Saturday May 17, 2008
ACROSS CANADA 
The keepers of quality cancer care
For Canadian medical labs under fire for bungling tests and misdiagnosing cancer, there is a simple $600 solution. It has been in the works for the past year, since a pair of quality-obsessed pathologists in Vancouver and Saskatoon combined with a determined technologist to pioneer a new, Web-based testing system they say will offer laboratories across the country a surefire way to improve accuracy at a bargain rate.
'There's nothing more. The town is dying'
In this once-thriving forest town hewed out of the northern B.C. wilderness in the 1960s, Gurdip Singh is Everyman.Like so many others, attracted by high-paying jobs at Mackenzie's two pulp mills and numerous sawmills, Mr. Singh moved here, built a home, raised his family and planned to retire in a community he had grown to love for its small-town lifestyle.
No trespassing allowed (millionaires excepted)
From inside Edgemere Estate, the largest private property on Oakville's ''millionaires' row,'' there is a stunning view of Lake Ontario sparkling in the bright afternoon sun.For a century, this view and Edgemere's 300 metres of shoreline have been the exclusive preserve of the five-hectare estate's wealthy proprietors - and if Edgemere's newest owner wins a looming battle with Oakville town hall, it will stay that way.
Being held to the sternest of tests is good - if it's applied to all
Taken together, the Law Society of Upper Canada decisions of last year, the first vindicating Sharon Shore as a person of sufficient good character to be a lawyer and the other awarding her $91,500 for legal costs she incurred defending herself at an uncommon admissions hearing, add up to 31 pages.
AECL pulls plug on reactors after millions spent
Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. suffered another embarrassing setback yesterday as the country's flagship nuclear corporation when it scrapped the development of two Maple isotope-producing reactors after pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the project.
Sharpen your pencil, Mr. McGuinty
Some days, it feels like Canada's auto industry is as preoccupied with making speeches as making pickup trucks. The unions say Canadian car factories are getting killed by the rising dollar and by unfair trade, and ask the government for financial aid. The auto manufacturers say they're getting killed by the rising dollar and high costs; they ask the unions for lower wages and the government for financial aid.
B.C. Place to get a new hat - after the party's over
The provincial government is confirming big changes for the 60,000-seat B.C. Place domed stadium but refusing to put a price tag on upgrades that will include a new retractable roof after the 2010 Winter Olympics puts the stadium in the global spotlight.
Ottawa suggests 11 more chemicals are toxic
The federal government is proposing to add 11 more chemicals to Canada's list of toxic substances, compounds used in everything from the making of chewing gum to fuels, cosmetics and breast implants.
Tories jab at Elections Canada over Liberal leadership debts
Federal Conservatives have opened up a new front in their war with Elections Canada, launching a pre-emptive strike against the independent agency's anticipated handling of Liberal leadership debts.
Youth homicides up 3 per cent in 2006
Does the prospect of being sentenced as an adult deter violent juveniles?The question goes to the heart of yesterday's Supreme Court ruling, which upended a key section of the Youth Criminal Justice Act and by coincidence was released on the same day as new Statistics Canada data showing that youth homicides in 2006 edged up 3 per cent over 2005, to reach a historic high of 54.
Crown must justify adult sentences: ruling
A fractured Supreme Court of Canada yesterday struck down a law forcing young offenders who are guilty of serious, violent offences to be sentenced as adults unless they can prove it would be unfair to them.
Client didn't think native man drunk, probe told
A lawyer for a jail sergeant who refused to admit a heavily intoxicated man to Vancouver's drunk tank said yesterday the officer wasn't being callous and that other staff at the facility also believed the man wasn't drunk.
Ruling on Mountie's burial may go to Supreme Court
The fight over the final resting place of a murdered Mountie might go all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada in light of a ruling yesterday that found a widow's wish to move a spouse's body takes precedence over the preferences of all other relatives.
Premier McGuinty's balancing act needs some work
Liberals love balance. It's in their blood to want to bring everyone together under one tent in a spirit of compromise.But Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's Liberal government is finding this ideal hard to live up to on policies dealing with the exploitation of the province's vast natural resources. In two current cases, it is struggling to find the fulcrum point between entrenched views among interest groups and within government ministries. The performance of Kumbaya is on hold.
