Tag: News, Politics, Events

The Pope In Halifax, 1984

I suppose my recollections are not as profound as others, me not being Catholic, but it was quite the thing when the Pope came to my town in September 1984 at the beginning of my fourth year of undergrad. I don’t have any photos but neither does Google Images so I don’t feel so bad. Here’s the CBC archive of the event – check out Knowlton Nash on the Popemobile.

I don’t really remember being all protestant and cynicalmyself but that is because some of my pals were quite protestant and cynical about the whole thing, the taking over of the Halifax Commons, the weeks of building the massive staging, being somewhat penned with about 200 others in small squares with plenty of Popemobile room in between and all. We kept thinking how much it was all like a concert. At the Friday night youth rally, before the rains of the next day, conveniently located half way between the university zone and the downtown taverns for afters, he kept opening his statements with (in a heavy Polish accent) “Yoou Yooung peeople of Haallyfax…” and we would fill in, loud enough to get scowls from the neighbours, “…reeely knoow how to paaarteee.” One pal, Will, was quite pleased that he could be outside but near St. Mary’s Bascilica watching the Pope perform the Saturday service there on a screen – as he had watched from the tav next door with an excellent view of the church walls, tv coverage above the bar, beer in his hand. Being a fellow traveller he was able to tell him mother truthfully he was in a crowd just outside the service and stayed there right the way through.

At the end of one of his days in town, he Popemobiled at a faster clip down Coburg past our university to the Bishops house where he was staying, thin crowds in the warm evening waving as he headed to bed. We all waved night-night to the Pope.

Update: The Pope passed away mid-afternoon Saturday our time.

Arar’s Plane

The New York Times reports that it has found a plane that followed the path Maher Arar has alleged he was flown to Syria for interrogation:

The discovery of the aircraft, in a database compiled from Federal Aviation Agency records, appears to corroborate part of the story Mr. Arar has told many times since his release in 2003. The records show that a Gulfstream III jet, tail number N829MG, followed a flight path matching the route he described. The flight, hopscotching from New Jersey to an airport near Washington to Maine to Rome and beyond, took place on Oct. 8, 2002, the day after Mr. Arar’s deportation order was signed.

And here it is. Old N829MG has been a lot of places. It is not registered with the FAA. In April 2003 and June 2002, it was spotted by nerds at an Airport near Amsterdam under the ownership of MJG Aviation even though in the report it is stated to be owned by Presidential Aviation as this record shows. Here are its specs. The interior was fairly new:

New Feb 2002, 14 pax interior Beige leather seats with Gold and Black accents, DVD, CD, VHS and Airshow. Fwd galley. Fwd and aft lavs. Fireblocked. Immaculate.

In October 2002, the month after Arar’s flight, it appears on this listing which I do not understand – likely more plane spotting nerds. Interesting to read this October 2001 USA Today article quoting the head of Presidential Aviation:

…convenience is the very reason the rich are opting for private planes, says Nigel England, director of operations at Presidential Aviation in Fort Lauderdale. “You have absolute control over who gets on that aircraft,” he says. “We don’t subject you or your bags to humiliating checks.” While chartering less lavish aircraft for short distances can rival commercial prices, the price of airborne exclusivity can be high: about $20,000 for a coast-to-coast flight aboard Presidential’s eight-seat Lear 55; double that for a 14-seat Gulfstream III. “You can’t justify the cost on a numbers basis,” he says. “It’s about convenience and security.”

It would be interesting to check the air radio logs for the plane from that time as they would have had to report to air traffic control along the way. I wonder of the flight records or the radio reports will indicate who want on board or how many or who booked it. Why did it backtrack to Washington?

8.7

Yesterday’s disasterous quake has been stated to have been 8.7. I have been in a 5.2 in Quebec in early November 1997 and that was frightening enough. If I understand the exponential aspect to the scale used, this one was something like 5000% more powerful though, thankfully ten times weaker than Dec. 26th and relatively – but only relatively – less deadly.

Double Dare

Having been embarassed for his failure to vote against the budget and leading the Conservative Party to nowhere in the convention, apparently Tory leader Stephen Harper thinks he has found a spine within his own corporeal form:

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said Thursday the party will vote against the budget if the government goes ahead with an omnibus budget bill that includes an amendment allowing environmental legislation to be used to control greenhouse gas emissions. “This is an attempt by the government to get unlimited power to impose multimillion-dollar fines on any basis, without any parliamentary approval or discussion, whatsoever. It is completely unacceptable,” he said.

Apparently it is now unacceptable unlike two weeks ago when he let the budget pass unchallenged even though it included Kyoto funding. I hope Martin calls his bluff and makes Harper have an election over this. Harper has shown he cares nothing for the constitution and has the gall to say what have the Liberals done in a convention speech moment that made me think of that moment in The Life of Brian when it is asked “what have the Romans done?” Other than balancing and surplussing the budget, protecting the Charter of Rights, removing us from the 80s and 90s Tory nightmare of unending division of power disputes and settling the Quebec issue all the while balancing military participations and health care – and staying out of that missile defence as 60% of Canadians want.

