Rod McQueen's Blog, page 27

The incredible shrinking industry

The much-ballyhooed redesign of the Globe and Mail arrived today and it is disconcerting. In a week when Torstar and Postmedia exchanged papers and killed their young, I wish the redesign had been more uplifting.

First off, while top to bottom measures the same, there is one inch less width to the paper. Beyond shrinkage, the other obvious alteration is what has become the Globe’s definition of news. On the front page, there are three stories and one photo with a pointer inside. Of the four topics, two are news, the other two are soft stuff. With an average of three stories a page in much of the paper, if the motto of the New York Times is “All the news that’s fit to print,” the Globe has fallen heir to what used to be the Mad magazine parody: “All the news that fits, we print.”

Photos are generally smaller and certainly not the “stunning” work promised in the promos. Only the Report on Business has a decent number of stories and that may be because the section, which also includes Sports, has precious few ads. Of the twenty-four pages, two are devoted to the Globe promoting itself, and four are ads, not a ratio that lends itself to profitability. Still, I was happy to see no screeds written by flacks or hacks promoting some self-interested business point of view. I trust this means an end to such detritus as was increasingly appearing in the “old” ROB.

On a positive note, Facts & Arguments, often the best read in the paper, has been retained as First Person. I fear, however, if the Globe goes through one more downsizing redesign, it won’t be much bigger, or any more relevant, than a letter from camp that’s delivered after the camper comes home.

Senate selfies

There is now a more thoughtful method in place to appoint Canadian Senators, one that doesn’t depend only on partisan activities. But apparently this even-handed selection process has not altered the culture of the upper chamber. Its members remain as self-serving and sanctimonious as ever. Imagine, striking special medals for themselves and a few of their friends. Why would they want to look like bespangled generals who have just carried out a coup in some emerging country?

It’s not as if Senators don’t have enough perquisites already. Annual salaries are approaching $150,000 a year plus a generous pension. Leaders, whips and committee chairs make even more. Each Senator gets an office and staff in Ottawa. Fifty free round-trip flights a year. There’s also subsidized haircuts plus free mailing and picture framing not to mention meals in the Parliamentary restaurant where a well-aged steak costs bupkis. A special bus shuttles them back and forth to the parking lot that’s a mere ten-minute walk away. Expenses are fully reimbursed; many Senators claim $10,000-$20,000 per quarter. And there’s no prohibition against collecting professional fees as consultants or corporate directors.

Nor is there a dearth of medals and other honours already on offer. There’s the Order of Canada to which more than 6,000 people have been invested. In 2012 some 60,000 Canadians who do good deeds in their community received a medal on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the Queen’s ascenion to the throne. A senator might have trouble giving away her twelve publicly-paid-for special medals because so many folks have already been festooned by government fiat.

After the trials and tribulations of Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, Mac Harb and Patrick Brazeau you’d think the Senate would be wise to just keep its nose clean. All those medals glistening on their lapels just draw fresh attention to their continuing lavish behaviour.

Scotland the forgotten

Conservative leader Andrew Scheer had been pushing for a Canadian peacekeeping force in Ukraine, but when the Prime Minister made his announcement yesterday, no particular destinations were cited, there was just a grab bag of offerings of troops and equipment. Maybe it’s just as well the location of any eventual contribution is being left to the United Nations. Otherwise it could all come down to vote-pandering. Scheer, of course, was trying to get on the good side of the 1.3 million Canadian voters of Ukrainian descent.

But if ancestral echoes matter so much, what about the 5 million Canadians of Scottish descent? Are we just so much chopped haggis? We might expect more from Justin Trudeau. After all, his paternal grandmother, Grace Elliott, had Scottish roots. His maternal grandfather, James Sinclair, was a Scot. Trudeau wore the Sinclair kilt to the Glengarry Highland Games last summer. He’s one of us!

It’s not as if we Scots haven’t suffered down through history. We were driven off the land during the Highland Clearances and slaughtered by the hundreds at Culloden. In the early years of Canada, we got to run a few banks, but these days all we get is to play the bagpipes at Remembrance Day services because most other musical instruments freeze in the chilly weather.

As a lad, my parents took me every August to the Fergus Highland Games. There were competitions in dancing, athletics and piping, but the major event was always the massed bands at the end of the day. By then, most of the band members had retired to the nearby woods to drink beer. There’d be no response to the announcer’s repeated pleas to gather until he finally said, “Those bands who don’t come right now … will forfeit their expense money.” The pipers and drummers quickly mustered. I say the same to all political parties on behalf of all Scots: Pay attention, or forfeit our votes.

Not quite ready for prime time

As someone who has been watching CBC television news since the days of Larry Henderson, Earl Cameron, and Stanley Burke, I was looking forward to the launch this week of the new National. Certainly it was long past time to retire Peter Mansbridge, but four nights of dipping in and out of the National with its quartet of hosts has left me unable to decide if the package works or not.

