How to end needless labour strikes? Start with good faith negotiations.

By From the editors - Tuesday, March 27, 2012 at 12:03 PM - 0 Comments

Darryl Dyck/CP

As many as 200,000 college and university students in Quebec claim to be “on strike.” Rather than attending classes, writing papers or preparing labs, on select days the students have been cutting classes, blocking traffic and getting tear-gassed.

At issue is a provincial plan to raise university tuition from what is the lowest in Canada to a rate that will be . . . the second-lowest in the country (assuming other provinces maintain their current tuition fee policies). Quebec students currently pay an average of $2,400 per year according to Statistics Canada. The national average is more than double that—$5,400. Quebec’s plan will gradually raise tuition fees until they hit $3,800. Quebec student groups argue tuition should be free, and they’re prepared to walk to make their point.

Unlike strikes in the real world, however, university students lack the sort of leverage enjoyed by actual employees. Students pay for the privilege of going to school, not the other way around. So when they withhold their services, it’s not the provincial government that finds itself inconvenienced, it’s the students themselves. Keep in mind also that the vast bulk of benefits from post-secondary education go directly to students—an undergraduate degree provides an estimated 10 per cent annual return over a student’s entire lifetime. (Not all students have divorced themselves from looming adulthood. Most students at McGill, for example, voted against a strike.)

As absurd, overreaching and self-defeating as the Quebec student strike appears, it is simply the most outrageous example of what promises to be a year filled with overreaching and self-defeating labour strife.

Austerity has become the watchword at all levels of government. As municipalities, provinces and Ottawa struggle to cut deficits and contain costs, it seems increasingly likely public sector unions—used to healthy regular increases in wages and benefits—will find themselves mightily disappointed. Like their confreres at school in Quebec, we may thus expect public sector unions to take to the streets to express their displeasure.

Halifax bus drivers, Toronto librarians, teachers in British Columbia. Across the country, Canadians are already feeling the effects as public sector labour unions push back against the necessity of balanced budgets.

The current dispute in B.C. over teacher pay is instructive. The B.C. Teachers’ Federation’s initial contract demand, released last summer, called for B.C. educators to be the best paid in the land—which would have meant a 22 per cent wage increase for some teachers. They also wanted 10 days paid bereavement leave—activated upon the death of not just a close relative, but of a friend, too, plus another 26 weeks of compassionate care leave to allow a teacher to look after “any person,” on full pay, rather than teach. Further, there were to be eight paid discretionary days to be taken whenever and for whatever reason, and sizable increases in paid preparation (i.e., non-teaching) time. The only thing missing was free unicorn rides to school.

None of this would be reasonable in times of plenty. With the B.C. government committed to balancing its budget by 2014, such demands can only be described as off-the-charts wacky. (The teachers have since lowered their demands to a 15 per cent wage increase plus assorted benefit goodies.)

The province has offered the same net-zero wage it’s negotiated in 130 other public sector labour agreements. And Premier Christy Clark’s government recently passed legislation temporarily removing teachers’ right to strike. But there is still no contract, and the teachers are considering escalating job actions this week.

It is no longer possible to expect taxpayers to fund perpetual increases in wages and benefits for the public sector, particularly as private sector workers see their pensions disappear and salaries stagnate. There exists a massive gap between public sector union expectations and taxpayers’ ability to pay. How best to close this gap?

Strikes are a time-honoured way for two sides to hammer out their differences. Unfortunately, public sector strikes create widespread pain for the entire community. And because of this, governments often lose their nerve for toughing it out. When things get uncomfortable, politicians tend to opt for back-to-work legislation, followed by binding mediation. And mediators are famous for splitting deals down the middle, a process that encourages unions to make outrageous opening demands in the first place. In the B.C. teachers’ dispute, both government and union are playing these all too familiar roles.

An alternate solution, one proposed for B.C. in a 2004 provincial report, is final offer arbitration. Both sides present their best final offer and an impartial arbitrator picks between the two options, rather than splitting any differences. Such a system pushes each side to negotiate in good faith and present reasonable offers; it’s used successfully in professional sports. If there is a downside, it’s that arbitrators play the role that should properly be filled by taxpayers’ elected representatives.

But where governments are unwilling or unable to see public sector strikes through to a successful conclusion, final offer arbitration may be the best option for all taxpayers—particularly in a year that promises plenty of labour unrest.

In defence of Goldman Sachs: boat

By Scott Feschuk - Friday, March 23, 2012 at 1:44 AM - 0 Comments

Getty Images; iStock; CP; Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute

Perhaps you’ve read the uplifting tale of the man who quit his lucrative job at Goldman Sachs because “it makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off.” Or the story of the Bay Street trader who walked away from a huge salary because the industry had become “one hell of a mess” where the “culture was rotten.”

