May 23, 1988

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COVER

TRIUMPH OF AN ‘OUTCAST’

The site, on Ottawa’s Nepean Point, commands a spectacular view. To the west, there are glimpses of white water where the Ottawa River flows under Portage Bridge. Across the locks of the Rideau Canal looms the great Gothic bulk of the Parliament Buildings. By GEOFFREY JAMES10 min

COVER

THE NEW TEMPLE OF ART

A hundred years ago Canada’s National Gallery, then an offshoot of the Royal Canadian Academy of Art, moved into its second quarters on Ottawa’s O’Connor Street, upstairs from a government fisheries exhibit. A local newspaper of the day praised the move, remarking that proximity to the “better known and more popular” fisheries show could only boost attendance. By GEOFFREY JAMES4 min

WORLD

The battle for Punjab

Since radical Indian Sikhs began a violent campaign for independence in 1982, the Golden Temple in the northern city of Amritsar has served both as a haven for the militants and a symbol of their defiance. Twice the Indian government has tried to force them out of the temple.

COLUMN

A Black Stripe on the Stars

It is not easy for the mouse to be in bed with the elephant. You hardly get any sleep, for one thing. You’re afraid to doze off. It’s not easy living next to America, the world leader in everything that’s worth leading in. Canada has been called a decaffeinated United States because everything arrives here watered-down. By Allan Fotheringham4 min

28d

BUSINESS WATCH

Bowling instead of dollars

Policies discussed at a private conclave in Paris earlier this month will eventually eliminate the trading floors of Canada’s stock exchanges. “What we’re moving toward is a oneworld stock market operated out of an international network of black boxes that will stay on stream 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” I was told by Andrew Kniewasser, president of the Investment Dealers Association of Canada (IDA), who sent a representative to the French meeting of the securities committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. By Peter C. Newman4 min

LEISURE

Lullabies in birdland

In May, the peak period of spring migration, the birds are just about everywhere. Yellow-rumped Warblers are passing through Alberta, Ross’s Gulls are alighting in Manitoba and Great Blue Herons are flocking to Prince Edward Island. Last week Ontario’s Point Pelee National Park saw the return of the Prothonotary Warbler, Acadian Flycatcher and Whiteeyed Vireo—and large numbers of a different species:

DATELINE: PORT HOPE

Wielding a helpful pen

In downtown Port Hope, Ont., ads for computers have replaced movie posters in the windows of the empty Capitol theatre, closed since February, 1987, because of poor attendance. But although the home video revolution has taken its toll on moviegoing in the picturesque, 154-year-old Lake Ontario town of 10,500 people, the printed word appears to be alive and well. By MORTON RITTS4 min

COVER

BUILDING IN A TROUBLED LAND

When a 29-year-old Moshe Safdie returned to Israel in 1967 after a 15-year absence, he carried with him vivid childhood memories of clean, white, modern buildings set on hills lush with palms and green pines. He had a rude awakening. As the architect recalls, Lod airport outside Tel Aviv “seemed like the airport in a small developing country.” By GEOFFREY JAMES5 min

CANADA

High Noon in Moncton

It started as a routine political visit. At about 1 p.m. on May 7 Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and his wife, Mila, stepped from a limousine and began walking toward the Beaver Curling Club in Moncton, N.B., where Mulroney planned to address the annual meeting of the provincial Conservative party.

44b

MEDIA WATCH

The public’s right to know

The suppression of almost anything that we, the media, think we have a right to see is subject to being denounced as censorship. Aspects of the law that give us pausesuch as the requirement in the law of defamation that to have access to the defence of truth a defendant must be prepared to prove truth—are said to inhibit investigative journalism and to constitute a sort of legal intimidation. By George Bain5 min

CANADA

Autopsy of an air crash

One fellow pilot remembers Capt. John Griffin as “a superior individual” who had “strong and forceful feelings about the perils of failing to de-ice airplanes when required.” Last week in Ottawa, three of Griffin’s colleagues and his widow, Theresa, repeated those general sentiments to a closed-door meeting of the Canadian Aviation Safety Board.

WORLD

A savage farewell

Even before the 115,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan were to begin their official phased withdrawal from the country last Sunday, Mojaheddin rebels were moving into abandoned towns and military bases, including Barikot, a bleak Afghan military outpost hugging the border with Pakistan.

CANADA

Ms. McTeer’s big win

Frank and Margaret Mountain drive home a message. Painted on the North Gower, Ont., couple’s station wagon is the slogan “Abortion kills babies.” Mountain, a schoolteacher, and his wife, who is a homemaker looking after the couple’s five children, have used their last three cars to declare their anti-abortion sentiments.

May 161988