March 16, 1998

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Columns

Don Cherry, Howard Stern and Spice Girls

There is always something new to be shocked about. A couple of months ago, it was Howard Stern, whose dirty-mouthed radio broadcasts were being heard for the first time in Toronto and Montreal. Lately, it’s been Don Cherry, again, this time for remarks he made during the Winter Olympics that offended many francophones (as well as everybody else). By Charles Gordon4 min

Columns

Jean Charest's political baggage

What’s the problem? It’s so simple. Jean Charest switches parties, goes provincial and, ZAP, Canada is saved. Well, maybe not quite that simple. Consider the fate of the Conservatives, one of Canada’s founding political parties, which, without Charest’s dedicated leadership, would vanish. By Peter C. Newman4 min

Columns

The silver lining in Asia's economic crisis

The annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is where the elite meet. This year, some 45 heads of state mingled with business leaders, academics and artists for a week last month in an alpine setting as beautiful as any on earth. The forum is like a graduate-school seminar with one-hour panel discussions involving high-level participants such as Nobel Prize winners Elie Wiesel and Archbishop Desmond Tutu or business big shots like Microsoft’s founder, billionaire Bill Gates. By Diane Francis4 min

CANADA FOCUS B.C.

Justice at long last

Since his election in 1995, Ontario Premier Mike Harris has ridden out a storm of criticism raised by his Conservative government’s relentless costcutting. Harris has never had to admit a mistake or back down—never, that is, until he ran up against the three surviving Dionne quintuplets. By TOM FENNELL4 min

SPECIAL REPORT

SWEEP STAKES

Sean O'Hare is a little nervous as he stares through the windows of the Fort Simpson Curling Club at the action on the ice below. It is clear that he is trying to figure out just what exactly the people are doing with the rocks and brooms. Which is rather surprising considering that O'Hare is the club president. By BARBARA WICKENS7 min

Films

Gutterballs, strikes

Midway between the blockbuster assaults of summer and Christmas, this is a fallow season for Hollywood movies. Yet each week, half a dozen films are dumped onto the market, from obscure foreign fare to middleweight contenders from the major studios. By Brian D. Johnson4 min

Business

MAI misgivings

On a drizzly March weeknight in Smiths Falls, Ont., an hour’s drive southwest of Ottawa, about 120 concerned citizens fill every chair in a community hall. With its plates of cookies, coffee urn and neat stacks of pamphlets, this hardly looks like a gathering that would worry federal cabinet ministers and powerful business lobbyists. By JOHN GEDDES6 min

March 91998