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Ottawa Star www.OttawaStar.com • August 1, 2013 • Volume 1, Issue 3

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What do you love about Ottawa?

Dwayne Brown wants to find out Ellen O’Connor

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hat do you love about Ottawa? That’s what Hintonburg resident Dwayne Brown wants to find out as he wanders the city, camera in hand, looking for inspiration for his new photography project.

LoveOttawa, a photography blog created by Brown about two weeks ago, highlights and celebrates the many people, places, and hidden gems that make up the beautiful landscape of the nation’s capital.

“I have a pretty good sense of the aesthetic of the city, but as of late I’ve begun to appreciate more what people get to do here,” said 50-year-old Brown who owns and operates a studio out of his home in Hintonburg and works as a corporate and commercial photographer.

“I wanted to do a side project that would be fun for me and shine light on good deserving businesses and people in Ottawa.”

Ottawa photographer Dwayne Brown shoots a photo of members from JustChange, Photo Credit: Michael Power

The people featured on his blog loveottawa.com are a mix of his friends and strangers, long-time residents, students, immigrants, and tourists, all happy to pause in their day-to-day activities and share with Brown what they love most about Ottawa.

Even Mayor Jim Watson made an appearance on the blog to share that he loves how Ottawa is a city with big city amenities and loads of small town charm.

Owner of his photography business since he was 20-years-old, Brown

War photo “Wait For Me, Daddy” to be cast in bronze on spot of famous picture

By Keven Drews, The Canadian Press

NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C.—It was an emotional moment, captured on film, when five-year-old Warren Bernard bolted from his mother’s side and reached for the outstretched hand of his war-bound father in October 1940, and it will soon be preserved in a public memorial in New Westminster, B.C. The Metro Vancouver city announced it has selected artists Veronica and Edwin Dam de Nogales to create a bronze memorial

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based on the famous photo, “Wait for me, Daddy,’’ taken by The Province newspaper photographer Claude Dettloff.

Canada Post plans to issue a commemorative stamp in 2014, and one New Westminster councillor said she hopes to also preserve the event through a commemorative coin, a National Historic Site designation, and even a visit by royalty.

Amidst the whirlwind of publicity, Bernard, now a 78-year-old resident of the Vancouver Island community of Tofino, B.C., said Five-year-old Warren Bernard reaching for the he’s still “just the kid in the outstretched hand of his war-bound father in picture,’’ and was concerned October 1940. Photo: Claude Dettloff about one thing when Dettloff released his camera’s shutter. going away to join up, as they “I probably wasn’t thinking called it in those days, to, you know, too much other than getting close join up, to get in the army, get into to my dad,’’ he said. “I had, you the services.’’

Continued on page 5 know, a fair experience of people

knows his way around a camera, but interviewing his subjects was a new challenge. He begins each interview with the most important question: What do you love about Ottawa? From there he asks Continued on page 2

NSA spying prompt some citizens to rethink habits

By Oskar Garcia, The Associated Press

In Louisiana, the wife of a former soldier is scaling back on Facebook posts and considering unfriending old acquaintances, worried an innocuous joke or long-lost associate might one day land her in a government probe. In California, a college student encrypts chats and emails, saying he’s not planning anything sinister but shouldn’t have to sweat snoopers. And in Canada, a lawyer is rethinking the data products he uses to ensure his clients’ privacy.

As the attorney, Chris Bushong, put it: “Who wants to feel like they’re being watched?’’

News of the U.S. government’s secret surveillance programs that targeted phone records but also information transmitted on the Internet has done more than spark a debate about privacy. Some are reviewing and changing their online habits as they reconsider some basic questions about today’s interconnected world. Among them: How much should I share and how should I share it?

Some say they want to take preventative measures in case such programs are expanded. Others are looking to send a message—not just to the U.S. government but to the Internet companies that collect so much personal information.

Continued on page 13

Community

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Ottawa Star • August 1, 2013

Left to Right: Ambassador Cho, Cpl Allen Dwyer, Mayor Jim Watson, Mr. Gus Este, Deputy Mayor Steve Desroches, and Pierre Poilievre, MP. Photo: Office of Steve Desroches

Barrhaven park named in honour of local veteran Ellen O’Connor

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local war veteran was presented with his own city park during a commemorative naming ceremony on July 19 to honour his military services and work in the community.

Gus Este, a Korean War Veteran and life-long community volunteer, was surrounded by community members, dignitaries, and family members who travelled from all over to be by his side at the naming of Gus Este Park located on Brookstone Street in Barrhaven.

Mayor Jim Watson declared at the ceremony that July 19, 2013 be proclaimed “Korean Veterans Day” in the City of Ottawa to honour Este, and the diplomatic relations between Canada and Korea as this year marks the 60th anniversary of the Korean War and the Year of the Korean War Veteran.

“It is important for the City of Ottawa to commemorate these significant milestones in our history and this is an excellent opportunity to honour one of Barrhaven’s most distinguished and wellknown Korean War veterans and community leaders,” said Watson.

Watson was accompanied by Deputy Mayor Steve Desroches, Hon. Pierre Poilievre, Minister of State for Democratic Reform, and H.E. Ambassador Cho of the Embassy of the Republic of Korea to Canada.

Born in Montreal, Que. in 1931, Este joined the Canadian Army Special Force, raised for United Nations operations in Korea, in 1950 and served 13 months in Korea as a medic. In 1952 he returned to Canada to work as a civil servant at the Canada Post head office in Montreal. Three years later he decided to re-enlist in the army and join the Canadian Postal Corps.

Este rose through the ranks and participated in tours by water, air, and road throughout Germany, Egypt, Cyprus and the Middle East. After 33 years in the military and three years of public service, Este retired in 1987 and returned to Ottawa.

He lives in the nation’s capital with his wife Olive and dedicates his time volunteering in national and local organizations, including serving as a district gov-

Festival of India is back again this summer Ellen O’Connor

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he Festival of India is back again this summer for a weekend full of traditional music and dance, workshops and panel discussions, cricket games, food dishes from all regions of India, and interactive cultural programs to entertain and educate.

Held at the Marion Dewar Plaza in Downtown Ottawa from August 9 to 11, the festival welcomes all to experience and learn about the traditions and culture of India right in the nation’s capital.

Indo-Canadian artist Bageshree Vaze will begin the opening ceremony on Friday with her performance of the Invocation dance, the classical Kathak.

Following her performance, Gabru Shaukeen, a bhangra dance group, will welcome guests to the stage including a classical music duo of tabla and santoor by Jonathan Voyer and Vineet Vyas, a celebration of Bollywood music, and the Menaka Thakkar Dance Company’s performance of “Prince Rama in the Wilderness.”

More musical performances continue the rest of the weekend with flutist Chloe Bennet and Autorickshaw on

What do you love about Ottawa?

Continued from page 1

what you like to do, where your favourite place to take someone on a date is, if there are any hidden jewels you know about, and changes in Ottawa you’ve seen or would like to see.

With each new question asked and answer given, Brown, his subjects and readers learn about and are reminded of the great things that exist in the city. Each blog post is accompanied by a photo of the interviewee set against a white can-

vass backdrop with glimpses of the city scenery peeking out from behind.

“The thrust of this project is to be positive and I think that’s why people are gravitating to it because everyone likes to live where they live, and sometimes we forget what an awesome place we live in, wherever that may be,” said Brown, who is originally from Edmonton, and then lived in Calgary for nine years before moving to Ottawa 13 years ago.

Many people he’s interviewed said they love the green space, the cultural diversity and the small town feel that Ottawa exudes with its mix of city and country. An Ottawan named Jobani and his father Guillermo, who was visiting from Cuba, are featured on the blog and said that they love the cleanliness of Ottawa and how nice everyone is.

Brown added that many New Canadians and tourists he’s spoken with have commented on the overall kindness of people in the city.

ernor with Lions Club International, the Mayor of Nepean’s Task Force on Visible Minorities, a member of the Nepean Public Library Board, Ontario Lung Association, Head Injury Association, Canadian Korean Veterans Association, and the Royal Canadian Legion.

He currently serves as the immediate past-president of the Barrhaven Legion, Branch 641.

Saturday, and classical dance performances of Kathak and Garba as well as Vancouver-based Punjabi and Celtic music band Delhi 2 Dublin on Sunday.

Festival goers can even experience what it’s like to take part in an Indian wedding on Saturday with an enactment of a real Indian arrange wedding complete with the fragrance of henna and food and the sounds of bangles, chatter, laughter and music.

Both days are jam-packed with various indoor and outdoor workshops and performances that run from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and suitable for people of all ages. Start the day with yoga, then try a Bollywood or classical dance workshop, learn to tie a saree, prepare your own spicy Indian curry, play a game of cricket or get a henna tattoo.

For ticket prices and schedule details visit festivalofindiaottawa.org.

So what does Brown love about Ottawa? The beauty of the city, its architecture and history, the ethnic diversity and mix of the French and English language are what he appreciates most. He added he also likes how supportive and open the city is to new ideas.

“Almost everybody you meet is from somewhere else,” said Brown. “When people come here from other places they want to help build community. I think that’s one of the things that I’ve learned from a woman I’ve photographed, is that we’re all participating in the build of our community in different ways, whether that’s through culture, restaurants or neighbourhoods.”

