Joey Votto: baseball’s anonymous superstar

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Monday, April 18, 2011 at 9:20 AM - 1 Comment

There’s an etiquette about batting practice in the big leagues. It’s fine to goof around outside the cage, talking to teammates, opponents, or the various hangers-on, as you wait your turn. But once you’re standing at the plate, it’s all business—take your hacks and make way for the next guy.

Then there’s Joey Votto. It’s not that the Toronto-born first baseman for the Cincinnati Reds violates the convention—far from it. He just makes it seem like an extra commandment. The preceding hitter has barely cleared the box before the 27-year-old is in his crouch, bat at the ready. He slashes the first pitch down the left-field line, then works his way right across the diamond—tock, tock, tock. The next five balls get launched into or over the high netting that tops the outfield walls at the Reds’ spring training complex in Goodyear, Ariz.—three in a row to right, then two to left. It’s all so workaday that Votto doesn’t even bother to watch them go, he’s already waiting for the next pitch. Focused is a term that hardly does him justice.

So when the reigning National League MVP, coming off a season where he hit .324, smashed 37 homers, and batted in 113 runs and led the Reds to their first playoff berth in 15 years, proclaims that he can get better still, who’s to argue? “I want to be great at what I do. I take a lot of pride in it,” says Votto. “And I try not to sell myself short in my work and preparation.” Between awards ceremonies this past winter (Votto also collected the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada’s top athlete, and the Hank Aaron Award as the NL’s top hitter), he worked out five hours a day, six times a week at his Florida home. The guy who had the best on-base percentage in baseball, and went an entire season without an infield pop-out, talks about how he hopes to be a more efficient hitter, stronger defensively, and a better teammate. He speaks earnestly about proving himself all over again, and how he really measures himself against the man who finished a distant second in the league’s MVP voting, Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals, “the best player in baseball.”

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Dust-up in the Phoenix desert

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Monday, April 11, 2011 at 11:32 AM - 39 Comments

Norm Hall/NHLI/Getty Images

The clock is ticking for the Phoenix Coyotes. Down 1-0 to the St. Louis Blues with less than three minutes left in the first period, the team is fiddling away a two-man advantage. The wingers are having trouble controlling the puck, and the one shot Keith Yandle manages from the point misses the net by a country mile. When a fumbled pass results in a short-handed rush for the Blues, the boos rain down in Jobing.com Arena. It’s surprisingly loud given the size of the crowd—10,977 tickets sold or given away, but at least a thousand fewer actual bums in the seats. On a Tuesday night in late March, matched up against a team bound for the golf course instead of the playoffs, hockey is a tough sell in Phoenix. Hand it to the fans who do show up, though—they’re as apt at expressing their displeasure as any in the game.

The chant that rises out of the upper bowl during the second period isn’t quite as lusty, but perhaps even more telling. “Goldwater sucks! Goldwater sucks!” NHL catcalls aren’t usually directed at libertarian think tanks. Then again, nothing about the saga of the Phoenix Coyotes is business as usual.
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In conversation: Gail Asper

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 1:57 PM - 26 Comments

Photographs by Marianne Helm

Canada’s Newest national institution, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, isn’t scheduled to open until 2013, but it’s already a subject of controversy. Over the last decade, Gail Asper has shepherded the project from a far-fetched dream to an almost reality.

Q: Your late father Izzy Asper was the driving force behind the Human Rights Museum. What was his initial vision?

A: His vision stemmed from his own background, as the child of immigrants who came to this country seeking freedom. From the idea that this is a great country, but one, he was concerned, that is pretty complacent. Canadians are indifferent to how their rights have evolved. People like me, who didn’t understand that women weren’t always persons, or that Aboriginals couldn’t vote until the 1960s. He wanted people to understand how this country came to be the tolerant country that it is now, and more importantly, to understand that if you are not vigilant with human rights, they can be lost.

Q: Since you took over the project after his passing in 2003, has that vision changed?

A: No, not at all. The vision that was first presented to the world back in 2000 is the same vision that was adopted by three different prime ministers, two premiers, two mayors and 6,000 donors. The whole goal was, and is, to inspire visitors to take personal responsibility for the advancement of human rights here in Canada and around the world.

Q: There has been controversy about some of the plans for the museum. Ukrainian and German-Canadian groups have complained that the sufferings of indigenous peoples and Jews during the Second World War are getting a “disproportionate share” of exhibit space. Has the backlash surprised you?

A: Nothing that is being said now is any different from the concerns and hopes that were being expressed even before the museum existed. We have worked with all sorts of groups. The idea wasn’t that we were going to impose a human rights museum on Canada. The idea was that we were going to listen to what Canadians wanted and work with them to deliver something that everyone could embrace. The inclusion of an exhibit on the Holodomor [the Stalin-induced famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in the 1930s] was always part of the plan. That is still the plan. But there is a tiny minority that have taken a more acrimonious position on this. And that’s been disappointing.

Q: The Ukrainian-Canadian Civil Liberties Association has charged that one horror—the Holocaust—is being “elevated” above all others at the museum. What’s your response?

