Thursday August 28, 2008
The duty to inform
In tainted-meat recalls, as in prison breaks, Canadians have a right to know the bad news. Not 14 hours later. Not when the dead bodies start turning up. Not when a grocery company can ever so slowly, ever so bureaucratically, figure out which foods should be taken off the shelves. Not when the RCMP feels like it.
Manufacturing a crisis
Shortly after he took office, Stephen Harper explained why he was comfortable establishing fixed election dates. ''I've fought many elections and leadership races over the past couple of years and I'm quite happy to govern,'' the Prime Minister said in May, 2006. ''Obviously, governments always prefer a majority, but I think we can make a minority work most of the time so I'm happy to keep on governing as long as we're getting some things done.''
London calling
After the scripted spectacular of co-ordinated drumming and mass pageantry that was the Beijing Olympics' send-off to the world, it was hard not be moved by the sight of a red double-decker bus careening through the Bird's Nest stadium with the legendary rocker Jimmy Page aboard to mark the hand-over of the Games to their next host. Boris Johnson, London's recently elected and somewhat bumbling mayor, then managed to completely fumble the transfer of the Olympic flag from his (never elected) Beijing counterpart.
