Maclean's Magazine (May 9 2011)

RICK MERCER GOES ON THE ROAD WITH HARPER, LAYTON & IGGY P.21 HOW TO GET PEOPLE TO DO THINGS P.69 WHO ANDREW COYNE IS V...

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RICK MERCER GOES ON THE ROAD WITH HARPER, LAYTON & IGGY P.21

HOW TO GET PEOPLE TO DO THINGS P.69

WHO ANDREW COYNE IS VOTING FOR P.26

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Nobody gave Jack Layton a chance. Now he’s the biggest story of the 2011 election. How he did it. P.17

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M AY 9, 2 0 11 • V O L U M E 1 2 4 • N U M B E R 17

Boyden on BP p.34

Extreme success p.54

4 From the Editors

|

Nim at Hot Docs p.62

| 10 Good News/Bad News | 11 Newsmakers | 15 Interview Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen Paul Wells on why federal elections are never as predictable as pundits project 74 The End Anthony Joseph McColl, 1992-2011

6 Letters

14 Columns

In harmony? U.S. and Canadian businesses are banding together

National

to encourage their governments to ease border regulations ............. 36 ON THE COVER: Jack’s out of the box: The NDP’s campaign surge

is a product of pure 21st-century election strategy ............................ 17

International notes ....................................................................... 39

Git along: Rick Mercer on what he learned during his week at the dude ranch—er, on the campaign trail with Harper, Layton and Iggy ... 21 Where have all the idealists gone? Young voters care more about

their future standard of living than education and the environment .... 24 A sharp left: The media was slow to react to Jack Layton’s surge ...... 25 COVER: PAUL CHIASSON/CP; LAWRENCE MANNING/CORBIS; ISTOCK; PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JASON LOGAN. THIS PAGE: PATRICK SEMANSKY/AP; JON KOPALOFF/GETTY IMAGES; HARRY BENSON

Choose carefully: Andrew Coyne decides his ballot question, and who

Business An eye for sales: A giant of the online optical products market ....... 40 The price is rising: Inﬂation took a huge leap in March .................. 42 Business notes .............................................................................. 44

he will vote for ................................................................................. 26

A greener future: Making the environment a big part of business ..... 47

What does Canada want? An all-party debate hosted by Maclean’s

Looking good in green: The companies who top the Green 30 list .... 47

and CPAC looks at the big issues ahead of the election ..................... 28 James Moore: Vancouver’s only cabinet minister is a libertarian

Society

Conservative who embraces the arts and transgender rights ............. 31 National notes/Capital Diary ....................................................... 32

Fight club: UFC ﬁnds a loyal, lucrative and bloodthirsty audience .... 54 Monarchists: Canada’s relationship to the Crown ........................... 57

International

Rise and chime: Wedding watchers prepare to get up early ............. 58

Spilling over: Joseph Boyden on how little has been learned in the

year since the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon ........................ 34

Dino dudes: Proud paleontologists get competitive......................... 60 Asian fashion: Cross-continental inﬂuence cuts both ways ...............61

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The real story in the last week of the federal election campaign may not be Jack Layton so much as it is the professionalization of his New Democratic party. So often Canadian voters have ﬂirted with scrappy wellintentioned New Democratic underdogs; equally often, they have decided in the end that men like T.C. Douglas and Ed Broadbent were better ﬁtted for the bridesmaid’s gown than the bride’s. From the polling evidence, however, it appears we are taking an unusually close look at the goods this time. But please don’t say it’s because Jack Layton is a “ﬁghter” or a “happy warrior.” NDP leaders have been peddling this sort of selfmythologizing since the ink was moist on the Regina Manifesto. None of it ever managed to get any of them inside the gates of the federal Opposition leader’s residence. Layton has an outside chance of making it. And there are two interrelated reasons: he has been fortunate in the Liberals’ choice of leader, and his team is excellent at staging, advertising and using new technology to reach voters. Gone, mostly, is the patina of amateurishness that was once a trademark of NDP-made media. One senses that we are witnessing the consequence of a deep seismic shift; Liberal internal fractiousness seems to

have driven off the best young political professionals, as it drove off potential Liberal prime ministers such as Frank McKenna and John Manley. Despite these advantages, it is by no means certain that Layton will seal the deal. In the last week of campaigning, voters will have time to re-examine the New Democratic platform and decide whether they are really so keen on a dramatic increase in payroll taxes; on the expensive construction of an apparatus for cap and trade carbon credits without an advance guarantee of U.S. participation; on a corporate tax hike that gives nine-tenths of economists a migraine; and on just plain twerpish stuff like the reintroduction of the federal minimum wage and supports for locally grown and organic food. (It would be hard to ﬁnd a better deﬁnition of stupidity than for a national party to have any position at all on “local” and “organic.”) And then, of course, voters will have to take a careful look at what’s not in the platform. In front of eastern audiences, Layton is full of barbs and warnings directed at the “dirty” oil sands—a business in which, for better or worse, a whole nation of workers, taxpayers, shareholders and pensioners now has a stake. He no longers talks of a moratorium on new

oil sands development; that part of his spiel has been bagged and shoved into the crawl space, along with the party’s traditional support for marijuana decriminalization. The ofﬁcial NDP platform is also silent on the Constitution, yet it turns out that Mr. Layton has quite a lot to say about it. He said in Quebec on April 26 that “we have a quarter of our population who have never signed the Constitution,” calling this a “signiﬁcant gap” that “has to be addressed someday”— and maybe soon, should there exist “some

THis week on THe web

What happens now to Harper, Ignatieﬀ, For all the latest news and analysis about the federal election, go to THe web PoLL

THe bLoGGeRs

What is the most neglected issue so far in this election campaign?

anDreW potter on why

25.8%

29.2%

The environment

Aboriginal issues

17.4%

14.4%

Democratic reform

The deﬁcit

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the escape of 500 Taliban ﬁghters from Kandahar’s Sarpoza prison is a major-league disaster

Other

13.2%

4

PHOTOGRAPH BY COLE GARSIDE

The NDP surge, and what’s at stake in this election

MAY 9, 2011

jesse broWn

on why the fact your phone stores data about your location is a bigger deal than the fact Apple does

AdriAn Wyld/CP

reasonable chance of success.” It must have been startling for long-time NDP supporters in English Canada to hear their leader espouse the Bloc Québécois view of the Constitution as unﬁnished business. Was it for this, rather than for social-democratic public policy, that New Democrats in Burnaby, B.C., and Kenora, Ont., and Baie-Verte, Nﬂd., have been toiling all along? It won’t mean much unless someone can manage to suppress the Conservative vote share, which has remained fairly intractable

throughout the campaign; Stephen Harper’s supporters won’t abandon him, by and large, but he’s failing to add to them in any discernible number. The Tories have adopted a strategy of “microtargeting,” going for a majority more or less by making their existing vote more efﬁcient. Up to a point, Canada’s ﬂirtation with Laytonmania makes this goal easier, dividing the “progressive” opposition as evenly as possible. Which is ﬁne. The evidence for a Harper “hidden agenda” of social-conservative reaction is meagre; meanwhile, the shared LaytonIgnatieff agenda of old-school protectionism and corporate taxation squats in plain sight. This difference is important, though increasingly neglected. Purists of the ﬁscal right like to make despairing criticisms of the Conservatives for their occasional sins against economic orthodoxy. But Canada is emerging in pretty good shape from a recession that has threatened the integrity of the European Union, left the British welfare state in a shambles, and cast ugly shadows on the solvency of the U.S.A. Harper has held the line laid by Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin, preserving the relatively open and competitive nature of Canada’s economy. Despite some polite participation in the worldwide orgy of anti-recessionary “stimulus,” he has not come close to expanding government to its former size relative to GDP. Much of the resistance to a Conservative majority is based on the perception that it’s something to be feared. But it would be foolish to let ephemeral, poorly founded fears stampede us into an embrace with positive risks to our prosperity.

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Letters

‘To hold esteem for this Pope is an example of how faith is not compatible with reason, but privileged against it’

‘Regarding faith and reason, Pope Benedict XVI simply follows a long Catholic intellectual tradition’

Brad Belchamber, London, Ont.

Yes, the Pope is Catholic Brian Bethune is right: Pope Benedict XVI has said much more about the Church’s ongoing sex abuse scandals than his predecessor ever did (“Rebel with a cross,” International, April 25). But action is what protects kids, not words. And words are pretty much all that Benedict has offered in response to this horriﬁc scandal. He’s made a few symbolic gestures, like meeting with a handful of victims. But that’s about it. He hasn’t even adopted a global zero-tolerance policy, much less begun the process of implementing it. Confusing words with deeds does a serious disservice to the hundreds who have been assaulted by clergy. And doing so does nothing to protect children at risk right now around child-molesting clerics. David Clohessy, Executive Director, SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), St. Louis, Mo. When speaking of evolution, it’s erroneous to claim that Pope Benedict XVI bridged the relationship between “the Church’s belief about humanity’s true spiritual nature with science’s revelations about our physical nature.” While Benedict may have made this claim, it is not a new one in Roman Catholicism. The ﬁrst papal pronouncement on the topic of evolution was actually made in 1950 by Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Humani Generis. In this document, Pius XII stated that the evolutionary theory did not pose a problem to Church 6

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teaching as long as the sanctity of was otherwise a welcome article human life and its spiritual nature on an important world ﬁgure. were not undermined. Eddy Rogers, Barrie, Ont. Rev. Tony Costa, Toronto In the face of mounting evidence Only several weeks ago, three regarding Pope Benedict XVI’s priests and a Roman Catholic collusion in impeding the investischool ofﬁcial in Philadelphia were gation into sex abuse cases by secucharged with rape after intoxicat- lar authorities over many decades, ing kids with sacramental wine. Brian Bethune suggests that the Then the cardinal assured every- Pope’s internal work in the Church one there were no more pedophiles has “borne fruit” at reducing these on his payroll—until the newspaper cases’ prevalence today. This is ran an article the next day with unrealistically optimistic speculaevidence to the contrary. Suddenly tion. The Pope may be polite in over 20 more priests were sus- his gross misrepresentations and pended. The very next week, Jes- full of apologies for despicable uits in the northwestern U.S. paid actions, but those are not good $165 million in damages—this in reasons to pretend his intentions addition to the $2 billion already now are benign, reasonable, and paid in the U.S. alone. Benedict worthy of respect. To hold esteem is in an uphill battle. for this Pope and his record is a good example of how faith is not W.J. Lomax, Durham, Ont. compatible with reason, but privIt is a shame that Maclean’s often ileged against it. combines interesting articles with Brad Belchamber, London, Ont. needlessly provocative and misleading covers. “Is the Pope Cath- Flapping gums olic?” and its tag line mentioning It is a real insult to watch a federal evolution and sex were clearly party leaders’ debate where one intended to make liberal secular- of the participants doesn’t even ists salivate with anticipation, and want to be a Canadian (“Come Catholics furious enough to pick on, get angry,” National, April up their own copies. With regards 25). As a matter of policy, the Bloc to faith and reason, religion and Québécois does not run candiscience, Benedict simply follows a dates outside Quebec, and its long Catholic intellectual tradition, principal agenda is secession. Yet while the meaning and implica- there is Gilles Duceppe, with the tions of his ruminations on male gall to lecture non-Quebecers on prostitution and condom use were the performance of our Prime rather overblown by the media. In Minister, who, if we were to ignore suggesting that Benedict was tend- the Bloc seats, would have a clear ing in some kind of radical direc- majority in Parliament. At the tion, your front cover spoiled what same time, a bona ﬁde federal M AY 9, 2 0 11

political leader who runs candidates in all constituencies—Elizabeth May—is not allowed in the room. Maybe next time we should invite the leader of the German Christian Democrats to take part in our debates, or Raúl Castro. Garth Klatt, Calgary In the debates, Stephen Harper used the word “bickering” repeatedly, saying that his opponents’ “bickering” prevented him from doing his job. “Bickering” is the opposition’s job, after all, and they represent more Canadians combined than the Conservatives do. He seems to be telling the country that we are whining, that we should be quiet and let the grownups handle things. Why aren’t more people angry about this? Robert Roaldi, Ottawa

Stephen Harper’s incessant boasting that only he can provide the economic stability that Canada needs is hard to fathom. If it is true, as he claims, that Canada’s performance during the global recession was the envy of the world, this was due to the banking system put in place by previous governments. In fact, prior to their election, the Conservatives were in favour of mergers to take Canada’s banks global. Had Paul Martin not prevented that from happening, we may well have seen some of our banks requiring the same massive bailouts as other globalized banks around the world. As custodian of our economy, his government added 44,000 jobs to the

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ANOTHER FIRST. ONLY FROM

Letters federal civil service and squandered $1.2 billion on the G8 photo ops— hardly ﬁnancial prudence. Gail E. Hasler, Ottawa

I watched the English and French debates with a heavy heart. Stephen Harper’s government has removed respected civil servants because they did not agree with his agenda. Harper came to power on a platform of “integrity,” yet his party now faces charges regarding funding during that same campaign. He created a commission for whistle-blowers to clean up Ottawa, chaired by Christiane Ouimet—who was dismissed in disgrace but waltzed off with a half-million-dollar handshake. I watched the debates looking for any hint of remorse, any apology to Canadians for his disrespect of their institutions. Harper just repeated his mantra about needing a majority. And he hammered away at not needing “more elections”—yet it was he that called two of the past three. Doreen McRitchie, Guelph, Ont.

Too important to be bilingual I take issue with Philip Slayton’s desire for Supreme Court judges to be bilingual (Interview, April 25). Some people are certainly more capable in both languages than others. But if it were your case going to the Supreme Court, would you want your translation done by the judge who took the bilingual upgrade course, or would you want it done by a professional translator who does that job every day? Robert Graham, Claremont, Ont.

Medical isolation The sadness I felt reading the story of Htoo K’Bru Paw (The End, April 18) and knowing the plight of the Karen people of Burma is coupled with my frustration that refugees upon entry into Canada are not provided with a family doctor. As a volunteer with the Karen community in Ottawa, I witness ﬁrsthand evidence of illness and disease that have never been diagnosed. 8

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Hampered by limited English and a lack of experience with complex medical procedures, Karen refugees coming to Canada struggle. Thus the irony: relatively safe but unsanitary lives in the refugee camps, or sanitary but somewhat isolated lives in Canada. Mindy Woolcott, Ottawa

the Coyotes. But what about the people of Winnipeg? Didn’t the people of Glendale steal jobs from that city when they took this team and ran it into the ground with the second-worst attendance record in the NHL this past year? Historical data shows that this past Coyotes season had worse attendance than every Jets Don’t cry for us, Arizona season from 1979-1995. So who I was surprised and taken aback really deserves this franchise? by Jonathon Gatehouse’s portrayal Matthew Yeoman, Vancouver of the Phoenix Coyotes saga in his article “Dust-up in the desert” What did he see in her, then? (Business, April 18). Gatehouse Let’s assume that the supposed presents a sentimental portrait of shortcomings of Helena Guersuffering hockey fans and players gis—as intimated by Stephen in Arizona. Sports economics are Harper—are true: that she was fairly simple. In order to thrive in inexperienced, in over her head, any given city, a sports franchise unpredictable and a poor team

their calculators. There are thousands upon thousands waiting to be saved—and I’m not talking about the dollars. Dayna Mazzuca, Victoria

Quality of mercy My Christian conscience informs me to feel compassion for Ralph Klein’s tragic situation dealing with dementia (“A ﬁnal public service in a long, distinguished career,” From the Editors, April 25). I looked after a spouse afﬂicted with Alzheimer’s during the Klein years of slash-and-burn cuts to the health system. It was by sheer luck that I was able to get my spouse into a facility that had not yet been privatized, at a time when Klein was ﬁring the thou-

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must have three key elements in place: strong fan support, a dedicated ownership group and a proper playing facility. Glendale lacks the ﬁrst two elements, just as Winnipeg was lacking a willing ownership group and proper arena when the Jets relocated 15 years ago. It is time for the NHL to stop propping up a losing endeavour in Arizona and allow the relocation of its franchise to Winnipeg, which now has all the key ingredients for professional hockey to succeed. Joel Ruest, Winnipeg The main photograph for this story features a woman holding a sign reading “Glendale = Coyotes = Jobs.” Which is odd: I’m certain Glendale existed before

player (“Working the comeback trail,” National, April 25). Why, then, did he appoint her minister of state for the status of women? Then, when she becomes troublesome he drives her off into the snowy night and permits words like “cocaine,” “criminal” and “prostitute” to follow in her wake, just in case she has any notions of ﬁnding a position in his or any other manor house. Don Bennett, Haileybury, Ont.

Finding savings Wonderful news about the lastminute deal in the U.S. to ban public funding on abortions in Washington to save money (“Fiscal faceoff on Capitol Hill,” International, April 25). Here’s hoping our own political leaders dust off

M AY 9, 2 0 11

sands of nurses that Alberta is now trying to recruit. I feel sorry for him and his wife, Colleen, but I must separate those emotions from his terrible legacy, which we are now trying to repair at potentially enormous cost. Hans-Juergen Kirstein, St. Albert, Alta.

We can’t handle the truth Andrew Coyne says it’s “Time for a Truth in Politics Act” (National, April 18), but as a Jack Nicholson character once said, “You can’t handle the truth!” No one acknowledges what the deﬁcit means for future budgets and election promises. The reason is simple: who would tell the truth to an electorate in denial? Do we want to hear that for the next 10 years the Can-

adian government must cut spending, increase taxes and rescind their election promises? Where do you ﬁnd pragmatic politicians, free from ideological constraints, with the ability to plan realistic budgets? Neil MacAlpine, Devon, Alta. That politicians are allowed to blatantly lie during their pre-election campaign tour without any repercussions more threatening than the possibility of not being re-elected next time infuriates me. Allowing this practice to continue will surely have an effect on dwindling voter turnout. Rick Carlson, Baltimore, Ont.

The only cure for old age Barbara Amiel is on to something when she ponders “free hemlock on prescription” for the greying society (“It’s true: ‘What I want back is what I was,’ ” Opinion, April 25). I am sure that many baby boomers—along with octogenarians like myself—will wish that there was a “little green pill” available to end the aggravations of chronic illness, let alone the pain of terminal illness. Doctors, medical ethicists and the religious all assume it is wrong to act on the wish to have it over. Nonsense! They are just covering their own butts against litigation or ostracism. Fewer and fewer people believe in a hereafter that might deter them. Reason, research and biology all make fantasies out of such beliefs. It is not death that people fear; it’s the question of what kind of processes one must go through. Bring on the “little green pill”— a safe and painless exit. Maurice A. Rhodes, Nelson, B.C.

that Tilikum—the killer whale whose fate is now being decided in Florida, where it killed yet another trainer—is not going to be released into the wild during his lifetime because he does not know how to live in that environment. Frankly, since no killer whale has ever splashed out of the demonstration pool to dine on a spectator, it appears that the only folks with any real concern should be those who are in the tank training the whales. So long as their participation remains voluntary and continues without spectator deaths, these raised-in-captivity whales provide a rare opportunity for many regular people to see and learn much about these incredible animals. Brian Erickson, San Antonio, Texas

Your editorial “What to do about a killer killer whale” (From the Editors, April 18) ultimately agrees

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Awesomely antiquated Sarah Lazarovic’s article on the apparent emergence of “awesome” as the new all-purpose superlative of current English (“This story is awesome,” Language,” April 25) may be out of date. When I used the word to impress my grandson, he made a face: “Awesome?” he said scornfully. “That’s sooo nineties!” Andrzej Derkowski, Oakville, Ont.

Editor’s Note A column in last week’s Maclean’s (“One thing I’ll say for Bruce Carson,” National, April 25) made reference to an invitation extended by Tony Clement to a representative of South Africa’s apartheid government to debate at the University of Toronto in the mid-1980s. Mr. Clement did so to protect the principle of free speech. Mr. Clement opposed Barbara Amiel ain’t seen nothin’ apartheid and anticipated the yet. She’s still only a junior senior ambassador, Glen Babb, would with good health and good meet a hostile audience. looks. We welcome readers to submit William Bedford, Toronto letters to either [email protected]

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This week

Good News Khadr context Omar Khadr should never have spent nine years of his young life locked inside the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. But as the Toronto native prepares for his imminent return to Canada—and the hero’s welcome he will no doubt receive—newly released Pentagon documents offer a timely reminder of why the Scarborough-born teenager was such a prized catch. According to a 2004 intelligence assessment published on the WikiLeaks website, Khadr’s father was alQaeda’s “fourth in command,” and young Omar provided “valuable information” about the inner workings of Osama bin Laden’s network. Child or not, Khadr was hardly a naive bystander.

N.C., a high school basketball coach saved dozens from a tornado by herding 300 players and parents into a safe area of the school—just before the twister began shredding cars and ﬂipping vans. Then on Sunday, crew members on an Alitalia ﬁight from Paris to Rome overpowered a would-be hijacker who was armed with a knife, and who demanded to be ﬂown to Libya. Not everyone can play the saviour. But when crisis calls, it’s reassuring to know that some folks step up. A young Korean monk prepares for the birthday celebration of Buddha

from the advocacy group Active Healthy Kids Canada, says only seven per cent of children in the video game generation get the recommended 60 minutes of daily Resurrecting road hockey “active play.” Which is precisely Another week, another dooms- why we’re rooting for Alexander day report about Canada’s obes- Anderson, Andrew Polanyi, Liam ity epidemic. The latest version, McMahon and Bowen Pausey.

#$%! Tylenol

Researchers have found a natural remedy for stubbed toes and hammered thumbs: swearing at the top of your lungs. According to a British study, F-bombs and other curse words help relieve drastic pain, especially if the person cussDoing the right thing ing isn’t a typical potty mouth. It was a good week for those who Michael Ignatieff may want to act on instinct. In Fayetteville, remember that tip next week. The Toronto teens are petitioning the city to overturn its long-standing ban on road hockey—a misguided bylaw that has no place in any Canadian neighbourhood.

Spare us the spin

Bashar al-Assad’s bloody crackdown on Syrian protesters drove home the cost of political freedom in certain Arab countries—leaving open the question of whether the international community is willing to help pay the price. No sooner had U.S. drones levelled part of Moammar Gadhaﬁ’s compound in Tripoli than al-Assad unleashed tanks and troops on his own people, killing as many as 25 in Daraa. Britain, France and other countries voiced outrage, but having already committed air and logistical support in Libya, the best they could do was seek a toothless condemnation from the UN Security Council. The longawaited Arab Awakening may yet reach Damascus. For now, though, it must proceed without help.

Well, that’s puzzling: after the fatal tasering of Robert Dziekanski, the mysterious death of a man in custody in Houston, B.C., a series of botched 911 calls in Saskatchewan, an ofﬁcer’s kick to the face of a co-operative driver in Kelowna, and obstruction of justice charges against an allegedly drunk-driving Mountie who killed a motorcyclist, a survey has found that nearly 85 per cent of Canadians still trust the RCMP. And who commissioned this survey? The RCMP, you say? Never mind. Puzzle solved.

Protesters rejected a proposal to end Yemen’s months-long uprising

military mission in Kandahar: training Afghan security forces. Perhaps they could help the prison guards, too. In a plot straight out of Hollywood, nearly 500 inmates— including senior Taliban comShawshank Kandahar manders—escaped from the SaraLater this year, Canadian soldiers posa jail through an underground will begin the next phase of our tunnel burrowed by insurgent 10

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allies on the outside. A Taliban spokesman said the getaway route took ﬁve months to dig, with the help of “skilled professionals” and “trained engineers.” Said one escapee, in between giggles: “The guards are always drunk. Either they smoke heroin or marijuana, and then they just fall asleep.”

MAY 9, 2011

Head in the clouds The union representing U.S. air trafﬁc controllers is pushing for new measures to stop members from sleeping on the job. Their recommendation? Monitored naps. Here’s a better suggestion: a coffee maker in each tower, and a good night’s sleep. At home.

TruTh Leem/reuTers; KhaLed abduLLah/reuTers

bad News Rude awakening

Newsmakers The Donald’s shameful secret, Bill Gates gets a piece of Canadiana, and Alaska’s ﬁrst ofﬁcial pooper scooper Vote as I say, not as I vote The man who’s considering running for the Republican primary presidential nomination has been accused of failing to cast a ballot in similar elections for more than two decades. According to the New York City Board of Elections, Donald Trump voted in the 1989 New York City mayoral race, then didn’t make it to a polling station for a primary for 21 years. Trump denied the reports, but wasted no time continuing his tirade against another man’s personal records— Barack Obama’s birth certiﬁcate. After Robert De Niro suggested the real estate mogul should check his facts on the citizenship issue, The Donald ﬁred back, saying De Niro “is not the brightest bulb on the planet.”

The Pope will now take questions

GARY CORONADO/THE PALM BEACH POST/ZUMA/KEYSTONE PRESS

One of religion’s primary challenges may still be explaining the problem of evil, but its platform for doing so has expanded. For the Vatican’s inaugural “Question Time” TV broadcast on Good Friday—a ﬁrst in the Catholic Church’s history—Pope Benedict XVI answered seven questions,

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selected from more than 3,000, all of them about suffering. The Pontiff responded to an Italian mother wondering about her comatose son’s soul, a Muslim woman in Ivory Coast asking how to end violence in her country, and a Japanese child asking why so many of her peers have to suffer through natural disasters. He served up all kinds of popely wisdom, but had to pause at the Japanese girl’s query. “I also have the same questions,” he admitted. “And we do not have the answers, but we know that Jesus suffered as you do . . . and that the true God who is revealed in Jesus is by your side.”

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This much you can say of Russia After getting swept out of the NHL playoffs, Phoenix Coyotes goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov responded to rumours his ﬁnancially troubled team might relocate to Winnipeg next season. “You don’t want to go to Winnipeg, right?” the 30-year-old Russian said. It’s cold and there is “no park, no entertaining for the families, for the kids. It’s going to be tough life for your family,” he

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This week

You can dance if you wants to

Ilya Bryzgalov

added. That characterization of Winnipeg prompted the city’s mayor, Sam Katz, this week to offer to pay to ﬂy the goalie to Winnipeg to show him there are indeed parks in the Prairies. “When he sees the variety of culture, arts and sports, and all the activities in our wonderful city, he might have a completely different opinion,” Katz told the Winnipeg Sun. Bryzgalov nevertheless has said if his only option is to play NHL hockey in the Peg, he’d rather go home to Russia where it’s also cold, but at least everyone speaks Russian.

Arnold for president? He made a smooth transition from Hollywood stardom to two terms as the “Governator” of California, and now Arnold Schwarzenegger may take the European Union presidency as his next coup. His former chief of staff Terry Tamminen told Newsweek, “In the next few years, the EU will be looking for a much more high-proﬁle president— somebody who can unify Europe.” He went on to suggest “a European-born person who went off to America” could return to act as “the Washington or Jefferson of a new uniﬁed Europe.” Tamminen has advised Schwarzenegger to try for the job next spring, when the next EU president will be chosen. Though Schwarzenegger did not comment, his wife, Maria Shriver, said: “No 12

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Call him Disco Medvedev. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has become a YouTube sensation since a video of him wiggling robotically to the Soviet-era hit matter what Arnold decides to American Boy attracted nearly do, I’m sure he’ll have fun doing four million hits. Wearing a trim it, and it will have impact.” blue jacket and jeans, the leader of one of the world’s nuclear powLet them eat sea salt ers seemed relaxed as he swayed Only in Mexico, where seashores draw people from around the world, could putting a beach smack dab in the centre of a city be seen as a populist project. Marcelo Ebrard, the mayor of Mexico City, is being accused of trying to gain support for his candidacy in the 2012 presidential election by installing “urban beaches” in the megalopolis, where people can play volleyball and splash around for free. Ebrard says he’s just trying to create safe public spaces for Mexicans—at the cost of $600,000 per year. Critics are not convinced, however. Political columnist Rafael Cardona told Al Jazeera, “He brings you the illusion that you have Acapulco within one block of your home. But your home has no water supply, no good transportation, no public schools available, no quality of education, no nothing.”

A Kate closer to home The timing of Emmylou Harris’s newly released song Darlin’ Kate may leave a certain royal consort-to-be thinking she’s being immortalized in music. But the Kate in question is Harris’s good friend, the late Montreal folksinger Kate McGarrigle. The performers met in the 1970s, when they recorded with the

and clapped to the music at a private party. Natalya Timakova, a Kremlin spokeswoman, was not so amused by the incident. She said the video showed a lack of respect for privacy and believed a caterer at the event shot the footage clandestinely.

A very special blast-off Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona congresswoman who suffered a bullet wound to the head when a gunman opened ﬁre at a political event in Tucson, has seen her astronaut husband, Mark Kelly, go into space twice before: ﬁrst, in 2006, when they were dating, and then in 2008, shortly after she went to Congress. On Friday, it’ll be different. She’s still in rehabilitation, and needed clearance to attend the event from the team of health

She’s mum on the subject Just when Carla Bruni said she can see herself playing a political role beyond being French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s arm candy, she’s been put on baby bump alert. The Élysée has been mum about the rumoured pregnancy, while Le Figaro, Le Journal du Dimanche, Le Parisien et al. all report she’s expecting a second child. (Her ﬁrst, Aurelien, with philosophy prof Raphaël Enthoven, was born in 2001.) But if this knocks her feud with Alessandra Mussolini off the news, maybe she won’t mind.

MAY 9, 2011

CHRISTIAN PETERSEN/GETTY IMAGES; ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

same record label, and they were frequent collaborators. Last year, the mother of Rufus and Martha Wainwright lost a battle to cancer, and since then, says Harris, “I really do miss Kate a lot.” In the piano song on her new album, Hard Bargain, she sings: “If there was one name I could consecrate / It would be yours, it would be Kate.”

professionals who are caring for her. She’ll also be joined at the Kennedy Space Center by family, friends, even Barack Obama. She’s just relearning how to talk, but Kelly told Katie Couric that when his wife learned she could attend the launch, “I think she said, ‘awesome,’ and she pumped her ﬁst.”

KEN MCKAY; MAVRIXPHOTO/KEYSTONE PRESS

Schoolhouse rock

trowel, “prospecting for nuggets left behind by the town’s dogs during winter.” Stern felt it was “penance” for not cleaning up all her dog’s doo-doo, but she plans to stop after collecting 10 gallons. Cleaning up the town may encourage other residents to make an effort, she said. “It may show a little bit more that people care. One pile of poop does make a difference.”