Man's 3rd murder trial ends with verdict of guilty
A fatigued jury convicted Ontario chiropractor Kirk Klymchuk of second-degree murder yesterday after deliberating for five days over whether he had bludgeoned his 27-year-old wife, Maria, to death with an axe on Easter Sunday, 1998.
Potential post for Toews raises ethical concerns
The federal Conservatives could raise questions of possible conflict of interest and transparency if they move to appoint cabinet minister Vic Toews as a judge in Manitoba, opposition MPs say.
Sovereignty not dead, Marois says
The Parti Quebecois is on a crusade to rekindle public interest in Quebec independence, with party Leader Pauline Marois proposing to launch a new manifesto for sovereignty next fall.
Nova Scotia fishermen block New Brunswick boats
More than a dozen fishing boats blocked the mouth of this small Cape Breton harbour yesterday in a move designed to pressure Ottawa into giving local fishermen a piece of the lucrative crab quota.
Spreading blaze forces 150 to flee northern Alberta town
An encroaching wildfire fanned by high winds forced an emergency evacuation last night of 150 residents of a hamlet north of Edmonton.Candace Revega of the County of Thorhild said the flames were just three kilometres from Newbrook.
No charges in Cadman affair, RCMP say
The RCMP say no charges will be laid in the Chuck Cadman affair, but the mysterious political story appears to have yet more chapters.The federal Liberals, who originally complained to the Mounties, said yesterday the Conservative government still has a duty to give Canadians details of the episode.
Tories defend Bernier after new report links ex-girlfriend with gang
The Harper government says Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier's recent romantic liaison is no threat to national security, despite a news report that said his ex-girlfriend's links to the criminal underworld were more recent than previously thought.
Alberta fire officials ask campers to be careful as wind sparks blazes
Alberta wildfire officials are asking people using the backcountry to be extremely careful about their campfires over the long weekend after a fiery kickoff to the province's forest fire season.
Canadian Victoria Cross unveiled
It may have taken 15 years, but Canada's highest honour for military valour is now officially made in Canada.Governor-General Michaelle Jean and Prime Minister Stephen Harper yesterday unveiled for the first time the Canadian Victoria Cross. The decoration takes its place atop the Canadian military honours system, replacing the highest honour available to soldiers of the British Commonwealth.
Al Purdy sculpture fired up and ready for its unveiling
It's taken a while, but Al Purdy is ready for his Toronto unveiling.The ceremony on Tuesday afternoon in Toronto's Queen's Park, a few steps from the Ontario legislature, will reveal a sculpture of the great poet sitting and gazing off, half in thought, half in amusement.
Northern towns consider carbon tax revolt
Unhappiness over B.C.'s landmark carbon tax is prompting a northern revolt, with the mayor of Williams Lake saying his community won't pay the tax on municipal fuel purchases unless the Liberal government proves its claims that the tax will be revenue neutral.
Lawyer says he's owed millions in native lawsuit
A Calgary lawyer is suing his former law firm, which negotiated the ground-breaking residential-schools settlement, as well as the federal government, alleging that he is entitled to more than $30-million for work he did on the case.
Province gives boost to new home for art gallery
Anyone visiting the Vancouver Art Gallery this week would have been told at the admissions desk that two of its four floors were closed, as the VAG installed its show KRAZY!, which opens today.
Canada's greenhouse gas emissions down for second year in a row
Greenhouse-gas emissions in Canada declined for a second year in a row during 2006, falling to 721 million tonnes, or by 1.9 per cent from a year earlier, according to figures released yesterday by Environment Canada.
B.C. students to stay in Sichuan despite quake
Ten kinesiology students at B.C.'s University of the Fraser Valley have decided to stay in an earthquake-torn region of China for the duration of their 10-week visit.
Man played dead as grizzly chewed
Like chewing the gristle on a chicken bone.That's how Brent Case describes the grizzly bear gnawing on the back of his head.Mr. Case was trying to play dead, hoping the bear would eventually leave him alone.
A small error on any of the test's dozens of sensitive steps can affect results
The recent epidemic of lab testing errors has been concentrated mainly among a handful of tests called breast biomarkers, widely used by pathologists to break down the molecular characteristics of a cancer so treatments can be tailored to attack it.
