How do you tell Canadians and Americans apart at a dinner party?
It was a provocative question that stopped a famous Canadian cold. Years later it still begs a response. Could you answer it? In 1959 Maclean’s Ottawa editor Blair Fraser recorded a television interview with Vincent Massey at the Governor General’s Port Hope, Ont., home. Massey prided himself a connoisseur of culture. He collected Canadian art, […]
Media cast G20 anarchists as common criminals: they’re not
Media shocked, shocked by the G20 fiasco cast rioting anarchists as common criminals prone to senseless violence. They were wrong on both counts. They were uncommon criminals who targeted the property of corporations and police in a calculated, methodical way. The violence was political. This fact appears so upsetting to journalists—that “violence” and “politics” are […]
Everybody cooked once, now home cooking is rare and indifferent
The Hill Times used to publish recipes submitted by lawmakers and Parliamentary staff. Why we dropped that feature I’ll never know. My favourite recipe circa 1994 was from Reform MP Lee Morrison—a Saskatchewan dish we nicknamed “Meal In A Bowl” comprised mainly of chipped beef, fried onions, and evaporated milk. It was outstanding. Everybody cooked […]
Are silver-haired baby boomers angling for one last subsidy?
Are silver-haired baby boomers angling for one last subsidy? Blessed with long lives and easy credit, the bailout generation is now easing into retirement after 65 wonderful years of the most sustained economic growth in the nation’s history. Yet Canadians last week awoke to a panic over boomers’ pensions that would take billions of dollars […]
Who qualifies to be most powerful person in land? How do they get the job?
Who qualifies to become the most powerful person in the land? And how do they get the job? As another Prime Minister secretly prepares to appoint another Governor General without input from the public, those questions remain unasked and unanswered in Parliament and media. It is a strange way to run a country. Only a […]
Mulroney’s friends spent years reconstructing him, now can start all over again
Paid publicists and their media friends spent years—years—reconstructing Brian Mulroney. It was one of the biggest attempted makeovers of all time. Yet the most recurring image of the former prime minister remains that of a chronic fabulist with a knack for alibis. “Forever tainted,” The Sudbury Star wrote last week. “Galling,” said The Halifax Chronicle […]
Newspaper accused of suspending blog for fear of offending Minto Corporation
Did a champion of press freedom cut news coverage that criticized a major advertiser? That’s the question for the Ottawa Citizen of the creditor-protected Canwest chain. The Citizen co-sponsors annual awards of the Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom. Its publisher James Orban is chairman. Orban has spent more than 30 years in newspapers as […]
Either Trudeau or Diefenbaker bound to receive twenty-dollar bill tribute
It’s a political wager worth at least a cool twenty. The $20 banknote is the last Canadian paper currency in circulation that depicts a portrait of Elizabeth II. A thousand-dollar Queen note was withdrawn in 2000. At 83, Elizabeth’s reign is drawing to a close. With other bills depicting prime ministers, who should get the […]
‘Discrimination’ now a synonym for griping, used to invoke raw injustice
Conservatives pulled $397,500 in funding for the Toronto Gay Pride festival, but gave a fat grant to a rodeo in the Prime Minister’s hometown. That’s politics, ma. Or is it? Colleagues read dark meaning into the grant announcement. “Homophobic,” said The Canadian Press. ” Anti-gay,” said The Toronto Star. “Purely fiscal,” said the National Post. […]
Month of May not worst time for traffic deaths and injuries
It’s the longest-running story in Canadian journalism, the count of traffic casualties in May. “Trauma season,” The Windsor Star once called it. Someone will interview witnesses and retrieve photographs from victims’ families. Reporters who’ve covered this story never forgot it. I recall as a radio reporter attending the funeral mass of boys killed in one […]
