‘The best politician of my generation’

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, August 14, 2011 at 7:30 PM - 18 Comments

Former foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon commends Quebec Premier Jean Charest.

Defeated in the May 2 federal election in the West Quebec riding of Pontiac, Cannon strode into a meeting of the Liberal’s youth wing Saturday to take part in a panel discussion. Cannon was invited to the event by the Liberals but few people knew he was attending until he walked in. But his arrival got tongues wagging about a possible return to politics for Cannon or even a run, one day, for the leader’s job should Premier Jean Charest leave.

The veteran politician immediately moved to quash the speculation. “There’s no race in the Liberal Party of Quebec,” Cannon said. “Jean Charest is an exceptional man, probably the best politician of my generation at least. I am convinced Mr. Charest will be there to direct the troops in a future electoral victory.”

It’s perhaps mildly curious that Mr. Cannon didn’t mention Stephen Harper here and it’s unclear what he means by “my generation,” but it’s not unreasonable to say Jean Charest might be the “best” politician of what might be called the Post-Chretien Era.

For the sake of argument, we’ll generally limit this to Canadian politics since 2003 and those who’ve had their greatest successes in the last eight years. And we’ll also separate the politician (whose primary job is to win votes) from the premier or prime minister (whose primary job, at least in theory, is to effectively govern the province or country). If a politician’s primary task is to get elected and a party leader’s primary task is to lead his party to victory and if we generally accept that party leaders dominate our politics, there are probably a half dozen politicians in this conversation—Mr. Charest, Mr. Harper, Dalton McGuinty, Danny Williams, Gary Doer and Gordon Campbell*. Continue…

This week: Newsmakers

By Ken MacQueen, Nicholas Kohler, Jason Kirby and Nancy MacDonald - Monday, July 4, 2011 at 9:05 AM - 0 Comments

Mike Hewitt/FIFA/Getty Images

Hollywood’s high rollers

His day job is playing such film roles as Spiderman and Nick Carraway, in the upcoming Great Gatsby adaptation. But incredible as it may seem, Tobey Maguire’s hobby—high-stakes poker—may be even more lucrative than the silver screen. Maguire’s winnings, which could amount to as much as $30 to $40 million over three years, came to light in a lawsuit filed against the 35-year-old actor by a group of investors attempting to recoup money lost to Brad Ruderman, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for operating a $5.2-million Ponzi scheme. Ruderman lost much of the money playing Texas Hold ’em, including over $300,000 to Maguire, in an exclusive poker ring that drew players like Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Now, Ruderman’s investors want some of that cash. DiCaprio, Affleck and Damon aren’t being sued, though. “Matt never won,” a whistle-blower said.

One for the lads

As contingencies go, this one was a doozy. David Hart, a 23-year-old Royal Marine killed by a bomb blast in Afghanistan last year, earmarked $160,000 from his life insurance policy for an all-expenses paid trip to Las Vegas for his best friends and their girlfriends—32 people in all. “In a letter, David said he had had a great life and had no regrets about anything,” one friend told a reporter. “He said, ‘Go and have a good time and spend all this money.’ ” He left a second portion to his family, and the rest to charity. Hart, who died a day short of his 24th birthday, had always dreamed of a Vegas weekend. When his pals return to England they will continue training for a 275-km bike ride to raise money for the Royal Marines Charitable Trust.

Stick with a bike

The 911 call to police in Caseville, Mich., went something like this: “Believe it or not, I just passed about a five-, six-year-old flying down the road with a red Pontiac Sunbird.” Actually, Chief Jamie Learman discovered that the driver, who stood on the floorboard of his stepfather’s car to see over the steering wheel, was a pyjama-clad seven-year-old. He hit speeds of 80 kph during a 32-km drive across Huron County, north of Detroit. Police gingerly boxed him in, stopping him without incident. “He was crying, and just kept saying he wanted to go to his dad’s,” Learman said. “That was pretty much it: he just wanted to go to his dad’s.”

Quit that racquet!

There are tasks where a grunt or two are justified. Piano moving or childbirth come to mind. But tennis? It’s all a bit much, says Ian Richie, head of the All England Lawn and Tennis Club. “Whether you are watching it on TV or here, people don’t particularly like it,” he told Britain’s Telegraph, with precisely the sort of understatement he’d like to see on Wimbledon’s grass courts. Jimmy Connors was a pioneering grunter back in the 1970s. Women then took it up with great enthusiasm. Maria Sharapova was recorded at 105 decibels in 2009—as loud as a car horn from three feet. Portugal’s Michelle Larcher de Brito and Serena Williams have also employed the tactic as a weapon of mass distraction. Richie has made his concerns known, but certain fans find the sound effects appealing. Former Wimbledon Champ Michael Stich accuses the women of trying to “sell sex.”

