The Report back issues from January 2003:
It's time to re-federate Canada, starting from scratch.
Jan 06, 2003; ... What issued from University of Toronto historian Michael Bliss in the National Post on December 9 was a cry of anguish. "Ottawa," he laments, "is a surreal place, in which a billion dollars hardly matters, accountability by elected officials is a joke, and cynical spin doctors ...
Wrestling with art (David Everard's thesis on pro wrestling and theatre).
Jan 06, 2003; ... If David Everard had pursued the original subject he chose for a master's thesis, you probably would not be reading about him right now. Despite this column's occasional forays into classicism, we cannot get too passionate about the illustrated pottery of 4th-century-BC Greek colonists in ...
(Brain drain to the United States).
Jan 06, 2003; ... Brain drain? What brain drain? The Montreal-based Association for Canadian Studies announced December 6 that their annual analysis of U.S. government statistics reveals an intensifying southward exodus from the "best country in the world." In 1999, an estimated 12,948 Canadians emigrated ...
(Valerie and Trevor Williams' anti-commercialism message about Christmas).
Jan 06, 2003; ... Bah, humbug: the Victoria Times-Colonist reports December 11 on a local couple who took their Christmas budget of $1,200 and spent it instead on a massive red billboard that looms over the island's Pat Bay Highway. Valerie and Trevor Williams' holiday message is simple: "Gluttony. Envy ....
(David) Swann's way (fired as medical officer of health for his pro-Kyoto activities).
Jan 06, 2003; ... Which is more daunting: facing the wrath of the U.S. Marines in Iraq, or trying to defend the Kyoto Protocol in Alberta? Judging by the behaviour of David Swann, he may believe it is the latter. Dr. Swann made October headlines when his pro-Kyoto political activities enraged the board of ...
Time traveller: in this magazine July 7 and August 4, 1986.
Jan 06, 2003; ... Historical research has revealed that this magazine has a belated apology to make as 2002 hastens to a close. In July 1986, Kenneth Whyte (future editor of the National Post) and Craig Brunanski co-wrote an article on a new writer's workshop at the Kent Institution, a maximum-security ...
(LifeGem turns carbon from cremated remains into diamonds).
Jan 06, 2003; ... The Calgary Herald reports December 7 that an Innisfail, Alta., family have become the first Canadian customers of LifeGem, a Chicago-based firm that extracts carbon from the cremated remains of a loved one and turns it into a diamond. A LifeGem representative trained local mortuary staff ...
(60-year-old woman arrested for mistakenly dialling 911).
Jan 06, 2003; ... Only in British Columbia: a 60-year-old woman was arrested by Surrey police December 4 after she mistakenly dialed 911 and hung up, forcing dispatchers to send a black-and-white to her door. The cops interrupted a birthday party at which the main attraction, according to the Vancouver Sun, ...
You can't go home again (especially if you burn it down like Alcan did the town of Kemano).
Jan 06, 2003; ... ... especially if they burn it down. Kemano, B.C., is 75 kilometres south of Kitimat on B.C.'s north coast; it was built between 1949 and 1954 by Alcan to house workers at a nearby hydroelectric generating station powered by the Nechako River. At its peak, it held a population of nearly ...
Real racists: northern contractors warn that a coalition of government and Natives is mapping out a brave `new landscape' that seems to exclude whites.
Jan 06, 2003; ... There are an awful lot of big Cats lying around Slave Lake, Alta., 250 kilometres north of Edmonton, this winter, but they are not of the feline variety. Heavy equipment of all types is idling in the normally bustling town of 6,000, built to service the booming oil industry in "the land of ...
Ripple effect of a handout.
Jan 06, 2003; ... Give us 1% of a billion, and I will dance to the moon," stated Bigstone Cree Chief Gordon Auger of his intention to get his "fair share" of benefits from the oil patch after a blockade by the band was narrowly averted in October. The Wabusca Fever reported: "About 150 members of Bigstone ...
What Treaty Eight actually says.
Jan 06, 2003; ... "And her Majesty the Queen hereby agrees with the said Indians that they shall have right to pursue their usual vocations of hunting, trapping and fishing throughout the tract surrendered as heretofore described, subject to such regulations as may from time to time be made by the ...
Christopher Kempling is being persecuted for his faith.