Step aside, Susan Boyle. A 35-yearold Glaswegian, World’s biggest Edward Reid, brought memories nerd gets world’s of the churchgoing Edward Reid biggest train set cat lady when he If you want to go went viral for an oddly winning straight to the top to complain compilation of nursery rhymes about late delivery of your rail on Britain’s Got Talent. The drama shipment of wood pellets, try Bill teacher-turned-singer cooed such Gates. Though it’s well-known the childhood classics as Old Mac- American billionaire has his ﬁnger Donald, If You’re Happy and You in many investment pies, from Know It, Clap Your Hands and nuclear reactor technology to treatTwinkle, Twinkle, Little Star to the ment for HIV through his charitsoulful tune of Snow Patrol’s bal- able foundation, he’s now also the lad Run. The crowd screeched biggest shareholder in the Montwith delight and judges were im- real-based Canadian National Railpressed, including David Has- way. According to disclosures from selhoff, who rethe company, as of marked, “Jack and Feb. 25, the world’s Jill will never be the second-richest man same.” Since the owns or controls weekend, though, 10.04 per cent of Reid’s been emits shares. broiled in the kind of controversy fast A few reminders fame can bring: a of her career British cabaret Where better to reduo, Frisky and ﬂect on the meanMannish, have Lindsay Lohan ing of life than in said he stole the a morgue? Lindidea for his performance from say Lohan, the troubled actress their act. who seems to spend a lot of time in courtrooms these days, has been sentenced to 480 hours of comChanging the world munity service for violating her one scoop at a time Maggie Stern, a hairdresser in probation—a portion of which will Haines, Alaska, is deﬁnitely a be served doing janitorial work at glass-half-full woman. After she the L.A. County coroner’s ofﬁce. lost her sense of smell following “She won’t be handling any dead a skating injury, she decided to bodies, but she’ll certainly see volunteer doing something folks them,” assistant chief coroner Ed with working olfactory systems Winter told People magazine. would revile: pooper scooping. She’ll also see ﬂoors that need As the Chilkat Valley News put it, cleaning and waste bins that need she travels with an ice scraper and emptying. JULIA BELLUZ

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Opinion

a country gets its back up

at the issues that have raised their heads. Parliamentary democracy. Stephen Harper wanted to frame the election as a choice between a Conservative majority and a reckless opposition coalition. It took less than a day for that to turn into a lot of questions about what Harper was planning when he conspired with Layton and Gilles Duceppe after the 2004 election. Suddenly the discussion about Parliament’s role in selecting a government was a little messier than Harper would have liked. The cost of health care. Comically eager to avoid being caught offside on this key ﬁle, the parties spent April 8 rushing to commit to an annual six per cent increase in health care ﬁnancing, even after the current deal with the provinces runs out in 2014. Michael Ignatieff sent out an open letter pledging to extend the funding increases, even though there’s not a line about that in his platform. Stephen Harper, same thing. But then a few pesky observers pointed out that provincial health care costs haven’t been rising as fast as six per cent a year. Do we need to spend this money? Is there a better way? What can’t we afford to do if we do this? The role of the state. Questions like that lead inevitably to questions about how much government we need in our lives. Harper is sure he knows: we need less. There are no good taxes, he says. Ignatieff has been tentative in his response. And bafﬂed at the result: growing numbers of Canadians who are damned sure there are good taxes and good government have moved right past the Liberals to the NDP. The place of Quebec. Will the province at the centre of so many of our debates con-

tinue to elect MPs who only oppose? What vision of Canada attracts Quebecers as they ﬂirt with returning to large-scale support of pan-Canadian parties? The Parti Québécois may return to power; how should Ottawa respond? The tone of our politics. This is the subtlest driver of change in this campaign but perhaps the most powerful. For more than half a decade our national politics has been characterized by insult and denigration. The Liberals thought they could simply wait for Canadians to share their disdain for the Harper Conservatives. Harper viewed his large and stable minority of the electorate, a bit more than a third, as the only part of the country he needed to hear or even to address with any respect. He spent a king’s ransom destroying Michael Ignatieff ’s reputation. He has spent a month delivering warnings about his opponents and shooing away strangers. Ignatieff ’s polish cannot hide his preference for decrying Harper’s ideas instead of promoting his own. As for Gilles Duceppe, resentment and defensiveness have always been all he had to peddle. Layton is not perfect. His ideas for the country will leave many unpersuaded. But he rises because he at least acts like a guy who would rather ﬁx problems than ﬁx blame. Even if he fades in the stretch, something permanent will remain. A whole country has remembered that it does not like to be told what it may talk about and how it may react. And when a country gets its back up the way this one has, it will not go back to sleepy predictability any time soon.

Maybe now we can stop telling ourselves Canadian elections are predictable. It is fashionable in Ottawa circles before every election camPAUL WELLS paign to draw oneself back from the lunch table, let one’s gaze wander toward the ceiling, and announce to the room, “I don’t know why we’re even bothering to have an election, anyway. It’s not like it’ll change anything.” More often than not these weary predictions are wildly wrong. The 2000 election killed the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and—because Jean Chrétien was able to win a plurality in Quebec less than a year after he passed the Clarity Act—the political career of Lucien Bouchard. In 2004, Paul Martin came within an ace of losing power to an upstart Calgarian whom Liberals had viewed with contempt. In 2006, Stephen Harper took Martin down. In 2008, Harper conﬁrmed his hold on the seats he’d won and drove Stéphane Dion’s Liberals to their lowest share of the popular vote since Confederation. This year was set to be a rerun of 2008 in less vivid colours. Harper would run as the On the Web: For more Paul Wells, visit his blog at guy who’s serious about the economy. The macleans.ca/inklesswells Liberals would run apologetically as Conservatives who weren’t quite so conservative. Both sides would ﬂood the airwaves with negative ads while all our putative leaders ignored or muzzled big debates on hard questions. A bored nation would then return a new House full of MPs in roughly the same proportions as last time. But that’s not how it’s working out. The rise of Jack Layton’s NDP was the story of the campaign’s fourth week. At this writing I have no way to guess whether the NDP will keep rising, or fade away as it has done more than once before. But at any rate, the Layton phenomenon is hardly the only way Canadian voters have stubbornly refused to stick to their assigned role. Conversations are breaking out all over, honest-to-goodness debates, and all the campaign pros in all the war rooms won’t be able to herd us back into our tidy demographic stables again. Just look Layton rising: Though not perfect, he acts like a guy who’d rather ﬁx problems than ﬁx blame 14

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M AY 9, 2 0 11

Andrew VAughAn/CP

politics

Interview

MEMOIR

On searching for aliens, buying pro sports teams, and his two brushes with death Microsoft co-founder Paul allen in conversation with jason kirby

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRiS LAne/GeTTY imAGeS

Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates, but left after he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1982 and the two men had a falling out. Since then, Allen has used his fortune, estimated at US$13 billion, to buy sports teams, a submarine, build rocket ships and fund brain research, among other pursuits. In his new book Idea Man, which he wrote after a second cancer scare, Allen delves into his partnership with Gates and how it sparked the personal computer revolution. But he also reveals that working with Gates could be like “being in hell.” Q: It’s been two years since you were diagnosed with cancer for the second time in your life, this time non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. How is your health today? A: It’s good. I still have a few small after-effects, but I get tested every few months to make sure I’m still in remission. But I’m doing wonderfully better than when I was really sick when I ﬁrst started on the book. Q: Why write this book now? A: I’d been thinking about doing a book for

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a number of years, and when I got sick I just felt it was something I should focus on. It really helped me get through chemotherapy. I’d get up each day, work on the book a little bit. It was good therapy. Q: You’ve said one of the reasons for writing the book was to make sure history gets the story right. What was it that history was getting wrong about the formation of Microsoft? A: I wanted to tell the story from my perspective. My side of the story had never been in print. I felt people would be interested in that part of my life, which was basically eight years at Microsoft, and the rest of the book is everything that happened after that. Q: Had you felt that your side of the story was not reﬂected in the accepted history of Microsoft? A: I just think it’s always different when someone tells it from their perspective, and I think there are details in the book that truly hadn’t been told. Some of the things in there have gotten more notice than I expected. Q: I’m assuming you mean the intense focus on the revelations about your rocky relationMACLEAN’S MAGAZINE

ship with Bill Gates. A: There was more attention paid to that than the whole scope of the book. But there’s many things I had to say about my time with Bill, which, as the book recounts, was a very productive relationship, but it did have distinct ups and downs. Q: I understand you have yet to speak with Bill Gates about the book. What do you think he’ll say when you do talk about it? A: Bill, like me, we’re both sticklers for accuracy and he might have different recollections of things than I do. I did my best in the book to be as accurate, unvarnished, warts and all. But it’s possible he has different recollections. He’s hinted at that. Q: You’re a movie buff. Did you see The Social Network? A: I did. And there’s an opening shot that shows that magazine stand in Harvard Square [where Allen bought a magazine that revealed the world’s ﬁrst minicomputer, and sparked the formation of Microsoft]. I staved off watching The Social Network until the book was done. I didn’t want it to form any link15

Interview

16

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Microsoft is on, or is the PlayBook going to be the thing that turns them around? A: Again, to beat someone who’s taken the lead, you have to be better. And while I can type faster on my BlackBerry Torch smartphone, I can’t tell you that it has all the features of the iPhone. For pure email it’s better, but for browsing the Web or applications it hasn’t caught up yet. So I hope that RIM is working to improve this. But once you fall behind it’s hard, because the leader keeps trying to push ahead, which is what Apple is doing. If you look at these platform battles, Back in the ’80s: Bill Gates and Paul Allen

there’s only usually two or three people left standing. So who is going to be the third player after Apple and Google Android? Microsoft thinks it’s going to be number three. RIM thinks it’s going to be number three. It’s going to be interesting to see how it plays out. Q: The ﬁrst half of your book deals with how you made your fortune, the second half on how you’ve spent it—buying sports teams, building rocket ships, searching for aliens (by funding the SETI Institute), pursuing artiﬁcial intelligence, making movies, the huge boat, a submarine. These were all things you were fascinated by as a kid. It’s almost like you set out to relive your childhood, just with a lot more money. A: It’s not about reliving your childhood; it’s about what’s interesting and exciting. Some of these things might change the world in terms of scientiﬁc research on the brain, or listening for alien signals, which I like to say is the longest of long shots. But then there are

just things that I saw when I was young. It was the golden era of early manned rocketry, so it was always in the back of my mind that if I could participate in some of these things, and maybe move them forward, that would be a dream come true. Other things, like the sports teams, you do because the community asked me to save the team and keep it in my hometown [the Seattle Seahawks of the NFL]. The other team [the Portland Trail Blazers of the NBA] was just because I loved the sport. Some things you do because they make your life fun, but they’re big responsibilities. You’ve got a responsibility to a whole community. Q: Then here’s a question that’s been debated over the ages: can money buy happiness? A: It certainly gives you more options—some amazing options. When you’re growing up in a university neighbourhood in north Seattle you don’t think about owning sports teams, or being able to do the Northwest Passage. But in the end, the majority of my resources will end up going to philanthropy. (Allen has joined the Bill Gates-Warren Buffett pledge to give away his fortune after he dies.) Q: One of the philanthropic projects you’ve funded is the Allen Brain Institute and the effort to map the human brain. Was that an extension of your fascination with digging around inside machines in the 1970s to ﬁgure out how they worked? A: If you have your ﬁrst big success with computers and programming, which work in a very regular structured way, and then look at the brain, which works in such mysterious, complicated ways, then that’s endlessly fascinating to try and understand it. The other aspect of the brain institute is to try to discover earlier treatment for neurodegenerative diseases. My mother has Alzheimer’s, so it’s very rewarding to me to think we might—there’s no guarantee, but we might—accelerate treatment. Q: You’ve had two brushes with death. The ﬁrst taught you life was too short to spend all your time boxed up in Microsoft coding software. What did the second bout of cancer do? A: You’re reminded of the importance of friends and family. It always reminds you that we’re all here on this planet for a limited amount of time and you have a limited amount of time to affect things in a positive way, so it makes you want to complete things you’ve always thought about doing. The book was one of them. Now I’m very focused on the brain institute and philanthropic efforts.

Money gives you more options—some amazing options. But in the end, the majority of mine will go to philanthropy.

M AY 9, 2 0 11

Barry Wong/ZUMa/KEySTonE PrESS

age between the movie and the book. But there are deﬁnitely some echoes of things that happened in the early Microsoft days and many years later with Facebook. Q: Do you mean the breakdown in the relationship between the two founders, Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Savarin? A: I think it’s a little bit different, though. Bill and I were programmers-in-arms. It’s not like we were doing different things. We were both staying up late and writing reams of code and eating lots of pizza. Of course I got the interesting role of going out and delivering our ﬁrst product. Q: Why is it that tech companies seem particularly prone to these types of ownership battles among founders? A: It all just depends on the personalities. One person may be more drawn to the public side of something, so as it grows that role expands. Whereas the technical role expands too, but not as much. When that happens you get an interesting dynamic. Q: You offer a very frank analysis of how Microsoft lost its way—partly the result of distractions from the anti-trust lawsuits but mostly that Microsoft got too big, mediocrity crept in, and there was a failure of leadership. What will it take for Microsoft to get its mojo back? A: Microsoft has always tried to do a broad set of things. When you get a competitor like Google, you have to meet and beat that competitor to get people to switch, so it’s very challenging. Microsoft is on the case, but coming from behind in technology is very challenging. It happens sometimes. Google beat MySpace, and Android has come from nowhere to take a signiﬁcant share of smartphones. So I root for Microsoft, but they’ve got their work cut out for them. Q: How serious is the situation? Is it a case of change or die? A: I like to talk a lot about platforms, like the smartphones and tablets. When new platforms come and people start switching to them, just like the PC took market share from mainframes, you’ve got to say, are smartphones and tablets going to take mind share and revenue away from the PC? You’re starting to see that now, so it’s incumbent on Microsoft to address these new platforms. Q: I’ve read that you have a BlackBerry. A: Yeah, I’ve been a long-time BlackBerry user. My mother forced me to take touchtyping in high school, which turned out to be fantastic for the keyboard. Q: Then here’s a Canadian content question. Like Microsoft, Research in Motion was completely caught off guard by the iPhone and the iPad. Are they going down the same path that

NEW DEMOCRATS

Jack’s amazing race photograph by jessica darmanin

How Layton turned an also-ran NDP party into an organized and aggressive operation on the verge of a historic election showing. By John Geddes. Everything about Jack Layton’s rally at Montreal’s Olympia Theatre, the biggest campaign event ever staged by the NDP in Quebec, had a sort of retro ﬂair. There was the 1925 theatre itself, with its rococo redand-gold plaster details. There was the leadon band, the aptly named Quebec group Tracteur Jack, which played hopped-up swing. When Layton made his grand entrance, wading through a roaring crowd of more than 1,200, jauntily wielding the wooden cane he carries

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after hip surgery, he leapt to the podium like a barnstorming politician of old. Now that he’s 60, that signature moustache, which once recalled the disco era, looks more like a tribute to his social-democratic forebears. Some of his applause lines have a time-honoured left-wing ring, too. “A prime minister’s job,” he declares to cheers, “is to make sure the government works for those who have elected him, and not for big corporations.” But Layton is no throwback, and his NDP MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE

campaign surge is a product of pure 21stcentury election strategy. If nobody saw it coming, that doesn’t make the party’s bounce in the polls a ﬂuke. On the contrary, Layton’s roll suggests that what might have previously sounded like wishful thinking from NDP strategists was rooted in facts. They’ve long insisted that in the eight years since Layton became leader, he’s overhauled the party’s organization and, more recently, sharpened its electoral focus. Layton likens all that work 17

to laying the foundation for a house. “The ﬁrst thing you do is dig a hole, and that’s not very interesting,” he told Maclean’s last week. “People kept saying to me, ‘Why aren’t you making any progress, Jack?’ ” They aren’t asking that now. Instead, the questions are all about how great a leap forward is conceivable. All the polls this week showed substantial NDP gains, and some suggested a historic watershed—the NDP possibly vaulting over the Liberals to become the ofﬁcial opposition, a second-place ﬁnish for the ﬁrst time ever. The Conservatives, meanwhile, seemed to hover somewhere shy of the roughly 40 per cent of the popular vote that Prime Minister Stephen Harper would need to secure a majority. But it’s Layton’s surprise that has changed the game, especially his threat to Bloc Québécois dominance in Quebec. Several polls showed the NDP leading in the province, an astonishing turn of events given he went into this campaign holding just one of the 75 Quebec seats, compared to the Bloc’s 47. Strategists in all parties were asking how that could be possible. Innovative Research Group’s Canada 20/20 panel for Maclean’s and Rogers Media was digging into the attitudes of voters over the Easter weekend of that big NDP rally in Montreal. The online survey found that Layton has not only outperformed Gilles Duceppe, he’s beating Duceppe among the Bloc leader’s own avowed supporters. Among respondents who identiﬁed most closely with the Bloc, 63 per cent said their view of Layton was more favourable than at the start of the campaign. Only 33.7 per cent of those natural Bloc backers said their 18

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impression of Duceppe had grown more favourable. “That’s just not supposed to happen,” said Greg Lyle, Innovative Research’s managing director. Layton credits his Quebec traction to several factors, starting with his roots in the province. He was born in Montreal in 1950, grew up in Hudson, Que., and learned his relaxed, colloquial French on the streets of Montreal, partly when he was attending McGill University. He talks proudly about his family’s stereo shop on Montreal’s Ste. Catherine Street, Layton Audio, formerly Layton Bros., a piano store founded in 1887. Although he represents a riding in Toronto, where he established his political career during a long run as a ﬂamboyant city councillor, Layton identiﬁed the NDP’s lack of Quebec MPs or organization as the party’s “biggest gap” when he became leader back in 2003. His most visible step toward closing that gap came when Thomas Mulcair, formerly a prominent provincial Liberal cabinet minister, jumped to the NDP in 2007, soon becoming Layton’s ﬁrst Quebec MP, representing the riding of Outremont, a former Liberal stronghold in Montreal. On Quebec’s unique concerns, Layton calls, rather vaguely, for somehow, someday coaxing the province into signing the Constitution. He proposes extending French-language protections to federally regulated industries. And he’s bold when it comes to Quebec symbols, appearing at a rally in Gatineau, Que., this week against a backdrop of orange NDP signs and blue Quebec ﬂags, without a red maple leaf in sight. Beyond Layton’s appeal and Mulcair’s beachhead, though, the party’s Quebec organMAY 9, 2011

Chris Wattie/CP

Frenemies: With the NDP surging in Quebec, Duceppe no longer calls Layton ‘my friend Jack’

ization remains largely untested. And the Bloc, of course, is lashing back. Up until about a month ago, Duceppe was still referring to Layton as “my friend Jack.” No more. Layton has been recast, with Harper and Ignatieff, as part of the three-headed federalist Hydra that aims to sap Quebec of its power. Jolted by Layton’s rising popularity, and starved of a campaign narrative to incite Quebecers’ collective fury, Duceppe has steered back to Bloc roots, framing the next election as a battle between sovereignists and federalists. “That’s the price of being an NDP, Liberal or Conservative candidate in Quebec—you have to renounce being yourself,” Duceppe said in a hardline speech. “In the country of Quebec, my friends, no one will have the power to take away our powers and undo what we have built over three decades.” The Maclean’s poll found that dedicated sovereignists are sticking with the Bloc, but soft sovereignists and federalists are switching to the NDP. Duceppe may have signalled he’s given up on luring those switchers back when he brought out former Péquiste premier Jacques Parizeau, a polarizing ﬁgure, to deliver a shot-in-the-arm speech to the party faithful in St-Lambert, a long-time Bloc stronghold now threatening to tip NDP. If the NDP’s campaign has been strongest in Quebec, it’s been solid elsewhere, threatening to thwart Conservative aspirations for gains in British Columbia and Liberal hopes for a resurgence in Ontario. For Harper, though, Layton’s rise doesn’t necessarily demand new rhetoric. His message from the start, after all, has been that Canada needs a “stable, national, majority government” that will keep taxes low. If he wins only a third minority, he claims, the opposition parties will surely band together to defeat him and grab power in some form of coalition. Campaigning in B.C., the Prime Minister alluded wryly to the possibility of the NDP, rather than the Liberals, leading the usurpers. “Mr. Ignatieff and Mr. Layton believe that in another minority Parliament they can work with each other and the Bloc Québécois to defeat us, even if they lose,” he said. “Of course, it’s not quite as obvious now who’s supposed to be working for whom in that little arrangement.” That earned Harper a laugh from the Tory faithful. Having held a strong lead from the outset of the campaign, Conservatives might well feel more relaxed about the NDP’s challenge than the Liberals. The day after Layton’s landmark rally in Montreal, Michael Ignatieff ﬁelded a raft of questions in Toronto from reporters about why his campaign seemed to

National be ﬂat, and what he would do about the new challenge on his left ﬂank. “All my candidates say they’ve never had so much enthusiasm at the base,” he said. “Money is coming in. Volunteers are coming in. It’s going very well on the ground.” Even so, at times he showed signs of strain. When one reporter asked what mistakes he’d made in the campaign, Liberal MP Bob Rae, standing to one side of the Liberal leader, leaned across him to the microphone and quipped, “None, how’s that?” Ignatieff, quoting an old Édith Piaf song, added, “Moi, je ne regrette rien.” The Liberal leader was in Toronto to attend last Sunday’s Khalsa Day celebrations, marking the birth of the Sikh religion. The Khalsa parade is an important event for politicians courting the Sikh vote. Ignatieff, Layton and Conservative Immigration Minister Jason Kenney were all on hand, showing off local candidates. Kenney was the ﬁrst of them to address the crowd, followed by Ignatieff, Rae and others. But soon after Layton ﬁnally took the stage, it was obvious he’d connected with the crowd soaking up the sunshine at Queen’s Park. Warm, casual and even boisterous at times, he was the most relaxed speaker. At one point, the crowd broke into chants of “NDP! NDP!” “I do see a lot of orange,” Layton joked, referring to what’s both the traditional Khalsa Day and NDP colour. When things are going a politician’s way, even the colour code seems to conspire in his favour. It’s too easy, though, to credit Layton’s campaign momentum to his ability to charm a crowd. Senior NDP ofﬁcials are less likely to mention that magic than meticulous behindthe-scenes work. When Layton won the NDP

leadership eight years ago, he was a brash outsider who defeated a beloved caucus veteran, Bill Blaikie, on the ﬁrst ballot. The party was in terrible shape. In the 2000 election, under Alexa McDonough’s bland leadership, it won just 13 seats and a pitiful 8.5 per cent of the popular vote—a humbling fall from the peak of 43 MPs and 20 per cent of the vote that Ed Broadbent’s leadership drew in 1988. Layton began a painstaking climb, over the following three campaigns, back to the vicinity of Broadbent’s numbers. The process wasn’t ﬂashy, despite Layton’s instinct for publicity. He hired more professional organizers, including a full-time fundraising team. Before his ﬁrst run as leader, in 2004, the NDP bought a downtown Ottawa building for its national ofﬁces, leasing out retail space to pay the cost. Under Layton, the party invested in new computer systems, adopting some used by the U.S. Democrats. The party’s sleek new campaign headquarters includes a video studio. Arguably more important than the real estate and technology, however, has been the stability in the team around Layton. Top strategist Brian Topp, campaign director Brad Lavigne, and Anne McGrath, Layton’s chief of staff, are all veterans of several campaigns fought, during the run of minority governments, in short succession. They talk of learning from frustrating experience. In Layton’s ﬁrst campaign back in 2004, for instance, the NDP increased its seat total from 13 to 19 seats—not a disaster, but not the bright new dawn he had promised. His team’s post-election analysis focused obses-

sively on the 10 seats they had lost by less than 1,000 votes. Those ridings became the prime targets in a much more tactical 2006 campaign, when they all went NDP. That set the stage for 2008’s run, when, according to NDP ofﬁcials, their spending matched their bigger rivals for the ﬁrst time. They plan to do so again in the current race. But 2011 is different: having nearly regained Broadbent’s level in 2008, this time the campaign is conceived of as a chance to build beyond that natural “social-democratic base.” In an interview just before this contest ofﬁcially began, NDP campaign director Brad Lavigne explained what’s new about the strategy now unfolding. Last fall, he said, the party decided that it would go into the next race assuming its core support, perhaps 18 per cent of voters, was solid. On that premise, the party commissioned special polling research, starting by asking voters to agree or disagree with the statement, “I would never vote for the NDP.” Those who disagreed, but weren’t yet NDP supporters, became the party’s target voters. They were numerous enough to lift its support from the high teens to at least the mid-twenties. They tended to be a bit older and a bit better off than core NDP voters, who are typically in their 20s and 30s. “They are in their 40s and 50s, and they are squeezed,” Lavigne said. “They’re simultaneously worried about their children and their aging parents.” To pursue them, Layton’s strategists crafted a platform that includes traditional NDP preoccupations like combatting homelessness and reinstating a federal minimum

‘The door is open for us to attack Ignatieff. Nothing is holding us back,’ says the NDP’s campaign director.

PhotograPh by Cole garside

Meet the press: Ignatieff, ﬂanked by Rae and Liberal candidate Christine Innes, told reporters that ‘it’s going very well on the ground’

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Colour-coordinated: Layton on the campaign trail at a popular Sikh celebration in Toronto

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of the night, slamming the Liberal leader for failing to attend more than 70 per cent of votes in the House. “You know,” Layton said, “most Canadians, if they don’t show up for work, they don’t get a promotion.” Incredibly, Ignatieff failed to ﬁre back that he had spent a great deal of time on the road holding town-hall type events. So much for advance predictions that the debate dynamic would feature mainly the opposition leaders ganging up on Harper. As Layton entered the stretch run in an improbably strong position, he was bound to become the target of partisan assaults and the subject of media scrutiny. Ignatieff adopted a tone of derision, suggesting Layton lacks realism. He cited the NDP’s call for pulling Canadian troops entirely out of Afghanistan this summer, instead of leaving some to work on training Afghan forces, as naive. “Come on, folks, let’s be serious,” Ignatieff said in Vancouver. “We’ve got to choose a government on May 2. We can’t choose a bunch of Boy Scouts on this issue.” Ignatieff also unleashed two of his most prominent MPs, Rae, the former NDP premier of Ontario, and Ujjal Dosanjh, the former NDP premier of B.C., to issue a special plea for straying leftof-centre voters to return to the fold. Layton’s platform, which went largely uncriticized for the ﬁrst month of the campaign, was suddenly getting a much closer reading. To pay for nearly $9 billion in new spending this year, the NDP proposes to collect an extra $5.9 billion by boosting the corporate tax rate. An eye-popping $3.6 billion more is supposed to come from selling carbon credits as part of an ambitious cap and

A senior Liberal said more questions about NDP costing will be raised in the campaign’s final days

MAY 9, 2011

With Martin Patriquin, K ate Lunau, a aron Wherry and Jason Kirby

The Canada 20/20 Panel results are drawn from 1,543 randomly selected responses to Innovative Research Group’s nationwide online survey. Responses were from April 21-25; the Canadian margin of error is plus or minus 2.49 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, larger for provincial sub-groupings.

PhotograPh by Cole garside

wage, but goes beyond. Among the policies meant to catch the attention of those costconscious middle-class voters, Layton proposes to require lenders to offer a no-frills credit card with an interest rate no higher than ﬁve per cent above prime. He passes up no chance to tout his promise to reintroduce the program to subsidize energy-efﬁcient home renovations, another obvious pitch to those target voters. Although he predictably calls for raising the tax on big corporations, he plays against the NDP stereotype by also touting a tax cut for small businesses, arguing they’re more likely to use the savings to hire more employees. But the main thrust of the NDP campaign isn’t policy, it’s Layton’s persona. Lavigne pointed to a raft of pre-campaign polls that pegged Layton’s approval rating better than Harper’s and far higher than Ignatieff ’s. In fact, the comparison with Ignatieff ’s standing is more important to the NDP. They viewed Conservative support as ﬁrm, while Liberal backing was soft. To reach those winnable Liberal-leaning voters, they would need to attack Ignatieff, whose image had already taken a beating from relentless Tory attack ads. Lavigne said launching an assault on Stéphane Dion, the Liberal leader in 2008, was problematic, since the NDP base was sympathetic toward him. That isn’t the case with Ignatieff. “The door is now open for us to go after Mr. Ignatieff,” Lavigne said. “Nothing is holding us back on that front.” Before the campaign, however, Layton was reluctant to acknowledge that plan, asserting in an interview with Maclean’s that he would make Harper and Conservative policy his only targets. That soon proved to be disingenuous. In the pivotal English-language leaders’ debate, Layton rounded on Ignatieff for arguably the most stinging exchange

trade system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Pressed on whether that money is likely to ﬂow in so fast, Layton admitted “it would be tough,” although he said it was possible with “real determination.” On the $1 billion in new revenue this year his platform projects will come from a crackdown on offshore tax avoidance—a windfall the NDP says will climb to $3.2 billion in four years—Layton suggested the Canada Revenue Agency might not be trying very hard to catch those tax cheats. “Well, you’re dealing with the rich and powerful, and maybe that’s an issue,” he said. “That’s not an issue for me.” A senior Liberal said more questions about NDP costing will be raised in the campaign’s ﬁnal days, as Ignatieff strives to position himself as offering NDP-style compassion, but with more ﬁscal discipline. Beyond how he’d pay for his promises, Layton’s positions on Quebec were also raising eyebrows. He says he’s for ﬁnding a way for Quebec to sign the Constitution, but suggests incremental steps, not a plunge back into Mulroney-style constitutional negotiations. He calls for amending the Canada Labour Code, which applies to federally regulated sectors like interprovincial transportation, banking and telecommunications, to guarantee the right to work in French in those industries. But Layton denied that would mean Ottawa effectively legislating against the use of English. “That’s not what it’s about,” he said, describing the proposed law’s aim as “ensuring the rights of a French-speaking person to be able to work in that language.” To hear Layton on the defensive is almost as novel as it is to see him riding such a powerful updraft in the polls. He built the machine and formulated the strategy to get his NDP airborne without his adversaries so much as casting a worried glance his way. Seven years of steady election gains, stable party management, unchallenged leadership and stellar personal approval ratings—all but unacknowledged. But those days are over. Layton is where he’s longed to be—in the thick of things—and now he’ll have to show that he can stay there.

National

A security detail’s dream: There’s no wading into the crowd for this guy. That would be like asking Superman to dive into a pool of liquid kryptonite.

the campaign

Is Stephen Harper a hologram?

Chris Wattie/reuters

Not only are his speeches exactly the same, he actually stops and sips his water in the same spot every time Grown men all over North America pay big money for the privilege of riding on a horse, sleeping on the ground and spending 12 hours a day driving Rick cattle down a dusty trail with MeRceR actual cowboys. For me, going out on the campaign trail, riding on the planes and following the leaders is pretty much the same thing. This wasn’t so much an assignment as it was a trip to a dude ranch. Some men want to strap on leather chaps and breathe in the aroma of cow dung; I want to slap on a press pass and breathe the same air as Harper, Iggy and Jack. To get a seat on those planes is not an easy proposition. The Conservative party charges media organizations $50,000 for a seat.