Emboldened by these acts of courage—inspired by these elegies to what truly matters in life—I’ve decided to use my column this week to speak directly to the soulless, faceless, money-grubbing financial firms of the world.

Dear super-greedy, ethically barren parasites of pure evil: um, have you filled those two vacancies yet? Because I have searched deep within myself—especially the wallet part of myself—and I am totally willing to get paid a ridiculous amount of money to work for you. P.S. Remember: ridiculous.

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Canada should embrace the loonification of Iceland

By From the editors - Thursday, March 22, 2012 at 4:00 PM - 0 Comments

Paul van Riel / HH.

Iceland’s study of the benefits of adopting the Canadian dollar as its official currency has, so far, mostly had the economic effect here of creating a mini-boom in Björk jokes (Bjökes?). If Iceland actually went ahead with it, that would, in the short-to-medium term, probably still be the main effect on us. The tiny north Atlantic state wouldn’t gain any influence over our monetary affairs. That indeed would be the whole point of Iceland loonie-izing—to foster trust and stability amongst foreign lenders and savers within Iceland, by surrendering the sovereign right to independent central banking.

Essentially, they would be renting Mark Carney’s reputation from us. They wouldn’t need special permission. It’s a simple matter of becoming a customer of the Bank of Canada. Many countries in this hemisphere already have currencies backed, in part, by reserves of Canadian dollars.

Whether Iceland decided to circulate physical Canadian notes and coins, or simply took the “currency board” approach and pegged its unit to our dollar, there would be a benefit to our federal treasury in the form of “seigniorage.” (That is to say, our central bank would earn interest on the securities Iceland’s currency board exchanged for a hoard of our dollars, and if those dollars were circulated, they would need to be replaced as they wore out.) But don’t expect to throw a big national party with the proceeds. The seigniorage the Bank of Canada earns from our own economy, about a hundred times as large as Iceland’s, is only $2 billion a year.

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France and Quebec’s artificial controversy over halal meat

By Emma Teitel - Thursday, March 22, 2012 at 11:52 AM - 0 Comments

Le Pen: "Don't French people who don't want to eat halal have the same rights as Muslims who do?" (Philippe Wojazer/Reuters)

With the American Republican primaries in full swing, it’s easy to forget that U.S. politics doesn’t have a monopoly on ignorance. Thanks to France’s right-wing National Front party, and Canada’s very own, very left-wing Parti Québécois, it appears that SantoRomNewt may have something in common with French leaders (despite Newt’s attack ad on Mitt Romney for speaking French): a penchant for anti-Muslim rhetoric. At issue is the halal meat controversy, possibly the most bogus animal rights campaign in recent history. Its chief spokesperson is sometimes-starlet, sometimes-xenophobe Marine Le Pen, of the aforementioned NFP. Le Pen is deeply disturbed by the notion that non-Muslim French citizens are “unwittingly eating halal meat,” which she contends comes from animals that are being inhumanely slaughtered. The ritual method through which halal meat is slaughtered (as with kosher meat, using a single incision to the jugular) is just as legal in France as the secular alternative (“captive bolt stunning,” in which the animal is sedated via stun gun before it’s killed), but Le Pen maintains that halal’s “horrible cruelty” warrants special condemnation. “This is a moral point,” she says. “Don’t French people who don’t want to eat halal have the same rights as Muslims who do?” Even French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who once accused Le Pen of stirring up an “artificial controversy,” has made the alleged cruelty of halal slaughtering a cause célèbre in the upcoming presidential election—perhaps to reel in the country’s right-wing base.

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Don’t look to Ottawa for the next chapter in conservatism

By Paul Wells and Tamsin McMahon, with Alex Ballingall - Friday, March 16, 2012 at 11:35 AM - 0 Comments

Jake Wright

A familiar face from Calgary was at Hy’s last Friday, looking a little down.

The 2012 Manning Networking Conference was under way. “Manning,” of course, is Preston Manning, whose Manning Centre for Building Democracy mostly works at building the conservative end of the democratic spectrum. The Networking Conference is the largest annual unofficial gathering of Canadian conservatives. These conservatives are free to be Conservatives or not, depending on mood and inclination. In fact, while we’re at it, people are free to attend even if they are neither Conservatives nor conservatives, as long as they are willing to pay a $349 conference fee, which isn’t unusually high as these things go.

But the event program billed the whole shindig as “A Conservative Family Reunion,” and it was certainly that, with old Reform party stalwarts like Deb Grey and Monte Solberg and Tom Flanagan back in Ottawa to watch a less familiar generation of right-ish thinkers plot and plan for life under a strong, stable, national Conservative majority.

