Kerstin's Chocolates shares profits with Change for Children

Kerstin Roos, the Edmonton-based creator of exquisite gourmet chocolates, has decided to give 10 per cent of her company's net profits to the children's charity, Change for Children.

Roos, whose chocolate shop is called Kerstin's Chocolates, has chosen Change for Children as the beneficiary of the donation because doing so helps support people living in parts of the world where most of the cacao that is used to make chocolate is grown - Latin American and Africa. Change for Children is Edmonton-based, and does a lot of work in Bolivia, Nicaragua,  and Tanzania, among other countries.

Kerstin's Chocolates (that's her at right in this Journal photo by John Lucas) buys her chocolate from fair-trade suppliers, and has visited cacao-growing communities in The Caribbean.

To spread the word about the importance of supporting sustainable cacao farming, as well as Change for Children, Roos is holding a public chocolate tasting workshop for kids and parents at the McKernan School Gymnasium at 11330-76th Avenue on Thursday, December 16th at 5 p.m. Donations for Change for Children will be collected at the door. While everyone is welcome, tickets must be reserved in advance as seating is limited. Go to www.kerstinschocolates.com for tickets and for more information.

Change for Children was founded in 1976 and works with grassroots organizations in Africa and Latin America to help communities improve access to clean water, education and healthcare, and to promote the rights of children, women and indigenous peoples. Go to www.changeforchildren.org for more information.

Kerstin's Chocolates was founded in 2003 and has a storefront at 10139-112 Street. Call 780-990-0011.

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Awareness in the unconscious

In PicturesPublished Friday, Oct. 29, 2010 11:43PM EDTBritish researcher Adrian Owen has pioneered a new way to communicate with seemingly unconscious patients Hide caption

Brain images from a patient who was deemed vegetative but was able to imagine playing tennis would be great, especially compared to a healthy control. She isn't answering questions, but merely showing that she is conscious by producing the two brain states when asked to imagine playing tennis and imagine moving from room to room in her house. Again, a control is included for comparison.

(Adrian Owen/MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit)

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Brain images from a patient who was deemed vegetative but was able to imagine playing tennis would be great, especially compared to a healthy control. She isn't answering questions, but merely showing that she is conscious by producing the two brain states when asked to imagine playing tennis and imagine moving from room to room in her house.

(Adrian Owen/MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit)

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University of Western Ontario (UWO) professor Fred Possmayer plays tennis at the university's tennis centre October 27, 2010. Professor Possmayer has recovered after suffering a heart attack and falling into a coma while playing. While in the coma he was part of a research study by world renowned brain researcher Dr. Adrian Owen who will shortly be taking a position at UWO.

(Geoff Robins/The Globe and Mail)

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Dr. Adrian Owen has spent the last 20 years pioneering breakthroughs in cognitive neuroscience.

(University of Western)

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Brain researchers (from left) Beth Parkin MSC, Dr. Adrian Owen, and Dr. Damian Cruse. Dr. Owen and his team will be researching recorded electrical impulses in the brain of comatose people showing they are actually aware and can respond by thinking of things.

(Randy Quan for The Globe and Mail)

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Thigh-highs add a stylish touch this season, whether they’re cozy cable-knit numbers or cheeky collegiate ones

Friday, Oct. 29, 2010 11:43PM EDT

British researcher Adrian Owen has pioneered a new way to communicate with seemingly unconscious patients

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As high-altitude house prices and shifting lifestyles have combined with a push for urban densification from city planners, Vancouver has turned to laneway poroperties.

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See how the crop nutrient gets from the earth, to a shipping container, to China

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Behind every military medal, a story

VeteransPublished Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2010 11:11PM ESTLast updated Thursday, Nov. 11, 2010 10:22AM EST1 comment

We see them every Nov. 11: A confetti of striking colours emblazoned across veterans' chests as we honour those who fought for Canada's freedom and the freedom of others.

From ‘freebies' shared with civilians to those awarded for having the courage to serve in the trenches, from honours for maintaining tenuous peace in war-torn regions to those for tours of duty in some of the world's most forbidding areas. They belong to Canada's warriors. To Canada's peacekeepers.

And they reveal the secrets of battles fought, of trials and tribulations persevered, of sacrifices made in the shaping of our nation and in helping it claim its spot on the world stage. Here are the tales behind the decorations.

Veteran Tom Hoppe is seen outside of his home in Kingston, Ontario on November 6, 2010.— Jennifer Roberts for The Globe and Mail

Tom Hoppe, 43

Sergeant, Lord Strathcona’s Horse, Kingston

“I had no intention of getting medals. There are always trophy hunters, that's human nature. Maybe to some, a medal is a trophy. To me, it's not. I didn't say. ‘I'm going to be a hero.' There's something to do. You get it done.”

Tom Hoppe's medals are seen left to right in his home on November 6, 2010: Meritorious Service Cross, given for leadership and bravery under fire during 1993 Bosnian tour; Medal of Bravery, for rescuing three kids trapped under sniper fire during the 1993 Bosnian tour; Special Service Medal, for NATO tour in Europe 1985-1990; Peace Keeping Medal, given to all soliders who serviced on a peace keeping tour; United Nations Protection Force Medal, 1993 Bosnia; Canadian Forces Decoration, for 12 years of good service— Jennifer Roberts for the Globe and Mail

1. Meritorious Service Cross

“Bosnia, 1993. They called it a peacekeeping mission, but I totally disagree with that term. It was a full-out war. The term peacekeeping is a myth. … I worked in a patrol of eight guys. We were involved in a number of incidents, a number of firefights. The medal is just not for me, its for the eight guys, without whom I wouldn’t have been able to do what I had to do. It’s for leadership.”

2. Medal of Bravery

‘Three or four kids were under sniper fire [in Visoko, outside Sarajevo.] I went out with another guy and pulled them out. The Meritorious Service medal and Medal of Bravery were both given for the same tour. At that time – it’s since changed – that made me the most decorated Canadian soldier since Korea.”

3. Special Service Medal

“For serving in NATO in Germany. You get it for serving 30 days in theatre. I was there for five years.”

4. The Peacekeeping Service Medal

“Everybody got this. It’s for being on a peacekeeping tour. For peacekeeping anywhere in the world.

“Peacekeeping – this big myth that we go over and hand out flowers and build schools. That’s part of it, but you can’t do that until there’s peace. Peacekeeping is war. We put this perception in people’s minds that it’s safer.”

5. United Nations Peacekeeping Protection Force Medal

“This was specific for peacekeeping in Bosnia. Sarajevo was just blown to crap. I sat on a hill overlooking the old ski jump from the Olympics and parts of the city, watching it constantly shelled.”

6. The Canadian Forces Decoration

“This is for 12 years of good service. Nothing special. If you get some jail time, you’re not going to get it. I did my job.”