Jan 06, 2003; ... Green is the colour of hope, so it is entirely appropriate on this sunny mid-December afternoon that an increasingly hopeful Christopher Kempling is wearing a pale green tie, an even paler green shirt and dark green slacks as he takes the wheel of his late-model Taurus (green, of course) ...
Still no Alberta miracle: the increasingly unpopular B.C. Liberals have yet to lead the province to fiscal and economic health.
Jan 06, 2003; ... Cree leader Billy Diamond is quoted in a 1989 biography as saying, "Great obstacles make great leaders." Gordon Campbell must certainly hope so, for rarely has a politician faced such huge obstacles as Mr. Campbell did when he became premier of B.C. in the spring of 2001. A decade of ...
Immigrants are the `victim class'.
Jan 06, 2003; ... Federal Justice Minister Martin Cauchon insists he has nothing to do with the funding decisions of the Court Challenges Program (CCP) and therefore should not be held accountable for even its most controversial activities. By his own account, Mr. Cauchon just blindly ladles out $2.75 ...
(Government mishandling of money).
Jan 06, 2003; ... Former U.S. Senator from Illinois, Everett Dirksen, remarked on the subject of government waste: "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money." The Chretien Liberals have certainly had their trouble with billions. "Calamity" Jane Stewart could not ...
(Russian spies off of British Columbia).
Jan 06, 2003; ... Ask the Russians. The Kapitan Man is a known Russian spy ship that conducts military surveillance along the B.C. coastline. Reports that small vessels were seen tying up alongside the spy ship at anchor off the Queen Charlotte Islands in late November prompted the Canadian Navy to ...
Grit MPs quash a move to empty the trough.
Jan 06, 2003; ... In a move apparently designed to embarrass Liberal leadership hopeful Paul Martin, the Chretien government has proposed legislation to reform the financing of political parties. As outlined by Liberal House Leader Don Boudria, the legislation was to have completely banned corporate and ...
Senate ponders changes to Ottawa's new animal-cruelty law.
Jan 06, 2003; ... Rural Canadians have been on the butt end of a lot of Liberal policies in recent years. The Canadian Wheat Board Monopoly has sent dissenting farmers to jail, and the gun registry will make criminals out of any farmer or hunter who has failed to register all his firearms by January 1, ...
(Politicians anti-American views).
Jan 06, 2003; ... It seems Prime Minister Jean Chretien's friends just can't help making their anti-Americanism public. While the PM's press secretary Francoise Ducros was eventually pushed out of her job for her derogatory comments calling U.S. President George Bush a "moron," that didn't stop Transport ...
(Kevin Marchessault appeals decision which does not allow him to be a postmaster because he is not bilingual).
Jan 06, 2003; ... C'est la vie. Kevin Marchessault has been denied the position of postmaster in Coderre, Sask., because he is not bilingual despite his French name. It doesn't matter that the entire community supports him. In a ruling by the Federal Court, the town must ...
Profit or punishment: Medicare can either crack down on the sick or bring back private enterprise.
Jan 06, 2003; ... Roy Romanow's report was less of a Royal Commission than a statement from the Moderator of the First Canadian Church of Medicare. If anyone needed persuading that Canadian statecraft has become theological, he need only note Mr. Romanow's plea for a "Health Covenant" to bind the nation. ...
Pandora's vox: (Roy) Romanow's call to stop funding for-profit clinics raises new questions in an old debate.
Jan 06, 2003; ... In what some judged to be a highlight of an otherwise inconsequential speech, Prime Minister Jean Chretien told a Vancouver audience on December 4 he was committed to implementing the recommendations of the Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada, otherwise known as the Romanow ...
Canada's cracked mosaic.
Jan 06, 2003; ... A few days before my 18th birthday in the fall of 1973, I entered Boston University on a hockey scholarship. I got off the plane from Toronto at Logan Airport and hired a cab to take me to the BU campus on Commonwealth Avenue at the edge of the city centre. Halfway there, I realized I ...
Sad little rally on a bright prairie winter day (Kyoto protest in Lethbridge Alberta).
Jan 06, 2003; ... Passing through Lethbridge on November 30, I chanced upon a quintessentially Canadian ritual: a coven of PWIAPEs (people wildly indignant about practically everything) demonstrating in support of a Liberal cause.Organized by "Albertans for Kyoto" to bash the Alberta government's anti-Kyoto ...