A: This is not a museum of genocide. The purpose is to explain what human rights are and how they can be lost. There is no better example of this than the Holocaust. A country like Germany, that was so cultured and educated, and had a democratic government—don’t forget, Hitler was elected—was still able to descend into genocide because people were not vigilant. All the experts agree that no human rights museum could ever be established without a full examination of the Holocaust. It was fundamental to our notion of human rights today, the catalyst for the world coming together to say “never again,” precipitating the anti-genocide conventions and the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Holocaust really shows how good people can be convinced to do bad things.

Q: Do you think that anti-Semitism is playing a part in this?

A: I haven’t come face to face with the group that is saying this, and I wouldn’t want to accuse anyone of anti-Semitism.

Q: Now politicians are getting involved, with several Liberals, and Joy Smith, the Winnipeg MP who was your champion in the Tory caucus, calling on the museum to rethink its plans. Doesn’t this open the door to all sorts of complaints? Is there a danger of this becoming a museum of human wrongs?

A: No. This has really been the only group out of the dozens and dozens who were approached for their support who have had any problems. The museum has been incredibly consultative and respectful of people’s desires. If you’re going to make people mad, why bother doing this?

Q: It’s not a traditional museum—it’s meant to provoke and inspire and even upset people. Is there content in this museum that you are going to find personally challenging?

A: I have no doubt that there will be certain slants and presentations that I won’t agree with. That’s exactly what we want this museum to be. But the expectation is that whatever is in this museum has to be truly well-researched and balanced. The architect, Antoine Predock, has built in an outdoor amphitheatre, and the expectation is that’s where people will be protesting from the moment the doors are opened. I’m open to that. We’ve got free speech here.

Q: Your job now as the campaign chair is to enlist private sector support for the project. How has that been going?

A: The museum is a Crown corporation, but because of our genesis, and the fact that this will be the first national museum outside of Ottawa, our funding structure is very different. The federal government is providing less than a third of the capital cost. The majority of the costs, $150 million, will come from the private sector. We’re closing in on $130 million, and we’ve got 6,000 donors, from grassroots fundraising to multi-million-dollar donors. We’ve been through a tough recession and it could have been an opportunity for people to renege on their gifts, but thank heavens, we’ve had virtually no loss.

Q: There are some concerns about the museum’s ability to pay millions in property tax to Winnipeg each year. Ottawa is providing $21.7 million annually in operating expenses, but said it won’t pay more. Who’ll cover the gap?

A: Prime Minister Harper broke with decades of precedent to develop a national museum in Winnipeg and took on the operating costs—without which this museum would not exist. Museum management is in positive discussions with the city and the province for additional funding. They know they are getting a windfall here—a great project that’s going to provide a lot of tourism and employment and taxes for a small investment.

Q: You mentioned tourism. Do you think it will draw people to Winnipeg for a weekend?

A: I totally do. The conservative estimate is that this will draw close to 250,000 people a year from outside Winnipeg. We hired the finest museum planners to do a very thorough feasibility study. They came back and said this can be a very popular and important attraction for people around the world. There’s the cultural tourists—a growing demographic—who are thirsty for knowledge and want something that is spiritually challenging. The other component is architecture. We were told unequivocally that an architecturally significant building will attract people. People wonder why there’s a “Tower of Hope.” We were told that it would drive visitors. I’ll never forget the report saying “people may not give a hoot about human rights, but they love to go up towers.” With the right marketing, I believe we have an unassailable tourism opportunity here.

Q: The Aspers, through your family foundation, have given $20 million, making you the largest single donors. But your family has gone through a reversal of fortune with the failure of Canwest Communications. Has that had any effect on the foundation’s commitments?

A: Not at all. My dad was very smart when it came to running his business and managing his assets. As Canwest’s fortunes rose, he put money into this foundation. Our $20 million is virtually paid.

Q: You’re still in fundraising mode. What’s your best succinct pitch?

A: I think that Canadians should be grateful for all this country has given them, and for all those who have come before them and put their passion and, sometimes, lives on the line to fight for the rights we all enjoy. This is a celebration of who we are. My dad was always afraid that Canadians reach for the middle, that we aim for mediocrity. He said that this museum has to reach for the stars or it’s not worth doing. In order to do that we need the funds to achieve the depth and the excitement of the planned exhibits. We can’t do that without the support of people from coast to coast. This is Canada’s museum.

Fans don't think the NHL is doing enough to stop headshots

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 8:33 AM - 9 Comments

Paul Chiasson/CP

Canadians know what hockey is supposed to sound like. The hiss of sharp skates on fresh ice. The thump and rattle of bodies against the boards. The ping of a puck hitting a crossbar. That’s why it wasn’t just the sight of Max Pacioretty’s head bouncing off a stanchion that shocked a sold-out crowd at Montreal’s Bell Centre on March 8, it was the noise—a percussive ring like a sledgehammer driving a spike. Propelled from behind by towering Boston defenceman Zdeno Chara, the Habs winger struck the thinly padded metal pole with enough force to crack a vertebra in his neck. The fact that he wasn’t left paralyzed, or didn’t die there on the ice in front of the players’ benches—as many watching in the stands and on TV at home initially feared—was more a function of luck than his protective equipment, or the quick medical response. A few centimetres to one side or the other, the impact just a slight bit faster, and the 22-year-old American could have left the rink a martyr to our national sport.