#DMFail

Think a weakness for sexy social networking, à la Anthony Weiner, is a purely American failing? Turns out the language of <3 knows no borders. Xie Zhiqiang, a health bureau official in the Chinese city of Liyang, set up an account with Weibo, a Twitter-like service in China, early this year believing it was a private chat tool. “Please marry me if there is a second life, so that we can live in romance until we are 100 years old,” he wrote to a married woman on the site before the pair were able to follow through on a planned tryst. Xie learned of the mistake after a reporter called about the exchange. “How can you view our messages on Weibo? It is impossible, isn’t it?” He has since been suspended from his job.

Captain courageous

For more than a half-decade, she has been the face of Canadian women’s soccer—though perhaps never more so than now. Christine Sinclair wrote herself into the country’s sports lore for refusing to leave the field after her nose was broken in the opening game of the women’s World Cup at Berlin’s Olympiastadion. “You can’t play on,” Canada’s team doctor, Pietro Braina told her, trying to corral her onto the bench. But the Canadian captain turned, teary-eyed to Italian-born coach Carolina Morace who shrugged, palms up, and nodded to the field. Sinclair, of course, went on to score Canada’s lone goal, on a beautifully executed free kick in the dying minutes of the gutsy 2-1 loss—the first goal the two-time defending champion Germans have allowed since 2003. Sinclair, after having her nose resculpted by a German doctor, took to Twitter to opine on the new appendage: “amazing,” she wrote—joking, of course.

How to lose a billion dollars

It takes a lot to go from “the wealthiest divorcée in history” to bust in two decades—a lot of waste, that is. Patricia Kluge landed a $1-billion settlement when she split from media mogul John Kluge in 1990, only to blow the lot on parties for royalty, a 120-hectare estate in Virginia’s Blue Ridge mountains and a private winery. Kluge and her third husband, William Moses, have racked up $46 million in debt and filed for bankruptcy last week. Her antiques, and her personal jewellery collection have already been auctioned off, and the Kluge winery was sold at auction—to none other than Donald Trump, her old friend, for $6.2 million. But Kluge isn’t the only one exiting the billionaire club. Research in Motion’s co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis lost their status after a sharp drop in RIM’s share price cut their personal net worth to around $800 million each, down from $1.8 billion in March.

The Doc returns

After 12 years on the mound for the Toronto Blue Jays before he was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies, star pitcher Roy Halladay is set, this week, to make his long-awaited return to the mound at Rogers Centre, where he earned both a reputation and a nickname. The two-time Cy Young winner, Toronto’s first pick at the ’95 draft, was set to pitch against the Jays last year, but security concerns around the G20 summit forced the series to be shifted to Philadelphia instead. “Doc,” as he’s known around the league, was calm before the game: “I feel like it’s any other start.”

Tears of joy

“Alec! Now we can get married!” Steve Martin tweeted to his Oscar co-host, after New York legalized gay marriage in the state. “Ok,” Alec Baldwin responded, “but if you play that effing banjo after eleven o’clock…” Lady Gaga, meanwhile, was a bit more emotional: “I can’t stop crying,” said the staunch gay-rights activist. “We did it kids. The revolution is ours to fight.”

Life out of office

It was a good week for Gordon Campbell, who is off to London as Canada’s high commissioner to the U.K.; the plum posting comes with a chauffeur, a chef and an official residence in swank Mayfair. In London, the former B.C. premier, who always resisted the temptation to bash the feds, will further hone his diplomatic skills among royals and the global elite. Gilles Duceppe, an Ottawa basher par excellence, had a big week too, granting his first televised interview since the Bloc’s stunning collapse in the last federal election. Unless Quebecers choose sovereignty, they’ll be “eating gumbo” in 50 years, he told Radio-Canada. He went on to hint at a return to politics, likely at the helm of the PQ, which appears to be imploding, a mere two months after the Bloc. He may well return to helm a sovereignist party, but the better question may be whether anyone will still be interested in the idea.

No medal for the penguin?

Dozer, a three-year-old goldendoodle from Fulton, Md., now merits his own runner’s page on the Maryland Half Marathon website, after escaping his masters Sunday and running the race. He crossed the finish line at the 2:12:24 mark, limping and exhausted, and received a medal from organizers after they discovered he was running solo. Truth is, Dozer probably slipped into the run several miles into the event. Far more impressive is the emperor penguin who swam an astonishing 4,000 km from Antarctica to New Zealand. Happy Feet, as he was nicknamed, was operated on at the Wellington Zoo to remove the stick and pebbles he’d eaten on Peka Peka beach. A committee has been struck to decide whether he should be returned home.

