Alberta premier happy with Saskatchewan support for Keystone pipeline

By The Canadian Press - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 8:55 PM - 0 Comments

EDMONTON – Premier Alison Redford says she’s pleased to hear of a new effort to get U.S. President Barack Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall has joined 10 U.S. Republican governors in sending a letter to Obama.

The letter says the proposed pipeline, which would carry bitumen from the Alberta oilsands to U.S refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, would create thousands of jobs on both sides of the border.

Redford says Alberta is pursuing its own avenues in support of the pipeline.

But she calls Wall’s letter “another arrow in the quiver.”

TransCanada is now hoping for approval from the State Department after filing a new application with an altered pipeline route.

Maclean’s View from the Hill: Are talking points ruining democracy?

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 8:38 PM - 0 Comments

Aaron Wherry, Michael Petrou, Nick Taylor-Vaisey and John Geddes consider pressing questions of the week:

1. Are talking points ruining democracy?
2. What will happen next in Mali?
3. What has Idle No More accomplished?
4. Will Shawn Atleo be forced out as Assembly of First Nations national chief?

B.C. premier breaks eight-year tax log jam for logging contractors

By The Canadian Press - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 8:09 PM - 0 Comments

VICTORIA – Premier Christy Clark announced a break in a tax log jam Friday that has concerned British Columbia forest contractors since 2003 when the Liberals cut forest tenures in an industry-wide restructuring plan.

Clark told delegates at the annual Truck Loggers Association convention on Friday that ongoing B.C. government lobby efforts on behalf of forest contractors convinced the federal government to forgive the tax hit many received during the restructuring.

She said up to 190 forest contractors will get back $9 million in federal taxes.

Continue…

Transcripts show Fed in ’07 underestimated impact of financial crisis

By The Associated Press - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 8:07 PM - 0 Comments

WASHINGTON – Federal Reserve officials in 2007 badly underestimated the scope of the approaching financial crisis and how it would tip the U.S. economy into the deepest recession since the Great Depression, transcripts of the Fed’s policy meetings that year show.

The meetings occurred as the country was on the brink of its worst financial crisis since the 1930s. As the year went on, Fed officials shifted their focus away from the risk of inflation as they slowly began to recognize the severity of the crisis.

Beginning in September 2007, the Fed cut interest rates and took extraordinary steps to try to ease credit and shore up confidence in the banking system. Throughout the year, the housing crisis deepened. Home prices weakened. Subprime mortgages soured.

Continue…

Inquiry hears Calgary queue-jump scheme was set up to reward university donors

By The Canadian Press - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 8:02 PM - 0 Comments

CALGARY – Three doctors have testified about an elaborate queue-jumping scheme that saw deep-pocket donors of the University of Calgary rewarded by being sent to the front of the line for cancer screening at a public clinic.

Dr. Jonathan Love, a Calgary gastroenterologist, testified Friday he tried to stop the practice by flagging it to colleagues and superiors.

“I don’t know about you, but where I come from (donating) is not really charity if you get a reward, right?” Love told a lawyer at the inquiry examining queue-jumping in Alberta’s health system.

Love and two other doctors added their voices Friday to earlier testimony from booking clerks at the publicly funded Forzani and MacPhail Colon Cancer Screening Centre.

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Fawn friendship resolves deer drama for B.C. woman allowed to keep doe as pet

By The Canadian Press - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 8:01 PM - 0 Comments

UCLUELET, B.C. – In a deer drama worthy of the emotions stirred by Bambi, a Vancouver Island woman will be permitted to keep the domesticated doe she calls Bimbo.

The Environment Ministry granted consent for the fawn friendship to stay intact on Friday, apparently ending a saga that could have involved a forced separation.

The province will permit Janet Schwartz, 70, and her pet to keep their close quarters with the help of a veterinarian and conservation officers, said Environment Minister Terry Lake.

“We are highly concerned about the extreme habituation of this animal and understand the risks associated with the removal of an animal that has become so accustomed to a home setting,” Lake said in a statement.

The minister, who is a veterinarian, said he is well aware of the bonding that takes place between people and their pets.

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Cauchon leadership bid touts traditional Liberal values

By The Canadian Press - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 8:00 PM - 0 Comments

MONTREAL – Federal Liberals feeling nostalgic for the party’s last stint in power might find a few things to like about Martin Cauchon’s leadership platform.

In launching his campaign Friday to an audience of about 100 people, Cauchon paid tribute to the now-defunct long gun registry and proposed a more active federal role in shaping medicare.