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Scientists find missing particle in Tony Clement speech

By Scott Feschuk - Friday, March 16, 2012 at 1:08 AM - 0 Comments

Getty Images; CP; Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute

Politicians in Ottawa say dumb things all the time and we barely notice. But every once in a while an elected official says something so dumb that it makes you think, “Whoa, hang on a minute—that’s pretty dumb. In fact, that may be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Which brings us to a recent speech by Tony Clement.

When not tweeting about his squash game, Tony is an actual minister in the federal government. He spoke this past weekend about government spending to a conference of conservative-minded Canadians. His words are below in bold.

What we have to do is to ingrain [the] idea of efficient and constrained use of tax dollars on a day-to-day basis, at every level of the bureaucracy.

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Tory operatives, to the brainstormery!

By Scott Feschuk - Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 9:52 AM - 0 Comments

Getty Images; CP; Reuters; Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute

It’s early days, but the ongoing robocalls scandal has already delivered a bunch of surprises. For instance, it turns out some people still answer their home phones. I’m as shocked as you are.

Anyway, what’s important is that the Conservatives had nothing to do with misleading phone calls meant to lure Liberal and NDP voters from their proper polling stations. NOTHING AT ALL. Conservatives love democracy. They’re always talking about its origins as the coming together of two Greek words: “kratos” meaning “power,” and “demos” meaning “gimme.”

Sure, Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament to avoid an election and, sure, his party admitted lying to constituents in Montreal so they’d think their Liberal MP had quit and, yes, Conservatives confessed to violating election finance rules in the 2006 campaign but, on the other hand, awkward silence.

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Strict anti-bullying laws could actually make matters worse

By From the editors - Tuesday, March 13, 2012 at 10:43 AM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

Schoolyard bullies have been around for as long as there’ve been school yards. Could a new law finally make them go away?

Ontario recently introduced legislation to rid schools of bullies. The bill mandates student groups to encourage tolerance, imposes reporting requirements and sets suspensions and expulsions for students caught bullying. Quebec has a similar law pending. Alberta is also contemplating legislative changes regarding bullying.

All this activity stems from genuine concern about the impact of bullying; several recent teenaged suicides have been blamed on physical or online bullying by peers. Such cases are undeniably heartbreaking and enraging. Given the depth of public response to these tragedies, and the zero-tolerance approach to crime favoured by many politicians, we’ll likely see more anti-bullying laws.

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Prejudging the women on Canada’s ‘The Bachelor’

By Emma Teitel - Monday, March 12, 2012 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

Lyle Aspinall/Calgary Sun/QMI Agency

The Bachelor is coming to Canada. We don’t know his name yet, but there is one thing we know for sure: he and his harem will change our great nation forever. Look at the United States: The Bachelor was its original reality romance, and in no time it spawned a trio of similar spinoffs south of the 49th parallel, a smutty trifecta: The Bachelorette, Joe Millionaire and A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila. Alas, here in the Great White North we’re only getting the original. And worse, I am ineligible to apply. As an employee of the corporate behemoth that owns this magazine and just about everything else (the Canadian instalment of the show will air on Rogers-owned Citytv), I am obliged, by law, to abstain from falling in love with the bachelor—or getting embroiled in a lesbian sex scandal with another cast member in the process. Such is life. And perhaps the end of Canadian civilization as we know it.

For those of you who have never witnessed the “rose ceremony” (that’s the clincher at the end of every episode, when the bachelor dishes out flowers to all the ladies he fancies, and sends the others packing), this is, roughly, how the show unfolds: ABC’s The Bachelor is a romance competition in which 25 to 30 women, whose occupations apparently have to end in the words consultant or sales rep, compete for the affections—and hopefully the marriage proposal—of an all-American male counterpart who is usually a businessman, consultant and/or sales rep. Sometimes the businessman is replaced by a “medical doctor” to add diversity (according to the American show’s creator, Mike Fleiss, ethnic minorities, “for whatever reason,” don’t audition). The female contestants on the show range in personality from “down to earth,” to “girl next door,” to “certifiably insane.” Through a process of profound soul searching and steamy hot-tub hijinks, the bachelor eliminates contestants at the culmination of each episode (via a teary-eyed limousine testimonial) until he’s left with only one, whom he immediately proposes marriage to, and files a restraining order against the next day.