WWII Vet Andrew Bogle who is now 86 years old and lives in Calgary, AB. Born in Scotland he arrived in Canada with his parents in 1927. He enlisted with the Navy in Winnipeg in February 1943 and served 32 months on the H.M.C.S.Nene, a British Frigate with Canadian Crew. He was photographed in Calgary on Friday, November 05, 2010.— Chris Bolin for The Globe and Mail

Andrew Bogle, 86

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Carol Berner released on bail

Published Friday, Nov. 26, 2010 2:13PM ESTLast updated Friday, Nov. 26, 2010 2:17PM EST0 comments

Drunk driver Carol Berner has been granted bail while awaiting the appeal of her impaired and dangerous driving convictions.

The 58-year-old Delta, B.C., woman is appealing her convictions and two-and-a-half year prison term for the May 2008 crash that killed four-year-old Alexa Middelaer.

The incident occurred while the girl was feeding a horse on the side of the road, and also severely injured her aunt.

Ms. Berner has been held in custody in Surrey while awaiting the Court of Appeal ruling.

It could be late 2011 before the high court hears her case.

Ms. Berner returns to court next June 15 to set a date for the appeal.

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Why we're losing the fight against bullying

FOCUSPublished Friday, Oct. 29, 2010 6:50PM EDTLast updated Friday, Oct. 29, 2010 7:35PM EDT0 comments

It is lunchtime at St. Anne Catholic School in Kanata, Ont., and a squabble is under way at a hockey net in the playground. Hannah Gartland, 10, and Sarah Cousineau and Nick Kidd, both 11, march over, a mini riot squad in their bright yellow vests that read “Peer Mediator.” The Grade 1 boys, immersed in bickering over who should get to play goal, stop immediately and spill their sides of the story. “How about every goal, you guys switch,” Nick suggests. “You can be defence,” Sarah tells one boy. “Does that sound fair?” Problem solved, a little grudgingly. “Great,” Hannah says cheerfully. “Have a good game.” The three walk off, alert to more playground mayhem.

Not really a case of bullying, explains Nick, cool and confident in his backward baseball cap, but he has seen these disputes grow into fistfights, especially among the older kids. “It's always best to start with a little problem so it doesn't get bigger,” Sarah says.

The idea that starting young might reduce teenaged locker-room brutality and cyber-harassment is behind St. Anne's anti-bullying program. It's the kind of comprehensive, well-supported, community-based approach that research has shown to be most effective. Indeed, principal Jane Hill credits the program with bringing down bullying incidents – but most schools in Canada are failing to curb the problem. There are many reasons for this, not the least of them the fact that educators have tried to simplify a complex social issue down to good guys and bad guys, hoping positive language will seep into playground politics, and that zero tolerance will scare bullies straight. Schools have too often failed to act in the most serious cases, and kids won't tell on bullies if they don't believe it will make a difference.

When left unchecked, bullies can destroy lives, as in the recent spate of U.S. suicides related to homophobic bullying that prompted President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to speak out, expressing their sadness, shock and support for the victims of bullies.

Eliminating bullying altogether is an unrealistic goal. It's human nature: People like to boss other people around and it's not hard to see traits of a control-seeking bully in parents who rant viciously at hockey games.

“Some parents, I am sad to say, are not at all bothered if their child is a bully. In fact, they can be quite proud of it,” explains Ken Rigby, a bullying expert in Australia.

The view lingers that getting picked on is a teenage rite of passage: When bullying leads to suicide, the outrage is swift, but, as Guelph high-school student Alix Vander Vlugt asks, “Where's the outrage for everything that happened leading up to that?”

Most kids grow out of bullying by the time they reach their mid-teens.

Research consistently shows that bullying is linked to depression, poor school performance and anxiety, for both victim and perpetrator. The worst offenders are cleverly covert, often the popular kids in class.

They're the ones teachers like and parents don't suspect, and they use their social capital to cow bystanders into staying quiet, or joining in.

A Grade 8 student interviewed for this story, who didn't want to be named, described this very type: a former friend who would order her posse to go up to other students and call them names, or generally intimidate them. “I felt that if I went against her, I wouldn't have friends. Looking back, I definitely should have told a teacher.” Alix Vander Vlugt, who now speaks out against bullying, recalls watching his peers torment younger students. “I usually didn't say anything.”

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Sudden fish boom doesn’t mean decline is over, inquiry head says

Published Friday, Oct. 29, 2010 9:14PM EDTLast updated Friday, Oct. 29, 2010 9:17PM EDT6 comments

Over the past two decades, a series of inquiries has led to more than 30 reports and 700 recommendations on how to improve the state of West Coast salmon resources, but none managed to halt a “steady and profound decline” of stocks in the Fraser River.

In a preliminary report released on Friday, the head of the latest investigation, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Bruce Cohen, said he hopes his judicial inquiry will both help restore the fishery and “end the cycle of reviewing the same issues over and over again.”

Mr. Justice Cohen, whose Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River began evidentiary hearings this week, was required to file an interim report this fall giving his preliminary views on the large number of investigations that preceded his.

He said a review by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans provided his staff with 25 reports prepared by or for the federal government between 1982 and 2005, and that he also examined several other studies, such as an auditor general’s report.

“My principal interest was reports that are relevant to the Fraser sockeye fishery, but I also thought it important to review reports that deal more generally with various aspects of West Coast fisheries, such as DFO management, conservation and habitat protection and the potential impact of open-pen salmon farms on wild salmon stocks,” he wrote.

“The number of previous reports and the number of recommendations contained within them is remarkable, as is the wide range of issues that were examined,” Mr. Justice Cohen stated in his preliminary report.

“Some issues have been examined repeatedly. An enormous amount of time and money has been invested in arriving at the recommendations contained in these previous reports, yet the decline in Fraser sockeye stocks continued through 2009,” he wrote.

Although he said much has been learned from his extensive review of past findings, “I have concluded that it would be premature and unwise to make findings of fact or recommendations based solely on these reports.”

Mr. Justice Cohen, who expects the evidentiary hearings to continue through next spring, said he will wait until all the information is in before drawing conclusions.

And he said although there have been numerous investigations before, his commission is unique because it is the first one that has been directed specifically to identify the causes of sockeye decline or that has been given the authority to summon witnesses to give evidence under oath.

“The Fraser sockeye is an iconic species of fish,” he wrote. “The steady decline of this resource over several decades has put enormous pressure on the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities that depend on it for their food, social and ceremonial purposes; recreational pursuits and livelihood needs. They want answers as to why there has been a steady decline in the Fraser sockeye stocks. They seek solutions for restoring the stocks to those levels of abundance where an ample supply of sockeye salmon served the needs of all the communities that relied heavily on it.”

Mr. Cohen says his commission, which was struck to examine the collapse of salmon stocks in the Fraser last year, will take into consideration the record runs that surprisingly returned to the river this year.

He said the sudden boom is not a sign the decline that began in the early 1990s is over.

“Notwithstanding the relief and excitement surrounding the 2010 return, no one is confident that the declines are a thing of the past,” Mr. Justice Cohen wrote.

