This is the week that was

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, November 12, 2011 at 3:30 PM - 0 Comments

One part of the In-and-Out scandal came to an end with the Conservatives pleading guilty and claiming victory.

Romeo Saganash clarified himself and touted his skill. Niki Ashton asserted herself. Nathan Cullen continued to pitch cooperation. Paul Dewar set out his arts agenda. Peggy Nash won the endorsement of Alexa McDonough.

The Prime Minister, the Governor General, Nycole Turmel and Bob Rae remembered.

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Canadian broadband: the time for complaining is over

By Peter Nowak - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 5:36 PM - 0 Comments

Tiago Gualberto Morais/Flickr

I had to take a deep breath before writing this post, mostly to get all the four-letter words and other obscenities out of my system. There are few things that make me as angry as Canada’s abject failure on broadband issues, a situation that was highlighted again on Wednesday by our neighbours to the south and their creation of a plan to get high-speed Internet to the poorest Americans.

If you missed the news, the Federal Communications Commission introduced a plan that will give households in the National Student Lunch Program access to broadband for $9.99 a month. Moreover, the FCC’s Connect 2 Compete program will also get these families access to inexpensive computers ranging from $150 to $250, plus training on how to use them and the Internet. This is far from just a government initiative, though—the broadband part is coming through a partnership with cable companies such as Comcast, with the likes of Microsoft and Best Buy providing the other stuff.

It’s probably hard for anyone reading this (on the web) to imagine what life would be like without the Internet, but for those millions of Americans, it’s reality. That’s why, for the most part, the FCC’s plan is being lauded. Lefty types like it for obvious reasons while the righties like it too because it targets those 5.5 million homes that don’t—and most likely can’t—subscribe to broadband anyway. The plan doesn’t take money out of Internet providers’ pockets and it stands to add millions of people to what was once considered the economy of the future, but what is in reality the economy of the now. Continue…

Vote first, solve other problems later

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 4:50 PM - 0 Comments

Kate Chappell considers the Occupy movement and the act of voting.

A sign I saw this weekend at the Occupy Ottawa camp said something to the effect of voting as an institution being broken. But if the majority of us do not engage in the activities required of us by this institution, how can we fairly and accurately assess its effectiveness? I argue that we cannot begin to do so. It is ironic that the Occupiers’ main message calls for an end to inequality. Voting is the activity most blind to socio-economic status and a free, convenient means of registering one’s preferences..

Many of the Occupiers seem to be partial to anything but what we have now. In fact, many seem partial to an anarchic or communistic system. But let’s back up a minute. What if they had all voted in the last federal election? We would likely have a different prime minister.

Jeff Jedras previously quibbled with the suggestion the the Occupiers would simply be better off voting.

Primary problems

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 4:07 PM - 0 Comments

In his debut for Macleans.ca, Jeff Jedras criticizes the current clamour for open primaries.

I want to broaden the Liberal tent and make it more relevant to Canadians too. But open primaries are gimmicky and unlikely to build a lasting connection between the Liberal party and Canadians at large. I just don’t forsee a groundswell of Canadians rushing to get involved to pick the next leader of the third party. Gimmicks aren’t the way to engage people. I’d rather build a democratized party where membership matters, and encourage Canadians to join and support us for our ideas.

The case against Liberal primaries

By Jeff Jedras - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 3:45 PM - 0 Comments

As desperate as Liberal party of Canada members may be for reform and renewal, we shouldn’t just jump into bed with the first pretty reform proposal that happens by. This should be a slow and deliberate process. As a Liberal, I fear we’re jumping into bed with open primaries too quickly, and risk regretting it the next morning.

On Thursday, the Liberal party’s national executive released a list of proposals for reforming and restructuring the party, after leaking it to select media days earlier. (The leak is a major problem in itself, but one for another day.) The idea generating the most attention would see the Liberals adopt an open primary system for selecting the party’s leader and riding nomination candidates.

The proposal involves creating two classes of Liberals: full-fledged party members, who can stand for party office, vote in internal party elections, and be delegates to a convention; and “supporters,” who would sign a “Declaration of Liberal Principles” confirming non-membership in any other party. Both classes would be able to vote in a primary-style process to select the next party leader, with results weighted by riding. The primary campaign would take place in different regions over a few months to maximize media attention. A similar process is envisioned for riding nominations. Continue…

For profit government

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 3:24 PM - 0 Comments

Wading into a discussion about rail service between Quebec City and Windsor, Conservative MP Jeff Watson ventures an interesting stance on government spending.