And herein lies the danger: the show requires a level of zany malice that is not traditionally Canadian. I may have too much faith in my countrywomen, but it strikes me that while we’d have a surplus of down-to-earth contestants, finding the certifiably insane would, I hope, be a struggle. So down to earth might Canadian contestants be, that the obligatory teary-eyed limousine testimonials after the weekly dump would be few and far between. As the mom of one of my best friends said of Jillian Harris, the only Canadian to make the cut as the contestant on the American Bachelor spinoff, The Bachelorette, “she is the most down-to-earth girl in history.” This is what I’m pinning my hopes on. My fear is that even down-to-earth Canadians might not be able to resist the pull of those American hot-tub hijinks. In which case, a little piece of Canada will be lost forever.

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How Paul Dewar hopes to avoid being lost in translation

By Paul Wells - Friday, March 9, 2012 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Jenna Marie Wakani

Let’s deal with the French thing right away. Each time Paul Dewar spoke French at an NDP leadership debate on March 4 in Montreal’s Bonsecours Market, Quebec-based political reporters made a show of rolling their eyes. At one point, urging the audience to imagine a government that celebrates the diversity of the arts, Dewar said “de les arts,” which is a nice try, but it sounded like he wanted a government that celebrates the diversity of lizards.

Everyone who follows politics has had to get used to candidates for national leadership whose second language is a fixer-upper. Usually it’s French that needs work. In the Liberal Stéphane Dion’s case, atypically, it was English. Dewar, the game and rangy member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre, is the latest specimen. And it’s his French. He can make himself understood, but that’s as good as it gets. What can a guy do? He travels with a French tutor.

It’s a larger than usual challenge because the NDP won 59 seats in Quebec in the 2011 election and would like to hang on to those seats, or even win more, in the next election. The other candidates haven’t been shy about pointing out Dewar’s weakness. “It’s very hard to imagine,” Dewar’s effortlessly bilingual rival Brain Topp told one interviewer, “how you can be . . . at the head of a party whose whole future at the moment turns on holding a big breakthrough in Quebec, when you cannot speak to French-speaking Quebecers.”

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Manitoba should think twice before banning pesticides

By the editors - Tuesday, March 6, 2012 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Photo By Deborah Baic; The Globe and Mail; CP

Winter is not typically given to thoughts of lawn care. Nevertheless, Manitoba’s conservation minister recently announced he’s making plans for a pesticide ban. In particular, Gord Mackintosh said he’s keen to bring Manitoba’s pesticide laws in line with those in other provinces. “Manitobans are entitled to the same protections most other Canadians enjoy,” he declared.

Yet Manitobans might want to learn from the experience of those other provinces, rather than simply parrot them. Evidence from other jurisdictions suggests there are numerous unintended consequences to such a ban. And not all of them make for a healthier environment.

Currently every province east of the Mantioba-Ontario border restricts the use of cosmetic pesticides in some way. Mackintosh says he admires the strict bans enforced in Ontario and Nova Scotia. These rules prohibit use of a long list of pesticides on all lawns and fields. Golf courses and farms are exempt.

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It’s Israeli Apartheid Week again. Pick your villain.

By Emma Teitel - Monday, March 5, 2012 at 10:40 AM - 0 Comments

Daniel Etter/Redux

March is upon us, which means the Oscars have been awarded, and that other harbinger of spring is around the corner: Israeli Apartheid Week. Ordinarily, both events are masterpieces of predictability, with the Academy Awards ushering the usual suspects to the podium (Meryl Streep anyone?), and Israeli Apartheid Week featuring the usual anti-Zionist suspects on megaphones (among them the now famous IAW sub-group, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, which I’d argue is largely composed of gay Jewish girls who didn’t have fun at summer camp.) This year the Oscars have come through in predictability, but Israeli Apartheid Week is shaping up quite differently. It’s traditional at Passover seders for the youngest member of Jewish families to ask the “four questions,” which inquire why “this night is different from all other nights.” This year it might be prudent to ask a fifth: why is this Israeli Apartheid Week different from all the others?

The answer is just northeast of Israel, in Syria. In the past 11 months, almost 9,000 civilian protesters and nearly 3,000 anti-government rebels have been murdered by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s Ba’ath party dictatorship. Approximately 400 children have been imprisoned and tortured. Meanwhile, Assad’s government claims that 89.4 per cent of Syrians had approved a new constitution that could keep Bashar in power for another 16 years, along with the 12 years he’s already ruled, and the 29 years his father Hafez held power before him. You’d think that anyone committed to the cause of justice in the Middle East would put the atrocities in Syria at the top of their to-do list. But the Canadian organizers of Israeli Apartheid Week—loudly devoted to ending oppression and achieving social justice for all—won’t be talking about Syria this year. Instead, they’ll spend March 5-9 railing exclusively against the “Zionist regime” at a university campus near you. Events will include slam poetry renditions, hip-hop shows, and an apartheid poster contest with a top prize of $400.

