Supreme Court hears HIV transmission trial

By Richard Warnica - Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 10:23 AM - 0 Comments

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Wednesday in two cases that examine the line between sexual non-disclosure and aggravated assault.

At issue is whether people who know they have HIV or AIDS have a legal duty to disclose their condition before having sex and whether they should be criminally charged if they don’t, regardless of transmission.

The hearing marks the first time the high court has addressed the question since 1998, when, in a landmark decision, it ruled that non-disclosure represents “a significant risk of serious bodily harm” to the exposed.

Advocates for the HIV positive argue that medical advances have since substantially reduced the risks of transmission and that the current law, as applied, only adds to the stigma of living with the disease. (Read a good, if slightly muddled, summary of that argument here. For the opposite view, check out Wednesday’s Globe and Mail editorial on the topic)

Santorum, seriously?

By Richard Warnica - Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 10:16 AM - 0 Comments

Republican hopeful Rick Santorum swept three electoral contests on Wednesday, capturing caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota and a primary in Missouri.

The wins breathed new life into Santorum’s campaign, which had struggled after his early, narrow victory in Iowa. It was also a setback for frontrunner Mitt Romney who, despite having tons of cash and perfectly robotic hair, has so far failed to ignite his party’s conservative base.

Stoking the extreme fringe hasn’t been a problem for Santorum. The former Pennsylvania senator has compared gay sex to bestiality and this week mused nostalgically about the good old days of back alley abortions.

Under the archaic rules of the U.S. presidential system, none of Tuesday’s votes were binding. Colorado and Minnesota will formally pick their delegates at a later date, while Missouri was stripped of its representatives for monkeying with the primary calendar.

Still, Tuesday’s wins could go some way toward establishing Santorum as the religious right’s best hope of toppling Romney. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has so far enjoyed that status, all but ignored Tuesday’s contests. (Politico reports that he campaigned in Ohio instead, but I like to imagine he was holed up somewhere, spitballing ideas for the lunar White House.)

For more analysis on Santorum read the insightfully foul-mouthed Charles Pierce in Esquire, the New Yorker’s John Cassidy or the Book of Revelations.

Canadian CEOs: running out of new hires

By Richard Warnica - Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 10:04 AM - 0 Comments

A critical shortage of skilled labour is holding back Canadian companies, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. Over the next decade Canadian firms will be short of 163,000 construction jobs, 130,000 oil workers, 60,000 nurses, 37,000 truckers, 22,000 hotel workers and 10,000 skilled steel tradespeople, the Globe and Mail reports. (Read the full report here).

Loblaw’s chief: Farmers’ markets will kill

By Richard Warnica - Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 9:52 AM - 0 Comments

Galen Weston, the cherubic executive chairman of Loblaw, Canada’s largest grocery chain, has earned the ire of Canadian foodies by suggesting some forms of fresh food may actually be fatal. From the Toronto Star:

“Farmers’ markets are great. . . ,” Weston said Tuesday during a speech to about 600 people at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, but added: “One day they’re going to kill some people though.”

Weston, who added that he was “just saying that to be dramatic,” was talking about the need for uniform food-inspection standards. That will, of course, mollify local-food advocates who are known above all for being reasonable and not at all prone to exaggeration or hysteria.

Sadly for Quebec MPs, Jubilee Medals are not refundable

By Richard Warnica - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 6:04 PM - 0 Comments

Six Quebec MPs, including all four members of the Bloc Québécois, have rejected the Queen’s Jubilee Medals, which were handed out to all 308 federal MPs.

Two members of the NDP—Pierre Nantel and Alain Giguere—joined the Bloc protest, CP reports.

Sixty of the medals were also handed out to notable Canadians Monday, the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign. The awards are part of a lavish $7.5 million celebration of the jubilee planned by the Canadian government.

But some MPs, along with various republicans and other anti-monarchists, aren’t exactly thrilled about the festivities.

“Australia – also part of the Commonwealth—isn’t handing out these medals. Why is Canada?” Bloc MP Louis Plamandon said, according to CP. “I will not participate, none of the Bloc will hand out these medals and we hope other Quebec MPs also say non.”

For now at least, Nantel and Giguere are the only New Democrats to reject the medals. NDP leader Nycole Turmel said most of her caucus is now considering how best to hand the awards out.

