the principle that each branch of our parliamentary system of government should respect the functions of the other branches and not interfere or appear to do what belongs to one of the other branches to do. Our parliamentary system of government is based on a separation of the three basic governmental powers or functions: the executive, the legislative and the judicial. The judicial branch operates—and must be seen to operate—fully independent of both the executive and legislative branches. The credibility of the law courts as impartial arbiters of legal rights and as interpreters of the law depends on a clear recognition by the other branches of their independence.

Mr. Del Mastro previously, if temporarily, sought to have a sitting judge testify before a parliamentary committee.

Managing supply management

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 10:31 AM - 0 Comments

Once seemingly kept out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a result of its support for supply management, the Harper government is now ready to enter into negotiations.

The Prime Minister said Canada can “easily meet” the broad strokes of the agreement unveiled Saturday by Mr. Obama, even if it means throwing into the mix a supply management system that forces Canadians to pay higher prices for products like milk, cheese, chicken and eggs…

“We will make an application and I am optimistic we will participate in the future,” he added. “Whenever we enter negotiations, as we’ve done in the past with other countries, as we’re doing right now with Europe, we always say that all matters are on the table. But of course Canada will seek to defend and promote our specific interests in every single sector of the economy.”

In its campaign platform and Throne Speech, the government vowed to continue to defend supply management.

Eliminating supply management would satisfy the first demand of Mike Moffatt’s nascent Economist Party. Last week, Campbell Clark called on the government to free the cheese.

The Canadian Wheat Board’s long-shot lawsuit to keep its monopoly

By Colby Cosh - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Sean Kilpatrick/CP

“Pierre Trudeau said there was no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation,” recalls Henry Vos, a grain farmer from Fairview, Alta. “So I ask, should the government be in the grain fields and the grain bins of the nation?” The private sex lives of Canadians and cultivating wheat might make for an unlikely comparison, but Vos, a former director of the Canadian Wheat Board, believes the board should start preparing to lose its grip on the export trade in Prairie wheat and barley. In late October, he quit the board in protest.

Vos is angry over a last-ditch attempt by the board to maintain its monopoly by taking the radical legal step of suing Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz. The suit, announced Oct. 26, would thwart Bill C-18, the Harper government’s legislation to end the “single desk” monopoly. (C-18 is at the committee stage in the House of Commons.) But critics say the CWB is fighting an uphill battle against constitutional principles.

As a minority government, the Conservatives were blocked by the courts when they tried to change the wheat board’s mandate by order-in-council and without a parliamentary vote. Now the Conservatives have a majority and can presumably make whatever direct changes they want to the Canadian Wheat Board Act. But the board says, “Not so fast.” Section 47.1 of the act, added by the Liberals in 1998, says that the agriculture minister cannot alter single-desk arrangements without first consulting the board and holding a vote of grain producers.

Continue…

Why official bilingualism doesn’t mean settling for second-best

By the editors - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

Chris Wattie/Reuters

Most Canadians consider themselves to be reasonable people, and rightly so. In fact, the term “reasonable” and its variants appear a dozen times throughout Canada’s Constitution. So when it comes to hiring for Ottawa’s most senior jobs, we ought to consider the meaning of “reasonable.” Is it reasonable to make the ability to speak both official languages the single most important qualification for all such positions?

The appointment of Michael Ferguson as Canada’s next auditor general has become an unusually contentious affair. Ferguson served as auditor general of New Brunswick from 2005 to 2010 and was noted for his blunt criticism of provincial spending and debt. He also has experience as the provincial deputy minister of finance. So there’s no question of his ability to scrutinize the federal government’s books or hold Ottawa to account. The only real complaint is that he admits he cannot speak French fluently.

Response to this admission has been vitriolic. Liberal MPs boycotted the appointment vote in Parliament because they claimed Ferguson’s unilingualism made the entire process “illegitimate.” The Edmonton Journal editorialized that “Ferguson cannot possibly be the best man for the job because he does not speak both official languages.” Graham Fraser, the commissioner of official languages, claimed the Harper government had “humiliated” Ferguson by nominating him for a position he was unqualified to fill.