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Thanks Oscars, your awfulness lets us entertain ourselves

By Scott Feschuk - Monday, March 5, 2012 at 10:30 AM - 0 Comments

Getty Images; Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute

On the red carpet before the 84th Academy Awards, an actress from The Artist showed up in what she described as “an eco-friendly dress,” made using recycled polyester and “cruelty-free silkworms.” This was supposed to make us feel better about the future of the planet. Mostly it just made us wonder why other fashion designers insist on forcing their silkworms to watch Michael Bay movies.

The ceremony itself began with an appearance by Morgan Freeman, who took a break from narrating his wife’s bridge club—“Since the dawn of time, humans have competed in games of skill and get your hand out of the Chex mix, Marcia, and play a card already”—to say in that Morgan Freemany way of his: “All of us. Are mesmerized by. The magic of the movies.” Not long after, the girls from Bridesmaids came out and told some penis jokes. And I thought to myself: the president from Deep Impact is right—amid all the awards and glamour, let’s not lose sight of the fact that this is a celebration of the magic of an overweight lady pooping into a sink.

Billy Crystal returned after a long absence to host the Oscars for a ninth time. It quickly became apparent that he’d spent the years on an expedition to unearth and reclaim humanity’s oldest jokes. Here’s hoping he found them in Egypt because, you know, the pharaoh’s curse.

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A marathon of moral parsing: my head hurts

By Paul Wells - Friday, March 2, 2012 at 8:40 AM - 0 Comments

Adrian Wyld/CP

Remember when the arrival of a stable majority government was going to allow your members of Parliament to stop squabbling and concentrate on matters of state with a little serenity? Yeah, never mind. It’s starting to look like the circus is never going to leave Ottawa.

Here’s what kind of winter it’s been. Conservative Sen. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu said every jail cell should come with free suicide rope. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said it might be okay to fire a few warning shots over the head of somebody stealing your all-terrain vehicle. MP Larry Miller mentioned supporters of the long-gun registry in the same breath as Hitler, then apologized, then un-apologized, then un-apologized some more. Basically, he’s glad he said it but sorry you heard it. You know who else had a hard time apologizing? Hitler. Sorry. Sort of.

Then there is the rather thorny bundle of issues surrounding Vic Toews. I met Toews in 1999 campaigning door to door in Winnipeg with his boss at the time, Manitoba’s then-premier Gary Filmon. That particular election didn’t end well for either of them. I remember Toews as a pleasant fellow. He’s always a pleasant fellow, unless you ask him a question in the House of Commons and he suggests your choice is to “stand with us or with the child pornographers.” Which he did on the day before Valentine’s Day.

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Some pointers on the proper use of abuse

By Scott Feschuk - Monday, February 27, 2012 at 9:20 AM - 0 Comments

Getty Images; Reuters; CP; Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute

To: All Conservative cabinet ministers

From: PMO

In light of recent events, please consult this list of Frequently Asked Questions about ministerial behaviour and tactics.

What’s the issue?

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews made news recently while defending the government’s online surveillance legislation, which many criticized as overly intrusive. During question period, the minister said there are only two options: Canadians can “either stand with us or with the child pornographers.”

What’s wrong with that?

To accuse political opponents of siding with deviant criminals who exploit young children is perhaps the vilest, sleaziest, most repugnant political tactic of all. That’s why we save it for election campaigns.

So from now on we’re not going to vilify our rivals by impugning their priorities, integrity, values, intelligence and patriotism?

Ha ha, you’re funny.

Shortly after making the remark, Toews publicly denied ever having said it. Was that a mistake?

The minister’s instinct was right. But once again the mainstream media demonstrated its relentless bias against Conservatives by recording and replaying the words he actually said.

Those bastards.

In the end it was Toews’s own fault. He forgot his training and neglected to immediately blame everything on a low-level employee. Remember: we keep a half-dozen staffers in a maintenance closet 24-7, just waiting to be thrown under a bus (usually figuratively, but we’re flexible). By all means, make use of them—they’re costing us a fortune in finger sandwiches.

Now that we have a majority, what is the proper balance of schoolyard insult versus reasoned reply in question period?

During the minority years, we had no choice but to wage a permanent campaign and use every opportunity to belittle, harangue and viciously attack those on the opposition benches. But now that we have a majority, we do it because we enjoy it.

What’s protocol for retracting a comment that goes too far?

Depending on the severity of the slip-up, there’s a spectrum of alternatives. On one end, you have the clear apology, the classic “I’m sorry.” We don’t use that. On the other end of the spectrum, you have the hedged apology, the familiar “If anyone was offended . . . ” We don’t use that.