Building ships, and political futures

After a week in Ottawa spent championing the province’s bid for part of an estimated $35 billion in federal shipbuilding contracts, B.C. premier Christy Clark returned home to announce a major investment in a new marine trade training facility on Vancouver Island, sweetening the pot. If successful, the contract, which could create thousands of new jobs and raise millions in spinoffs, could also help Clark in a possible fall election, which could come as early as September.

Returning the warm embrace

Michelle Obama was hailed as a queen in her first solo trip to Africa this week. There, the U.S. First Lady spoke passionately to students, danced with African youth, met with Nelson Mandela and even squeezed in a dinner with her gal-pal Oprah Winfrey, a queen in her own right.

Christy Clark's comeback is complete

By Nancy Macdonald - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 at 9:05 AM - 4 Comments

Darryl Dyck/CP

When Christy Clark finally emerged to greet supporters after a razor-thin by-election win in Vancouver last Wednesday, she laughed off suggestions she’d ever been worried. B.C.’s new premier, who has a disarming smile and the upbeat, populist charisma of W.A.C. Bennett, was so confident of the victory she’d ducked every debate during the campaign. Yet for almost the entire night, she trailed the NDP in tony Point Grey, the riding former premier Gordon Campbell had held since 1996. Finally, with just five polls remaining, she pulled ahead—a squeaker of a win, according to everyone but Clark.

The relief among the Liberals packed into the Kitsilano restaurant serving as campaign HQ was palpable. A loss would have been disastrous, not just for the rookie premier, but for the party, which had wagered that, in Clark, it had chosen a fresh face with no HST baggage: someone who could undo the damage Campbell did to the Liberal brand. And maybe they have. A win’s a win, and with a seat in the B.C. legislature, Clark can move on to the real battles: first, next month’s HST referendum, then a general election, expected as early as September.

Clark, a former deputy premier, leapt back into politics in December, announcing her intent to replace Campbell as leader of the B.C. Liberals after a six-year break from the game. She’d left to spend time with her son, then a toddler: “The government is going to find another politician,” she told reporters at the time, “but Hamish isn’t going to find another mother.” A coy caveat, however, bookended those remarks. “In B.C. politics,” she said, “nobody ever really goes away, do they?” No one doubted she’d be back.

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This week: Good news, bad news

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 25, 2011 at 10:41 AM - 1 Comment

Chinese researchers in costume move a cub being reintroduced to the wild

Facing the music

Justice Richard Boivin of the Federal Court got it right when he ruled that multi-millionaire Han Lin Zeng must answer non-capital charges of fraud back in China—notwithstanding claims he might face other indictments punishable by death. Canada’s policy against deporting people who face execution is proper, but Ottawa is hardly in a position to assess potential future cases against an accused. And as Maclean’s recent piece on the convicted Bangladeshi assassin Nur Chowdhury illustrates, this country is playing host to more than its share of miscreants and murderers ducking punishment in their homelands. Han Lin Zeng must go.

Madame premier

Something about provincial politics is drawing women back toward public life. In Alberta, Progressive Conservative Alison Redford and veteran Liberal Laurie Blakeman are seeking their parties’ respective leadership nominations—and the chance to take on Danielle Smith of the upstart Wildrose Alliance. In B.C., Christy Clark is considered the front-runner to replace Gordon Campbell, while all three party leaders in Newfoundland are women. Canada could soon witness a first ministers’ conference featuring a trio of female premiers. It won’t come a moment too soon.

A better way

It wasn’t the new provincial party media predicted, but the launch of a conservative-leaning political movement in Quebec offers a beacon to those who reject visions of the place as a sovereignist, taxpayer-funded utopia. The Coalition for the Future of Quebec wants to bring probity to a province it says is crippled from endless debates over secession and rife with public sector graft—to wit, the latest round of corruption allegations within Montreal city council. If Quebecers can’t vote for the “CFQ” now, they might soon want to.

Waste not, want not

India has found a solution to soaring food prices: simpler weddings. The government says 15 per cent of all grains and vegetables are tossed in the trash after “extravagant and luxurious” receptions, and is proposing a new law that will “curb profligacy” and ensure extra food stocks for the poor. We propose a toast.

Americans Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle were killed by Somali pirates

Buy now, pay later

Canadian families are swimming in debt—and the pool is getting deeper and deeper. Not only has the average household deficit surpassed $100,000 for the first time, but debt-to-income ratio has also reached a record high (150 per cent, which means that for every $1,000 in after-tax income, families owe $1,500). At the same time, annual savings have plummeted, from 13 per cent in 1990 to just 4.2 per cent last year. With so many unpaid bills piling up, it’s no wonder Canadians are flocking to booze like never before. According to a separate report, our wine consumption over the past decade has grown six times faster than the rest of the world.

