June 10, 1996

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CANADA

The Harris Revolution

On any day in the roller-coaster life of Ontario’s Tory government, there is a dizzying list of deeds. Within scant hours last week, as Toronto councillors lugged 11,600 postcards opposing the policy to the legislature at Queen’s Park, the government confirmed its resolve to modify rent controls. By MARY JANIGAN13 min

World

Israel turns to the right

It was well after midnight, long after polling stations had closed and the last orange embers of Israel’s brutal election-day sun had fizzled into the Mediterranean Sea—and still Israelis did not know which way lay ahead. All night, people had trickled by the spot where Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was shot by a right-wing Jewish assassin last November, parents tugging their children along, couples whisking away tears with the backs of their hands. By BRUCE WALLACE12 min

Olympics

The big-money man

Dick Pound is wearing the most egregious tie. Even from a distance, the thing blares bad taste. Up close, the Atlanta ’96 stampings that run all over it come into focus. Which does not make it any more appealing. Pound could care less. “I’m just a billboard,” he says. By JENNIFER WELLS10 min

Canada COVER

The B.C. Way

The contrast could not have been more apparent. The money was gathered at the Hotel Vancouver—diamonds and business suits circulating politely around a cavernous ballroom on the third floor of what remains, despite an ongoing makeover, very much the dowager duchess of Vancouver’s hostelries. By CHRIS WOOD9 min

The Mail

I was dumbfounded when I read the article “A furor over fraud and illegal spending” (Canada, May 27). I couldn’t believe that Quebec’s chief electoral officer would think that depriving 10,000 people of their vote was a lesser ill than paying to bring people to a rally.

Theatre

Diabolically good diversions

In the pleasant streets of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., a two-hour drive from Toronto, actor-spotting is something of a local sport. That bluff-faced fellow riding along on his bicycle is Michael Ball.Two hours later, he will transform himself into the blustering Earl of Caversham in the Shaw Festival’s superb production of Oscar Wilde’s comedy An Ideal Husband. By John Bemrose7 min

Business

Going for control

In the summer of 1969, when Conrad Black, David Radler and Peter White pooled together $18,000 to buy the Sherbrooke Record in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, one of their first moves was to seek advice from the giants of the industry. The trio, all in their 20s, met with representatives of the Montreal Gazette, the rival (and now defunct) Montreal Star and Thomson Corp., the Toronto-based media empire famous for penny-pinching. By DAVID ESTOK6 min

Column

There ought to be an anti-fax law

Usually it happens sometime in the night. When I wake up the evidence is there. But this time it happened around 5 p.m., in full view, next to my desk. The fax machine started going and the papers just kept coming out, uninvited, unexpected, unwanted, and the bloody things wouldn’t stop. By Barbara Amiel5 min

June 31996