The former Jean Chretien cabinet minister lauded the old government’s record which included rejecting bank mergers and accepting same-sex marriage, the latter being a policy Cauchon personally advanced when he was justice minister.

He spoke of restoring Canada’s peacemaking image abroad and, closer to home, suggested the federal government should be more involved in helping the provinces improve medicare.

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‘Let my carbon go’

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 5:32 PM - 0 Comments

This Hour Has 22 Minutes takes on the cap-and-trade debate (such as it is).

Research In Motion stock continues remarkable comeback, analyst revises estimate

By The Canadian Press - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 5:09 PM - 0 Comments

TORONTO – Shares of Research In Motion (TSX:RIM) raced higher on Friday as one of the company’s most prominent analysts gave a stronger vote of confidence to the new BlackBerry launch.

The Waterloo, Ont.-based company’s stock gained seven per cent, or $1.03, to close at $15.71 on the Toronto Stock Exchange, pushing towards levels it hasn’t seen in more than a year.

Jeffries & Co. analyst Peter Misek raised his target estimate to US$19.50 per share, from $13.

In a note to investors, Misek said he expects RIM to open its corporate BlackBerry email services to iPhone and Android devices, which would be a new revenue stream for the company.

“This change, we believe, is unknown or not well understood but is important,” he said.

Continue…

Budweiser signs multi-year deal with Hockey Night in Canada’s Coach’s Corner

By The Canadian Press - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 4:52 PM - 0 Comments

TORONTO – Hockey Night in Canada’s Coach’s Corner has scored a new partnership deal with Labatt Breweries and its Budweiser label.

The brewer said Friday it has signed a multi-year agreement for the popular segment that will see Budweiser content and advertising during the show with Ron MacLean and Don Cherry.

The deal comes as the show gets set to return following the NHL lockout. Financial terms of the agreement were not immediately available.

“Coach’s Corner is a central part of the hockey experience for Canadian fans and Budweiser is proud to support every check, shot, hit and goal analyzed by Ron and Don,” said Jorn Socquet, Labatt’s vice-president of marketing. Continue…

Inquiry hears Calgary queue-jump scheme set up to reward university donors

By The Canadian Press - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 4:50 PM - 0 Comments

CALGARY – An inquiry has heard that a private clinic at the centre of an alleged queue-jumping scheme was created to reward donors of the University of Calgary, with patients funnelled through one of the most powerful doctors in the province.

Dr. Mark Swain, the head of gastroenterology for the Calgary region, says he heard those rumours about the Helios Wellness Centre, but never followed them up.

“More than one person had suggested that the Helios clinic was established as a reward for donors to the university,” Swain testified Friday at Alberta’s preferential access inquiry.

University officials did not immediately respond to the allegations, but indicated they would likely have something to say later in the day. Continue…

Updated: Toronto company says 5 workers abducted in Colombia, including one Canadian

By The Canadian Press - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 4:35 PM - 0 Comments

BOGOTA – Leftist rebels kidnapped five gold prospectors doing exploratory drilling for a Canadian company — a Canadian, two Peruvians and two Colombians — before dawn Friday in a northern province, officials said.

Toronto-based Braeval Mining Corp. said the five — three company employees and two consultants — were working at its Snow Mine gold and silver project. It did not further identify them.

The men were seized about 5 a.m. by about two dozen rebels of the leftist National Liberation Army, Colombia’s second-largest insurgency, in a rural area of the Bolivar state municipality of Norosi, said armed forces commander Gen. Alejandro Navas.

The rebel band, known by its Spanish-language initials ELN, is far smaller with an estimated 1,500 fighters than the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which is currently engaged in peace talks with the government in Cuba.

The ELN has been seeking peace talks though without success. Unlike the FARC, it has not renounced ransom kidnappings.

Continue…

Native women, AFN, renew calls on Harper, Governor General, to meet with Spence

By Terry Pedwell - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 4:21 PM - 0 Comments

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper is fostering hatred of aboriginals across the country by failing to condemn racist reactions to the Idle No More movement, says a women’s group.

The accusation came Friday as Grand Chief Derek Nepinak of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs announced that the Assembly of First Nations had approved a resolution renewing calls for a meeting with Harper and Gov. Gen. David Johnston on Jan. 24.

There are strong and growing racial undertones to much of the reaction seen so far to protests over aboriginal treaty rights, says Ellen Gabriel of the Indigenous Women of Turtle Island.

“We just have to look at the Oka crisis in 1990,” she said.

