Star reporters discuss Rob Ford crack story

By Manisha Krishnan - Friday, May 17, 2013 at 10:57 PM - 0 Comments

Kevin Donovan and Robyn Doolittle have spent years observing Rob Ford.

The Toronto Star reporters covered the groping allegation, drinking accusations and the conflict-of-interest case that booted the Toronto mayor from office for a brief period.

But the journalists were not prepared for what they saw while seated in the backseat of a car in the north end of Etobicoke on May 3.

“I had no thought that I would see what I saw,” says Donovan, who has been with the Star for 29 years. “In my mind, it was not in the realm of possibility.”

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10 Things People with Cottages Like to Tweet About

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 17, 2013 at 8:16 PM - 0 Comments

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How spaceman Hadfield’s sons pushed him to social-media stardom

By Peter Rakobowchuk, The Canadian Press - Wednesday, May 15, 2013 at 5:57 AM - 0 Comments

MONTREAL – Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield may have become a worldwide Internet sensation with his dramatic photos, tweets and musical performances from space.

But it took some convincing by his two sons to persuade him of the importance of social media in the first place.

His conversion began several years ago — long before Hadfield’s mission to the International Space Station, which ended with great fanfare this week.

He initially balked when his sons began preaching the merits of Twitter and Facebook more than three years ago.

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Revisiting ‘Star Wars Kid’: Story inspires debate on cyberbullying

By Rosemary Westwood - Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 1:05 PM - 0 Comments

Ten years ago, he was known as the “Star Wars Kid” and the subject of unwanted media attention. Now the world knows him better as Ghyslain Raza.

Since granting his first interview in a decade, Raza has emerged something of a hero as his story inspires debate about online bullying and the impunity of the message board.

Raza’s story, which appears in the current print edition of Maclean’s and L’actualité, has spread to the U.S., U.K., France and Australia. It has been shared widely on Facebook and Twitter, sites that didn’t exist when he was thrust into the spotlight as the butt of a viral video joke. Now he’s drawing praise instead of laughter.

“Thought the video was hilarious initially,” wrote one reader of the website of the British newspaper the Daily Mail. “Now seems heartbreaking. Bullying like this is worse now than it ever was due to Internet social media reaching further and remaining there indefinitely. It will always be there available if searched for. There is almost no escaping it. Glad he is able to move on.”

“Good on you mate that you’re moving on and beating the trolls and overcoming depression,” another Daily Mail reader commented.

The story was published on this website last Thursday and quickly became the most-read story of the year. Ranza’s comments about the “dark period” he plunged into in 2003 have since been highlighted by mainstream newspapers and tech blogs alike, including Gawker, Fox News, Reddit, Yahoo news, the French paper Le Figaro, Sweden’s Svenska Dagbladet, Italy’s Corriere della Sera, the Australian News Limited Network and Mashable.

The story’s writer Jonathan Trudel called the mainstream reaction to the article “striking.”

“Wow… Sincere respect for this guy,” wrote a Mashable reader. “I wish I could shake his hand.”

Another added: “Shame on those who prey on others in this way.”

On Twitter, reaction was similar.

When we forget that these are people that we are joking about so casually and callously, this is what happens…. fb.me/2epiOInKt

— Big Daddy Voodoo (@bigdaddylilcity) May 13, 2013

Ghyslain Raza, aka “Star Wars Kid”, ten years on: “I felt worthless… but you’ll survive. You’re not alone.” mashable.com/2013/05/10/sta…

— Neuroskeptic (@Neuro_Skeptic) May 11, 2013

Star Wars Kid is making a comeback against cyber bullying! #StarWarsKid #stopcyberbullyinggoo.gl/pn7Th

— Nathan Sloyer (@Sloy_Boy) May 10, 2013

“Thank you, Mr. Raza, for being strong and telling your story,” wrote a Maclean’s commenter. “You endured something awful and undeserved, and now by your example you are giving others the strength and courage to endure bullying.”

But though many condemned the bullying, others argued a funny viral video isn’t itself a bad thing.

“There is nothing wrong at all for laughing at the video and finding it funny,” Shane Weeks wrote on the Maclean’s story. “I bet even his parents found it funny when they first watched it before the viral incident (if they did). What I cannot tolerate is when people feel the need to humiliate and jeer at him.”

