Paul Gross, Laureen Harper and a pack of Twizzlers

By Mitchel Raphael - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 10 Comments

Heritage Minister James Moore hosted Ottawa’s premiere of Gunless, starring Paul Gross, at the Museum of Civilization. Below (left to right): Laureen Harper, Heritage Minister James Moore and Paul Gross.

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Laureen Harper offers Justin Trudeau some Twizzlers.

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Hot Pursuit

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 11:00 AM - 1 Comment

Photograph by Todd Korol/Reuters

You can forgive Denny Morrison for rubbing it in. Fresh from the podium, with the country’s 11th gold medal of the Games dangling from his neck—a wire-to-wire besting of the United States in the men’s speed skating team pursuit—he stopped to make a point. “We’re not just doing this for ourselves. We’re doing this for all of Canada.”

He and teammates Lucas Makowsky and Mathieu Giroux were among the few to believe they had a shot at hitting the top of the podium on the final day of the Olympic long-track competition. But in the preliminaries, the trio laid low defending champions Italy, in an Olympic record time of three minutes, 42.38 seconds. In the second round, they went even faster, beating Norway in 3:42.22. And when it was all on the line, they left a formidable American squad—including five-time medallist Chad Hedrick—eating their dust, crossing the line in 3:41.37, grabbing gold by a margin of 0.21 seconds. It was the first, and only, medal for Canada’s male long-track speed skaters at the 2010 Games. (The women won four despite failing to medal in the team pursuit.) And for Morrison, at least, it was sweet relief.

Olympic redemption doesn’t usually come so quickly. Those who crumble under the immense pressure of the sporting world’s brightest spotlight often have to wait four more years—and sometimes forever—tormented by their own failure, and the media’s insistence on reliving it. Another teammate, Jeremy Wotherspoon, for example, retires after Vancouver 2010 as one of speed skating’s all-time greats, the winner of more World Cup races than any man ever. But his stumble at the starting line in Salt Lake City, and subsequent inability to ever improve on the silver he won as a 21-year-old buck back at the 1998 Nagano Games, became the defining story of his career.

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Mitchel Raphael on who Harper hugged at the Olympics and Ambrose’s grateful date

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 7 Comments

A wet PM Stephen Harper waited for almost an hour in the cold rain—without an umbrella—to congratulate moguls skier Jennifer Heil, who won Canada’s first Olympic medal at the Vancouver 2010 games. The PM could have waited inside, but chose to remain outdoors. He was with his daughter, Rachel Harper, and in a tender moment explained to her that Heil had done the best she could and won silver. When Heil won a gold medal in Turin in 2006, she came to Ottawa and got to meet Harper in his office. On Saturday night, the PM hugged Heil and said, “I got to see where you work today.” Watching the skiing events for eight hours in the rain was Minister of Public Works Rona Ambrose, who brought her mother, Colleen Chapchuk, as her Olympic date.

Chapchuk bought them both matching official Olympic mitts, scarves, and toques. Heil is from Spruce Grove, Alta., which is in Ambrose’s riding. Ambrose is also taking her mother to other events. “She loves figure skating. This is her birthday and Christmas present.” Ambrose scored best-daughter-ever points when she brought her mom to Michaëlle Jean’s reception for heads of state; among the guests were U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden and Princess Anne. But the guest everyone wanted photos with was California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. When he arrived, there was an empty seat next to Ambrose’s mom and he plunked himself down beside her.

Photograph by Ron Joyce (Left) and Jason Ransom (Right)

And the medal for best staffer goes to…
Heritage Minister James Moore accompanied the Olympic torch in B.C. as it went through his riding of Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam. Accompanying the minister was his director of communications, Deirdra McCracken. But there was no room in the official torch vehicle (especially with the sponsorship Coca-Cola girls), so she had to run seven kilometres to keep up. “It was a good thing I chose to wear running shoes and not heels that day,” quipped McCracken. At the opening ceremonies, Moore, whose portfolio includes the Olympics, heard a man behind him shout, “Good job!” He turned around and saw that the fellow, who was holding a beer, was Jean Chrétien.