Still trust your doctor?

If you’re reading this magazine while sitting in a physician’s waiting room, beware. In British Columbia, a radiologist with three decades of experience is under investigation after misreading seven CT scans in one weekend. In Montreal, a lung specialist was suspended and fined for using a hidden camera to film more than a dozen naked patients. And in Toronto, two doctors are behind bars after allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting a woman at a downtown hotel.

Assumed risk

It was another fatal week for folks who strayed from the beaten path while enjoying the mountains. Three snowmobilers died in the backcountry near Golden, B.C.—buried by an avalanche they likely triggered—while a skier was killed after he went out of bounds at Lake Louise, Alta. We understand that danger is all part of the thrill, but there are endless warnings about the risk of going outside the ropes. When will the fun-seekers take them to heart?

Sick with anticipation

The royal wedding invitations are in the mail—and if the early reports are any indication, the guest list is not exactly majestic. In are David Beckham, Posh Spice, and the owner of Kate Middleton’s favourite pub. Out are Barack Obama, the first lady, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Said a royal aide: “Prince William has led a fairly ordinary life in the military and the couple’s guests reflect this.” Those “sick” over not making the cut can always purchase the latest in royal wedding souvenirs: William and Kate barf bags.

Q & A: Gordon Campbell

By Nancy Macdonald - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 at 10:29 AM - 11 Comments

Later this month, three-term B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell—a three-term Vancouver mayor before that—will retire from public life. In 2010, he introduced the widely despised Harmonized Sales Tax. In November, after months of vicious public debate over the new tax, Canada’s longest-serving premier announced that he was stepping down.

Q: When you were first elected premier back in 2001, your peers included Mike Harris in Ontario and Bernard Landry in Quebec. Those seem like names from a bygone era. Does it feel like a long time to you?

A: Things change a lot less in 10 years than you’d think. It seems like a long time ago when I think about the things that were taking place. We came in with a major personal income tax cut, then we were confronted with a tech meltdown; 9/11; Afghanistan in October; SARS in November; there was a war in Iraq the next year; floods. All that stuff really grabs you right at the time you’re trying to work through a whole bunch of other things—we’d said we were going to balance our budget by 2003. So, it’s a very intense experience. But does it seem like a long time ago? Not really.

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A rudderless ship of state sails on

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 25 Comments

Jonathan Hayward; Richard Lam/CP

It is an interesting experiment British Columbia has embarked upon, having disposed of not one but two political leaders in little more than a month. The question the province appears to be asking itself is: are leaders strictly necessary?

It is not uncommon for a province to declare one party leader expendable, though rarely a sitting premier, such as Gordon Campbell. But to attempt to do without a leader of either party, unless out of mere parsimony, is suggestive of a sort of generalized Presbyterian disdain for hierarchy.

Mind you, I suppose the NDP had no alternative, once the Liberals decided to “go commando.” The canny strategists in the Liberal backroom were plainly on to something: the party had already jumped several points in the polls since discarding Campbell, and might have gained still more, once more people realized he was gone. Clearly, voters were hungering for less leadership, and while it was always possible the Liberal leadership void was still enjoying a honeymoon, to be competitive in the long term the NDP had to close the leaderless gap with their rivals.

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Campbell and Williams: transfer payments as they exit

By John Geddes - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 5:00 PM - 12 Comments

Mulling over this month’s two big political resignations, B.C.’s Gordon Campbell and Newfoundland’s Danny Williams, I got to thinking about their contrasting styles when it came to federal-provincial relations.

Williams presided over an unprecedented boom for Newfoundland and Labrador, and famously fought to maintain federal equalization payments to his province, even as its oil-fueled economy outgrew have-not status.

Campbell’s run coincided with uneven economic times for B.C., and he sometimes argued for a better deal on transfers—in mainly in the context of the broader “fiscal imbalance” debate of a few years back—but he never made fighting Ottawa a major focus of his politics.

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The most dangerous job in the province

By Ken MacQueen - Monday, November 15, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 8 Comments

Jonathan Hayward/CP

It was just over a decade ago that New Democrat Dan Miller, who served a six-month blip as interim premier of British Columbia, described the lofty office as the most dangerous job in the province. It was fair comment back in an era when a tub of cottage cheese had a longer shelf life than most premiers; a time when the main prerequisites were a thick skin, an exit strategy, and a good lawyer.

Miller succeeded Glen Clark, who succeeded Mike Harcourt, who succeeded Rita Johnston, who took over the smoking ruin that was Bill Vander Zalm’s Social Credit government. Miller, in turn, handed the job to Ujjal Dosanjh, who lost it to Gordon Campbell and his Liberals. All this between 1991 and 2001, and don’t let the revolving door smack you on the way out.