About 11 million sockeye were expected to return this year, but during the summer, the Pacific Salmon Commission estimated the run size at 34 million fish. Earlier this month, however, the PSC put the number at closer to 29 million – still the largest run of the century, but five million less than were thought to be in the river when fisheries took place.

Last year, more than 10 million fish were expected, but only about one million returned.

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There’s good reason the masses are revolting

Margaret Wente29 comments

My best friends are wonderful people – talented, accomplished, generous, smart and caring. So it’s hard to see them in such fear and pain. The way they see it, the Visigoths have battered down the gates of Rome, and the Vestal Virgins had better scramble for cover. In the aftermath of Toronto’s election rout, their only consolation is that Rob Ford is probably too stupid and incompetent to completely sack the place. If only they lie low for the next four years, sanity will surely return to city politics.

Like my friends, the people who work in much of the major media – the CBC, the Toronto Star, even my own beloved paper – were stunned by the Ford tsunami. After all, the polls had predicted a squeaker. But there’s another reason they didn’t see the big wave coming. Very few of these people live or work outside downtown Toronto. Very few ever hang around with someone who voted for Mr. Ford and will own up to it. They remind me of the super-smart editorial writers at The New York Times who are sincerely convinced that Tea Partiers are dangerous crackpots – even though they’ve never met any.

The media think they understand why people voted as they did. As one Toronto Star pundit helpfully explained, the voters – Ford voters, that is – “were full of largely pointless rage.” Only pointless rage could explain why voters ignored the editorial endorsements of two leading newspapers, as well as a long line of former mayors who begged them, in the name of decency, to vote for George Smitherman. Even Justin Trudeau’s twinkle dust didn’t work.

The day after his election victory, Mr. Ford gave a hilariously disastrous interview to As It Happens, while simultaneously coaching a football game. It was obviously a mistake. It was also clear that, like most of his constituents, Mr. Ford doesn’t really give a darn about the CBC, never listens to As It Happens and believes that coaching his football team is far more important than talking to Carol Off. As much as I adore As It Happens, I find this moderately refreshing.

Tuesday, the U.S. Democrats will face their own tsunami. Like Toronto’s downtown liberals, they blame the masses, not themselves. The voters are full of pointless rage, they explain. Populist politicians (Tea Partiers, Rob Ford) have whipped up voter discontent with their simplistic slogans. These people are dangerous because their ideas, apart from being incoherent, are also unrealistic and destructive. And if they ever tried to implement them, they would wreck the place.

Both Barack Obama and outgoing Toronto mayor David Miller insist the voters simply don’t appreciate what they’ve accomplished. They say their only real mistake was to not focus enough on positive PR. Both the Democrats and Toronto liberals are convinced they know what’s best for the masses, even if the masses massively disagree. They believe that many of the people who vote for their opponents are basically deluded, ignorant and poorly educated (even though the Republicans are currently leading by 20 per cent among U.S. college graduates). They also believe the people on the other side are basically intolerant, anti-immigrant racists (even though a pre-election poll said half of voters born outside Canada were set to cast votes for Mr. Ford).

In other words, this is just another classic anti-incumbency wave, and all they have to do is ride it out.

The other possibility is that it’s something else. Could it be that the masses have good reasons for revolting?

Here are some. During the seven years Mr. Miller was in charge, Toronto’s spending increased by 44 per cent while services got worse. People grudgingly put up with the city’s unrelenting efforts to turn their porches into recycling depots. But they got seriously annoyed when they learned that striking city workers had better perks than they did.

In the United States, people’s lives have only gotten worse since Mr. Obama took office. Unemployment is higher. More than half of all families are worried about making next month’s mortgage or rent. Health-care reform is so impenetrably complex that people don’t know where they stand. What they do know is that their premiums have gone up and their Medicare coverage is being cut. Sixty-three per cent of Americans say they don’t feel they’ll be able to maintain their current standard of living. They know Mr. Obama didn’t create the mess, but they think he’s made it worse.

No wonder the independent voters who put Mr. Obama into office have deserted him. Fifty-five per cent of the electorate now say they are or lean Republican.

Americans believe their country is in crisis, and they’re right. By next year, the United States will reach Third World debt territory. Yet both major parties seem oblivious. Neither of them has a plan, or even publicly acknowledges the severity of the crisis. If the Tea Party does nothing else, it may at least force the Republicans to face this highly unpleasant fact. If Mr. Obama wants a second term, he’ll have to face it too.

Although Canada is far more blessed, even we won’t entirely escape the massive restructuring that faces almost every country in the Western world. The problem is simple. People have a lot more government than they can or will pay for. Mr. Ford and Tea Partiers know that. Scaling down the scope of government is the political challenge of the next generation. And if mainstream politicians stay in denial, they’ll be toast.

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Multiculturalism has been Canada’s solution, not its problem

Irene Bloemraad78 comments

German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently made headlines when she pronounced multiculturalism in Germany a failure. Shortly before, a Globe and Mail editorial argued that Canadians should eradicate “multiculturalism” from their vocabulary and refocus on “citizenship.” Multiculturalism isn’t just out of style, these statements suggest – it’s dangerous for building unity in increasingly diverse societies.

Unfortunately, both analyses are dead wrong.

Social scientists can measure multiculturalism in a given society by examining the number and content of public policies and government pronouncements around cultural recognition and accommodation. Such indices show that Germany is not, and has never been, a multicultural society.

Multiculturalism can’t have failed in Germany because it was never tried. Turkish guest workers and other immigrants were never welcomed as future citizens – only as temporary labour. If Germans are now concerned about the consequences, the blame certainly doesn’t lie with multiculturalism.

These indices also group countries such as France and Norway with Germany as least multicultural, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United States as moderately multicultural, and Australia and Canada as most multicultural.

Have Canada’s past practices and policies hurt attempts to forge common citizenship out of diversity?

Absolutely not. Consider how many immigrants become citizens. The least multicultural countries count the lowest levels of citizenship; the moderate multicultural countries have somewhat more. In comparison, an overwhelming majority of immigrants proudly take up citizenship in Canada and Australia, the two countries that went furthest in the multicultural experiment.

The positive link between multiculturalism and citizenship is further supported by comparing Canadian policy with that of the United States. In 1971, the Canadian government began promoting a multiculturalism-based integration policy, which was enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 and expanded in 1988, when the Multiculturalism Act became federal law. Over this same period, the U.S. enacted no formal immigrant integration program or multiculturalism policy.

In 1970, in both Canada and the U.S., about 60 per cent of foreign-born residents had acquired citizenship. By 2006, the American Community Survey estimated that, of the 37.5 million foreign-born people living in the U.S., just 42 per cent were naturalized citizens. By that same year, 73 per cent of immigrants to Canada had acquired citizenship, one of the highest rates in the world.

There are, of course, many possible explanations for this statistical gulf, but here are some factors that did not play a predominant role: different immigrant streams; the large undocumented population in the U.S.; different costs and benefits of citizenship; easier or faster processing in Canada.

