May 14, 1979

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Frontlines

Catching up with Riopelle

He moves, as he paints, purely by instinct. Like some magnificent, untamed creature of the wilds, he raises his shaggy bison’s profile to the prevailing currents and takes his directional signals from there. One day, those who are allowed to approach that close find him in the huge airy atelier where Monet once used to sketch outside Paris, throwing himself across a canvas in a blaze of vermilion. By Marci McDonald10 min

Letters

Having read Michael Callaghan’s letter {Letters, May 7), let me say that the real fiction writer in the Callaghan family is not renowned novelist Morley but his eldest son Michael—the personal public relations man and public reputation defender for one Jerry Goodis.

Canada

WEATHERING THE FLOOD

It was 5:30 a.m. on a spring morning when her mother shook 11-year-old Alice Ritchot and whispered urgently: “The water is rolling across the fields. We must hurry and dress and take the canoe.” It was 1950. It is 1979 and Alice Ritchot scarcely has time to recall that journey by canoe to the railway and to six weeks of exile from Morris in Manitoba’s Red River Valley. By Peter Carlyle-Gordge8 min

40d

Health

The medicare issue —election sleeper?

Canada’s health care system is showing symptoms of terminal disease-brought about, mainly, by a shortage of money, bureaucratic inefficiency, political opportunism, abuse, overuse and greed. Cracks in the system, just over a decade old, have been appearing for some time, but it is the doctors who have finally made the politicians sit up and say there is a crisis in medicare. By Warren Gerard8 min

Sports

The Bid and kid spectacular

It’s the blood that makes it intriguing. Blood means connections, connections mean families (both equine and human) and families, depending on your bent, are sources for rejoicing or lamenting. Of course, there is the fame and the money which, in contemporary thought, brings us back to blood. By Joe Flaherty7 min

CANADA

The Prairies: where often is heard a discouraging word

Duane Zimmerman scans his black dirt and stubble-grain fields, still soaked with duck-delighting sloughs, and curses the timing of the May 22 federal election. Rain has already slowed down dawn-to-dusk spring seeding for the third-generation Saskatchewan farmer, and taking an hour off to go vote is precious lost time. By Julianne Labreche6 min

World

A new face at old Number 10

They didn’t like her carefully cultivated middle-class accent. House-wives said she was too snobbish and out of touch. The press said she was too preachy, and political opponents merely dismissed her as “that woman.” She certainly dressed like the legions of flowered Tory matrons who pour tea quietly but never taste real power. By Angela Ferrante6 min

Canada

Round and round they go

The television screen shows a bright red rose in full bloom on You-Know-Who’s lapel. But, as a voice lists the failures of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s 11-year-old regime, the rose begins to wither until it is left a decayed corpse. Only then is the viewer asked to “give the future a chance” and vote Conservative. By Ian Urquhart5 min

The ups and downs of haltering racehorses

40b

Lifestyles

The ups and downs of haltering racehorses

As a hobby, it has stamp collecting beat from here to the wall. After all, stamp owners don’t bother crawling out of bed at 5 a.m. to watch them gallop. And stamps certainly don’t have ears to scratch or necks to pat. But stamps also don’t eat, sulk, get colicky or go lame. By Tom Slater5 min

Frontlines

Canadian, sure, but Western Canada first

It may not seem a scintillating way to spend a springtime Saturday but about three dozen Edmontonians cared enough to turn out for a workshop held by the Canada West Foundation. A grey-bearded man, puffing on a corncob pipe, heard about the event on television; a retired schoolteacher was urged to attend by her son; political science students and professors at the University of Alberta passed the word among themselves. By Suzanne Zwarun5 min

May 71979