April 18, 1977

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Interview

With Xerox chairman C. Peter McColough

A ruddy-faced, action-oriented, diplomatexecutive, C. Peter McColough rules the five-billion-dollar Xerox empire from a futuristic headquarters deep inside the verdant reaches of Connecticut’s Greenwich County. The calm elegance of his outer office is enhanced by Picasso charcoal sketches: his inner sanctum has soft, mushroom-shade velvet sofas and four large palm trees.

Letters

Writers who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones either

Shades of Fleet Street! Recently Maclean’s readers were treated to a sensational cover story chronicling Margaret Trudeau’s concert-going habits—Margaret In Wonderland (March 21). Despite the moralizing tone of writer David Cobb, the article reveals that your magazine is not as superior to the New York and British press as you intimate.

Justice

The Demeter Affair: a crime for its time

Easter came and went with still no word from the Supreme Court of Canada on whether Ontario real estate developer Peter Demeter would be granted a new trial for the bizarre murder of his beautiful wife, Christine. Predictions of a decision by April were quickly revised to expectations of a judgment before the court’s summer recess. By Barbara Amiel7 min

Canada

The new economic disorder

The Trudeau government’s economic record, as even many Liberals will acknowledge, has verged on disaster. Never was this more apparent than in Donald Macdonald’s budget on the last day of March. When Pierre Trudeau assumed office in 1968, the unemployment rate was 4.8% and inflation was at 4.0% By the end of last year, unemployment had soared to 7.1% and inflation to 7.5%, with both figures still growing.

The shifting of power to‘the people’ hasn’t changed its tendency to corrupt

There is a great “cover-up” going on in Ottawa. It is not the cover-up of a Watergate or our own pale Canadian imitation, the Sky Shops affair; nor is it a cover-up restricted to the government, but one in which all parties, MPS and public servants participate. By Max Saltsman5 min

The World

Zaire: those who fought and ran away have returned to fight another day

The spirited, paunchy African general sat forward angrily in his chair. “There are 10,000 of them, mercenaries and rebels, inside Zaire who have entered to loot this region, to destroy our economy and our country. There are many Cubans and Russians with them. By ROBERT HARRISON5 min

Business

The big companies really love competition, right? Well, not exactly

Last November, the K. C. Irving interests, which own every English-language daily newspaper in New Brunswick, were acquitted by the Supreme Court of Canada on charges of forming a monopoly. The reason: the Crown was unable to prove that the situation resulted in “undue” detriment to the public. By IAN URQUHART5 min

The media talk about the'public’s right to know,' then act as if it’s a privilege

One of the vast amusements of the Western world is sitting around conventions listening to some of the flaky resolutions that emanate from the foreheads of the semisozzled conventioneers, just in off the Greyhound, as to how to solve the problems of mankind. By Allan Fotheringham5 min

April 41977