Now it’s Gordon Campbell’s turn to declare moral victory, paste on a smile and walk the plank. There’s a certain symmetry to his decision—made, more or less, on Halloween eve as he took his grandson trick or treating. By then even the stubborn Campbell knew he was the walking dead, and that a chief architect of his demise was the eerily ageless Vander Zalm, a political ghost, reborn as the province’s most effective crusader against Campbell’s harmonized sales tax (HST).

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Gordon Campbell, fiscal genius?

By Cathy Gulli - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 at 9:20 AM - 6 Comments

CP Images

Lately, it seems like Gordon Campbell is the kind of premier only economists could love. Despite an embarrassing nine per cent approval rating among British Columbians—many of whom are annoyed about having to pay the HST, not to mention their leader’s recent $240,000 TV promo funded by taxpayers—Campbell has been crowned the country’s most fiscally responsible premier by the Fraser Institute.

In a recent report, the Canadian think tank ranked 10 premiers on how they’ve handled government spending, taxes, debt and deficits since coming into power. Campbell bested the other provincial leaders with an overall score of 89.1 out of 100. Newfoundland’s Danny Williams, who finished third, is the only premier east of Manitoba to crack the top five. Meanwhile, Ontario’s Dalton McGuinty ranked last with a paltry 29.7 points out of 100.

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Gordon Campbell's soup

By Nancy Macdonald - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Ian Smith/PNG/ Andy Clark/Reuters/ Darryl Dyck/CP

He swept into office with the biggest majority in the country’s history, having united the traditionally fractious right flank. But after he rammed through a new, “value-added” tax in the middle of a recession—a move loved by economists but despised by the public—his approval rating sank to just 11 per cent, making him the most unpopular leader in Canada’s history. In fact, Brian Mulroney’s goods and services tax was widely seen as a major factor in the once-mighty Tories’ wipeout in the subsequent election. Canadians eventually came to accept, if not love, his GST. But the Tories languished in the political wilderness for well over a decade.

Premier Gordon Campbell, too, steamrolled into office. In 2001, with B.C.’s unruly right united under his free-enterprise banner, he won the biggest landslide in B.C. history: his Liberals took all but two of the province’s 79 seats. But after ramming through his “value-added” harmonized sales tax in the dark days of the downturn last year, his approval rating has sunk to just 12 per cent—within a point of Mulroney’s record-setting low. It is the lowest approval rating ever recorded for a sitting premier, pollsters Angus Reid told Maclean’s. Campbell is now less liked than Richard Nixon at the height of Watergate and Lyndon Johnson in the worst days of Vietnam, and distrusted by a stunning 83 per cent of British Columbians, according to Angus Reid.

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Nuance alert

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 27, 2010 at 3:29 PM - 0 Comments

Michael Ignatieff comments on the HST in British Columbia.

On the issue most British Columbians are talking about — the HST — Ignatieff said it was a good idea badly executed. “We’ve always believed that tax harmonization is a good thing. But the way you do it is absolutely crucial. And the way it was done here has given every politician pause for reflection. The issue is not the tax, in my view. It had to do with democratic accountability and whether trust was broken. That’s an issue for the provincial Liberals, it’s not an issue for me. We’ve been clear on HST all along. But you have to do it right. If you lose the consent of the people on this, that’s a problem for Premier Campbell.”

Meanwhile, in mysterious Ottawa

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 6:35 PM - 59 Comments

While the premiers of Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia are unimpressed with the head of CSIS, the Liberals want the national security committee recalled to investigate Richard Fadden’s claims and the NDP’s Olivia Chow is demanding answers. For good measure, sources now tell the CBC that the Prime Minister’s Office was aware of Mr. Fadden’s general concerns and the Prime Minister is himself concerned.

Sources tell the CBC the PCO was well aware of those concerns, even if it hadn’t been told the details of who was involved … A source suggested the prime minister was personally aware of the issue of foreign agents trying to win influence over politicans and bureaucrats — even if he didn’t know the details. ”The prime minister is strongly of a view that this is a problem,” a source said.

The source said Harper has an appetite for intelligence beyond that of his predecessors. Intelligence briefers now routinely provide the prime minister with detailed written reports, in addition to their regular verbal briefings.

The CBC’s Brian Stewart also attempts to clear up several misconceptions about the network’s reporting here.

Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, June 18, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Run all the way home, boys
Prime Minister David Cameron jogged with British troops in Afghanistan Friday and said their mission was about “our national security in the U.K.” The task isn’t a “dreamy idea” of building a model society, he said. “We are here to help the Afghans take control of their security so we can go home.”

