August 31, 2009

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INTERVIEW

Colin Thatcher on how he thinks he was wrongfully convicted of his ex-wife’s murder, and on his children, his faith and his new book

ON THE EVENING of Jan. 21, 1983, JoAnn Wilson was murdered, bludgeoned and shot in the garage of her Regina home. It had been three years since she and husband Colin Thatcher—the son of a former Saskatchewan premier and an ex-provincial cabinet minister himself—had filed for divorce, years marked by Wilson’s remarriage, an acrimonious custody battle over the three Thatcher children and a previous violent attack on her. Twenty months before her death Wilson had been shot through her kitchen window and wounded in the shoulder.

HEALTH

INSIDE THE HUMAN GUINEA PIG CAPITAL OF NORTH AMERICA

The bulk of Project AON-P7304 took place in a large, win dowless room located in an equally featureless building in Park Extension, a working class neighbourhood in the northern part of Montreal. At 9p.m., the 48 test participants were in their assigned seats facing a glass wall, behind which several med ical technicians, who work for Montreal-based contract research organization (CR0) Algo rithme, milled about in white lab coats. By MARTIN PATRIQUIN

MAIL BAG

‘The barbaric Japanese dolphin cull deserves more outrage than the Canadian seal hunt’

YOUR SILVIO BERLUSCONI cover is great, using just the right phrase to describe Italy’s prime minister (“The most interesting man in the world,” World, Aug. 17). He has a charming expression that seems to say: “Yes, I am enjoying everything.

NATIONAL

HARPER’S RECOVERY?

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, summoning all the passion this was due, “I am pleased to formally announce today the creation of the Federal Economic Development Agency for southern Ontario.” He held for applause. “Or,” Stephen Harper continued, “as it will be known by its short title, FedDev Ontario.

THE BACK PAGES

WHAT HAPPENED TO QUENTIN TARANTINO?

Is Quentin Tarantino old-fashioned? There’s a question you’d never have heard 15 years ago, when Pulp Fiction made him arguably the most famous and influential semi-independent filmmaker in America. But his new movie, the Second World War adventure Inglourious Basterds (opening Aug. By JAIME J. WEINMAN

WORLD

JUST WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PUBLIC OPTION

It was never going to be a Canadian-style single-payer, government-run insurance system, but the congressional Democrats, backed by Barack Obama, have for months been pushing for a “public option”—an alternative government-run insurance plan as part of the wide-ranging health care reform that is to be the legacy-making policy centrepiece of Obama’s first term as president. By LUIZA CH. SAVAGE

BUSINESS

OUR BIG CHANCE

Fifteen years ago Caleb Howard could have been a poster boy for Canada’s brain drain epidemic. In 1993 the University of Waterloo-trained mathematician and computer animator visited Los Angeles and was stunned by what he saw. Movie studios were clamouring for workers with his skills, and they were willing to pay three times more than companies in Toronto. By JASON KIRBY

THIS WEEK

NEWSMAKERS

Green party Leader Elizabeth May is testing the waters, and patience, of party members as she searches the country for a winnable riding. She previously ran unsuccessfully in 2006 in the London North Centre by-election. Then, it was a suicide mission against Tory Peter MacKay in Central Nova.

THE BACK PAGES

Do you notice anything shrivelling?

The other day CTV reported the astonishing statistic that in the whole of Canada there are just 33 sperm donors. That seems awfully low for a nation of 30 million people. Three sperm donors per province plus one per territory? Surely we can do better than that. By MARK STEYN

NATIONAL

ALBERTA'S WILD CARD

Within afewyears of arriving in Calgary from Lebanon three decades ago, Said Abdulbaki was working with Stampede Wrestling managing such names as Gama Singh, the widely reviled Indian heel, and Jonathan "Bee Gee" Holli day. Before crowds, Abdulbaki, in a white, Saudi-style headdress, assumed the name "The Sheik" and, from the sidelines, shook his fist at his fighters' opponents. By NICHOLAS KOHLER

August 242009