My research points to multiculturalism as a key factor driving Canada’s success at citizenship integration. It legitimates diversity, provides a sense of inclusion and, through the multitude of (oft-maligned) government grants given to community-based organizations – not only for multiculturalism but also for a host of integration programs – it provides the support structures to help newcomers join the country as full citizens.

Canadians certainly can, and should, have thoughtful debates about recognizing and accommodating diversity – just as we debate health-care policy or Stanley Cup contenders.

Like health care and hockey, multiculturalism has become a symbol of what defines Canada. In poll after poll, Canadians say multiculturalism is one of the top three defining features of the country. What’s more, they are proud of it.

They should be. Over four decades, incredibly rapid demographic change has transformed Canada, especially its largest cities. In Europe, similar change has resulted in riots and cultural tensions that have tarnished the concept of multiculturalism there. But, in Canada, these changes, despite many challenges, happened peacefully, productively and positively. Multiculturalism was part of the solution, not the problem.

Irene Bloemraad is an associate professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley and a scholar of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. She is the author of Becoming a Citizen: Incorporating Immigrants and Refugees in the United States and Canada.

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If you're already homesick for an outdoor farmers' market, check out this video

It's by the Journal's photographer and videographer, Ryan Jackson. The video, shot at the downtown farmers' market,  captures why it is that we look forward to Saturdays in summer.

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Rocky Mountain Wine and Food Festival Ticket Giveaway

We've got two tickets for the Rocky Mountain Wine and Food Festival to give away. The festival is at the Shaw Conference Centre on Nov. 5 and 6. E-mail your contest entry to mailto:livingwell@edmontonjournal.com Put wine and food festival contest in the subject line and please put your name and day time phone number in the body of the e-mail. The tickets will be left for the winner at the Will Call office at the Shaw Conference Centre. The contest ends on Friday Oct. 29. For information on the festival go to Rocky Mountain Wine and Food Festival.

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A cautionary tale for the liberal interventionist

Margaret WentePublished Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010 5:00AM EDTLast updated Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010 9:36AM EDT207 comments

The main revelation in the latest cache of documents from WikiLeaks is not the collateral damage inflicted by American troops on innocent Iraqis (although there’s plenty of that). It’s the damage inflicted by Iraqis on one another. The liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein and his chamber of horrors turned the entire country into a chamber of horrors. Of the 109,000 deaths recorded in these newly released U.S. military documents, which span the period from 2004 to 2009, the vast majority were Iraqi civilians murdered by other Iraqis.

It’s a classic case of doing bad by trying to do good. And it’s a cautionary tale for any would-be peacekeeper or liberal interventionist – if there happen to be any left – who thinks we can rescue people from themselves.

I was a liberal interventionist back then. In my defence, I was in the best of company – Michael Ignatieff, Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan, among others. Liberal interventionists believed that the Iraqi people (to say nothing of the rest of the world) would be a lot better off without Saddam. I’d met Iraqis in Canada who showed me the torture wounds they’d acquired in Saddam’s dungeons. I knew about the gassing of the Kurds and the ethnic cleansing at Hilla, where Saddam’s thugs would take people out at night to dig their own graves, then shoot them. I wasn’t an imperialist, I was a humanitarian.

When I went to Iraq a few months after the war, it dawned on me that the road to freedom from tyranny might be longer than I’d thought. I met many people, especially in the U.S. military, who were valiantly trying to do the right thing. I met brave Iraqis and earnest democracy promoters who were endeavouring to teach the locals the ins and outs of fair elections. Optimism was in the air. But the retaliations had already begun.

Kidnappings and revenge killings had become routine. The police were corrupt and feared. Society was tribal – people identified first and foremost with their clan, whose network of enemies and allies was impossible for outsiders to figure out. Millions of angry young men couldn’t find work. Iraqis were incredibly conspiracy-minded and superstitious, and many of them believed in genies. I came to believe that the U.S.-led invasion had let the genie out of the bottle, and not necessarily for the better.

Later, people blamed the ensuing chaos on the Americans’ lack of postwar planning and the decision to disband the Iraqi army. I think the chaos was inevitable, no matter what.

These WikiLeaks documents (released last week to a handful of international media outlets) are important because they show just how disastrous Operation Iraqi Freedom really was. As Der Spiegel explained, they show how the struggle between Shiites and Sunnis unfolded, how society became brutalized, and how kidnappings, executions and prisoner torture became part of everyday life.

The abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison were mild compared with the atrocities inflicted by Iraqis on each other. The Shia-controlled Interior Ministry ran secret jails in which inmates, most of them Sunnis, endured the same kinds of torture as those inflicted by Saddam. They were burned with boiling water, had their fingers amputated, and had electroshock applied to their genitals. When U.S. forces discovered the brutalities, they simply filled out incident reports and forwarded them to the local authorities.

As the distinction between insurgents and government employees became increasingly fuzzy, militias operated in the open, under the eyes of security forces. IEDs were planted everywhere. Al-Qaeda forces planted bombs in corpses, babies’ cribs and teddy bears, as well as on live children, who were known as “paradise boys.” Not surprisingly, U.S. troops tended to shoot too early rather than too late.

Afghanistan, by contrast, is supposed to be a “good” war. But it’s hard to fight a good war in a violent society with bad guys on every side. And I fear that those Canadians who long for the good old days, when our military served virtuously as “peacekeepers,” are just as deluded as I was back in 2003. The world’s conflict zones don’t look like Cyprus any more. They look like Iraq and Afghanistan – ugly, violent places where high-minded moral interventions are often futile, or worse.

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Canada's 2010 health spending predicted to inch up to $192-billion: report

Total health-care spending in Canada this year is predicted to reach almost $192-billion, up almost 5 per cent over 2009, says a report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

The 155-page report, released Thursday, says that figure translates into about $5,600 for each man, woman and child in the country.

“Over the last 10 years, we've seen the growth in health-care spending over and above population growth and inflation,” said Chris Kuchciak, manager of health expenditures for CIHI. “However, what's different this year is that the growth rate in 2009 and 2010 seems to be decelerating.”

Taking inflation and population growth into account, actual per-capita health-care spending is expected to rise by just 1.4 per cent this year, Mr. Kuchciak said from Ottawa.

“The growth rate of 1.4 per cent is actually the lowest growth rate in the last 13 years.”

Mr. Kuchciak said a number of factors are likely behind the shrinking growth rate in health spending, including belt-tightening by provinces in response to the 2009 recession.

A similar squeeze on spending occurred during the mid-1990s, a period of restraint when the growth in health spending was either flat or negative, he said, noting that the trend was reversed in the late ‘90s when governments made a concerted effort to boost allocations to health.

“So there were significant investments in health care. But now fiscal positions have changed and we see that growth rate decelerating.”

The report shows health-care spending is expected to account for 11.7 per cent of Canada's gross domestic product in 2010, down from 11.9 per cent in 2009, but above the 10.7 per cent share of the GDP in 2008.

Mr. Kuchciak said hospitals, prescription and over-the-counter drugs, and doctors' services remain the three biggest-ticket items.