On Wednesday I asked Essex MP Jeff Watson, who sits on the federal transportation committee, why Canada couldn’t do something similar on the Quebec City-Windsor line – say, invest $100 million per year in the corridor to gradually boost speeds. ”Why?” Watson shot back. “Rail is not profitable. Why would we invest $100 million a year in something that’s not profitable?”

The difficulty here would be applying this standard to spending on health care, the military or policing and law enforcement. With the exception of collecting taxes, is there much of anything a government does that turns a profit?

1867 and everything after

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 2:27 PM - 0 Comments

Steve Paikin talks to Richard Gwyn about John A. Macdonald.

Supporting the veterans

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 1:12 PM - 0 Comments

The former veterans ombudsman is scathing in his criticism of Veterans Affairs and veterans advocates are worried about cuts. The current ombudsman suggests the department should be exempt from budget cuts.

“If the government ensures us that they will not achieve their economies on the back of veterans, then that means that the 5 or 10 per cent will have to come from the other portion of the budget, which is the salary of people and operations expenses,” Mr. Parent said in a telephone interview.

“Any reduction in people would certainly have a negative impact on accessing programs and administering programs, so we are concerned.”

How a campaign is spent

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 12:02 PM - 0 Comments

Alice Funke reviews the financial returns for last spring’s election.

The Liberals also outspent the Conservatives in advertising, $11.9M to $10.6M, when considering both broadcast (TV + radio) and “other” (likely print and/or online). However, the Conservatives concentrated their ad spending on the broadcast side where they outspent the Liberals $10.4M to $8.3M.

The NDP’s spending on advertising fell somewhere in between, coming in at $9.5M for broadcast ads and $10.9M overall.

Good news, bad news: Nov. 3-10, 2011

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 11:50 AM - 0 Comments

Good news

Esi Edugyan accepts the Giller Prize for her novel 'Half-Blood Blues' (Chris Young/CP)

Not all hot air

As American protesters surrounded the White House last week in opposition to the Keystone oil sands pipeline—a project that would only serve to boost America’s energy security—there’s evidence that Canada is making strides in cutting its overall emissions. The country is about halfway to meeting targets agreed to under the 2009 Copenhagen Accord, notes a report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development. While more could be done, the report said, Canada is heading in the right direction—no matter what the noisy critics south of the border might say.

Niki, Niki nine score

The already crowded race to succeed the late Jack Layton as NDP leader has another entry—Manitoba MP Niki Ashton. The 29-year-old launched her campaign in Montreal in French (one of four languages she speaks fluently), promising to be a voice for youth. With nine declared candidates, the March leadership convention promises to be messy and exhilarating, just like democracy should be. The more the merrier.

Father knows best

In the nature versus nurture debate, there’s plenty of evidence that good parenting leads to healthy children. A study from Concordia University found children whose fathers play an active role raising them have fewer behavioural problems and higher intellectual abilities. But new research suggests fathers also stand to gain. A report from Oregon State University found that becoming a father can curb negative behaviours, including crime and alcohol use in men.

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Greece forced to rely on Iranian oil

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 11:36 AM - 0 Comments

Iran is about the only oil supplier still willing to deal with Greece, as most oil traders and major companies are avoiding the country amidst fears that Athens will default on its debt, Reuters reports. “Our finance department just refuses to deal with them. Not that they didn’t pay. It is just a precaution,” an unidentified trader told the news agency. But Greece’s last-ditch option to ensure a steady supply of fuel is running against efforts in both Washington and Brussels to put pressure on Iran after a UN report earlier this week suggested Tehran is trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability.

Reuters

Getting inside Harper’s headspace

By Paul Wells - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

Sean Kilpatrick/CP

The Cabinet committee on priorities and planning meets on Tuesdays, usually with Stephen Harper as chairman. He calls a lot of decisions on the spot. But not all. Sometimes decision is reserved pending the Prime Minister’s private decision.