Anything but harmonized
British Columbia’s version of the anti-tax Tea Party continues to gather steam. On Friday, provincial Energy Minister Blair Lekstrom quit the cabinet and the Liberal caucus to protest government plans to press ahead with the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) on July 1. Opinion is divided: was Lekstrom acting on principle or trying to save his political skin? More than 15 per cent of B.C. voters have signed a recall campaign opposing the tax. What isn’t in dispute is that Premier Gordon Campbell is in trouble, thanks to recall organizer Bill Vander Zalm. The 76-year-old Vander Zalm resigned as premier in 1991 after questionable business dealings caused a public uprising.

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This Week: Good news/ Bad news

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 23, 2010 at 8:30 AM - 2 Comments

J. Scott Applewhite/ AP

Face of the week
PUMPED UP: U.S. Vice President Joe Biden rallies female student athletes at George Washington University in Washington

J. Scott Applewhite/ AP

A week in the life of Gordon Campbell
His party lags badly in the polls, with almost half of B.C. voters leaning toward the NDP. Yet Campbell marches on. Friday he said he’d miss a Surrey Sikh parade with radical undertones. Sunday he learned he’d receive the Canadian Olympic Order for his support of the Vancouver Games. Monday—way up in northeast B.C.—he announced plans for a 900-megawatt dam project on the Peace River. Tuesday he opened a new Pixar studio in Gastown. Sounds like a last lap to us.

GOOD NEWS

Rain or shine
Neither the soupy fog in St. John’s nor the ash from an Icelandic volcano could derail the Juno Awards. Despite early fears of transportation chaos, the awards show came off a success (and we can’t help but feel heartened that K’Naan, who performed his inspirational Wavin’ Flag, was a big winner). Fears the volcanic ash would shutter the airport did prompt several Tory MPs to jump on special, late-night flights after the show, leaving their Liberal counterparts fuming they missed leaving town early. But given the choice between a return to Ottawa and another night celebrating on George Street, we think we’d take the latter.

The rights stuff
The head of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission has a solution to concerns that human rights proceedings have become a kangaroo court. Let the real courts take over. Last week, David Arnot said he’d prefer to abolish the province’s human rights tribunal and give the job of hearing complaints to the Court of Queen’s Bench. Arnot argues human rights law has become so complex it requires the attention of real judges. Such a move would also provide a clearer separation of powers between the commission and the adjudication of cases. It’s a step in the right direction. Human rights tribunals were never supposed to be courts—just conciliators. Could common sense soon emerge as a basic human right in Canada?

A fearless leader
At a speech given in the Congo, attended by the country’s president and military leaders, Governor General Michaëlle Jean spoke out against wartime use of rape as a weapon must not go unpunished. Jean continues to be a fearless and passionate representative of this country, even as she nears the end of her term and fascination attends the question of her replacement. That interest is a credit to her work and populist appeal. The downside? Internet sites are suggesting candidates like Leonard Cohen and William Shatner. As the Queen’s representative? Please.

The kids are alright
Two Winnipeg teachers who performed a routine closely resembling a lap dance at a school pep rally are out of work. One resigned, the other’s contract won’t be renewed. “It was disturbing,” one teen student said of the dance, viewed by millions on YouTube. We long for the days when teachers were dignified—even intimidating—rather than trying to be hip. It’s gratifying the students knew inappropriate behaviour when they saw it. Maybe good taste is inborn and stays intact, no matter what they see at school.

BAD NEWS

Bawdy politic

Saskatchewan Party MLA Serge LeClerc, a former gangland criminal who found God in jail and became a motivational speaker, has come under increasing scrutiny. One NDP member said LeClerc gave him the finger and menaced him outside the legislature. On Friday, the CBC said it received a package containing a recording of a man who sounds like LeClerc discussing recent cocaine use and sex with a man. Though he’d secured his party’s riding nomination and had pursued the process into April, LeClerc—who denies everything—quit caucus, and says he’d planned to leave politics all along. The premier has sent the allegations to police. Whatever comes of this, it’s a regrettable spectacle.

Out of control
Toyota paid a US$16.4-million fine to U.S. safety regulators to settle complaints over sticky accelerator pedals. That should have marked the end of the recall nightmare for the world’s top automaker. Yet the problems keep coming. Toyota was forced to stop selling one of its Lexus SUVs over a report the truck can lose control in high-speed cornering. Worse, a simmering internal dispute between the Toyoda family and company executives went public as the two sides traded blame. It once looked like Toyota’s good name was being unfairly tarnished. Now, we’re not so sure.

Pew says: Pee-u!
Republicans and Democrats can’t play nice. On Saturday, President Barack Obama accused Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of launching a “cynical and deceptive” attack against a measure designed to tame Wall Street. Not exactly bipartisan. For its part, the GOP is using the very real issue of America’s faulty financial system to score points. So goes U.S. politics these days, and Americans are understandably perturbed. A Pew Research Center survey says just 22 per cent believe they can trust Washington “almost always or most of the time”—a historic low; almost a third think the government is a threat to personal freedom.