Court overturns California’s ban on gay marriage

By Richard Warnica - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 5:46 PM - 0 Comments

A panel of California judges reversed a statewide ban on gay marriage Tuesday, finding the ban unconstitutional. The ruling is expected to push the battle over Proposition 8 one step closer to an eventual showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a 2-1 decision, the ninth circuit court of appeal ruled that the controversial ballot measure passed in 2008 “serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California,”  the Guardian reports.

The ruling will likely be stayed pending an appeal, first to a larger panel of California judges, then to the Supreme Court, where Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia will be asked to adjudicate on the, I guess, alienable rights of gay and lesbian Californians.

Victory or no, Tuesday’s ruling does mean one thing, says the Atlantic’s Richard Dawson: It’s time to forgive California.

This decision is the truest of San Francisco treats! Because it not only takes this important fight to the top of the food chain, but it finally moves the whole mess far enough away from California that we can put the knotty, frustrating past behind us and bring it back into the fold. Welcome! All your old friends are here, plus some new ones, like Iowa and New York. Sure they did it differently, the legislative way, and yes the case against Prop 8 isn’t even exactly settled yet, but dramatically shipping the matter off to Washington D.C. at least finally gives us permission to safely categorize you again. Welcome back to the Left! Don’t let us down again.

Further reaction from the New Yorker’s Alex Koppelman here, thoughts on why the Supreme Court may refuse to hear the case here, and the ruling itself (for nerds) here.

Harper touches down in China

By Richard Warnica - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 11:50 AM - 0 Comments

Prime Minister Stephen Harper touched down in Beijing Tuesday, where he was to lead five days of diplomatic and business talks. The visit is Harper’s second to the Middle Kingdom as Canadian leader and is considered crucial as Canadian businesses seek a larger share of the huge and growing Chinese market. The Chinese, meanwhile, are expected to push for more unfettered, access to Canadian resources, especially Alberta’s oil sands. Human rights, once considered Harper’s main priority in Chinese relations, appear to have faded as an issue for the Conservative leader in the region, at least if his public rhetoric is any sign.

Maclean’s Political Editor Paul Wells is with Harper in Beijing. Though it is late Tuesday night in China, Wells has already checked in on Twitter with news of his luggage search and updates on his decision to not tweet a picture of his hotel toilet. On his blog, meanwhile, Wells reports that the government has named Mark Rothwell, aka Dashan, a Canadian entertainer popular in China, as a goodwill ambassador to the country.

Horrific crash kills 10 migrant workers in Ontario

By Richard Warnica - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 11:45 AM - 0 Comments

Ten migrant workers and one truck driver were killed Monday in one of the most horrific crashes in recent Canadian history.

The accident occurred when a flatbed truck slammed into a passenger van on a rural road in southwestern Ontario just before 5 p.m., the Globe reports. The impact from the collision forced the van across a field and into a building. The truck was flipped over onto its roof.

Ten workers in the van, whose ages ranged from 19 to 55, were killed. Another three were critically injured. The driver of the truck died on the scene.

“I’ve been on the job for 28 years and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Inspector Steve Porter of the local OPP detachment told the daily.
The van passengers are known to have been migrant agricultural workers, likely en route from one the region’s poultry farms. At least some were wearing seat belts. No information has been released on where they were from or how long they have been in Canada.

Regardless, the crash is likely to reopen the debate over conditions for seasonal workers in Canada. Thousands are shipped in every year, mostly from Mexico and the Caribbean, to perform jobs Canadians won’t. Though official protections exist, past studies have shown that many workers are unaware of them, or too afraid of losing their jobs to risk going to the authorities.

Are we prepared for a covert war against Syria?

By Richard Warnica - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 11:42 AM - 0 Comments

Western and Arab governments, stymied by Russian and Chinese vetoes at the UN, are struggling to find ways to support the fractious Syrian opposition as violence in that country persists.

The Guardian reported Tuesday that the U.S. may be considering an executive order that would authorize covert action against Bashar al-Assad’s increasingly chaotic regime. It is not clear, however, that President Obama would sign such an order. Nor is it certain that covert action would succeed.

“It would leak in an instant and it would be radioactive,” Robert Baer, a former CIA officer in the region told the paper. “They [the Obama administration] have no idea of what to do now.”

Hope for a negotiated end to the conflict, which has claimed thousands of civilian and rebel lives, faded after China joined Russia to veto a Security Council resolution last Saturday. On Tuesday, Russia’s foreign minister touched down in Syria, where he was to meet with al-Assad.