Community

Ottawa Star • August 1, 2013

www.OttawaStar.com • PAGE 3

EnjOy yOuR summER! at the

Hunsdeep Rangar is the producer and host of Mirch Masala Radio, a drive-home South Asian radio show broadcast on CHIN, and the festival director of South Asian Fest Ottawa. Photo: Joseph Nassif

“Radio host helps listeners feel at home” Ellen O’Connor

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dding some Indian spice to the Canadian backdrop and helping immigrants feel at home in Ottawa is what 37-year-old Hunsdeep Rangar sets out to accomplish each day on air and in the community.

The Orleans resident is the producer and host of Mirch Masala Radio, a South Asian drive-home show broadcast on CHIN radio Monday to Saturday.

The two-hour show hosted by Rangar and a team of Punjabi, Hindi and Urdo-speaking volunteers discuss local news and upcoming events, interview business and community leaders, hold contests, and play a mix of South Asian music including Bollywood and Bhanghra.

“We didn’t want to just play CD’s and walk out of the station,” said the information analyst for the House of Commons.

“We wanted to create a socio-cultural music scene, made in Ottawa, made for Ottawa.”

Rangar, who describes himself as “Made in India, Packaged in Canada,” was born in India, but has called Canada his home since moving here as a teenager.

At 15-years-old, he got his start in radio announcing upcoming gigs and music releases, and giving shout-outs to listeners on CKUT, the Montreal/McGill campus station on which his older brother had a show “Echoes of Punjabi” at the time.

After studying economics at Waterloo University and moving back to Ottawa in 2002, he began his career with CHIN. “I’ve always been a huge fan of arts, culture and music, and promotion of events coupled with fundraising activi-

ties,” said Rangar. “Once CHIN radio came to town in 2001, they saw room for a multicultural market here, and I let them know that I had new languages, Indian music and radio experience with close-circuit stations.”

Starting off with a one-hour Punjabi music show on Saturday called “Bhanghra Nation,” the positive listener feedback led to the launch of Mirch Masala Radio in 2005.

Rangar says their grassroots involvement and focus on the interests of the South Asian community, whether it’s a birthday announcement or playing a familiar song, has helped listeners feel more at home in Ottawa.

“It’s of utmost importance for immigrants because they’ve left everything, but when they can relate to activity around them that touches their soul and culture and roots, then they can finally call a place home.”

Rangar is involved in the South Asian community beyond just Mirch Masala. In 2009, he formed the Ontario South Asian Community Association of which he is the president. With the help of a board of governors and a festival committee, they launched South Asian Fest, an annual celebration of arts, culture and food in the city each summer.

“It was something we thought was lacking in the Ottawa landscape—a Canadian-style festival with South Asian content,” said Rangar.

With humble beginnings in 2009, the festival now sees upwards of 10,000 people from Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal and beyond. This year it is taking place August 16 and 17.

Since 1976

Summer Camps

Sports • Tennis • Golf • Karate

Preview South Asian Fest Ellen O’Connor

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et ready for two-full days of arts, culture and flavour from South Asia right in the centre of downtown Ottawa at the Fifth Annual South Asian Fest.

Organized by the Ontario South Asian Community Association, the city’s largest South Asian event runs August 16 and 17 and is expecting to see thousands of attendees of all ages and cultural backgrounds come out and join in on the festivities.

Friday begins with the Splash! Dinner and Dance Boat Cruise on the Ottawa River with the sounds of Bollywood and Banghra music as well as DJ Imperial Desi. Boarding begins at 7 p.m. in Gatineau and tickets for the event can be purchased online.

A full day of free family fun is set for Saturday at Confederation Park at Elgin and Laurier. Food booths serving up traditional dishes will be spread across the park, along with a midway fun park for children, face painting, henna designers, clothing and jewellry.

Pakistani-Dutch rapper Imran Khan will make his debut appearance in Ottawa and headline the festival, along with 25 other musical performances throughout the day including 613ROCKS! segment featuring local talent.

For more information visit southasianfest.net.

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Community

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Team Das Bull proved to be a crowd favourite, winning the People’s Choice Award and having a lot of fun in the process. Photo: Dan Mathieu/Red Bull Content Pool

Ottawa Star • August 1, 2013

A crowd 30,000 large gathered at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Photo: Félix Rioux/Red Bull Content Pool

Flugtag a soaring success

By Michael Power

R Ottawa-Gatineau saw its fair share of superheroes on flight day, but it doesn’t get any more Canadian than this! Photo: Félix Rioux/Red Bull Content Pool

Team ‘This is Bananas!’ exuded charisma with a hilarious performance and unique flying machine to take second place. Photo: Dan Mathieu/Red Bull Content Pool

Team Sally’s Leap of Faith soared 30.3 metres, to shatter the Canadian distance record of 26.2 metres originally set in Vancouver in 2006. Photo: Dan Mathieu/Red Bull Content Pool

ed Bull Flugtag was a soaring success Saturday, July 27 at the Museum of Civilization in Gatineau.

Thirty teams from across Canada took their chances at launching humanpowered flying contraptions into the air, though most landed with a splash in the Ottawa river.

Sally’s Leap of Faith, the Montrealbased winning team, set a new Canadian record with a “flight” of 129 feet after launching off the 22-foot tall runway. Their winning flight earned them a prize of $7,500.

The inspiration for the winning aircraft came from Tim Burton’s film The Nightmare Before Christmas.

“We really had no idea just how far we went until after it was all over,” said Hugo Petrin, pilot of Sally’s Leap of Faith. “But after close to 900 hours building our flying machine for about 10 seconds of flight it definitely paid off.”

Celebrity judges on-hand for the event included Sebastien Toutant, professional slopestyle snowboarder and 2014 Olympic hopeful, and Ottawa Senators defenseman Marc Methot.

Second place in the competition and a $3,000 prize went to This is Bananas of Ottawa, while Bernache da Goose of Gatineau came in third and earned $1,500 in prize money.

Red Bull Flugtag (German for flying day) made its debut in Vienna, Austria in 1992. Since then, there have been over 100 Red Bull Flugtag events across the globe. This weekend was the third time that the event has come to Canada. Ottawa previously hosted the event in 2008, while Vancouver hosted it in 2006.

All flying machines in the competition must be entirely human-powered, less than 20 feet in length, 28 feet in wingspan, no more than 10 feet high with a total weight of no more than 200 kg. including the pilot.

Myers’ Riders riding high

By Michael Power

Another season from the Myers’ Riders Ontario Varsity Football League summer football program is drawing to a close, and regardless of how the teams fare in the playoffs the season has been an unqualified success.

The senior team (ages 17-19) finished the regular season with a perfect 8-0 record. The offence was led by quarterback Nick Gorgichuk’s 2,981 passing yards, 44 touchdowns, only three interceptions and a pass completion percentage of 76%. Gorgichuk set OVFL The team’s strong corps of receivers was led by Kory Morgan (43 catches, 828 yards, 14 TDs), Jaegar Prot (35 catches, 727 yds. 13 TDs) and Mathieu Bradley (36 catches, 610 yds. 7 TDs).

The varsity squad’s rushing game was split between Jonathan Cimankinda and Jacob Legault who put up seven touchdowns each and rushed for a combined 1,222 yards.

On defence, the team was led by linebacker Brad Herbst, safety Jordan Gorgichuk (cousin to QB Nick Gorgichuk) and rookie defensive lineman Alain Cimankinda, brother to running back Jonathan Cimankinda.

Myers’ Riders bantam running back J.P. Cimankinda evades the tackles of Metro Toronto defenders in their 49-14 victory Saturday, July 27 at Minto Field. Photo: Michael Power

The Senior team hosts their first playoff game Aug. 3 at Minto Field at the Nepean Sportsplex.

The Riders’ junior team (ages 1516) finished with a 7-1 regular season record before defeating Newmarket 50-7 in a wild card matchup at Minto Field in Nepean on Sat. July 27.

Quarterback Dimitri Morand’s 1,403 passing yards and 21 TDs was good for second best statistically in the league.

The receiving duo of Phil Iloki (26 catches, 577 yards , 12 TDs) and Jordan

Duprey (33 catches, 609 yards, 9 TDs) was the most prolific tandem in the league.

On defence the team was led by linebacker Abed Hamidi, defensive back Okwes Nwaelleh and lineman Carter Wilson.

The bantam team (ages 13-14) defeated the Metro Toronto Wildcats 49-14 also at Minto Field on Sat. July 27. The bantams also finished the season with a 7-1 record with their only loss coming to their intercity rivals, the Cumberland Panthers.

Quarterback Tyler Rehman led the league in passing with 1,118 yards and 23 touchdowns while running back J.P. Cimankinda led the league in rushing yards (1,235), touchdowns (14) and rushing average (16 yards per carry).

The bantam squad’s defence was led by linebackers A.J. Oickle-Joyce and Nick Sayah. Despite some injuries to key players throughout the season the bantam Riders’ defence led the league with the fewest points scored against them.

Canada

Ottawa Star • August 1, 2013

www.OttawaStar.com • PAGE 5

Pierre Poilievre and Charlie Angus MPs rivals love to hate

By Jennifer Ditchburn, The Canadian Press

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TTAWA—In the popular TV show Mad Men, short-clipped advertising account man Pete Campbell is the character everyone loves to hate - young, conservative, ambitious and fabulously snotty.

On Parliament Hill, Ottawa MP Pierre Poilievre is something of a Pete Campbell. The clean-cut, often unctuous politician gets under the opposition’s skin as he deflects and boomerangs back their questions in the Commons.

After he was appointed to cabinet on Monday, the NDP issued a news release about “the sordid saga of Pierre Poilievre,’’ one of the “hyper-partisan pit bulls who specialize in mean-spirited, unfounded attacks.’’