NEW ARRIVAL AT 24 Sussex
Laureen Harper finally got the igloo she’s been wanting at 24 Sussex with the help of David Serkoak, who teaches Inuit culture at the Nunavut Sivuniksavut training program in Ottawa. He was recommended to her by Inuit leader Mary Simon. Mrs. Harper and a few of her friends were the igloo-building assistants; it took the team about four hours to complete the project. The snow was icy and difficult to carve: “We were going to do something bigger but the snow wasn’t right,” said Mrs. Harper. They used a saw and a knife that Serkoak made himself to carve out the blocks. “David was amazing with his knife, and once he was finished he was entombed in his creation and he dug from the inside and we dug from the outside and we created a door at the bottom,” noted Mrs. Harper. The plan now is to furnish the igloo with seal and caribou skins along with a dog sleigh. While building the igloo, Serkoak told the team stories about surviving in the North. His family spent their winters in an igloo until 1961. Farley Mowat wrote about the area he is from, which is west of Hudson Bay, in his book People of the Deer.

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Vietnamese ambassador holds a special goodbye party

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 1 Comment

The Vietnamese ambassador held a goodbye party for Son Pham (below) . The boy had a huge growth the size of a football on his face, but with the help of the Children’s Bridge Foundation, which raised $500,000 to pay for his care, the orphan was brought to Canada from Vietnam and eventually had 26 medical procedures in Boston over 2 years.

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Laureen Harper and Son Pham.

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Peter Mansbridge and Laureen Harper get a taste of the Arctic

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, January 25, 2010 at 9:10 AM - 5 Comments

“A Taste of the Arctic,” held at the National Gallery of Canada, kicked
off 2010 as the Year of the Inuit. Below, Laureen Harper (left) and Inuit
leader Mary Simon, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.

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Mrs. Harper and Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq (left).

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Chairman Steve

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, December 5, 2009 at 11:23 AM - 26 Comments

The Prime Minister is big in China.

The motorcade stopped, the Prime Minister and his wife Laureen alighted from a black limo, and as they made their way down the street hand-in-hand, a flurry of RCMP security, paparazzi and tourists followed. Across the road a few shouts of “Harper! Harper!” went up and the smiling Prime Minister waved back.

The Harpers’ destination was a hole-in-the-wall shop called the Song Lin Tea Garden, where shop assistants Yu Lijuan and Wei Amin were waiting to welcome them. They said they knew “Canada’s Chairman,” was coming: local Canadian officials had alerted them in advance…

The Prime Minister couldn’t resist wading into the crowd that had gathered. As his RCMP detail tried to build him a secure space, Harper met and shook hands with a Russian-Canadian man named Dimitry from Vancouver, who is a machine operator at a Chinese pulp mill. Then Harper waded in deeper, where people smiled and enthusiastically shook his hand, some grasping his outstretched hand with both of theirs.

The scene at Rideau

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 11:14 AM - 16 Comments

The pool report from the meeting of Prince Charles and the Prime Minister this morning.

Their highnesses went on to meet Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his wife Laureen. They went into Rideau Hall’s large drawing room, where they stood beside four Canadian rangers wearing their red sweaters. Harper handed two ranger caps and sweatshirts to the Prince to give to his two sons.

“You highness, as you know we’re very proud of our rangers and our rangers program…a great group of people who patrol our vast arctic territory,” Harper said. “Princes William and Harry are becoming honourary members, so we present this to you as a symbol of their honourary membership.”

“I hope they fit,” quipped Prince Charles.

“One-size fits all,” interjected Laureen Harper.

A happier Halloween

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 2:28 PM - 6 Comments

At the request of Mrs. Harper, the Globe’s cartoonist mocks up a second jack o’ lantern stencil of the Prime Minister, helpfully demonstrating the great difference between Angry Stephen Harper and Joyful Stephen Harper.

