Strange case in Quebec: journalists debate if National Assembly should legislate professional status of journalists
It isn’t every day somebody volunteers for government regulation, but that is the strange case in Quebec where journalists are debating whether the National Assembly should legislate rules of the trade. The Ministry of Culture last week began reviewing submissions on its proposal to “adopt a professional status for journalists,” to be policed by […]
Internet? Parliament Hill is biggest paper mill in country, shipped by the truckload
Parliament Hill is the biggest paper mill in the country. They ship it by the truckload. When Ottawa discovered the internet 17 years ago they put it on paper, in a news release. “The government increasingly appears to be out of date,” the Treasury Board reported in 1994. It published a document, Blueprint for […]
Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television revising its regulations for 2012 awards
OTTAWA—Can you buy a Gemini? “I’d hope not—but there have been rumblings,” I was told by a juror at the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, sponsors of the award. “The fact is there are broadcasters who can outvote anybody.” “I don’t believe it is possible to buy a Gemini,” said Helga Stephenson, interim […]
Conservative MP Dechert stumbles
The knock-down 41st Parliament is back in session; only for a moment is there pause to reflect on the unhappy saga of “Love Bob” Dechert. He is the Mississauga MP made into a Punch and Judy figure over leaks of secret emails to a lady friend named Shi Rong. Dechert became a caricature: the […]
Harper picks his new PMO director of communications
Columnist Angelo Persichilli, late of The Hill Times, has complained there are too many French people in Parliament. Bilingualism is a waste of money, he added, and French translations are “annoying.” He wrote that French-speaking reporters may not be trustworthy and English ones are even worse: lazy, shallow “animals.” Persichilli last week started work […]
Former Senator Lavigne’s conviction ‘triumph’ for Canadian democracy
"Why me?" cried ex-senator Raymond Lavigne, sentenced to jail for fraud this summer; "I don't deserve this." Lavigne showed no remorse and uttered no apology. He scorned his tormentors. "They" had attacked him, he said, pained his family, "assassinated me in the media." The judge was coldly efficient. "No one is above the law," he […]
Outside of politics, Layton was a ‘fish in water,’ it taught him a lot
It was scarcely sunrise in Vancouver and Canada’s Olympic swim coach Tom Johnson was remembering the last time he spoke with Jack Layton. “It was two months ago; he sent me photos of when we were nine years old,” Johnson said. The collection of snapshots showed the boys poolside in Hudson, Que. “We were little […]
Any finance minister that brings in a flat tax would be tarred and feathered
Flat taxers, the eccentric fringe of Canadian politics, took a heavy blow this past week when one of the richest men on earth endorsed graduated income tax. Rational people settled this argument a century ago. Amazingly the debate lingers in government circles. Tycoon Warren Buffett wrote in a New York Times commentary that, at 17 […]
License plates most enduring political statement Canadians have
Spotted: 11 different license plates in one parking lot. There were 11 scripted mottos contrived by legislatures to inspire the people. The results were uneven, from banal (“Yours To Discover”—Ontario) to poetic (“Land Of Living Skies”—Saskatchewan). Each was stamped in aluminum plate that’ll survive a century in landfill. License plates may be the most enduring […]
Journalism, like baseball, is hard: hours are terrible hours, no security, and every error recorded
Journalism, like baseball, is hard—terrible hours, no security, with every error recorded. So it was a minor summer sensation when a rookie journalist quit the field in a very public way after expressing disgust over “a growing gap between the reporter I played on TV and the person I really am,” he wrote. The author […]