Poilievre said it doesn’t bother him that the opposition loves to hate him.

“I’m very comfortable with my record and I’m just going to keep on working hard,’’ he said Friday following a ceremony in his Ottawa riding to honour a Korean War vet.

He said he sees no need to change his approach to politics now that he’s a minister.

“Others will have opinions on how I do and that’s just fine... I’ve been elected four times, delivered results for my constituents and delivered legislative policy changes that have helped veterans, for example.

“So, I’m going to keep doing the hard work that I’ve done that has worked so far for my community and for our team.’’

Poilievre is hardly the only parliamentarian who has managed to rub rivals the wrong way—often a useful, destabilizing skill in question period or in a committee meeting.

Some folks, it seems, just get on each other’s nerves.

NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus is another MP who knows how to get a rise out of rivals - he and Quebec colleague Alexandre Boulerice are dubbed the party’s “boom-boom’’ line in question period for their aggressive lines of attack.

“This prime minister personally appointed Pamela Wallin, Mike Duffy and Patrick Brazeau, the three most ridiculous Senate appointments since Caligula appointed his horse,’’ Angus said last month at the height of the spending scandal.

Then, the following day: “I want to apologize for comments I made yesterday comparing certain Liberal and Conserva-

tive senators to Caligula’s horse,’’ he told the House. “To be fair, the horse was a resident of Rome.’’

Angus’s jabs during question period —which include heckling—or his cutting remarks in front of reporters have made him unpopular with some Conservatives.

The former punk rock musician makes no apologies. “I’m not there to be nice to them. I’m not there to hang out afterwards and go for a beer. I’m there to do a job, and I do it professionally,’’ said Angus.

“I don’t go for cheap shots, but if there’s wrongdoing and they’re not doing their job, I’ll hold them to account. They can like me or not; it’s not really something I spend much time thinking about.’’

Before the 2011 election, Liberal MP Mark Holland fell into the same category as Angus and Poilievre. Holland’s fiery attacks against the government during question period made him a lightning rod for Conservative ire.

“Yeah, they hate me, I know,’’ Holland told the Globe and Mail in 2011. “The fact that they attack me every day in the House

of Commons and describe me as their number one public enemy, I wear it as a badge of honour.’’

Come the campaign, ministers poured into his riding in Ajax, Ont., to help get Holland’s rival Chris Alexander get elected. They succeeded.

During the Brian Mulroney years, the so-called “Rat Pack’’ of young Liberal critics was specifically designed to raise the hackles of Progressive Conservatives. Sheila Copps managed to succeed better than most, proving particularly irksome to the prime minister and party whip Harvie Andre.

Copps said she thinks the hostility had to do with the demographics in the Commons at the time.

“By rights, there’s no reason I should stand out more than (my colleagues),’’ she said.

“But because I was a woman, the fact that I was attacking on issues seemed to be more egregious because I was deemed to be more aggressive, which is a quality that is probably better celebrated in a man than in a woman.’’

Pierre Poilievre, pictured in the House of Commons. Photo: Photo: pierremp.ca

Being an irritant was a specific strategy, she added.

“Previous prime ministers would be advised and usually did stay away from the nitty gritty of the politics and they’d try to stick to the big picture,’’ said Copps.

“It was the job of the opposition to get them riled up enough to get up, so if you did get under somebody’s skin as a opposition member, you could often times get them to stand at their seat when better judgment would have dictated otherwise.’’

Canadians getting richer as average net worth tops $400K The Canadian Press

OTTAWA—Canadians are richer than ever, even if they also have near-record debt.

A new report by Environics Analytics puts Canadian household net worth at the start of the year at over $400,000 for the first time in history—although it only rose above the mark by $151.

The average household’s net worth grew by 5.8 per cent at the end of last year from $378,093 at the end of 2011 thanks to a 5.4 per cent gain in liquid assets and a 5.1 per cent increase in real estate values, the report says.

Meanwhile, debt rose by a relatively modest 3.3 per cent.

The new calculation keeps Canadian households ahead of their U.S. counterparts in terms of net worth for

the sixth straight year - C$400,151 compared with US$381,086.

The gap has also narrowed since the end of 2011—in part because Canadian households continued to borrow and American household debt actually declined 2.4 per cent.

Most measures of Canadian household finances have tended to focus on the all-high levels of debt, which in the past year has topped 160 per cent of disposable income, one of the highest ratios in the world.

Analysts note, however, that along with a lot of debt, Canadians hold real assets, particularly the highest level of home ownership in history. There is risk, economists say. If there is a sharp housing correction in Canada, household net worth will plummet along with home values.

The data shows households in Regina had the biggest jump in net worth last year, rising 11.2 per cent to $391,826. That was fuelled by the strongest growth in real estate holdings among cities and the second fastest rise in liquid assets, behind Saskatoon, Environics Analytics said.

Hamilton experienced the second fastest growth in net worth among major cities, up 9.5 per cent to $420,515.

Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto remain Canada’s wealthiest cities.

Provincially, the report singles out Saskatchewan households as the big gainers in 2012 in terms of net worth, an increase of 7.6 per cent to $351,865, as liquid assets grew by 7.4 per cent and real estate holdings by 7.7 per cent. The improvement was achieved despite a 7.4 per cent uptick in average household debt to $100,437.

Photo “Wait For Me, Daddy” to be cast in bronze Continued from page 1

Bernard said he remembers the day well. It was Oct. 1, 1940, the Second World War was well underway, and he and his mother, Bernice, had followed his enlisted father, Jack, to Vancouver from the Okanagan community of Summerland.

Bernard was in New Westminster with his mother and grandfather to see his father march down Eighth Street with members of the British Columbia Regiment. The unit was on its way by ship to an army camp in Nanaimo, B.C. After spending time in a park, Bernard said his family walked down the hill, following the line of soldiers.

But near the intersection of Eighth and Columbia streets, Bernard broke from his mother’s side to chase his dad and was immortalized on film, Bernard reaching forward, his father stretching back, while other soldiers along the line smiled.

Weeks after Dettloff ’s image was published, it was featured in Life magazine.

The present-day location is known as Hyack Square and is the designated spot for the memorial.

Bernard said he was 10 years old when his father returned from battle and learned his parents’ marriage was over, noting his mother was mad at his dad for joining up because he was 32 years old and didn’t have to go to war.

“I can remember the day that grandpa came to get me to take me down to the station. And I said to my mom, ‘when dad comes home where’s he going to sleep?’ and she says, ‘I don’t know. The son of a bitch isn’t sleeping here.’’

The husband-and-wife artistic team chosen to create the sculpture are internationally renowned, have had works publicly displayed in Europe and North America, and said they’re honoured to have been picked.

“Any sculpture of this size and of this importance, puts a lot more stress on one so to speak because so many people will be responding to it,’’ said Edwin Dam in a phone interview from Spain. “I guess in some ways you always get a little nervous when that happens.’’

He said the piece will have contemporary and historic elements and stands well in its place, and one of the major materials is bronze, although the piece is not solely in the metal.

“I think we want to keep the element of surprise,’’ added Veronica de Nogales Leprevost. “It seems to be quite important to most people in the community, so we want to respect that.’’

Lorrie Williams, the New Westminster councillor who forged the memorial idea, said the project will cost the city about $300,000.

“It’s such an emotive picture,’’ she said. “It’s such a wonderful picture, and the fact that daddy came home helps a lot. And it’s so famous that we sort of want to share it with not only our own citizens but with the rest of Canada and maybe even the world.’’

Williams said Bernard will unveil the memorial in October 2014.

However, Williams said she also wants a commemorative coin issued, and plans are underway to re-enact the historic march down Eighth Street, which could happen in 2015, the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. She said the city also wants to ask members of the British and Dutch royal families to visit the memorial.

Bernard said he’s seen the proposal and he supports the plans.

“It’s pretty impressive to be cast in bronze, even if you’re only five years old,’’ added a chuckling Bernard.

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Opinion

Ottawa Star • August 1, 2013

Editorial

T

Lost Canadians

housands of so-called “Lost Canadians” may have their day in court if Jackie Scott who’s waited for years to establish her own Canadian citizenship decides to pursue a classaction lawsuit.

Just exactly who are these “Lost Canadians”?

The whole confusion stems from changes made to the citizenship laws in 1977 that denied citizenship to thousands of people who came to be referred as the “Lost Canadians”. They were denied citizenship for being born abroad and out of wedlock in the case of those with a Canadian father, or being born to a Canadian mother who had no right to pass citizenship to her child. Others included children who lost their citizenship because their parents moved to countries like the U.S. and became citizens.

Although the government overhauled the law in 2009, allowing about 750,000 “lost Canadians” to get back their citizenship, but many still fell through the cracks. The war children remain some of the thousands who are basically stateless.

Scott’s father, John Ellis, put his life on the line to fight for Canada during the

Second World War. At the time, even though Canada was a bona fide country, its citizens were considered British subjects. A document issued by the Department of National Defence on the “historic rights of Canadians as they were going overseas,” stated that the soldiers “were fighting as citizens of Canada, not as merely British subjects.”

While abroad, he fell in love with a British woman and had a child with her out of wedlock. The family moved to Canada in 1948 and they got married. When Canada finally passed its own citizenship laws to make Canadians Canadian, it limited citizenship to war children born out of wedlock after 1947. Those like Scott, who were born before 1947, didn’t make the cut.