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In return you get fed and watered—after that, all bets are off. There is no guarantee you get to ask a question, just the guarantee you won’t. My week at the dude ranch started with the big gun: Team Harper. I met up with them in Rivière-du-Loup, Que., rode the bus to Edmundston, N.B., ﬂew to Fredericton, crossed the pond to Conception Bay South, Nﬂd., back to Sydney, N.S., and then on to the Nation’s Capital. In hindsight, I spent too much time with the front-runner. To get a feel for the Harper campaign you only need a few hours. The differences from one event to the other are minuscule. In English Canada they start each event by singing “O Canada,” and Stephen Harper tells the crowd he’s proud to lead a MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE

party that starts every event this way no matter where they are in the country. In Quebec they skip this part and they hide the Canadian ﬂags in the plane. Barring this nationalism of convenience, if you have seen one Harper event you have seen them all. The Harper campaign is far and away the most disciplined, the most professional and the most scripted. Every word is on a teleprompter, it is delivered in exactly the same way, and the Prime Minister does something I have, in a lifetime of watching live performers onstage, never seen before: he actually stops and sips his water in the same spot every time. Nothing is left to chance. Either that or he is a hologram on a loop. My ﬁrst Harper campaign event in Quebec was held in a senior citizens’ home, what we in show businesses call a captive audience. No vote mobs here. Politics is a dirty racket, and certainly all politicians on occasion must do things they ﬁnd personally distasteful, but I would like to think that most of them would draw the line at scaring old ladies. No such luck on this tour. It’s one thing to put ominous, spooky commercials on TV during the Juno Awards, but 21

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Ignatieﬀ is no Harper: In P.E.I., Iggy showed off a set of skills Mercer had no idea he possessed

enough and eventually people believe it. A separatist coalition is coming, only Stephen Harper can stop a $75 iPod tax that does not exist, and these frozen french fries in the little greasy bag are the best damn french fries a person could eat. From my perspective, I could not have joined the Conservative campaign at a better time. Events, as they say, occurred. Brad Trost, a Conservative MP from Saskatchewan, reopened the abortion debate and Dimitri Soudas, Harper’s communications director, became a story himself when he was the subject of kickback allegations. Nothing has been proven of course, but when your campaign begins to resemble a subplot on The Sopranos that’s generally not a good thing. And I will never forget the chilly Newfoundland morning when Stephen Harper faced not just a disappointingly low turnout, but a cantankerous teleprompter that left him standing on centre ice at a hockey rink in total silence for seven long seconds. Eventually our quick-witted leader said, “Jeremy, could you bring me my notes?” a sentence he kept repeating until Jeremy did just that. Thank God for Jeremy, because this mercifully allowed Harper to begin the same speech that he had given 50 times since the campaign began. Nine minutes later it was over: “Chaos is lapping at our shores,” “thank you and goodbye.” Later in that same rink Harper taped that night’s one-on-one interM AY 9, 2 0 11

view with Peter Mansbridge; 24 hours later an Ipsos Reid poll was released suggesting a Harper majority. High above the skies of Eastern Canada a Conservative staffer wandered up and down the aisle of the airplane, white napkin over his forearm, serving champagne to all. From there it was on to the Liberal campaign. Tragedy plus time equals comedy. Twenty-four hours after reports that the most successful political brand in the history of modern democracy was ﬂirting with junk bond status was a perfect moment for all involved to look back and laugh. Michael Ignatieff came on the plane, wandered to the back and welcomed the newcomers aboard. He inquired about someone’s mother and said he was looking forward to the rest of the campaign with a sense of serene optimism. I couldn’t help but note this is reportedly what victims of hypothermia experience in their ﬁnal moments. He was wearing loafers, no shoelaces—just an observation, nothing more. The differences between the Harper and Ignatieff campaigns are vast. With Ignatieff each speech is different, so you have to pay attention, and of course, perhaps the biggest contrast of all is that Ignatieff takes questions. I have no idea if the general public is aware of or cares how few questions the Prime Minister will allow. I expect that they don’t care

Paul Chiasson/CP

to actually show up in a seniors’ home and tell the residents that the world is a scary, evil, dangerous place and that “chaos is lapping at our shores” without so much as a warmup joke or a pleasant story takes a real commitment to fear. The promise to write off a portion of their gym membership starting in 2014 might have taken the edge off, but I didn’t feel it in the room. And then it was cue the music and head for the door. This is another thing I learned about Stephen Harper: he loves to head for the exit. It is a cliché and a fact that during a campaign every successful politician is a security detail's nightmare. Once a campaign starts, politicians of all stripes basically say to hell with the RCMP and they wade into crowds, lean down from the stage to shake hands or run across streets to speak to groups of strangers. It would have taken the strength of a thousand men to stop a Ralph Klein, a Jean Chrétien or a Brian Mulroney from glad-handing a crowd during a campaign stop. To them that personal interaction is like a shot of pure adrenalin into their veins. Stephen Harper is that rare breed of politician: he is a security detail’s dream. Even in a room of just 75 seniors, there is no wading into the crowd for this guy. To ask the Prime Minister to do that would be like asking Superman to dive into a pool of liquid kryptonite. Even if he wanted to, he just couldn’t. The damage to his system would be too grave. And so day one could be summed up this way: “Scare some seniors, go to lunch, repeat.” It was during lunch that I became reacquainted with the Tories’ not-so-secret campaign weapon, the ever-present Sen. Marjory LeBreton. LeBreton’s job is to “assist the media.” This is a nice way of saying she never leaves them alone and listens to every conversation they have. She is a legend in Conservative campaign circles; she has been on practically every leader’s tour since the Diefenbaker days. She does not sleep, she does not take nourishment. On this day, while reporters were shovelling back snack packs of takeout chicken and wet-napping the grease off their keyboards, Marjory went from one reporter to the next, eyes darting across laptops, loudly declaring that “ooo that smells good,” “mmm those french fries are delicious,” and “isn’t this the best chicken ever?” This is the Conservative campaign strategy in a nutshell. Make something up, repeat it

National the road had kittens. chartered an airplane and began to charge the Karl Bélanger is Jack Layton’s senior press media to sit in the back to pay for the gas. secretary. I have known him, not personally Since then the only consequential change but professionally, for a very long time. He to a leader’s campaign has been the introducis from Quebec and he is a ﬁxture on Parlia- tion of the inﬂatable thunder stick. I think ment Hill. If you see Jack Layton on TV, look we can agree there is a special place in hell behind him and there is Karl. He’s been stand- for whoever came up with that idea. ing there for almost a decade. I do not know But times have changed. In a modern polif in my entire life I have been as happy as itical campaign it is the air war that matters, Karl Bélanger was that night I hooked up the advertising matters, the debates matter, with the NDP campaign. I was actually wor- interviews matter, photo ops matter, but the leader’s campaign does not. It exists because ried his head might come off. At ﬁrst I believed Jack’s new-found success it is a tradition. among anglophone voters in Quebec could My time with Harper on the road was be attributed to the fact that in the French excruciating for the Tories. Abortion, kicklanguage debates his transbacks, failed telepromptlator sounded like Sean ers and low turnouts— Connery, but clearly it’s what saved the day was Iggy had a serene more than that. And while successful highoptImIsm, reportedly Harper’s the crowds are larger than proﬁle interview with what hypothermIa Jack is used to, Jack is doing Peter Mansbridge. exactly what he has done Michael Ignatieff had vIctIms experIence In for almost a decade. I the converse experience. theIr fInal moments He travelled the country watched him get a rockstar response at a Sikh and gave barn-burner performances, but when the lights came on in the studio with Mansbridge, Ignatieff dug up the corpse of the coalition and danced it around the room. A thousand speeches in a thousand hockey rinks won’t make up for that. And Jack Layton is a great campaigner but a good speech in Gatineau doesn’t put the NDP in ﬁrst place in Quebec. Jack made that happen on French debate night. Again, it’s the air war. I’m glad I got to join the campaign this week, but now I view the national leader’s tour not just as a romantic notion but a nostalgic one. This was perhaps the most exciting week in politics in a very long time and I felt removed from the story, even though I was within 50 feet of a leader at any given point. Very soon a national leader is going to make a quantum leap and launch a national campaign by staying home. He or she will enter a bunker in Ottawa and from there they will Skype streaming video into 10 curling rinks Riding high with Jack: Rick Mercer on the NDP campaign plane this week with Layton in 10 provinces in one night. They will hold a dozen town halls in a single afternoon. They the NDP plane. My plan, based on an astute Khalsa Day celebration in Toronto, I saw him will take or refuse questions from all over political mind and decades of Monday mor- talk blue-collar issues for a boisterous crown Canada from all sorts of people. By staying ning quarterbacking, was to visit the Con- in Saint John, N.B., and ﬁnally parlez-vous home they will reach more Canadians. servative and Liberal campaigns and ignore them into a frenzy in Gatineau, Que. The national campaign as we know it will And as I pulled out of the parking lot at continue for the time being but I predict fewer the NDP altogether. When news broke that the NDP had moved into ﬁrst place in Que- week’s end only one thought was running journalists will spend less time on board. The bec, I, like so many others, said a hasty good- through my head: why? parties, desperate for gas money, will have bye and headed over to the NDP. The NDP Diefenbaker was the last politician to cross no choice but to ﬁll those seats in the back of in the lead in Quebec? I hadn’t heard any- the country by train. It was once a standard the plane with more tourists like me. thing as outrageous since 1979 when my way of doing things, but campaigning by train Rick Mercer’s column will appear each week during older brother assured me that the dog up became extinct the day the ﬁrst political party the election campaign

PHOTOGRAPH BY JENNA MARIE WAKANI

that if the Prime Minister rolls into a university town, student publications are not granted a single question. With Ignatieff the pendulum swings the other way—you can ask all the questions you want. From a journalist’s perspective it’s great, ask a question, get an answer; from a campaign’s perspective it’s a dangerous game, but a practice he seems committed to. And then there was Prince Edward Island, where, in a curling club, Ignatieff showed off a set of skills I had no idea that he possessed. From a pure showbiz perspective he killed. Speaking without a teleprompter or notes he gave perhaps the best speech I have heard since watching Gen. Rick Hillier address the troops in Kandahar. Whatever happens, he has a bright future on the rubber chicken circuit. Emboldened by the P.E.I. experience the Liberal team headed to the airport, and as luck would have it, minutes before takeoff our BlackBerries started buzzing—more polls, and more bad news. I admit I had no intention of getting on

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Youth vote

Where did the idealists go? Students care less about education and the environment than their future standard of living Every election campaign season, experts suggest that the best way for political parties to rock the youth vote is to focus on “the student issues”—often deﬁned as tuition and the environment. Omeed Asadi, a third-year communications student at York University, hears it all the time. “In Vari Hall, which you have to cross to get to pretty much every class, there’s always the York Federation of Students rallying against high tuition, or green activists against pollution,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong. I respect those issues. But I don’t think that’s all there is to it.” Asadi also cares about health care, the tenor of parliamentary discourse and ﬁscal responsibility. He’s not the only young Canadian who thinks there’s more at stake in this election than tuition hikes and the health of the planet, according to an exclusive new poll from the Historica-Dominion Institute. The survey 24

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asked 831 youth between the ages of 18 to 24 what issues concerned them. Participants were given 10 statements, each capturing a different election issue, and asked to rank them from most to least concerning. Turns out the average young voter is a lot more like Asadi than the student activists making all the noise. “They’re certainly thinking of longer-term issues earlier in their lives than we would have thought,” says Jeremy Diamond, a director at Historica-Dominion. The most common concern for youth? “That my standard of living will be lower than my parents,” which 63 per cent ranked in their top three concerns. This was consistent across party lines and from coast to coast, although it was signiﬁcantly more common among young people in the economically stagnant Atlantic region (75 per cent). “We tend to think of students as idealistic,” says Diamond, MAY 9, 2011

“but this shows an overriding worry that they won’t be as successful as their parents.” Dietlind Stolle, a McGill University political scientist, cautions that the “standard of living” statement is likely capturing more than just economic concerns. That may be true, but it’s not the only evidence from the survey that shows students are worried about the country’s ﬁnancial footing. “Fear of another economic recession” is a concern of 43 per cent, ranking it third. In fact, youth put the country’s bank accounts far ahead of their own; “paying for my post-secondary education” is a top-three concern of just 18 per cent. This heavy focus on the economy doesn’t surprise Janni Aragon, a political scientist at the University of Victoria, who studies young voters. “The millennials are keenly aware of the economy,” she says. “A lot of my own students worry that after graduation they’ll have to move back in with their parents, because they won’t be able to afford an apartment, God forbid a house.” Economic worries, surprisingly, are especially prevalent among leftleaning students. Among respondents, recessions are top of mind for 63 per cent of Green supporters, 48 per cent of those who plan to vote for the NDP, 45 per cent of Liberal supporters, and just 27 per cent of young Tories.

PHOTOGRAPH BY COLE CARSIDE

Showing their support: Students at a Harper rally in Hamilton, Ont. (above); just 18 per cent in a new poll identiﬁed tuition as a top concern

National It isn’t that they’re concerned with ﬁnding work— “getting a job or keeping my current job” was only in the top-three lists of eight per cent—so much as fear about the economic burden they may inherit. “Paying off the national debt” is a top-three concern for 24 per cent. The second-biggest concern for youth overall is “that the health care system won’t be there for me when I need it.” In British Columbia and Atlantic Canada, 58 per What matters most: For Wong (left), health care is the biggest issue cent prioritize this concern. Overall, 49 per cent listed it in their top in ﬁve (18 per cent) say that “paying for my three. Jessica Wong, a ﬁrst-time voter at McGill post-secondary education” is a top-three conUniversity, says health care is the issue that cern. But the biggest surprise is how few put has the biggest inﬂuence on her vote, though the environment as a top priority. Only 13 per she admits it’s an issue she has never discussed cent of youth agree “that the environment with her peers, unlike tuition or the environ- will be ruined without more action,” putting ment. The 19-year-old chemistry student has it second from the bottom. More shocking is little experience with the system, “but I think that in English Canada, the students who care health care is indicative of how a country most about the Earth are far more likely to treats each other—whether they just look after say they’ll vote Conservative (23 per cent) the rich people or look after everyone.” than Liberal (eight per cent), NDP (eight per Fourth on the list, with nearly one in three cent), or even Green (seven per cent). (31 per cent) ranking it in their top three, is a Even if it’s not their priority, students still concern for “the erosion of democracy.” This do care greatly about high tuition and the was fairly consistent nationwide, though it’s environment. When presented with the statesomewhat more pressing in Quebec. The only ment, “the government should provide more defence-related option was “foreign threats money to help students pay for higher educato Canada,” which 23 per cent made a top- tion,” 88 per cent either somewhat or strongly three concern. “I would have expected it to be agree. And 86 per cent agree that “the govlower,” says Aragon, citing the stereotype of ernment should be doing more to protect the young people as paciﬁsts. That said, she wasn’t environment.” surprised to learn that Alberta has the highest But that’s where the consensus ends. On percentage of young hawks (32 per cent). every other policy position, students are more Only near the bottom of the list do the so- split. Large numbers “neither agree or discalled “student issues” appear. Less than one agree” with statements about raising corporate taxes, opening the health care system to more private money, or increasing immigration. “That may indicate,” says Aragon, “a Canadian voters between the ages of 18 and 24 lack of understanding or exposure.” That’s no doubt a reality for some students, are far more divided between the parties than but not for Asadi. He’s read all the platforms the electorate as a whole and can quote Michael Ignatieff ’s about untendered ﬁghter jet contracts and the billion-dollar G20. “It’s so short-sighted to focus 26% 25% only on tuition,” he says. “I’m only in school Conservative Liberal for one more year. Then everything affects me.” Josh Dehaas 5%

PHOTOGRAPH BY ROGER LEMOYNE

Splitting the vote

Bloc

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12%

Green

21% NDP

The online survey of 831 Canadians between the ages of 18 and 24 was conducted on Uthink’s online national research panel between April 8-13. The margin of error is 3.4 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE

MEDIA

Forced to make a sharp leFt turn Why the dailies were a bit slow to respond to Layton’s big surge Jack Layton made history last week when a CROP poll showed the NDP in ﬁrst place in Quebec. It was the kind of shift that would surely alter media coverage overnight (and the results of his Federal Election Newspaper Analysis along with it), thought McGill University political scientist Stuart Soroka. “I thought Layton was going to spike in the volume of coverage and that the coverage was going to be more positive,” says Soroka, who has been crunching his numbers for Maclean’s each week. But his usual analysis, which captured 665 stories written from April 18 to April 24, showed only tiny increases for Layton. He was bafﬂed. But the results for Easter Sunday and Monday showed a clear shift. “The media was just slow to adjust,” says Soroka. “It’s possible they thought the ﬁrst poll was an anomaly.” On Sunday and Monday, Layton’s share of “ﬁrst mentions” (a tally of how often a leader’s name comes ﬁrst in a story) doubled from 10 per cent to 20 per cent. While Ignatieff was up a tiny bit over the previous week—from 19 per cent to 21 per cent—Harper lost the most, falling from 66 per cent to 55 per cent. The “net tone” results (more positive words near a leader’s name in articles equates to a higher score) also show an initially slow, but then sudden shift in favour of Layton. All three English party leaders earned slightly more negative press last week, but on Sunday and Monday, the media turned on Harper and Ignatieff. Harper’s net tone score dove from 0.77 last week to 0.54. Ignatieff plummeted from 0.84 to 0.49. Layton, on the other hand, improved from 1.27 to 1.55. More telling is the sheer number of times Layton’s name appeared in print on Sunday and Monday. He went from 0.5 mentions to 1.2 per article, tying him with Ignatieff for the ﬁrst time. And though he still trails Harper, who’s at 1.9 per article, Layton is suddenly impossible to ignore. Josh Dehaas 25

National ElEction

Voting is a kind of jury duty, and like the jury system, derives much of its strength from the participants’ lack of specialized knowledge of the subject. A speANDREW cialist can become jaded, or COYNE obsessed with ﬁner points; the public has the beneﬁt of distance. My own experience as a political writer conﬁrms this. I will frequently get exercised about this or that controversy, and wonder why the public is not of the same mind. But the public is called upon to judge not only this controversy, but a great number of issues of varying weights, and in the fullness of time, as that particular issue takes its place among the others, it often does not seem quite as all-important to the public as it had earlier seemed to me. And most of the time the public is right. To vote is to distill a complex array of different, possibly conﬂicting considerations into one: the parties, the leaders, the local candidates, plus whatever issues are pertinent to you, and the parties’ positions on each. Which makes that perennial journalistic search for the “ballot-box question” such a preposterous enterprise. Every single voter will have his own ballot-box question, or questions. I cannot tell you what yours is, or should be. I can only tell you mine. For me there are two issues of overwhelming importance in this election. The ﬁrst is the economy, not only in its own right but for what it means for our ability to ﬁnance the social programs we have created for ourselves. The second is the alarming state of our democracy: the decaying of Parliament’s ability to hold governments to account, and the decline, not unrelated, in Parliament’s own accountability to the people. I can eliminate two options off the top. While both the NDP and the Greens offer appealing proposals for democratic reform, I can’t bring myself to vote for either. It isn’t only their policies—the enormous increases in spending and taxes, the ill-judged market interventions—but their personnel. Simply put, neither party is ready for government. So the choice for me is between the Con26

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servatives and the Liberals. And as I have wrestled with it, the ballot question that has occurred to me is this: would the Liberals do more harm to the economy than the Conservatives would do to democracy? Or perhaps: would the Liberals harm the economy more than the Conservatives would? Would re-electing the Conservatives do greater harm to our democracy than electing the Liberals? And: which concern should weigh more heavily in the balance? I give the nod to the Conservatives on the economy, though not by a wide margin. I think their instincts are generally sounder. But their readiness to play politics keeps getting in the way. So while they have a good record in some areas—cutting corporate taxes, opening trade talks with Europe and India, abolishing tariffs on intermediate goods and introducing tax-free savings accounts among them, as well as their deft handling of the banking crisis—it has to be balanced against the politically driven plunge into deﬁcit, the bailout of the auto industry, the cuts in GST rather than income taxes, and an approach to foreign investment that can only be described as whimsical. The same caution applies to their platform. I don’t doubt they can cut $4 billion out of annual program spending by 2015, without harm to needed services; my only concern is whether they will. Their unwillingness to spell MAY 9, 2011

out what they would cut does nothing to allay that concern. More positively, they do seem to have nailed their colours to cutting corporate tax rates. But how much more could both personal and corporate rates be cut if they did not persist in doling out tax credits and subsidies to favoured constituencies? The Liberal platform, on the other hand, is more consistent, at least in economic policy terms: it is wrong-headed in every respect— higher spending, higher taxing, more meddlesome generally. Its saving grace is that it is only half-heartedly so. The Liberals would raise corporate taxes, but more for show than anything else: lifting rates back to the 18 per cent they were last year is the wrong way to go, but hardly the apocalypse. They aren’t going to get anything like the $6 billion in revenue they claim from these, but neither do they need it. The $5.5 billion in extra spending they propose is barely two per cent of program spending, and would not on its own threaten the country’s ﬁscal position. And that’s what it would take to really worry about what the Liberals would do to the economy in the short term. When it comes to taxes or regulations, it takes a long time for even the stupidest government policy—for example, the Liberals’ proposal to shower selected “Canadian Champion Sectors” with subsidies—to really harm the economy. It’s macroeconomic policy that can really run

PhotograPh by Cole garside

A price must be pAid—but by whom?

Rise up? Liberals never gave the public much reason to translate their misgivings into votes

you onto the rocks: running massive deﬁcits, on taking ofﬁce: incomplete, loophole ﬁlled, or letting inﬂation get out of hand. Call me but progress nonetheless. And they have naive, but I do not think the Liberals would made ﬁtful efforts to reform the Senate, when do either—even in combination with the NDP. not packing it with their own strategists, If anything, I suspect they would be at pains fundraisers and toadies. to prove their ﬁscal-conservative credentials, But the long train of offences against demofor fear of ﬁnancial markets’ wrath. cratic and parliamentary principle—from Still, there are differences proroguing Parliament, in long-term direction twice, to evade Parliament’s Would the liberals reach; to withholding docubetween the two platforms that are worth considering. do more harm to the ments essential to parliaThough neither party seems economy than the mentary oversight, even in inclined in the short term deﬁance of Parliament’s exto brake the torrid growth conservatives Would plicit demands; to intimido to democracy? dating parliamentary ofﬁin health care spending, the broad brush of Tory policy cers and politicizing the is better suited to spurring the long-term bureaucracy; to such breaches of trust as the productivity growth that alone can pay for Emerson and Fortier appointments, the taxait. And while the Tories’ regulation-heavy tion of income trusts, and the evisceration approach to reducing greenhouse gas emis- of their own law on ﬁxed election dates—are sions is in principle more costly, per mega- simply unforgivable. tonne, than the Liberals’ cap and trade scheme, Add to that the coarse, vicious brand of the overall costs are likely to be less: because politics, the mindless partisanship for which the Liberals are likely to bungle their plan, the Tories have become known: equal parts and because the Tories are unlikely to pursue terrorizing their own MPs and demonizing theirs. Sensible policy will await the return their opponents. And add to that the extreme centralization of power in the Prime Minisof a carbon tax to political respectability. So that’s the economy. And on democracy? ter’s Ofﬁce, the trivialization of even cabinet Here the choice is starker—not because I posts as sources of independent authority, invest any great hopes in the Liberals, but never mind the barracking of committees . . . because the Tory record is so dreadful. To be Enough. sure, they introduced the Accountability Act But much of this went on when the Liber-

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MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE

als were in ofﬁce, too, didn’t it? Yes. That’s just the point. To compare the Harper Tories to the Chrétien Liberals, and to the Mulroney Tories before them, and to the Trudeau Liberals before them, is hardly to excuse them: quite the opposite. The decline of democratic politics may have begun under the Liberals, but it has continued under the Tories. And it will accelerate if there is no price to be paid at the ballot box for such behaviour. And yet, although the Liberals have tried to make accountability an issue in this election, they have signally failed. Does this mean the public has spoken? Perhaps once again I’ve attached too much importance to a single issue, at the expense of the big picture. I don’t think so. The Liberals never gave the public much reason to translate their misgivings about the Conservatives into votes for them: a particular imperative, given their own record in ofﬁce. It’s not enough just to implore people to “rise up.” You have to give them some hope that things will get better. But instead of the sort of large, concrete, attention-grabbing proposals that would really stamp the issue on the public mind, the democratic reform chapter of the Liberal platform is notably thin: reform of question period, a study of online voting, a vague nod to empowering committees. So I will continue to make the case that we have a duty to perform as voters. Any election is in part a trial of the incumbents. Do we, the jury, ﬁnd them guilty or not guilty, in this case of offences against democracy? And if we ﬁnd them guilty, there has to be a penalty. But what about the economy? In punishing the government, do we risk punishing the country? No. Economies have enormous recuperative powers: as Adam Smith said, “there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.” We can afford a period of Liberal silliness. What we cannot afford is the continuing slide of Parliament, and parliamentary democracy, into disrepair. Conventions once discarded, habits of self-government once lost, are much harder to regain. If we return the Conservatives with a majority, if we let all that has gone on these past ﬁve years pass, then not only the Tories, but every party will draw the appropriate conclusions. But if we send them a different message, then maybe the work of bringing government to democratic heel, begun in the tumult of the last Parliament, can continue. And that is why I will be voting Liberal on May 2. 27

National Debate

What does Canada Want noW? An all-party debate tackles the biggest issues of the election

Andrew Coyne: Let me put this question to David McGuinty. The Liberal party platform contains about $5.5 billion in new spending to provide a variety of social beneﬁts for students, families with elderly dependents, pensioners. It does not, however, spell out a comparable array of spending cuts, just $500 million in unidentiﬁed efﬁciencies. Federal program spending is now in the range of $250 billion. Is there nothing else that you could ﬁnd to cut from current federal spending? David McGuinty: Absolutely there is. We’re going to be examining all government spending. We’ve seen an 18 per cent increase in government spending by the Conservatives before the recession hit. It’s the biggest-borrowing, biggest-spending government ever in Canadian history. We’re not conﬁdent that the Conservatives’ numbers are adding up right now. Let’s be honest, there’s only been one Conservative government in Canadian history that’s ever taken this country from a deﬁcit position to a surplus position, and that was in 1889. We’re going to be doing a full government review. In the last four years, I think it’s important for Canadians to know, the Conservative government spent $450 million of our tax dollars on advertising, including $27 million for the billboards that we all have the pleasure of seeing on every street corner in this country. All unnecessary 28

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spending. We saw the $50-million slush fund used for Tony Clement’s riding up north, while Mr. Kenney’s own ministry cut $53 million for integration and settlement services in Ontario. So there’s all kinds of opportunity to ﬁnd efﬁciencies—to work with our public servants—without compromising our cherished public services. Rebecca Harrison: There are a lot of tax loopholes that happen and create tax havens and we’re dedicated to sealing those up. We’re going to get rid of the boutique tax cuts as well, and corporate subsidies. It’s interesting to note that the Conservative government signed an international agreement to end fossil fuel subsidies. We’ve only seen a small decrease. This is billions of dollars to the most proﬁtable industries in this country. We believe that money can be better spent on Canadians and services for Canadians. Peggy Nash: We would see our ﬁnances coming out of deﬁcit in four years. Budgets are about choices, and one of the choices we would make in a New Democratic government is, of course, not continuing with the fossil fuel industry subsidies and investing in renewable energy. We would help Canadians by improving the Canada Pension Plan. We would, right away—within 100 days—take every senior out of poverty. That’s not something we’re going to wait—like the ConservaM AY 9, 2 0 11

tives, like the Liberals—until the economy recovers, because seniors today are not recovering, children are not recovering. We would take children out of poverty. Jason Kenney: Andrew asks an important question. It deserves a serious answer. We propose to get the federal budget back into balance within three ﬁscal years without raising taxes, which is the key part of this. We do admit that there will have to be some reductions in federal spending. And he’s right to point out— as David did—that we’re spending a lot of money, $250 billion. It shouldn’t be difﬁcult to identify $4 billion of low-priority or inefﬁcient spending in an envelope of a quarter of a trillion dollars. We would do that through a comprehensive strategic review of all departments and programs, but one thing we won’t do is to follow the example of the previous Liberal government, which in part balanced the budget by cutting health care transfers to the provinces by 25 per cent. We will continue to increase health transfers to the provinces by the six per cent that was in the budget we presented last month, and in the ﬁscal plan in our platform. So we would guard those highest-priority programs without raising taxes, ﬁnd $4 billion of efﬁciencies, and get back into the black within three years. McGuinty: Well, it’s really interesting, because the parliamentary budget ofﬁcer was

PHOTOGRAPHs BY COLE GARsIDE

Last week in Toronto, Maclean’s and CPAC hosted an all-party debate entitled, “Election 2011: What Does Canada Want Now?” The participants included Jason Kenney of the Conservatives, Liberal David McGuinty, Peggy Nash of the NDP, and the Green party’s Rebecca Harrison. The discussion, which touched on everything from spending and tax cuts to government accountability and the country’s role in the world, was moderated by CPAC’s Peter Van Dusen and featured Maclean’s Andrew Coyne. The following is an edited excerpt. Stage presence: Kenney (from left), Nash, Van Dusen, Coyne, Harrison and McGuinty

a position that we created in Parliament, and the position was ﬁlled by the Prime Minister, to keep a watch over our public ﬁnances. And on every single occasion this parliamentary budget ofﬁcer has examined the government’s books, he has said the numbers don’t add up. We’ve been asking now repeatedly for the $11-billion hole to be accounted for by Mr. Harper and his party going forward. We think Canadians have a right to know. I’m hearing from people: they want transparency, and they want to be able to be sure that the numbers actually add up. One of the things I’m hoping to do if I’m re-elected is to bring a bill that would compel the auditor general of Canada to actually conduct an audit of the national books on a go-forward basis before every federal election, whether it’s a minority situation, a majority situation. That would go a long way in making sure we’re all working from the same transparent and reliable numbers, and enhance trust. Nash: Do we really want to spend multibillion dollars on F-35 ﬁghter aircraft, or do we want to invest in post-secondary education? I talk to students who have tens of thousands of dollars of student debt—it’s ridiculous—and seniors who are worried about losing their homes because costs are going up. Do we want to go down that path of more ﬁghter jets? Or do we want to go down the path of investing in Canadians? Do we want

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to make sure that the health care system is democratic institutions, probably, in terms there for all of us, and that we’re expanding of durability and in terms of accountability. into home care and long-term care that Can- Yes, they’re imperfect, and yes, we always, from all parties, must strive toward everadians need? Kenney: Well, that’s really a false choice. greater democratic reform in our parliamentWe can invest in higher education and have ary system. We’ve been in this peculiar situaa credible armed forces at the same time. tion in the past ﬁve years, or actually, more With respect to the ﬁghter jet acquisition, this like 6½ years with the previous Paul Martin is a program begun by the previous Liberal Liberal government, of minority governments government in co-operation with several that have the de jure conﬁdence of the House NATO allies. They identiﬁed, after investing of Commons, but not necessarily the de facto several hundred million dollars in the pro- conﬁdence. I think it’s a challenge for all of cess, this particular ﬁghter as the most efﬁ- us, but fundamentally, you know, I think cient for our needs. The current CF-18s run we’ve done pretty well. We have the longestout of their useful life in about 10 years’ time. serving minority government in Canadian They either have to be replaced or we do what history, for ﬁve years. We got a lot of things I think the NDP wouldn’t agree with, which done. I brought in a fundamental reform of is to tell the Americans that they’re going to our refugee asylum system and got it through be in charge of securing our on a unanimous basis in the airspace and our coastlines. House of Commons. I’d like ‘We’re proposing a to think that’s an example I don’t think we want to sacpeople’s question of how we can all work riﬁce Canadian sovereignty, nor do we want to give our period once a Week together to get good legismen and women in uniform lation passed. second-class equipment. We With ministers, once Nash: Obviously there want to give them the best a month With the pm’ are situations where parties can work together. But I think there is a kind of a cynicism that gets bred when parties campaign for greater accountability and then get held in contempt and have less accountability, parties campaign to make life more affordable and then increase taxes with the HST. Frankly, Mr. Kenney, you may want to consider an apology: you campaigned on never having an unelected senator go On spending: McGuinty is promising a full government review into the Senate, and now the Senate is stuffed with politequipment possible and that’s why we’re pur- ical appointees, and they’re now campaigning suing the Liberal plan to acquire the F-35. for the Conservatives, and some of them are Coyne: Mr. Kenney, after two prorogations, up on charges. the Afghan documents affair and the unprecedMcGuinty: What Canadians are telling ented vote declaring the government in con- me every day is they want to see 308 parliatempt of Parliament, among a long list of mentarians working on behalf of 34 million other controversies, the criticism is often people. I want to illustrate, though, the level heard that this government, simply put, does of toxicity that’s come into the House in the not respect the will of the House of Com- past ﬁve years. In standing committees, 27 mons. Now I’m guessing you disagree with are committees where we do our heavy-liftthat, but let me ask you this. As a former ing work, our bread-and-butter work, justice, member of the Reform party, do you think or transport, or foreign affairs. The governthere’s a problem institutionally? Does Par- ment prepared a book for the Conservative liament have the powers it needs to hold gov- chairs of those committees some four years ernment to account, or would you change ago. It was a manual on how to obstruct the anything about the current set-up? work of committees. They were basically Kenney: I’ve always thought that our insti- given techniques to trip up [witnesses], or tutions aren’t perfect, but they’re the best to hold back their testimony, or to discredit MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE

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ers of all parties on a regular basis? Why can’t McGuinty: We’re proposing a number of all the leaders get together with the new measures that we hope will actually enhance Speaker of the House and invest in that new democracy and build conﬁdence and trust leader additional authority, if required, or a in the system. I mentioned one, which is the certain modicum or standard of behaviour? auditor general poring over our books on a There are all kinds of ways we have to revisit regular basis and making sure that the numhow we do what we do in Parliament. Can- bers we all work from are accurate so there adians are losing conﬁdence and trust. This are no shell games with money, people’s money. Number two, we think there’s all is of deep concern to us. Nash: We’re certainly committed to ﬁx- kinds of advantages now for Canadians to be ing what’s wrong in Ottawa. There’s been a able to offer all kinds of information online. real sense that Ottawa has been focused on Every grant, every contribution, every conscandals and too much with insiders and tract should be available online. Every access they haven’t been able to get things done to information request and answer should for Canadians. be available online. Every Order Paper quesCoyne: We’ve been talking tion going in from MPs about accountability of governand answers should be ‘I don’t thInk we ment to Parliament, but there’s available online. We’re want to sacrIfIce proposing a people’s also a problem of accountability of the entire political system sovereIgnty, or gIve question period once a to the electorate, whether it’s week where everyday citthe proliferation of attack ads, our mIlItary second- izens will be able to ask class equIpment’ questions of ministers, the long history of broken once a month of a prime minister. I think those steps would go some distance. The face-to-face leaders’ meetings I proposed earlier, sitting down with the Speaker to get decorum enhanced in the House and in the standing committees. I think we owe that to the Canadian people. Nash: It does start with the tone of Parliament. But I think it is more than that: I referred earlier to the unelected Senate. But also we would bring in Not seeing eye-to-eye on many issues: Kenney (left) and Nash legislation to prevent the prorogation of Parliapromises by politicians on all sides, the ham- ment by a government that simply is runstringing of MPs’ ability to represent their ning from a lack of conﬁdence in the House constituents independent of the party line. of Commons. Many Canadians have tuned out of politics Kenney: Let’s be clear. Had there not altogether, which is most visible in declining been a prorogation in December of 2008, voter turnouts. What practical steps would prime minister Dion and, I don’t know, your party take to repair Canadians’ trust in maybe ﬁnance minster Layton would be in the government today. That’s something their political system? Harrison: I represent a demographic that that about 75 per cent of Canadians said only had 37 per cent of us turn out to vote. they didn’t want. It’s a coalition that people If we let that go we’re going to have a voting didn’t run on in the last election, they didn’t crisis, so something needs to be addressed have a mandate to do it, they tried to force now. I’m not going to stand up here and pre- it, and the Prime Minister used that constitend to know exactly what type of electoral tutional ﬁre extinguisher to calm things reform this country needs, but I think Can- down because Canadians did not want the adians deserve to have all of the information coalition. So I think in retrospect it was the and make a decision for themselves. prudent thing to do. M AY 9, 2 0 11

PHOTOGRAPH BY COLE GARSIDE

the testimony. That’s not how Canadians expect us to work. Harrison: It’s funny, there was a question online the other day that says there were three prorogations in the history of parliamentary democracy to avoid political scandal. What countries did they happen in? The answer was Canada, Canada, Canada. And when this contempt issue came up, I thought to myself, “We’re going to have a prorogation for the royal wedding, next.” To be completely honest, this is the government that took the words “duty to act honestly” out of the code of conduct of their cabinet members and civil servants as well. We’re talking about an Accountability Act that has 12 exemptions, blanket exemptions, for hiding documents, exemptions that allow them to hide a document from a whistle-blower for 15 years. We also have an ethics commissioner that reports to the PMO, that reports to the Prime Minister. How are they supposed to tell the Prime Minister, “You’re not doing what you’re supposed to do”? We need to change that around and they need to report to Parliament. Kenney: I’m sure that came off the forum at some kind of crazy blog, but the ethics commissioner is actually an ofﬁcer of Parliament—doesn’t report to the Prime Minister in any respect. The Federal Accountability Act is the most sweeping measure for reform of government and transparency in our modern political history. I don’t know what exemptions you’re talking about. I’m not aware of any change, the oath we take is the same oath that ministers have always taken. I think it’s prescribed in the British North America Act, so I don’t know what she’s talking about. Harrison: With all due respect. Kenney: No, I really don’t. Harrison: I can show you after if you want to stick around. Kenney: I’m a fairly alert parliamentarian, and I’m sure David would have brought these things to my attention in question period if they were true. In terms of Peggy’s point, though, you know what? I agree about the elected Senate, and we’ve appointed the only senator who has been elected, we’ve asked other provinces to hold Senate elections, we’ve brought a bill to limit Senate terms to eight years, and I hope that other provinces will adopt Senate election legislation so we can start appointing elected senators. McGuinty: I think there are all kinds of measures we can bring to improve Parliament. I think parliamentarians do want to work together. I think Canadians expect us to work together. For example, why don’t we have face-to-face meetings amongst the lead-

National british columbia

‘He actually gets it’

photograph by SIMoN haytEr; NExt pagE: alaMy/gEtStock

A young urbanite who’s in favour of gay marriage and arts funding, James Moore is a new breed of Tory On a cold, dreary Good Friday, James Moore, Conservative candidate for Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam, is standing in the rain; the local Legion turns 80 today, and Moore is out stumping, though it doesn’t look as if he’ll pick up a lot of votes. The crowd is mostly under 18—Boy Scouts and Cadets in awkward, blue uniforms. Moore, who’s built like a linebacker and looks even taller than his six-footthree frame, towers over them. Then again, his seat isn’t really in doubt: he won by over 15,000 votes last time. The 34-year-old is already the region’s most powerful political minister. And with the recent retirements of B.C. heavyweights Stockwell Day and Chuck Strahl, “his time has come,” says University of Victoria political scientist Norman Ruff. Gary Lunn, his competitor for senior minister from B.C., faces a ﬁght against Elizabeth May in Saanich-Gulf Islands, and was demoted in cabinet in 2008. Moore, meanwhile, has deftly handled the heritage portfolio, his rookie ministerial assignment, ensuring Stephen Harper will never again be side-swiped by angry artists. Harper’s comments in the last election that “ordinary people” didn’t care about arts funding backﬁred spectacularly, particularly in Quebec, and Moore, who is single and unencumbered by a family, has been criss-crossing the country ever since, making nice, spreading cash and the new Harper creed—lately, the Tories have delivered the biggest arts funding budgets in Canadian history. “If market forces were all that is important in terms of culture,” he says, “then all you’d see on TV would be women in bikinis and cage-ﬁghting.” He’s also fond of the business argument. “It’s a huge export, a huge business in Canada,” he tells Maclean’s from his campaign ofﬁce on Port Moody’s main drag, “$46 billion and over 600,000 jobs. That’s twice the size of Canada’s forest industry.” Howard Jang, executive director of Vancouver’s Arts Club Theatre, recalls the offthe-cuff remarks Moore made to a group of arts executives last year, as the B.C. government was slashing arts funding in the province. It was a turning point for an arts community “reeling” from the Liberals’ cuts, Jang

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says. “We thought: ‘He actually gets it.’ ” This is part of what makes him one of the Tories’ most attractive ministers, says University of Toronto political scientist Nelson Wiseman. “I haven’t heard him talking about dinosaurs walking on Earth at the same time as man,” he adds, a reference to Day. Moore, who is a metro MP, and bilingual, so rare west of Manitoba, represents a bright hope for the party: a Conservative who can appeal to urban types, artsy folk and gays and lesbians scared

says, was rocked by her death. “I thought: how can I do something? How can I ﬁll this void? Politics was it.” Within weeks, he’d hung up his skates, and started door-knocking for local Reformers; later he met Preston Manning, whose call for no distinct society and equality in the Senate spoke to him. “Multiculturalism is dead,” Moore’s 1994 Centennial Secondary School yearbook entry declares, his conversion to the cause complete. Today, he’s a “huge fan” of George Will and William F. Buckley, and has called himself a libertarian. He doesn’t believe in unequal treatment—whether in unique powers for Quebec, or the way Canada treats its gay and lesbian citizens. In 2004, he sat two seats away from Harper, and voted against his party in favour of equal marriage rights. In February, he was one of the few Tories to vote for an NDP bill protecting transgender rights. “He follows his own instincts,” a Tory

An old hand: In politics since age 16, Moore has deftly handled his role as heritage minister

off by the biblical ﬂank. Despite his blue pinstriped suit, Moore looks comfortably rumpled. A few dog hairs decorate his pant leg, care of Jed, the Bernese mountain dog he calls “son,” and his black dress shoes have seen a lot of miles. He knows politicians wear French cuffs at their peril: “If you’re smarmy and too slick by half,” he says, “people won’t vote for you.” But he is, by now, an old hand. His political start was born of tragedy at age 16, when his mom, Gail, a former Canadian amateur golf champion, died from brain cancer. “Before that,” he says, “all I was interested in was scratching together enough money so I could have my ﬁrst car, hoping I made the midgetA hockey team.” But his “whole centre,” he MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE

insider tells Maclean’s, which is “unusual for this cabinet.” “He’s always been very clear on what he believes,” says Katie Green; she’s been a close friend since they first landed in Ottawa in 2000, he a 24-year-old rookie MP, she a parliamentary page. Despite his youth, he didn’t waste time at D’Arcy McGee’s, the Hill pub, she says; among friends, he’s known for being “born old.” He worked his way into cabinet, and today, his name comes up, along with Peter MacKay, Jim Flaherty and Jim Prentice, when discussion turns to possible successors to Harper. Whether it interests him is a subject for another day. For now, Moore is taking things one election at a time. NANCY MACDONALD 31

National Nova Scotia

Putting it on the map History books will tell you that the Cabot Trail—the 298 km of highway that snakes along Cape Breton Island’s jagged terrain—is named after John Cabot, who landed in Canada in 1497. What they don’t say, however, is that the Venetian explorer’s real name was Giovanni Caboto. This irks Michael Tibollo, president of the National Congress of Italian-Canadians. So much so that the Toronto lawyer is proposing an “o” be added to the end of the trail’s name on signs and maps. The thought of changing the name to Caboto Trail— renaming part of the trail came up as a motion in the House of Commons last year but died when the election was called—has spiralled into a cross-provincial spat of sorts. “I’m getting all these negative ‘You Upper Canadian,’ and ‘How dare someone from your part of the country . . .’ comments,” says Tibollo. “I never intended to create a rift between Nova Scotia and Ontario.”

H e a lt H c a r e

Universal sUpport from the DonalD When Donald Trump published The America We Deserve, a political manifesto of sorts in 2000, the business tycoon outlined a very un-Republican policy agenda, including much praise for how Canada deals with the sick. “We must have universal health care,” wrote Trump. “I’m a conservative on most issues but a liberal on this one. We should not hear so many stories of families ruined by health care expenses.” He continued, “Doctors might be paid less than they are now, as is the case in Canada, but they would be able to treat more patients because of the reduction in their paperwork.” Along with the book, the host of Celebrity 32

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Tibollo says a name change would simply highlight the bond between Cape Breton and Italy, and be a potential boost for the island’s tourism-dependent economy. But Norman MacDonald, president of the Cape Breton Genealogy and Historical Association, says there’s “overwhelming opposition” to the idea. “I don’t think changing the name would bring more Italian tourists,” he says. “We’re very much in favour of heritage discovery trips, but I can see no positive beneﬁts to changing the name.” Tibollo—who was told by David Wilson, the Nova Scotian minister of communities, culture and heritage, that local MPs would have to be consulted on the issue—insists that he’s received positive feedback from many Cape Bretoners. Still, he’s disappointed in the overall reaction. “As much as we call ourselves a multicultural society, we have a situation where there are some people very set in their ways of looking at things.” Lyndsie Bourgon

Apprentice, who now tops some polls as the leading Republican candidate for 2012, has made untold statements over the past decade that could discredit his bid, including frank critiques of George W. Bush and the Iraq war. He even donated to Barack Obama’s campaign. But he’s since made a political about-face. He’s taken up the birther cause, questioning Obama’s U.S. citizenship, backed the invasion of Iraq, and has reversed his stance on abortion—Trump is now pro-life. So does The Donald still love Canadianstyle universal health care? After all, he made his stance pretty clear back then: “The Canadian plan also helps Canadians live longer and healthier than Americans,” he wrote. “There are fewer medical lawsuits, less loss of labour to sickness, and lower costs to companies paying for the medical care of their employees.” Speaking to a crowd of Tea Partiers a couple weeks ago in Boca Raton, Fla., Trump said he’d “ﬁght to get rid of Obamacare, which is a total disaster.” Though he didn’t say it, perhaps he has a made-in-Canada alternative in mind. sTePHAnie FindLAy M AY 9, 2 0 11

capital diary

Mitchel Raphael on speaking of candidates and ‘expiry dates’ Mind if we update that Jaffer sign? Conservative candidate Ryan Hastman is running against NDP incumbent Linda Duncan in what used to be Rahim Jaffer’s riding of Edmonton-Strathcona. While going door-to-door, Hastman campaigners came across one house displaying a Jaffer sign. When they politely offered to “update” it, the homeowner said, “Sure. I’ll take two.” Hastman has been knocking on doors since he got the nomination in 2009. In the early days, people would be confused when he appeared at their door, asking him, “Is there an election?” Before he got the nomination, Hastman was with the PMO, and before that he worked for Stockwell Day, whose advice to him was to get a good pair of running shoes and to stand on the side of the road the day after the election with a big “thank you” sign. While going door-to-door, Hastman met a senior with a walker, who after he was given a Conservative brochure with pictures of all the opposition leaders, snapped: “That Layton is using a cane for effect.” Hastman told the man that, in fact, the NDP leader had recently had hip surgery. Hastman’s campaign ofﬁce is next door to a place that offers hot air balloon rides, while Duncan’s is in what used to be an animal rehabilitation clinic with an underwater treadmill. NDP supporter Phyllis Harlton bakes the ofﬁce a “cookie of the day.” One of the most popular ones has a Rolo in the middle of it. Both Conservative and NDP camps acknowledge that the Liberals in this riding are putting in minimal effort. Duncan says the Liberals are in fact supporting her because they know she can win again (there was even a fundraiser for her hosted by Liberals). There is a Liberal candidate, though: it’s 20-year-old Matthew Sinclair, a university student who missed the riding debates because he had exams.

On the road again: Rona Ambrose with

blond-haired Saints (top); Steven Fletcher with his niece (middle); Anita Neville

Ambrose’s lucky ‘bling’ Rona Ambrose is sporting her good luck “bling,” as she calls it. The Spruce Grove Saints of the Alberta Junior Hockey League, who were battling for the Doyle Cup for a chance to go to the national championships, gave the Conservative candidate a special Saints championship ring they turned into a necklace as a good luck charm for the election. Spruce Grove is in Ambrose’s riding. When she recently went to visit the players, they had all bleached their hair blond, their version of growing a playoff beard.

Quebec and aLberta: best buds? Atlantic Canada: Only 10 per cent of people

from Eastern Canada are airing their political opinions online during the current campaign, compared to 18 per cent across Canada. But when they do log on to voice their opinions, they’re the most likely of any Canadians to do so every day.

Picking up women and votes

Quebec: Contrary to popular belief, most Que-

Winnipeg Conservative Steven Fletcher owes his sister Julia Fletcher big-time. She came over from Britain to help with his campaign even though she had booked a hotel in London for the upcoming royal wedding. Her three-year-old daughter, Evelyn Sieman, came with her and enjoys sticking campaign Post-it notes up and sliding brochures under doors. Fletcher was recently chatting with voters in Winnipeg’s Assiniboine Park where a gardener told Fletcher he had a beef with his calendar. It has a picture of Fletcher in the picturesque gardens but the photo is black and white and fails to show off the spectacular colour. While campaigning at the Manitoba Eastern Star Chalet seniors’ apartment complex, Fletcher noted there were a lot more women present than men. “If I knew my odds were 10 to one, I would have spent more time here,” joked Canada’s ﬁrst quadriplegic MP. “If any of you want to meet a young man with his own wheels, then pick up my brochure and my number is right there.”

becers don’t hate Albertans. Sixty-one per cent said they have a positive view of Alberta, and— even more surprising—71 per cent said the western province should continue to develop its oil sands, provided it does everything possible to limit any environmental impact.

‘You still look beautiful’

photographS by MItcheL raphaeL

What you’re thinking

One of the biggest campaign boosts for Winnipeg Liberal MP Anita Neville was Conservative MP Shelly Glover referring to her as having “passed her expiry date.” At one door a man told her, “You still look beautiful,” and she received plenty of other compliments because of the remark. One volunteer even made Neville T-shirts that said: “Not past my expiry date.” The “not” was made to look like it had been added in, a jab at Bev Oda. On the Web: Visit Mitchel Raphael’s blog at macleans.ca/mitchelraphael

Ontario: While the disaster in Japan shook

many Canadians of their conﬁdence in nuclear energy, just 41 per cent in Ontario—the lowest rate of any province—said the disaster worsened their view of nuclear power (the national average is 49 per cent). And 30 per cent of Ontarians continue to support building new nuclear power plants (just 12 per cent in Quebec feel the same way). Alberta: Not only do 71 per cent of Alber-

tans play an instrument, 50 per cent—more than any other province—say it’s one of their favourite hobbies. Eighty per cent believe a musical education is as important as learning a second language. Among those surveyed, the piano (31 per cent), ﬂute (18 per cent) and guitar (15 per cent) were the top three instruments learned growing up. British Columbia: A project to expand a

downtown Vancouver casino into the biggest complex of its kind in Western Canada has Vancouverites sharply split. While 48 per cent of residents support the plan, 46 per cent are opposed. And though 64 per cent think the $500-million hotel and casino is an economic opportunity for the city, 67 per cent feel the casino, with 1,500 slot machines and 150 tables, would bring with it some signiﬁcant social costs. ERICA ALINI SourceS: IpSoS reId, Leger MarketIng, abacuS data, Leger MarketIng, IpSoS reId

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MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE

33

International

Louisiana

spilling over It’s been a year since the BP disaster, and nobody has learned a lesson. Joseph Boyden reports.

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Gloomy times: BP promised to compensate ﬁshermen, but thousands of them have yet to be paid

rest of us who care, a large and amorphous group, the ones who were less directly affected and yet, ironically, seem the most deeply angry at this mess that’s been left behind on our doorstep. Allow me to examine that ﬁrst group, the commercial ﬁshermen so inextricably tied to the waters here. A friend of mine, Capt. Billy Bucano, just one of thousands on the Gulf Coast who make a living directly from harvesting the waters, is certainly among the more famous charter captains in southeast Louisiana. His operation, Titeline Charters, has been built on taking out recreational ﬁshermen through the marshes and onto the bigger waters of Plaquemines and Saint Bernard parishes to reel in trophy speckled trout, redﬁsh, bass and ﬂounder. Captain Billy makes his living around Delacroix Island, an hour’s drive from New Orleans, and he’s talkative in that knowledgeable way that separates him from, say, my musician friends. Billy’s also a gentleman. He makes sure to point out that compared to the ﬁshermen down in places right on the coast like Grand Isle and Laﬁtte, the ones who continue to watch tar balls wash up on shore and who M AY 9, 2 0 11

only need to dig a little way down into the sand to ﬁnd slicks of gooey black, he’s lucky. Sure, sheens of oil washed into Billy’s marshes, carried in by winds and tides. Of course his business has been affected to the point he worries how he’s going to pay bills, but Captain Billy didn’t have to face—to the same degree, anyway—watching the landscape and waterscape he loves be contaminated as badly. And so he’s thankful for this. Yet a full year after the disaster, I ask him how business is doing. When he tells me it’s off at least 50 or 60 per cent, I wonder how he remains so positive. Billy has great rapport with his fellow ﬁshermen all through this part of Louisiana, and they’re all suffering the same fate. But when I push him, it isn’t anger he responds with. “People all over still believe these waters are fouled,” he says. “We’ve got to get the word out that the ﬁshing here is good. I want my congressman, my senator, to tell the White House it’s time to throw a great big Louisiana seafood festival right on the South Lawn, let the world know we are still here and that our seafood is good.” It doesn’t take him long, though, to turn a little more gloomy. “Normally at Jazz Fest,

Lee CeLano/ReuteRs

Already it’s been a year since the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon. Eleven men lost their lives in that tragic—and absolutely avoidable—event, one that ushered in a new, dark era for the population of the Gulf Coast. What we witnessed slowly, sickeningly unfold down here over the next several months, like some crawling black plague into the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico, was not just the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, but one of the worst in recent world history. Yes, we along the coast were already steeled to face federal, state and local government inaction and plain old confusion, masked by lies that tried to downplay the scope of the crisis. A hurricane half a decade ago prepared us for that. What many of us sadly weren’t prepared for was to have British Petroleum, that monstrous multinational powerhouse, whisper sweet nothings into our ears about how everything was going to be just ﬁne, us little guys bent painfully over its leaking oil barrels. Apparently, it’s the whole “fool me once, shame on you” scenario playing out its second chorus, and so shame on us for not wanting to dare envision that after only one short year of BP playing out its good cop/bad cop act, or should I say responsible corporation/proﬁtable corporation ruse, it now begins the act of walking away, wiping its hands of any further blame or restitution. People down here seem to me to exist in two very different worlds of anger when it comes to what BP has rendered in our lives. There are those most directly impacted by the spill—the commercial ﬁshermen, oystermen and shrimpers, the very ones who deserve to be most livid—who seem to be the ones who’ve learned to temper their anger in an almost Zen-like way. And then there are the

Mario TaMa/GeTTy iMaGes

I’ve got two or three charters coming through each week of festival-goers who want to do a little ﬁshing. But not a one this year. The perception people have of our situation is disastrous. I can just hear them saying, ‘I don’t want to go ﬁshing in oil.’ ” And with a little more pushing, the elephant in the room ﬁnally emerges. “For the ﬁrst six months, BP was fair to me,” he says, quickly adding, “but I can’t speak for others. I keep a tight ship, and very good records.” He pauses. “BP set up interim claims that are supposed to run through to 2013.” He explains that if one can continue to prove that his business continues to suffer, BP has promised to keep compensating. But a quick investigation on my part shows that even impeccably kept records of years past, needed to prove a fall in income, don’t seem to be good enough. Oil spill claims czar Kenneth Feinberg admitted in March that only 1,500 claims have been paid for 2010 losses, and a startling 105,000 claimants aren’t able to produce the documentation he requires. “My claim that covers the ﬁrst three months of 2011 was supposed to come over a month ago,” Billy continues. “It hasn’t. When I call, the ﬁrst question they ask me is if I’ve ﬁled a suit with

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an attorney against BP. They’re worried about of scientists, but a cynical disdain for the 95 that, and not that they haven’t compensated or so per cent of them who are rationally pointing out that we’re speeding up the world’s anybody for their ongoing losses.” I ask Billy why he thinks such a question demise through our unchecked consumption is asked when all he’s doing is trying to get of fossil fuels. This is the same U.S. public that’s been warned by our doctors that the money promised to him. “All I can guess is that they’re playing a majority of us are not just overweight but waiting game with deadlines to see if claim- obese, and our lifestyles are putting us in jeopants are actually going to respond.” Then he ardy. Our demand for wanting what we want, adds, “and now the deadline for the second and wanting it now, is destroying us from claim has come.” As of April 1, BP started the within as well as without. 2011 second quarter of interim claims, and Is it sheer coincidence that scores of dead it appears that the thoudolphins washed up on Gulf sands upon thousands of Coast beaches this past winclaimants who haven’t been ter? No one’s willing to jump there’s feverish paid, for whatever reason, conclusions, for some shouting to resume to are stacking up like dead reason, about that one. I drilling despite no fear that we’re unable to crustaceans on the bottom of the Gulf. talk of relief wells change our bad habits, and And so the ﬁshermen, the if this is the case, we’d betoystermen, the shrimpers, or safety measures ter prepare for a string of the men who toil in the environmental tragedies physical world, continue to work when work over this next decade, disasters that will cause can be found, stoic in the face of this latest irreparable harm to our world and bring not adversity, ﬁghting off their anger because they just the U.S. but the Canadian economy to understand how self-destructive it can be. But its knees. I don’t blame only the greed and what about the others? The ones who haven’t short-sightedness of our multinational corbeen directly affected—that large and amor- porations for any future catastrophes. We as phous group I spoke of? Are we allowed to be individuals, with our ever-expanding communal waistlines, demand that every little so angry? Are we just a bunch of whiners? I believe so many of us down here are fancy and hunger needs instant gratiﬁcation. angry in part because we’re scared. A year But, simply asked, how much longer can the on, now, and no one seems to have learned Earth sustain the unsustainable? If ever there a lesson from the disaster. In Louisiana, was a time to change, it is now, one year later. there’s feverish shouting to resume deep- Hopefully, it’s not one year too late. water drilling, despite no talk of relief wells or any real evidence of true safety measures. Recent discussions of exploiting tar sands in Utah that rival those in Alberta have oilmen slobbering. Arctic drilling in highly sensitive areas is not just back on the table but, apparently, just a matter of time. Gas prices have risen to record highs, due, supposedly, to Mideast conﬂict, and yet our thirst for fuel has never been stronger. All of this despite green energy not just being viable but already at our ﬁngertips. When I say we’ve entered a new, dark era, I don’t say it lightly. Many had hoped, naively, that the madness that unfolded over the course of three months last year might have a silver lining in that the call for safer, renewable energy would grow. Instead, a year later, Americans are screaming that a gallon of gas costs far too much, and this in turn gives the GOP traction in their growing calls to not just downsize the Environmental Protection Agency but to be rid of it completely, thus opening the doors entirely to those who scream, “Drill, Open for business: Fishery workers have baby, drill!” There’s not just a public mistrust tempered their anger in an almost Zen-like way MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE

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united states

Singing in harmony? U.S. and Canadian business groups are urging their governments to coordinate rules and ease restrictions As Target Corp., the mass retailer of trendy housewares and clothing, prepares to open hundreds of stores across Canada in its ﬁrst non-U.S. expansion, it has started to grapple with the realities of doing business across the border. In a letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, dated April 18, two Target executives bemoan conﬂicting regulations between the U.S. and Canada in areas such as product standards, testing facilities, customs procedures and documentation. “For example, the safety requirements and test methods applicable to camping tents are markedly different between the U.S. and Canada, making it difﬁcult and cost prohibitive to provide the same product in each country,” wrote the vice-president for government affairs, Matt Zabel, and vice-president for compliance, Canada, Anthony Heredia. “These differences may result in higher consumer costs, or reduced selection.” They called on the Obama administration to focus on “greater regulatory coherence” with Canada that would “increase cross-border investment.” The Target letter was one of 30 submissions the Commerce Department received after asking for public comments on “regulatory 36

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co-operation that would help eliminate or reduce unnecessary regulatory divergences in North America that disrupt U.S. exports.” The request for comments came after a February meeting in Washington at which President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper launched two joint initiatives to ease cross-border trade and travel: an overhaul of border management aimed at creating a system of “perimeter security”, and an attempt to harmonize some regulations between the two countries to help ease trade. The leaders created two working groups, one on border management and the other on regulatory co-operation, led by senior government ofﬁcials, whom they instructed to hold public consultations and produce detailed action plans for each government. The stakes are high. Canada and the U.S. have the world’s largest two-way trade relationship, worth $645 billion a year. Threequarters of all of Canada’s exports go to the United States, and border delays cost the economy billions each year. As well, Canada is America’s largest market, accounting for one ﬁfth of all exports, and Obama is also searching for ways to boost that trade. In his M AY 9, 2 0 11

state of the union speech last year, he set a goal of doubling overall U.S. exports in ﬁve years in order to spur job creation in the struggling American economy. But critics in both countries have long warned that binational efforts to ease trade and travel barriers could compromise national sovereignty, and that “harmonizing” regulations could lead to a “race to the bottom” in weakening regulations for food safety, consumer protection or environmental standards. Opposition parties have also complained that the Harper government has been pursuing the agenda secretly behind closed doors. And so it is that the Commerce Department letters, which have been released publicly on a U.S. government website, provide the ﬁrst window into the kind of proposals government ofﬁcials are receiving. They address a multitude of speciﬁc regulations as well as sweeping proposals for changes to the way the border is managed. While any member of the public could comment, the letters came largely from business associations and corporations (although both governments say they are actively seeking the opinions of groups outside of the business world). And the vast range of topics the letters address underscore the challenge the governments face in setting clear priorities for action. For example, the Express Association of America, a group representing the shipping companies DHL, Federal Express, TNT and UPS, recommended that Canada raise the dollar value of packages that can cross the border without duties or customs clearance from $20 to $200 to reduce paperwork and

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Let’s come together now: Harper and Obama have committed to policies of regulatory co-operation and ‘perimeter security’

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costs for U.S. exporters. As well, several U.S. would “allow business or pleasure travellers Safety, Foreign Affairs and International agricultural groups asked for harmonization into both countries on the basis of a single Trade, and Transport. It is chaired by Simon of the maximum permissible pesticide resi- visa issued by either country.” Kennedy, the senior associate deputy mindue levels for produce. The Consumer ElecAnother ambitious proposal is being pre- ister at Industry. Submissions to the Cantronics Association asked for harmonization pared by a coalition of exporters and manu- adian group have not been released publicly. in the way in which the power consumption facturers called B3—Businesses for Better However, ofﬁcials are working on a report of televisions is measured, and requested that Borders—that includes the Canadian Manu- that will be made available online summarCanada move from third-party testing of facturers and Exporters association (CME), izing the input they receive. Separately, both energy-efﬁciency performance to self-declar- the U.S. National Association of Manufactur- countries have created a Regulatory Coation by manufacturers. The biotechnology ers, the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers As- operation Council. In Canada, the effort is industry association asked that both coun- sociation, and the American Automotive led by Bob Hamilton, associate deputy mintries adopt “consistent science-based pro- Policy Council. The group is planning to make ister at the Treasury Board Secretariat. In cesses that would signiﬁcantly decrease the a pitch after the Canadian election for non- the U.S., parallel groups are chaired by sentime required for authorization of biotech stop border crossing for trusted manufactur- ior ofﬁcials from the National Security Councrops and their products.” ers that have been screened cil and the Ofﬁce of ManThe Campbell Soup Co., whose brands by security agencies in both agement and Budget. one group wants include Campbell’s, Pepperidge Farm and V8, countries. The trucks of In some cases, ofﬁcials submitted a seven-page letter identifying a these companies could cross from both governments non-stop border variety of problematic issues, from lack of the border without waiting have held joint meetings. crossings for consistent regulation for fortiﬁcation of foods for a physical inspection. For example, during the screened, ‘trusted’ Toronto auto show in Febwith vitamins and minerals to Canada’s unique Instead, their warehouses container-can size regulations for fruits and would be inspected periodruary, auto manufacturers manufacturers were able to make recomvegetables. Campbell also called on the U.S. ically, their drivers would mendations to ofﬁcials from to harmonize the weight limit both governments. Howfor commercial trucks on U.S. highways with Canada’s higher ever, there is a concerted weight limit. With heavier trucks, effort this time around to Campbell would drive 23 milnot limit discussions to busilion fewer miles, use 3.8 million ness groups, but to seek fewer gallons of fuel, and eliminput from a wide variety of stakeholders, such as inate nearly 40,000 tons of carthink tanks, environmentbon emissions, states the letter alists and other groups. from Campbell vice-president The government workKelly Johnston. A letter from the U.S. Chaming groups were expected ber of Commerce noted that to make their recommenHealth Canada is in the prodations within four months, cess of modernizing regulabut the process in Canada tions, and suggested the U.S. was suspended during the election campaign. Matgovernment set up a working group that would be tasked Border woes: Delays cost the Canadian economy billions of dollars each year thiesen said business groups with “examining wherever hope the process groups possible what can be done to align health pass background checks, and the trucks could will be back on the front burner after the care regulatory frameworks between the be sealed. “We are asking for something which election is over, and that Washington and U.S. and Canada for medical devices and no one has asked for in the past—a real, true Ottawa re-engage quickly. “We anticipate pharmaceuticals.” non-stop, non-transactional entry for trusted that there will be a leaders’ meeting soon Other proposals called for broad changes shipper-manufacturers. Trusted shippers afterwards,” Matthiesen said. to border management. In a detailed 38-page should not have to stop at the border and acTime is running out, according to Colin submission, the Paciﬁc NorthWest Economic count for every box in every truck,” said Birgit Robertson, a former Canadian diplomat to Region, which represents states, provinces Matthiesen, the Washington-based adviser the U.S. In a speech prepared for a border and businesses, suggested mutual recogni- on U.S. government relations to the CME. conference in Bellingham, Wash., he warned tion of agricultural inspections, which are “These are our best corporate citizens, our true Ottawa that the governments have a year now done separately by each country. “If trusted shippers, who have invested millions until presidential politics take over, and with cargo is inspected by a U.S. agent, there should in the security of their cross-border supply it, a reluctance to talk trade. “The American be no need for a re-inspection by a Canadian chain. Trusted shippers have earned trust.” election cycle will effectively shut down the agent, and vice-versa,” wrote PNWER. It also In Canada, the job of wading through pro- process in January with the onset of the Iowa proposed “embedding” agricultural and cus- posals on border management falls to the caucuses and New Hampshire and South toms inspectors with each other to gain experi- Beyond the Border Working Group, com- Carolina primaries,” he said. In many key ence and build trust. As well, the group pitched posed of bureaucrats from several govern- battleground states, he noted, “NAFTA is a the creation of a joint “two-country” visa that ment departments including Industry, Public dirty word.” LUIZA CH. SAVAGE 38

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M AY 9, 2 0 11

Kevin P. Casey/The new yorK Times/redux

International

CHINA

MOMMIES GONE WILD

Not forgotten: According to the Pinochet regime, Chile’s socialist leader killed himself

CHILE

Who really killed Allende? Shortly after ordering his loyalists to give up arms and surrender to Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s troops in 1973, former Chilean president Salvador Allende walked alone into the Independence Salon of the La Moneda presidential palace, then under siege, and shot himself in the head with an AK-47 assault riﬂe gifted by Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro. That, at least, is the story according to the Pinochet regime, which staged the coup against the democratically elected Allende, and ruled Chile until 1990. It’s a narrative many Chil-

eans believe in, including Allende’s own personal physician, one of the last ones to see him alive. But many other Chileans fervently believe in another ﬁnale: Allende was killed by soldiers’ gunshots as he fought back. Now the truth may ﬁnally be established. At the request of the former president’s family, a Chilean court investigating rights abuses during the Pinochet era has ordered Allende’s body exhumed and re-examined. It’s one more step toward writing a national history all can trust. ERICA ALINI

A month-long sting by Chinese police nabbed an unlikely group of criminals: a band of pregnant thieves. Dubbed the “Big Belly Gang,” the decade-old maternal crime ring is allegedly responsible for the majority of the 3,000 cases of in-store thefts reported at shopping malls in the city of Hangzhou last year. Operating in groups of ﬁve, three non-pregnant women would distract staff while two pregnant women stole goods from the store, or money and valuables from other shoppers. While their stay-at-home husbands watched their children, the group met each day at the local school’s gates to divide their loot, splitting it 60-40 between the nonpregnant members of the gang and those stealing for two. The gang exploited China’s leniency toward pregnant women and new mothers, who can plead a “special situation” and be released almost immediately (the gang’s boldest member was arrested and released 47 times). Relying on anonymous tips and help from informants, police moved in and captured all 47 members of the ring, 22 of whom were pregnant and also bulging with loot at the time of arrest. Police have recovered about 1.5 million yuan worth of goods stolen by the gang, but say it’s just a fraction of the group’s haul. JANE SWITZER

MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; R. VAN NOSTRAND/PHOTO RESEARCHERS; INC.

