Quick hits

Oh man, sorry this is such a late post. I got busy at work this morning and had to rush straight to the MediaScout. Just a few quick thoughts today anyway.

The Post continued its on-again, off-again coverage of the Arar Inquiry with a Don Martin column attacking the former Canadian ambassador to Syria whose testimony was reported across the board yesterday. However, they elected not to coverage day two of his testimony, which could be even more damning than day one. Read the coverage that the Post skipped here.

As a follow-up to the Uzbekistan story I linked to at the end of yesterday’s Megalomedia post, I point you to the Globe’s coverage today. You can probably guess what I have to say about this, but if not (or if you really enjoy reading my thoughts), check out today’s MediaScout.

Remember when I praised the Citizen and Star for outdigging the Globe on the new Canadian Forces ombudsman? It’s here, if you forget. Well, the Citizen decided not to follow up. Turns out the Commons defence committee killed his nomination. The Star was the only paper to report on it.

Okay, that’s it for today. I’m off to a CFL preseason game tonight, man I’ve missed football. Go ‘Gades, Go.

2 comments

  1. Joe, I was reading your MediaScout post a few secs ago and I had to raise an eyebrow at the second paragraph in your lead analysis. I’m sorry if this is perhaps not the place to do it — and of course I do this is with the intention to create friendly debate, and not to brow-beat you — but nobody at MediaScout responded to me that last time I bitched.

    First, there are a few minor details about the constitution that you misrepresent in your email — education, for instance, was not made provincial because it was seen as less important, but because it was a highly flammable issue; witness the Manitoba schools issue in the late 1890s. Quebec was especially noisy on the issue of making education a provincial responsibility because it wanted to ensure that French language rights would be protected.

    Anyway, what alarmed me most in that email was the suggestion (whether yours or MediaScout’s, I don’t know) that “Canada needs […] another constitutional debate—one centred not on the Quebec question, but instead on the very nature of provincial and federal responsibilities.”

    With the advances the sovereignists are making lately — the BQ set to win 60 seats, the PQ set to take control of the province — combined with a weak and tottering federal government, the last thing we need is another flare up of the feelings that were predominant in Quebec in 1982 (or 1995). Try as you might, there is no way you can talk about reforming the constitution without recalling to the minds of Canadians — and especially Quebecers — the fact that Quebec was enormously pissed off at what went down in 1982 (the patriation of the 1867 constitution) and have felt betrayed on that issue ever sense.

    Sure, there have always been cat fights about federal and provincial responsibilities — and they have too often been used to justify inaction on the part of both levels of government — but, start another debate on refomring the constitution now? Why not start treating Quebec with as much insensitivity and ignorance as Mr. Harper’s gang has? Hell, why not call their mothers ‘hos’ and otherwise do all we can to taunt Quebecers into voting ‘yes’ on the next referendum?

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