With all the time they’ve had to plan, the show should have been more polished and professional. As far as I could tell, there was no discernible core to the news judgment. One night the death of a baseball player led the show, another night it was a feature on fentanyl. And, please, could Keith Boag write a little something beforehand rather than just winging it as he did during his meandering on-camera piece about the Virginia elections. Best item by far was Paul Hunter recalling Sandy Hook. International news in general? Apparently no one cares. As for the desk, get rid of it, it’s too much of a distraction.

Among the welcome elements of the forerunner National that made the cut is the At Issue panel with Andrew Coyne, Chantal Hébert and what appears will be a revolving third commentator. Another segment felt all too familiar from times past: a promo for a story from a coming Fifth Estate about a ticket reseller that said all too little. The only relevant video clip was one of those foolish chase pieces with shouted questions at the central figure in the story as he brushed off the investigative reporter by as much as saying, “Shoo fly, don’t bother me.”

But the real question is: do four anchors work? I think not. If one face is not enough for the CBC powers that be, maybe two might make it. If so, give me Ian Hanomansing and Adrienne Arsenault. Andrew Chang and Rosemary Barton don’t belong.

 

 

Vive la différence

Tales of inappropriate groping and worse that happened in the past are falling like leaves from the trees. Women are coming forward in droves, finally feeling free to tell about the time they were accosted by some famous name. The kind of behaviour that’s being reported is offensive and abusive, but it also demonstrates a basic difference between men and women. It all depends on who is making the moves.

Every man has a few treasured moments that are stashed away in his memory about approaches by women. In my case, there are three such stories, none of which came to anything. I was too much the straight-laced monogamous husband to give in to temptation. But that doesn’t mean I can’t remember those occasions from time to time and feel good about myself.

Typical was an incident during the 1992 New Hampshire primaries. I was in the state covering events for the Financial Post, wearing the usual tangle of press passes around my neck, including one for entry into the all-candidates debate among contenders for the Democratic Party nomination. A woman of a certain age started talking to me in an all-too-interested manner. She felt like she was in heat until she realized that my badge said CNN because the cable network was sponsoring the debate. Once she learned I was not with CNN, she immediately lost interest. But for those few minutes, I felt like a king.

One of the other times also occurred during an election campaign. A young female volunteer was working her way through all the male members of the campaign staff. When my turn came, I let her try to weave her spell for a while, then pulled out my wallet and showed her photos of my children. The air in the room suddenly went icy. The final occasion was in Toronto at one of those many evenings when journalists give each other prizes because no one else will. Again, I revelled in the moment but bowed out before anything happened. All of which is to say that when women are approached by men, it’s often unwanted. But whenever a man receives advances from a woman, it’s always welcome.

 

Conflicts and character

Finance Minister Bill Morneau is exactly the sort of person who should be in Parliament. He’s a successful and well-educated business leader with an INSEAD MBA and a master’s from the London School of Economics. He’s worth millions and in his fifties could take the time to run for office. Morneau is also a member of the lucky sperm club. He joined the actuarial firm founded by his father and eventually became CEO of Morneau, Shepell.

Until very recently, Morneau had made no mistakes and was a star in Ottawa. Last week, you could see how far he’d fallen when a reporter’s questions about Morneau’s financial affairs were fielded by the prime minister. The injured look on Morneau’s face at being pushed aside evoked his devastation. Next to losing an election, being so publicly emasculated is the worst thing that can befall a politician.

Morneau used a loophole to skirt the conflict of interest rules because his shares in Morneau, Shepell were in a holding company. If the rules allow that, they are far too lax. But either a Morneau staffer or someone in the Prime Minister’s Office should have told Morneau to put everything in a blind trust right from the get-go. There’s conflicts, and there’s the appearance of conflicts, and both are equally wrong.

After my former boss Robert Stanfield got into federal politics, he put his own substantial fortune into a blind trust in the early 1970s long before there were any such rules. Which led to his friend Finlay MacDonald telling Stanfield one day, “I have good news and I have bad news. The bad news is that the value of your blind trust has fallen to zero. The good news is that you were not in any conflict of interest all the way down.” Stanfield didn’t laugh at the joke. Morneau’s economic update today was mostly good news, but is it enough? He may recover from the conflict fiasco, but he has been forever altered in the public eye.

Walking the line

During the 1950s and 60s in my hometown of Guelph, Ont., you made your own fun. There were no touring orchestras or theatrical groups, just the local light opera company doing The Gondoliers or the little theatre presenting The Importance of Being Earnest. The boffo offering was always the annual minstrel show by the Kiwanis Club with a row of ten men called names like Rastus and Bones who sat on the high school auditorium stage telling cornball jokes and singing. The highlight was “Old Man River” crooned by the owner of Kelly’s Music store. They all wore white gloves and blackface until the civil rights movement was launched in the U.S. and then one year the show was quietly discontinued.