When it came time to decide how many seats each province would get in an enlarged House of Commons, a senior source close to the government says, the Prime Minister took the briefing books and spreadsheets and sat alone for hours, juggling options, weighing the political fallout from every scenario.

Three days before Minister of State for Democratic Reform Tim Uppal announced the new numbers—15 new seats for Ontario, six each for Alberta and British Columbia, three for Quebec—Conservative MPs were called to a rare Monday caucus meeting so the plan could be run by them. Harper has his control-freak moments, but he prefers to hear complaints from his MPs quietly, before an announcement, rather than loudly after it.

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J. Edgar as the FBI’s gay G-man

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

Keith Bernstein/Warner Bros. Entertainment

J. Edgar Hoover was the most powerful man in America for almost half a century. The first director of the FBI, he held the post until his death in 1972, serving the bureau and its predecessor under eight U.S. presidents, from FDR to Richard Nixon. No one dared fire him: he was the Man Who Knew Too Much. When Robert F. Kennedy was his boss, Hoover not only bugged his private elevator but slowed it down to make the conversations last longer. He spied on the extramarital affairs of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., and for conspiracy theorists connecting the dots between their assassinations, he was the ultimate bogeyman. Yet Hoover, who pioneered fingerprint databases and modern forensics, was also America’s prototypical crime fighter, the original poster boy for Hollywood’s macho legend of the G-man.

But in J. Edgar, a biopic directed by Clint Eastwood, the “G” could stand for gay. Leonardo DiCaprio portrays Hoover as a deeply closeted homosexual. It’s a fact that he was a lifelong bachelor who lived with his mother, and that Clyde Tolson, his associate director at the FBI, was his closest companion—they shared everything, from daily lunches and dinners to vacations, until the day Hoover died. Yet almost four decades later, the FBI still denies its founding father was gay, and the J. Edgar Hoover Foundation begged Eastwood not to portray him as such. Clint didn’t listen. But then Hollywood’s most iconic tough guy was directing a script by gay rights crusader Dustin Lance Black, who won the Oscar for Milk, and was on a mission to drag Hoover out of the closet.

“I certainly concluded he was not straight,” says Black, who conducted exhaustive research. “There are first-hand accounts from women who were very interested in him, the stars of the day,” he told Maclean’s, citing Dorothy Lamour and Ginger Rogers, who are both portrayed in the film. “If he tried to perform sexually, it did not go well. And Hoover’s collection of photos of Clyde sleeping rings a bit gay to me. We know that they showed up to work together in the morning and went home together in the evening. This was long before carpooling was in fashion.”

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Italian senate vote foreshadows Berlusconi exit

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 11:18 AM - 0 Comments

Italy’s senate approved on Friday a key package of deficit-cutting reforms that’s set to pave the way for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s resignation early next week, the Financial Times reports. After a second vote in the senate later today, which is usually a formality, the bill will move to the lower chamber for final approval on Saturday. Italy’s head of state Giorgio Napolitano said earlier this week Berlusconi would resign after the approval of the legislation, which contains measures demanded by eurozone leaders to reduce Italy’s budget deficit and liberalize the economy. The market reacted positively to the news, with Italian bond yields dropping below the 7 per cent “red line” they had crossed in recent days, wading into what analysts said was default territory.

The Financial Times

Should Canadian cities start shutting down Occupy sites?

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 11:13 AM - 0 Comments

Newsmakers: Nov. 3-10, 2011

By Charlie Gillis, Alex Ballingall And Richard Warnica - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 11:10 AM - 0 Comments

Jacek Turczyk/AFP/Getty Images

What friends are for

They remain a study in contrasts, but Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy—the oil and water of European politics—have become improbably chummy as they navigate the Greek debt crisis. Merkel gave the French president a teddy bear last week for his new baby, Giulia, and the two shared a mischievous grin after Sarkozy threw the German chancellor a question about the future of embattled Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, to whom the pair had earlier read the riot act. The relationship has, on occasion, frayed. But they’re united in frustration with Greek politicians, and in their shared antipathy for David Cameron, whom Sarkozy told off last week: “We are sick of you criticizing us and telling us what to do,” Sarkozy told the British prime minister. “You say you hate the euro and now you want to interfere in our meetings.” In foreign relations, at least, a little negative energy goes a long way.