FIVE THINGS: THIS WEEKEND
1Krazy! at the Vancouver Art Gallery Get ready for sensory overload at Krazy!: The Delirious World of Anime + Comics + Video Games + Art, the feverishly anticipated VAG show that includes everything from original sketches to groundbreaking final productions from today's -
Talisman joins renewed interest in Quebec assets
Paralympic committee boss praises Vancouver's efforts
The head of the International Paralympics Committee says he's pleased with the progress being made for the 2010 Winter Paralympic Games in Vancouver.Xavier Gonzalez says Vancouver's organizers have made great strides in addressing issues such as ceremonies and media coverage for the Games.
Rights body's 'angry agenda'
Ontario agencies are adept at accepting licence fees for all sorts of activities, including fishing, while education and enforcement are next to nil. That leads to two kinds of poaching: deliberate and inadvertent. Both might have been involved in the dispute in small-town Ontario which the Ontario Human Rights Commission deemed to be a race-based assault on Asian-Canadians. No one really knows; the OHRC did not investigate (What's That Fishy Smell? An Empire? - May 15).
Loss of GPS won't hinder copter crash study
The global positioning system on the helicopter that crashed Tuesday in Cranbrook killing four people was probably destroyed in the crash, Transit Safety Board regional manager Bill Yearwood said yesterday.
RCMP challenge ruling in expelled cadet's favour
The RCMP are challenging an order that it give a cadet expelled from the force another chance to join and pay him $500,000 in damages.In an application for a judicial review, the RCMP argues the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal was wrong to find the force discriminated against Ali Tahmourpour or that he deserved compensation.
Quebec minister's aide abducted, police say
Police say an aide to a Quebec cabinet minister was abducted in the early morning hours yesterday.Quebec provincial police say Nancy Michaud, a 37-year-old aide to Natural Resources Minister Claude Bechard, was taken from her home overnight.
RCMP won't lay charges in Cadman affair
The RCMP say no charges will be laid in the Chuck Cadman affair, but the story appears to have yet more chapters.The federal Liberals said yesterday that the Conservative government still has a duty to give Canadians details of the episode. Tory MP James Moore, however, pronounced the case closed, calling the Liberals reckless in their accusations.
Police wrap up probe of Montreal hockey riot
Montreal police have wrapped up their investigation into last month's hockey riot.At least five police cars were torched and other property was smashed April 21 after the Montreal Canadiens eliminated the Boston Bruins in the NHL playoffs.
Catholics forbid speech by gay ex-hostage Loney
A gay Canadian peace activist who was once held hostage in Iraq was barred from speaking at a Whitehorse church because of his views on marriage.A Roman Catholic church organizing committee had planned to have James Loney speak at Sacred Heart Cathedral on Thursday night, but church officials would not allow them to use the space.
Victoria pledges funds for DNA research
The provincial government is promising $50-million in funding for a program that focuses on DNA research.Genome British Columbia will receive the money over five years beginning in 2010 to pay for long-term projects, help it compete for national and international funding and recruit researchers.
Rights body's 'angry agenda'
Perhaps the problem with human-rights commissions is their nomenclature. If they were renamed as Commissions for Human Rights, Privileges, Responsibilities and Obligations, their rulings might be more useful. Their recent reports prove they have outlived their usefulness.
TORONTO
Toronto's white underbelly
David White, 50He's been homeless since his wife and daughter died in a car accident. ''Sometimes [living on the street] is better. You don't have to deal with people and you don't have to worry about people.'
How condo developers could be our school saviours
Toronto's public school system has two big, urgent problems. Its student population is dwindling and close to 100 of its schools are more than 80 years old and often in need of serious repairs.
Once the hipsters' bibles, Eye, Now shed readers
''My painkiller ingestion is pretty minimal right now,'' Now publisher and editor Michael Hollett jokes, ''but I still might trail off.'' It has been several weeks since Mr. Hollett was laid low by former Maple Leaf Mike Pelyk in the annual Juno Cup hockey game.