Billion-dollar boondoggle, covered in lies: the federal firearms registry becomes a national scandal.
Jan 06, 2003; ... In what is probably the most damning report ever issued by a Canadian auditor general, Sheila Fraser has in effect accused federal officials in the Department of Justice of lying to Parliament about the true cost of the firearms registry. Her report, released on December 3, charges: "The ...
Sinking fast: the gun debacle badly damages Allan Rock's prime ministerial hopes.
Jan 06, 2003; ... Allan Rock's bid for the Liberal leadership will be lucky to survive his latest foul-up. On December 3, Canadian Auditor General Sheila Fraser revealed that the controversial firearms registry has been disastrously mismanaged from the very start by the justice ministry. Mr. Rock, a former ...
Political retreat: denied more cash, how can Ottawa fund its controversial firearms-licensing program?
Jan 06, 2003; ... Justice Department bureaucrats could not have picked a much worse time than December 5 to go to Parliament, hat in hand, to request more money for their gun registry. Just two days earlier, Auditor General Sheila Fraser had revealed gross financial mismanagement of the program, including ...
Few glasses of wine: Defence Minister John McCallum turns embarrassment into triumph with an unlikely story.
Jan 06, 2003; ... There was a curious prissiness in the treatment of John McCallum's humiliation. After word leaked out that the defence minister had been banned from an Air Canada flight November 3, he presented a thoroughly self-serving account. He found himself acclaimed by the media and his colleagues ...
Still legal prey at age 14: new federal divorce and child-protection amendments anger family advocates.
Jan 06, 2003; ... The Book of Proverbs says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish. To which it might be added, "And the lawyers flourish." Justice Minister Martin Cauchon's amendments to the Divorce Act to child-protection legislation are either subtly nuanced or fiendishly complicated, depending on ...
Fool for scandal: a wacky B.C. writer (Brian Salmi) stirs a freedom-of-speech controversy.
Jan 06, 2003; ... Until the 18th century, no one was allowed to witness or report on parliamentary debates. The reason was that representatives worried they would be seen as treasonous if their criticisms of the monarch became public. Today, journalists in parliamentary democracies such as Canada are ...
Irreconcilable differences: a new lawsuit says the Divorce Act favours women and violates men's rights.
Jan 06, 2003; ... Whether he was attempting to deflect criticism from the billion-dollar gun registry, or whether after years of delay he just thought it was time to act, Justice Minister Martin Cauchon introduced changes to the Divorce Act just two days before the House of Commons shut down for Christmas ....
Ottaws bans the Hezbollah terrorist group.
Jan 06, 2003; ... Under pressure from the Canadian Alliance and a lawsuit launched by B'nai Brith Canada (a Jewish organization dedicated in part to Israel's defence), federal government has classified the Hezbollah as a terrorist group. This Lebanese organization is now on the banned list under the ...
(Rachel Marsden charged with criminal harassment).
Jan 06, 2003; ... In a high-profile squabble, Rachel Marsden of Coquitlam, B.C., accused a swim coach from Simon Fraser University of sexual harassment (who was later cleared). Now Ms. Marsden herself has been charged with criminal harassment of a former boyfriend, a 52-year-old Vancouver man, between ...
(Canadian Judicial Council plans to appoint an advisory group for judicial morals).
Jan 06, 2003; ... Justice Beverley McLachlin and 35 fellow members of the Canadian Judicial Council plan to appoint an advisory group within a year to counsel them on matters like judicial morals and the possible introduction of television cameras in the courtroom. This November, the ...
Serial pedophile (Karl Toft) is out and about.
Jan 06, 2003; ... Karl Toff admits he molested at least 200 boys over his 35-year career as a guard at the Kingsclear Youth Training Centre in New Brunswick. Now the convicted felon has completed two-thirds of his 13-year sentence, lives in a halfway house in Edmonton and is eligible for unsupervised ...
One mother (Debbie Palmer) of eight sues for polygamy (at a polygamist colony in B.C.).
Jan 06, 2003; ... Debbie Palmer is the mother of eight children from three different but assigned marriages at a polygamist colony in southeastern B.C. The former member of a sect called Bountiful is suing to expose its alleged sexual, physical, spiritual and psychological abuses. Although Bountiful calls ...