Hospitals are still the largest at 29 per cent, he said. “That's actually declined over the years. Twenty-five, 30 years ago, hospitals accounted for over 40 per cent of health-care spending.”

“What we've seen over time is a growth in the share attributable to drug spending – that's been growing – but also in the last four years, physician spending has actually outpaced the growth of drugs and hospitals.”

This year, drug costs are expected to carve out 16 per cent of the health-care spending pie, while physician services are predicted to take up almost 14 per cent.

“Yes, physician spending has grown faster than the other two categories,” Mr. Kuchciak said. “We know there are more physicians today than there were years ago. There's more demand for the use of physician services as well as compensation.

“Those are factors that could play into that increase in spending.”

The report also says government spending on health care this year is expected to reach $135.1-billion, while private-sector spending – which includes both private insurance and out-of-pocket expenses – will reach an estimated $56.6-billion.

For more than a decade, public- and private-sector health spending in Canada has been growing at about the same rate, with the public sector accounting for about 70 per cent of the total health-care bill and the private sector for the rest.

While Canadians over the age of 65 account for less than 14 per cent of Canada's population, CIHI found they consume almost 44 per cent of all health-care dollars spent by provincial and territorial governments. In 2008, the latest year for which data is available, the provinces and territories spent an average of $10,742 per senior, compared with $2,097 on those aged one to 64 years old.

For Canadians age 80 and older, health spending averaged $18,160 per person, more than three times the roughly $5,800 spent per senior under the age of 70.

However, the report shows that the share spent on those 65-plus has not changed significantly over the past decade.

“While it is true that care is costlier for people who are 65 and older, we have not seen a rise in the proportion we spend on seniors,” said Jean-Marie Berthelot, CIHI vice-president of programs. “An aging population may have an impact on health-care spending, but so far the average expenditure on seniors has not risen faster than for younger Canadians.”

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Harper foreign policy merely a ‘mild negative,’ poll finds

Posted on Thursday, October 28, 2010 11:58AM EDT93 comments

Pollster Frank Graves has some advice on how Stephen Harper’s Conservatives can turn their humiliation on the world stage into a win: Blame it on the elites.

A new EKOS Research survey, released Thursday morning, shows voters “are underwhelmed with Canada’s actions on the world stage.” Asked whether they disapproved or approved of the Harper government’s foreign policies, 37 per cent said they disapproved compared to 21 per cent who approve and 35 per cent who don’t care either way.

“The data seems to suggest that the Tories don't have huge problems on foreign policy,” Mr. Graves told The Globe. “Wins like Haiti and losses like UN net out as mild negative.”

But the more troubling finding for the Conservatives is the perception the Harper government’s foreign policies are affecting the country’s international credibility.

“On that front there is a clear lean to seeing the net impacts as clearly corrosive to our reputation,” Mr. Graves aid. “This is something many Canadians care about. We have a narcissism of insecurity about how we are seen outside our borders and this could become a significant problem.”

In the EKOS poll, 45 per cent of respondents said Tory foreign policy had a negative effect on Canada’s global reputation, 22 per cent said it had a positive effect and 21 per cent said it had no effect at all.

So how do the Conservatives deal with these results? Mr. Graves has a suggestion.

“The government needs to keep Canadians focused on how things are pretty good and we can't risk the adventure of change,” he said, pointing to the Tory message track that a change in government would mean a coalition of Liberals, NDP and Bloc.

More than that, though, the Tories should play up the anti-elite phobia that’s out there – a phobia that seemed to come through in the election of conservative Rob Ford as mayor of Toronto.

“They will also need to sharpen case that many of these incidents are the vanity preoccupations of the elites and not the bread-and-butter issues of ‘ordinary’ Canadians,” the pollster said.

For fear of being accused of only giving advice to the Conservatives, Mr. Graves also has some thoughts for Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals.

“The challenge for opposition is to fit all of the indigo incidents such as prorogation, census and UN embarrassment into an overall thematic that doesn't wax and wane as the individual issues do,” he said. “And they need to make that narrative simple and emotionally resonant. For example, the government's know nothing-ism approach is producing rule by belief rather than reason and lampooning our previously stalwart international brand.”

The poll of 1,312 Canadians was conducted between Oct. 20 and Oct. 26. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

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How George Smitherman’s dead-end run for Toronto mayor went wrong

Published Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010 4:04AM EDTLast updated Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010 11:25AM EDT362 comments

In late August nothing was going right in George Smitherman’s bid to become mayor. The papers were full of scandalous stories of Rob Ford’s arrest for drunk driving and drug possession, but his popularity only seemed to be growing.

The Smitherman camp had invited Liberal pollster Michael Marzolini, architect of Premier Dalton McGuinty’s majorities, to diagnose what ailed the troubled campaign. During one Marzolini focus group, a middle-aged woman explained that she would overlook personality failings in a mayor – as long as he didn’t waste her taxes.

“It was the most powerful thing I’d ever seen,” recalls campaign manager Bruce Davis. “People knew [Mr. Ford] had these character flaws. They knew all that …”

And, by all appearances, they didn’t care.

This revelation should have been an omen of what was to come: the felling of Ontario’s powerful former deputy premier by an unlikely municipal renegade wielding a simple message.

From the start, Mr. Smitherman’s team suffered from being a “big tent” affair with myriad advisers from across the political spectrum. His strategists knew the election was fast becoming a referendum on Mayor David Miller’s approach to governing, set against a backdrop of economic uncertainty and irritation over tax hikes and political perks. Polling data showed the city was deeply split over Mr. Miller’s record. But Mr. Smitherman and his brain trust couldn’t decide which side of the urban divide they wanted to win over. When they finally placed their bets, it was too late.

In many ways, Mr. Smitherman put himself at a disadvantage from the outset, says Ryerson University politics professor Myer Siemiatycki: He played a quiet, cagey campaign early on, let his opponents set the agenda and failed to adequately set himself apart afterwards.

“He needed to more pointedly and directly try to puncture the assumption that the city was totally broken down and in need of a major overhaul. Because once he conceded that, he could not win ... He could not sell himself as the better fixer.”

CAMPAIGN BEGINS

On a flight home from Florida in early January, Mr. Smitherman took out a pad of paper and started scribbling ideas about what he wanted to do as mayor.

The famously combative, intensely partisan Liberal had first hinted at a run during last year’s garbage strike, with a showy bid to clean up the city. A few weeks later, Mr. Miller announced he wouldn’t seek re-election, leaving the field wide open. Before long, a clutch of Mr. Smitherman’s long-standing advisers – including Tory strategist Jaime Watt, Liberal adman Gordon Ashworth and NDP pollster Bob Penner – began meeting. It was late November, 2009, and most observers expected he would be taking on radio host John Tory.

Upon his return from Florida, Mr. Smitherman arranged to meet Bay Street lawyer Ralph Lean, a top political fundraiser, at the King Edward Hotel on Jan. 8. Mr. Lean, who had planned to back Mr. Tory until he pulled out, was now looking for a place to park his support. Over breakfast, Mr. Lean told Mr. Smitherman he had two major concerns – spending and transportation – and that he’d be interviewing Rocco Rossi later that morning.