Out of their tree
A British court fined a hotel $3,100 after health and safety investigators found the owners had failed to carry out a “risk assessment” on the dangers of sawing a tree branch with a ladder leaning against it. Peter Aspinall, the 63-year-old handyman, fell 14 feet after sawing through the branch. The hotel had pleaded guilty to the breaches, and Aspinall is now pursuing a civil suit. Still, the hotel’s solicitor expressed disappointment that “common sense did not prevail” in the ruling. “It is an unusual accident,” he said. “Laurel and Hardy do that sort of thing.”

The league table

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 at 12:23 PM - 25 Comments

As a general rule, I limit the amount of polling discussed here—and avoid horse-race polls entirely. The horse race is almost always the least interesting thing going on in Ottawa.

And the following is almost definitely of questionable significance. But, for whatever it is worth, here are Canada’s most prominent political figures ranked by their most recent approval ratings (as determined by Angus Reid here, here and here). Continue…

The Insider Olympics

By Anne Kingston - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Brian Howell

One of the wonders of the Olympics is its ability to bring people from all over the world together to celebrate in convivial competition. Actually being part of that seething throng of humanity is another matter: crowds at Vancouver’s fenced-in Olympic venues move with the velocity of mud, lineups are plentiful and tickets to events not priced out of reach by scalpers are scarce. The Canada Line built for the Games has proven brilliantly efficient, if you can squeeze on it. And thanks to the security fences that circle Olympic venues, early attempts to have your picture taken in front of the Olympic cauldron will contain at least 40 per cent chain link.

That’s unless you happen to be part of that set of people one was constantly seeing around the Games—stepping off tour buses clad in matching jackets, being ushered to boxes at hockey games. While hundreds of people queued up patiently at the Hudson’s Bay Company Superstore to stock up on red mittens, people with more famous faces were picking through the racks of freebies in the company’s airy “gift” room at the swank Loden hotel. John Hamm, Sandra Oh, Rachel Bilson and the Gretzky family all dropped by the penthouse and left wearing the gear (a swag suite rule), juggling as many bulging yellow Bay bags as they can carry. The giveaways were good for business: the Bay blanket coat by Smythe that Bilson was seen wearing during the Games sold out in the stores.

Special treatment wasn’t limited to movie stars. Corporate clients of Jet Set Sports, the American company with the lock on providing high-end Olympic hospitality, could likewise avoid the hour-long lineups outside the Russian pavilion in Science World, and sail into a private VIP room where talk was focused on Sochi 2014. (The only thing more prestigious than being on the ground floor of the 2010 Winter Games is being inside the next one.) Or they could travel to speed-skating events on a chartered Olympic bus, with retired American speed-skating champion Bonnie Blair providing the inside dish.

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The party’s started

By Anne Kingston - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by George Pimentel

Fashion branding is an international gold-medal sport, so it’s fitting that the big first parties of the Games combined the two themes. On Saturday night, Dsquared2’s Dan and Dean Caten, the identical twins who designed the fantastical opening ceremony costumes, were feted by MAC Cosmetics. The crowd that crushed into a hotel lobby included opera singer Measha Brueggergosman, rapper k-os, former Olympian Nancy Kerrigan, Jeanne Beker and Ben Mulroney.

Then there was the much-coveted invite to Omega’s Valentine’s night party “hosted” by Cindy Crawford, one of the brand’s celebrity “ambassadors,” which drew a stylish crowd wearing fabulous shoes despite the rain. Also on hand were Vancouver restaurateur Umberto Menghi and a few former Olympic gold medallists busy with future Games: former British MP Sebastian Coe, who fronted London’s 2012 bid, and Alexander Popov, who worked the crowd talking up Russia’s 2014 Games. The American dynastic pair David Lauren, son of Ralph, and model Lauren Bush, niece of George W., also swanned through, both in Ralph Lauren, the official designer for the 2010 U.S. team.

Until Crawford’s half-time entrance, speculation swirled (ill-founded, alas) that Omega ambassador George Clooney would be with her. The lineup for photo-ops included B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, who ended up being late for his own opening-night bash at B.C. House in the Vancouver Art Gallery, hosted by Vicki Gabereau.

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'Events like these have a significance beyond themselves'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 4:38 PM - 108 Comments

The prepared text of the Prime Minister’s remarks to the B.C. legislature.

Mr. Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, the Honourable Bill Barisoff.  Premier of the Province of British Columbia, the Honourable Gordon Campbell. Leader of the Opposition, the Honourable Carole James. Distinguished Members of the Legislative Assembly. Mesdames et Messieurs, Ladies and gentlemen.