“Laughing at the video is not a crime,” Joan Michelle Miller wrote. “If a young boy can’t handle being laughed at there are a lot of other things in life that he won’t be able to handle either. Everyone gets humiliated, every one gets made fun of, every one needs to learn to laugh at themselves. The horrible thing in this case is that people crossed a line and went as far as to tell this kid to kill himself.”

American journalist Doug Bernard argued that Raza’s original ordeal might not repeat in today’s Internet culture. ”Internet infamy just doesn’t have the same taint as it once did,” he wrote on his Voice of America blog Digital Frontiers.

Some Reddit writers blamed online anonymity for Ranza’s torment, while others argued for the benefits of web anonymity.

“People have a huge moral disconnect with the stuff they do online. If this guy said these things to them face to face they would probably take it to heart, but seeing it online gives them an easy way out of having to take moral responsibility, ” Kujaku Chan wrote.

“I personally like being anonymous but I also like to be cordial and respectful to others on the web,” countered a commentator identified as Countsheep.

Open and honest conversation would not exist at Reddit without anonymity, another poster argued.

“Anonymity is amazing, it forces people to listen to what you say instead of dismissing you as a Jew, or a black, or a gay, or all those things that happen in the real world,” wrote a user named RMcD94.

Despite the story’s revelations of the abuse that Raza endured, many readers remembered the video fondly, as a bit of fun about a young kid pulling the kind of Jedi moves that most other young boys likely tried out in their bedrooms.

The outpouring of response online to the story “proves Ghyslain was right to speak up,” says Trudel.  ”It says a lot about what society has learned from the too many cases of cyberbullying.”

By 2006, the Star Wars Kid video had been viewed an estimated 900 million times.  Raza’s new interview, and the debate it has created, will no doubt drive traffic to original video, which is now YouTube with 28 million hits. This time though, Raza’s not wearing the joke.

Noted: May the Fourth Be With You

By macleans.ca - Saturday, May 4, 2013 at 7:48 PM - 0 Comments

Fill in the blank: The last time the Leafs were in the playoffs …

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 1, 2013 at 9:06 PM - 0 Comments

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A Mad Men moment brought to you by Planet of the Apes

By macleans.ca - Monday, April 29, 2013 at 5:44 AM - 0 Comments

A Mad Men moment brought to you by Planet of the Apes

Episode five, season six: In the days after the MKL assassination, Don and his son Bobby take in back-to-back viewings of Planet of the Apes. In a father-son moment, Don explains the ending of the movie, which inspired outrage — most of it fake, we really hope — on the Twitter:

Storified by Maclean’s Magazine· Mon, Apr 29 2013 04:28:49

Politics on TV: Muzzling the Mounties

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 26, 2013 at 7:35 PM - 0 Comments

Here are the three things you should not have missed:

1. MPs discuss the muzzling of Mounties
2. Canadian companies with factories in Bangladesh
3. James Bezan’s bill

RCMP muzzling:

After CBC obtained an email that showed RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson instructing his senior staff to run any meetings with Parliamentarians through his office and that of the minister, warning of unintended or negative consequences to the government, Power & Politics hosted an MP panel Candice Bergen, Megan Leslie and Francis Scarpaleggia. Bergen said this was a practical protocol on communication and basic guidelines, because everything is being politicized in this atmosphere. Leslie said it was bizarre that the RCMP needs a minister’s stamp of approval to do their jobs, especially as MPs are a touchstone for their communities that the RCMP can access. Scarpaleggia said it was the government that was politicizing everything, and while there was no problem with the commissioner being informed of these meetings, having the minister looking over the commissioner’s shoulder like that undermines the morale and the independence of the force.

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Politics on TV: Pierre Poilievre diagnoses the cause of terrorism

By macleans.ca - Thursday, April 25, 2013 at 7:44 PM - 0 Comments

Here are the three things you should not have missed:

1. Deportation revelations in the VIA terror plot
2. Nova Scotia cyberbullying legislation
3. MPs debate assisted suicide

Terror case revelations:

On Power & Politics, CBC’s Greg Weston showed documents from 2004 that showed that terror suspect Raed Jaser was before the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) on a deportation order. Jaser and his family had originally been ordered deported in Canada in 1998 because they had come into the country illegally, but over the next six years, won the right to stay in the country except for Jaser himself, who had racked up a number of criminal charges, but his deportation was delayed as he was a stateless Palestinian with nowhere to be deported. By 2012, Jaser was granted a pardon for his previous offences, and free to become a citizen.