Scott actually didn’t find out she wasn’t Canadian until 2005, when she was denied a citizenship certificate. She fought to get her citizenship, but the government claimed that because her soldier-father was “British” when she was born in 1945, she doesn’t qualify to be Canadian. Clearly it looks like one arm of the government doesn’t know what the other arm is doing.

Scott deserves better, as do other war babies

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born out of wedlock. It is totally unacceptable that some children of soldiers who fought for Canada in the Second World War and have lived in this country for decades are still denied citizenship based on some old and outdated puritanical notion.

While there is no doubt that Canadian citizenship is something to be valued, respected and treated with immense pride, and that the government has every right to guard it jealously to ensure that only those who deserve, get it. Yet none is more deserving of Canadian citizenship than Jackie Scott, as well as the battalion of other children of servicemen and women who fought for Canada.

There was absolutely no need for this case to be blown so much out of proportion. Lost Canadians like Jackie Scott should not have to go to court to get the Canadian citizenship.

Canada’s parliament could patch things up with a simple legislative act. The new minister of citizenship and immigration can act immediately to give these people what rightfully belongs to them. These Canadians— and yes, they are Canadian—deserve better from their government

Publisher: Chandra Arya Chief Editor: Sangeetha Arya Editor: Ellen O’Connor Distribution COMET 2000

He wants to keep immigrants out of Canada for their own good and with the messianic goal of saving the planet from impending doom

David Suzuki and the rise of New Xenophobia

By Marco Navarro-Genie CALGARY, AB, Troy Media—When David Suzuki hanged a big no-vacancy neon sign outside the entry gate for immigrants to Canada, he was giving birth to a new kind of xenophobia. In case you missed it, here is an English translation of what he said to the French weekly L’Express: “I think that Canada is full too! Even if it’s the second biggest country in the world, our usable land is reduced. Our immigration policy is enough to make you sick: we pillage the countries of the south by depriving them of their future professionals and we want to increase our population to help our economy grow. It’s crazy!”

People reject newcomers for a variety of reasons. In fact, immigrants themselves sometimes express a desire to limit Canadian immigration.

The desire is not uncommon.

Whether it springs from a wish to preserve an exclusive social status or to keep economic gains by attempting to prevent greater competition from entering the field, it is a rational attitude in response to a perceived scarcity.

But Suzuki is not motivated by a fear of economic scarcity. His statement, that Canada is already full and that the country’s immigration policy is disgusting, exemplifies rather two notions: 1) the more people in Canada, the more the environment will be harmed and, 2) immigration inevitably translate into an irreplaceable loss of skill to the countries of origin.

By holding such beliefs, Suzuki is, instead, patronizingly assuming that he is a better judge than immigrants themselves as to what is in their own best interests. At best, Suzuki seems to be saying, if you leave your native country you are depriving it of your presumed ingenuity which cannot be replaced by any of your former countrymen. It is a ridiculous assumption.

At worst, his prescription removes both our freedom of mobility and our inherent right to seek our fortune in places other than where we were born. Suzuki’s implied conclusion is that people aspiring to

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Opinion

Ottawa Star • August 1, 2013

Canada owes its existence to immigrants

a new type of xenophobia Continued from page 6

better life should stay where they were born. In other words, Suzuki’s views are anti-freedom, anti-competition and anti-markets.

In the end, however, Suzuki’s fears are not the old-fashioned xenophobia we are all familiar with.

The typical xenophobic sentiment against immigration is moved by a fear that newcomers will ruin a romanticised status quo, which may be understood as racial (outsiders pollute blood lines), cultural (outsiders water down our language and culture) or economic (outsiders steal our jobs). Such beliefs assume that newcomers will damage the idyllic good that has been achieved from the sacrifice of those already there or will stop progress, which, in turn, leads to deterioration.

Suzuki says he favours multiculturalism, but it would seem more in the abstraction than in the practice.

Suzuki places himself above such mundane issues as race, the diluting of culture and economic degradation, while decrying the arrival of others to this country for the assumed harm they will cause to an “already wounded” natural environment. He sees his motives as noble and altruistic, manifesting concern with the “exploitation” of immigrants by their new country and the loss their leaving “inflicts” on their developing home countries.

In other words, Suzuki’s rejection of immigration is a new type of xenophobia, one we have never seen before.

It is not motivated by self-interested fear.

He wants to keep immigrants out of Canada for their own good and with the messianic goal of saving the planet from impending doom. It may be appropriate to call it altru-ecoplanetary-xenophobia, but such a bastardised and unpronounceable mouthful of compacted Latin into Greek will never stick.

Neo-xenophobia seems less of a tongue-twister.

Marco Navarro-Genie is vice-president of research at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy (http://www.fcpp.org)

Sure, some of them may take advantage of the system. But it is immigrants, from all parts of the world, who built this country

By Roslyn Kunin

V

ANCOUVER, BC, Troy Media— Immigration has been a deeply felt and controversial topic throughout Canada’s history. “First Nations have a Lousy Immigration Policy” says a bumper sticker on the cars of some descendents of Canada’s earliest inhabitants. Anti-immigration sentiments have persisted as waves of Europeans, Asians and others have arrived in Canada.

When Canada’s non-Aboriginal population was mainly British and French, other Europeans like Germans and Italians were considered ‘foreigners’ who did not really belong.

The eastern Europeans who were the only ones brave enough to settle our frigid prairies, spending their first winters in sod huts, were not thanked for their heroic efforts.

Convoluted laws and regulations—such as the requirement that potential immigrants had to arrive in Canada in one continuous journey when the transportation systems of the time made that all but impossible for anyone not coming from Europe or the United States—were used to exclude people coming from Asia. Jewish refugees were most definitely not welcomed even when threatened with extinction during the Second World War, when Canada implemented the exclusionary policies described in Irving Abella’s book None Is Too Many. Canada’s treatment during that the same period of people from Japan who had come to Canada, became citizens and, by their hard work, made significant contributions to our economy is still a cause for national shame, even though apologies have been made.

We like to think that, in the 21st century, Canada has now become an inclusive,

diverse, open society. The fact that both the DalaiLama and the Aga Khan have established centres for peace in Canada indicates that many outside of Canada see us as a model of a nation that goes beyond tolerance to acceptance and harmony among citizens of different backgrounds and cultures.

Yet, every so often some anti-immigrant or even racist beliefs get aired. It is hard not to see such sentiments behind the recent attempted ban of turbans on kids playing soccer in Quebec. And the number of Chinese faces on campuses in B.C. has led several people to complain to me that these ‘international’ students are taking education spaces away from ‘our’ children.

The fact that most of these Chinese faces belong to second or even fifth generation Canadians does not occur to them.

Surprisingly, not all anti-immigrant outpourings come from those whose families have been in Canada for the long term.

Sometimes even immigrants themselves take an ‘I’m here now. Bomb the passes’ attitude.

One such immigrant is Hebert Grubel, a retired professor from Simon Fraser University.

By drawing analogies from the United States with its large, undigested lump of illegal immigrants and from France with its entire districts of the unemployed and the unassimilated, Grubel concludes that current immigrants are a burden to Canada.

There is some validity to his view. Immigrants to Canada now are taking longer than their predecessors to attain income levels that equal the Canadian born with the same education and in the same occupations. This is at least partly due to the recalcitrant attitude of professional associations, etc. to measure and recognize the credentials immigrants bring and to allow them to put those credentials to use. We have all heard of medical doctors and engineers driving taxis.

Now let us look at the other end of the telescope. At this time, less than one Ca-

What’s in a name?

By Sangeetha Arya “What’s in a name?

That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” said William Shakespeare.

It may not be true today as a name has far greater value and significance.

The power of a name and its value has long been immortalized in life, literature and religious ceremony. Everyone recognizes himself or herself by name.

There is a very well-known Chinese adage that says: “It is far better to have an ugly face than to be given a wrong name.”

This is because the name confers on us a permanent identity, uniqueness and can either uplift or reduce one’s self-esteem. In other words they can make or mar you.

www.OttawaStar.com • PAGE 7

If it is aptly chosen, one would be immensely proud of it; at the same time, if it is weird or crude, one will have to bear it as a life-long liability or be forced to change it by legal means. There are names like Napoleon Einstein—a well known cricket player in India.

The bestowal of name and identity is a kind of symbolic contract between the society and the individual. By giving a name the society confirms the individual’s existence and acknowledges its responsibilities toward that person. The name differentiates the child from others; thus, the society will be able to treat and deal with the child as someone with needs and feelings different from those of other people.

Names make impressions, good and bad. Especially with royal name it can’t just be any old moniker. It has to have some gravitas.

Noble names are steeped in history, which explains why, as Prince William and Kate’s royal baby fervour mounted in recent days, thousands of bets rolled in to British bookmakers. The name can also

take on cultural significance. Arthur, the middle names of both Prince Charles and Prince William, evokes the legendary King Arthur and tales of chivalry—a favourite theme ingrained in British literature It was widely expected that the royal couple would not stray from tradition in their choice of name for their newborn baby boy.

Like Queen Elizabeth II, the baby has three names—George Alexander Louis.

And he will be known as His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge. Obviously, a lot of thought goes into choosing a name for a future monarch. Thus, each name has historical significance.

The little Prince’s first name George is intrinsically linked to the British royal family and has countless echoes throughout their history. George was the 5-to-2 favourite with the bookies. Prince William, who lost his own mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, in a Paris car crash when he was 15, is said by close friends to have a deep affection for his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth. The friends said William wanted his son to be named

nadian resident in five (18.8 per cent) is an immigrant, yet 24 per cent of millionaires in Canada are immigrants and another 24 per cent are the children of immigrants, according to a study by BMO Harris Private Banking. The study defines millionaire as having $1 million in financial assets.