“The same things that (were happening then), and comments about indigenous people, are happening once again. That’s the underlying current that we see.” Continue…

MP questioned authority of police after being pulled over, asked for breath test

By The Canadian Press - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 4:19 PM - 0 Comments

EDMONTON – A court has heard that an Edmonton MP questioned the authority of officers to demand a breath sample after he was stopped following a 2011 Christmas party.

Police have testified they were conducting a routine checkstop when Peter Goldring was pulled over after he drove out of bar parking lot just after midnight on Dec. 4, 2011.

Sgt. Conrad Moschansky, a supervising officer, was called in to help with the high-profile subject. Moschansky told the trial that Goldring was sitting in his locked pickup truck. He refused to get out, but rolled the window down slightly to talk with police. He smelled of liquor.

Moschansky read out detailed notes from the investigation. He said the politician acknowledged he had been drinking earlier that night at the party. Continue…

Elizabeth May’s proposal for electoral reform

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 4:12 PM - 0 Comments

Here is a copy of the letter Elizabeth May sent to opposition MPs about a pact for electoral reform.

Federal government faces third class-action lawsuit over privacy breach

By The Canadian Press - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 3:31 PM - 0 Comments

OTTAWA – Another day, another lawsuit over a massive privacy breach.

The federal government now faces a third class-action suit over the loss of a portable hard drive containing personal information about more than half a million people who took out student loans.

The law firms of Sutts, Strosberg LLP, Branch MacMaster LLP and Falconer Charney LLP are seeking $600 million in compensation on behalf of those affected by the loss of the hard drive.

This latest class-action lawsuit comes on the heels of two similar actions launched this week.

Last week, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada revealed it had lost a device containing data on 583,000 Canada Student Loans Program borrowers from 2000 to 2006. Continue…

Goliath the Lobster gets new home at Montreal Biodome

By The Canadian Press - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 3:27 PM - 0 Comments

MONTREAL – Goliath the Lobster is settling into his new home, far away from forks and butter dishes.

The seven-kilogram crustacean, which arrived in a shipment at a Montreal-area grocery store last week, will be living out its days in the St. Lawrence ecosystem basin at the Montreal Biodome.

Goliath is estimated to be between 35 to 50 years old and is an American lobster from the Northwest Atlantic. It was caught off the coast of Nova Scotia.

Goliath spent a few days in an isolation tank before being gingerly placed on Thursday in the rocky shored basin of the St. Lawrence ecosystem at the Biodome where visitors can see him.

It will be transferred to the ecosystem’s main basin, which contains 2.5 million litres of seawater, in two weeks.

Goliath won’t be lonely once it gets there — the basin is home to 30 other lobsters.

The beady-eyed bottom-dweller isn’t the biggest of the undersea predators the Biodome has welcomed. An eight-kilogram lobster was donated to the facility by a Boston woman who won it in a Super Bowl contest.

The creature has since died.

The largest of the clawed critters known to date weighed 20 kilograms and measured almost 110 centimetres from the tips of its claws to the end of its tail.

Is this flu season bad? No one knows

By Julia Belluz - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 3:12 PM - 0 Comments

There has been plenty of discussion about a particularly bad influenza season in Canada, and even more so in the U.S., as both nations appear to brim with feverish, coughing patients. Things have been so bad south of the border that New York state and Boston declared public states of emergency and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that flu-related deaths have reached into epidemic territory.

But what does that actually mean? According to the CDC, the epidemic threshold for influenza—a virus that attacks your respiratory system, not your guts—is when related deaths account for more than 7.2 per cent of all deaths in a given week. For the week ending Jan. 12, 8.3 per cent of all deaths were due to pneumonia and influenza, just above the epidemic threshold.

This sounds scary, but the death counts from pneumonia and influenza actually aren’t all that high when compared to recent flu seasons. Check out the chart below: Continue…

Next on Oprah: Gary Bettman

By Scott Feschuk - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 3:00 PM - 0 Comments

photo illustration by taylor shute

Gary Bettman says he’s “sorry.” Sorry for the lockout. Sorry for the whole “no hockey” thing. Sorry for Russell Crowe’s singing voice in Les Miz. Any more sorry and the NHL commissioner would be legally required to submit to a two-part interview with Oprah.

Jeremy Jacobs—the man who owns the Boston Bruins, serves as chairman of the NHL board of governors, and is so cheap he would fistfight a hobo over a nickel—would like it known that he, too, is sorry. In fact, he’s so sorry that he’s “truly sorry.” Jacobs went on: “Our only interest now is to focus on what this great game can provide to the best sports fans in the world. Now gimme that five cents, Boxcar McGee!”