As it is, Pacioretty is now at home in a darkened room recovering from the neck fracture and a severe concussion. When, or if, he will ever play again remains an open question. What is clear, however, is that the hit that injured him has changed the game, and the way many see it. The National Hockey League’s decision not to impose additional punishment on Chara for the hit (the six-foot-nine, 255 lb. Slovak received a five-minute major for interference and a game misconduct) was met with incredulity from his victim. “I’m upset and disgusted,” Pacioretty told TSN. “I’m not mad for myself. I’m mad because if other players see a hit like that and think it’s okay, they won’t be suspended, then other players will get hurt like I got hurt.” But it was the ensuing howls of outrage from fans, politicians, media, and for the first time, some of the game’s sponsors, that really seem to have captured the league’s attention.

Last Thursday, speaking to reporters after briefing members of the U.S. Congress on the future of hockey, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman called the Pacioretty hit “a horrific accident,” but argued that cracking down on Chara “wouldn’t change what happened.” Four days later, he was back in front of the cameras at a general managers’ meeting in Florida, announcing a five-point plan to deal with the scourge of head shots in the professional game. Under Bettman’s new proposals, teams and coaches will, for the first time, face fines and suspensions if their players are deemed to be “repeat offenders.” Safety engineers will be dispatched to examine the boards and glass of every rink in the league, empowered to order immediate upgrades. One joint league and player committee will examine changes to equipment to increase protection and lessen the effect of blows, another will continue to study concussions. And perhaps most importantly for the health of players, head injuries will no longer be treated on the bench with a 1920s-style dose of smelling salts. Beginning next week, any player suspected of sustaining a concussion will have to be removed from the game and evaluated by a physician, not a trainer, “in a quiet area.” Only after he has successfully passed a screening test will he be allowed to return to play.

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Kathy Dunderdale: the one to beat

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Thursday, March 3, 2011 at 9:36 AM - 1 Comment

Photograph by Paul Daly

The magazines in the reception area of the office of the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador are all still addressed to Danny Williams. Inside the wood-panelled, eighth-floor sanctuary, with its commanding view of St. John’s, Signal Hill and the Narrows, not much else has changed either. Kathy Dunderdale—initially named as Williams’s interim replacement, but now committed to seeking the job in next fall’s provincial election—has added a framed photo of her three grandsons, and a large landscape by local artist Gerald Squires. She’s also traded the leather couch for one covered in plush, green fabric. “I didn’t like it,” she explains. “It was too cold.”

Stepping into the shoes of the province’s most popular politician ever—a poll released just after his surprise Nov. 25 resignation gave Williams a 92 per cent approval rating—doesn’t occasion dramatic alterations. Certainly, that seems to be the thinking of the Progressive Conservatives who will forego a leadership contest and hand the crown to Dunderdale, previously the minister of natural resources and Williams’s deputy, later this spring. The new premier, who turns 59 this month, has already made history, becoming the first woman to hold the Rock’s highest office when she was sworn in, in early December. “We’re two different people,” she says, as she sits, legs curled up in an office armchair. “While we’re passionate about the same things, we share the same sets of principles that have driven the agenda these past 7½ years.” The changes, such as they are, will be more style than substance. “I like to create spaces where people can be heard. And I’m patient.”

Danny Williams found political fortune as Confederation’s bad cop—lowering the Maple Leaf during his dispute with Ottawa over offshore oil royalties, tangling with Quebec about Churchill Falls, tearing into Stephen Harper over equalization issues, and launching an ABC (Anyone But Conservatives) campaign during the last federal election. Charged with securing her predecessor’s legacy—a $6.2 billion deal for a hydro mega-project on the Lower Churchill signed the week before he left office—Dunderdale would probably be wiser to play the good one. After all, her province is now seeking federal loan guarantees for its $4-billion share, as well as a $375-million investment for undersea cables to carry the power to Nova Scotia, and ultimately U.S. markets. There are also the ongoing efforts to buy back Ottawa’s 8.5 per cent equity stake in the lucrative Hibernia oil development.

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Arcade Fire, on fame and putting it to good use

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Monday, February 14, 2011 at 9:51 AM - 6 Comments

Rune Hellestad/Corbis

People in tuxedos fighting over hot dogs. That’s the indelible image Win Butler and Régine Chassagne took home from their first trip to the Grammy Awards back in 2006. Their group, Arcade Fire, had received two nominations. One was for Best Alternative Album for their debut disc Funeral—a big-deal award handed out during the televised, evening portion of the ceremony. The other was a nod for a song that had shown up on HBO’s Six Feet Under, in the decidedly less-prestigious Best Song Written for Motion Picture, Television, or Other Visual Media category, parcelled out hours before the real show begins. Not knowing any better, all seven members of the Montreal band dutifully took their seats inside an L.A. convention hall at 11 a.m., and spent the day politely applauding the winners of the best Hawaiian, polka and metal recordings. It was hot. It was boring. They didn’t win. And there was no alcohol, food, or even water available.