Nor are these all a bunch of previously rich people. More than two thirds of them are self-made; generating their wealth through hard work, determination and entrepreneurship. Starting and growing a business that offers competitively priced goods and services, pays taxes and provides jobs for other Canadians cannot be considered burdening Canadian society. Quite the opposite. And immigrants are more likely to create those businesses, taxes dollars and jobs than are native born Canadians.

Yes, some immigrants do take a while to get settled into Canada and they may make use of the safety net that most Canadians do not hesitate to use in times of need. Some immigrants (I am going to say it) may even take advantage. Still, Canada as we know it owes its existence to immigrants. Chinese immigrants built the railroad that made us one country – in spite of being very badly treated. Tradesmen and craft workers from Europe arrived to develop Canada after the Second World War. New immigrants, mainly from Asia, are helping us adjust to the needs of the 21st century and its technology.

I recently attended the wedding of two young, Canadian doctors; the daughter of Iranian immigrants and the son of Indian immigrants. The customs, culture, clothes, music and food of those families mingled with more North American practices. Everyone was very happy, not only because it was a wedding, but also because they were in a special country, Canada, where such an event is celebrated by all.

Troy Media BC’s Business columnist Roslyn Kunin is a consulting economist and speaker and can be reached at www.rkunin.com. after his great-grandfather as a token of his affection for the queen. His first name was actually Albert, or “Bertie” for short, but he selected George—his fourth name—to use as sovereign. He is the new Prince George of Cambridge’s great-great grandfather.

Friends of Kate’s said that the choice of Alexander for a second names—a name not common among the royals—reflected her strong preference.

But the third name, Louis, royal officials said, reflected another strong royal sentiment, the fondness of Prince Charles for Lord Louis Mountbatten, who as an admiral led Britain’s armed forces. Louis is one of William’s middle names. It is also likely to be a tribute to Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Duke of Edinburgh’s uncle and the last British Viceroy of India before independence in 1947.

Through the name, the individual becomes part of the history of the society, and, because of the name, his or her deeds will exist separate from the deeds of others. The sense of personal identity and uniqueness that a name gives us is at the heart of why names interest us and why they are important to us as individuals and to our society as a whole. They are our identity-who we call our self and who we wish to be recognized as.

PAGE 8 • www.OttawaStar.com

Entertainment

Book Review: J.K. Rowling’s ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’ is light fun

By Deepti Hajela, The Associated Press

F

ull disclosure: I never would have guessed.

I’ve read every book J.K. Rowling has published, some of them several times over. OK, all of them several times over. And still, I doubt I would have picked up on anything that would have made me think that SHE was the author behind “The Cuckoo’s Calling.’’

I almost wish I hadn’t known, so I wouldn’t have read it with some of my attention in search of clues that would have made me suspicious that the book’s author wasn’t, in fact, an ex-military police officer and was actually one of the world’s most famous storytellers.

Because this is a good story, one that is entertaining enough to merit a read even if Robert Galbraith, Rowling’s pseudonym, had been a real person who really wrote it.

“The Cuckoo’s Calling’’ introduces readers to Cormoran Strike, a London private detective with his own complicated backstory - he’s the son of a rock star and a groupie, has a prosthetic leg to replace the one he lost in Afghanistan during his military service, and he just ended a difficult romantic relationship. He’s also quite clever.

Along with his started-out-temporary-but-who-didn’tknow-that-was-goingPhoto: Daniel Ogren to-last secretary Robin J.K. Rowling Ellacott, he looks into

the death of a supermodel, Lula. Everyone assumes it was suicide, but Strike is asked to investigate it by someone who tells him it had to have been otherwise. His investigation takes Strike into the worlds of high fashion and big money as he makes his way to the truth. ``The Cuckoo’s Calling’’ Rowling’s (er, Gal(Mulholland Books), by braith’s? Whoever.) litRobert Galbraith (J.K. erary gift is on display Rowling). in this work. She crafts an entertaining story with characters who hold the reader’s interest, and comes up with an ending that I’ll admit I was surprised by.

It gets a little too clever in some places, with the final denouement tying together some earlier elements in a way that’s almost a little too pat, and some of the leaps Strike makes seem a little too outof-nowhere. And it wouldn’t be a J.K. Rowling book if it didn’t have lots and LOTS of description, not all of which seems necessary.

But overall, it’s a fun read, with a main character you can care about and one you’ll want to see again in other adventures. It reads like Rowling had fun writing it. There’s a certain lightness to it that was missing from her other grown-up fiction endeavour, “The Casual Vacancy.’’ Perhaps that came from the freedom of writing and publishing under a pseudonym without all the pressure of her own backstory.

It will be interesting to see if she can maintain that sense of fun now that everyone knows it’s her and that particular mystery has been solved.

The 3 best things about ‘The Wolverine’: Jackman, Jackman and Jackman

By Jocelyn Noveck, The Canadian Press

D

on’t get us wrong. We don’t mean to take anything away from the more substantial qualities of “The Wolverine,’’ a fairly satisfying if not stellar installment in the saga of the famous mutant that Hugh Jackmatn’s been playing since, wow, 2000. (For a little perspective, Bill Clinton was still president.)

But let’s just point out that Jackman bares it all in a brief but memorable scene in a bathtub, and the studio would be wise to advertise this scene as much as possible. Because Wolverine is all about Jackman, and not only is the actor in amazing shape, but he’s funny in the Hugh Jackman. scene, too. So why not flaunt it?

Whether you’re an X-Men fan or not, it’s Jackman that makes “The Wolverine’’ worth watching, too. Oh yes, the movie. Well, as we mentioned, it’s fairly satisfying. On the plus side, we get to know the Wolverine, aka Logan, a little better. We also see him physically challenged, losing some of his mutant healing powers, which gives Jackman a nice chance to display weakness.

There are also some welcome funny moments in the script, many having to do with its Japan setting. When Logan and a young woman he’s protecting want to hide, they enter a Japanese “love hotel’’ where, they’re informed, their room options are: dungeon, nurse’s office, or Mission to Mars. (They pick the latter). Also pay attention to Logan’s great comeback after throwing a bad guy out a window into a swimming pool.

And director James Mangold sets one terrific action scene—the film’s best—on a speeding bullet train, making great use of those claws. Turns out, bone bonded with adamantium makes for rather efPhoto: Eva Rinaldi ficient train-roof gripping.

On the minus side are some lacklustre performances and an ending that, sorry to say, is simply not that exciting, or maybe we’ve all just run out of steam by then.

If Jackman’s character has some depth, the same can’t be said for all the supporting players.

Svetlana Khodchenkova, as Viper, is supposed to be villainous but comes across as only vampy. Tao Yokamoto is attractive and sweet as Mariko. Famke Janssen appears as Logan’s dead love, Jean Grey, in ghostly scenes that are a bit silly.

Ottawa Star • August 1, 2013

Entertainment news in brief The Canadian Press

Leslie Feist to donate Banff concert proceeds TORONTO—Calgary-raised singer-songwriter Feist has announced she will donate 100 per cent of the proceeds from her upcoming performance in Banff, AB toward the Calgary Drop-In and Rehab Centre, which was ravaged in the June floods.Feist has also launched an eBay auction offering accomodations, a meet-and-greet opportunity, flights and two VIP tickets to the show, with proceeds also set to go toward flood recovery efforts.

Justin Bieber allegedly spits over balcony TORONTO—Justin Bieber is under fire yet again after allegedly spitting over a Toronto hotel balcony while a throng of his fans waited below.The 19-year-old, currently in the city for two dates on his “Believe” tour, was photographed with friends standing on a balcony at the ritzy Hazelton Hotel when he appeared to gather and spit over the rail.

Bullock, Clooney to open 70th Venice Film Festival

Rapper DMX again arrested in South Carolina GREER—Rapper DMX has been arrested in South Carolina and charged with driving under the influence.Greenville County jail officials said the 42-year-old, whose real name is Earl Simmons, was arrested early Friday.

He was also charged with not having a driver’s license.

Assange movie to open Toronto film fest TORONTO—A dramatic thriller about controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will open this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. British actor Benedict Cumberbatch stars as the infamous Australian in “The Fifth Estate,” the Bill Condon-directed film that will kick off the starstudded Toronto fest on Sept. 5.

Drake apologizes for offensive lyric

Photo: Andrew S.

ROME—The Venice Film festival will launch with a bang this year as the techno-thriller “Gravity” starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts stranded in outer space opens the 70th edition of the world’s oldest festival, organizers announced Thursday.

Twenty films will vie for the coveted Golden Lion, including Terry Gilliam’s “The Zero Theorem” starring Christoph Waltz and Matt Damon, Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin” featuring Scarlett Johansson, Stephen Frears’ “Philomena” with Judi Dench and “Joe” starring Nicolas Cage.

TORONTO—Toronto rapper Drake has apologized and promised to erase a controversial reference to autism from his song “Jodeci (Freestyle).” The controversial line in question was uttered by North Carolina rapper J. Cole.

Bollywood star Salman Khan to face trial

Two authors with Canadian ties up for Booker

NEW DELHI—A Mumbai court announced Wednesday that Indian movie star Salman Khan will face trial next month on a homicide charge for his involvement in a fatal road accident more than 10 years ago. One man was killed and four people were injured when Khan drove his car into a group of homeless people sleeping on a Mumbai sidewalk in September 2002. The court charged Khan with culpable homicide not amounting to murder, said Abha Singh, a lawyer involved in the case.