Princess of faux pas

The knives are out across the pond for Kate’s little sister Pippa Middleton, the rumoured recipient of a $1.5-million deal for a party planning book. British papers skewered the royal in-law last week, parodying the proposed tome. “My royal in-laws love a fancy dress party with an original theme. For example, you could have a Nazi theme?” writes the Guardian, referencing Harry’s ill-advised Nazi arm band costume. The Daily Mail illustrated its spoof with embarrassing photos of Pippa at play: part of a human pyramid (“It’s crucial to be the girl on top—like me—because then everyone knows you’re the thinnest!”), and dressed only in toilet paper (“All the naughty boys pour wine on it to see if it goes soggy”). Seeing minor royals “cashing in on their regal connections irritates the Great British public at the best of times,” wrote the Daily Beast. Doubly so on the eve of a possible return to recession.

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‘We should have had you do O.J.!’

By Colby Cosh - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 11:10 AM - 0 Comments

Rex Features/CP

The prosecution’s performance in the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray, personal physician to pop deity Michael Jackson, was summed up by one of the Jackson worshippers gathered outside the courtroom to see justice done: “We should have had you guys do the O.J. trial!” he shouted. It was an apt observation. Murray’s trial, though fraught with scientific issues, was almost as free of distracting nonsense as the Simpson process was full of it. Praise for the efficiency of Deputy District Attorney David Walgren and his team flooded in Nov. 7, even as Murray, found guilty of involuntary homicide for injecting Jackson with a lethal dose of the anaesthetic propofol, was led away in handcuffs to spend a first night in prison under a suicide watch.

When Jackson died on June 25, 2009, the 58-year-old Grenada-born cardiologist became the last in a long line of doctors inveigled into serving the whims of a charismatic zombie. Murray, hired by Jackson in 2006, made an attractive scapegoat for family members and delusional fans, none of whom wanted to acknowledge the desperate psychological condition and drug-seeking behaviour of the emaciated King of Pop. The death scene at Jackson’s home, full of bottles of prescription medications with pseudonyms or blank spaces where a doctor’s name should have appeared, told the real story.

“I’m finding out all of these things and it’s piece by piece,” Murray whimpered when the police read him the litany of drugs. “I gave Mr. Jackson love. I was his friend. I cared about him. I tried to help him.”

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Acropolis now: Greece may be just the start

By Michael Petrou with Stavroula Logothettis - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

Orestis Panagiotou/Keystone Press

“We are finished as a nation,” says Marko Gjini, a 39-year-old unemployed construction worker in Athens. “The country has been sold off. We have no say in anything anymore. Greece is owned by the Germans.”

Like many Greeks these days, Gjini is bitter and despondent because of his country’s financial mess, and the austerity measures that have been imposed in an effort to contain it. His wife, Aleka, a public hospital nurse, has seen her income drop from 1,200 euros a month to 800 euros. Now, facing more taxes and cuts to public expenditures, the family expects to have a net monthly income of less than 500 euros. Marko and Aleka are investing whatever money they can toward English lessons for their twin eight-year-old boys in the hope that they might have a better future somewhere else. “Let the government fall,” says Gjini, “[German Chancellor Angela] Merkel is the boss now anyway.”

Greece’s financial troubles have been accelerating since 2008, and have now reached a crisis point. Unable to pay debts accumulated through years of wild spending and financial mismanagement, covered up by blatant cooking of the books, last May the country accepted a $150-billion bailout loan from the International Monetary Fund and other members of the eurozone—those European Union countries that use the common euro currency—in return for imposing harsh austerity measures. These weren’t popular among ordinary Greeks; strikes and street protests followed. Three bank officials died in May when rioters set fire to their bank branch in downtown Athens.

The Greek government, meanwhile, missed its financial targets. Rescue loans were delayed. And the recession got worse. Facing the very real possibility of defaulting on its enormous national debt, Greece last month negotiated another bailout package involving cash and a 50 per cent “haircut” off all its privately held debt, if Greece would agree to further cuts to public spending and increased taxes.