Late in the afternoon, the famished crowd was finally herded across the street to the Staples Center, site of the evening festivities. Inside the rink, a huge lineup formed at the one open concession stand. Soon things turned ugly. “People were screaming,” says Butler. “Women in prom dresses were crying,” Chassagne chimes in. Organizers told them they had to take their seats, and that no food would be allowed inside. Total chaos. “By the end there were people offering $50 for a hot dog,” Butler says with a grin.

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Somehow, Sheen triumphs

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Saturday, February 5, 2011 at 8:57 AM - 5 Comments

The Hugh Hefner Sky Villa sits atop the 40-storey Fantasy Tower at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. Renting for US$40,000 a night, the two-floor, 9,000-sq.-foot suite—legal occupancy 250—boasts its own glass elevator, pop-up plasma screen TVs, a fully equipped gym and sauna, and an outdoor, cantilevered jacuzzi with the Playboy bunny symbol set into the tiles. But its true, and unspeakably sleazy, selling point is the round, eight-foot rotating bed underneath a mirrored ceiling. The perfect place, in short, for Charlie Sheen.

In mid-January, the suite was the scene of an epic bender in which the 45-year-old star of the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men holed up for days, entertaining a cavalcade of porn stars, “tattoo models,” and prostitutes. Outside, the tabloid websites gleefully catalogued the self-destructive details; from 10 a.m. Grey Goose vodka shots and cocaine, to a $26,000 hooker bill. Sheen made it back to Los Angeles via private jet just in time for his show’s Tuesday morning “call,” but missed work the next day due to what producers described as an ear infection. That weekend, Ricky Gervais stood in front of an international television audience at the Golden Globes and confirmed Sheen’s status as a punchline. “It’s going to be a night of partying and heavy drinking,” the British comedian predicted as he opened the awards ceremony. “Or, as Charlie Sheen calls it, breakfast.”

Being the highest-paid actor in television, at almost $2 million per episode, should never be confused with being the most respected. For years now, even Sheen himself has seemed to resent the fame derived from his highly successful, yet critically reviled, comedy. Once the hot, young star of such “serious” films as Platoon and Wall Street, he has watched his career devolve into slight comedies like Hot Shots and Major League, then sitcoms, the final refuge of the clapped-out Hollywood icon. Paid to play the roué on TV—the role of boozy, lecherous “Charlie Harper” was specifically written with him in mind—he has carried the performance over into everyday life, embracing a bad-boy lifestyle with gusto. “He likes hookers and he likes coke and he’s got enough money for both,” an anonymous Sheen “friend” told the gossip site Radaronline.

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A rather familiar voice

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Friday, January 28, 2011 at 9:40 AM - 21 Comments

Photography by Andrew Tolson

Inside the third-floor studio at CBC’s downtown Toronto broadcast centre, the lurid green countdown of the digital clock gives way to the glowing red “live” lights on the microphones. Carol Off takes a deep breath, smiles, and leans in to shatter the dead air with a cheery “Hello.” The greeting, broadcast nationally at 6:30 p.m.—a half-hour later in Newfoundland—has marked the official start of As It Happens, and the rhythm of weekday evenings, for two generations of Canadian radio listeners. It’s been Off’s responsibility for the past 4.5 years, since taking over from Mary Lou Findlay. Before her, it was Michael Enright’s, who inherited the mantle from Dennis Trudeau, who replaced Elizabeth Gray, who stepped in for Barbara Frum. But since the show debuted in its familiar 90-minute format in 1973, only two voices have played out the rest of the script, cueing the theme song, Moe Koffman’s Curried Soul. Alan Maitland’s smoker’s baritone rumbled from the radio for 19 years. Then it was the husky tones and precise diction of Stratford Festival veteran Barbara Budd for 17 more. Until this past Jan. 4, that is, when the newest member of the most exclusive club in Canadian radio introduced himself to the audience. “Good evening. I’m Jeff Douglas. This is As It Happens.”

Unlike his predecessors, the 39-year-old’s delivery will never be described as stentorian. It’s a younger, warmer sound, more the Voice of Dude, than Doom. Sometimes there’s even a touch of Hoser—“record” pronounced reck-errd, for example—grace of his Truro, N.S., upbringing. Like most people, Douglas says he has never particularly liked the sound of his own voice. Although years of performance have helped him get over such self-consciousness about his tone, or even looks (an odd worry for a guy who was frequently cast as the love interest over a 15-year TV and film career). “As you get older you get more comfortable,” he says. “I can get past myself now. I realize how to get out of the way of the story.”