AUSTRALIA

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Wombats not worth saving

Hairy-nosed wombat

The northern hairy-nosed wombat, a burrowing marsupial native to Australia, is a critically endangered species—but according to Australian researchers, it may not be worth saving. A team from the University of Adelaide and James Cook University has developed a new index, called Species Ability to Forestall Extinction (SAFE), that takes current and minimum viable population sizes into account to determine if it’s just too expensive to save a particular animal. “SAFE is the best predictor yet of the vulnerability of mammal species to extinction,” says Corey Bradshaw, director of ecological modelling at Adelaide’s MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE

Environment Institute. Not all critically endangered species “are equal,” he says. The northern hairy-nosed wombat might be a loser in this equation, but other species win. Based on this formula, conservationists should prioritize the Sumatran instead of the Javan rhinoceros, Bradshaw suggests: “The Sumatran rhino is more likely to be brought back from the brink of extinction based on its SAFE index.” Efforts to save endangered species are a bit like triage on the battleﬁeld, these researchers argue, in which doctors have to make tough choices about who can, and can’t, be saved. KATE LUNAU 39

Business

In focus: Coastal’s assembly line runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, making glasses that sell for 70 per cent less than in conventional stores

Retail

An eye for sales Each day, online retailer Coastal Contacts of Vancouver ships 6,000 orders of eyeglasses and contact lenses to customers around the world. It’s no surprise, then, that Roger Hardy, the company’s founder and CEO, keeps bumping into Coastal’s patrons. Just two weeks ago when Hardy’s wife was in hospital to give birth, the attending physician learned where Hardy worked and said he now buys all his contact lenses through the site. “It was great to hear that kind of customer testimonial from someone in the medical profession,” 40

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says Hardy, “though the whole time my wife was there in very intense labour.” Hardy had best get used to the attention. Coastal, which operates several vision-care websites, including Clearlycontacts.ca in Canada and Coastalcontacts.com in the U.S., has quickly emerged as the dominant force in the niche business of selling optical products online. With annual revenue last year of $153 million, Coastal sells more glasses and contacts over the Internet than anyone else, and already ranks as one of the 10 largest optical M AY 9, 2 0 11

retailers in North America. According to a ranking by Internet Retailer magazine, Coastal is now the largest Canadian-based online retailer when measured by sales. Yet Coastal has achieved all this while ﬂying largely below the radar. Though it’s been one of the hottest stocks on the TSX since January, up more than 60 per cent, few analysts cover the company. Nor is Coastal a widely recognized name in corporate Canada. The question is, for how long? Not only is Coastal growing fast, but as online giants like

PHOTOGRAPHs BY BRIAN HOWELL

Coastal Contacts has emerged as a top online seller of glasses and contacts in North America. But will its success put it in the crosshairs of Web giants like Amazon?

Amazon try to become the Walmarts of the Internet, any company that carves a market for itself in the online-consumer sector is a potential takeover target. Coastal’s eyeglass lab and warehouse, nestled in an East Vancouver tech park, reﬂect a company in frantic expansion mode. The building’s previous tenant, yoga retailer Lululemon, moved out last October, and the drywall remains exposed in many places. Cables hang from the ceiling waiting to be connected to $1.5 million worth of new eyeglass lens manufacturing machines. In the meantime, Coastal’s existing assembly line marches on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Conveyor belts carry trays of frames and plastic discs through a series of robotic machines that carve and treat the lenses, before rows of workers assemble them into the ﬁnished product: eyeglasses that sell for 70 per cent less than in conventional vision-care stores. While independent optometry shops, which currently control half of the eyeglass market, might produce ﬁve or so pairs a day, Coastal’s cutting-edge labs can handle the same number of orders in just over a minute. “The new equipment will make us one of the top three most technologically advanced eyeglass labs in North America,” says Hardy. It’s a far cry from Coastal’s debut as just one of hundreds of tiny online outﬁts selling cheap contact lenses in the late 1990s. Back then, Hardy had started work at a contact lens supplier and quickly saw an opportunity. Opticians paid $12 for a box of contact lenses, then sold them to patients for $70. So Hardy and his sister Michaela Tokarski launched Coastal with one computer and one very overworked credit card. But where so many other sites failed to take off, Hardy invested heavily in marketing and building up Coastal’s inventory of lenses. When an order came in, the product could be delivered into the customer’s hands by the next day. The focus on service paid off. Today Hardy says 40 per cent of new business comes from word of mouth. But while the contact lens business continues to grow, albeit at a modest four per cent annually, Hardy came to see a bigger opportunity in eyeglasses. While selling something so individualized online seemed impractical, Hardy took his cue from Zappos. com, which had found success selling shoes online. For one thing, Zappos took the worry out of buying shoes that might not ﬁt by offering full refunds. Coastal offers the same guarantee. In addition, Coastal developed software allowing customers to upload photos and virtually try on thousands of glasses, then share the images with friends. It invested

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heavily in new machinery and hired an indus- were all its own. Best of all, when Coastal try veteran to run the operation. In 2009, its sells a pair of its house-brand glasses, it doesn’t ﬁrst year offering glasses, Coastal sold $9 have to pay a chunk of the proﬁts to big-name million worth, a ﬁgure that doubled to $20 fashion houses like Prada or Gucci. million in 2010. This year Sheila Broughton, There have been setbacks. Optometrists an analyst at PI Financial, expects Coastal’s took Coastal to court arguing it’s dangerous for people to get contacts without full eyeglass sales to double again. The company is pulling out all the stops eye exams. The B.C. government says that’s to draw potential customers to its site. In a not the case and deregulated the sale of recent U.S. marketing blitz, Coastal offered glasses and contacts. Still, the battle may a free pair of glasses to the ﬁrst 10,000 new flare up elsewhere as opticians see their customers who signed up to the company’s monopoly over the market erode. As Coastal grows, it’s likely to draw the Facebook page. The goal is simple—get their eyeglass information into attention of suitors like its database. Then the comAmazon. In 2009, the Interpany can focus on them with In 2009, Coastal sold net retailer snapped up personalized ads. Since last for $930 mil$9 mIllIon worth Zappos.com fall, Coastal’s various weblion. Last November, Amaof glasses, a fIgure zon also acquired Diapers. sites have added roughly 350,000 Facebook friends. com, a company that sells that doubled to To distinguish itself from 500 million diapers online $20 mIllIon In 2010 a year. “I would anticipate other eyeglass retailers, Coastal has also created, there are a number of large online retailers who are quite interested in the growth that Coastal is generating,” says Broughton. “They’ve got a good base of over two million customers, a very solid database of information, and they have this fantastic, stable contact lens business which pays a lot of the bills to support their growth in eyeglasses.” Hardy is keenly aware of Amazon’s voracious appetite, as well as the precarious position of traditional vision-care chains. A takeover offer in the future isn’t out of the question, he says. But he has no interest in selling the company at this early stage in its development. “I think we’re in a very strategic position that lots of people are looking at,” he says. “But our best way to create value is to keep our heads down, keep working away, and taking the market.” For now, with $12 million in cash and little in the way of debt, Coastal is more likely to be a buyer than a seller in any deal that comes along. The company has already completed ﬁve acquisitions, including Lensway.com in Sweden, which is now the base for its operGood optics: Hardy doesn’t rule out a future ations in Europe, and just opened up ofﬁces takeover but says the focus now is on growth in Australia. Japan, meanwhile, is also proving to be a lucrative market. and heavily promotes, its own eyeglass Standing in the shipping area of Coastal’s brands. Designed in-house, and with names warehouse, Hardy rummages through crates like Derek Cardigan, Joseph Marc, Love and of contact lens and eyeglass orders with an Hardy, they have all the appearances of being impressive list of destinations: Kelowna, B.C., mainstream designer frames. It’s similar to Brampton, Ont., Wexford, Pa., Charlotte, the approach Loblaw took with the President’s N.C., St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, Australia, Choice private-label brand. The Coastal- Tokyo. “The market is shifting,” he says. brand glasses are proving popular with con- “People aren’t going to keep on spending sumers. In a recent week when Coastal sold $400 for a pair of glasses that you can buy 28,000 pairs, Hardy says the top 10 brands for $100.” JASON KIRBY MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE

41

Economy

high-price problems Why the Bank of Canada can’t ignore the latest, surprise jump in the inﬂation rate The Oklahoma chapter of the American Automobile Association has been forced to respond to hundreds of extra calls from stranded motorists who decided to postpone their next ﬁll-up after the price of gas soared over 19 per cent in the past three months. Meanwhile, in Florida, a gang of thieves reportedly stole six tractor-trailers full of tomatoes in an apparent bid to cash in on soaring prices of fresh produce. There’s no shortage of examples these days as to how rising prices cause people to do odd things, and cause real instability. And it’s the reason why central bankers around the world, including in Canada, are suddenly waking up to a growing inﬂationary threat. In fact, it would appear the Bank of Canada (along with most economists) was caught off guard by recent data from Statistics Canada that showed the Consumer Price Index— which measures the price of everything from food to mortgage insurance—rising 1.1 percentage points in March, to an annual rate of 3.3 per cent. It was the largest monthly jump since Canada introduced the GST in January 1991, according to BMO Financial Group. “We now have an inﬂation rate at 3.3 per cent and the Bank of Canada’s overnight rate at one per cent, which is the largest gap since the 1970s,” says Douglas Porter, BMO’s deputy chief economist. “Inﬂation is also now above the prime lending rates, which is three per cent. And that is highly unusual— we’re now in a situation where it almost pays to borrow.” The main inﬂation culprits are food and energy prices, which tend to be volatile anyway. But even when those are stripped out of the equation, so-called core inﬂation is still above the Bank of Canada’s forecast. It could be a monthly blip, but it could also indicate that Canada’s economy has purged itself of any excess “slack,” meaning all the factories and businesses that were idled during the 42

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could also pull the rug out from under the country’s key export sector, leading to further job losses. Another risk Carney needs to consider stems from the raging debate in Washington over what to do about the US$14.3trillion worth of U.S. federal government debt, which was recently downgraded to a “negative” outlook for the ﬁrst time by ratings agency Standard & Poor’s. “The U.S. is in a real dilemma,” says Alex Carrick, chief economist at Reed Construction Data Canada. “If the U.S. dollar starts to drop, and we’ve got this pressure of commodity prices, who knows where the Canadian loonie is going to end up.” Could Canadians simply absorb inﬂationary price increases until the U.S. economy is back on ﬁrmer ground? Indeed, many consumers likely haven’t changed their behaviour in profound ways yet, just because the price of lettuce has gone up at the local supermarThe cost of living: In March, the consumer price index saw its bigket. “I would suspect that gest monthly jump since the GST was introduced in January 1991 economists key on it a recession are now back up and running. Prime lot more than your average person,” says Minister Stephen Harper called the situation Carrick. “The exception is gasoline, because “worrisome,” but said the government’s ﬁscal people drive around and read giant signs plans will remain unchanged. It has all led that say $1.35 a litre.” But he stresses that to increased speculation that Bank of Canada inﬂation is a slippery slope. A little is congovernor Mark Carney could move to hike sidered the sign of a healthy, growing econinterest rates as early as next month if the omy. But too much gets you into trouble trend continues. quickly. Consider the 1970s, when North It won’t be an easy decision, however. The American central bankers were more keen global commodities boom that’s fuelled inﬂa- on driving employment than controlling tion pretty much everywhere in the world inﬂation, which eventually hit 12 per cent. (and is just now beginning to hit the U.S., The response in the 1980s was a hike in borwhere unemployment remains high) is also rowing rates above 20 per cent. While Candriving Canada’s resource-based economy. As ada is unlikely to experience another bout a result, the Canadian dollar is now trading of runaway inﬂation, many debt-addled Canat its highest level since 2007, around US$1.05. adians would likely have trouble carrying A further hike in interest rates would only add their giant mortgages if rates went up even to the loonie’s rise. While that might be wel- to a relatively modest eight or nine per cent. come news for Canadians who shop south of “Central bankers want to be pre-emptive,” the border, and could help to slow inﬂation Carrick says. “Because inﬂation leads to very by making imports cheaper, a soaring dollar bad things.” CHRIS SORENSEN M AY 9, 2 0 11

RichaRd Buchan/cP; Keith Beaty/toRonto StaR/GetStocK

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Business Commodities

Smoothie operator Tim Hortons markets its new ‘healthier’ beverages as having ‘real fruit.’ Does sugary juice count? Since March, Tim Hortons has adorned its coffee shops with gigantic pictures of bananas, strawberries and other berries for the launch of its “healthier” snack: Real Fruit Smoothies. Available as mixed berry or strawberry banana, they contain only 130 calories (for a small serving), and half a cup of fruit (equal to one of the seven to 10 servings doctors recommend adults consume every day). A closer look at nutritional values, though, reveals the drinks contain no ﬁbre or protein, which means that there is no fresh fruit actually being thrown in the blender, says registered dietician Nicole Springle. In fact, the “real” fruit comes from purees and juices, conﬁrms a Tim Hortons spokeswoman. That doesn’t have the same health beneﬁts of the fresh stuff, says Springle, because those purees and juices don’t come with the ﬁbre and protein that help slow down the pace at which we assimilate the sugar that fruit naturally contains. Hortons’ Real Fruit Smoothies have 30 grams of sugar. That’s more than the sugar content of any Tim Hor-

tons doughnut. The marketing of healthy beverages has been a controversial issue. Unsubstantiated claims, from the wildly unlikely ones promising help with heart disease, erectile dysfunction and prostate cancer, to the simple “healthy” label placed on certain drinks, have attracted a slew of lawsuits against the food industry. In January, a British advertising watchdog banned CocaCola from using the word “nutritious” to market its sports drink, Vitaminwater. The company has landed in court in the U.S. and Canada as well over Vitaminwater’s marketing. The drink allegedly contains about 30 grams of sugar, as much as a Tim Hortons’ Smoothie. Hortons’ Smoothies remain a healthier choice than one of its maple dip or sour cream glaze doughnuts, and certainly a good alternative to carbonated soft drinks, because at least the smoothies have some vitamin C, according to Springle. In sum, they are indeed “better for you”—if you consider all those sugary soft drinks and sports drinks on the market today. ERICA ALINI

Tastes sweet: Hortons’ new smoothies have vitamin C, but also more sugar than a doughnut

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M AY 9, 2 0 11

high-Yo Silver, awaY! Is silver the new gold? Silver prices have risen 154 per cent in the last 12 months, compared to 32 per cent for gold, and 45 per cent for oil. And on Wednesday, the metal hit a 31-year high at US$44.79 an ounce. The silver surge is proving a bonanza for pawnbrokers and jewellery buyers, who are now urging people to sell anything from their silver coins (Canadian quarters made before 1967 are made of silver and are now worth over $7) to grandma’s silver tea set. Skyrocketing silver prices are also putting wind into the sails of proponents of precious metals, such as Peter Schiff. The well-known investor has long been advising clients to stock up on things like bullion bars as insurance against a collapse of paper currency that he predicts. Though Schiff ’s views may be extreme, analysts note the silver rush is driven by investors looking for safe havens. Though gold continues to be the favourite of traders concerned about the weak U.S. dollar, not everyone is ready to stomach its US$1,500 price. Some, then, may be turning to silver as the cheaper precious-metal alternative. The silver hike, though, has been so steep that some market-watchers just won’t buy into the conventional explanations—and wild conspiracy theories are spreading, according to the Financial Times. The most popular ones circulating revolve around a mysterious Russian magnate discreetly hoarding the world’s silver supply; a secret silver-buying program set up by the People’s Bank of China; and Chinese traders using silver as collateral on debt. The hypothetical villains admittedly sound as realistic as a Dr. No character in a James Bond plot, but analysts may be somewhat justiﬁed in their speculations. In 1980 and 1998, silver prices did soar because someone was squeezing the global supply. Thirty years ago, it was two billionaire oil baron brothers,William Herbert and Nelson Bunker Hunt, who went on a massive silver-buying spree; nearly 20 years later it was Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which similarly bought up enormous amounts of the metal. Too bad that silver prices subsequently came crashing down in both cases–dropping by 80 and 40 per cent, respectively. ERICA ALINI

PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW TOLSON

RestauRants

technology

The new e-book hoT spoT

Tag team: Facebook and Obama have forged close ties, but does it beneﬁt either side?

Brands

Obama’s best friends U.S. President Barack Obama’s latest Facebook update was well above the usual fare of Farmville alerts and motivational quotes. On a trip to Facebook’s head ofﬁce for a town hall meeting last week, Obama declared America’s ﬁnances to be “unsustainable,” and took a few swipes at his Republican opponents. But Obama’s visit also highlighted his increasingly close ties to some businesses. This wasn’t Obama’s ﬁrst Silicon Valley sojourn. He has visited the Googleplex and has appointed General Electrics CEO Jeffrey Immelt to head an economic advisory panel. And he’ll forever be associated with General Motors for the mega-bailout. Whether the ties are good for the companies or Obama is debatable. Outrage over GE’s low tax bill and indications Facebook may block some content in China haven’t made either very popular. But then again, polls say Obama’s popularity is tanking too, so it’s a two-way street. JASON KIRBY

Chart of the week:

Bright idea

Jim Young/ReuteRs; AlAmY/getstock; chARt souRce: oRgAnisAtion foR economic co-opeRAtion And development

Working overtime Taking into account paid and unpaid work (including housework), Canadians are the fourth busiest workers in the developed world MEXICO JAPAN PORTUGAL Canada CHINA U.S. KOREA U.K. FRANCE GERMANY 0

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100 unpaid

200 paid

300

400

ToTal minuTes worked per day

With its worn carpets, potted plants and shelves of dog-eared books, who would have guessed the humble public library would emerge as a key player in the world of online media? Yet that’s exactly what’s happened after bookseller Amazon ﬁnally decided to allow owners of its popular Kindle e-reader to borrow digital copies of books from 11,000 local libraries in the United States, a feature that was previously available only to owners of rival machines. The move opens up the libraries’ free digital collections to an estimated 7.5 million Kindle users in the U.S., about two-thirds of the e-reader market. A spokesperson for the Toronto Public Library said the service is expected to come to Canada eventually, although no date has been set. But while Amazon’s move promises to boost Kindle sales, it could come at the expense of selling online books. Which likely won’t sit well with publishers. At present, most libraries buy and lend e-books the same way they do regular ones, to one person at a time for a period of two to three weeks. But at least one publisher, Harper Collins, has changed its policies to require libraries to repurchase titles after they’ve been borrowed 26 times, while others have declined to sell to libraries at all. CHRIS SORENSEN

500

600

While supplies last News last year that Ford will soon discontinue its Crown Victoria sedan sent police forces across North America reeling. The big, rear-wheel-drive Crown Vic has long been the go-to police cruiser. It’s relatively cheap (at under $30,000), built like a tank, and is easy to ﬁx. So before the car disappears for good, the police in Austin, Texas, are asking the city government for US$4.5 million to buy a ﬁnal supply of 176 Crown Victorias— enough to last them at least ﬁve years. This hoarding of cop cars should end up MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE

saving the city a lot of money, say the police. Carmakers are rushing to market replacement cruisers, mostly based on today’s smaller sedans. But police in Austin argue they don’t yet know how much those cars will cost (likely a lot more than the old Fords), and switching would mean replacing their entire stock of replacement parts for the decades-old car. Most importantly, the police point out the newer cars just aren’t “tried and true” like their beloved Crown Vics. COLIN CAMPBELL 45

Green is in our nature.

That’s why we’re the ﬁrst North American-based carbon neutral bank. In 2008, we set out to make TD North America’s ﬁrst carbon neutral bank. In 2010, we reached that goal. Over 50% of our operations are now powered using renewable energy, an accomplishment that enables us to support the development of the green economy. These initiatives, in addition to our green banking options and environmental projects, are just a few of the many ways we’re committed to living up to our colour. To learn more about our corporate responsibility, visit www.td.com/corporateresponsibility

®/ The TD logo and other trade-marks are the property of The Toronto-Dominion Bank or a wholly-owned subsidiary, in Canada and/or other countries.

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Environment Special RepoRt

A greener future Top companies, like those on Aon Hewitt’s 2011 Green 30 list, lead the way when it comes to making the environment a big part of business Having an environmental edge goes a long way with employees. Surveys show that people expect their organizations to take the environment into account when making business decisions—and most don’t feel enough is being done. Top companies, however, are responding by going green in every way, from making their manufacturing processes more efﬁcient to backing local and global sustainability projects. The following pages feature some of the ways the companies on Aon Hewitt’s 2011 Green 30 list have made the environment a big part of business. But ﬁrst, here’s a look at some environmentally friendly ideas that could revolutionize the workplace in the not-so-distant future.

Skyscrapers made of wood?

Will Pryce; Atelier cMJN

The construction and management of buildings around the world accounts for more than 30 per cent of climate change, according to Michael Green, founding principal at McFarlane Green Biggar Architecture + Design Inc. While some predict everyone will be working from home in the future,

others say greater levels of urbanization will bring us closer to the workplace than ever. So it’s no wonder billions of dollars are being poured into making sustainable ofﬁces—and the greener, the better. Some of the concepts are outlandish: the winner of eVolo’s recent Skyscraper Competition, for example, looks like a giant Ferris wheel made from recycled cars, and ﬁlters air through a series of greenhouses as it spins. Green, who’s based in Vancouver, has a more practical idea. Instead of building skyscrapers from steel and concrete, he says, its time to start making them out of wood. “Steel and concrete have been great,” Green says, but they’re emission-heavy: ﬁve per cent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions come from the manufacturing and transport of concrete, he says—about ﬁve times more than the airline industry. Wood “is the only major building material that’s grown by the sun,” he notes, and actually stores carbon throughout its usable life. Even so, tall buildings can’t be made with standard two-byfours. In an upcoming report funded by the

Canadian Wood Council, Green suggests another method: giant sheets of wood, laid atop one another perpendicularly and glued together, like plywood. The tallest wooden structure today, in London, is nine stories high, but Green says his method could allow for ofﬁce buildings and residential towers of up to 30 stories tall. Even in earthquake-prone Vancouver, 20-storey-tall wood-based skyscrapers could be built without needing interior partitions for extra support, he says. Of course, sustainable forestry is a crucial component of this plan, Green recognizes, but if wood-based skyscrapers take off, “we’re hoping Canada leads it.” If they’re properly cared for, they can last as long as the standard alternatives, he adds, noting that in Japan there are 1,400-year-old wooden buildings still standing.

Taking out the trash Once inside these next-generation ofﬁce buildings, those in the ﬁeld of environmental design say employees can expect interactive work stations with built-in sensors that will

Oﬃce space: The world’s tallest building made of wood is nine stories and in London, England (left); the winner of eVolo’s Skyscraper competition

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MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE

47

Environment the list

Looking good in green The Green 30 is based on how employees perceive their employer’s environmental efforts. We asked each organization that made the 2011 list, compiled by Aon Hewitt, to highlight some of the key programs and practices that they think earned them high marks. Here are some of the highlights: Better than the real thing: Avatars could be designed to maintain eye contact and smile on cue

Baxter Corporation

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M AY 9, 2 0 11

Medical products and services, Mississauga, Ont. • Has published an annual Global Sustainability Report, measuring the company’s progress on nine sustainability priorities, including reductions in its carbon footprint and a green supply chain, since 1999. • Less reliant on natural resources by reclaiming cooling water from its manufacturing process; decreases energy use through gas and electricity reduction efforts. • Since 2002, the facility in Alliston, Ont., has diverted more than 1.7 million lb. of packaging from landﬁlls, and recycles more than 90 per cent of non-hazardous waste.

BC Biomedical Laboratories Ltd. Laboratory, Surrey, B.C. • Reduces waste by working with suppliers to

Baxter Corp.: Tree planting to offset emissions

Michelle Del RosaRio; BaxteR coRpoRation; photoGRaph BY anDReW tolson

survey the environment and tweak temper- ing,” on our bodies and on the environment, ature, humidity and lighting, which will says Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of make it easier for the environmentally friendly Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interto do their part. Also, workspaces will likely action Lab. “This could solve a lot of that.” be furnished with 100-per-cent recyclable Webcams already allow for video conferfurniture. We’re not there yet, but “zero ences, of course, but that is by no means waste is the ideal,” says Jennifer Jarratt, a perfect. On Skype, for example, “you can’t futures consultant whose past clients include make eye contact,” says Jim Blascovich, dirMicrosoft and General Electric, and who ector of the University of California, Santa currently works for Ofﬁce of the Future 2020, Barbara’s Research Center for Virtual Environa research project identifying major trends ments and Behavior. “You get feedback when people are frowning or winking at each other,” and technologies. Alan Hedge, an environmental design he says. In a video conference, “there are professor at Cornell Unino side glances, or the kinds versity, says energy gobbling things that are really EvEn in EarthquakE- of cubicles will also be a thing compelling in a business pronE vancouvEr, meeting.” of the past as designers build ofﬁces with energy 20-storEy-tall woodThat’s why some experts efﬁciency as a top priority. say that face-to-face meet“You want to use as much basEd skyscrapErs ings still trump telephone could bE built natural energy as you can,” calls and video chats—but says Hedge, like using “daymaybe not for long. Three light in the building so you don’t need arti- consumer technologies have made realistic ﬁcial light.” With technology and design avatars possible, they say: Microsoft Kinect combined, says Hedge, ofﬁces can be “cleaner for the Xbox, the Nintendo 3DS videogame and leaner with more environmentally system, and IBM’s Watson computer, which friendly materials.” recently won on Jeopardy. The Kinect system lets players control an avatar by moving Send a better-looking version of yourself around the room, while the 3DS display creto that big meeting ates a 3-D image visible to the naked eye Now, imagine attending a breakfast meeting (no cumbersome suits or special headgear in Vancouver, a lunch with clients in New York required). Meanwhile, Watson’s technology City and a conference in Dallas that evening— could be used to recreate human behaviour. without leaving your comfy apartment in Avatars could be designed to maintain eye Montreal. In their new book, Inﬁnite Reality, contact, for instance, or to smile appropritwo virtual reality experts say employees will ately. Taking it a step further, they could be be able to attend “virtual meetings” in the programmed to be taller, more conﬁdent, form of highly realistic three-dimensional and better-dressed than the person controlavatars (walking, talking representations of ling them. “We’ve entered,” says Bailenson, ourselves) within a few years. “It takes a toll “a paradigm-shifting moment.” K ate Lunau to ﬂy across the country for a two-hour meet- and Stephanie FindLay

rethink ways of packaging products. • Works with recycling provider to ﬁnd solutions for high-volume items such as small caps from needles, which wouldn’t normally be considered recyclable. • Telecommuting is encouraged. Nearly 15 per cent of the administrative staff (a total of 23 employees) works from home.

Bentall Kennedy LP Real estate advisory and service, Toronto • Tracks energy and water consumption, as well as waste, through Eco Tracker, a greenhouse gas management and reporting tool. • More than 300 buildings—worth $10 billion— certiﬁed by BOMA BESt (Building Owners and Managers Association’s Building Environmental Standards) and LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design). • Has expanded the number of “Green Teams,” an employee-driven network that implements social and environmental programs and initiatives, from one to three.