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Politics on TV: Joe Oliver goes to Washington

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 at 7:51 PM - 0 Comments

Here are the three things you should not have missed:

1. Thomas Mulcair
2. Joe Oliver goes to Washington
3. Updates on the VIA terror bust

Thomas Mulcair:

Power & Politics had NDP leader Thomas Mulcair off the top for a wide-ranging look at the issues of the day. Mulcair said that Bill S-7 – which passed less than an hour later – was not necessary if one looks at the successful arrests over the past week, and that the violations of civil liberties therein wouldn’t survive a Charter challenge (never mind that many of the provisions of the anti-terror legislation were in fact upheld by the Supreme Court). On the topic of Joe Oliver’s trip to Washington, Mulcair reiterated his usual talking point that Keystone XL represents the loss of 40,000 jobs in Canada, and that their preferred route to get oil to tidewater is by the East Coast. On the Rehteah Parsons case, Mulcair said that Nova Scotia had done a good job with their proposed bill, and that his party has offered to help pass cyberbullying legislation before the end of June.

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Politics on TV: Tracking the VIA terror developments

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, April 23, 2013 at 7:53 PM - 0 Comments

Here are the three things you should not have missed:

1. Developments in the VIA Rail terror bust
2. Darrell Dexter on meeting the PM with Rehteah Parsons’ parents
3. Speaker Scheer’s ruling on MPs statements

Terror case:

Updating the developments in yesterday’s terror arrests, Power & Politics had CBC’s Greg Weston detail that the suspect Chiheb Esseghaier was under surveillance by RCMP as far back as May of 2012 when he went to a biomedical conference in Cancun, Mexico, and that there was an incident with a flight attendant at the time. While Raed Jaser’s lawyer said the timing of the arrests was suspicious, RCMP and FBI say timing was a coincidence, as one suspect began exhibiting a change of behaviour, and they were concerned about his travel plans. There were also allegations that these suspects were in contact with a well-known al-Qaeda agent near the Afghanistan-Iran border. On Power Play, CTV’s Bob Fife said that the investigation was more far-reaching than just in Canada, that there will likely be arrests in the US soon, and that Esseghaier turned down court-appointed lawyer, saying charges are trumped up. On P&P’s Power Panel, Greg Weston made the additional observations that the absence of CSIS and the FBI at yesterday’s press conference was telling, as was the shuffling of CSIS Director Richard Fadden, which was announced at the same time.

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Who is saying what about the Via rail plot

By macleans.ca - Monday, April 22, 2013 at 7:56 PM - 0 Comments

Here are the three things you should not have missed:

1. Reacting to the thwarted terror plot
2. Comments by former intelligence agents
3. Brent Rathgeber on Members’ Statements

Terror plot:

A mere hour after the revelation that the RCMP and CSIS had made arrests in a Canadian terror plot to derail VIA rail trains, Power & Politics spoke first with CBC’s Greg Weston, who gave what details he could – that the two suspects were watching the route for some time rather than any specific train, that they are not Canadian citizens but in the country legally, that they are 30 and 35 years old, the investigation is ongoing. Over on Power Play, CTV’s John Vennavally-Rao mentioned that there was a separate briefing for the Muslim community in Toronto, that one of the men was from Tunisia and the other from the UAE, and that it was a tip from the Toronto Muslim community that helped the police make the arrests.

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What would Ryan Lochte do? Nothing that involves critical thinking

By Manisha Krishnan - Sunday, April 21, 2013 at 9:55 AM - 0 Comments

Manisha Krishnan dishes on the often outrageous, always entertaining world of reality television. Follow Manisha on Twitter: @ManishaKrishnan

Let’s get right to it: Who is Ryan Lochte and why should anyone care what he might do?

The 28-year-old swimming sensation is an 11-time U.S. Olympic medallist. He holds world records in the 100-metre medley and a bunch of other stuff, but basically, he’s hot, wealthy and astoundingly dumb.

So, of course, now he’s the star of his own reality TV show.

E!’s What Would Ryan Lochte Do? follows the athlete as he chases girls, cries, gets wasted and coins catchphrases that he does not always understand. Consider, for example, the “Lochte edge.” What is it? “I honestly have no idea,” he muses, followed by 10 seconds of silence.

On tour to promote his eight-part series, Lochte demonstrated that his dim-wittedness is not an act.