Continue…

Mark Carney: A central banker for a volatile age

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

Chris Wattie/Reuters

At 46, Mark Carney manages to look both younger and older than his years. This is fitting, as his approach to the economy combines a commitment to old-fashioned central bankerly verities—sound money, prudent risks—with a modish flexibility as to how these are to be secured.

That has been an unavoidable necessity in what we should perhaps now refer to as his day job, as governor of the Bank of Canada. Gone are the days when central bankers could simply focus on keeping the so-called monetary aggregates—M1, M2, all the gang—to a fixed annual growth rate, as monetarists had advised. While this approach had succeeded in reining in the Great Inflation of the 1970s and ’80s, it eventually fell victim to Goodhart’s law, named for a former adviser to the Bank of England: namely, that the moment you target any particular measure of the money supply it loses its usefulness—because people in financial markets find ways to innovate around the constraint. Central bankers have since had to steer by a variety of other measures, even as the overall objective—stable prices—has remained unchanged.

The lesson of that experience, that policy does not consist in simply issuing a set of rules, but rather exists as a continuing process of interaction between the regulators and the regulated, appears to inform Carney’s views on the causes of the financial crisis, and how to prevent another—a subject that will be his focus in his new, part-time job as chairman of the Financial Stability Board, the international body tasked with coordinating and overseeing the reform of global banking regulations. In speeches and interviews the governor has given, a number of related themes and concerns emerge. Among them:

Continue…

The Canadian hired to save the world

By John Geddes - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

Sean Kilpatrick/CP

Upbeat stories to spin were in short supply at last week’s G20 summit at Cannes. The host, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, narrowly avoided disaster on his home turf when the destabilizing prospect of a Greek referendum on the country’s debt crisis faded. U.S. President Barack Obama remarked on how European decision-making in the face of economic calamity struck him as “laborious” and “time-consuming,” before heading back to Washington, where laborious, time-consuming efforts to cope with America’s deficit continue. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, though, claimed bragging rights on the Riviera thanks to the naming of Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of Canada, to head an increasingly powerful body called the Financial Stability Board. “His appointment,” Harper said, “is both a tribute to his personal qualities and a reflection on Canada’s superior performance in monetary, fiscal and financial-sector policy areas.”

Carney’s emergence as the international poster boy for everything admirable about the Canadian economy is among the more improbable stories of the Harper era in Ottawa. It’s not that he’s Ottawa’s first appointed public servant to outshine the elected politicians. Former auditor general Sheila Fraser, after her 2004 report on the sponsorship affair that rocked the then-ruling Liberals, became the face of honesty in government. Retired general Rick Hillier’s outspoken pride in Canadian troops made him, as chief of defence staff, the voice of patriotism. But Carney offers nothing like Fraser’s down-to-earth quality or Hillier’s entertaining populism. He’s a Ph.D. economist and former investment banker, and seems like one. His star quality counts for more in elite circles than among Canadians in general. Still, during this prolonged stretch of anxiety over when the next recession might hit, a figure who embodies sophisticated economic leadership is an invaluable political commodity.

As Harper’s comments in Cannes confirmed, Carney’s skills and Canada’s strengths are now being sold as a combo pack. And Carney is highly marketable. At just 46, he’s unusually young for a central banker, and cuts an athletic figure. (He ran the Ottawa marathon in three hours and 48 minutes last spring.) His bio comes complete with a Canadiana prologue any political mythmaker might envy. Born in the Northwest Territories, where his father was school principal in remote Fort Smith, he’s said one of his earliest childhood memories is the smell of the furs his mother bought for making parkas.

Continue…

Not as advertised

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 9:34 AM - 0 Comments

The Harper government’s ability to announce impressive-sounding numbers apparently exceeds its ability to use those impressive-sounding numbers.

The Green Infrastructure fund provides a good illustration of funds getting backlogged despite Canadians being told they would get it. The fund was announced in the 2009 budget as an initiative that would support projects such as sustainable energy.  It was supposed to push $200 million out the door every year for five years. In two years though, it has spent $50 million. 