BLJC: President Gordon Hicks climbs out of one of the Markham, Ont., company’s Prius hybrids

lenge” was implemented at headquarters with the aim of increasing recycling, and diverting all of its waste from the landﬁll. • Salary increases for half the team members is based on a commitment to the company’s values, including living sustainably. BLJC • Publicly discloses its environmental objectReal estate management, Markham, Ont. ives and reports on progress. Last year, the • Purchases renewable energy credits for all Energy Efﬁciency Challenge resulted in a six the power it uses. And a “zero waste chal- per cent reduction in energy consumption.

Celestica Electronics manufacturing services, Toronto • Cross-departmental team assessed the Toronto facility to identify areas of potential improvement. The result: 150 ideas for reduction in energy use. • Separate containers in the ofﬁces for disposal of paper, aluminum, plastic, organics and glass; also separates waste products on the manufacturing ﬂoor, resulting in 80 per

Science at Work Every day at DuPont, we’re coming up with something new. New products. New technologies. New solutions. For people and our planet. Sustainable solutions for a better, safer, healthier life for people everywhere. www.dupont.ca Copyright © 2011 DuPont. All rights reserved. The DuPont Oval Logo, DuPont™, and The miracles of science™ are registered trademarks or trademarks of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company or its afﬁliates.

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Environment

cent less going to the landﬁll. grams during Earth Month, which included neutral Delta Chelsea in Toronto, and the • An “end-of-life” materials management stage shows, family-friendly nature games “living green roof ” at the Delta Guelph. operation that disassembles, tracks and man- and a speaker series. • Delta Greens, the national sustainability ages electronics. program, aligns the company’s efforts across Cruickshank the chain. Cisco Canada Construction, Kingston, Ont. Communications networking, Toronto • Performed energy audits on its ofﬁces and Dillon Consulting Ltd. • Works with governments on climate-change manufacturing plants resulting in upgrades Consulting, Toronto regulations and is active in the environmental to lighting, insulation and equipment. • Implements a corporate environmental policy committees and councils of several • Purchased equipment to recycle asphalt into management strategy, embedding sustaintrade associations. paving material, cutting fuel consumption ability into measures of success; communi• Distributes a quarterly environmental news- by 80 per cent and greenhouse gas emissions cates progress to staff and clients. letter to employees sharing best practices and by 50 per cent. • Carbon neutrality is achieved by reducing news about programs and achievements. • Upgraded heavy equipment to more efﬁ- greenhouse gas emissions—ofﬁce energy • The Cisco Green website focuses on environ- cient machinery; instituted route optimiza- upgrades, three-stream solid waste recycling mental strategy and “green works.” Features tion, maintenance and tracking programs, and green procurement practices. The rest a discussion forum, employee commentary as well as an anti-idling policy; installed speed- is offset by investing in Canadian renewable limiting devices to decrease emissions. and a “green news” feed. energy projects. • Has a goal of investing one per cent of revCo-operators Life Insurance Company Delta Hotels and Resorts enue into social, environmental and comInsurance, Regina Hotels and resorts, Toronto munity initiatives. Helps volunteer com• Sustainability strategy aims to reduce emis- • More than 40 properties are certiﬁed under mittees implement local projects aimed at sions from business travel and building cli- the Hotel Association of Canada’s Green improving the environmental footprint. mate control by 50 per cent by 2014. Key Eco-Rating Program and are regularly • Youth Engagement for Sustainability net- evaluated. DuPont Canada work educates young people in the commun- • Every hotel has a green team and commit- Science-based products and services, ity to make their homes, schools and com- tee that leads and tracks the hotel’s environ- Mississauga, Ont. munities greener. mental initiatives at the local level; highlights • Developed a “Mission of Sustainable Growth” • Partners with the Saskatchewan Science Cen- include a solar-heating system at the Delta that focuses, in part, on reducing the ﬁrm’s tre to create environmental awareness pro- Trois-Rivières, Que., the 100 per cent carbon environmental footprint. 50

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDREW TOLSON

Celestica: End-of-life materials management operation (above) separates manufacturing waste, resulting in 80 per cent less to the landﬁll

• Produces sustainability progress reports, which detail progress toward the company’s 2015 goals, such as more than doubling investment in research and development programs with quantiﬁable environmental beneﬁts for customers and consumers. • Undergoes an external review once every three years that looks into many facets of the business, including environmental protection, resource conservation and product stewardship.

EllisDon Corp. Building contracting, Mississauga • Sustainable Building Services department promotes stewardship through environmental initiatives, education, and improvements to work practices. • Is part of the Canada Building Information Modelling Council, which helps save millions through more efﬁcient and environmentally sound construction. • Green campaigns include organic waste recycling at the head ofﬁce, and Earth Day Challenge activities that range from tree planting and roadside and park cleanup to low-impact transportation use.

First Calgary Financial Banking, Calgary • An employee-led Environmental Advocacy Team champions the reduction of waste, water and energy use through initiatives including a carpool challenge and a wastefree lunch week.

ability by partnering in 2009 with the Natural Step, which helps companies embed sustainability into their business model. • Twenty-eight “sustainability champions” initiate internal programs, and identify and educate on best practices. • Company programs include “Kick Carbon Greater Edmonton Foundation: to the Curb” to reduce its carbon footprint, Housing for Seniors and “Last One Out” aimed at decreasing Seniors’ housing, Edmonton energy use. As well, a smart car is available • Replaced 81 per cent of its buildings’ toilets— for off-site meetings. about 2,500—with dual-ﬂush models. • Is building a 50-suite apartment building, Ivanhoe Cambridge Inc. featuring solar-heated hot water and a heat Property management and ownership, Montreal recovery system. • Upgraded lighting in nine buildings, saving • Three LEED professionals are on staff to roughly 35 per cent on electricity costs. advise on future building projects, and 76 per cent of its Canadian properties are certiIHG Canada ﬁed by BOMA BESt. Hotels, Mississauga, Ont. • An internal website facilitates discussion on • Uses the LEED-certiﬁed Green Engage, an ways to improve environmental practices, online tool that allows hotels to track their and employees are encouraged to propose waste, energy and water use and recom- environmental solutions. mends actions to cut energy bills. • A Corporate Responsibility and Sustainabil• Acknowledges responsibility for managing ity Committee evaluates the social, economic its impact on the communities in which it and environmental impacts of company pracoperates, through green practices in hotel tices and identiﬁes priorities, gaps and areas design and operation. of improvement. • Created the Innovation Hotel in 2008, an online tool that allows guests and hotel employ- LoyaltyOne ees to share sustainability-related ideas. Marketing, Toronto • Work-At-Home program means that 50 per ISL Engineering and Land Services, Ltd. cent of call centre representatives don’t have Engineering consulting, Edmonton to commute to the ofﬁce. • Developed a strategic approach to sustain- • A ﬂeet of Smart cars is available for associates to use for business. • The Mississauga, Ont., facility has 800 solar panels that feed enough energy back into the local grid to power 16 medium-sized homes. • Requires LEED standards to be applied to the construction or renovation of all its buildings. • The Corporate Citizenship team partners with community projects such as education programs and river cleanups.

Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics Cosmetics retail, Vancouver • Products are designed so that they require neither preservatives nor packaging. • Buildings run on 100 per cent green energy from Bullfrog Power; more than 80 per cent of factory and administrative waste is diverted from landﬁlls (manufacturing facilities in Toronto and Vancouver composted more than 100 tonnes of organic waste and recycled over 200 tonnes of recyclables last year). • Shopping bags are compostable and made of recycled paper, as are all the gift wrap and shipping packages.

Marriott Hotels of Canada Ltd.

Delta Hotels and Resorts: Staff uses eco-cleaning products and every hotel has a green team

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Hotels and resorts, Mississauga, Ont. • Made a $500,000 commitment to protect the source of fresh water in Asia, helping two 51

Environment billion people in rural communities develop sustainable businesses. • Each hotel has a “green” committee that coordinates recycling and composting and monitors daily energy use. • Partnered with the Brazilian state of Amazonas to preserve 1.4 million acres of endangered rainforest, funded in part by $1-pernight guest donations.

McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada Ltd. Food service, Toronto • Will ultimately require suppliers to use only agricultural raw materials from sustainably managed land. Will start with beef, poultry, packaging, coffee and oil (the World Wildlife Fund identiﬁed these as having the greatest potential impact on sustainability). • Ninety per cent of packaging is made from renewable resources. • Through energy-saving practices, the company has saved about 24 million kWh and well over a million cubic metres of natural gas since 2005—that’s equal to taking about 1,300 cars off the road for a year.

Minto Group Inc. Real estate developer and manager, Ottawa • Green Champions are the driving force behind company-wide activities like Earth Week, the Commuter Challenge, spring cleaning of roadways and parks, and the Green Ofﬁce Certiﬁcation Program that audits consumption and outputs of such items as paper

products, ofﬁce waste, and travel. • The annual Environmental Footprint Report highlights the company’s accomplishments, including $4.7 million in energy and water savings in 2010. • Helped create Algonquin College’s Construction School of Excellence, a green facility that will educate the next generation of builders in the importance of sustainable construction.

Scotiabank Group

Banking and investing, Toronto • EcoApplause program allows employees to recognize co-workers for their green initiatives. Since the November 2010 launch, more than 1,700 have been awarded. • Recently launched EcoEnergy Financing Options for small businesses and home owners, to help cover the costs of small-scale energy projects such as solar panels. Nexen Inc. • Its EcoLiving program, launched last June, Energy production, Calgary educates Canadians on how they can save • An annual environment week raises aware- money by reducing their energy bills. ness and provides educational opportunities on everything from water preservation to Stikeman Elliott, LLP recycling initiatives. Law ﬁrm • A data management project develops new • Saved 7.5 million sheets of paper last year thanks to double-sided printing, and elimwater use and waste data tracking tools. • Partners with organizations like the Horn inated all bottled water, paper plates and River Basin Producers Group—a shale gas plastic cutlery from its ofﬁces, stocking kitchindustry initiative aimed at minimizing ens with china plates, glasses and stainless environmental impacts while maximizing steel cutlery. economic beneﬁts to the area. • Is replacing ofﬁce chairs with “Celle” chairs, which are made of 33 per cent recycled materiPCL Constructors Inc. als and are 99 per cent recyclable. Construction, Edmonton • Partnered with the Greening Canada Fund • Reduces waste by reusing materials—like to invest in the establishment of Canadian using crushed concrete for bedding and road- carbon offset projects. building use—or recycling. • More than 100 projects have achieved or are TD Bank Financial Group targeting various levels of LEED certiﬁcation. Banking and investing, Toronto • Has its own sustainable training and profes- • Has had a chief environment ofﬁcer in charge sional development centre, the Ross Grieve of the company’s environmental strategy since 2008. Centennial Learning Centre. • Offers a number of green services to its customers, including paperless record keeping, which saves about 10,000 trees a year. • In 2010, the company helped plant 77,000 hybrid poplar trees in southwestern Ontario— the plant species, developed by the University of Guelph, has above-average carboncapture capabilities.

LoyaltyOne: Mississauga, Ont., facility has 800 solar panels feeding energy into the local grid 52

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Insurance, Guelph, Ont. • Between 2008 and 2010, the company reduced carbon emissions by 10 per cent thanks in part to building retroﬁts, and installing video-conference technology to cut down on travel for meetings. • A “Sustainability 101” course introduces employees to the basics of sustainability. The e-learning session is not compulsory, but has been taken by more than 1,500 staff members. • A Stakeholder Sustainability Survey monitors the company’s progress toward its goals every year, and serves to gather new ideas.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW TOLSON; PCL CONSTRuCTORS WESTCOAST INC

The Co-operators

than $4 million into local environmental projects. • The head ofﬁce, which is developing a rooftop garden this year, recycles 79 per cent of its waste.

Whole Foods Market Food retail, Toronto • Every four months, stores donate ﬁve per cent of one day’s sales to a designated nonproﬁt, often an environmental agency. • The chain was the ﬁrst grocery retailer to completely eliminate plastic bags. • Each store has a group of employees who concentrate on environmental initiatives, which include organizing neighbourhood park cleanups and recycling programs.

THE METHODOLOGY: The Green 30 is based on employee opinion data collected as part of Aon Hewitt’s annual Best Employers in PCL Constructors Inc.: Has 100-plus projects with or targeting various LEED certiﬁcations Canada study and Best Small & Medium Employers study. More than 134,000 employVancity Group mable ones, and removing air condition- ees and 2,500 leaders at over 250 organizaBanking and investing, Vancouver ing units in ATMs and using exhaust tions participated in the 2011 edition of these • Reduced utility consumption by 12 per instead. studies. To be eligible, organizations must cent through energy-saving retroﬁts such • The Vancity Visa enviroFund program, which be in business for at least three years and as replacing old thermostats with program- was established in 1990, has injected more have 50 or more employees.

Because every day is Earth Day As a solid partner to some of the world’s leading technology brands, we embrace green initiatives that are meaningful for our company, our customers and the communities in which we operate. Our commitment to the environment is part of our culture because for 35,000 Celestica employees around the world, every day is Earth Day.

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www.celestica.com

Society

sports

ULTIMATE TIckET Maybe it has something to do with the Maple Leafs missing the playoffs for six straight seasons, but Toronto the Good has a lot of pent-up blood lust. Enough to account for all 55,000 seats for the ﬁrst-ever Ultimate Fighting Championship bouts staged in the city being snapped up in just 20 minutes. Enough to hand the Las Vegas-based promoters of the April 30 beat-downs a gate estimated at more than $10 million, the most lucrative single event in the history of the Rogers Centre, née SkyDome. So much that even the Bay Street suits have gotten in on the action, with more than 90 per cent of the stadium’s luxury suites sold to bankers, stockbrokers and head ofﬁce honchos. “We’re not going mainstream,” says a satisﬁed Tom Wright, the UFC’s point man in Canada. “The mainstream is coming to us.” Once feared, and infamously reviled by John McCain as “human cockﬁghting,” mixed martial arts (MMA) has gone from outlaw sideshow to big-time sport in just a decade. In 2001, only Nevada and New Jersey sanctioned the punishing bouts—kitchen-sink combinations of wrestling, boxing, jiu-jitsu, Thai kickboxing and pretty much every other type of weaponless combat ever devised. Today, it’s legal in 45 of the 48 U.S. states that permit prizeﬁghting, as well as nine Canadian provinces. UFC, a privately held company and the sport’s biggest brand, is estimated to be worth more than US$2 billion. Propelled by stars like Montreal’s Georges St. Pierre— who will defend his welterweight title against American Jake Shield in Toronto’s main event— it attracts corporate sponsors like AnheuserBusch, Bacardi, Burger King and Gatorade. Fights are now broadcast to 150 countries worldwide, and in 2010 UFC’s pay-per-view 54

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offerings drew more than nine million “buys” in North America alone, generating upwards of $400 million in revenue. (By comparison, WWE wrestling, which once dominated the sector, sold less than two million buys.) But for all the global growth, the epicentre of MMA fandom is Canada in general, and Ontario in particular. “On a per-capita basis, this is by far our largest market in the world,” says Wright, a former commissioner of the Canadian Football League. The ﬁrst card ever held in Vancouver last June drew more than 17,000 people. Two title ﬁghts with St. Pierre in Montreal both packed 23,000 into the Bell Centre. The Toronto event will be the biggest live show in the sport’s history. (UFC title ﬁghts in Vegas usually draw around 11,000.) Maybe Canada, like Australia, another MMA hotbed, simply has a culture that embraces any and all sport. Or perhaps decades of watching hockey goons duke it out has created a deep-seated appetite for pugilistic mayhem. “What happens at a hockey game when a ﬁght breaks out? It’s 18,000 people on their feet,” says Wright. “We, as a people, just get the UFC.” M AY 9, 2 0 11

How big is mixed martial arts in the country’s most populous province? Four months after it was ﬁnally legalized by Dalton McGuinty’s government, the Ontario athletics commissioner has already handed out permits for 20 different events, versus just three boxing cards and one kickboxing bout. “Basically, it’s the Wild West right now,” says Robin Black, a Toronto musician turned MMA manager, commentator, blogger and ring announcer. “There are all these people coming out of the woodwork to stage events. Some of these guys are offering ﬁghters twice their normal salary.” One of the more established promoters jumping on the UFC bandwagon is the Jones Entertainment Group, which has events planned for mid-May in London, Ont., and early July in Sudbury, Ont. A family-run company for three generations, the Jones Group specializes in bringing live shows to smaller centres. Its founders, Charles and Wilf Jones, were the bookers for Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians. Charles’s son Don had a two-decade-long touring collaboration with the late Ernie Coombs, a.k.a. Mr. Dressup,

ROGERIO BARBOSA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

How extreme ﬁghting captured a generation—and its money. Jonathon Gatehouse reports.

of fans like it. “We know that our sport is a combat sport, a contact sport and a violent sport,” says Wright, sitting in his ofﬁce overlooking Toronto’s harbour. “And we’re not about to try and be politically correct to appeal to a wider audience.” In fact, MMA used to be far rougher. When the contests ﬁrst started in the early 1990s, they had no weight classes and pitted masters of different types of combat sports against each other, with results that were often as bloody as they were lopsided. It was literally no holds barred, and there was no point system or even ringside judges. Marc Ratner, the long-time executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, and, since 2006, the UFC’s chief lobbyist, remembers going on CNN’s Larry King Live in the late 1990s to decry the events. “I said the state of Nevada could never have a sport with no rules.” It wasn’t until 2001, the year Vegas Casino magnates Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta and their jiu-jitsu buddy Dana White purchased the UFC name for $2 million, that stakeholders came together in New Jersey and gave the sport its ﬁrst formal rule book. (Ontario, like most jurisdictions, has adopted those uniﬁed regulations.) Then began the slow climb to respectability and recognition. “Our mantra is that we run to regulation, not away from

TIFFANY BROWN/ReuTeRs; KARI HuBeRT/ZuFFA LLC/GeTTY ImAGes

Box-oﬃce gold: Georges St. Pierre smacks Josh Koscheck at UFC 124 in Montreal; an Octagon Girl; the crowd at UFC 126 celebrates a KO

and still manages Stuart McLean, host of CBC Radio’s The Vinyl Cafe. His son Brad Jones, now the JEG president, has found success with acts like Roch Voisine, the Rankin Sisters and Alice Cooper. “It gives us an opportunity to branch out into the sporting world,” Jones says from backstage at a Larry the Cable Guy show in Kitchener, Ont. Decades ago, his father and grandfather used to put on the occasional boxing and wrestling show. “This isn’t that far a departure,” he says. The London show, at the 5,500-seat downtown arena, is already half-sold. The marketing plan relies heavily on ads on classic rock radio, and the databases of the local Ontario Hockey League teams. The demographic is 18 to 45, loves hockey and is “obviously male,” says Jones. “It’s not Mr. Dressup or Stuart McLean. Deﬁnitely not.” UFC bout at the MGM Grand. There’s a report of a “broken left ulna/forearm” from The damage done is catalogued in the a May ﬁght, and hearing loss and a broken “remarks” section of the post-ﬁght reports jaw at a July event. Page after page of knee prepared by the Nevada Athletic Commis- injuries, suspected fractures of ribs, hands, sion. “Must have right orbital blowout and wrists and feet, and plenty of lacerations. Few nasal fractures cleared by oral, maximal, facial leave the caged-in octagon unscathed. surgeon,” reads one from a January 2010 And that’s the way UFC’s growing legion

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it,” Ratner says from his Nevada ofﬁces. The sales pitch always begins with talk of UFC’s focus on health and safety—annual medical testing, mandatory pre- and post-ﬁght evaluations, MRIs or CAT scans, as well as training suspensions after knockouts, and lengthy layoffs between ﬁghts. MMA proponents maintain that the risk 55

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Josh hedges/Zuffa LLC/getty Images

of serious injury in their sport is less than Georges St. Pierre up to Parliament Hill for The ﬁlm traces the story of a couple of troubled boxing because of its fewer rounds, ofﬁcials autograph sessions with MPs and senators. kids from the hardscrabble neighbourhoods that have more discretion to stop bouts, and But the changes, part of the Tories’ omnibus of Lafayette, La., seeking redemption and ﬁghters who have the option to “tap out” crime bill, keep dying on the order papers meaning through their ﬁsts and feet. It’s a and surrender with honour. Although equal due to prorogations and, most recently, this long way from the Rogers Centre. The battles credit is probably due to those who apply election. On the hustings, Harper has prom- play out before small crowds in rodeo rings. the rules. After UFC 128 in mid-March in ised to reintroduce and pass the sweeping And graduating to “pro” status on the USANew Jersey, the State Athletic Commission crime legislation within 100 days of being MMA circuit earns you $500 a ﬁght, with a handed out medical suspensions to 10 of handed a majority government. So it’s no $500 bonus for victory. The big time is reprethe 28 ﬁghters involved. A few days later, mystery who Las Vegas is pulling for this time sented as a televised ﬁght in Montreal. Ontario’s commissioner ruled out American around. “We’re still very bullish on Canada,” It’s a departure for Tucker and his co-dirﬁghter Brian Foster from UFC 129 in Toronto, says Ratner. “But it would ector and wife, Petra Epafter an MRI showed a damaged blood ves- be a lot easier if the sport perlein. Their last four ﬁlms, ‘in this very sedate including the critically acwas regulated all across the sel in his brain. But the more compelling argument for country.” claimed Gunner Palace, resociety, this is governments in favour of UFC across North volved around Iraq. Tucker something intense says it was the soldiers who America has undoubtedly been the economic The day before and the one. It is predicted that the Toronto event day of the big ﬁght in Toturned him on to MMA. and real, with And he sees an interesting will produce as much as $40 million in eco- ronto, the UFC is holding consequences’ link between all-too-real nomic spinoffs, and earn the province $1.5 a Fan Expo that is expected million on the ticket sales tax alone. combat and what takes And it’s money that seems to be place in the octagon. “We live in willing to travel—analysis of box this very sedate, almost disembodofﬁce data from the ﬁrst UFC event ied digital society,” he says. “And I in Montreal in 2008 suggests that think that’s why these martial cultures have an appeal. It’s something 40 per cent of the fans came from intense and real, with physical meanOntario. When Wright started the UFC’s Canadian operation last May, ing and consequences.” he told Ontario Liberals that their In an increasingly fragmented marketplace, one of the UFC’s advanprinciples had long ago been tramtages is its appeal to the social media pled by commerce. “If MMA fans crowd. The company has more than wanted to engage in our sport they could go to any store and buy an ﬁve million “likes” on Facebook, action ﬁgure, video game, magazine and its loudmouth public face, Dana or DVD. They could go on the Web, White, counts more than 1.4 milor watch it for free on Sportsnet, or lion followers on Twitter. AnheuserBusch’s research shows that 76 per get the pay-per-view at home or in cent of 21- to 27-year-old beer drinka bar,” he says. “But they couldn’t watch it live. It didn’t make any ers are fans. And a recent U.S. poll sense.” Less than three months later, of marketing executives ranked the the McGuinty government dropped sport number three in terms of seven years of opposition and welreaching the 18- to 34-year-old demographic, ahead of baseball, basketcomed the sport. Despite that, Canada is still not ball and hockey. quite as welcoming as the UFC would Nick “The Ninja of Love” Denis, wish. Section 83 of the Criminal Code, the No.-1-ranked bantamweight which restricts legal prizeﬁghting to MMA ﬁghter in Canada, knows the boxers wearing at least 140-gram sport’s appeal. The 26-year-old mitts (the open-ﬁngered gloves used Superstar: Canada’s St. Pierre is the UFC welterweight champ recently cut short his studies in bioin MMA weigh about half that), has chemistry at the University of Ottawa, slowed the sport’s growth. In British Colum- to attract tens of thousands, each paying $40 opting for a master’s instead of a Ph.D. “When bia, for example, where there’s no provincial ($35 in advance). Along with the long lines you win, it’s the best feeling in the world. athletic commission, the City of Vancouver seeking autographs from past and present People say it’s better than sex,” he says. An has allowed ﬁghts under a two-year pilot pro- MMA stars like Royce Gracie, Chuck Liddell, arm injury has kept him out of the ring for ject, but is making each ﬁghter carry $1 mil- and Anderson Silva, and the crush compet- more than a year. Now he’s back training in lion in liability insurance—10 times the stan- ing for photos of the scantily clad “Octagon Montreal, living hand-to-mouth with his girldard amount. In recent years, the UFC has Girls,” there will be a quieter table featuring friend, a pastry chef, and dreaming of the big spent a lot of time and money trying to con- Michael Tucker. The American ﬁlmmaker is time. “I’m on the radar,” says Denis. “Two vince the Harper government to explicitly premiering his latest documentary, Fightville, wins at the most, and hopefully I’ll be in the write them into the deﬁnition, even dragging at Toronto’s Hot Docs Festival on April 28. UFC.” Violent dreams for violent times.

Society charles & william

Who will be king of Canada?

Charles PaChter

Now they’re both in waiting. Whoever prevails, there’s never been a better time to renew our royal roots Everything is in readiness for Prince William to receive Catherine Middleton on Friday, April 29, when she takes the long walk down Westminster Abbey’s john storied nave and they pledge to fraser each other “to have and to hold, for better, for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health.” The RAF trumpeters will be standing ready for their post-signing fanfare; the princess-to-be managed to get herself conﬁrmed into the Church of England in the nick of time; Prince Harry will be planning some sort of practical joke in the manner of the better sort of best men; and the Middletons, père et mère, have probably worked out what on Earth they will say to the Prince of Wales and Camilla, duchess of Cornwall as they ride together during the carriage ride from the Abbey to Buckingham Palace after the ceremony. Most of the burning questions of the day will have been answered by the day’s end, from the name of the fashion designer who got to make the Dress of Dresses to whether or not the bride’s over-the-top millionaire uncle (his colourful-sounding residence on the Spanish island of Ibiza is called La Casa de Bang-Bang) behaved himself at the palace. The only real question that can’t be answered, despite all the royalist hoopla, is whether or not William will ever be king. That’s king as in King of Canada. Up until around the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, not many doubted the sovereign’s inherited right to sit upon the throne. But today the story is no longer about the man who will be king. Now there’s two of them waiting their turn: father and son, Charles and William. Undoubted right, alas, no longer exists. The monarchy, like everything else, has to justify itself. In Canada, it’s complicated in that the Canadian monarchy looks remarkably like the English one, minus most of the irritating bric-a-brac (like palaces, ladies in waiting, the royal mews, and the divorced duchess of York). We have made constitutional arrangements that pretty well ensure an automatic

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succession of the Crown of Canada from the reigning monarch, Elizabeth II, to her eldest son, the current Prince of Wales. This irks some; others are reassured, but still worry about the republican spirit of the age. Among Canadians who resent our lingering connections to the Crown, there is a strong feeling that once Queen Elizabeth II has died, it will be the appropriate time to sever “our last colonial links.” The widespread respect and affection held for the Queen, however, undermines this argument. If she has done such a good job that we wouldn’t want to precipitate anything nasty before she dies, doesn’t that—in effect—make the case for a constitutional monarchy? There are other good reasons to retain the Crown

in Canada, not the least being the way it has evolved into a Canadian institution through the viceregal ofﬁces of governor general and the 10 lieutenant-governors of the provinces. The Crown also gives us some practical and iconic different from You Know Who south of the border. On the republican side are two big issues. First is the whole notion of a hereditary monarchy, especially one that favours the male gender and insists that the sovereign be a member of the Church of England. It simply goes against the grain to trust anyone in high ofﬁce simply because of the circumstances of his or her birth, especially when it’s mostly “his.” Second, there is the question of the Prince of Wales, who is now almost routinely dismissed as a loose cannon, or—to give it some Canadian edge—a wild loon. Prince Charles is one of the most intriguing human beings alive today. He has accepted that it will still be a long time before he is king, if he ever will be. Early on, he seems to have made a decision that if he was to leave any mark in the world, it wouldn’t be as a short-lived sovereign (his grandmother did live to 101 and his mother, the Queen, looks set to match the record), it would be as Prince

Man and moose: Artist Charlie Pachter’s take on the royal pair in Canada, a painting titled Highnesses-in-training Meet Monarch of the North; William and Kate’s tour here starts in June MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE

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Society ada. Or, as Pascal famously pointed out, “The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.” All this works in William’s favour. In addition, the Australian experience still resonates. When the only referendum on the subject was held in 1999, the majority of Australian sentiment, we were repeatedly told, was republican. The subsequent debate, however, became not one of monarchy versus republic, but between federal and state power and a clearly republican population that nevertheless opted to retain the Crown rather than give increased authority to an elected federal system. For Canada, as for Australia, the lesson was that this messy question is left best untouched and the status quo—which has the useful quality of actually working—is best left alone. Now, more than a decade later, republican sentiment in Australia has waned. Not upsetting the apple cart isn’t much of a support system for a future King Charles III or King William V of Canada. It sounds a bit like, “Lie on your back, shut your eyes and think of Canada,” as the Crown stutters on in its strange, uncharted ways, attacked by leading academics and journalists but tolerated and sometimes loved by the public. Death by neglect and wilful ignorance looked set to be our heritage, and may still be. What was so interesting last summer in the great success of the Queen and Prince Philip’s trip to Canada, however, was not the remarkable enthusiasm of the population, but especially the degree to which the federal government supported the idea of the Crown and the person of the Queen as assets and part of the uniqueness of Time to sever our links? The huge respect for the Queen underCanada. Right now, there has mines that argument, but will anyone accept Charles as king? never been a better time his father, is proud of his achievements and to renew our connection to our Crown roots: courage and defends him whenever he gets the wedding of the second-in-line to the throne and the imminent celebration of the the chance. Intellectually, the republican argument is Diamond Jubilee of the reign of Queen Elizahard to beat in the contemporary world. beth II also come at a time when Canada— About the only thing that keeps it in check is despite all its issues and problems—seems, to experience, practical reality and the one thing outsiders anyway, the best and most fortunthe republicans utterly lack: the romance and ate country in the world. Crown and country: magic of monarchy that has been worked an old notion newly revived? God save the into both the geography and history of Can- evolving status quo! Long may it reign! 58

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celebrations

Where the real Wedding party’s at Forget ofﬁcial royal invites. You’d rather watch with these ladies. Patti Renihan and her best friends have always watched the British royal weddings together: when Prince Charles married Diana Spencer in 1981, and when Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson in 1986, the women huddled around a tiny TV inside a screened porch at a family cottage in northern Ontario. They had a similar plan for when Prince William marries Kate Middleton. But when other friends heard about the earlymorning gathering, they wanted to join them. “It’s ballooned to 14 people,” laughs Renihan, 65, who made gold invitations that match the ofﬁcial ones—“except instead of HRH we put my initials” and instead of “Westminster Abbey” they wrote “the abbey” at Renihan’s home address in Toronto. Upon arrival, each guest will be introduced by her new name: duchess or lady of the area where she lives. “This party has snowballed,” Renihan admits. “It gets grander by the day.” The spectacle of a British royal wedding has inspired many Canadians, especially women, to host their own extravagant receptions. No detail will be overlooked: food, drink, ﬂowers, party favours and attire have been planned in celebration of this rare event. And despite the time difference (Will and Kate exchange vows at 11 a.m. British time, and media coverage begins three hours earlier), or perhaps because of it, people like Renihan and Jane Francis of Mississauga will welcome guests to their houses in the middle of the night—starting at 3 a.m. “I got a new big TV for my birthday, and I was going to watch the wedding regardless,” says Francis, 64, before her friend Marg Shaver, chimes in. “And we were going to be lonely in our basements,” Shaver explains, adding that she had British-ﬂag bunting and serviettes that were crying out to be used for such an occasion. “So we decided to get some others in!” ﬁnishes Francis. Over the last few