Mitchel Raphael on why the PM wanted his guests to leave

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

John Baird wondered about the PM’s outfit
Before Stephen Harper surprised the audience at the National Arts Centre’s gala fundraiser by playing the piano and singing a Beatles song, he was enjoying drinks at 24 Sussex with his wife, Laureen Harper, Transport Minister John Baird, and the PM’s former head of communications Sandra Buckler. Baird and Buckler didn’t know the PM was attending the gala, let alone that he would be performing. Ironically, notes Mrs. Harper, while at the house “my husband was playing the piano—dressed in black like Johnny Cash—and John said to Sandra, ‘He really should play at one of these events.’ Sandra agreed and it was the toughest moment of my life to keep my mouth shut.” Baird did think it was odd that the PM was all in black and that he at one point opened the door himself and told them all to get going, pretending he was staying behind. Baird tried to say something like “We aren’t in a rush at all.” As they left 24 Sussex, Mrs. Harper spotted the van that had the band in it. The musicians and PM had it planned so that they’d all head over together, undercover, for the surprise.

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U.S. skimps on the water
Toronto Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett testified in front of the U.S. Senate. She was there to talk about why in Canada, in her words, “we pay less [for health care], live longer, and don’t have as many infants die in their first year of life.” The experience wasn’t quite like testifying in front of a Canadian Senate committee, she says. For example, in the U.S., Bennett was given a small bottle of water. In Canada there are glasses and pitchers. “I’m a big water drinker,” noted Bennett, who had to pace her sipping during her testimony because of the small amount made available. She also periodically forgot to turn her microphone on and off. In Canada, it’s someone else’s job to turn mikes on and off during committee hearings. Bennett had to explain to the Americans that Canada has a publicly funded health insurance system “and not socialized medicine—[that] as a family doctor I was not a public servant.” After testifying, she was taken to the U.S. Senate dining room for lunch, where she had some “pretty delicious crab cakes.” Continue…

'Practically naked in their straightforward sincerity'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 2:30 PM - 6 Comments

Chart notes one of the more curious inclusions on the Harper family iPod mix—Rural Alberta Advantage. Here’s how Pitchfork summed up the band’s debut record last summer.

Given his reedy tones and preoccupation with the past, it would be easy to compare RAA to Neutral Milk Hotel (the death-haunted lyrics of horn-studded “Luciana” make it the track most easily confused for a lost Jeff Mangum opus). But with more intensely vigorous drumming, more obviously personal lyrics, and a more blatant interest in glossy electro-pop, Edenloff’s band carves out their own niche. It is one that masterfully blends the masculine and the feminine, the refined and the coarse, the dark and the bright.

Mitchel Raphael on why Caroline Mulroney gave the speech

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 10:20 AM - 1 Comment

What’s Elsie Wayne doing up there?
Former prime minister Brian Mulroney’s big bash in the ballroom of Montreal’s Sheraton Hotel marked the 25th anniversary of his 1984 victory, the first of his back-to-back majorities. Caroline Mulroney introduced her father. When a guest asked how it was decided which child would do the introduction, Ben Mulroney said that his mother, Mila Mulroney, chose and that was that. Brian Mulroney spoke in front of a huge Canadian flag; his image was projected on giant screens that made the red behind him look like NDP orange. The former PM took the time to thank Laureen Harper for attending. She stood and blew him a kiss with both hands. (Stephen Harper sent video greetings.) Mrs. Harper was seated in the VIP section next to Transport Minister John Baird, who was beside the former PM’s brother Gary Mulroney. In 1984, Baird was a volunteer messenger at the national Progressive Conservative headquarters and helped deliver mail. “My cubicle was across from [now Senate leader] Marjory LeBreton’s,” he said. The event was packed with Conservatives, including Environment Minister Jim Prentice, who did some advance grunt work for Mulroney back in 1984. Pierre Poilievre was only five years old in 1984. “I remember my father sat me down in front of the television to watch the debate,” says the Tory Ottawa MP. “I told that story to Ed Broadbent [who was in the debate] and Ed said, ‘I must have done a pretty poor job if you turned out to be a Conservative.’ ” Tory Senator Hugh Segal recalled how important that debate was for the Mulroney landslide. According to him, the days of interesting leader debates on TV are over. Now they are “tedious, boring,” he says. “Anyone with a life would turn it off.” Segal still talks to Mulroney, who calls Segal “Hugh.” The senator calls Mulroney “Prime Minister.” Mulroney cabinet minister Barbara McDougall, who was also at the bash, noted, “I called him prime minister for a long, long time [after].” Now she calls him “Brian.” “We were having lunch one day and it just kinda slipped out.” Finance Minister Jim Flaherty brought his son Galen Flaherty, who just started at McGill University and made it onto the football team. Maxime Bernier was with his father, Gilles Bernier, who served as an MP under Mulroney. MPs who received some of Mulroney’s famous phone calls were also there. Rona Ambrose said that when she was environment minister and just about to go into the House to introduce the Clean Air Act, she got a call from Mulroney, who was in London at the time. During their conversation, he recounted his struggles with the acid rain treaty. When he became the leader of the Canadian Alliance, Stockwell Day said Mulroney called and they shared a meal at which the former PM said if he ever needed help to call him. Former Progressive Conservative MP Elsie Wayne (she and Jean Charest, now the Quebec premier, were the only PCs elected after the Tories hit near-extinction in 1993) got tired of standing early in the evening. The 77-year-old boldly went for a seat in the VIP section. This left no room for Mila Mulroney. Another chair was quickly added. When Mulroney’s speech ended and his entire family joined him on stage, Wayne just sauntered up along with them.