The two men had history: In the mid-1990s, when Mr. Smitherman was former Toronto mayor Barbara Hall’s executive assistant, they’d butted heads over the Air Canada Centre (Mr. Lean represented the Raptors). “For two years I worked with him, fought with him and yelled at him,” said Mr. Lean. They emerged from that encounter with a mutual regard.

After breakfast ended, an emboldened Mr. Smitherman marched up to City Hall and, with the media looking on, registered to run. Afterward, he took what looked suspiciously like a victory skate on the rink in Nathan Phillips Square.

Through the early spring, Mr. Lean and his network had little trouble generating cash for the campaign among Liberals and downtown Tories.

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Gold Medal Plates is in Edmonton again this week

Wednesday, I’ll be judging at the event, a sold-out fundraiser for the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic teams. Many fit athletes are expected at the Shaw Conference Centre for Gold Medal Plates, including Adam van Koeverden and Alex Bilodeau. To date, Gold Medal Plates has raised some $4 million for the Olympic movement in Canada.

Follow me on Twitter (@eatmywordsblog) as I join forces with Edmonton food and wine judges including Nathin Bye of Wildflower (last year’s winner and one of the 10 chefs pictured at right competing in the 2009 event). I’ll announce the 2010 Edmonton winner on edmontonjournal.com at the evening’s end. Here are the chef competitors: Tracy Lydster of The Dish, Shane Chartrand of L2 at the Fantasyland Hotel, David Omar of Zinc, Jan Trittenbach of Packrat Louie and Daniel Costa of Red Star. Returning favourites are Paul Shufelt of Hundred, Michael Brown of Pradera at the Westin, Paul Campbell of Cafe De Ville, Andrew Fung of Blackhawk Golf Course, and Susan Kellock of Skinny Legs and Cowgirls.

The event has been such a huge success that organizers decided to push it past the original goal of collecting funds for the Vancouver 2010 games. Now, it’s a yearly competition. Edmonton is the first city in the Canada-wide contest, which culminates in the national championship Feb. 18 and 19, 2011, in Kelowna.

 Go to goldmedalplates.com for more information.

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Rob Ford tapped into a zeitgeist that goes beyond Toronto

Gary MasonPublished Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010 5:00AM EDTLast updated Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010 8:34AM EDT74 comments

Toronto’s mayoral race was so intriguing, so lush with irony, it engrossed Canadians across the country.

Vancouver is awash in transplanted Torontonians who couldn’t get enough of the fight for city hall. Rob Ford is a compelling, controversial figure even in Lotusland, and now that he’s mayor of the centre of the universe, people can’t stop smiling.

Why are so many delighted with Mr. Ford’s ascension? People love to see the Toronto establishment squirm and taken down a notch. The fact that the city’s elites were so horrified at the thought of being governed by someone they clearly felt was better suited to running a car dealership in Okotoks, Alta., made his victory even sweeter.

There are people who look and sound like Rob Ford sitting on city councils from Winkler, Man., to Smithers, B.C. To see him mocked as much for his appearance as his policies had many westerners cheering even harder for him. It undoubtedly helped seed the schadenfreude that has enveloped his unlikely triumph.

His win was a victory for the little guy – the common man who may not possess the same refined vocabulary as his more educated colleagues but, nonetheless, speaks a language that a great swath of Canadians understand perfectly.

Even I felt a certain sympathy for Mr. Ford. Not that I didn’t think his platform was bereft of intelligent analysis and new ideas. It was. Rather, it was the view, sometimes articulated in the media, that he would be a colossal embarrassment to the city not just because of what he said but because of the way he looked. If he weighed 60 pounds less, would he still have been as unappealing? Spare me the talk that the vituperative reaction he elicited was strictly about his policies and had nothing to do with the image he projected.

Anyway, it’s over and done with. Mr. Ford is mayor, and political junkies everywhere are debating whether the man tapped into a countrywide zeitgeist or exploited voter rage specific to Greater Toronto.

Put another way: Could Rob Ford get elected in Vancouver or Montreal, cities that, like Toronto, see themselves as sophisticated and urbane and immune to a mayoral candidate with the kind of gonzo qualities ascribed to Mr. Ford? I think the answer is yes, at least a version of him spouting an iteration of Mr. Ford’s successful Stop the Gravy Train campaign slogan.

Take Vancouver, where taxpayers are feeling the heat, too. It’s why the campaign to stop the HST wasn’t just popular in the northern half of B.C., as many first believed would be the case. It had support everywhere, including Vancouver’s tony west side.

Then there’s the Olympic Village fiasco, in which taxpayers possibly stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. Still, the current city council persists in going ahead with previously promised social housing on the site that’s costing in excess of $100-million when the units could be sold at market rates.

New dedicated bike lanes, meantime, are costing millions and are opposed by store owners who say they aren’t being used and will hurt business.

Enter a mayoral candidate in next fall’s civic election campaigning on a Ford-like theme: Stop the Madness.

He (or she) promises to sell the proposed social housing at the Olympic Village in order to recoup as much of the public’s money as possible that’s been sunk “into this mess.” He also campaigns to end bike-lane expansion and put a freeze on hiring at city hall. He vows not to raise property taxes beyond the rate of inflation, to give people “a chance to catch their financial breath.”

“Enough is enough,” our red-faced candidate bellows, jowls shaking. “People are having a tough time putting food on the table and we’re building bike lanes and the most exotic and expensive social housing in the world. What’s next? Free daycare for city workers? It’s time to take back city hall and stop this recklessness once and for all.”

Think Rob Ford couldn’t happen in a place like Vancouver? Think again.

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Parentage is about more than DNA

Angela Campbell and Robert Leckey21 comments

A woman born of a genetic sperm donation is challenging the law that prevents her from knowing her genetic father’s identity. Her court case began in Vancouver on Monday. We don’t doubt her sincerity in claiming that finding her genetic father is important to her. But the emphasis on genetic heritage central to her claims and others like it exemplifies a troubling trend that calls for further scrutiny.

The intense focus on genetic origins comes at an odd moment. The certainty with which genetic connections can now be established seems to have increased their importance. DNA testing now provides incontestable proof. But today’s science also makes genetic connections look much less important. All humans have 99 per cent of their DNA in common. A parent and child share slightly more, 99.5 per cent.

Olivia Pratten, 28, acknowledges that she has a “dad” who loves and cares about her. But her biological father, “who created half” of who she is, remains a mystery.

Whatever her feelings, it’s scientifically wrong to say Ms. Pratten’s biological father created half of who she is. It’s also wrong in other ways. As in all cases, upbringing and cultural surroundings are largely responsible for who we are.

It sounds as if Ms. Pratten owes much of her personality and identity to her “dad.” That’s so whether she resembles him or has shaped herself in contrast to him.