Permits put the kibosh on the kaboom
New rules in Toronto meant to crack down on dodgy convenience stores hawking fireworks to children appear to have dramatically reduced the number of places where things that go boom can be sold in advance of the Victoria Day long weekend.
Cyclists get in gear to speak with a unified voice
Ask any cyclist, and they'll tell you the hardest thing about riding a bike in Toronto is that you feel invisible.''A lot of drivers just don't look,'' says Vanessa Fong, an architect who rides her black folding bike to work every morning. She says motorists don't see bicycles the way they see pedestrians or other cars. She has been cut off, pushed around, and nearly run over.
A rooftop garden fit for a philanthropist
When you sit down to lunch at the Royal Ontario Museum's C5 restaurant, you may be in elite company, but you don't get a million-dollar view. When the museum reopened last year, its glossy new restaurant faced a grim rooftop. ''It looked like 10,000 square feet of asphalt,'' architect Lisa Rapoport says.
Even without drugs, vodka and Pop-Tarts, new coaster is a trip
The last time I went to Canada's Wonderland, I was 18 and my friends and I were thrown out of the park after one of us bear-hugged a costumed mascot too adoringly. Escorting us to our car, the earnest, well-meaning security guard wondered, ''Don't you guys know there's a real person inside that Scooby-Doo outfit?''
Pull up a seat at the Canadian chefs' summit. Dress casual: There will be pig
If you are one of the lucky people with tickets to the Drake Hotel's James Beard Foundation Gala dinner, then here's the scoop. ''I haven't told anyone this yet,'' executive chef Anthony Rose confides. ''I just talked to Martin about his dish for the meal.''
GOING OUT: THINGS TO DO AND PEOPLE TO SEE IN T.O. THIS WEEK
ART and LIT Peter Kingstone in conversation with Thomas WaughLocal artist Peter Kingstone never knew his grandmother. She was a sex-trade worker in Miami and other cities. For his four-channel video installation, entitled 100 Stories About My Grandmother, Kingstone interviewed other men who are grandsons of prositutes. Concordia University film professor Thomas Waugh and the local artist will talk about the touching stories he heard in the making of the video, which weaves together memories the men have of their grandmothers.
Pay your voluntary carbon taxes: Move into the fashionable high-rise city
Timing is everything. Anticipating the long weekend fill-up, I realize that every hour of procrastination will only increase its outrageous cost. That leads me to wonder what might have happened had Michael Ignatieff stood up for his one best policy - a carbon tax - two years ago, when the idea needed a champion undaunted by the predictable backlash.
The kindest cut
Toronto's cats and dogs will soon be short a few more testicles and ovaries - and that's good news for animal shelters and pet owners. The lucky pets will get snipped en masse at Spaycentral, the city's first high-volume clinic devoted exclusively to low-cost spaying and neutering.
Life is a cabaret, old chum
Apologies to the female guests who attended Fandango! 2008 Soiree Guinguette, but there really was no contest: The men dressed according to theme in a way that could only be described as merveilleux.
Just a little more off the top
''Forget hair,'' says Ray Civello, while striding into what used to be a dirt-floored cellar. ''This is the ultimate makeover. You can't believe what it used to look like!''
Developer woos ward to avoid OMB hearing
The developer of a controversial east-end shopping mall has approached the city with a proposal aimed at avoiding a costly Ontario Municipal Board hearing over the project, but so far has been rebuffed.
Baltovich case doesn't warrant inquiry, Attorney-General says
The Ontario government will not call a public inquiry into the case of Robert Baltovich, who spent 18 years under a cloud before his conviction for murdering his girlfriend was overturned.
Ottawa's dollar-match promise sparks plea for donations
A promise by the Canadian government to match donations for the victims of natural disasters in Myanmar and China has prompted community leaders to urge Torontonians to give generously.As the death toll in both countries has climbed, to 200,000 by some estimates in Myanmar, formerly called Burma, and 50,000 in China, concerns among the international community have grown about how donations will reach the victims.
FIVE REVELATIONS: YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT TORONTO THIS WEEKEND
1ExodusIt's Victoria Day weekend. That means the ritual punishment of a bumper-to-bumper drive up Highway 400 to cottage country. If you travel early (or late) enough to avoid the traffic, remember to keep your lead foot off the gas pedal. Two OPP airplanes will be spotting speeders.