Watch him in the studio, and there’s little question as to what he used to do for a living. Billboarding an interview about the death of one of the founding fathers of Nunavut, Douglas adopts a serious expression and hunches towards the mike. Seconds later, he’s grinning and gesticulating his way through a punny intro about Colombian cocaine lords’ failed effort to turn birds into drug mules. “As It Happens, the Wednesday edition. Radio that figures that first they were fitting the pigeon—and now they’re pitchin’ a fit.”

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Patrick Chan's comeback

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 2 Comments

Photography Chris Bolin; Dmitry Korotayev/Epsilon/Getty Images

A furious Patrick Chan is hard to imagine. Downcast, maybe. Buffeted enough by a bad performance, or the vagaries of figure skating judging, to temporarily lose that wide grin. But the 20-year-old throwing a foot-stomping tantrum, complete with screams and curses, is a mental image about as difficult to reconcile as a fuzzy bunny with a machine gun. It simply doesn’t compute.

Still, the affable four-time Canadian figure skating champion (once as a junior, and for the past three years running, the senior men’s winner) swears it happened, out of public view, at the Vancouver Games, last Feb. 16. On the biggest stage of his career, in front of a hyped-up home crowd and an expectant nation, Chan had bombed in the short program. He bobbled the landing on his opening triple axel, stumbled during a step sequence—usually his bread-and-butter—and even received a penalty for finishing his routine after the music, a mistake he had never before made in competition. The score of 81.12 was good enough for seventh place, but a death blow to his Olympic medal hopes. So Chan smiled, waved, threw some kisses to the fans and cameras, then slipped behind the curtains and erupted. “My coaches had never seen me so mad,” he says. “I just said to myself, that’s not the way it was supposed to turn out.” Thirteen years of skating, building toward one ultimate dream, only to see it dashed in just under three minutes. You’d drop a couple of f-bombs, too.

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Mike Holmes wants to fix the world

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Monday, December 13, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 25 Comments

Photography Derek Shapton

A rhetorical question needs no answer, but sometimes it’s better to be safe than sorry. “Am I full of crap?” Mike Holmes barks from the stage, pausing just long enough to flash a teeth-baring smile. “No, I know I’m not.”

Even if they disagree, the teenagers before him—Aboriginal youth from across southwestern Ontario, brought together for a career fair at which the burly contractor is the keynote speaker—are unlikely to say it out loud. They’ve seen him on TV. He’s famous. Or at least recognizable enough that a bunch of 16-year-olds want to take his picture with their cellphones. At their age, Canada’s second most trusted man—trailing only David Suzuki in an April survey by Reader’s Digest—was a dropout, working full-time as a renovator, and living alone in a Toronto apartment where he wired the TV, stereo and all the lights to a panel attached to his armchair. Now he’s standing there, jabbing his finger in the air like Apollo Creed in Rocky, and pulling out every trick in the motivational bag to convince them to stay in school, and preferably pick up a skilled trade. There’s the scare: “If you quit, what the hell are you going to do? Work at McDonald’s?” Blandishment: “There’s so much opportunity. In 10 years, we’re going to be a million tradespeople short.” Even the potential for hookups: “I have met some of the hottest female electricians, welders and plumbers . . .”

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Justin Bieber: A very sweet sixteen

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 1 Comment

Photography by KC Armstrong

There are surely a lot of weird things about being a global teen idol. Obsessive fans. The lack of privacy. Growing up in a media hothouse. But the omnipresence of your own mug must rank high among the discomforts. Enter Justin Bieber’s name into a Google image search and you get 19 million pictures. His YouTube postings—everything from shaky home movies to big-budget music videos—have been collectively viewed more than a billion times. His signature bangs and toothy grin adorn posters, books, CDs, T-shirts, key chains, pyjamas, and practically everything else that can conceivably be sold to preteen girls (or their parents). Small wonder that the 16-year-old no longer enjoys having his picture taken.

“I really don’t really like photo shoots,” the Stratford, Ont., native admitted to Maclean’s during a backstage discussion about the perils of fame this past summer. “I hate when I’m standing there for hours at a time just looking at the camera.” Of course, there was a photographer in the room. These days there always is. Bieber is still new enough to the game that he can’t afford to appear sulky, however. Seconds later, the skinny teen was on his feet striking his “best” pose; mouth drawn into a pout, chin down, staring into the lens. “My sex face,” he declared, then quickly corrected himself. “My sexy face.”

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What the boomers are leaving their children

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Wednesday, December 1, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 184 Comments

Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images; Andy Clark/Reuters

This January, the first baby boomers turn 65. The huge post-Second World War generation—which numbers 76 million in the United States, makes up almost a third of Canada’s population, and according to one estimate, controls 80 per cent of Britain’s wealth—will continue to enter their dotage at the rate of tens of thousands per day for the next 20 years. By 2050, there will be 30 million Americans aged 75 to 85, three in 10 Europeans will be 65-plus, and more than 40 per cent of Japan’s population will be elderly. In Canada, the ratio of workers to retirees—currently five to one—will have been halved by 2036. And despite the odd dissenter, the generation that still oddly finds Paul McCartney relevant has made clear its intention to take everything it feels it has coming. It will be up to all who trail in their wake to pay for their privilege.