During an interview with Fox’s Good Day Philly, he was asked how he planned to party while training hard for the Rio 2016 Olympics.

“If you’re a man at night, you gotta be a man in the morning,” he replied.

Er … yeah — that’s generally how biology works.

Describing what makes him “a lot different” than any other Olympian, he said, “I like to go out and have fun, go dancing, hang out with my friends.” Anchors Mike Jerrick and Sheinelle Jones openly laughed at Lochte, though the notion they were mocking him went over his head. 

To sum up: if Michael Phelps and Kim Kardashian had a baby who was repeatedly dropped at birth, it would be Ryan Lochte.

This is unlikely to be enlightening television — we might get more from it if we watch on mute — but there will be plenty to ridicule, which could well make up for such shortcomings as Lochte’s IQ.

What Would Ryan Lochte Do? premieres April 21, 10 p.m. ET on E! Check back here for my take on it.

Inside attack ads

By Mick Gzowski - Saturday, April 20, 2013 at 10:01 AM - 0 Comments

Pundits argue the merits of attack ads. How well do they work? Even when they do, are they bad for democracy, driving people away from politics and the polls?

Unlike the decimating attacks on Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff, this week’s Conservative attack ad against Justin Trudeau may have failed on both those counts.

The ad suggest that Trudeau is “in way over his head” and shows him prancing about in a white undershirt with a Zorro-like mustache. It then split-screens to compare him to Stephen Harper, showing the Prime Minister in a hard hat and chatting with Barack Obama.

The message, of course, is that Harper has what it takes to be PM and Justin Trudeau does not. It attempts to build on existing public impressions, as effective attacks do. But the public may have already formed an impression of Justin. After all, he’s lived his whole life in the spotlight.

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Politics on TV: Reacting to the Boston manhunt

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 19, 2013 at 7:33 PM - 0 Comments

Here are the three things you should not have missed:

1. MPs react to the Boston manhunt
2. The Chechnya and Dagestan connection
3. Boisvert on Radicalization

MP reaction:

As the manhunt in Boston continued, and with assurances by Vic Toews that CBSA and the RCMP are at a heightened state of awareness, Power & Politics hosted an MP panel of Kellie Leitch, Jack Harris and Francis Scarpaleggia to discuss this, and the government’s decision to reschedule opposition days next week in order to deal with the anti-terrorism bill, S-7. Leitch said that terrorism needs to be combated, and the government was focused on that by means of the bill, and by staying vigilant. Harris said that the bill doesn’t address the prevention of terrorism, and that the government needs to start finding ways of detecting when people go from radical thoughts to getting involved in violence. He also expressed concern about people making all ethnic Chechans suspect. Scarpaleggia said that the Liberals were supporting S-7, as it brings back many of the measures they first introduced in 2001 (which later sunsetted) and adds a new offence for those who leave the country to engage in an act of terrorism.

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TV networks stick with real-life Boston drama on extraordinary day

By The Associated Press - Friday, April 19, 2013 at 5:24 PM - 0 Comments

NEW YORK, N.Y. – So much for prime-time police procedurals. The marathon manhunt Friday in Boston was a real-life drama that kept the biggest television networks and their viewers on edge for much of the day, with a city’s safety hanging in the balance.

Viewers woke up to the news that one suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing on Monday had been killed overnight, with another still at large. ABC, CBS and NBC took the unusual step of casting aside regular programming to cover the story throughout the day, joined by the cable news networks.

The coverage mixed moments of real excitement with tedium as the search continued for 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who escaped during an overnight shootout with police that killed his older brother Tamerlan.

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Politics on TV: Naming and shaming the boss from hell

By macleans.ca - Thursday, April 18, 2013 at 7:54 PM - 0 Comments

Here are the three things you should not have missed:

1. Public Service integrity commissioner Mario Dion
2. Is Harper’s chief bodyguard getting a diplomatic posting?
3. Carbon pricing

Mario Dion:

Public Service Integrity Commissioner Mario Dion released a report today that detailed the harassment and abuse that the former chair of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, Shirish Chotalia, subjected her staff to on an ongoing basis before her resignation. When Power & Politics spoke with Dion, he said that she was named in the report after consultation with the Privacy Commissioner because she occupied a unique position within the Tribunal, and because naming and shaming is part of his mandate as a deterrent effect. When confronted with Chotalia’s statement that she was targeted because the Conservatives appointed her and because “she’s a brown woman from Alberta who the unions don’t like,” Dion said that characterisation didn’t bear out in his interviews, though Chotalia never allowed herself to be interviewed as part of his investigation. With regards to NDP MP Mathieu Ravignat’s characterization in QP that she made the Tribunal enforce government policy, Dion said that was not in his report, and that Ravignat either misunderstood it or misrepresented it. On Power Play, Dion said that he had never seen anything like this case in his 32 years in the public service, and that Chotalia’s name is now on the web for people to find out about her actions.