Hair-raising experience at the beauty salon (for off-duty police officer Ann Fawcett).
Jan 06, 2003; ... Vancouver police officer Detective-Constable Ann Fawcett was among the ladies getting styled at the Kacy Hair Salon at 4 p.m. on November 20. "It was just getting dark that Wednesday, and business was quite slow," recalls receptionist Eva Tekeres. "I was sitting at the very first ...
(John Alexander Kakegamic to undergo chemical castration).
Jan 06, 2003; ... John Alexander Kakegamic, a 34-year-old sex offender who preyed on children under two years old, has agreed voluntarily to undergo chemical castration while in prison. Winnipeg defence lawyer Danny Gunn says Corrections Canada will decide the timing of the drug ...
(Karla Homolka being investigated for breaking her controversial plea bargain).
Jan 06, 2003; ... In the early 1990s, Karla Homolka participated in the torture murders of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy, two teenagers from St. Catherines, Ont. In exchange for her testimony against her ex-husband Paul Bernardo, Ontario authorities agreed in 1993 that Homolka would serve 12 years in ...
Daydreaming machines that make sense, too: SUVs take the brunt of eco-alarmists' criticism, but they're really not so bad.
Jan 06, 2003; ... Here is an assertion that will shock many Canadians: far from being the environmental monster that progressive politicians and preachy preservationists say it is, the sport-utility vehicle (SUV) can actually be considered among the most environmentally friendly of all motor vehicles--when, ...
My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a peek at the future.
Jan 06, 2003; ... Christmas may not be the best season to assess the Canadian Red Cross's allegedly criminal slaughter of hemophiliacs through tainted blood or how Alberta Premier Ralph Klein might cope with Ottawa's constitutional takeover of resources. These issues, alas, linger for months and years. But ...
Kyoto (66% of Albertans trust Alberta Premier Ralph Klein to give them reliable information).
Jan 06, 2003 ... An opinion survey by Winnipeg-based Criterion Research Corp. indicates that 66% of Albertans trust Alberta Premier Ralph Klein to give them reliable information on ...
Society (about 850 parolees no longer in contact with their parole officers).
Jan 06, 2003 ... The Correctional Service of Canada reports that about 850 parolees are no longer in the required contact with their parole officers at a ...
Society (outstanding Canadian tax bill is now $16 billion).
Jan 06, 2003 ... The outstanding tax bill unpaid by Canadians is now $16 billion, according to the Canada Customs and ...
Society (13,000 applications for a job at the Communications Security Establishment).
Jan 06, 2003 ... Earlier this year, the Communications Security Establishment ran a career ad for three days in newspapers across Canada looking for people with backgrounds in engineering, computer ...
Society (bus that Rosa Parks rode on gets US$492,000 at an auction).
Jan 06, 2003 ... In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to sit at the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, an action which initiated the modern civil rights movement. That bus eventually ended up in a junkyard, where it sat ...
Finance and economy (Bank West).
Jan 06, 2003 ... Bank West, headquartered in High River, just south of Calgary, has become the first bank opened under Canada's new ownership rules. It's a prestigious change for Western Financial Services, established in 1905. Over the past six years, it has ...
Finance and economy (the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec).
Jan 06, 2003 ... In recent years, the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec--cornerstone of the province's credit union system with deposits totalling $140 billion--has striven to industrialize Quebec and become a world financial player. That politically motivated project went off the rails last year when ...
Finance and economy (American economy's growth rate surpassed Canada's in third quarter).
Jan 06, 2003 ... The American economy's growth rate surpassed Canada's in the third quarter, reports Statistics Canada. A strengthening recovery in the U.S. generated growth at ...
Entertainment and arts (televion viewing of professional wrestling declining).
Jan 06, 2003 ... World Wrestling Entertainment has seen the American viewership of its flagship television program decline by 35% since 1999, to 3.1 million households. The plunging popularity of its beefy stars and their phony feuds has driven the firm's share price from more ...
Entertainment and arts (Northern Arts to grant poet Valerie Laws to paint her verse onto the backs of sheep).
Jan 06, 2003 ... Northern Arts, a British funding agency, will grant c$4,500 to poet Valerie Laws, who wishes to spray-paint her verse onto the backs of sheep. The poem to be inscribed reads: ...
Forestry (sawmills in B.C. slashes the cost of sawing).