I don’t want to get in trouble. Shouldn’t I just kick my chronic habit of smearing others?

We have a formula that works and need to stick to it. Let’s refresh your memory: when the opposition used to ask questions about any aspect of the war effort in Afghanistan, we would accuse them of …

Wait, I know this—sympathizing with the Taliban!

Right. And now when they ask questions about potential cost increases in our proposed purchase of new fighter jets, we accuse them of …

Hating the troops!

Bingo. And when they assail Peter MacKay for using a military helicopter as his personal taxi, we accuse them of …

Hating handsome!

Thank you for your contribution to this memo, Mr. MacKay.

Toews gave his legislation a colloquial title: the “Protecting Children from Internet Predators” Act. Was that okay?

Yes. It’s important to simplify our legislation for Canadians who are too busy to read it, such as most ministers. We need to connect with ordinary people at a level they understand. That’s why we considered giving our crime bill the informal title, the “I Can Haz Safety?” Act.

So what should we do now?

Just lay low for a bit: if you simply must demean our rivals, say they stand with regular, ordinary pornographers.

Wouldn’t it be wiser to just permanently rein in our displays of triumphalism and hubris?

A couple days after Toews made his remark, our MP Shelly Glover accused the NDP of being “anti-Canada,” so I guess not.

Bobby and Chris Brown: Why we can’t forgive their violent pasts

By Emma Teitel - Friday, February 24, 2012 at 4:35 PM - 0 Comments

Vinny Carchietta/Zumapress/Keystone Press

The sudden death of Whitney Houston on Feb. 11, and the tribute-filled Grammy ceremony that followed the next day, were overshadowed for many by the onstage performances and Grammy victories of R & B singer Chris Brown (no relation to Bobby). Was it really ideal for the Grammys to celebrate a man guilty of the same crime that plagued Houston for so many years, at the hands of her ex-husband, R & B singer Bobby Brown? Brown (Bobby) is said to have physically abused Houston until their marriage ended in 2007 (he was charged with domestic violence in 2003), and Chris Brown was convicted of felony assault and sentenced to five years’ probation for brutally beating his then-girlfriend, pop star Rihanna, in 2009 (the night before the Grammys, no less). Brown (Chris) performed live twice at the awards this year, and took home a trophy for best R & B album. Country music singer Miranda Lambert was the most forthright about her sentiments in a tweet she sent after the show. “Chris Brown twice? I don’t get it. He beat on a girl. Not cool that we act like that didn’t happen.”

But “we” weren’t the only ones who acted like it didn’t happen. First, there was Chris Brown’s now-notorious tweet in response to Lambert et al.: “HATE ALL U WANT. BECUZ I GOT A GRAMMY Now! That’s the ultimate F–K OFF!” Brown’s handlers, maybe guessing that winning a trophy doesn’t exonerate you for hospitalizing your girlfriend, removed his tweet. (Brown did not apologize for posting it.) Then came the disturbing onslaught of tweets from (mostly female) Brown fans who said they would relish the opportunity to be beaten by Chris. Meanwhile, in his half of the clueless universe, Bad Bobby Brown was acting as though the wife-beater who had terrorized Whitney Houston was some other Bad Bobby Brown. Directly following her death, at a concert in Maryland, he announced: “I love [Whitney] like a love God! I am badass Bobby Brown!” and proceeded to make customary obscene hand gestures to female audience members. A week later, ignoring the strong wishes of some family members, he showed up at Houston’s funeral, along with a nine-person entourage, and further distinguished himself by complaining about the seating arrangements. He was subsequently asked to leave the funeral. Critiques of his mourning strategy were not positive.

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The next NDP leader has a lot to lose

By Paul Wells - Friday, February 24, 2012 at 8:40 AM - 0 Comments

It’s getting down to the home stretch of the interminable New Democratic Party leadership campaign. The party will announce its next leader on March 23. Three televised debates remain: Winnipeg on Feb. 26, Montreal on March 4, Vancouver on March 11.

Montreal will get most of the attention because it sits in the middle of the NDP’s most interesting questions. More than half of the NDP caucus is from Quebec. Who can hold those 58 seats? Can anyone do that, while increasing the party’s support outside Quebec? Can anyone do so well outside Quebec that the party can afford to lose, say, half of its 2011 Quebec bumper crop?

The first question is easy. Thomas Mulcair has the strongest claim to being able to hold support in Quebec. The fact that Brian Topp was born in the province and speaks superb French seems to count for little. Quebec political commentators usually fly in tight formation, and they’ve already signalled that if Mulcair doesn’t win, they will view it, not as his personal failure, but as a rejection of “the Quebec candidate” and therefore as proof the NDP doesn’t value what it won there last year. Continue…

As the privacy fight turned ugly, democracy made a comeback

By From the editors - Friday, February 24, 2012 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Chris Wattie/Reuters

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has long been seen as the bluntest tool wielded by the Harper government in its misguided law-and-order campaign. Last week, we found out just how blunt, and misguided.