Khan could face up to 10 years in jail if convicted. The court also charged Khan with negligent driving and causing grievous hurt to the victims, Singh said. Khan, who was present in court, pleaded not guilty to the charges. The trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 19.

Kitsch movie to open Atlantic Film Festival HALIFAX—A film starring Canadian actor Taylor Kitsch as a doctor who can save a small town from financial disarray will open the Atlantic Film Festival.“The Grand Seduction,” from Toronto director Don McKellar, also stars Irish actor Brendan Gleeson and Gordon Pinsent.

LONDON—British Columbiabased writer Ruth Ozeki and Canada-raised author Alison MacLeod have both been nominated for the prestigious Booker Prize.

There are 13 authors competing for the prestigious literary award, a field heavy with new talent. MacLeod is up for “Unexploded” while Ozeki is in the running for “A Tale for the Time Being.”

Thief steals $70K in gear from Flock of Seagulls DOWNEY—The 1980s band Flock of Seagulls says someone flew off with $70,000 of its equipment during a Southern California gig.Frontman Mike Score tells the Los Angeles Daily News (http:// bit.ly/17zV9Iq) that someone stole the band’s rented van at around 2 a.m. Sunday from the Comfort Inn in Downey.

Entertainment

Ottawa Star • August 1, 2013

www.OttawaStar.com • PAGE 9

Al Jazeera America network promises live programming around the clock

By David Bauder, The Associated Press

Photo: Samsung

Samsung’s new Curved OELD TV.

LG and Samsung start selling curved OLED TVs in US, for $15,000

By Peter Svensson, The Canadian Press

F

lat screens have been a selling point for TVs for more than a decade. Now, LG and Samsung are making a selling point of screens that are not flat.

The two Korean electronics companies are launching TVs in the U.S. this week that have concave screens, where the middle bends away from the viewer. That’s the opposite

of the convex bulge of the old cathode-ray tube TVs. The idea, the companies say, is to envelop the viewer The sets have a suggested price of $15,000. LG’s set will be sold in some Best Buy stores.

Samsung’s will be sold by specialty stores.

The curved sets are made possible by a technological breakthrough—the picture is formed a thin, bendable layer of organic light-emitting diodes.

NEW YORK—Al-Jazeera America’s incoming president said Tuesday that people interested in news will get live programming whenever they tune in, even in the middle of the night on a weekend.

The new cable news network will debut Aug. 20, replacing programming on what is now Current TV. Its executives are beginning the process of defining what will make Al-Jazeera America different from existing news programming on CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC and the broadcast networks.

“We are going to be live, and we are going to be live 24-7,” Kate O’Brian, a longtime ABC News executive appointed this week as Al-Jazeera America’s president, said in an interview.

Cable news networks have occasionally been criticized for being slow to respond when news happens late at night or on the weekend – most recently when a Texas state senator held a filibuster to block abortion legislation. Reruns of daytime programs are often run overnight.

O’Brian and the network’s interim chief executive officer, Ehab Al Shihabi, said the network will aim at establishing itself with serious, in-depth reporting that does not take political sides.

“If you need infotainment, that’s not Al Jazeera,” Al Shihabi said.

The network will have 12 domestic bureaus when it starts and will also have access to more than 70 international bureaus as part of the worldwide Al-Jazeera company. Its new executives suggested that the deep-pocketed Al Jazeera, based in Qatar,

could immediately give the new U.S. network an edge in covering stories from across the country.

“We’ll be able to put on stories that some of our competitors will think twice about doing” for cost reasons, said O’Brian, who is leaving her job as senior vice-president for news at ABC to take over operations at Al-Jazeera America.

She suggested the personality-oriented programming of current cable news networks, where most hours are filled with a show that reflects the views or judgments of a single host, won’t be AlJazeera’s model. Of course, the new network is starting with only a smattering of personalities familiar to most American news viewers, including Ali Velshi and Sheila MacVicar.

“We take our talent very seriously, but we are not into the cult of personality,” O’Brian said.

Although Al-Jazeera has run an English-language network since 2006, it has been seen mostly online by U.S. viewers. Al-Jazeera had trouble convincing U.S. cable and satellite operators to carry it and needed the purchase of former VicePresident Al Gore’s Current TV to give it space on most systems.

Although executives listened to many recommendations to take “Al-Jazeera” out of its name to reach a U.S. audience, Al Shihabi said they resisted. For one thing, the company had built up a reputation worldwide for its product that it did not want to lose.

“We didn’t want to come through the back door,” he said. “We wanted to be Al Jazeera and come in through the front door.”

PAGE 10 • www.OttawaStar.com

Canada

Ottawa Star • August 1, 2013

‘Don’t Be That Girl’ poster an insult to both men and women

By Louise McEwan

T

RAIL, BC, Troy Media—They countered with a parody campaign, ‘Don’t Be That Girl’, in response to the ‘Don’t Be That Guy’ anti-sexual assault campaign.

The goal of ‘Don’t Be That Guy’ is to reduce the incidence of sexual assault by reaching out to perpetrators in its target demographic, 18 to 25 year old males.

Initially developed in 2010 by SAVE (Sexual Assault Voices Edmonton), the campaign has both a national and an international presence. ‘Don’t Be That Guy’ uses a series of posters to “raise awareness, challenge myths, fight victim blaming, empower bystanders, and stand in solidarity with survivors.”

The posters are bold and direct, and specifically address the problem of sexual violence against women who are vulnerable because of alcohol consumption. The message is unequivocal: no consent or sex with someone unable to consent is sexual assault.

Men’s Rights Edmonton has produced a warped version of the campaign using the images and layout of the ‘Don’t Be That Guy’ posters. They have twisted the language to disseminate their own message: women lie about rape.

M e n ’ s Rights Edmonton would have Canadians believe that false allegations are the norm when in fact they are rare. In an article by Andrea Sands in the Edmonton JourPoster from Men’s Rights Edmonton in response to “Don’t Be That nal, Lise Gotell, Guy” campaign an expert on Canadian sexual assault law, commented on the myth of Two posts on the group’s website defend the offensive parodic posters. One false allegations, saying that the empirical of the bloggers argues that society fails to data does not support the myth. acknowledge that the lives of men have Through propagating the myth that value. The post presents the view that women frequently lie about rape, Men’s there is a “present imbalance in the colRights Edmonton is reinforcing the cullective psyche” that the group is challengture of violence against women. ‘Don’t ing with their posters. ‘Don’t Be That Girl’ Be That Girl’ condones sexual assault addresses this imbalance through the corand rationalizes it by placing blame rective strategy of a “pro-male message.” on the victim. The first blogger quoted The “pro-male message” is that women above, in a callous show of disdain for commonly make false accusations about the many female victims of sexual violence, dismisses their victimization as rape and this makes men the victims. “that tired out chestnut”, rhetorically The other post on the website rationalizes the copycat campaign under the demanding, “Victim? What victim? guise of raising awareness about false Give proof.” In this view, the real victim allegations. While the group is correct is almost always the guy. that false allegations of rape damage The insistence that a woman is responsible for her rape is to blame Eve the lives of those wrongly accused and because Adam ate the apple. In this constitute a wrong, it demonstrates a prelapsarian myth embedded in the colskewed view of the nature and frequency of sexual assault. lective psyche, Adam points the finger

at Eve and protesting his innocence exclaims, “She made me do it.” It is an unconvincing denial of responsibility and a display of moral immaturity.

‘Don’t Be That Girl’ exposes a deeply subconscious attitude, that of ‘woman as seducer’, which has been part of the collective psyche for millennia. Regrettably, one in five Canadians still hold this view, and think that women provoke sexual assault either by their actions or appearance.

Although not the intention of the ‘Don’t Be That Girl’ parody, the campaign exposes the “she asked for it” mentality that places the onus for sexual assault on the woman.

While Men’s Rights Edmonton could be naively oblivious to the very real problem of sexual violence against women, it is much more likely that its members who endorse, support and proudly defend ‘Don’t Be That Girl’ are willfully blind.

Ironically, ‘Don’t Be That Girl’ effectively demonstrates the need for the awareness raising campaign of ‘Don’t Be That Guy’.

Men’s Rights Edmonton has a peculiar idea of what constitutes an acceptable method of advocating for men falsely accused. Their tactics are offensive and dangerous; the parodic campaign is an affront to both men and women. To unabashedly transform an anti-sexual assault campaign into an attack on the integrity of women is a strange way to promote the dignity of men.

Troy Media columnist Louise McEwan has degrees in English and Theology. She has a background in education and faith formation. Her blog is www.faithcolouredglasses.blogspot.com.

The lies rapists and victim’s advocates tell Contrary to popular opinion, the vast majority of university men don’t rape women

By Karen Straughan EDMONTON, AB, Troy Media—Louise McEwan’s column (‘Don’t Be That Girl’ poster an insult to both men and women) describes Men’s Rights Edmonton’s ‘Don’t be THAT Girl’ poster campaign as an “insult to both men and women”. We agree. That was one purpose of ‘Don’t be THAT Girl’.

Our campaign was intended as a parody and criticism of Sexual Assault Voices Edmonton’s (SAVE) popular ‘Don’t be THAT Guy’ campaign, which targets men aged 18 to 25 in a misguided attempt to reduce sexual assault by “reaching out to perpetrators”. In doing so, it smeared the vast majority of men who never rape with the sins of the few who do. If our campaign is insulting to women and survivors, the original campaign is equally insulting to decent, law-abiding men.

