May 21, 1979

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ELECTION '79

ONTARIO: Key to the Kingdom

The Scarborough home of Mel and Diane Wilson is much like their neighbors’ homes in suburban Toronto with one notable exception: there are two election signs planted firmly on the front lawn. One—hers—is for Alan Martin, the Liberal incumbent. By Ian Urquhart10 min

Frontlines

Politicians, the party lines . . . and the press

Pierre Trudeau’s aides are passing out bottles of beer as the press bus bounces past the hulking fortress of the B.C. Penitentiary, outside New Westminster. The radio on the bus is tuned to the news, and the news is the prime minister: “There is significant anti-Trudeau sentiment in B.C. . . .” the announcer is saying and, without skipping a beat, Trudeau press aide Pat Gossage cuts in on the PA system: “A spokesman for the prime minister denied the report.” By Robert Lewis7 min

Canada

The eleventh hour

The networks left little to chance as Sunday’s television debate approached, right down to laying on a back-up generator in case of power failure. The three party leaders paid the same attention to detail as they disappeared from the hustings in undecided Ontario to rehearse their scenarios for attack and defence. By Robert Lewis7 min

Music

The Mehta mystique

Don’t call him Zubi-baby. Indian-born maestro Zubin Mehta says that is pure journalistic invention. And don’t remind him about the billboard in Los Angeles displaying his swarthy good looks like a shaving cream ad. He had no part in that extravaganza. By Rita Christopher7 min

People

Why settle for reality when you can get a television actor instead? That seemed to be the prevailing opinion of the 145-member graduating class of Columbia University’s school of medicine when it chose actor Alan Alda, who plays the irreverent Dr. Hawkeye Pierce in the M*A*S*H comedy series, as its guest speaker at the annual convocation this week. By Judith Timson7 min

ELECTION '79

Jack Horner and other feudin' foes

In an open letter to his Alberta constituents in February, Industry Minister Jack Horner noted that it had been two years since his decision to cross the floor and join the Liberal party. “It is a decision that I have not, for one moment, regretted,” Horner wrote. By Suzanne Zwarun, David Thomas, Thomas Hopkins6 min

20! Count ’em! 20! Teltale ridings to watch!

Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador: The NDP hopes to add to its one Newfoundland seat and is counting on cynicism about Grits and Tories because of prices and unemployment. The advance will have to come in this enormous constituency, which includes miners, loggers and fishermen, and all of Labrador—not to mention a north-central pocket of the island itself.

Letters

Thank you, Barbara Amiel, for injecting a note of moderation into the current flood of publication on children’s rights in Directions from the Love-Inspector: “Love Your Child, Mr. Smith, or Else” (April 9). What is seen as a problem of children’s rights has now been extended far beyond the important issues such as child abuse and foster care.

A toned-down radical aims for Parliament

20d

Frontlines

A toned-down radical aims for Parliament

Raven curls framing his freckled face, a positively cherubic Georges Erasmus tells his Yellowknife audience that if elected, he will work hard to achieve the kind of society in which a Dene can look a non-Dene in the eye without the non-Dene feeling threatened. By Susan Rogers5 min

44h

Religion

Out of the pulpits and into the fire

Father Bob Ogle believes his credibility as a New Democratic Party candidate in this federal election came the day he removed his clerical collar and donned a two-piece suit. Until then, he suspected, the 50,000 voters in the Saskatoon East riding weren’t convinced he was serious. By Julianne Labreche5 min

May 141979