Bill C-30, also known as the “Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act,” provoked a storm of political and public debate across the country due to a provision that allows police to gain access to any Internet subscriber’s IP address (among other identifiers) in order to track their online activity. This would be permitted without a warrant in “extraordinary circumstances.”

While a certain amount of electronic surveillance is justified in the interests of peace, order and good government, the possibility that such information could be made available without a warrant should be of concern to every Canadian with Web access. Approval from a judge is required before Canadian authorities can obtain someone’s personal financial information; why should electronic details be treated differently?

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Decorating with the rich and famous

By Barbara Amiel - Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 10:30 AM - 0 Comments

Allan Grant/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

You have to be as rich as Giorgio Armani to house a stuffed polar bear a good 10 feet tall in your living room and proudly display it in the March issue of Architectural Digest. A beautiful, white, once-alive polar bear behind the chocolate leather cube chair. Clearly this is not in the same league as Jeffrey Dahmer and his longed-for altar of human heads, but it is unusual these days. The bear is explained as a gift “from someone I am very fond of.” Seven pages on is a photo of his bedroom where, the caption notes, “a fur coverlet is draped over the designer’s Armani/Casa bed.”

Look, I’m not going to howl animal rights just before I slip into my Manolos and eat my roast biff, but that “coverlet” appears to be made of lots of little skinned furry animals with their tails hanging as trim on the coverlet’s edges. Clearly Brigitte Bardot is not coming to visit Chalet Armani unless of course Armani’s animal interests extend to a private pool swimming with baby seals.

AD magazine has had a symbiotic relationship with movie stars and celebrities for more than seven decades, giving telling glimpses of changing cultural attitudes: a real leopard-skin rug complete with head in 1950s photo shoots compared with the leopard-print rug on Diane von Furstenberg’s 2012 feature. At-home photos are offered up with excruciating little quotes about the inner person behind the public facade. This is a perfectly acceptable fantasy, an extension of the star’s movie persona structured to fit the roles they act and the self-image they or yesteryear’s studio think will please their public best. I’m obviously a bitch of a reader because I find most of the images utterly cloying.

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Greece: When democracy is denied, people take to the streets

By the editors - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Yannis Behrakis/Reuters

Ancient Athenians made no distinction between themselves and their government. Official pronouncements attributed decisions to “the citizens of Athens” and left it at that. Such an inclusive sense of democracy is sadly absent in the modern city.

This week in Athens tens of thousands of protesters, angered by severe new austerity measures proposed by the unelected caretaker government of Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, set fire to scores of buildings and rampaged throughout town. They were met by riot police lobbing tear gas and stun grenades. And after the package passed, Papademos quickly expelled members of his government who voted against it. This is apparently no time for dissent or debate.

The turmoil in Greece is well earned. Many decades of lavish but unsupportable welfare state spending have left Greece impossibly burdened; its sovereign debt stands at 160 per cent of GDP. And yet the new austerity package could accelerate the already precipitous fall in living standards. The economy shrank by seven per cent last year and unemployment among the volatile 16-24 age group is 46 per cent.

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We’re about to lead the G8 in ‘cuddly’

By Scott Feschuk - Monday, February 20, 2012 at 11:50 AM - 0 Comments

Getty Images; Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute

On one hand, scoring a couple panda bears from China is quite a coup for Stephen Harper. On the other, the Prime Minister still needs to break it to Peter MacKay that neither of the pandas is voiced by Jack Black. Such are the cruel nuances of foreign policy.

But in a time of financial uncertainty, Harper’s efforts should produce tangible results. The Conference Board of Canada estimates that in 2013 the pandas alone will result in a 5.3 per cent increase in our Gross Domestic Adorability. That should be enough to ensure Canada leads the G8 not only in “cuddly” but also in “wuddly.” Your move, economic turmoil.

Harper rushed off to China last week after being spurned by the U.S. on the Keystone XL pipeline. Time for some foreign policy on the rebound. Only a few years ago, the PM belittled those who would sacrifice the Canadian values of freedom and human rights in pursuit of the almighty petro-dollar. This time around, he was saying different things about the petro-dollar. Mostly he was saying, “Gimme.”