Make the election now Harper and lose ten seats in Ontario and a few out East. You will have the same result in the West and the same Quebec. Almost a Liberal majority. Go on. Pull the trigger. Then resign after, you dull git. If Martin calls the bluff and Harper falters, he might as well quit then and there.

Spud Economics 101

Sad to see the farmers of PEI suffering from the market glut and low prices for potatoes. Here are some acreage stats on the reality of the North American market from this agricultural consultancy firm:

And speaking of potatoes…

  • Slight dip in US potato acreage since 2003
  • This year, total potato acreage across the United States is down 7% – or 88,300 acres. This year’s total is 1,184,300 vs. 1,272,600 last year.
  • Dramatic 5-year shift in potato acreage distribution in Canada
  • since 1999, P.E.I.’s potato acreage has shrunk by 7000 acres.
  • All other provinces’ potato acreage has increased by 68,000 acres.

How introducing only a cap at the present 106,000 acres in addition to the practice of crop destruction in such a small part of the total continental market will effect the desired change is not clear to me – but it is not like there is really an answer to the whole situation.

Yes To Inquiry

The appeal period will have to run out before any decisions are made but this statement by the son of one of those lost in the Air India disaster is entirely correct:

“This was not an aviation accident. This was not an in-flight accident,” said Susheel Gupta, an Ottawa lawyer who was 12 when his mother died on board Air India Flight 182 on a June morning in 1985. “This was murder, pure and simple,” said Gupta. “Murder in any system of justice demands just that – justice. And if the murder of 329 innocent people … doesn’t deserve a public inquiry, then we ask: what does?”

New Marriage Laws Required

Not for same sex spouses – but Royals! From the Beeb:

On Monday, law experts said royals could not have English civil marriages and would have to wed in Scotland. But the lord chancellor insists the marriage, set to take place at Windsor Guildhall on 8 April, is legal…On Monday Sir Nicholas Lyell, a former attorney general, suggested emergency legislation may be needed to clarify the legal position before the wedding. He said he felt “disquiet” about the government’s advice to the Queen. “I don’t think she has been given enough advice,” he told the BBC Radio 4’s PM programme. Sir Nicholas believes the 1949 Marriage Act, which updated the law on civil marriages in England, excluded the Royal Family. He said this would leave them subject to historic laws requiring marriage in church.

I have little interest in the Royals but wish these two well as individuals. Sad to see, however, that they are perhaps not equal before the law. Time to liberate them from such privileges.

Feds to Fund CBC ‘Cause They Can

From this morning’s Globe and Mail:

An Ipsos-Reid poll shows that 47 per cent of Canadians think the Prime Minister and his Liberals deserve to be re-elected. This represents a jump of 18 points since the question was asked during last spring’s federal election campaign, which saw the Liberals reduced to minority status.

But Martin cannot break into the Parliamentary majority range – the Liberals at still stuck at 37% nationally according to this poll. Given that the Tories are still mired in the 20% range due to…hmmm…the fact that they stand for so many things the vast majority of Canadians do not want, they cannot afford to force an election to try to push Martin out. Catch 22.

So that means in the impending Liberal budget, we can expect a well-deserved payback for twenty years of restraint, cuts and downsizing – things Canadians want and have paid for. What has got me excited? More for the CBC if it is spent on radio and regional broadcasting. The cuts have left the CBC in an awful state. One has to only listen to the morning radio to be bombarded by blandness and repetative broadcasts of the same show: another panel on the future of short story writing on the Prairies anyone?

I am hopeful. Hidden in a CBC Feburary 2005 presentation is the idea of a CBC radio station for Kingston. Right now we get the Ontario wide rural morning show, and the excellent but a little irrelevant Ottawa drive home show hosted most days by the formidible Brent Bambury. Given the catchment of about 350,000 from Belleville to Brockville up to highway 7, a station is due here. It would cause a shake up for sure as a local morning and afternoon show would add 15 or more hours of news to the local market every week driving well-paid, quality journalists to find the story, shaking up the venerable but could be shaken Whig-Standard newspaper as well as region-covering CKWS-TV along the way. Too bad it is set for a 2007-08 opening but that means it will be in place in time for the next NHL playoffs.

Joe the Train

From the brother of the yellow press comes this item:

LONDON, England (AP) — Joe Strummer, lead singer of British punk band The
Clash, has been honored with a train named for him. Strummer, who died in 2002 at age 50, was remembered at a naming ceremony Saturday at a railway station in Bristol, southwest England. The Strummer train, a diesel locomotive built in 1965, follows a 200-year-old tradition of British trains being named after famous people. It will be operated in England by Cotswold Rail company. Strummer’s influential punk band rose to fame in the 1970s with hits including “London Calling” and “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” Originally born John Graham Mellor, Strummer died of a heart attack at his home in Somerset, southwest England, in December 2002.

So will Thomas the Tank Engine come out with a version of Joe the Spitting Angry train?