According to McEwan, SAVE’s campaign was intended to “raise awareness, challenge myths, fight victim blaming, empower bystanders, and stand in solidarity with survivors.”

A more accurate, research-based assessment of ‘Don’t be THAT Guy’ would be to describe it as “muddying awareness, spreading myths, encourag-

ing self-blame in victims, confusing bystanders, and misleading survivors.”

How so? According to research by the University of Massachusetts’ Dr. David Lisak looking into undetected rapists on campuses, the vast majority of men in this demographic don’t rape women. He found that the 4 per cent of men responsible for 90 per cent of rapes know exactly what they’re doing, and are repeat offenders. And while these men may not call what they do “rape” or “a crime”, they know they’re preying on non-consenting women, and brag about emotionally manipulating their victims into not reporting the sex as an assault.

Some of those manipulations look alarmingly similar to the message in SAVE’s posters: that regular guys can and do rape, that rapists don’t necessarily know what they’re doing is wrong, that they just don’t understand consent or weren’t clear about their victim’s lack of it, and that if they can be made to understand, they’ll choose not to rape.

The message of ‘Don’t be THAT Guy’ is one the vast majority of men already understand, and the ones who don’t get it aren’t going to change their behaviour based on some posters. All SAVE’s campaign does is associate the harmful behaviour of a percentage of men and women with masculinity, rather than sociopathy and narcissism.

Lise Gotell, who in addition to being an expert on Canadian sexual assault law, chairs the Women’s Studies Program at the University of Alberta, demonstrates

Poster from SAVE (Sexual Assault Voices Edmonton)

her own obvious biases by calling false accusations of sexual assault a “myth”.

They are clearly not a myth. They happen, and there are plenty of empirical data out there challenging her assertion.

Research-based estimates into prevalence of false accusations range from 2 per cent to 90 per cent. One of the more methodologically sound studies out there puts the rate of accusations determined false to a reasonable doubt standard among university students at 5.9 per cent. Keep in mind that, despite being three times higher than the false report rate for other crimes, this is a minimum estimate of the false report rate, just as the 6 per cent of rape reports that end in conviction is a minimum estimate of rate of genuine sexual assault reports.

And while Edmonton Police Services (EPS) statistics indicate only 1 to 2 per cent

of rape accusations are false, EPS demonstrates no mandate to charge or prosecute them, even when evidence of falsity lands in their laps. Because of this, their estimates of prevalence are highly questionable and based not on solid case-by-case investigation, but on the utter lack of it.

McEwan presumes that Men’s Rights Edmonton’s members are “willfully blind” to the problem of sexual violence against women. Her degrees in English and Theology apparently provide her no understanding of why “thou shalt not bear false witness” was considered important enough to appear in the Bible’s top 10 list of things not to do, nor the math skills necessary to realize that the prevalence rates of these two crimes are statistically independent.

A major difference between sexual assault and false reports of sexual assault, is that one is treated as a crime, while the other is not. Given that even EPS seems unaware that false accusations are a crime, who is really in need of educating here?

As intentionally insulting as our campaign might be, it’s a legitimate attempt to educate a public that obviously requires educating, while ‘Don’t be THAT Guy’ is a misguided campaign that at best achieves nothing, and at worst spreads dangerous myths about rape while vilifying an entire demographic for the crimes of a few intractable predators.

Karen Straughan is a spokesperson for Men’s Rights Edmonton.

Ottawa Star • August 1, 2013

Canada

www.OttawaStar.com • PAGE 11

Canada news in brief The Canadian Press

Canadian man convicted of al Qaida ties returns

Crown tosses seatbelt ticket for driver with no arms

$16K bill for “Idle No More” CN Rail blockade

OTTAWA—A London, ON man jailed in North Africa for his alleged links to a terrorist group has returned to Canada, with questions hanging over him that may never be answered. Yoon was arrested in Mauritania in December 2011 and sentenced to prison after being convicted of having ties to an al-Qaida-affiliated group. Police and terrorism experts may want to ask Yoon what he knew about a deadly act of terrorism that killed his former London classmates in Algeria last January. There are also questions about how Yoon and schoolmates Ali Medlej and Xristos Katsiroubas were allegedly radicalized, and by whom.

Medlej and Katsiroubas were killed in an al-Qaida-linked terrorist attack on an Algerian gas plant that killed 39 hostages.

SASKATOON—A seatbelt ticket given to a Saskatchewan driver with no arms has been tossed out of court. Brent Little, a lawyer representing Steve Simonar, says the Saskatoon prosecutor’s office withdrew the $175 ticket after the province granted Simonar an exemption that allows him to drive without a belt. Simonar, a 55-yearold business man, has been driving modified vehicles using his feet since he lost both of his arms in 1985. He was pulling a boat off Big Shell Lake when its mast hit a power line and he was electrocuted.

His friend died in the accident. Simonar has said surprised officers who pulled him over in the past usually let him off with “have a nice day.” “Nobody ever gave me a seatbelt ticket because, you know, I can’t wear one. I can’t put it on,” he said. He was hurt and angry when a city constable handed him his first ticket during a traffic blitz in April. Simonar said the officer was abrupt and told him if he couldn’t wear a seatbelt, he shouldn’t be driving.

SARNIA—A First Nations protester is facing a bill of more than $16,000 after being ordered to pay damages to CN Rail over a rail blockade in southwestern Ontario last winter as part of “Idle No More” protests.An Ontario Superior Court judge ordered 51-year-old Ron Plain of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation to pay the damages in a decision released Tuesday.

PM Harper ranks 38th in tally of world leaders’ Twitter followers OTTAWA—A new tally of Twitter use by world leaders ranks Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 38th place. It says Harper has more than 357,000 followers, well behind the 33.5 million of Barack Obama and Pope Francis, at 7.2 million. The socalled Twiplomacy study was conducted by the New York-based firm Burson-Marsteller. It also says Harper doesn’t engage frequently with others on Twitter. Harper doesn’t follow Obama’s feed. “Surprisingly (at)PMHarper only follows Russian Prime Minister (at)MedvedevRussia and Uganda’s PM (at)AmamaMbabazi but does not follow his peer at the White House.”

Gay jail guard gets $98K for harassment TORONTO—A former Ottawa jail guard who endured homophobic harassment at the “poisoned workplace” has been granted what a grievance board calls its largest-ever award for a human rights breach. Robert Ranger worked at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre from 1998 to 2002, when he left because he said he couldn’t take the taunts and gay slurs, eventually going on long-term disability.

Supreme Court rules against tabling French only court documents OTTAWA—The Supreme Court of Canada has struck down an attempt to file French-only court documents in British Columbia, in a minority languagerights case that could have a ripple effect in parts of the country.

Lawyer Mark Power, who was part of the legal team arguing for the right to plead in French, said the case will have a different impact in different provinces.

Friday’s 4-3 decision will be felt in some provinces—B.C., Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island—where groups will be forbidden from tabling documents in the minority language alone, he said.

It will not apply, he said, in six provinces that have laws or constitutional protections guaranteeing access to the court system in either official language.

That includes New Brunswick, which is officially bilingual under the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms; Quebec and Manitoba, which received similar protec-

tions under the 1867 Constitution; and Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan, which have passed laws that allow certain French language rights in court, he said.

Ontario jails overcrowded TORONTO—Nearly half of Ontario’s jails are overcrowded, a six-year high that sees cells meant for two people at times hold three or more as the province struggles with a rising tide of inmates who have yet to have their day in court.

Statistics by the Ministry of Community Safety and Corrections reveal that on an average day last year 14 of the province’s 29 jails held more prisoners than they were designed for.

The correctional system is going through a rare transition, with the ongoing closure of several jails and the construction of a major correctional complex in southwestern Ontario as well as a 1,650-bed “superjail” in Toronto’s west end. Currently a 9,020-bed system housed an average 8,806 people each day.

Stanley Cup rioters can run but cant hide Riot investigators have tallied 1,204 offences against 352 suspected rioters since the June 2011 melee. Police said they are still trying to identify three of their top 10 suspects shown on video taking part in the riot.

Police have been conducting random checks of charged and convicted rioters and found that of 173 rioters checked, 28 were found to be breaching their conditions and have since been charged with 51 counts of breach either while awaiting trial or after sentence, the news release said.

PAGE 12 • www.OttawaStar.com

World

Ottawa Star • August 1, 2013

Afghans flee to safety in India, but find challenges remain

By Shivan Sarna, The Associated Press

N

EW DELHI—Sharifa Jan fled Afghanistan for India last year when the Taliban killed her husband and threatened her six children. New Delhi’s chaos baffled her but the city also provided a safe haven.

But like thousands of other Afghan refugees and asylum seekers in India her security comes at a price: Jan’s family is trapped in limbo.

The Afghans don’t have work permits.

Many have trouble enrolling their children in school. They can’t even get a local phone.

“If today there is no education, no good food and drink, no good living conditions, then what will they become in the future?’’ Jan, 40, said of her children.

“They won’t become anything.’’

With their blue United Nations refugee cards, the Afghans do little more than just survive.

The Afghan refugees “need help and more attention,’’ said M. Ashraf Haidari, deputy chief of mission of the Afghan embassy in India.

Sayeed Habib Hadat, who has degrees in English and information technology, survives by working informally as a translator at pharmacies for Afghan patients.