Did the PM really just say that?
An NDP MP notes that when Stephen Harper says the word “election” in French it sounds almost as if he’s saying “erection.” With all the recent talk of an election, the word gets used a lot in the House. The first week back the PM came “as close as he has ever gotten to saying érection,” says the NDPer. This time even the translators in the House were chuckling. When the slip happened in reference to why a fall “election” was a bad thing, one Bloc MP was overheard quipping: “Hey, there’s no such thing as a bad erection.”

G8 PDA

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 25, 2009 at 2:23 AM - 4 Comments

An entertaining pool report from the official welcoming of G8 leaders to Pittsburgh.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrives with his wife. They get a warm welcome from both Obamas, the warmest so far. There’s a lot of familiarity. Hugs, chats about daughters.

Granted, it would still seem, at least on the public display of affection scale of American relations, that the Harpers rank slightly behind the Browns (“hugs, kisses, more hugs, more kisses, handholding, you name it”) and Sarkozys (“Mr. Obama kisses her four times … Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Sarkozy chat warmly. A lot of touching there too”).

Mitchel Raphael on the cabinet minister who’s lost 30 pounds

By macleans.ca - Thursday, August 20, 2009 at 11:40 AM - 2 Comments

Newfoundland MP has ‘rescued a few people’
The 191-year-old Royal St. John’s Regatta is held the first Wednesday in August—or, if the weather’s not right, the first good day after that. The regatta committee assesses conditions in the early morning and then, if it’s good for the boats, declares a holiday for the city. “You should have the right to have a holiday on a good weather day,” says Newfoundland NDP MP Jack Harris. Harris has been going to the Royal St. John’s Regatta for more than 50 years. He usually plays a game or two of crown and anchor, though not this year. His big win in the past was “a couple of bucks.” He recalls that many years ago, kids would walk around the regatta carrying buckets of water with an egg cup at the bottom. A person would double their money if they landed a coin in the egg cup. Harris himself never landed a coin in the cup. “You were pretty much saying goodbye to your dime,” jokes the MP. This year, Harris was joined by NDP Leader Jack Layton. It was Layton’s first time at the regatta and as he and Harris walked the grounds the phrase “pair of Jacks” was heard a few times. Layton was made an honorary member of the regatta committee and presented with a baseball cap. On that same committee is Liberal MP Siobhan Coady. A member since 1992, she has also been a judge at the regatta and in the ’80s was an active rower. She never tipped a boat, “but I’ve rescued a few people,” says Coady. She’s also known as a “treat” lady because she always gives out crabs or shrimps.