Common sense, not to mention decency, wouldn’t call that just. But an outsized, over-entitled, and self-obsessed demographic is awfully hard for politicians to ignore. Take Britain’s example. In last spring’s general election, the most effective ad run by David Cameron’s Conservatives was also one of the simplest: a close-up of a newborn baby, wriggling in a bassinet as a music box tinkled in the background. “Born four weeks ago, eight pounds, three ounces. With his dad’s nose, mum’s eyes, and Gordon Brown’s debt,” intoned a female voice. “Thanks to Labour’s debt crisis, every child in Britain is born owing £17,000. They deserve better.” The point was impossible to miss: the time had come to stop mortgaging the country’s future.

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The best man, for better or worse

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Monday, November 22, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 5 Comments

Prince Harry with his mother—mischievous from the start. In the military he found a real sense of purpose and belonging. | Tim Graham/Getty Images; John Stillwell/AP

If there is any justice, Prince Harry will get to organize the stag night. It wouldn’t just be his duty as presumptive best man (current odds from British bookmaker William Hill: 12-1), it would play to his proven natural talents. For of all the royals, 26-year-old Henry Charles Albert David, third in line to the throne, is the indisputable party boy.

Charles and Diana’s second son, or “the spare,” as the late princess used to teasingly call him, has long had a taste for fun, and occasionally trouble. At 16, the tabloids revealed he’d been drinking to excess down at the local pub, and smoking pot on the grounds of his father’s Highgrove estate. (The Prince of Wales reacted by dispatching him to a London drug rehabilitation clinic for one short, sharp, shocking afternoon.) At 20, he got involved in a 3 a.m. scuffle with a paparazzo outside a posh London nightclub, leaving the man with a cut lip, and a highly lucrative photo. He celebrated his 25th birthday—and the official inheritance of $14.5 million from his mother’s estate—with a $32,400 African booze cruise, on a houseboat filled with friends, lager and smokes.

“Does everyone expect me to be just the caring person and not to have a cigarette, not to have a beer?” Harry asked an interviewer who inquired about his “party prince” reputation a few years ago. “If that’s a problem with anyone, then I’m very sorry.”

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In conversation with Glee’s Cory Monteith

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Monday, November 15, 2010 at 12:20 PM - 4 Comments

Splash News/GQ, Ture Lillegraven/Corbis Outline, Jason Kempin/Getty Images

The first time Cory Monteith ever sang for a live audience was at the White House last Easter. The second occasion was later that same week on Oprah. By the time he and his cast mates from the Fox TV hit Glee completed a live tour with five sold-out performances at New York’s Radio City Music Hall in late May, it was becoming old hat.

Less so, the kind of teenybopper adulation that saw the 28-year-old Victoria native get chased down Fifth Avenue. Or the buzz-name status that convinces tabloid editors to turn a night out bowling in L.A. with a group including the singer Taylor Swift into cover stories about their “romance.” But that’s the kind of thing that happens when you’re one of the stars of the hottest thing on television. A multi-platform commercial juggernaut that draws 12 million viewers a week, Glee has spawned more charting singles on Billboard’s Hot 100 than the Beatles, sold five million albums, 13 million digital downloads, and launched a clothing line at Macy’s. It’s a campy satire about a high school choir that has improbably convinced millions of teens worldwide that singing show tunes and classic rock ballads is cool. A show that is only six episodes into its second season and is already a certified cultural phenomenon.

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Ben Johnson: from Seoul to Soul

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Tuesday, October 26, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Ron Kuntz/AFP/Getty Images/ Christopher Wahl/ Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images

Ben Johnson knows exactly when his troubles started. Not, as one might expect, on that day in Seoul in September 1988, when his “A” sample tested positive, setting off a chain reaction that saw him stripped of his 100-m Olympic gold, and transformed from World’s Fastest Man to global poster boy for cheating. Nor was it the time, seven years earlier, when his coach Charlie Francis first took his bone-rack 19-year-old protege aside to explain the concept of making a better living through chemistry. No, Johnson confides as he sits in the suburban Toronto office of his new spiritual adviser, his downfall began far earlier than that—7,000 years ago in Ancient Egypt, to be precise.

“I know I’ve always really, really loved the Egyptian monuments and drawings. I’m fascinated by them,” says the 48-year-old, but still buff, former sprinter. “So when he told me certain things, I said that makes sense.”

Sprawled on a leather couch, enormous, bare feet poking out from his dress pants, Bryan Farnum takes up the story. “My gift allows me to go within the matrix to other galaxies, other universes. We’re just part of this huge pathway of experiences. And the actual shape of the matrix, believe it or not, is the shape of the pyramids, and this is Ben’s connection.”

“Don’t say too much,” Johnson warns, and then laughs. “When you read the book, you’ll understand the link, and everything.”