Guelph was also a welcoming place for multitudes of immigrants from many lands. I attended school or played sports at the YMCA with Italians, Greeks, Dutch and Estonians along with earlier arrivals from England, Ireland and Scotland. In all, I’d like to think I grew up knowing the importance of embracing diversity and doing the right thing for every member of society.

These days, I must admit I’m having a hard time keeping up with the ever-changing rules. One day, “chief” is to be scrubbed from job titles. What happens in such a world to police chief or fire chief? Then I see a pop-up opioid site with a sign that has more words about the Indigenous people who once lived on those very grounds than what drug services are offered. Next comes an advisory that children shouldn’t dress as cowboys or indians on Halloween for fear of offending those groups.

I wonder, what I should do about Halloween? Do I ladle out candy only to those who appear appropriately apparelled? And what about the pith helmet I always wear to the door as my “costume?” Does that headgear bespeak colonial imperialism? Maybe I’ll just put out my bowlful of candy, go to bed, and pull the sheets over my puzzled face. Where, oh where, to turn for guidance about these suddenly momentous matters?

 

Things to give thanks for

Every day that dawns. The Harvest Moon this past week. The fact that Monarch butterflies, blue jays and crows are making a comeback in Toronto. Lots of laughter. Curiosity. A civil society with few guns. Yoga.

Any book about LBJ or Winston Churchill. The lyricism of A Shropshire Lad by A. E. Housman. The authority of the New Yorker and the quirkiness of the London Review of Books. Reading The Great Gatsby or The World According to Garp every few years.  My daily giornata. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Church bells and familiar hymns.

Crisp McIntosh apples. Cranberry sauce. Butter tarts from The Bakery in Flesherton. A Montreal-style smoked meat sandwich from Schwartz’s. Corona beer or a well-mixed Manhattan. Meat pies from Weil’s of Westdale. Anything at Quality Italian.

Walking barefoot on a beach in February. Wearing my Canada Goose parka the next week in Toronto. New York City anytime. Pontormo’s Deposition from the Cross in Santa Felicita, Florence. The autumn leaves in the Gatineau hills. Getting home safely.

The love of family. A few good friends. A partner with whom to share your life. Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings. Neighbours who look out for you. The guys who cut my grass and shovel my snow. Rosa’s soup. My parents who showed me how to be and gave me the greatest gift of all: life itself. Good health. All the things yet to see.

 

A sorry state

There was a time when governments never apologized, neither for what they did, nor for past transgressions. Pierre Trudeau comes to mind. He always said he was looking forward, not back. But, as time has passed, other prime ministers have taken a different approach. Brian Mulroney, for example, apologized for the internment of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War. Stephen Harper apologized for what was done to young aboriginals at residential schools.

No prime minister, however, has been such a profuse apologist as Justin Trudeau. Being Canadian has come to mean always having to say you’re sorry. His list already includes: the Komagata Maru, a Japanese steamship turned away from Vancouver harbour in 1914 with some 400 Sikh migrants; and Omar Khadr who not only got the words but also the money, $10.5 million.

The apologies are becoming so numerous that they’re now stacked up like aircraft circling under the direction of traffic control. Coming soon, we are told, is an apology for the MS St. Louis, a vessel turned away in 1939 with 900 Jews seeking asylum, many of whom later died in concentration camps. And the wording doesn’t just combust, you know. A committee has been struck to draft an apology to LGBT Canadians for abuses by the federal government.

But of all of this year’s apologies, my favourite was from the drunken guy in Halifax who tried to break into the apartment of a women who sent him scurrying to safety. In the morning, he left her a note of apology and a six-pack of beer. I’m still waiting for my apology from Ottawa. I may be the last man standing who does not have someone in Ottawa, kneeling, ready to make amends. Any show of repentance would be fine with me. I can buy my own beer.

Sitting room only

All this foofara caused by President Donald Trump over a White House invitation to the Golden State Warriors has gotten out of hand. LeBron James is now calling Trump a “bum,” some NFL players are kneeling during the national anthem, and other teams are avoiding controversy by staying in the locker room until the Star Spangled Banner is over.

Trump’s strategy is obvious. His main talent is to be a divisive force who plays one group off against another. Even on Capitol Hill, he’s cosying up to Democrats on fiscal matters while whipping his own Republicans toward impossible goals on healthcare.

I believe this presents Canada with the perfect opportunity to cease the annoying pastime of playing the American national anthem at the beginning of baseball, hockey and basketball games. For one thing, no matter who the singer, the American anthem always sounds better than our poor, plodding version sung, as it too often is, without any panache. Nor is there any reason to sing the U.S. anthem just because there are U.S. players on all teams. Many other countries are also represented from Sweden to Mexico, Slovakia to Japan.

My no-play solution can be explained as a way to halt confusion and embarrassment. But it also lets us throw off the last vestiges of colonialism that mean we suffer through their anthem while standing on our own home and native land. And, just maybe, our newly acquired obstreperous nature will give Canada’s Nafta negotiators an edge.