LIPSTICK, CHERRY: LADY DJS SPIN AT THE DRAKE
STAND AND DELIVER: A SEXY IDEA
Torontonians have voted: This year's Astral Media Outdoor Student Design Competition winner is ''I am Toronto,'' soon to be seen on 70 transit shelters. The competition, in partnership with the Ontario College of Art and Design, engaged third-year advertising students to express their vision of the city through original artwork.
BRITISH COLUMBIA
Transit police alter policy to limit tasering
The Metro Vancouver transit police force recently changed its policy on using tasers after it was revealed that some fare-evading transit users had been zapped with the stun gun, the force's deputy chief told an inquiry yesterday.
Case delayed into slayings of three young children
A B.C. father accused of murder in the deaths of his three young children has had his case put off while lawyers await evidence from the police.Allan Schoenborn made a brief appearance yesterday through a video link with a Kamloops court. Mr. Schoenborn is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his children, aged 5 through 10, who were found dead in their home in Merritt last month. He was arrested and charged after a 10-day manhunt in the Interior's backcountry.
Drunk driver fined for crash at RCMP office
A Chilliwack man has pleaded guilty to drunk driving after he crashed his car into a picnic table in front of an RCMP detachment.On Feb. 12, Brian Nash of Chilliwack jumped his car over a retaining wall and crushed a picnic table in the parking lot of the Kamloops RCMP detachment. Two breathalyzer tests recorded a blood alcohol level nearly three times the legal limit.
COLUMNISTS
Australia has the jump on us
Why are new immigrants doing so badly? Is discrimination to blame? Or are we picking the wrong people?Everybody in Toronto jokes that we have the best-educated taxi drivers in the world. We've got doctors from Pakistan, lawyers from India, teachers from Sudan, and engineers from Bangladesh - qualified immigrants from all over the world who can't get good jobs, even though Canada is crying out for their skills.
Just who's buying Vancouver's zillion-dollar condos?
The hottest ticket in Vancouver this week was not for a concert or a play, but a lunch hosted by the Urban Development Institute. And they call this place No Fun City.
A half-empty cup of Canadiana
On this Victoria Day weekend, back home in Newfoundland, there will be thousands of people hustling off to cabin or pond to make a day of trout fishing and having a boil-up. Very likely it'll snow, since a snowfall is an almost infallible curse of the first long weekend of Newfoundland spring. In the old days, if there was to be a boil-up and a few trout to be fried, everyone brought along a block of Good Luck butter and three or four tins of York wieners and beans. Had to be York, had to be Good Luck.
Why this Victoria Day should be our last
Let's all enjoy the Victoria Day weekend - and resolve that it will be the last.Not the holiday, of course, but the name: Victoria Day. Let's grow up, Canada, and take pride in what is Canadian, rather than glorifying an English monarch who died in 1901 after an admittedly stellar reign of almost 64 years.
Oooh, Irish immigration to Newfoundland - it just screams 'sexy,' doesn't it?
I've been trying to imagine what the Canada Border Services Agency was expecting when, suspicious that it was pornographic, it confiscated undeveloped footage from the Canadian film Love and Savagery on its way from Ireland to Montreal.
CHESS
Swedish grandmaster Tiger Hillarp Persson won the Sigeman Tournament in Malmo, Sweden last month, one of the high points in an up-and-down history of play.He burst into the international limelight in 1996 with a tie for second place at the Politiken Cup in Copenhagen, along with some dramatic victories at the Eikrem Memorial in Gausdal, Norway.
Friends, foes celebrate with Charest
Stephen Harper and Joe Clark were in the same room - albeit very, very briefly and awkwardly - earlier this week at a swank Ottawa restaurant to celebrate Quebec Premier Jean Charest's 50th birthday (his actual birthday is on St. Jean Baptiste Day).
COLLECTED WISDOM
Don't know whether you're coming or going? Looking at some freight-train locomotives, you might think they were having the same problem, but you'd be wrong.THE QUESTION: When you see a long freight train, it is often being pulled by two engines - the first pointing ahead and the second pointing backward. Why is the second engine running in reverse? asked Dan Ostler of Ajax, Ont.