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Escaping the straitjacket

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 4:00 PM - 0 Comments

Max Whittaker/Getty Images

When Mark Vonnegut sat on the Harvard Medical School admissions committee, he used to ask the congenital overachievers who came before him a simple question: what is being a doctor going to do for you? Conditioned to talk about saving lives, advancing science, or just making the world a better place, the candidates frequently struggled to articulate what the more selfish gains from their chosen profession might be. But after more than three decades of practice as a Boston pediatrician, Vonnegut has a ready response when the query is turned back on him—stability. “Being a doctor has been enormously grounding,” he says.

“Having to go to work and deal with a rash or a 102-degree fever snaps me out of my own head. It allows me to be in the world in a useful way.”

Maintaining a daily presence in the here and now is no trifling concern for the 63-year-old son of the late author Kurt Vonnegut. In 1971, at the age of 23, he suffered three major mental breakdowns while living on a hippie commune in British Columbia. Diagnosed a schizophrenic, he found himself locked in a Vancouver psychiatric hospital while he conversed with Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain and Fyodor Dostoevsky, painted with Van Gogh, and played sax with John Coltrane. Four years, and much medication later, he wrote The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity.

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Georges St. Pierre: Lord of the ring

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Monday, September 27, 2010 at 8:40 AM - 0 Comments

Jon P. Kopaloff/Getty Images/ Richard Phibbs/Trunk Archive

The Most Dangerous Man on Earth (as voted by viewers of the testosterone-fuelled cable channel, Spike TV) pushes aside his plate and issues a challenge. “Go ahead, ask me a question about paleontology from the Triassic period, leading up to the end of the Cretaceous period,” says Georges St. Pierre. “I’m very, very good at this.”

To say that this is unexpected is something of an understatement. From the scars that part his stubbly hair, to his cauliflowered ears, to his well-muscled arms, everything about this 29-year-old Montrealer bespeaks his profession: beating people up. The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) welterweight champion (20 wins-2 losses-0 draws) is rated, pound-for-pound, perhaps the best mixed-martial-arts fighter in the world.

Just minutes before, while polishing off a breakfast of three over-easy eggs, hash browns, sausages, a basket of whole wheat toast, a large bowl of fruit and yogourt, two orange juices and a café au lait in a trendy Manhattan bistro, he has calmly related the worst injury he has ever inflicted inside the steel-caged octagon: twisting back an opponent’s arm until he ripped the rotator cuff. “He didn’t want to tap out,” St. Pierre says, invoking fight jargon for crying uncle. “So I broke it. I couldn’t take the chance to let him go and do it to me.” Now, we’re talking dinosaurs.

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The method man

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Thursday, September 23, 2010 at 3:20 PM - 0 Comments

Roman Cho; Getty Images/ Maragret Marissen

Sometimes Daniel Lanois feels like he’s being held hostage by the ghosts in his head. The brittle hi-hat in Arthur Alexander’s Anna—a soul ballad that peaked at No. 68 on the pop charts in 1962, and is mostly remembered for the cover version the Beatles did the following year. The warbling acoustic guitar of Blind Willie Johnson, a Texas bluesman and street preacher who died in 1945, leaving behind 30 songs and just one photograph. The “multidimensional” quality of old John Lee Hooker cuts: parched vocals up front, the bright tremolo and reverb of the guitar soaring above, and way out to one side, shoe leather scuffing against the studio floor. Sonic building blocks from the past that rattle around the super-producer and musician’s brain, waiting to burst back out in new finery, stretched, tweaked, or sometimes distorted beyond all recognition.

It’s part and parcel of his relentless search for sounds that will elevate a recording from workaday to timeless. The seven-time Grammy winner has a lot of pet terms for the process—a mixture of sacking and sleuthing. Over the years, he’s called it “testimonial exorcism,” “spotting,” and “highly paid vandalism.” But the one that seems to fit the best is Soul Mining, the title of his forthcoming musical memoir. “If you’re trying to solve a riddle, or do something that hasn’t been done before, you’re going to be at it for awhile because it requires a lot of research,” the 59-year-old drawls down the line from Bella Vista, his hilltop villa overlooking L.A.’s Silver Lake reservoir. “You bump into things you don’t like, then you discard them. But oftentimes those by-products are more interesting than what you thought you were going after in the first place. It takes a lot of time.”

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Q&A: TransCanada CEO Russ Girling

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Chris Bolin Photography

Few Canadian CEOs have as many headaches as TransCanada Corp.’s Russ Girling these days. His company’s U.S. pipeline expansion plans are under fire from anti-oil sands activists, the Environmental Protection Agency and some prominent Democrats. Presidential approval of the $7-billion project has already been pushed back into 2011, and the dispute will be a hot topic when Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, visits Ottawa this week.

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Tony Blair interview: On the Iraq war, George W. Bush, his wife

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 11:43 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Logan Mock-Bunting/Getty Images

Tony Blair ranks high on the list of Britain’s most successful prime ministers, having led his Labour Party to three consecutive majorities. But by the time he left office in 2007, after a decade in power and two major wars, he was also among the country’s most divisive. His new memoir, A Journey, published this week by Knopf Canada, charts the ups and downs of a political life.

