May 2, 1977

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Interview

With language commissioner Keith Spicer

On July 31, Keith Spicer leaves his job as Canada’s Official Languages Commissioner after seven stormy years. Author of some of the most readable reports to emanate from Ottawa, Spicer quickly became the Trudeau government’s supersalesman of bilingualism, drumming home his message that Canada’s bilingual nature should be seen as an advantage, not a handicap, and that learning French should be fun, not a chore.

Letters

What was AI Johnson doing? All Fotheringham had to do was ask

Allan Fotheringham very correctly asserts that the CBC must remain independent of any political pressure or direction in Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Thy Government (April 4). I asserted the same thing, in even more unequivocal terms, during the recent barrage of political criticism of the CBC.

Canada

Uncontrolled energy

In Nova Scotia, wood stoves and chain saws are selling fast as amateur lumberjacks harvest the forests for what they can no longer afford from the provincial power corporation or the oil companies—fuel to heat their homes. In Madoc, a small southeastern Ontario farming community, just a mention of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.

Business

Is Petrocan more damn trouble than it’s worth?

When you’re president of a Crown Corporation like Petro-Canada, you have to worry about your image—at least as much as finding oil. A horrifying thing happened to Wilbert “Bill” Hopper as he waddled, with the protruding belly and genial menace of a small Japanese sumo wrestler, into the passenger compartment of the Toronto bound Air Canada jet one fine April evening in Ottawa. By Peter Brimelow, PETER BRIMELOW8 min

Sports

Pleasure as a risky business

Thousands of otherwise conventional, down-to-earth Canadians are regularly risking their necks for the sheer fun of it— and their numbers are growing every day. They are the people for whom tennis is tame, swimming wet and golf just the word “flog” spelled backwards. By Vera Slevin5 min

Canada

Better a live Grit than a dead Tory?

When her son began debating the merits of joining the Liberals, says 80-year-old Mae Homer, “I just couldn’t see him doing it, or a Homer doing it.” Her puzzlement is understandable; there is nothing so quintessentially Conservative as a Horner boy. By ROBERT LEWIS5 min

The Referendum Debate

‘I won’t hang a fleur-de-lys or stop speaking English, but I am Québécoise’

It’s hard to say why I chose Quebec, because I’m not sure yet whether I have or—if I have—exactly what it means. I think I know what it doesn’t mean: I’m not going to change my name or stop speaking English or hang a fleur-de-lys in my windows. Nor will I wear T-shirts declaring “je suis Québécoise” or join the Société St.-Jean Baptiste. By Sheila Flschman5 min

April 181977