She has the right to be wrong in her thinking about her identity. She also has the right to think about her origins by focusing on her genetic make-up. But whether a judge should strike down the current law so as to identify a man who donated sperm anonymously is another question entirely. The judge also must take other viewpoints than Ms. Pratten’s into account. So must legislators who eventually study this issue.

We recognize the interest that donor children have in knowing their genetic origins. But is it a right that trumps all others?

The rhetoric of genetic connection risks erasing social bonds between parents and children. It implies that identity results from genetics. And the idea that genetic origin makes people who they are devalues diverse means by which people form families. Consider adoptive parents or parents who conceive through assisted conception. They may be gay or straight. Such parents are not mere caretakers of someone else’s genetic heritage. They contribute to their child’s identity.

The judge hearing Ms. Pratten’s claim must consider the consequences of recognizing a right to know one’s genetic parentage.

Overturning donor anonymity would reduce the supply of donor sperm. It would be harder for infertile couples to conceive a child. In the United Kingdom, the supply of donor sperm plummeted after rules prohibited anonymous donations.

And does Ms. Pratten’s claim go both ways? Once we elevate genetic connection over social bonds developed over time, why wouldn’t a donor have the right to trace his “children” connected to him by DNA?

An ethical assessment of claims by individuals born of anonymously donated genetic material to find their genetic heritage must take account of the potential harms to other people.

A full and fair evaluation of this debate entails recognizing the multiple interests it engages. People will weight these interests differently. We think they at least belong on the table.

Angela Campbell and Robert Leckey teach family law at McGill University.

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Andrew Fung knocked himself out last night for Gold Medal Plates

Today, the gold medal winner was still riding high.

"It's exciting, it was like a dream," he said in a phone interview Thursday morning from Blackhawk Golf Course, where Fung is executive chef.

Fung, 32, says he was inspired to create his award-winning duo of Alberta beef after a trip to Las Vegas last winter, where he saw hanger steak being used at Joel Robuchon Restaurant. Robichon used the flavourful, but challenging cut, in a steak sandwich, but Fung thought it would also work well as a carpaccio or another thin-sliced and marinated meat. He decided to do an Asian twist and tackle a beef tataki with ginger and scalllion relish, shaved Asiago (to hint at the Italian carpaccio style) and cold pressed olive oil with a tangy ponzu sauce.

"I am the only one with an Asian background (in Gold Medal Plates) and so I thought I would go with that," he says.

He started by serving gyoza, stuffing the egg-y dough with braised short rib and a bit of foie gras to add a little fat flavour. A veal reduction  and apple puree and oven-dried tomato confit accompanied the dish.

For more beautiful pictures of stunning food shot by Journal photographer Greg Southam, go to our photo gallery at edmontonjournal.com/photos. For more on Gold Medal Plates.

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In honour of LitFest and Radio Active, here are three of my favourite food memoirs

The first is a New York Times bestseller, written by Ruth Reichl, called Tender at the Bone. Ruth was for many years the editor of Gourmet magazine, which ceased publishing a couple of years back. She was also a food reviewer for the New York Times and I had read her account of those years in her book, Garlic and Sapphires. I really enjoyed it, so I went back to look for others she had written and found Tender at the Bone. The book is a coming-of-age story that examines Ruth's roots, and shows the reader how she came to be a food writer.

Ruth (at right in this 2006 photo by John Mahoney of the Montreal Gazette) was strongly influenced by her relationship with her mother, Miriam, who had bipolar disorder, and was very difficult to live with. She was also a frighteningly bad cook, who liked to work with leftovers that had gone off. She frequently poisoned her guests. Ruth says one of her early life lessons was that food could be dangerous, and she would sometimes stand guard during her mother's dinner parties to make sure that one of Ruth's favourite people wouldn't actually eat a certain casserole made from a two-week-old turkey carcass. Here's a great quote from the book:

“Like a hearing child born to deaf parents, I was shaped by my mother's handicap, discovering that food could be a way of making sense of the world. At first I paid attention only to taste, storing away the knowledge that my father preferred salt to sugar and my mother had a sweet tooth. Later, I also began to note how people ate, and where. My brother liked fancy food in fine surroundings, my father only cared about the company, and Mom would eat anything so long as the location was exotic. I was slowly discovering that if you watched people as they ate, you could find out who they were.”

Tender at the Bone also contains recipes and it ends when Ruth is in her early twenties. Her story is picked up later in Comfort Me With Apples. She recently released another book called Not Becoming my Mother.

My second choice is a book of straight-up essays (no recipes) written by one of the iconic American food writers, M.F.K. Fisher (MFK stands for Mary Frances Kennedy). She was born in 1908 and died in 1992 at the age of 83. She wrote more than 20 books in her lifetime, most about food and travel. I have only read one of her books, The Gastronomical Me, written in 1943. She had a really exciting life, lived in France, was married several times and had other tumultuous love relationships with men and women alike. Some say Fisher practically invented the American food memoir genre. She has a unique style, she uses words that don't seem to fit until you think about it, and you really get to know her personality through her writing.

In one chapter of The Gastronomical Me, she writes about being at away at a girl's boarding school and seeing one of her teachers, Mrs. Cheevers, feed fresh oysters to the school nurse in a way that suggests Mrs. Cheevers was in love with the nurse. Listen to what she says about in this chapter, called The First Oyster:

“As she watched the old woman eat steadily, voluptuously, of the fat cold, mollusks, she looked so tender that I turned anxiously toward the sureness and stability of such small passions as lay in the dining room.”

So like Ruth Reichl, Fisher (at right in this Journal file photo) examines the way life is played out through food.

My third choice is a more light-hearted read, and is called Cooking for Mr. Latte, A Food Lover's Courtship. It's by Amanda Hesser. She has been a food reporter and columnist for the New York Times since 1997. She's also written an award-winning cookbook called The Cook and the Gardener, and is a trained chef.

This book is a love story. It traces the relationship between Amanda and her husband-to-be. She talks about things like how they staked out their own culinary territory in the relationship. He was kind of a burger guy, and she ate at New York's high-end restaurants. These are relationship issues we all encounter in one form or another.

My favourite chapter is the one in which she cooks for Mr. Latte for the first time. Here's what she says:

"The first meal you cook, for someone is intimate. Not just if it's for a date. And not just because no one cooks anymore – it really has nothing to do with whether you are a good cook or not. It's an entry into the way you think, what you've seen and know, the way you treat others, how you perceive pleasure. Dinner guests can see by how you compose a meal if you are an ungenerous hothead or a nurturer, stingy or clever, fussy or stylish.”

And then she gives you a number of recipes for dinner dates (and other occasions), including Salmon and Crème Fraiche on Black Bread Toasts and a Roasted Guinea Hen. I don't think a roasted guinea hen sounds very romantic. I think a man likes a nice steak, to be honest, but that's my book. All of the chapters in Cooking for Mr. Latte have recipes you'll want to try. It's a fun book.