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Chairman Harper

By Paul Wells - Friday, February 17, 2012 at 10:50 AM - 0 Comments

Chris Wattie/Reuters

Foreign ships have been putting into the Cuntan port in Chongqing, on the Yangtze River 1,700 km west of Shanghai, since 1891. But these days the whole region has a new vocation. All of a sudden Chongqing has become a major assembly and export centre for cheap laptop computers designed in Taiwan. Very soon, 50 million laptops a year will be leaving the port, bound for the world.

Sometimes ships come into port too.

On Feb. 11, Stephen and Laureen Harper strolled along the Cuntan dockside, chatting with International Trade Minister Ed Fast while a Canadian television news camera crew recorded the moment for posterity. The Harpers paused next to a dirty white steel shipping container draped with a Canadian flag. Work crews opened the container’s steel doors. The Harpers watched as somebody opened one of the cardboard boxes inside the container.

“It’s pork,” somebody said. “From Canada!”

“All the way from Winnipeg,” the Prime Minister chimed in.

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Gay-straight alliances: ignore or forbid, what’s the difference?

By Emma Teitel - Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at 10:30 AM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

A think tank representing Ontario’s publicly funded Catholic school boards coined the euphemism of the century recently when it proposed that gay-straight alliance (GSA) clubs operate under a hopelessly vague designation: “Respecting Differences.” You can just see it in lights: the clubs’ mission statements, and the Catholic boards’ iconoclastic revision to Emma Lazarus’s legendary sonnet: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to break free . . . oh yeah, also your gay, bisexual, transgendered . . . anyone with acne.” Alas, that won’t happen, because in addition to the name change, the proposal has also stipulated that gay kids (sorry, different kids) can’t talk about being gay. Perhaps “Ignoring Differences” would have been a more apt suggestion, because it’s obvious that Ontario’s separate school system is keen on treating homosexuality as an adolescent affliction like any other (bad breath, body odour) and the most humane way to deal with such an affliction is, of course, to sit a safe distance from the person who has it: i.e., to ignore it. Or, in the words of Ontario’s Catholic school boards, respect it. As one of the afflicted myself, I try to avoid the phrase, but “Respecting Differences”? That is so gay.

In another context, though, it’s oddly progressive. Take a look at the rest of Canada’s partially publicly funded faith-based schools (namely in Alberta, Manitoba and British Columbia), and it’s clear that LGBT students in Ontario’s Catholic system fare better than their peers elsewhere when it comes to starting GSAs (or “difference” clubs). At least in Ontario the debate isn’t silenced before it gets too loud. In Manitoba, for example, which partially funds religious schools of all stripes, there is no provincial law requiring the independent schools to accommodate gay-straight alliance clubs. In addition, every religious independent public school operates, in large part, as its own school district—which makes it more difficult for students to lobby together at the provincial level.

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Worried by sandwich-buying robots?

By Scott Feschuk - Monday, February 13, 2012 at 10:50 AM - 0 Comments

istock; Getty Images; AP; Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute

It’s been quite some time since we discussed the latest amazing advances in robotics and explored the utopian future in which these wondrous machines will entertain, assist and murder us all.

Over the years I’ve learned that being a visionary prophet is not just about foretelling the blood-soaked dawn of the Robocalypse. It’s about doing so with expressive hand gestures and cool sound effects. To me, it’s never been a question of if robots will rise up—it’s a question of when, and where, and will they accept me as one of their own if I wear a Crock-Pot on my head and make R2-D2 sounds? Because if not, I’ve really been wasting my weekends.

So let’s take a look at some recent robotic advances and see where they rank on the Kill-Us-All-o-Meter—with one being an innocuous development unlikely to lead to the extermination of our species, and 10 being a guy at Cyberdyne Systems saying, “Hey, I know, let’s call it Skynet!”

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Queen Elizabeth II: our inexhaustible, inspirational monarch

By the editors - Monday, February 13, 2012 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

(Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP Photo)

Queen Elizabeth II is the only head of state the vast majority of Canadians have ever known. Through all the political, social and technological upheavals of the past 60 years, she has been the one constant in our lives. Her image graces our stamps, coins and bills; she has been to visit us 23 times. And her impact has been felt in the very nature of our political system.

The Queen has performed her role as monarch of Great Britain, Canada and 14 other realms, as well as head of the Commonwealth, for so long that it is difficult to imagine anyone else ever sitting on her throne. And yet there is more to her remarkable success than mere longevity. She has reigned long, but she has also reigned very well.

As she begins her Diamond Jubilee celebrations with the anniversary of her accession to the throne on Feb. 6, 1952, it is worth reflecting on how and why the Queen has been so successful. Today, even avowed anti-monarchists in Canada and elsewhere grudgingly admit her years of service represent the pinnacle of achievement for any head of state—elected or hereditary—in any realm.

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