At the same time, reports from inside the country say the crackdown on the rebel stronghold of Homs is intensifying. At least 94 people were killed in shelling Monday alone, according to BBC sources. Russian-made tanks have surrounded the city, but an all-out ground assault has not yet commenced.

The U.S. and Britain recalled their ambassadors to Syria this week, part of a diplomatic push that has so far proved ineffectual. Canada is maintaining diplomatic relations with al-Assad’s regime for now. But Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected to raise the issue of China’s UN veto during this week’s bilateral summit in Beijing.

What do you get when you cross a Glencore with an Xstrata?

By Richard Warnica - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 11:37 AM - 0 Comments

Two global resource giants have reached a merger agreement that, if approved, would create the world’s fourth largest mining firm. Glencore International and Xstrata, which owns Canada’s Falconbridge, reached a US$90 billion deal that has been in the works since last spring, the Globe reports.

The new joint firm could immediately rival global mining leaders such as Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. But regulatory hurdles remain. The Globe’s Eric Reguly says EU anti-trust officials are not likely to challenge the merger, but those in Australia, China, South Korea and Japan could take a hard look, especially given the new joint firm’s dominance in key areas such as coal.

“Regulators everywhere would be crazy not to review the Xstrata-Glencore merger, worth $90b,” Reguly wrote on Twitter. “Its control of some commodities is outrageous.”

Xstrata shareholders, meanwhile, believe the deal undervalues the company, the BBC reports. Several large shareholders are expected to vote against a merger in April. But with Glencore already controlling 38 per cent of the firm’s shares, a shareholder revolt seems unlikely to succeed.

CBC’s ‘Canada Reads’ descends into farce

By Richard Warnica - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 11:29 AM - 0 Comments

A celebrity judge on CBC’s Canada Reads has accused a rival author of terrorism and claimed another book in the competition is full of lies. Anne-France Goldwater, described by the CBC as “Canada’s Judge Judy” made the comments while defending John Vaillant’s The Tiger on the radio debate show. When asked about an opposing book, Goldwater sounded off.

“Carmen Aguirre is a bloody terrorist. How we let her into Canada, I don’t understand,” she said, about the author of the memoir Something Fierce, reports The Globe and Mail.

Goldwater later accused the author of the Prisoner of Tehran, a memoir about being arrested and imprisoned in Iran, of making up large portions of her book. “I don’t know a single author who likes what Canada Reads has become,” novelist Trevor Cole posted on Twitter. “Toxic was a word I heard yesterday, and it fits.”

Gaffe watchers stalk Romney

By Richard Warnica - Monday, February 6, 2012 at 10:56 AM - 0 Comments

Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum haven’t yet given yet up their bids for the Republican presidential nomination, but backers of President Barack Obama have long since turned their undivided attention to the man they assume will be the nominee: Mitt Romney. The Times has a story Monday on the unofficial team of Romney-gaffe watchers in the Obama camp, who scour news and social media for the former Mass. governor’s frequent tonal flubs—“I’m not concerned about the very poor”; “I like to be able to fire people”; “I have more money than an Incan King.” (I may have made that last one up.)

Meanwhile, the New York Post (via Slate) has an excerpt from a new memoir by JFK’s one-time intern and mistress Mimi Alford. According to the book, Kennedy took the then 19-year-old’s virginity days after meeting her, pressured her to take drugs and perform oral sex on an aide while he watched, and once asked her to “take care” of Teddy Kennedy. He also never kissed her on the lips. (Rich people are the best, right?)

New York Times

Slate

Giants top Patriots while Ferris Bueller shills for Honda

By Richard Warnica - Monday, February 6, 2012 at 10:52 AM - 0 Comments

The New York Giants beat the New England Patriots 21 to 17 Sunday to win their second Super Bowl under coach Tom Coughlin and quarterback Eli Manning. Running back Ahmad Bradshaw accidentally scored the winning touchdown in the final minute of the game after trying and failing to down the ball on the one. The New England defence, hoping to gain more time for a comeback, gave Bradshaw a clear path to the end zone. When he reached the goal line, he turned, tried to squat and fell butt-first over the line. The stumble gave the Patriots one final chance to score. But quarterback Tom Brady, he of the Bieber hair, Ugg boots and supermodel wife, could not connect on a last-second Hail Mary pass to tight end Ron Gronkowski.