Has anybody got a riding they could give to Elizabeth May?
Last month Green Party Leader Elizabeth May had her first weekend off since the start of 2009. That weekend was part of her five-day summer vacation, spent entirely on a train from Vancouver to Nova Scotia. Her leisure reading included The End of Energy Obesity: Breaking Today’s Energy Addiction for a Prosperous and Secure Tomorrow by Peter Tertzakian and Keith Hollihan, and P.D. James’s mystery novel The Private Patient. May loves mystery books: “They are diverting and make you not think much about reality.” She also read Wayson Choy’s Not Yet and met the author at one of her favourite events, the Read by the Sea Festival in River John, N.S. May has been spending much of the summer looking for a new riding to run in. She says Michael Ignatieff made it clear there will be no leader courtesies offered to her (his predecessor, Stéphane Dion, did not run a candidate against May in Central Nova). The Green leader was thinking of running in former Tory, now Independent MP Bill Casey’s riding since he has resigned, but she feels a general election will be called before that by-election. May’s daughter, Victoria Cate, will attend the University of King’s College in Halifax this September, which will make it difficult for the Green leader to see her unless she picks another East Coast riding. But the priority for the Green party, she says, is for her to find a riding she can win. Continue…

Mitchel Raphael on a handshaking situation

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 10:40 AM - 0 Comments

The Defence Minister, the military and the very prominent bandage

It was a tough job, but MPs rose valiantly to the challenge of consuming as much lobster as possible. Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Gail Shea hosted a packed reception at the Westin Ottawa for P.E.I. Seafood Processors, who, along with the Atlantic provinces, Quebec and the federal government, were trying to raise awareness of the low-price challenges currently facing the lobster industry. When Shea’s three daughters and two sons lived at home, she told Capital Diary, she needed 15 to 20 lb. of lobster to feed her family in one sitting. Liberal MP Siobhan Coady says when it comes to lobster, you must, as they say in her home province of Newfoundland, “eat as much as you can suffer.” Coady’s husband is the perfect partner for eating lobster, she notes, because “I eat the arms and the tails and my husband eats the bodies.”

Defence Minister Peter MacKay arrived with his right arm still in a sling from his rugby-match injury but said that if he had to he could still crack open a lobster with one hand. Two days later, MacKay was at a luncheon held by the Canadian Club of Toronto to honour the men and women of the Canadian Forces. VIPs included Laureen Harper and Don Cherry. This time on MacKay’s injured arm there was a prominent bandage that he did not have on before. The bandage was to make sure the military folks saw his arm was broken. His aide, Jay Paxton, noted military personnel like giving very firm handshakes and that one of those could have seriously damaged the defence minister’s arm. MacKay used his left hand to greet people.

If he can make it to October . . .

At Speaker Peter Milliken’s garden party, CTV’s Craig Oliver jokingly announced that the media were going to form a “blue ribbon panel” to ensure that there will be no election until after October 2009. If Milliken remains House Speaker until Oct. 12 (which happens to be Thanksgiving), he will be the longest-serving Speaker in Canadian history. Continue…

Matchmaker

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 9:46 AM - 15 Comments

If you were looking to add another layer of intrigue to Diane Ablonczy’s current situation, consider just how far back she and the Prime Minister go, as explained in Anne Kingston’s 2007 profile of Laureen Harper.

Teskey soon found herself drawn to the fresh energy and excitement of Reform, the grassroots conservative party born out of disillusionment with Mulroney conservatism. She designed communication materials for the party, including a poster for Reform MP Deborah Grey who had taken Stephen Harper to Ottawa as her assistant. Yet Teskey’s and Harper’s paths didn’t cross until a Reform party assembly in Saskatoon in 1990. The couple was more forcefully introduced by Cynthia Williams, Harper’s former fiancée, who met Teskey when the two worked at GTO. Thinking they would hit it off, Williams asked Laureen to join her and Harper for lunch. “I like Laureen a lot,” she says. Calgary Conservative MP Diane Ablonczy also recalls nudging the two together. “Stephen was sick with bronchitis from being in a basement suite,” she says. “I said to Laureen, ‘Stephen needs to get out more, why don’t you ask him out?’ She’s just so peppy, she’s a tonic for anybody. So she said ‘Do you think he would go?’ ” Not long after, Teskey was helping Harper with graphics for his M.A. thesis. The couple bonded over a shared zeal for smaller government and a love of cats.