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enRoute Magazine has just announced its 10 Best New Restaurants across Canada

Last year, Cindy Lazarenko of Culina Highlands scooped one of the top 10 positions awarded by enRoute, but this year, no Edmonton restaurants made the grade. Still, Calgary is but a short jaunt, and our sister city to the south is the home of one of the winners, Charcut Roast House, the new restaurant in the Hotel Germain.

I visited Charcut in June while on a Travel Alberta tour of the south part of the province, and it is a truly innovative concept - hopelessly devoted to meat. The restaurateur and chef duo, Connie DeSousa and John Jackson, make all their own charcuterie in house. They actually brought a pig's head (face missing, don't worry, it  looked like a meat-stuffed football) to the table to show us one of their house-made creations. Charcut was also the first time I'd ever tasted a dish made of bone marrow, and it was so buttery rich (and plated in serving dishes made from hollowed-out bones) I have since searched for it on many a menu. This search is usually in vain...although last night at Gold Medal Plates, Bronze Medal Winner Shane Chartrand used bone marrow in a sweet pea puree that accompanied his monkfish-stuffed steak tartare. Go Shane!

Here's what enRoute judge and food writer Sarah Musgrave had to say about Charcut Roast House: “In a city of steakhouses, Charcut is a meathouse. Their version of the Cowtown standby, the prime rib special, sees locally sourced, range-fed beef strung up, smoked, spit-roasted and dripping with jus.”

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A reader named Keith is looking for hard bread from Newfoundland

Here's his plaintive note, asking for help:

"I made a trip to Newfoundland this summer and fell in love with the local cooking to the extent that I bought a cookbook at great expense. Unfortunately, I can't find some of the ingredients (specifically hard bread) in our local grocery stores. I've tried to contact the Purity website but I haven't gotten an answer yet. The website says that "selected" Safeway, Superstore, IGA, etc. stores carry hardbread but none of the ones I've visited. Do I need to travel to Ft. McMurray to find supplies for my brewis? I tried in grocery stores around the Newfoundland colony in our city and didn't find anything.

Have you ever done a column on Newfoundland cuisine and researched out where someone can buy the ingredients? I think that it's a really unique Canadian cuisine."

Have any readers had any luck tracking down specific East coast ingredients? Comments welcome!

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Tory MP gets boost from advocacy group in quest for decorum

Posted on Thursday, October 28, 2010 11:22AM EDT47 comments

A group of Canadians who say they are embarrassed and insulted by the antics in the House of Commons have launched a campaign in support of a motion by Conservative MP Michael Chong that aims to make the daily Question Period more functional and less hostile.

Mr. Chong is appearing Thursday before the Commons Committee on procedure and House affairs where he will outline his proposals.

At the same time, a non-partisan group called Canadians Advocating Political Participation just launched an online petition to inform Canadians and to help them have their say.

The petition is the first part of a four-phase campaign that CAPP chapters say they will use to engage the media and ordinary Canadians with local MPs and put forward ideas to pressure politicians to make Question Period even stronger.

“The goal of the campaign is to build pan-Canadian support for a strong Question Period reform motion to come out of this committee,” Glyn Lewis, the eastern co-ordinator for CAPP said in telephone interview.

“I think that the lack of civility is an affront to our national conversation and I think that the broken discourse in the House of Commons has turned a lot of people off from following the issues. And if you are not following the issues, how can you be engaged in the democratic process?”

Mr. Chong’s proposal, Motion 517, says the Commons should:

» Elevate decorum and fortify the use of discipline by the Speaker;

» Lengthen the amount of time given for each question and answer;

» Require that ministers respond to questions directed at them;

» Allocate half the questions each day for backbench members;

» Dedicate Wednesday exclusively for questions to the Prime Minister;

» Dedicate the rest of the week for questions to ministers other than the Prime Minister.

The committee has six months before it is required to report back to the House with recommended changes.

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Painting for a cause: Celebrities auction art for charity

In PicturesPublished Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010 12:13AM EDTLast updated Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010 6:57AM EDTMore than 100 prominent Canadians – from Members of Parliament to stand-up comedians – have created works of art to be auctioned on eBay to support the Kidney Foundation of Canada Hide caption

Wrestler Bret (the Hitman) Hart's tableau – depicting a cat coming to the rescue of a tied-up polar bear – is an allegory for his divorce. “I wanted to do something that might catch the buyer's attention, catch their kids' attention,” he said. “When I was doing it, I was wondering what everyone else would think it was.” In case you hadn't figured it out: he's the polar bear, the rat represents his ex and the cat (in a red-white-and-blue mini-skirt) is his American girlfriend. The chicken is just a chicken.

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Nova Scotia Liberal MP Scott Brison's masterpiece is an impressionistic take on Cape Blomidon and the Minas Basin at low tide from Kipp's Beach in front of his house.
The picture – soft blues and reds – was painted in one day while he sat on the beach or got some perspective from his verandah. He first took a picture of the scene on his BlackBerry (what else?) and then drew it onto the canvas.
Mr. Brison is pretty pleased with his effort, as was his partner. “When Maxime came home ... he couldn't believe I did it myself. Not that he thought it was good, it was simply not as bad as he had expected it would be,” he said.”

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Hiccups star Brent Butt created his painting at a work table on the set of the sitcom between takes. His inspiration? Contemplating his next stand-up tour. “I know that microphone better than I know my own face,” he told The Globe and Mail from the show’s Vancouver studio during a break. “I did it a little bit at a time, and by the end of a day, I had it done.” Mr. Butt has been contributing paintings to the fundraiser for several years. He made some of his previous works in hotel rooms while on the road. Visual art comes naturally to the 44-year-old, who drew his own comic book before starting his career in show business.

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He may be best known for his deep, mournful singing voice and wild beat poetry, but Leonard Cohen has also created numerous paintings and line drawings. The one on offer here is a print of a work from 2008. It’s a typical Cohen, depicting everyday objects in his famously spare style.

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Toronto Argonaut slotback Andre Durie stuck to a familiar subject in his work.

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Liberal MP Justin Trudeau’s image depicts the Peace Tower on the building in which he and his father have both made their names.

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Retired NHL player Stephane Richer opted to paint the number on the back of his Habs jersey when his team won the Stanley Cup in 1986.

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Cape Breton fiddler Natalie MacMaster was one of several painters who chose a nature theme.

$(document).ready(function() { globe.article.gallery('1775693','8','normal'); });0 comments Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010 9:55AM EDT

A gallery of images from the life of the legendary Rolling Stones guitarist

Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010 5:17AM EDT

See pictures of life aboard HMCS Winnipeg

Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010 1:19AM EDT

Images from the opening match of the World Series

Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010 12:13AM EDT

More than 100 prominent Canadians – from Members of Parliament to stand-up comedians – have created works of art to be auctioned on eBay to support the Kidney Foundation of Canada

Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2010 11:07PM EDT

Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2010 9:10PM EDT

Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2010 6:19PM EDT

Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2010 5:29PM EDT

A select guide to the best shows on Thursday

Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2010 4:44PM EDT

Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2010 11:01AM EDT

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