Brady said little after the game, which left Yahoo’s Dan Wetzel to fill his column with a minute-by-minute dissection of a man getting undressed and leaving a building. “It was 10:18 p.m,” Wetzel wrote. “Brady began to pull at his shoulder pads.” At 10:31, “Brady was adjusting his black three-piece suit.” And at 11 p.m. he and his wife “took seats 35 and 36” on the team bus. That’s the kind of detail only the pros/people filling space can offer you. (See also: coach Bill Belichick’s weirdly clipped post-game press conference.)

But enough about football. As a Canadian/someone too lazy to look them up online, I have not seen yet Sunday’s Super Bowl commercials. Slate’s Seth Stevenson has a good round up of what I gather can be summed up as: talking bears; talking babies; women’s breasts; Beckam’s abs; Ferris Bueller shilling cars.

I did watch the half-time show, which showed Madonna jiving through a medley of hits with guests Cee-Lo, LMAFO, Nicki Minaj and M.I.A., who ended her bit by flipping off the crowd, a move not so much rebellious as quaint, like a throwback to protests of yore. The show was fine, but it did lack for jetpacks, which have a long history at the Super Bowl, as laid out last week in a story in the Smithsonian Magazine. Also lacking: adorable baby dogs. Luckily, Deadspin has the highlights from Sunday’s Puppy Bowl.

Yahoo!

Slate

New York Times

Smithsonian Magazine

Deadspin

Voters in Toronto-Danforth, sharpen your pencils

By Richard Warnica - Monday, February 6, 2012 at 10:42 AM - 0 Comments

The Conservatives announced the date Sunday for a by-election to replace the NDP’s late leader Jack Layton in his old riding of Toronto-Danforth. Only one major party candidate—the NDP’s Craig Scott—is so far confirmed for the race, which is set to end March 12. If no one else steps forward, an anonymous group of bureaucrats will be tasked to stand in for the rest. (Reader quiz: How long can I keep flogging this joke? Let me know: richard.warnica@macleans.rogers.com)

Rumours of a ‘star’ Liberal candidate continue to swirl. And it’s not impossible that a Grit could take the seat. But in a by-election, where turnout matters more than anything, getting a candidate, any candidate, nominated soon is critical. Every extra day Scott, a law professor at Osgoode Hall, has to knock doors unopposed is a gift from the Liberals to the NDP. (According to Postmedia’s Tobi Cohen, George Smitherman and David Miller have ruled out runs for Liberal nod. Other names being bandied about include Gerard Kennedy, Belinda Stronach and Andrew Lang, who was the party’s sacrificial lamb in the riding in the last two elections.)

UPDATE: The vote has been delayed by a week and will now occur on March 19.

Postmedia

Caterpillar can take its boots with them

By Richard Warnica - Monday, February 6, 2012 at 10:36 AM - 0 Comments

A store in London, ON, has stopped selling Caterpillar boots after the firm behind the footwear announced the closure last week of a local manufacturing plant. The U.S.-based Caterpillar had asked workers to give up benefits and take a 50 per cent wage cut at the Electro-Motive plant, which had made diesel locomotives. Employees at the firm were locked out on Jan. 1. And on Friday, the company announced the whole thing would shut down, a move a union leader called “unethical, immoral, disrespectful” and the Star’s David Olive likened to “industrial rape.” Work done at the plant may now move to Indiana, where anti-union legislation recently passed. London’s local Mark’s Work Warehouse outlet, meanwhile, pulled Caterpillar boots from its shelves over the weekend in solidarity. It’s not entirely clear whether the boycott continues.

The Globe and Mail

The Globe and Mail

Toronto Star

Harper’s dream audience: an empty room in Switzerland

By Richard Warnica - Monday, February 6, 2012 at 10:32 AM - 0 Comments

Prime Minister Stephen Harper took flak recently after he delivered a major policy speech in Davos, Switzerland, rather than test the message first on a local audience. But as it turns out, Harper may not have had much of an audience abroad, either. Canadian academic Daniel A. Bell was at the Davos summit. In a piece for the Huffington Post, he described what happened when Harper took the podium following a Q&A between Bill Gates and the president of Mexico. “(T)he room emptied,” Bell wrote. In Harper’s defence, an empty room in Switzerland is at least as dignified as the Canadian House of Commons. The food is probably better and Peter Goldring isn’t always bugging you about Turks and Caicos.