Honouring the Canadian Armed Forces with Don Cherry and Laureen Harper

By Mitchel Raphael - Saturday, July 4, 2009 at 4:28 PM - 17 Comments

The Canadian Club of Toronto honoured the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces at a special Toronto luncheon. Below, Laureen Harper and Don Cherry.

Retired general Rick Hillier (left).

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Mitchel Raphael on who Don Newman will miss

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 11:00 AM - 2 Comments

Somebody at Stornoway is out of sorts

Michael Ignatieff held a media garden party at Stornoway, his first since becoming Liberal leader. The Etobicoke Youth Jazz Orchestra from his Toronto riding provided the music. The party was supposed to go from 6 to 8 p.m., but when it started getting chilly, Ignatieff’s wife, Zsuzsanna Zsohar, invited the remaining guests into the house, where media folks stayed chatting with Iggy in the living room until 10:30. Zsohar’s and Iggy’s feisty feline Mimi was jumping all over the place. (She even jumps in Ignatieff’s cereal when he has breakfast.) The couple had got their second cat, Eric, the day before the bash so Mimi was in a bit of a huff. Stornoway’s chef, Josh Drache, calls Mimi “an evil cat.” Zsohar served biscotti in the living room, and, despite her jumping, even Mimi got a nibble.

Who knew our Senators were that fit?

Vancouver Conservative MP John Weston had several politicians, sports coaches, and Laureen Harper gather in front of the Peace Tower as part of his initiative to get MPs to invest at least “20 minutes 10 seconds” twice weekly in fitness activities. The amount of time is connected to the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games. When Conservative Senator Nancy Greene Raine told the crowd that 80 per cent of senators already had some sort of fitness regime, a few gasps were heard. Labour Minister Rona Ambrose brought her dog Luna to the event. When Peter Stoffer tried to pet the pooch, Ambrose warned the NDP MP that Luna hates men. But Luna liked Stoffer for some reason. As the group did a walking lap around the Hill, they passed AIDS activists dressed in black-and-white-striped prison uniforms protesting the criminalization of HIV transmission, saying it is the only potentially fatal pathogen being treated this way. The AIDS activists were supported by NDP MPs Libby Davies and Bill Siksay as well as Liberal MP Hedy Fry. Before the AIDS protest had wrapped up, another group of demonstrators arrived with effigies of Stephen Harper and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe as the two leaders were meeting on the Hill for trade talks. The Uribe protesters’ music was so loud it drowned out the AIDS activists.

Luckily Don Newman ignored his CBC bosses

CBC Newsworld Politics host Don Newman will soon retire. He arrived on the Hill as a Globe and Mail reporter during Pierre Trudeau’s first government. He was the first print reporter to have a tape recorder. “I was laughed at and ridiculed both by broadcasters and by colleagues in the print press.” He has no plans to be a politician, although he notes his former fellow broadcaster Mike Duffy, who is now a senator, always had an interest in the upper chamber. Notes Newman, “I am very happy for him that he finally got where he wanted to go.” Newman hasn’t voted in a federal or provincial election since 1972 because he covers them. “I do vote municipally. I kinda know who is running for council. I vote for the school board although I have no idea who they are.” When CBC got the Newsworld channel, Newman was told by his bosses not to waste his time on it. They later admitted they were wrong. “I knew Newsworld was going to be a big success because Brian Mulroney would phone me personally on the commercial breaks.” Will he miss wearing makeup every day? “No,” says Newman. “But I’ve had a wonderful person [Joan Hodgins] who has done my makeup since 1993. I will miss her company every day.”

What’s Martha Hall Findlay wearing?