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Politicizing the Boston bombing

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, April 17, 2013 at 7:55 PM - 0 Comments

Here are the three things you should not have missed:

1. Harper slams Trudeau on his Boston statement
2. Temporary foreign workers
3. Boston bombs vs. ricin attacks in Washington

Politicizing Boston:

It all began with Peter Mansbridge’s interview with Justin Trudeau. A mere two hours after the Boston bombs went off, Mansbridge asked Trudeau how he would respond to the attacks, and after Trudeau gave his condemnation of the attacks and condolences to the victims, he said that there should be an examination of the root causes. This morning, unprompted while at the Baroness Thatcher funeral in London, Stephen Harper condemned Trudeau’s comments as “rationalizing” and “excusing” the attacks rather than simply offering a blanket condemnation. And before QP, Conservative MP Stella Ambler repeated that statement in the House, and afterward, Trudeau gave a brief statement condemning Harper’s politicizing the Boston bombing.

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Politics on TV: Security and the aftermath of the Boston bombings

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, April 16, 2013 at 7:32 PM - 0 Comments

Here are the three things you should not have missed:

1. MPs on the security situation
2. Security reaction to the Boston bombings
3. IMF growth forecasts

MPs on security:

In the wake of the Boston bombings, and public safety minister Vic Toews’ assurances of a heightened state of vigilance, Power & Politics spoke with an MP panel of Candice Bergen, Randall Garrison and Wayne Easter for their comments. Bergen wanted to assure Canadians that are working together with their American counterparts and are exercising that increased vigilance at points of entry. Garrison said that this was a time to be patient and to let the investigators do their work. Easter, a former Solicitor General, said he was pleased with the government’s response to date, and wanted people to exercise caution with the kinds of speculation that is out there.

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Politics on TV: Reacting to the Boston explosions

By macleans.ca - Monday, April 15, 2013 at 7:31 PM - 0 Comments

Here are the three things you should not have missed:

1. MP Ryan Leef
2. Public safety MPs react
3. Security expert Ray Boisvert

MP Ryan Leef:

Conservative MP Ryan Leef, who was participating in the Boston Marathon, told Power & Politics that he didn’t see anything as he had already crossed the finish line and was being moved through the finishing chutes with some two thousand other runners at the time, and was about four blocks away when the emergency personnel started racing to the scene. He said the atmosphere was already loud so he wouldn’t have been able to hear the explosions, and didn’t have any indication about the severity of the incident until he was changing clothes and getting ready to head back to Ottawa when the messages started flooding in. Leef said that the explosions were timed for the four-hour mark, which was a worst-case scenario as most runners finish at that time, and that it was a miracle more people weren’t injured as a result.

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Politics on TV: Mulcair blames Dunderdale for Penashue

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 12, 2013 at 7:41 PM - 0 Comments

Here are the three things you should not have missed:

1. Thomas Mulcair on the NDP convention
2. MPs talk about the return of the House on Monday
3. Updates on the Rehtaeh Parsons case

Thomas Mulcair:

From the NDP’s policy convention in Montreal, party leader Thomas Mulcair spoke to Power Play, and began by commenting on the Labrador by election, where Mulcair said that Peter Penashue broke the law, and that premier Kathy Dunderdale could blame herself because she was from the same party. (Apparently he missed the province’s Anything-But-Conservative campaign a couple of elections ago, or the fact that not all provincial Progressive Conservatives automatically line up with federal Conservatives). Mulcair also claimed credit for the ousting of three cabinet ministers – Duncan, Oda and Penashue – which he claimed was from the hard work of the opposition, as opposed to the journalists who dug up the information on them. Mulcair also dismissed the concerns of the more colourful and socialist resolutions up for debate at the convention, and said that by the end of the weekend, Canadians would see a party has a progressive vision and who are responsible public administrators. Over on Power & Politics, Mulcair avoided answering questions on the makeover from the “Angry Tom” image and instead said “If you’re not angry with Harper, you’re not paying attention.”