Huffington Post

Open Parliament

Egypt soccer riots continue

By Richard Warnica - Friday, February 3, 2012 at 11:08 AM - 0 Comments

Egypt’s ‘ultras’—soccer fans who played a key role in demonstrations that toppled Hosni Mubarak last year—continued to riot Friday amid rumours police had purposefully allowed violence to spiral out of control at a match earlier this week.

More than 70 people were killed in a post-game riot in Port Said on Wednesday. Fans were quick to blame security forces for failing to contain the mayhem. Many now believe the officers were exacting revenge on the increasingly political ultras.

The New York Times says the rumours are “impossible to confirm.” But one player interviewed by the Guardian says he saw police urge fans to come onto the field. He also claims to have seen people with “knives and swords” in the melee. (Security rule of thumb: If someone can sneak a sword into your event, your security sucks.)

At least four people have died in the post-riot riots, which have seen protestors in Cairo and other spots rioting against police to demonstrate how angry they are that police failed to stop the earlier riot.  (Got that?) Politicians meanwhile, have been quick to try to harness the crowd’s anger.

New York Times

Guardian

‘Gazebo’ Tony prepares the axe

By Richard Warnica - Friday, February 3, 2012 at 11:04 AM - 0 Comments

The Globe’s John Ibbitson argued on Friday that the coming federal budget, which he calls the most important in years, will essentially be presented by two ministers, Finance’s Jim Flaherty and Tony “Gazebo” Clement, the minister for profligate local spending who has a side job on the Treasury Board.

Following a script laid out by budget slicers past, the Tories are likely to front-load their harshest cuts early in their mandate. It’s Clement’s job to find the five to 10 per cent in trims the government looking for from every department. The only problem, Clement’s name is now inextricably linked to the G20 spending debacle.

At this point, when the band says “Tony,” the crows shouts “Gazebo.” And that’s a problem. It’s an open question whether a man best known for cleaning up Muskoka in the name of border security can sell bureaucrats and the public on a sweeping plan for budget austerity.

Meanwhile, in the Star, Chantal Hebert wonders whether pension reform is really a priority for the coming budget. Opposition parties have been pounding the government on the issue, and the usually message-savvy Tories have been slow to define the question their way.

Mordecai Richler once wrote that in every magazine story he ever filed, he included one or two obviously unpublishable bits so editors would cut those and leave everything else alone. Pension reform might be serving the same role for the government. Give the opposition something to punch themselves out on, the argument goes, and they’ll have less left when the real reforms come.

Globe and Mail

Toronto Star

U.S. unemployment rate tumbles

By Richard Warnica - Friday, February 3, 2012 at 11:03 AM - 0 Comments

The U.S. economy added 243,000 jobs in January, as the national jobless rate fell to a three-year low. The numbers, released on Friday morning, were likely the best news for Obama’s White House since Newt Gingrich won South Carolina.

With Americans heading to the ballot box in just nine months, a continued economic recovery will be key to Obama’s re-election bid. The New York Times’ Nate Silver suggested on Thursday the economy would need to add about 150,000 a month between now and next November for the president to have a solid re-election election chance.

It’s not an entirely rosy picture, however. Long-term unemployment remains intractable and the number of underemployed, scratching by with part-time work, continues to be alarmingly high.

In Canada, meanwhile, the economy added a mere 2,300 jobs last month as the unemployment rate edged up from 7.5 to 7.6 per cent. Job growth, robust only six months ago, has since slowed. The number of full-time jobs actually fell last month, with the slack being taken up by part-time work.

Problems may also loom in the housing market. The Economist warned on Friday that Canadians housing prices may not be sustainable, especially in Toronto and Vancouver. (To which Vancouverites, waking in their 7-figure bachelor condos, responded: “Poppycock!”)

New York Times

New York Times (blogs)

Globe and Mail

Economist

Greek reforms efforts stumble on ingrained graft

By Richard Warnica - Friday, February 3, 2012 at 11:02 AM - 0 Comments

In Greece, the system exists to be gamed. Numbers are never solid there. Budgets are mere suggestions. Reform, then, was never going to be easy. Too many players have too much at stake to let old relationships, which rob public coffers but keep many comfortable and in power, break up without a fight.

The New York Times today has the story of Diomidis Spinellis, a computer scientist who interrupted his career in 2009 to help the government generate better economic data. He quit in disgust last September and went back to academia. The government, he says, just wasn’t interested in seeing his numbers.