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Spy review board chair resigns

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 10:56 AM - 0 Comments

Canada’s top spy reviewer resigned on Thursday following revelations by the National Post that he was involved in business dealings with a shady Montreal consultant and had uncomfortably close ties to the president of his native Sierra Leone. Dr. Arthur Porter, an oncologist and hospital administrator, had been federally appointed chairman of the Security and Intelligence Review Committee, which acts as a watchdog of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. “Dr. Porter has submitted his resignation to me, and I have accepted it, effective immediately,” read a statement by Prime Minister Stephen Harper released on Thursday.

The National Post

Flaherty pessimistic on Keystone pipeline

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 10:45 AM - 0 Comments

If Washington is ready to push back a decision on the Keystone pipeline project to deliver Alberta oil to Texas until after the U.S. election next year, Ottawa may be ready to consider other options, such as shipping the crude to Asia instead, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Thursday. “The decision to delay it that long is actually quite a crucial decision. I’m not sure this project would survive that kind of delay,” the minister told Bloomberg in an interview at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Honolulu, Hawaii. “It may mean that we may have to move quickly to ensure that we can export our oil to Asia through British Columbia.”

Bloomberg

Canadians say Remembrance Day important, don’t show it

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 10:29 AM - 0 Comments

Only just over a third of Canadians take part in Veterans’ Week, for example by participating in a local Remembrance Day ceremony, even though a majority says it’s important to honor veterans, the Ottawa Citizen reports. “While two-thirds of respondents … indicate that they make an effort to demonstrate their appreciation to Veterans, reported participation in Veterans’ Week activities is much lower,” reads a summary statement of the survey conducted by Ipsos-Reid for the federal government.

The Ottawa Citizen

The Occupy movement: from farce to tragedy and back

By Nicholas Köhler - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 10:25 AM - 0 Comments

Darryl Dyck/CP

In Saskatoon last week, as temperatures sank below zero, residents of the local Occupy encampment began taking stock. The tiny tent community had dwindled from the 30 who’d set up camp on Oct. 15, part of a wave of occupations mounted in solidarity with lower Manhattan’s Occupy Wall Street, to about a dozen. Many who remained were less activists than they were homeless people. The activists chose to pull up stakes. “I’m not too sure whereabouts I’m going,” a homeless man named Spike said. “I just don’t know.”

So it was across Canada: from Vancouver to Halifax, workaday realities had crept in and soured utopia. At some Occupy sites, such as in London, Ont., the movement had fractured into splinter groups, multiplying the number of encampments. Elsewhere, as in Ottawa, where one group of protesters discovered a blanket soaked in bodily fluids draped over their tent and left, core supporters abandoned the movement over philosophical differences. In most cases, protesters have had to come to terms with an influx of people for whom addiction and mental health issues loom larger than concerns about wealth distribution. In every case, occupiers have tested the resolve of municipalities striving to balance their rights to free speech with long-standing bylaws, safety concerns, and the rights of neighbours to order and good government.

On Saturday, Vancouver’s drug problem infiltrated one of dozens of tents erected outside the Vancouver Art Gallery, where 23-year-old Ashlie Gough of Victoria died, likely of an overdose. She is one of just two Occupy fatalities in North America so far (18-year-old Louis Cameron Rodriguez, a homeless man who called himself “The Poet,” died of causes unknown in Oklahoma City). Mayor Gregor Robertson, in the midst of an election, used the death as the final stroke and ordered the tent city closed (an official later said the city would seek to force the matter with a court injunction). At the same time, Victoria, where authorities had already cut water and electricity to the site, officially ordered protesters out: “The city appreciates you vacating the lawn around the sequoia tree,” read the notice.

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‘This solemn day of reflection’

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 10:15 AM - 0 Comments

Liberal leader Bob Rae’s statement on the occasion of Remembrance Day.

Today we honour those Canadian veterans who have laid down their lives as a matter of duty and we honour those who returned home wearing the scars of conflict, both visible and unseen.

‘Remembering is not enough’

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 11, 2011 at 9:45 AM - 0 Comments

The leader of the official opposition’s statement on Remembrance Day.

Today, tomorrow and all year long, we have a duty to salute the fallen by standing up for the living—through proper home care, fair pensions without clawbacks and support that heals the terrible wounds of war.

So let us ensure that every veteran is taken care of—in service and in retirement. Let us promote the values of peace and justice, for which our soldiers have given so much. And let us continue the fight to make our country, and our world, a better place for future generations.