Q: A few weeks ago you announced your intention to donate the profits from this memoir, and I gather the advance money as well, to the British Legion to help wounded veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Why?
A: I wanted to honour the commitment and show my respect to people who I think have done the most amazing job. Those from my country, the U.K., the U.S. and Canadian armed forces, all of those who have been in the front line of this battle. I wanted to donate to the Royal British Legion in order to try to help, and in particular prepare, those who have been injured to either go back to front-line service or civilian life. It’s a worthy cause, but I had actually decided to give the money to a charity connected to the armed forces before I had even written the book.

Q: It’s a decision that has been lauded by some, and dismissed as a calculating PR move by others. But in the book, you do refer to the emotional toll the deaths and casualties took on you. How has that burden changed you?
A: You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t feel both a sense of responsibility and a deep sadness for those who have lost their lives. That responsibility stays with me now, and will stay with me for the rest of my life. You know, I came to office as prime minister in 1997, focusing on domestic policy and ended up in four conflicts—Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. And it does change you, and so it should.

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The Stanley cup goes on vacation

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Sunday, August 22, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 0 Comments

Scott Strazzante/Chicago Tribune/ Mark L. Johnson/CP

On his day with the cup, Chicago Blackhawks star Patrick Kane took Lord Stanley’s mug to visit Niagara Falls, N.Y., a cancer hospital, and onto the stage at a Jimmy Buffett concert. But the lingering memory will surely be his holy crap moment with hockey’s Holy Grail. The 21-year-old winger—more than a little scared of heights—agreed to hop into a cherry picker belonging to his hometown Buffalo fire department. Up, up they went, three storeys above the street, so photographers could capture him hoisting the trophy against the scenic skyline. But when it came time to descend, the motor stopped working. It took 25 minutes for firefighters to manually lower the ladder. And all the while, Kane’s buddies stood below, heckling. Respect.

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Can Mel Gibson’s career bounce back?

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Monday, August 9, 2010 at 11:06 AM - 0 Comments

David Gray/Reuters

A decade ago, Mel Gibson was a chauvinist pig. The type of man who used and abused women, caring little for their thoughts, feelings or affections. Then, he accidently dropped a hair dryer in a bathtub and instead of meeting a shocking end, was magically transformed, imbued with the power to read the female mind. “Finally . . . a man who’s listening,” went the slightly witty tag line from the 2000 film What Women Want. Gibson’s character, Nick Marshall, followed a predictable arc, at first using his great gift for advantage in affairs of the heart and business. But by the romantic comedy’s end, he had learned valuable lessons about respect and love, fairly swooning when co-star Helen Hunt agreed to save him from himself.

Released just before Christmas, when audiences are often in a giving mood, the fluffy fantasy went on to gross US$183 million in the United States, and a further $191 million worldwide. It still ranks as the number two all-time earner in the date-movie genre, trailing only My Big Fat Greek Wedding. And until recently at least, you could often find it playing late at night on cable’s upper tier—an artifact of an era when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and Mel Gibson was Hollywood’s most bankable star.

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Elon Musk, the geek tycoon

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Michal Czerwonka/The New York Times/ Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Elon Musk is used to making headlines. In fact, he seems to relish them. In late May, the 39-year-old Silicon Valley entrepreneur stood alongside Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Toyota Motors CEO Akio Toyoda and inked a deal to purchase a mothballed California auto plant for Tesla, his electric sports car company.

Two weeks later, he was in Florida, watching a Falcon 9 rocket, made by another one of his firms, SpaceX, blast off on its maiden voyage to orbit, and a potentially lucrative future hauling freight and astronauts to the International Space Station. On June 29, he and his 24-year-old fiancée, British actress Talulah Riley, toothily rang the bell to open trading on the New York Stock Exchange, as Tesla became the first automobile maker to go public in the U.S. since Ford in 1956.

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Justin Bieber on Oprah, Kobe Bryant and his own fame

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 0 Comments

Dana Romanoff/GETTY IMAGES/ KC Armstrong/ Lucas Jackson/Reuters

The sign on the door says “Mozart,” but it’s a safe bet that Wolfgang Amadeus never had a dressing room equipped with leather recliners, a super-sized flat-screen TV and an Xbox console. Nor, presumably, did his tour rider call for loaves of Wonder Bread, Cool Ranch Doritos, Fruit Roll-Ups and candy Swedish Fish.

Still, something is missing. Justin Bieber’s mom, Pattie Mallette, looks at the choice of Pop Tarts—strawberry and apple strudel—and clucks, “Where are the grape ones?” before scurrying off down the hall. The day has enough complications already. Pop’s reigning prodigy is suffering greatly from Denver’s thin mountain air. Dizzy with a splitting headache, the Stratford, Ont., teen has been snarling at anyone brave enough to enter his darkened tour bus, pull back the Spider-Man bedsheets, and try to wake him for a scheduled 2:30 p.m. interview.

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