The power of entrenched Greek interests to slow reform could prove crippling as the country tries to inch out from beneath its debts. Worth listening to on the subject is This American Life’s Planet Money team, which devoted an episode the European fiscal crisis last month.

New York Times

This American Life

Ghost of Steve Jobs placing sales pitch for Taiwanese firm

By Richard Warnica - Friday, February 3, 2012 at 11:02 AM - 0 Comments

A Taiwanese electronics company is using an actor playing the ghost of Steve Jobs to pitch its products, CBC reported Friday. That’s the bad news. The good news: There are no reports said ghost is being played by a Canadian bureaucrat. (Hi-yo!)

On a serious note: I have a hard time getting too mad about this story. Jobs was a businessman who made cool stuff. Nothing more. He was also a massively public figure. Is it sleazy to use his ghost to pitch goods? Sure. But it’s nothing worth shaking your fists about. Just laugh and move on.

CBC

Facebook IPO could be richest in tech history

By Richard Warnica - Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 11:17 AM - 0 Comments

Facebook, founded in a Harvard dorm as a way to rank women, filed for an IPO Wednesday that values the social networking site between US$75 and $100 billion. The public offering is set to make millionaires and billionaires of early investors, employees, and even the guy who painted the walls at the company’s first Palo Alto, California office. Graffiti artist David Choe accepted company shares in lieu of cash for his work in 2005 despite thinking at the time that Facebook was a “ridiculous and pointless” idea. Those shares are now worth about $200 million, according to what the Times calls “a number of people who know Mr. Choe and Facebook executives.” (Someday, when Maclean’s Need To Know goes public, I hope you all, dear readers, are cited as people who know me.)

Documents released as part of the filing show founder Mark Zuckerberg still has near complete control of the company Aaron Sorkin seems to think he founded as a way to get back at an ex. Zuckerberg owns just over a quarter of the company’s shares, but controls more than 57 per cent of the voting stock. His mortality is also identified as one of the company’s major liabilities, according to the 400-page S-1 filing. Along with COO Sheryl Sandberg, he is listed as one of two “key personnel” whose loss could seriously damage the online behemoth. (Another big liability: privacy laws.)

Facebook shares have been trading in private sales for a few years and those who bought early are now set to make bank. Billionaire Peter Thiel invested $500,000 in the company in 2004. That stake could now be worth $2 billion. Zuckerberg’s dad, his college roommate, and U2 front man Bono are also set to cash in on early investments/fortuitous relationships. If the sale goes as planned, it will become the most valuable IPO in tech stock history, which is a remarkable fate for a site used mostly by former classmates who want to talk about their babies.

Washington Post

New York Times

The Atlantic Wire

Bureaucrats posed for citizenship ceremony in Sun TV stunt

By Richard Warnica - Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 11:09 AM - 0 Comments

Bureaucrats working in Jason Kenney’s department posed as immigrants to pull off an elaborate stunt for Sun TV News, according to documents obtained by CP’s Jennifer Ditchburn. (Wait. What? How is this real?)

According to Ditchburn, what happened was this: Sun TV was supposed to film a citizenship reaffirmation ceremony in their studios, but the department could only find three people willing to participate. Instead of cancelling the stunt, they had federal employees, presumably on the federal clock, stand in for the rest of the crowd.

Sun TV News claims they knew nothing about the ruse. Kenney’s office, in an admirable display of ministerial responsibility, says the bureaucrats acted on their own.

That of course doesn’t explain why government employees were spending public time creating a TV gimmick for a private network in the first place. Nor do we know why a Sun employee apparently suggested faking the whole thing at one point. (From the story: “Let’s do it. We can fake the Oath,” reads an email from a sunmedia.ca email address.”

At this point, few would be surprised if it were revealed that Sun TV News itself is actually an elaborate performance art installation completed in partial fulfillment of a degree at the Alberta College of Art and Design.

Canadian Press

China casts a longing gaze toward the Arctic

By Richard Warnica - Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 10:56 AM - 0 Comments

China may use Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s upcoming visit to push its claim for more influence in the Arctic. After a speech Wednesday to the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations (which, apparently, is a thing) China’s ambassador to Canada suggested his country might want input on the Arctic Council, a working group of eight nations with territories in the far north.

The Arctic could be home to trillions of dollars in oil, gas and other resources. China, with no actual territory in the region, is nonetheless a voracious consumer of energy goods. If there’s a resource play to be had in the area, they’re going to want a part of it.

Canadian Press