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Politics on TV: Reacting to Rehtaeh Parsons

By macleans.ca - Thursday, April 11, 2013 at 7:58 PM - 0 Comments

Here are the three things you should not have missed:

1. The Rehtaeh Parsons case
2. The “Titanic” blunder of Arctic Patrol ships
3. Peter Penashue

Rehtaeh Parsons:

With the suicide of teen Rehtaeh Parsons grabbing international headlines, Power Play spoke with Nova Scotia premier Darrell Dexter, who said that as they get more information about what happened, they are trying to design a response that looks across the lines of individual departmental responsibilities. Dexter said that this was another case where there were many opportunities to provide support and assistance, and it begged the question of where the gaps were, and pointed to the province’s bullying task force. On Power & Politics, Dexter called Anonymous a cowardly group that makes claims with little or no basis, and said that vigilante action is not appropriate in a civilized society. At a press conference in Calgary, Stephen Harper said that he wants people to stop calling it “bullying,” which has the connotation of kids misbehaving when this is youth criminal activity. Evan Solomon then spoke with Wayne McKay, who wrote the provincial task force report on cyberbullying. McKay said that the province wasn’t moving fast enough on his recommendations, especially when it comes to clarifying questions of jurisdiction, implementing courses on digital citizenship, or hiring more guidance counsellors in schools. Solomon also had an MP panel of Kellie Leitch, Hoang Mai and Hedy Fry, where Leitch touted the action the government had already taken to combat bullying, Mai decried that his party’s national strategy to combat bullying was voted down by the government, and Fry said that there is fuzziness in the Criminal Code around how digital technology plays into critical harassment, libel and spreading false messages, but her own bill to address that was voted down by both the Conservatives and NDP.

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Politics on TV: The menace of temporary foreign pilots

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 7:54 PM - 0 Comments

Here are the three things you should not have missed:

1. Temporary foreign pilots
2. Cyberbullying
3. Peter Penashue’s claims in Labrador

Temporary foreign pilots:

On their third day of focusing on the rules around temporary foreign workers, Power & Politics spoke with Air Transat pilot Gilles Hudicourt, who decried that rival airlines Sunwing and CanJet use temporary foreign pilots from Europe during their busy season rather than hiring Canadian pilots, such as those laid off by Transat, and training them on their fleets. Hudicourt said that these two airlines are abusing the system to gain a commercial advantage. Evan Solomon then spoke with an MP panel of Kellie Leitch, Jinny Sims and Kevin Lamoureux for a third day in a row, and they gave largely the same points – Leitch agreed that Canadians should get first crack at jobs and the government was looking into the issue, Sims said the system was broken and was being abused, and Lamoureux agreed, though he did propose today that a Commons committee head to places like Alberta to study the seriousness of the problem there. A short while later, Solomon spoke with Mark Williams, president of Sunwing Airlines, who disputed Hudicourt’s claims, saying that the issue of training pilots for their fleet was more complicated than five weeks in a classroom, and that Sunwing sends their own pilots to Europe in the summer during the busy season there, and in return, they reciprocate by hiring those European pilots in the winter.

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Politics on TV: Are companies abusing the temporary foreign workers program?

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, April 9, 2013 at 7:52 PM - 0 Comments

Here are the three things you should not have missed:

1. MPs on temporary foreign workers
2. Alison Redford in Washington
3. New bird flu outbreak in China

Temporary Foreign Workers:

After obtaining Access to Information documents detailing the kinds of service industry businesses applying for the Accelerated Labour Market Opinion program for temporary foreign workers – a program which is supposed to fill niche demands for highly skilled workers – Power & Politics spoke with Gil McGowan of the Alberta Federation of Labour. McGowan said the documents tell a story of abuse, with 5000 employers being granted approvals that never should have been granted, and that this accelerated program has fewer checks and balances than the main temporary foreign workers program. Evan Solomon then spoke with an MP panel of Kellie Leitch, Jinny Sims and Kevin Lamoureux, where Leitch insisted that the government is reviewing the program to ensure that it would be improved. Sims said the government was failing to do its due diligence, while Lamoureux said the government needs to take responsibility for the flaws in the program and that it has done nothing to fix them. Over on Power Play, Liberal MP Rodger Cuzner said that the government used the temporary foreign worker program to create a cheap, submissive labour pool.

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