By the end of this year, the program is expected to use $104 million, not the $600 million planned, according to the government’s books. In an email, a spokeswoman for Infrastructure said it is “normal for there to be smaller expenditures in the early years” of larger-scale projects. She didn’t respond to a follow-up, however, asking why the forecasting doesn’t reflect that. 

Arms and the man

By Alex Ballingall - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

AP/CP

When Heather Hobson read out the final lines of the jury’s verdict to the Manhattan courtroom where Viktor Bout stood trial, she turned to look squarely at the accused arms dealer. “Guilty,” she said, directly addressing the craggy-faced, mustachioed former Soviet army officer. “It was really, really emotional,” she later told the New York Times. “He’s a very scary man.”

Bout’s native Russia is heaping scorn on his Nov. 3 conviction on four charges of trying to sell weapons to Colombia’s FARC rebels, a band of leftist militants who allegedly intended to use them against Americans. Russia is arguing that the U.S. government illegally pressured the jury into delivering a guilty verdict. They claim his 2010 extradition to the U.S. from Thailand was illegal, and the manner in which he was arrested—a Bangkok sting operation in which American agents posed as FARC rebels—was nothing less than entrapment.

Speaking with Russian state TV, Bout’s wife shared what she told him in jail, where he is now expected to stay for at least 25 years: “No matter what happens, don’t give up, because this is not the end of the story.”

Tim Hortons goes beyond the double-double

By Scott Feschuk - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute

So Tim Hortons sells lasagna now, which makes sense because lunchtime is when our workplaces finally stop smelling like the company’s breakfast sandwiches. Now the pungent aroma of hot beef and tomato sauce can prevail from noon until the Ritual Mid-Afternoon Microwaving of Popcorn By the Colleague We All Secretly Hate.

Even so, Tims selling bowls of lasagna casserole is a little weird, right? The company’s commercials seem to acknowledge this. A guy buys the stuff for lunch and his work pals are like, “Tims sells WHAAAA?” One character seems equally thrilled and confused by the notion, as though the very idea is utterly mad—like going to Starbucks for good chow mein or Red Lobster for good seafood.

And now the iconic coffee chain is starting to serve lattes, too, because apparently people in smaller towns across the country have been demanding the right to overpay for warm milk. One thing is for sure: Tims getting into the latte business is a body blow to Canadian political rhetoric. What easy symbol will aspiring populists now co-opt to identify and belittle the so-called elites of the land? This could be the break you’ve been waiting for, artisanal bread.

Continue…

Foxconn’s robot empire

By Colin Campbell - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 9:10 AM - 0 Comments

Bobby Yip/Reuters

For all the love heaped on Apple’s artful products, critics have long pointed to a dark side—the working conditions at factories where iPhones and iPads are made. Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer that churns out the gadgets, has struggled in recent years with over a dozen worker suicides in China. In response, it has boosted wages and even put up netting to stop employees from jumping from rooftops.

Its latest bid to solve labour woes goes a step further. Last week, Foxconn launched a $224-million project to build one million robots in the coming three years to use in its factories. The output, which has been described in Taiwan as “an empire of robots,” will double the number of industrial robots in the world and replace 500,000 Foxconn workers. The company has said the efforts will move employees “higher up the value chain.” No doubt it will also ease rising labour costs and shortages.

Retweeted tea leaves

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 8:30 AM - 0 Comments

On Saturday, Bob Rae retweeted a link to a newspaper column that suggested he might be the best person to lead the Liberals into the next election. But on Sunday, Bob Rae retweeted someone quoting him about his own interim status.

Whatever one makes of all that, Mr. Rae’s comments of two weeks ago, to an audience at Carleton University, seem fairly definitive.

As for Rae’s part in becoming the new leader now that Michael Ignatieff has stepped down? “It won’t be me,” he said, to which the atmosphere in the room became heavy. “I’m not going to run for leadership.”