Jacobs is not alone. Pretty much all NHL owners are saying they’re sorry for doing that thing they did for 113 consecutive days and planned to do for a year before that and will probably do again at the next possible opportunity. It’s not an emotion—it’s a marketing strategy. Real hockey fans know Gary Bettman hasn’t truly been sorry since Gap Kids stopped making his favourite blazer. (An aside: he’s been commissioner for 20 years, but when they show Bettman at a game, I always imagine him whispering to his guest, “What’s ‘icing’ mean?”) Continue…

Chat replay: What’s wrong with our obsession with hockey?

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 2:08 PM - 0 Comments

Personal trainers, road trips, sport psychologists and league fees: there’s no end to the lengths some parents will go to give their child a shot at NHL greatness. But are the financial and lifestyle sacrifices worth a slim shot at living the hockey dream?

Author and The Hockey News senior writer Ken Campbell joined us this afternoon for a live chat about his new book, Selling the Dream, a look at the price we pay for our national obsession.

View a full replay of the conversation, below:

‘Together, we can build the Canada of our dreams’

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 2:08 PM - 0 Comments

The prepared text of Thomas Mulcair’s speech to the NDP caucus this afternoon.

Leadership on the Side of Canadians

Thank you very much.

What energy in this room.

It’s great to be back in Ottawa with our team, the New Democratic team, the best team in Canadian politics.

I can tell you we’ve had a busy and productive week.

I was proud to sit down with the NDP Premiers and party leaders from across the country to discuss the challenges ahead.

Over the past few days we’ve been looking at how to build on our successes in 2012… and how to continue our momentum into 2013.

And of course—as always—we’re continuing to lay the groundwork for the next election.

This is a pivotal session in the life of this Parliament.

Continue…

Abused wife in hit man case wants to resume contact with daughter

By Mike Blanchfield - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 2:03 PM - 0 Comments

OTTAWA – A Nova Scotia woman who tried to hire a hit man to kill her abusive husband says she now wants to re-establish contact with her daughter, whom she hasn’t seen in five years.

Nicole Ryan says she just wants to get her life back in order after the Supreme Court of Canada stayed any further legal proceedings against her.

Her lawyer says Michael Ryan took the couple’s daughter, Amy, now 12, in March 2008 and has kept her from contact with her mother. Ryan said she has no information about her daughter.

“I will continue working, hopefully just to re-establish my life, put my life in order,” Ryan told a news conference at her lawyer’s office in Halifax.

“I’d like to thank the Elizabeth Fry Society. Hopefully, they will be able to help me now to re-establish contact with her.” Continue…

Quebec demands continued federal cash to recruit police officers

By Justin Ling - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 1:54 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Roger LeMoyne

When the Conservative government unveiled a $400-million five-year fund to help provinces recruit police officers in 2008, it was billed as a key part of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s law-and-order agenda. Former public safety minister Peter Van Loan told the House the following year the new officers were necessary after more than a decade of Liberal failure to take crime seriously. And in Quebec, at least, the money went to fund anti-gang and cybercrime squads—with the latter playing a key role in hunting down Luka Magnotta, the man accused of killing and dismembering a Chinese student in Montreal and posting a video of the alleged crime online.

Now, with the agenda in Ottawa focused squarely on austerity, and the funding for the program due to run out soon, the future of the police officer recruitment fund is becoming just the latest point of tension between the Harper Tories and Quebec.

Funding for the recruitment program is set to expire at the end of March. Several municipal and provincial leaders, including Quebec Premier Pauline Marois, have called on the federal government to renew it. But the federal government has repeatedly said that if the provinces want to keep the 2,500 officers nationwide that the fund covered, they’ll have to pony up the cash themselves. Continue…

Wind Mobile uses new telecom rules to push for its foreign takeover

By LuAnn LaSalle - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 1:35 PM - 0 Comments

Small Canadian wireless player Wind Mobile has signed a deal to be fully foreign owned and controlled by a global telecom company.

The agreement is with VimpelCom subsidiary Orascom, which already owns 65.1 per cent of the company and was an original financial backer of Wind Mobile, chairman and CEO Anthony Lacavera said Friday.

“Assuming that the government is satisfied, then yes, this would be the first example of a foreign controlled telecommunications carrier in Canada,” Lacavera said in an interview from Toronto.

The agreement comes after recent changes by Industry Canada allowing telecom companies with less than 10 per cent of the market to have no restrictions on foreign investment.

Foreign ownership limits for large telecom companies such as Rogers Communications Inc. (TSX:RCI.B), Bell (TSX:BCE) and Telus (TSX:T) remains at 33.3 per cent. Continue…