Jan 06, 2003 ... Since 1998, sawmills in the B.C. interior have slashed the average cost of sawing 1,000 board feet by US$65, to US$214. That figure comes from Reid Carter, an analyst at National Bank Financial. In the most recent quarter softwood prices averaged $223, ...
Scandal of the scrolls: controversies shrouded these ancient texts because few scholars were allowed to read them.
Jan 06, 2003; ... Intellectual fads are funny things, but right now the Dead Sea scrolls are on the outs. Not only are the pop-culture references down, but New Zealand's Auckland Museum recently decided that the scrolls were "too esoteric" and opted instead for a display of body art, including bondage tools ...
Why college ranking fails: the annual Maclean's university report is unavoidably arbitrary and inaccurate.
Jan 06, 2003; ... The idea of a "zero-sum game" has gradually moved from its birthplace in advanced mathematics to the popular lexicon, and there may be no better example of its frustrations than November's annual Maclean's magazine survey of Canadian universities. For one school to move ahead in the ...
Speed comes to Canada - fast: methamphetamine is more addictive than crack - and a lot easier to get.
Jan 06, 2003; ... In November, an unsuspecting Edmonton landlord rented out a two-storey warehouse to a man who said his name was John Cooper. But when the landlord tried to mail the lease agreement to the address given, he found out it did not exist. So he stopped by his property, planning to collect the ...
Canada's 50,000 pot grow-ops: marijuana growers steal a billion dollards in electricity, and that's just in Ontario.
Jan 06, 2003; ... Most Canadians pay little attention to news that another marijuana grow-operation in a suburban neighbourhood has resulted in arrests and seizure of a few hundred pot plants. But would they care more if they knew that marijuana operations cost homeowners about $34 apiece extra each year on ...
When pride still mattered: a life of Vince Lombardi.
Jan 06, 2003 ... The old problem with biographies was that one read the life stories of so many bad men. The new problem is that biographers have seen fit to more or less invent bad things about their subjects in order to make them more "interesting." Neither of these problems afflicts David Maraniss' When ...
Loitering with intent.
Jan 06, 2003 ... There is a tendency among critics to slight the novels of I Muriel Spark, perhaps because they are free from histrionics, perhaps because they give so much pleasure. In reading her, however, one is reminded of H.L. Mencken's comment on Beethoven: "The glory that was Greece ... the grandeur ...
Journey to nowhere: a new world tragedy.
Jan 06, 2003 ... Lombardi was born the son of an Italian immigrant at a time when the WASPs still ran America; Miss Spark was born a Jew in Calvinist Scotland. It has become customary to bemoan the outsider's fate, but they are often gifted with unusual perception. This attribute was doubly given to the ...
Diary of a nobody.
Jan 06, 2003 ... Fatuity is also the theme of George and Weedon Grossmith's The Diary of a Nobody--but to rather happier effect. Charles Pooter, a clerk of no great account ...
150 million spiders: scientists are intrigued by the first giant web in Canada.
Jan 06, 2003; ... It sounds like a B-grade plot from a 1950s science-fiction or horror flick, but it happened, says B.C. farmer Russell Jervis. He owns the farm where millions of tiny spiders recently created a monster web covering 60 acres. Scientists are puzzled over what the phenomenon means, and whether ...
Christmas controversy: public schools choose between multiple-faith festivals or religious bans.
Jan 06, 2003; ... For the past several years, stories have emerged every December about city halls banning, nativity scenes and schools celebrating Winter Festivals instead of holding Christmas parties. This year, in Calgary and several other Alberta communities, the complaints have targeted Operation ...
If you can believe that God became man, then what's your problem with Christmas?
Jan 06, 2003; ... "My dear Sebastian, you can't seriously believe it all." "Can't I?" "No, I mean about Christmas, and the star, and the ox and the ass and the three kings." "Oh yes, I believe all that. It's a lovely idea." "But you can't believe things because ...
Only safe sex is no sex: sexually transmitted diseases are becoming epidemic, especially among teens.
Jan 06, 2003; ... Dr. Joe McIlhaney, an MD in Austin, Texas, still remembers the last patient in his gynecology practice, 10 years ago. She flew in from New Jersey for in vitro fertilization (IVF). She was 41, had been married about two years and could not get pregnant despite months of effort. She had ...