STEFAN ROUSSEAU/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

of Wales. Consequently, he has chosen to identify himself with causes that have won him many admirers, but also a wide swath of enemies, from outraged republican journalists, parliamentarians and modernist architects, to those who loathe alternate medicine and holistic religion. This is because he has been a courageous visionary, unafraid of controversy, for what are now crusading issues of deep concern, from massive pollution and other leading ecological battlefronts to working with the poor and disadvantaged. He gets terrible press in Britain, but by almost any measure he is a good man trying to do the best he can with the position fate has given him. He has refused to accept the dictum that because he is unelected, he has to shut up. On many of these issues, in fact, he sounds alarmingly . . . Canadian. And then there’s this, which is pertinent right now. One of the nicest things about Prince Charles is the way he has been such a good father, despite screwing up his notoriously mismatched marriage. No broken marriage has ever been subjected to as much scrutiny as his and no one has carried on with as much grace. One of the nicest things about Prince William, too, is the way he clearly loves

photograph by andrew tolson

Fascinators on: Patti Renihan (second from right) will host 14 friends starting at 3 a.m.

weeks, the self-described “mature, fun-loving women” have traded scores of emails and calls in preparation for the big day. The latest news: “The ﬁne jewels from China have arrived,” exclaims Shaver, who turns 61 the day after the wedding. “Blue sapphire engagement ring replicas for everybody!” Another key accessory will be fascinators, those fancy, feathery headpieces so popular among women at British weddings. Renihan has borrowed from her daughter the one she wore as a bride. Shaver has made fascinators for guests. (Francis concedes she just learned the word.) Casandra Harding-Whatman, a 36-year-old working mom who has invited six women to her Toronto home at 5 a.m., owns three fascinators. She expects to wear her green one with the black ﬂoral dress she purchased especially for the event. It meets the “wedding casual” dress code: “Casual enough to wear in the morning,” she explains, but formal enough for a wedding. That’s in line with Renihan’s attire: a velvet pantsuit and her mother’s pearls. Francis and Shaver are opting for comfy (not frumpy) apparel: “I’m wearing plaid pyjamas,” notes Francis. “Whatever pyjamas I wear, they’re going to be ironed,” says Shaver. Guests attending a high tea at the home of Janet (who preferred not to use her last name) in Georgetown, Ont., will mix it up: some are scouring second-hand shops for suitable outﬁts, while others will opt for the mother-of-the-bride/ groom dresses they wore to their own children’s weddings. Janet will skip white gloves, though: “I couldn’t possibly cook wearing those.” The menus planned for these gatherings are ﬁt for a king and queen, indeed: sweet and savoury scones, watercress and cucum-

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ber sandwiches, bubble and squeak (a potato and root vegetable hash), clotted cream, shortbread, triﬂe, Scotch eggs and “Buckingham” and eggs, Champagne, mimosas, tea and coffee. The tables will be dressed in ﬁne

linens, and adorned with fresh ﬂowers. After the royal wedding is over, Harding-Whatman and her friends, who’ve taken the day off work, plan to go for lunch. Francis and Shaver joke that they will be asleep by 9:30 a.m. In every case, the hosts are motivated by a love for the “pomp and ceremony” of a British royal wedding. Nostalgia has its place too: Harding-Whatman says being dragged from bed to watch the wedding of Diana and Charles is one of her earliest memories; Janet recalls being carried as a young girl on her father’s shoulders to see the Queen during a royal visit to Canada. Francis and Shaver feel a maternal hope for “Diana’s boys.” “I don’t know that I’m a staunch royalist,” says Shaver, “but you hope good things for them.” The party-throwers also hope that this British royal wedding will have a different, happier ending than some of the previous ones. It won’t all be different or new, though. Renihan and her best friends are still going to the cottage ahead of the wedding. But this time it’s for supplies. “We’re going to get all our mother’s tea sets so we have all the right cups.” Tradition prevails. CATHY GULLI

Science warS

the biggest, baddest dinos still rule A scientist can discover 10,000 fossils, but that’s not what gets us talking

tors—could see in the dark and hunted by night, which was reported around the world. Meanwhile, “a scientist might harvest 10,000 fossilized molluscs, and discover things that have a great deal of signiﬁcance, but they don’t grasp the public imagination like a dinosaur,” Taylor says. This can lead to competition among paleontologists, and sometimes even sour grapes. “There’s a Hollywood aspect of science,” says University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno. “It’s about impressing your colleagues, and with good reason,” including funding. “But there’s some jealousy,” he says, “that goes with that turf.” A proliﬁc paleontologist who’s discovered dinosaurs on ﬁve continents, Sereno’s a master of making his work exciting and, he says, “accessible.” One of his splashiest ﬁnds came in 2009: he and his team dug up ﬁve species of 100-million-year-old crocodiles in the Sahara, and named them BoarCroc, RatCroc, DuckCroc, DogCroc, and PancakeCroc, whose giant head was ﬂat as a pancake. The press release included a photo of Sereno enveloped by the spiky jaws of SuperCroc, a 40-foot, eight-ton monster he’d found on an earlier dig. “I wanted names that were evocative,”

Mike Taylor, a paleontologist at the University of Bristol, recently announced a newly discovered dinosaur, Brontomerus mcintoshi, whose whopping thighs suggest it may actually have kicked smaller rivals out of the way. In a nod to its muscled legs, his team cheekily named it Brontomerus, which literally translates to “thunder thighs.” (The name is also an homage to dinosaur expert John McIntosh.) The story was accompanied by an illustration of Brontomerus punting a smaller dinosaur through the air, its blood spurting gorily. “Not all of our colleagues were as delighted as we were,” Taylor says. “There was a feeling in some quarters that it could give a frivolous notion of what paleontology is all about.” The study of dinosaurs is just a small part of Taylor’s ﬁeld, but it gets the lion’s share of attention. Take, for example, the current American Museum of Natural History exhibit on the “world’s largest dinosaurs,” which generated tremendous buzz before it even opened on April 16, or a new study suggesting some carnivorous dinosaurs—like velocirap- Thunder thighs: Brontomerus vs. the little guy 60

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NaNcy StoNe/chicago tribuNe/getty imageS; FraNciSco gaScó

Pop cult: Paul Sereno with model and fossil of BoarCroc; he deliberately chooses evocative names

Sereno says. Researchers recently announced they’d found a new cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex, named Zhuchengtyrannus magnus, or “tyrant from Zhucheng,” for the place in China where it was found; the largest known dinosaur is Argentinosaurus, named for its place of discovery, too, which Taylor calls “a monumental failure of the imagination.” A fascination with dinosaurs is something that Stephen Brusatte, who’s completing his Ph.D. at Columbia University, understands: much of his work looks at tyrannosaurs, which he agrees have become pop culture icons. “They really stand for something,” he says. “Power, success, extinction, fear. They’re the baddest predator of all time.” For those who don’t work on T. rex and his kind, it can be hard to get a similar piece of the limelight. Robert Reisz, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Toronto Mississauga, has published many papers, including one that told “an important story” about how modern frogs and salamanders evolved, but the paper that got the most publicity was a 2005 study of 190-million-year-old dinosaur embryos, he says. (A follow-up was published last year.) Consider Alberta, where most Canadian ﬁeldwork is done. Only a small percentage of the dinosaurs dug up “will have big pokey teeth. The rest are plant-eaters,” says Michael Caldwell, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Alberta. “But the big meateaters get the most attention.” Caldwell doesn’t work on dinosaurs—he focuses on snake evolution, and especially the mosasaur, a predatory marine lizard (now long extinct) that could measure up to 55 feet. “It’s actually a bigger animal than T. rex, yet very few people know of it,” Caldwell says. Museums have popularized the notion of Earth’s history through dinosaur bones, he says, but much of the underwater world is still mysterious. Ultimately, a little competitive scufﬂing only beneﬁts the ﬁeld. Much of what we know about dinosaurs stems from the so-called “Bone Wars” of the 19th century, when two paleontologists, Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, tried to outdo each others’ discoveries, eventually resorting to bribery, bullying, even the destruction of fossils. Of course, most paleontologists today would never go so far, but rivalries continue. In his own area of research, Caldwell notes, there are two opposing camps that debate which lizard is, in fact, the closest relative to the snake. “These are beautiful battles that bring about great work,” he says, with a quote from physicist Max Planck: “Science progresses funeral by funeral.” KATE LUNAU

Society in Mandarin. The lifestyle brand, marketed separately from Hermès, sells cashmere coats for over $5,000, colourful raw-silk jackets, and furniture inspired by ancient Chinese craftsmanship. Meant to appeal to consumer nostalgia, Shang Xia opened in a Shanghai Hints of Asia are now visible in high-end European mall boutique, but Chinese luxury trade products. Is that what shoppers in India or China want? magazines are musing about the possibility of a future store opening in Paris, supposedly High-end boutiques aren’t where most “Chinese consumers have got these associa- aimed at Chinese tourists shopping abroad. people would look for evidence of a shifting tions with particular countries,” he adds, and So far, Hermès appears to be the only one to global balance of power. But “if you walk their own People’s Republic simply doesn’t set up a China-only brand, but others “will around Paris, or London, and you walk into factor in, except for a few niche spaces, such watch what happens closely,” says Debnam. one of these top-brand shops, 10 years ago as the antique furniture trade, and the highMajor brands are also eager to play godyou’d ﬁnd one of the assistants would speak end spirits market, where Maotai, the trad- father to Asia’s up-and-comers. LVMH Group, Japanese,” says Nick Debnam, a partner at itional rice wine, is king. The once-in-a-while the world’s largest luxury goods conglomerKPMG, an accounting and advisory ﬁrm. Western homage to Asian styles, then, is little ate and owner of Louis Vuitton, said in March “These days they have to speak Mandarin.” more than marketing ﬂattery aimed at grati- it will set up a $650-million private equity Glitz-hungry Chinese consumers shelled fund to help Indian designers tarout over $12 billion for luxury goods in 2010, get urban middle-income buyers. setting their country on track to become the So far, local designers have focused world’s third-largest market for the industry almost exclusively on the traditional in the next ﬁve years, according to consultcouture and wedding apparel businesses, which cater to the wealthiing ﬁrm Bain & Company. And with its own economic miracle, India is a tantalizing opporest families, missing out on the tunity too. Already, the Asia-Paciﬁc region, immense potential of the readywhich excludes Japan, accounts for 17 per to-wear market for a burgeoning cent of the global $234-billion luxury goods middle class. In China, LVMH has market, according to Bain estimates. With reportedly set its eyes on 10 scalmarket potential so gargantuan, Asia isn’t able brands worth between $200 simply the next frontier for U.S. and Euromillion and $250 million. pean designers to conquer. It is a superpower Some quintessentially Chinese mighty enough, it seems, to start imposing luxury brands have already gone international. One example is Shangits own aesthetics on world-class bling. Hints of Asia are already in the works of hai Tang, which launched as a cussome high-end European designers. In Novtom-tailoring business in Hong ember, Louis Vuitton re-edited 40 pieces from Kong, but morphed into a much its 2010 Spring-Summer and Fall-Winter colmore successful maker of fashionlections—this time using vintage sari fabric ably Western-looking, ready-to-wear sourced in New Delhi, Bombay and Bangagarb with just a touch of Chinese, lore, among others. Chanel saluted the Shangsuch as Mandarin collars or embroidhai EXPO 2010 with a “made for China” limered silk linings. It now counts stores in London, Madrid, Frankfurt and ited collection featuring traditional-looking items, such as bracelets with interlocking Las Vegas. dragons, as well as benevolently ironic ones, And more designers based in such as the classic Chanel chain bag shaped On the move: Shanghai Tang is in London and Madrid China are trying to crack the Western market. The Polytechnic Unias a Chinese restaurant take-away box. And Canali, the Italian luxury menswear designer, fying a ﬁercely nationalistic streak, experts versity of Milan, in Italy, is in its third year of has re-invented suit jackets in the spirit of the say. Even in India, where formal occasions offering an executive course in luxury brand maharajas in its India-focused Nawab see the well-to-do proudly don traditional marketing for established Chinese businesscollection. brocades and Nehru jackets, Western high men, a program run in association with ShangBut Western luxury makers must ensure fashion only makes sense if it stays Western, hai’s Jiao Tong University. The Italian part of these Asian touches don’t spoil the source of says Armando Branchini, secretary general the curriculum includes ﬁeld trips to Armani, Bulgari, Bottega Veneta and Zegna boutiques, their cachet: their exquisitely Western iden- of Italian luxury trade group Altagamma. At least one major player, though, is will- to allow students to breathe in the made-intity. In China, market research studies warn, luxury buyers mostly understand chic as ing to bet on a “go local” endeavour. Last Italy customer experience, says professor something foreign. Switzerland, goes the year, Hermès, the Parisian maker of scarves, Giuliano Noci, who oversees the program. wisdom, is the homeland of superior watches, handbags and leather goods, launched its He has no doubts about the pupils’ potential: Italy of ﬁne shoes, France of exquisite cloth- fully made-in-China branded subsidiary Shang “In the next ﬁve years,” he predicts, “we’ll see ing and perfume, says KPMG’s Debnam. Xia, which literally translates to “up down” things we can’t even imagine.” ERICA ALINI SHOPPING

Victor Fraile/Getty imaGes

When East meets West

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m a c l e a n ’ s bazaar: Staying in Eloise’s suite p.65

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books: Humour in Hitler’s Germany p.66

MAY 9, 2011

help: How to get people to do

b a c k things p.69

tv: The new Bugs Bunny p.70

p a g e s

music: Klezmer and the RCMp p.71

books: Chester Brown and sex p.72

Film

The sad story of Nim An epic experiment with a chimp is just one of many mad scientist tales at this year’s Hot Docs The movies love mad scientists. All those demented doctors: Frankenstein, Jekyll, Moreau, Strangelove. But we expect them to remain safely conﬁned to the laboratory of science ﬁction. It’s a shock to come across them in the real world, under the microscope of the documentary camera. Yet mad science seems to be running amok at Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary festival, which unspools in Toronto April 28 to May 8. After the Apocalypse takes us to a former Soviet nuclear test site in Kazakhstan, where residents were deliberately exposed to radiation as human guinea pigs, and the boss of a maternity clinic advocates “genetic passports” to prevent mothers from giving birth if their genes are suspect. Memoirs of a Plague, a ﬁlm about locusts, shows a lab scientist dissecting one while it’s still alive, a tiny atrocity captured in a macro close-up that ﬁlls the screen. In Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then, a crackpot visionary erects a house as a “healing machine” around his cancer-stricken wife. And on a more benign note, in El Bulli: Cooking in Progress, an insanely innovative chef concocts recipes in a Barcelona laboratory equipped with vacuumizers, spheriﬁers and liquid nitrogen. But of all the stranger-than-ﬁction ﬁlms at Hot Docs, none may be more compelling than Project Nim, a biopic about an ape who is drafted into an epic experiment. By turns

funny, astounding and disturbing, it comes from American director James Marsh, who made the Oscar-winning documentary Man on Wire (2008). Like that ﬁlm—about a tightrope artist who walked between the Twin Towers—it’s an archival saga of the ’70s, evoking the naiveté of an era when all kinds of outrageous behaviour could be framed as a grand experiment. In 1973, a two-week-old chimpanzee is seized from his mother and raised by a woman with three children, who teaches him sign language and treats him as a special needs child. The objective was to prove that chimpanzees might be capable of human communication. But the movie—based on Elizabeth Hess’s 2008 book, Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human—tells us as much about people as it does about animals. “In the course of the ﬁlm,” says Marsh, “we often discover that Nim studies and understands us better than we understand him.” The experiment was the brainchild of Herbert Terrace, a professor of behavioural psychology at Columbia University who set out to disprove linguist Noam Chomsky’s thesis that only humans are capable of language. Terrace engages his former student and lover, Stephanie LaFarge, to serve as the infant chimp’s surrogate mom, the ﬁrst of a string of guardians who adopt Nim in this Dickensian yarn. The ﬂaky LaFarge—who later counselled drug addicts and spent 10 years as a Project Nim: The experiment with chimpanzee sex therapist before becoming an executive with the ASPCA—introduced Nim to alcohol, Nim (left) was the brainchild of behavioural marijuana and her own milk. “I breast-fed psychology professor Herbert Terrace (above)

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Film him for a couple of months,” she recalls in sor’s assumptions in Project Nim. But to see woman to abort her child, or at least submit the same clinical rationality applied to human to tests, which she refuses. The decision is the ﬁlm. “It seemed completely natural.” Faster than you can say “Freud,” Nim takes specimens is something else. After the Apoca- hers, but if the doctor had his way, it wouldn’t a dislike to LaFarge’s poet husband, then lypse, from British director Antony Butts, be. And as the suspense of her pregnancy LaFarge becomes jealous as her role is usurped explores the fallout from 456 nuclear blasts builds, the doctor’s mission of eugenic cleansby Terrace’s research assistant Laura Ann detonated by the Soviets from 1949 to 1989 ing has chilling echoes of a Stalinist past. Petitto— another of his conquests—who is at the Semipalatinsk test site on the steppes Sometimes mad science is just harmlessly now a neuroscience professor at the Univer- of Kazakhstan. So scientists could study the nutty. Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then is sity of Toronto. As Nim grows up, he becomes effects of radiation, residents were not evacu- about a Kentucky hardware clerk who erected dangerous, something Joyce Butler, his third ated; some 200,000 were exposed, suffering a crazy contraption of a house to heal his wife— surrogate mom, learns from a bite that requires genetic damage that ricocheted through three with a pipe organ, a wooden tower, and a halo 37 stitches. As she says, “You can’t give human generations. Today, one in 20 children in the of light bulbs at her bed. It didn’t work. But nurturing to an animal who can kill you.” zone is born with birth defects, and sheep after the house was demolished, ﬁlmmaker After years of study, in which Brent Green rebuilt it as a set for Nim mastered a vocabulary of 125 his ﬁlm—a ﬂickery, stop-motion resigns and became a minor celebenactment that is as eccentric and rity, Terrace abandons the project, experimental as its subject. Art is one ﬁeld where mad scidismissing the chimp’s language capabilities as begging. “Given his ence becomes legitimate. Take the powerless situation in the world, high art of experimental cuisine who can blame him?” says Marsh. explored in El Bulli. Situated on a cove of Spain’s Mediterranean coast, Or as one of Nim’s guardians confesses, “We exploited his humanEl Bulli (due to shut down permalike nature without respecting his nently later this year) is arguably the world’s most famous restaurant. chimpanzee nature.” Abandoned Each winter it closes for six months by science and forced to live with other chimps for the ﬁrst time, Nim while its team of chefs cloister themis bounced from one caged gulag selves in a Barcelona laboratory to to another, with his life on the line. create a new menu of 35 dishes. Yet even today, Terrace, the amorWith a laptop by the stove and the ous prof with the creepy comb-over, walls plastered with notes, the chefs sounds remarkably sanguine. And re-engineer simple ingredients, like sane. Rationality is the classic alibi sweet potato, into tiny installations of mad science. of avant-garde art. So serious he It’s one thing to elicit compascould be running the Manhattan sion for a chimp, whose species Project, head chef Ferran Adrià savmay be closer to ours than any ours their creations with a ruthless other. But one doc that really palate, while German ﬁlmmaker stretches our empathy for animals Mad science: Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then is about a hardGereon Wetzel ﬁnds a Warholian is Memoirs of a Plague, a weirdly ware clerk who erected a crazy contraption of a house to heal his wife absurdity in it all. The masterpiece existential love letter to locusts. that gets Adrià excited: a cocktail Filming them in locales ranging from Australia graze in radioactive bomb craters, where that consists only of water, oil and salt. to Ethiopia, director Robert Nugent tries to herders “protect” themselves with vodka. But for the ultimate fusion of mad science show that the devastation they wreak is overDr. Toleukhan Nurmagambetov, head of and high art, it’s hard to beat Toronto conrated and the pesticide war against them is the local maternity clinic, takes us to a museum ceptual poet Christian Bök, one of the gurus often futile. Magniﬁed with a 1000x lens, the of bottled fetuses with monstrous deform- featured in The Future Is Now!, a Canadian locusts become Cronenbergian. There’s a snuff ities (such as a cyclops eye), then to an orphan- documentary by Gary Burns and Jim Brown. scene of pure horror—some of the most har- age of children with Down’s syndrome and Bök’s ambition is to translate a poem into a rowing violence I’ve seen on screen—as a sci- missing limbs. As the doctor points to the genetic sequence, then get a laboratory to entist sticks a live locust to Plasticine and dis- horrors with righteous anger, he seems a sym- implant the sequence into a bacterium, sects it for the camera. “They have got a central pathetic ﬁgure, until it becomes apparent replacing part of its genetic code. “The organnervous system,” he calmly observes, as he that his rage is fuelled by intolerance. ism becomes the living embodiment of my slices open the wriggling creature to reveal an The ﬁlm’s narrative hinges on his conﬂict poetry,” he explains. “Moreover, that bacterabdomen that bleeds lemon-yellow. “It’s basic- with Bibigul, a pregnant farmer who tends ium is going to make a protein in response, ally: jump, don’t jump, eat, don’t eat. But they horses and sheep with her husband. Her birth a protein that will be another poem that could don’t think about things.” Cutting into the defects are visible on her face, which the doc- conceivably last forever.” No doubt a docuhead, he adds, “There’s the brain, stretched tor brands “frightful.” The cubist distortion mentary ﬁlmmaker will be on hand to record of that face is disturbing at ﬁrst, but a human- the consequences. Brian d. johnson between the two eyes.” That callous dismissal of non-human sen- ity, even a beauty, shines through. It’s the On the Web: For Brian D. Johnson’s reviews of sation is not so far removed from the profes- doctor who seems grotesque as he urges the Hot Docs highlights, visit macleans.ca/hotdocs 64

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M AY 9, 2 0 11

Hot Docs; previous spreaD: Harry Benson; susan KuKlin

Faster than you can say ‘Freud,’ Nim takes a dislike to his ﬂaky surrogate mother’s poet husband

Bazaar

Where is Eloise? Since 1955, the ﬁctional character, a precocious six-year-old, has been living large in New York’s Plaza Hotel. Now you can too.

Charge it please! Just like Eloise.

Fairmont Hotels & resorts

Tiny guests at the Plaza Hotel’s (pricey) Eloise suite get the full princess treatment Even Shane Krige, the general manager of the Plaza Hotel in New York, can’t book the Eloise Suite. “It’s in such high demand,” he sighs. And yes, Krige’s ﬁve-year-old daughter, Madeleine, isn’t thrilled that her own father, who deﬁnitely has an “in,” can’t get her a night in the suite where the Plaza Hotel’s most famous, glamorous, precocious (and pretend) resident lives. We, on the other hand, had a coveted reservation (after booking almost two months in advance). We’d be bringing three little girls, 4, 7 and 8. The demand for the Plaza’s suite doesn’t seem to be affected by the price: $1,150 a night. To book the adjoining “adult suite” brings the total to $2,300 a night. Eloise, the ﬁctional six-year-old girl who lived at the Plaza, is the creation of writer Kay Thompson. The original book, Eloise, was published in 1955 and there were four sequels. My daughter, who loves Eloise, wanted to know before she got to New York if she’d be allowed to run around the lobby, order room service on her own, and eat lunch by herself in the restaurant, “like Eloise.” When we arrived, a butler met the girls and took them up to the suite, which was designed by celebrated fashion designer Betsey Johnson. (She’s stayed there with her granddaughter.) The screaming started when the doors opened and the girls took in the zebra-striped ﬂoors, the ﬂashing neon Eloise sign above the bed, the Eloise videos and dress-up clothes and complimentary stack of brownies, cookies and pink lemonade. Also waiting for them

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were personalized bathrobes embroidered with their names. The bar in the room was stocked with a ton of candy and even a manicure set. The bedsheets were printed with scenes of Eloise and there were pink sleeping bags on hand in case anyone wanted to sleep on the ﬂoor. The girls became princesses, as Eloise would say, “rawther” quickly. By 8 p.m. they were in a bubble-ﬁlled bathtub drinking pink lemonade out of champagne glasses. And in answer to my daughter’s question, yes, the staff does encourage the mini-princesses to act like Eloise. They are allowed to run around the lobby. The bellman took the girls on rides on the suitcase cart every time we saw him, and my daughter called down about 25 times to the front desk, asking, “Where is Eloise?” The answers ranged from, “She’s in the Palm Court restaurant right now,” to “She’s on a movie set in Hollywood,” to “She’s in Paris.” “Every one of our staff has a little part in the Eloise play,” says Krige. “We encourage kids to live the Eloise experience.” In fact, there is a whole “guest relations” team that speciﬁcally focuses on guests who stay in the suite. All the girls received personalized notes from Eloise, wishing them a “rawther” good time, and signed, “Smooches!” Little guests also get a gift card (which says, “Charge it please!”) to the Eloise gift shop in the hotel, a camera, and a professional photo

shoot. (The photo to take home comes in an Eloise photo frame.) One day we had high tea with the girls, who ordered from the Eloise tea menu: grilled cheese sandwiches, brownies, and other goodies on a three-tiered tea set. The youngest guest to stay in the suite, which celebrates its ﬁrst anniversary this July, was a three-year-old. Although Krige won’t divulge any names, there have been A-list celebrities who have stayed there with their daughters. “They sleep in the king bed too.” Even adults who grew up loving Eloise want the experience. “We had a couple in their thirties who wanted to stay in the suite.” Even though it is the parents who pay, the younger guests are the ones treated like royalty. “We want the children to have a love affair with the hotel,” Krige says. “When they walk away, we want them to have had a ﬁve-star experience.” The girls we had with us certainly did. At one point my daughter said, “That was my best day ever.” Her favourite line now is “Charge it, please!” Krige says he doesn’t think of this as spoiling kids. “Yesterday I was having lunch with clients in the Palm Court restaurant and there was a little girl dressed in the full Eloise outﬁt with a pink bow in her hair. I just sat back and realized how important it was,” he says. “Listen, we’re not heart surgeons, but we do create memories.” REBECCA ECKLER

By 8 p.m. they were in a bubble-ﬁlled bathtub drinking pink lemonade ouf of champagne glasses

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65

Books

‘Brilliant Disaster’: Cuban troops march in a parade on April 16 commemorating the 50th anniversary of the ill-fated U.S.-led Bay of Pigs invasion

The 50th anniversary of a military farce BRILLIANT DISASTER: JFK, CASTRO, AND AMERICA’S DOOMED INVASION OF CUBA’S BAY OF PIGS Jim Rasenberger

Whose terrible idea was the Bay of Pigs invasion? Just about everybody’s, according to Rasenberger (America 1908) in this account of the botched U.S.backed invasion of Cuba. As soon as the U.S. turned against Fidel Castro, its intelligence agencies focused on removing him from power, egged on ﬁrst by Dwight Eisenhower and then by John Kennedy, who got elected thanks to hammering Republicans as soft on Cuba. The head of the CIA, Allen Dulles, spent JFK’s ﬁrst White House brieﬁng telling him that “the time to overthrow Fidel Castro was now or never.” Fifty years later, the method they settled on plays even more like farce than it did at the time. As Rasenberger tells it, the mission was fatally ﬂawed by JFK’s insistence that the U.S. make it look as if it was not directly involved: “The attack was meant to appear as an entirely Cuban-on-Cuban affair.” This meant not only entrusting a major mission to Cuban exiles with little combat experience, but nobody seemed to know exactly what the plan was, culminating in the moment when JFK proclaimed, “I’m not signed on to this,” about an air strike everyone thought he was signed on to. Richard Bissell, the CIA opera66

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tive whose “slick sales job” helped convince JFK to go ahead, got most of the blame for the failure, but he comes off in the book as a scapegoat for widespread ineptitude. Rasenberger wants us to see this story as a trial run for Vietnam and Iraq. As in those later wars, the government was ﬁlled with people who wanted to show they had the “balls” to carry it off: “Nobody in the Kennedy administration wanted to look like a guy unwilling to ﬁght.” One or two people in the book do make the moral case against intervention, like the dovish senator William Fulbright. But most seem to agree with Eisenhower that “when you go into this kind of thing, it must be a success.” As with Vietnam and Iraq, the only thing anybody seemed to learn was that it would have been better if they hadn’t failed. JAIME J. WEINMAN DEAD FUNNY: HUMOR IN HITLER’S GERMANY Rudolph Herzog

In the spring of 1943, a woman in a German armaments factory told a joke to a fellow worker: Adolf Hitler and Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring are on top of the Berlin radio tower. Hitler says he wants to do something to put a smile on the faces of Berliners. So Göring says, “Why don’t you jump?” Pretty good joke, actually, though the archives of the Nazi People’s Court don’t M AY 9, 2 0 11

record whether the armaments worker, a depressed war widow identiﬁed as Marianne K., had a laugh from telling it. But the court was not amused—it had her executed by guillotine. In his subtle and eye-opening exploration of a totalitarian state’s unpredictable responses to discontent and opposition, Herzog (son of famed ﬁlm director Werner) writes of others who shared Marianne’s fate, but also of quite a few who got off more lightly. Much depended on how secure the Third Reich was feeling—in 1941, when the Wehrmacht ruled from the Atlantic to the Urals, the People’s Court sentenced 102 people to death for so-called “defeatist” utterances. The next year, as the tide of war began to turn, 1,192 were executed, and the numbers kept rising for the rest of the war. A joke treated as a misdemeanour by the Gestapo in 1933— an image of Christ should be placed between wall-mounted pictures of Hitler and Göring, since Jesus died “nailed up between two criminals”—sent a priest to the guillotine in 1944. But strong anti-Nazi humour, Herzog shows, was actually rare before the military situation deteriorated. Until then, anti-regime jabs were largely concerned with Nazis taking all the plum jobs, not with their policies. And those policies were no secret. Herzog demolishes the idea that Germans didn’t know what the Nazis were up to: there were many, many concentration camp jokes. Germans under Hitler seemed to ﬁnd it natural,

DesmonD Boylan/ReuteRs

Plus, humour in Hitler’s Germany, a woman’s memoir of life and love in India, David Wallace’s posthumous novel, a retail clerk’s tell-all, and reptile smugglers

NARINDER NANU/AFP/GEtty ImAGEs

‘Sideways on a Scooter’: The author became enchanted with Bollywood’s bittersweet fables, in which passion must always be balanced with tradition

and kind of funny, that “troublemakers”— dramatic) ideas, her predilection for ill-advised including Jews and dissidents—should end love affairs and her tendency to romanticize up behind barbed wire. BRIAN BETHUNE her relationship to India itself. Though she does make a place for herself there—she is SIDEWAYS ON A SCOOTER: even asked to be the maid of honour at a traditional Indian wedding—she is, to the end, LIFE AND LOVE IN INDIA Miranda Kennedy conscious of her privilege as a feringhee (white At ﬁrst blush, it might be nat- person), including her endorsement of caste ural to assume this memoir politics (she employs an “untouchable” to about a young woman’s “life deal with her garbage). Ultimately she bumps and love in India” was more up against—and seems to embrace—her own “chick lit.” Kennedy’s account of her ﬁve- limits in Delhi. “I felt as though my own daily plus years in Delhi certainly includes some clatter—the smell and breath of me, my hopes of the genre’s most familiar themes: a spunky and thoughts—had been subsumed into the heroine who leaves her suitor to prove her city’s crazy hum,” she writes. “That was the independence; star-crossed lovers whose closest I would come to conquering India, affair is a well-known secret among friends and it was enough.” DAFNA IZENBERG and co-workers; a thirtysomething single gal, desperate to marry but reluctant to setTHE PALE KING David Foster Wallace tle for the wrong fella. But Kennedy’s relentless honesty about her When Wallace took his own own afﬁnity for fairy tales keeps this story life in 2008 at age 46, he left from becoming one. An American journalist an unﬁnished novel behind in his garage ofﬁce in Clarewho spent the aftermath of 9/11 on the front mont, Calif. In the notebooks, line with rescue workers, Kennedy moved to India in 2002. In between reporting jaunts to computer parts and 12 printed chapters places like Afghanistan, Kennedy befriended hauled away in a dufﬂe bag by his editor, several Indian women and came to under- Michael Pietsch, was “an astonishingly full” stand the severe social norms constricting book, but also a collection of chapters with their lives. Kennedy’s maid, Radha, for example, no instruction as to their order. (Pietsch’s a widow who lived with her three children in foreword about piecing these bits together a single room the size of Kennedy’s bathroom, is, therefore, essential reading, and there’s was expected to provide a hefty dowry for her an eerie parallel to Wallace’s 1996 masterdaughter’s marriage. Geeta, Kennedy’s neigh- piece Inﬁnite Jest—a book centred on the ﬁnal, bour, was considered “damaged goods” by lost work of a suicidal genius.) potential parents-in-law because she had kissed This book, which Wallace had already titled a boy in college. The Pale King, is about a group of employees While recording these realities, Kennedy at an IRS tax ofﬁce in Illinois. That might be also becomes enchanted with Bollywood’s a turnoff to many: David Foster Wallace writes bittersweet fables, in which passion must about taxes. Imagine the footnotes! (Quite a always be balanced with tradition. She com- few, it turns out.) The story is frustrating in pares these values with her own ﬁlmy (melo- the way the 1,000-plus-page Inﬁnite Jest could

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MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE

be, with multiple narratives and a plot line you’ll only really ﬁgure out if you read long and hard enough. But the book is also philosophical and darkly funny—a group of businessmen are described at one point as “men whose soft faces ﬁt their jobs like sausage in its meaty casing.” Wallace is often quoted describing ﬁction as being about “what it is to be a f--king human being.” And The Pale King is a book about human struggles—many chapters are simply snapshots of characters’ lives, thoughts or failings. Also, to really throw readers for a loop, Wallace inserts himself as a main character, beginning in chapter nine with “Author here,” followed by a long, humorous explanation about how this is really a “vocational memoir” (made all the stranger considering the book’s “unﬁnished” status). The nagging question: what would this have looked like “ﬁnished”? “Vastly different,” writes Pietsch, noting Wallace was a true perfectionist. The novel offers a ﬁnal bit of evidence, however unsatisfying, as to why Wallace was so often described as brilliant—a guy who could produce heartbreaking stories with no ending and still earn a pop-culture cult following. COLIN CAMPBELL MALLED: MY UNINTENTIONAL CAREER IN RETAIL Caitlin Kelly

Craving a little ﬁnancial stability, New York-based freelance journalist Caitlin Kelly took a part-time job. In 2007, she applied at the North Face, makers of outdoorsy technical clothing, and joined the tribe of 15 million Americans who work in retail. Malled is Kelly’s clear-headed indictment of how sales clerks are treated like cannon fodder—expendable, in corporate eyes— 67

Books

‘Stolen World’: Reptile smugglers like Tom Crutchﬁeld (above) talk about how they swindled and almost killed their customers, wives and each other

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MACLEAN’S

BESTSELLERS

Compiled by Brian Bethune FICTION 1. THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES Jean Auel

1 (4)

2. THE TROUBLED MAN Henning Mankell

4 (4)

3. IRMA VOTH Miriam Toews

6 (3)

4. THE SATURDAY BIG TENT WEDDING PARTY Alexander McCall Smith

2 (4)

5. THE FIFTH WITNESS Michael Connelly

9 (3)

6. THE FREE WORLD David Bezmozgis

10 (3)

7. DRAWING CONCLUSIONS Donna Leon

5 (4)

8. THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNETS’ NEST Stieg Larsson

7 (48)

9. THE PALE KING David Foster Wallace 10. ROOM Emma Donoghue

8 (3) 3 (34)

NON-FICTION 1. BOSSYPANTS Tina Fey

2 (3)

2. WAIT FOR ME Deborah Mitford 3. TWELVE STEPS TO A COMPASSIONATE LIFE Karen Armstrong 4. HERE ON EARTH Tim Flannery

(1) 8 (16) (1)

5. THE HARE WITH AMBER EYES Edmund de Waal

1 (10)

6. THE SOCIAL ANIMAL David Brooks

5 (5)

7. BLOOD, BONES & BUTTER Gabrielle Hamilton

(1)

8. WILFRID LAURIER André Pratte

3 (4)

9. BISMARCK Jonathan Steinberg

6 (3)

10. THE INFORMATION James Gleick

10 (3)

LAST WEEK (WEEKS ON LIST)

ON THE WEB: For book reviews, feature articles, interviews and recommended reading by celebrities, check out our books page at macleans.ca/books

Columnist Mark Steyn is currently on leave. He will return.

