It was an interminable sermon, everyone agreed. And then a scream. It’s 1988 and Pierre Trudeau has returned to Parliament Hill to dissuade a Senate committee from backing the Meech Lake Accord. He speaks ever deliberately, ever persuasively-and almost entirely in English. But a cry cuts short the spiel in the high-ceilinged room. Michel Vastel… Continue reading The Man Who Flipped Off Trudeau
Category: The Magazine
Barbed Relations
On an eerily quiet May 2008 afternoon, a Canadian soldier shows us around the deserted, boxy homes of this Kandahar terrain. Dressed in Afghan garb and military wear-a purplish-brown tunic and pants, contrasted by a sand-camouflage vest and black reflective sunglasses-he directs our attention to an open field where an old car sits. A Taliban… Continue reading Barbed Relations
One Powerful Union Tactic
$5 Million 40,000 Daily Copies 317 Editions 137 Locked-Out Employees 115 Striking Staffers 15 Months 12 Replacement Workers 1 Powerful Union Tactic The inside story of the labour-management conflict at Le Journal de Québec A burly security guard lifts a panel of metal fencing, carries it a couple of feet, and sets it down next… Continue reading One Powerful Union Tactic
Missing Links
From her desk overlooking the Parliament Buildings and beyond to Gatineau, Anne McIlroy is secretly collecting shiny objects. Little pieces of information that, by themselves, are not particularly significant. They slide innocuously into plain brown folders and remain hidden from the world until she can find the unifying concept that will consolidate them into a… Continue reading Missing Links
The Body Politic
The shelves in Terence Corcoran’s office at the National Post are piled high and deep. There are books and files on Canada’s debt, media concentration in America, financial planning and, of course, global warming. His files are legendary among co-workers, packed in boxes and cabinets lining the walls and floor, their subjects named in thick… Continue reading The Body Politic