C’est un immense plaisir d’être ici avec vous aujourd’hui, dans le cadre de cette célébration de votre province et de notre pays. It is an enormous pleasure to be here with you today, at this moment of great celebration for your province, and our country.

I’ve often said that the best thing about being Prime Minister is the unparalleled opportunity I have to travel the length and breadth of this land and to meet the wonderful people who call it home.

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A Prime Minister without a Parliament to call his own (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 5:54 PM - 21 Comments

Canwest says Mr. Harper is considering an invitation to speak to the B.C. legislature.

The Victoria Times-Colonist seems rather excited about the possibility.

Political Yearbook

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Monday, December 7, 2009 at 12:22 PM - 6 Comments

This odd existence

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 3:35 PM - 8 Comments

The Prime Minister and the Premier of British Columbia participate in a perfectly natural exchange of gifts. (Note: video does not include mitten-related discussion.)

This and more at the burgeoning Beyond the Commons video archive.

The problem with mittens

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 8:42 PM - 8 Comments

The Prime Minister tries on the latest in Olympic handwear.

Speaking to reporters assembled in his Victoria office, Campbell held his thumbs up while wearing the red Vancouver 2010 Olympic mittens. ”I like the thumbs up,” Campbell said, with Harper at his side holding an Olympic torch.

“You can’t put anything up but the thumb,” replied Harper.

“He can’t give you the finger in those things,” he added, chuckling at the reporters in the room.

The Tyee notes there was some initial confusion as to exactly which pronoun the Prime Minister had employed.

The Pope signs a record deal, Nadal plays in Montreal, and William Shatner: environmental activist?

By Lianne George - Friday, August 7, 2009 at 8:30 AM - 1 Comment

Lord forgives, doesn’t forget
In 2001, Conrad Black renounced his Canadian citizenship after former prime minister Jean Chrétien intervened in an attempt to block Black’s nomination to the British House of Lords. But this week, Black—also known as Lord Black of Crossharbour—told Bloomberg he didn’t begrudge Chrétien the Order of Merit, recently awarded to him by Queen Elizabeth. “It is not for me to dispute that his services to Canadian federalism over nearly 40 years entitle him to it,” he wrote in an email from the Florida prison where he is currently serving 6½ years for fraud and obstruction of justice. This doesn’t mean, of course, that he’s forgotten. “I think even he would acknowledge that his treatment of me was not his finest hour, but that is water under the dam,” he wrote. “I will request my citizenship back when this nonsense in the U.S. is over, as I said I would when I renounced it.”

Acting badly
It’s curtains for Too Close to the Sun, a universally panned “unlikely musical” about the final days of Ernest Hemingway, playing in London’s West End. After sitting through the show, London Telegraph theatre critic Charles Spencer said he couldn’t help wondering “whether a sickening premonition of this terrible show was what finally persuaded [Hemingway] to put the barrel of the shotgun in his mouth and pull the trigger.” Meanwhile, in New York, Jude Law is set to commence his turn as Hamlet on Broadway in September. Although his performance in this production has earned him rave reviews in London, his acting was overshadowed last week by the news that he impregnated a 24-year-old model named Samantha Burke. Burke’s mother told the London Evening Standard, “This was no way planned. Hell no.” Continue…

The indictment

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, June 2, 2009 at 4:10 PM - 28 Comments

From Michael Ignatieff’s scrum after QP today.

Question: Will you be moving a motion of non-confidence before the summer break and will you also be supporting the Main Estimates, voting for the Main Estimates (off microphone)?

Michael Ignatieff: I don’t want an election. Canadians don’t want an election. But here’s where I am. I’m trying to make Parliament work with a government that every day is displaying more flagrant examples of incompetence. We’ve got a major medical crisis with the isotopes. They’ve got no plan. We’ve got, Toronto Dominion Bank just announced that the deficit over five years will be, wait for this, $168 billion. That’s the biggest number anybody has ever heard of. The public finances of this country are not under control. Right? Third, we’ve got an unemployment crisis with unemployment surging across the country. We’ve got Premier Campbell, we’ve got Brad Wall, we’ve got Premier McGuinty saying let’s do something about a national standard for EI. I’m not fancy about how we do it, but let’s do it. Right? We’ve got stimulus that needs to get out the door and only 6% of the stimulus has actually reached the country in the middle of the construction season.

So look, I want to make Parliament work. Canadians don’t want an election. I don’t want an election, but we have a problem, a serious problem about this government’s confidence, and I’m getting to the answer, next week, next week they have their second report card. Right? And as I said at the beginning of this, we’re holding these guys on probation. We’ll look at the data when we get it and we will make a serene and clear decision probably in the middle of next week. Thank you.