July 18, 1988

View Full Issue Table of Contents

COVER

KILLERS AT LARGE

Sometimes, uncontrollable impulses took over. When that occurred, the shy, unmarried shipping clerk became a violent child molester. In 1978, he invited two boys to his Toronto apartment, where he choked them to the point of unconsciousness, stripped them and fondled them.

CANADA/SPECIAL REPORT

A TEST OF POWER IN LOTUS LAND

It was a meeting between the two most powerful people in British Columbia politics, but it was not a meeting of minds. Last Tuesday morning, a day before Premier William Vander Zalm announced a massive government reorganization and cabinet shuffle, Grace McCarthy, the grande dame of the Social Credit party, was ushered into the premier’s expansive corner office overlooking Victoria’s picturesque inner harbor.

WORLD

Marching to the beat of the bland

Bland is an adjective seldom associated with Hollywood producers Gary Smith and Dwight Hemion. To unveil the refurbished Statue of Liberty two years ago, they staged a $10-million extravaganza featuring 75 Elvis Presley look-alikes, 1,000 tap dancers, 5,000 homing pigeons and 20 tons of fireworks. By MARCI McDONALD6 min

COVER

TREATING SEX CRIMINALS

The sun shone through thickly barred windows into the grey linoleum corridor and penetrated the 20 brick cells lining Range 5, the Ontario Regional Treatment Centre’s sex-offender unit inside Kingston Penitentiary. Inmates in dark-green uniforms and wearing slippers or running shoes talked and joked in the corridor as they waited for lunch.

SPECIAL REPORT

THE LASTING LEGACY OF AMOR DeCOSMOS

He was born William Alexander Smith in Nova Scotia, worked as an itinerant photographer and changed his name to Amor DeCosmos, which is Latin for “Lover of the Universe.” On Dec. 23, 1872, he became premier of British Columbia, which had joined Confederation the previous year. By RIC DOLPHIN6 min

WORLD

Lethal errors and fatal flaws

In the streets of Tehran last Thursday, a vast crowd chanted “Death to America” —and this time it was a good deal more than mere ritual. Four days before, a U.S. warship had shot down an Iran Air jetliner over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard.

A push for free trade

Little more than a month ago, opposition politicians were vowing to use every trick in the parliamentary rule book to stall passage of the Conservative government’s controversial free trade bill. But last week, MPs voted 114 to 51 in the House of Commons to give approval in principle to the Canada-U.S. trade agreement.

COLUMN

The return of the dust bowl

It is the ultimate good news, bad news scenario. The worst drought in North America since the Depression has caused prices for many farm products to leap to record heights—but few farmers will reap what they have sown. Weather reports have jumped to the lead item on local radio and television stations in places as disparate as Calgary, Des Moines and Wichita. By Diane Francis5 min

SPECIAL REPORT/OPINION

ZTHE PREMIER’S GAMBLE

Last summer, when the Commonwealth Conference was being held in Vancouver, Nathaniel Nemetz, then British Columbia’s chief justice, hosted a formal dinner party for Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew, most senior of the attending prime ministers, who has ruled his country with an iron fist since 1959. By Peter C. Newman4 min

July 111988