Toronto Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay was spotted wearing a sealskin ribbon she got from the government of Nunavut. Her Liberal colleague Anthony Rota, who has the fur industry promotion organization Fur Harvesters Auction in his northern Ontario riding, says he plans to get similar ribbons for all the Liberal MPs.

Laureen Harper and the biker flick

By Mitchel Raphael - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 at 12:58 AM - 27 Comments

Heritage Minister James Moore hosted a reception for the Canadian motorcycle film One Week at the National Gallery of Canada. Moore with Toronto Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay.

Laureen Harper.

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The NAC at 40

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, June 15, 2009 at 5:08 PM - 11 Comments

The National Arts Centre celebrated its 40^th anniversary with a big bash.

Laureen Harper (right) and Aline Chrétien.

Laureen Harper and Justin Trudeau.

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A cow, some goats and MPs, oh my

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 12:22 PM - 2 Comments

Lennon, McCartney, Harper.

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 8, 2009 at 12:44 AM - 35 Comments

Elsewhere in the spring issue of Hello!, an entirely fascinating interview with the Prime Minister. No really.

Speaking exclusively about “why music matters to him,” the Prime Minister discusses his love of the piano and reveals that his staff tries to make sure there’s one in his room when he travels now. And then he explains how he used one of the Beatles’ old pianos to record a few songs at Abbey Road last month. No really. Continue…

Stockwell Day challenges Death

By Mitchel Raphael - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 10:01 AM - 23 Comments

The National Arts Centre launched their B.C. Scene festival, which highlights the province’s arts.

Several giant cardboard boxes were set up where people went inside for a performance. Here Stockwell Day, Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway, challenges Death to a game of chess.

This actor’s performance piece included invited people to join her in bed and pretend to be her husband—and then she proceeded to get mad at them.

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Fun date

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 2, 2009 at 9:30 PM - 5 Comments

The first ladies dine with celebrity.

With food by Jamie Oliver and guests including JK Rowling and Dame Kelly Holmes, it was a night when politics and celebrity were hard to separate.

While Gordon Brown had to settle for a rather staid dinner with his fellow statesmen, elsewhere at Number Ten his wife Sarah entertained an eclectic mix of notable women. Esteemed guests included entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox and broadcaster Emma Freud – though some eyebrows were raised by the presence of supermodel Naomi Campbell – better known for her criminal record and fearsome temper…

Table two saw the unlikely pairing of Martha Lane Fox and Naomi Campbell entertain Laureen Harper, wife of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Margarida Barroso, wife of Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission.

Let’s assume our First Lady was put there on the assumption she could handle herself on the off chance Ms. Campbell was dissatisfied with the meal and lost her temper.

Mitchel Raphael on Harper’s hairstylist

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, March 20, 2009 at 3:55 PM - 7 Comments

The anti-Julie Couillard

At this year’s Politics & the Pen gala, the Writers’ Trust of Canada awarded the $25,000 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for political writing to James Orbinski for An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-first Century. Last year, Maxime Bernier arrived at the event with Julie Couillard in a tight gold dress. Times have changed. This year Bernier was spotted walking in with someone a little less flamboyant: fellow Tory MP Ted Menzies, wearing a bow tie and cummerbund in his family’s tartan. One MP quipped that Couillard really should have been invited, noting that she did, in fact, write a book. At this glitzy A-list event filled with writers and politicians, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, Transport Minister John Baird, and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty all spent time greeting the glamorous Stefania Capovilla, who was attending her first Politics & the Pen. Capovilla knows these politicians’ true colours: she’s their hairstylist. She coifs a virtual who’s who list of Ottawa’s political elite thanks to PMO staffer Aaron Campbell, who first visited her while the Conservatives were in opposition and then started recommending her to others. She even cuts Stephen Harper’s hair. The gala’s entertainment was provided by comedian Brent Butt from Corner Gas, who was seated next to Laureen Harper. Butt doesn’t understand why, having had two sitting PMs on the show, he still has to pay taxes. During his routine, the lights kept going on and off. The mystery was solved when it turned out that Mrs. Harper’s RCMP guard was leaning on the light switch in the Fairmont Château Laurier ballroom. Continue…