BILL LOVE

without exception, the “he-men” who deal in contraband cobras—no matter how gnarly their tattoos or greasy their ponytails—were once little boys who geeked out over snakes. It’s a quality that helped endear some otherwise slippery characters to Smith during the decade she devoted to researching Stolen World. Notorious snake rebels such as Hank Molt, Tom Crutchﬁeld and Anson Wong were unﬂinchingly honest with the science reporter about how they lied to, swindled—and on occasion nearly killed—their customers, staff, wives and, most especially, each other. “The thing you have to understand,” Molt once told Smith, “is that we’re not good people.” But neither were they particularly good at being “bad.” Molt and Crutchﬁeld, frenemies who throughout the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s smuggled the world’s rarest reptiles into the U.S. (fetching up to $12,000 a head), lost small fortunes thanks to greed, negligence and alcohol. Molt was gifted at rustling up ﬁnancing and labour for hunting expeditions in Fiji and New Guinea, but repeatedly scuttled his own projects, usually trying to scam his partners. Crutchﬁeld—who would have his young daughters taunt his pet crocodiles to see if the animals were nesting (if the crocs lunged at the girls, they were)—was sincerely offended by any rules he didn’t like. But for all the snake smugglers’ posturing, their herpetophilia is 100 per cent genuine. Who but a true reptile-lover would ball up a six-foot python in the small of his back and tell airport security it was a tumour? Molt, STOLEN WORLD: A TALE now in his 70s, is planning a trip to the Philippines to see about a lizard. Smith once OF REPTILES, SMUGGLERS watched him sell a kid a turtle, his eyes lightAND SKULDUGGERY Jennie Erin Smith ing up as he explained the animal’s care. “You Little boys who chase snakes have the same obligation to a $5 animal as do not all grow up to be rep- you do to a $5,000 animal,” Molt told her, in tile smugglers. But, almost all earnestness. DAFNA IZENBERG

in an industry that makes up one-ﬁfth of all American businesses. Sales associates, she notes, are the most overlooked and least valued part of the equation. At ﬁrst, Kelly liked her part-time job. It was a change from the caustic environment of her last position, at the New York Daily News. The North Face provided four days of paid training, followed by a dinner for the staff. Plus, Kelly could relate to the globe-trotting ambitions of clients in upper tax brackets. Her initial enthusiasm was soon curbed, however, by the rigidity of head ofﬁce and the random vitriol of shoppers. Kelly’s book contains lively interviews with retail experts who explain the low pay—labour is the only cost you can cut. Malled shines a ﬂashlight on retail’s hazards, like dehydrating lights, long shifts, dangerous stockrooms and demeaning janitorial duties. For all her complaining, Kelly worked only one ﬁve-hour shift a week, plus three Christmas rushes, over 27 months on the job. (That’s all?) Less amusing is her repetitive boasting, even if it’s intended to illustrate a larger point. Three times, we learn she has visited 37 countries, speaks ﬂuent French and Spanish, and has met the Queen. We are reminded of her excellent sales statistics over eight times, and there are over 15 references to her career accomplishments in journalism. The bragging starts to grate, but her intentions are noble: to speak up for former colleagues stuck in retail hell. JOANNE LATIMER

Help

Reverse psychology: ‘When someone tells us that we have to do something, it may set us up for an irresistible compulsion to do the exact opposite’

How to get anyone to do anything fast

ISTOCK; PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY TAYLOR SHUTE

Say, for instance, you want to get your wife to let you skip dinner with her family . . . Asking someone to do something rarely gets the results you’re after. In fact, it will likely backﬁre, writes Yale psychologist Michael Pantalon in a new book for anyone frustrated at not being able to entice a stubborn person to do things differently. “When someone tells us that we have to do something, it may set us up for a virtually irresistible compulsion to do the exact opposite,” notes the author. The six-step method Pantalon describes in Instant Inﬂuence: How to Get Anyone to Do Anything Fast has a success rate of nearly 100 per cent, he claims, and takes no more than seven minutes to implement. “I developed it at the request of busy emergency room doctors seeking to motivate patients who came into the ER because of alcohol-related accidents and medical problems. The doctors had about seven minutes to inﬂuence semiinebriated patients who didn’t necessarily see themselves as needing help.” After ﬁrst acknowledging a person’s resistance to change, which is a “surprisingly effective way to get people to be less defensive,” ask your subject how willing they are, on a scale from one to 10, to do the thing they don’t want to do. Take the husband who wants to skip a weekly dinner with his wife’s family so he can stay home to watch the game, writes Pantalon. “If you ask [your wife] ﬂat out, her ﬁrst response might very well be, ‘Yes, I mind. I’d rather you come with me.’ Her brain simply hears ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Instead, say something like, “I’d like to run something by you. There’s something I’d like to do, and I want to get a

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sense of how you feel about it. On a scale of one to 10, how ready do you think you might be to let me off the hook this Sunday so I can stay home and watch the game?’ ” Now, writes Pantalon, “Your wife has to think about it. Even if she says the answer is one—‘I’m not ready to do that at all,’ you can still respond by asking her, ‘So what would it take to turn that one into a two.’ ” This line of questioning leads her to tell you what it would take to change her mind, he writes. Next ask the person to imagine the outcome. The husband who wants to watch the game should ask his wife, “What do you think when you imagine me not being there?” As Pantalon describes it, “She might think, ‘Well, I’d be a little bit embarrassed showing up without him, but come to think of it, I’d love to have some time alone with Mom, and I love playing with Sue’s new baby, and I really can’t do that if I have to make sure my husband is having a good time.’ At least now she’s thinking about the possibility of your not coming, instead of dismissing the idea.” Then ask the person why changing might be good for them. Pantalon’s father was initially unwilling to quit smoking or listen to what he called Pantalon’s badgering about it. So Pantalon asked him to imagine in what ways quitting would be positive. “Dad looked down at the cigarette in his hand. ‘I wouldn’t

be smoking right now,’ he said almost ruefully.” Pantalon then asked him, “Why would that be good for you?” That was followed by “a long pause. I had to draw on all my training not to speak. I counted silently, forcing myself to keep quiet, so that Dad could have as much time as he needed to wrestle with the problem on his own. Finally, he said, ‘Because I’d be in my backyard right now, instead of making [my grandkids] wait so I could have another cigarette.’ ” His father “had moved from total resistance to the powerful discovery of his most important reason to quit smoking. As soon as he stopped arguing with me about badgering him, he had the chance to realize how much he wanted to give up the habit that kept him from his grandsons.” Once you’re at this point, ask the person: “What’s the next step?” Here, prepare yourself for a backlash, warns Pantalon. “My father, like many people who are reluctant to change, wanted to regain control of the conversation. So he found a way to make the goal his own by putting me down.” His father said: “My friend told me about this new medication I should take to quit smoking. I’ll ask my doctor about it. Why didn’t you tell me about the medicine, Michael, since you’re so smart. How come you didn’t let me know, since you’re a big psychologist at Yale?” JULIA M C KINNELL

‘My father wanted to regain control, so he found a way to make the goal his own by putting me down’

MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE

69

TV

Tame toons: The new show has been called a mash-up between Desperate Housewives and The Odd Couple, with none of the classic slapstick

This time around, Bugs and Daffy are sitcom characters living in the suburbs The Looney Tunes Show, premiering in May, is Warner Brothers’ last hope of reviving the value of Bugs Bunny and friends. Old cartoons are no longer widely shown on TV, and kids can’t buy Daffy Duck merchandise if they don’t know who he is. That means the new show, which already has many segments online, is an attempt to “reinvigorate the brand with the best possible execution,” as WB TV president Peter Roth put it. Blogger Amid Amidi of Cartoon Brew saw it differently after viewing the clips: “I’ll comment at a later date . . . after I’ve stopped vomiting.” This time around, Bugs and Daffy have been rebooted into sitcom characters, living in the suburbs in what Ad Week magazine described as a “Desperate Housewives/Odd Couple mash-up.” There will also be standalone musical segments, and CGI Road Runner cartoons parodying movies like The Matrix. None of this is ideal for fans of the original cartoons, who make unfavourable comparisons between the wild, violent, unpredictable Bugs Bunny of the ’40s and the more sedate character who appears in these shorts. “The problem isn’t that the WB characters aren’t the same,” explains Canadian animator Mark 70

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may not have that kind of appeal. Animation historian Michael Barrier, author of the book Hollywood Cartoons, told Maclean’s that “most cartoon characters are tissue-thin conceptions to begin with: a design, a voice, a few distinct tics or habits.” The only thing that made Bugs or Donald Duck great, Barrier continues, was that “some great creator ﬁlls that empty shell with complex and fascinating life.” It could be that reboots fail simply because, as Barrier says, “there are damned few geniuses working in kiddie TV these days,” and without geniuses, these characters aren’t inherently interesting. That could mean that The Looney Tunes Show is taking the only approach that works for a TV revival: keeping the characters fairly close to their original look (in new, streamlined designs by Canadian Jessica Borutski), but with a different type of humour. When a judge asks Porky Pig why he’s not wearing pants, it might invite comparisons to the style of Family Guy, but at least it won’t seem like a copy of the old cartoons. And thanks to the other reboots, the show has one more advantage: as Warner’s head of animation Sam Register told the New York Times, “The bar had gone so low that we could only go up.” JAIME J. WEINMAN

These bug us, too Other classic cartoon characters have been subjected to bad reboots: Popeye and Son: The sailor man and Olive Oyl have an inexplicably blond surfer son. Yo Yogi!: The bear as a mystery-solving kid, with Jellystone Park changed to Jellystone Mall. Quack Pack: Donald Duck’s nephews become hipsters with backwards baseball caps.

The Looney Tunes show/wBeI

Bugs Bunny gets another weird reBoot

Mayerson. “It’s that however they are now is inferior to their former selves.” But by the standards of past Looney Tunes reboots, The Looney Tunes Show may wind up looking almost brilliant. Ever since the original WB cartoon studio shut down in 1963, the company has churned out one unsatisfying new version after another, starting with an infamous series of cartoons where Daffy Duck chased Speedy Gonzales (no one ever explained why a duck would chase a mouse), culminating in disastrous shows in the last decade like Baby Looney Tunes. Other classic characters have been reintroduced to new audiences: James Bond or Batman came back in vehicles that many fans thought were better than the originals. But the standards of Looney Tunes revivals are so poor that fans may not even mind that Yosemite Sam is doing a rap number in the new show; at least his ornery personality hasn’t been changed. Why can’t Bugs and Daffy be rebooted like other characters? Part of it may be about money. The original cartoons, made for theatres, had access to top animators; The Looney Tunes Show has better animation than most TV cartoons, but not compared to the originals. Yet these characters are deﬁned by physical acting: “They need to move,” Mayerson explains, “and TV budgets don’t allow for enough movement.” What’s more, the old cartoons became famous because of their slapstick comedy, inﬂuenced by silent movies. Not only is that comedy too expensive to animate for TV, but it’s difﬁcult to write: “TV is dialogue-driven and TV comedy writers have a sitcom mentality,” Mayerson says. With some classic characters, their appealing personalities can help them survive even a bad reboot, like Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. But Bugs Bunny or Foghorn Leghorn

Music

‘Whiskey rabbi’: Vancouver’s Berner discovered the roots of klezmer in Romania; his collaborator, Socalled, came to the music via hip hop

Two klezmer fanatics and a microphone

photograph by christopher wahl

A hip-hop producer and a punk rocker return profanity and fun to the genre Josh Dolgin was scouring thrift stores in Montreal 10 years ago, searching for old records to sample in hip hop, when he discovered klezmer, the catch-all term for Jewish music of Eastern Europe. Until those cratedigging expeditions, the man credited by the likes of the Wall Street Journal with inventing a third wave of klezmer (the music’s ﬁrst revival began in the ’80s) had never heard a note of that music: he grew up Jewish, but in rural Chelsea, Que. Now performing as Socalled, Dolgin began revelling in the novelty of mixing 80-year-old klezmer records with hip hop, sampling Yiddish theatre legend Aaron Lebedeff, even rapping in Yiddish. Dolgin’s friend and latest collaborator, Geoff Berner, meanwhile, discovered the roots of klezmer driving around the back roads of Romania. Berner had learned klezmer and Israeli folk songs at Hebrew school in Vancouver, but as a teenager, he played in punk bands, ran as a Rhino Party candidate, and eventually became a Billy Bragg-inﬂuenced singer-songwriter with an accordion—a genre he had pretty much to himself. His song Light Enough to Travel was covered by West Coast trio the Be Good Tanyas, and he toured with country singers Corb Lund and Carolyn Mark—who inspired him to turn to his Jewish roots. Lund and Mark “were punk rockers who had taken the music of their heritage and applied their own aesthetic to it,” he says, “which turned out to be way more authentic than what was being marketed as country music. It seemed like something that

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ought to be done with klezmer.” So when an invitation came to travel to Romania with a musical anthropologist, he jumped. The pair plied reluctant 90-year-old ﬁddle players with drinks and told them dirty jokes until they shared their songs. “I learned that the roots of the tradition are much more dirty and sexy and fun than much of the klezmer here,” he says. Inspired, Berner reinvented himself as a “whiskey rabbi” and started writing profane and political drinking songs, often set to traditional melodies. Though Dolgin and Berner take wildly different approaches to the genre, the two Canadian kings of neo-klezmer joined forces last fall to work on Berner’s ﬁfth album, Victory Party, released in March and produced by Dolgin. Two songs on the album are adapted from early 20th-century Yiddish folk songs. One is about the plight of sweatshop workers in New York City; to update the context, Berner invited a Chinese-Canadian singer to write lyrics in Mandarin. The other has new lyrics about RCMP brutality in B.C. with a chorus that sounds as if it’s borrowed from gangsta rap pioneers N.W.A.: “f--k the police.” It’s not a radical revision: the song’s original Yiddish title, Daloy Polizei, translates as exactly that. It nonetheless caused some walkouts when Berner played it live at the Ashkenaz festival in Toronto last fall. “I

think that’s really healthy in music,” he says. “If you’re not eliciting that kind of response, you’re making music that everybody only kind of likes. Who would want to do that?” If Berner is ﬁne with drawing a line in the sand, Dolgin’s new album as Socalled, Sleepover, out May 3, aims for broad appeal. It’s a cross-cultural concoction where he ﬁnds common ground with an all-star cast of calypso kings, country singers, house music DJs, ’70s funk legends, Algerian pop superstars and Serbian brass masters, with klezmer elements only a part of the mix. Sleepover is a polyglot pop pastiche dance party that’s very much the sound of urban Montreal today. “At home I like listening to Jewish music from the ’20s and ’30s,” says Dolgin, who was the subject of a feature-length 2010 NFB documentary, The Socalled Movie. “But when I make music, I live in the 21st century. I don’t like closed-in ghettos. I’m just trying to make pop music.” But even if he’s not comparing the mythical Golem of Prague to modern-day Israel, as Berner does on Victory Party, he says a Socalled record has its own agenda. “If you see all these people working together to make music, from different backgrounds and different places and different ages, that is political. But it’s at the service of catchy, emotional music. I’m not waving a ﬂag.” michael barclay

One traditional song that sounds like it’s from rap group N.W.A. caused walkouts at a Jewish festival

MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE

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Books

A more honest exchange? Brown says the ﬁrst time he employed a prostitute, ‘a burden I had been carrying since adolescence had disappeared’

Romantic love is the last thing he wants Chester Brown chronicles a life of paying for sex in his controversial new book

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as the Phaedrus—the nature of romantic love. The comparison isn’t so far-fetched. Brown, a Canadian, has been instrumental in popularizing the notion that comics are capable of a lot more than just caped superheroes, and he’s best known for a psychologically acute biography of Metis leader Louis Riel. Yet he’s also written painfully candid autobiography: one book, The Playboy, deals with a pornography habit. Propelling Paying For It, as well as his ongoing life as a john, is Brown’s breakup with Sook-Yin Lee, the former MuchMusic VJ and current CBC Radio host, with whom he lived for many years. “I love you as much as ever, and I’m sure I’m always going to love you, but . . . I think I’m falling in love with someone else,” she tells him. “Do you want me to move out?” he asks. “No. I . . . at this point I just want to date him . . . even if I do end up having a sexual relationship with him, I don’t know if that will mean that I’ll want to stop having sex with you.” Then she asks: “Do you hate me?” He replies: “I love you as much as ever.” In fact, Brown feels an odd serenity, even as he continues living with Lee and hears the development of her new sexual relationship through the walls of his bedroom. Soon, he realizes romantic love is the last thing he wants. “Being the friend is way better than being the boyfriend,” he tells an ex-lover. “It’s

something about the dynamic of romantic love . . . The people I’ve behaved the worst to were my girlfriends.” But he’s left with a quandary: “I’ve got two competing desires—the desire to have sex, versus the desire to NOT have a girlfriend . . . I don’t know how I can reconcile them.” The answer, as it turns out, lies in the pages of the alternative weeklies where sex workers advertise their services. His ﬁrst attempts to meet prostitutes are blackly funny—he patrols the streets by bicycle seeking streetwalkers—and his introduction to the protocols of the modern brothel are fascinating and leave little to the imagination. (Is requesting lubricant impolite? What to do when a prostitute watches soaps midcoitus?) For Brown, it’s all deeply satisfying. “It was so honest,” he writes of his ﬁrst session. “A burden that I had been carrying since adolescence had disappeared.” Brown occasionally bores as he advances his case for decriminalization, and though it’s a thoughtful book, some of the darker corners of prostitution—human trafﬁcking, say—are left strangely unexplored in its comic-strip component (he addresses such things in an appendix). But Paying For It captivates in part because you sense a coming Socratic conversion. Brown never admits to blaspheming Eros; still, as he tells Maclean’s, the book “feels like a love story to me.” NICHOLAS KÖHLER

‘The people I’ve behaved the worst to were my girlfriends,’ Brown confesses to an ex-lover

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Chester brown/Drawn & Quarterly

In the whole of the Platonic canon, Socrates leaves Athens just once: in the Phaedrus, the second of the dialogues on romantic love. As Socrates walks through the city he sees Phaedrus, an attractive young man, deep in thought. Phaedrus tells him he has just heard a speech about love and invites Socrates to walk with him into the countryside to hear the details. Under a tree, he outlines the speech: you should always be with someone who doesn’t love you rather than someone who does. Someone who loves you will make your life difﬁcult: they want to be with you always; they become jealous, frightened you’ll leave, and so discourage you from meeting people who might take you away; they become angry when you change; they suffocate you. With someone who doesn’t love you, you can come and go as you please. It doesn’t hurt to be with someone who doesn’t love you; often it hurts to be with someone who does. Later, just as Socrates turns to leave, he stops. He realizes that by discussing love in these terms he has committed the sin of impiety against the god Eros. To make amends, he must make his own speech: that to be in love is actually the greatest good. Consider now a modern treatment of the issue. Cartoonist Chester Brown’s new graphic novel, Paying For It, is sure to stir controversy when it’s released next month, for its explicit chronicling of his life paying for sex, and for its impassioned argument in support of prostitution’s decriminalization. But the book is at its best when it explores the same territory

Feschuk

Who will take the most seats? If Harper steals a majority, expect words for Iggy from such famed legends as Former Liberal Strategist

Take a seat, esteemed colleague—if you can

CP/REUTERS/ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES: PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY TAYLOR SHUTE

Will Harper win 155? Or fall short of a majority? Our fate, and theirs, is in the tally. The campaign is ﬁnally winding down—but with all the talk of a coalition, there remains confusion over what the results on election night will mean for the SCOTT FESCHUK parties and for Canada. Let’s clear things up once and for all. Scenario: Conservatives win 155 seats or more. According to the Tories, a Stephen Harper majority would usher in an era of robust economic growth, deﬁcit reduction and unprecedented prosperity—although it’s still not entirely clear how all this will happen when the Conservatives are planning little more for the next ﬁve years than a new tax credit for playing the ﬂute. For their part, some Liberals now estimate it may take as little as 20 minutes after the dawn of a Harper majority for the entire country to catch ﬁre. It’s all there in the party’s new slogan: “Ruuuuun!” A Harper majority would certainly prompt a lot of soul-searching among the three parties that forced the election. For most Liberals, this soul-searching is likely to take the form of blaming people who aren’t them. In keeping with the Liberal way, such criticism is likely to be expressed only in the most respectful possible manner—anonymously and through the media. Expect a lot of variations on “I could have done way better” from such famed political legends as Former Liberal Strategist and Veteran Liberal Insider. Scenario: Conservatives win the most

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seats, but fall short of a majority. This would leave Canadians stuck with the status quo, which I believe is the correct Latin translation for, “Are you #*!%ing kidding me?” A third Tory minority would be a wholly unsatisfying outcome for all involved, similar in feeling to watching an episode of Jersey Shore in which they aren’t all eaten by tigers. Under this scenario, Harper would be very angry. And you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry. Or when he’s miffed. Or glum, bored, eating or awake. In the meantime, Canadians would be exposed to endless speculation about the coalition and non-conﬁdence votes and what the Governor General may rule. In short, this scenario would be a hellish hellscape from hell, with no hope of relief for anyone with even a passing interest in current events. Naturally, this remains among the most likely of the outcomes. One weird twist: among those rooting against a Harper majority and for the ongoing threat of a left-leaning coalition will surely be the bigwigs at Sun News Network. The upstart right-wing news channel understands that to thrive it needs an arch-enemy, just as Fox News needs a Democratic president and Sarah Palin needs words of three syllables or more. Scenario: Conservatives and Liberals in a dead heat. Given recent polls, this outcome is now highly unlikely—but it would give us the greatest possible exposure to the musings of constitutional experts. And you don’t need me to tell you that for pure entertainment MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE

value, nothing beats a good ol’ musing from an established authority in constitutional history, am I right? WHO’S WITH ME?? Scenario: The Liberals win the most seats. This is the most plausible outcome in the alternate universe that Liberal operatives have crudely constructed so they can get through the election without stabbing themselves in the eye with a fork. It’s been a frustrating campaign for Liberals. The platform was decent enough. The advertising has been pretty good. And at last report no one in the party has recently robbed the federal treasury of tens of millions of dollars. So you can imagine their exasperation at being unable to get the party’s poll numbers to move up. For some unknown reason, people just aren’t rushing to vote Liberal. (That’s Michael Ignatieff ’s nickname, by the way: Unknown Reason.) Scenario: The NDP wins the most seats. This outcome would represent the sort of highly unusual post-election scenario that esteemed constitutional scholars formally describe as “a prank.” Across our country, scrutineers will have teamed up to pull an elaborate ruse, and good on them, because it’s a humdinger. Who gets to tell Jack Layton the truth? And how long can we wait before we do it? Let’s at least let him brainstorm which ﬁve members of his team he’ll appoint Co-Ministers of Finance. After this election campaign, we could all use a good laugh. On the Web: To read Feschuk on the famous, visit his blog, macleans.ca/feschuk

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The end 1992-2011

Anthony Joseph McColl Anthony Joseph McColl was born in Gatineau, Que., on March 11, 1992, the ﬁrst of two children to David, a manager at an Ottawa travel agency, and Monica Thibault, a social worker at an Ottawa health centre. He quickly stood out for his strength. Still in the hospital—he was being monitored in an incubator for fear of being diagnosed with diabetes like his mother—his father was doing his ﬁrst diaper change when the newborn grabbed hold of the metal rail. “He just managed to grab hold of it and he was about to pull himself off the change table,” says Dave. “He was incredibly strong.” With big cheeks, a mop of strawberry-blond cherub curls and a boisterous spirit, toddler Anthony was energetic, physical and gregarious. His family nickname, Ant, was incongruous with his bigness. “People would say, ‘Why isn’t he talking?’ ” says Monica, who says strangers would peg him at seven or eight. “Sorry to disappoint you,” she’d say, “but he’s three.” In 1995, sister Alanna was born. “He would rub my tummy and talk to her,” says Monica. “He wanted to help me give her ﬁrst bath.” Exposed to art by his family (his father was an avid photographer), Anthony became interested in things Japanese, drawing from Miyazaki ﬁlms and characters from Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokémon. His interest in the arts would span from music—he became a vocalist in a screamo band—to video. In his early teens, without any formal training, he and three of his closest friends began work on Bow chicka wow!© productions. The 15-year-olds would use the camera Anthony’s parents lent him to “ﬁlm and make dumb jokes,” says Nicolas Moncion, one of the friends. “It was his camera so he was the one doing the edits—that showed a lot of his leadership skills. The video turned out great.” The inaugural episode of the series opened with Anthony—Tony, as he was called by his friends—wearing a white hat and aviator sunglasses, introducing himself as “Capital-A.” Speaking in front of forested suburban homes, he launched into a polemic about emo kids. “I think it’d be a lot easier to have sex than try and deal with your emotions,” he said. That episode alone has had 3,616 views on YouTube; in total over 10,000 people watched Bow chika wow!© TV. 74

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One of the more active of his friends, Anthony participated in extracurriculars at D’Arcy McGee, his high school. He played football and rugby, and starred in school plays, including a turn as Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls. As a B student, Anthony didn’t stand out academically, but he shone socially. “It was a sense of security—if you’re with Anthony you feel safe and accepted,” says friend Jonathan Carroll. Such trustworthiness prompted descriptions of Anthony as a “big teddy bear” and close conﬁdant. He was most devoted, however, to his younger sister Alanna. Talking about her was taboo in his circle of friends: he didn’t want to hear any cracks from the guys about hooking up with her. Eager for independence, Anthony got his drivers’ licence soon after his 16th birthday. He took a delivery job at Dinty Moore’s Restaurant—“Dinty’s”—a pizza and Greek restaurant in Aylmer. On a typical night, he’d do his deliveries until 8 p.m., then come home for a barbecue dinner before heading out with his friends. He was a connoisseur of a good bonﬁre, Viceroy cigarettes and 10 per cent beer. He took the route of his friends and went to Heritage College, the anglophone CEGEP in the Outaouais. Unsurprisingly, he studied visual arts. Yet, nearing the ﬁnal semesters, Anthony was getting restless. After Friday’s class one early spring day, he met with friends at a Tim Hortons and told them he had just completed a forest ﬁreﬁghter training course and was looking for a summer placement. The conversation drifted to parties; Anthony mentioned one that Alanna, 15, was intending to go to that Friday night. His friends were uninterested, but Anthony wanted to make sure she’d be safe and made the half-hour drive anyway. Around 2:30 a.m., Saturday April 16, it was time for the McColls to go home. Alanna asked her brother for a lift, but he already had four girls in his car and so gave her $20 for a cab instead. Alanna left ﬁrst; driving east, her cab passed by an erratic westbound car pursued by police on Highway 148. Anthony, who was driving minutes behind his sister, was unable to swerve out of the way and the two cars hit head-on. Both the driver and Anthony were killed instantly. Anthony was 19. STEPHANIE FINDLAY

M AY 9, 2 0 11

illustration by ian phillips

He was a conﬁdant to his friends and a devoted brother to his sister. No one was allowed to make any cracks about her.

* © 2011, Trademark of Kashi Company used under licence.

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