“We just solved one of our problems, that is, our lives are saved. But here are a lot more problems,’’ said Hadat, 28, who fled Afghanistan last year. His family has applied for resettlement in Australia in hopes they can finally start building their future. Australia recently vowed to resettle all refugees who arrive in the country by boat on the island nation of Papua New Guinea. The move is seen as a way to deter an increasing number of asylum seekers. Afghanistan is among the largest sources of asylum seekers reaching Australia.

There were more than 18,000 Afghan refugees in India as of December

2011, according to the foreign ministry. It is unclear how many more unregistered Afghans are living here.

Last year the largest number of refugees worldwide—2.6 million in 82 countries—were from Afghanistan, according to a report released by the United Nations in June. Afghanistan has been the main source of refugees for over three decades with numbers fluctuating from 500,000 in 1979 to more than 6.3 million at the peak of the conflict in 1990.

Ninety-five per cent of Afghan refugees are in Pakistan and Iran, where many of them live in squalid camps.

Jan’s odyssey to India began last August when her husband, Mohammad Rahim, was kidnapped as he travelled in Afghanistan’s Helmand province selling goods, she said. The Taliban called her and demanded a $25,000 ransom. When Jan told them she couldn’t pay, they demanded she turn over her children.

Her husband told her to flee. “These people aren’t about to release me. Don’t come here with the children,’’ Jan recalled him saying before the call ended with sounds of him being beaten and crying out in pain.

Two days later, Jan was serving lunch to her children when the Taliban called to announce her husband was dead. She wailed his name, and then fainted, her 16-year-old son, Shazaib Rahimi said.

In the following days, Jan kept her children home from school. She got passports, visas, and plane tickets, sold her furniture and gold jewelry and flew to India with two small suitcases packed with clothes, infant formula and baby bottles.

The family settled into a two-bedroom flat in a by-lane of Bhogal, a New Delhi neighbourhood tightly packed with Afghan residents, who have turned it into a tiny version of their homeland.

Afghan men in knee-length white tunics buy flatbread from a corner stall run by

refugees. In another Afghan populated neighbourhood, streets are crowded with the “Kabul-Delhi Restaurant,’’ a travel agency for Kabul-based Kam Air and pharmacies with signs written in Afghanistan’s Dari dialect.

In 2012, India said it would issue long-term visas and work permits for all legal refugees in the country, coveted documents that would give them access to good jobs and education.

So far however only refugees from Myanmar and Somalia have received the documents, said Ipshita Sengupta, a U.N. refugee official. “The process is slow and it is not clear how long it will take for all refugees registered with UNHCR to obtain them.’’

Indian government officials contacted

by The Associated Press declined to comment on the status of Afghan refugees.

Without the documents, refugee children have no guarantee of admission to public schools. Without work permits, adults are confined to low-paying informal jobs at neighbourhood shops.

“I think that it would be a bit unrealistic to expect them to have upward mobility,’’ said Montserrat Vihe, the UNHCR chief of mission to India. “Making ends meet, finding a job, finding a house, school for the children, those are the challenges,’’ she said.

India and Afghanistan have historic ties. Bollywood movies are hugely popular in Afghanistan and Afghan President Hamid Karzai attended university in India. The two countries signed a strategic partnership agreement in 2011 that calls for the Indian military to train Afghan forces. India has invested more than $2 billion in Afghan infrastructure, including highways and hospitals.

It also is helping rebuild the Afghan police, judiciary and diplomatic services.

When Karzai visited in May, he asked for Indian help in strengthening his security forces ahead of the withdrawal next year of most international troops.

Jan’s family is the latest in a line of Afghan refugees streaming to India since the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan that lasted from 1979 to 1988.

They are cash-strapped and only can afford two meals a day.

“When we first came here, we didn’t know how to spend our money.

We went berserk,’’ said Rahimi, Jan’s son, “so we everyday ate eggs and everything, but now we have reduced it to naan and chai.’’

For the youngest children, aged two and three years, “my mother especially brings jam ... because the jam is sweet,’’ he said. “They like sweet.’’

The U.N. gives aid to some refugee families. Every three months, the family receives 17,350 rupees ($285), not even enough to cover their 12,000 rupee ($195) monthly rent.

Three of the children attend classes at a local Catholic education centre, which offers language and computer classes among others to help refugees assimilate.

Jan stays home to look after her children. The eldest son, Ali, 18, worked part-time at a travel agency before he quit because of long hours and low-pay.

The family passes its days watching a television Jan bought as a distraction.

They miss home and often think of their last holiday before Rahim’s death, at the Salang River in the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains. There they spent the afternoon swimming.

“It was summer, so the water was cold, but the weather was hot, so it was nice,’’ Rahimi said.

Jan said she won’t go back to Afghanistan until it is safe. Whenever that may be.

Rahimi remains hopeful. “The mountains outside Kabul, they were like someone has sketched them. They were so beautiful,’’ he said. “Someday I will go there and sketch it out myself.’’

Syrian refugees in Lebanon face suspicion amid fears they will never return home

By Barbara Surk, The Associated Press

BEIRUT—They’re lightweight, easy to assemble and have covers that are supposed to keep you cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The U.N. refugee agency wants to test these individual housing units with an eye toward using them as shelter for Syrians fleeing their country’s civil war.

But the plan is meeting stiff resistance from Lebanese officials, who fear that elevating living conditions for Syrian refugees ever so slightly will discourage them from returning home once the fighting ends. That frustrates aid organizations who are desperately trying to manage the massive refugee presence across the country.

Lebanon’s refusal to set up any kind of organized accommodation for tens of thousands of Syrians – including refugee camps or government-sanctioned tent sites – is a reflection of its own civil war

demons. It underlines the nation’s deep seated fear of a repeat of the 1975-1990 war, for which many Lebanese at least partly blame Palestinian refugees.

Many regard the Syrians with suspicion and are worried that the refugees, most of them Sunni Muslims, would stay in the country permanently, upsetting Lebanon’s delicate sectarian balance and re-igniting the country’s explosive mix of Christian and Muslim sects.

“It’s the fear of everything permanent, or semi-permanent, because of the Palestinian experience in Lebanon,” said Makram Maleeb, a program manager for a Syrian refugee crisis unit at Lebanon’s Ministry for Social Affairs.

“Any move toward a camp situation is quite worrisome because it suggests a permanent situation for the refugees,” he told The Associated Press.

Palestinians living in Arab countries – including the 450,000 in Lebanon – are descendants of the hundreds of thou-

sands who fled or were driven from their homes in the war that followed Israel’s creation in 1948. They remain in Lebanon’s 12 refugee camps because Israel and the Palestinians have never reached a deal that would enable them to return to their homes that are now in Israel.

On any given day in Lebanon, hundreds, sometimes thousands, of refugees arrive in cars loaded with children and belongings. Their presence has swelled the country’s population of 4.5 million by a fifth. It’s an astounding statistic for the tiny country and represents the highest number of refugees per capita of any country in the region.

Officials say an estimated 1.2 million Syrians are now in Lebanon – including some 620,000 registered refugees. Most arrived over the past eight months.

On a casual walk in Beirut, one finds Syrians sheltering in underground parking lots, under bridges and old construction sites with no running water,

sanitation, electricity or protection from Lebanon’s sizzling summers and its freezing winters.

About 10 per cent of the refugees are accommodated in unfinished private houses, and others live in garages, shops and collective shelters, according to the UNHCR. Most of them – over 80 per cent – rent accommodation that costs more than $200 a month on average.

The 17.5-square-meter (yard) refugee housing unit would offer a family of five a “more dignified life in exile,” said Kamel Deriche, UNHCR’s operations manager in Lebanon, and enables refugees to dismantle it, pack it and carry it home to reuse as a temporary accommodation until their family home is rebuilt.

Compared to a tent, which has to be replaced every three to four years, the unit’s life span is expected to be up to seven years. And the price of about $1,000 per unit makes it more economical, Deriche said.

Ottawa Star • August 1, 2013

World

This is what real mothers look like Kate applauded for not hiding post childbirth silhouette

By Beth J. Harpaz, The Associated Press

N

EW YORK—As Kate and William showed off the royal baby, what caught the eye of many women was not the new heir to the throne but the Duchess of Cambridge’s post-childbirth silhouette: that little bump under her pretty polka-dot dress.

“I love that she came out and there was a mommy tummy. It was there! We all saw it!’’ said Lyss Stern of New York City, who remembers turning down offers of a girdle and diet pills after her first child was born nine years ago.

Stern, whose company Divamoms. com organizes events and product launches, added that Kate was sending “the right message,’’ in stark contrast to Hollywood celebrities who are shown “three weeks after childbirth with a flat stomach and Gstring bikini. That’s not real.’’

Even those who make a living getting new moms into shape applauded Kate.

“I’m thrilled that she went out there like that, because we never see real mommy tummies,’’ said Helene Byrne, a personal trainer in Oakland, Calif., who specializes in pre- and post-natal exercise. “When you see a magazine or photos of new celebrity moms, they’re Photoshopped.

They’re fake! They’re a big lie!’’

The Daily Beast even ran a headline saying Kate’s “unabashed baby belly busts the last taboo of pregnancy.’’ Indeed, most celebrity new moms don’t have their pictures taken until their tummies are flat again. And while the stars usually credit diet and exercise with making their bodies

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge carrying their new-born son, the Prince of Cambridge into public view for the first time Photo: Xinhua/Yin Gang

bikini-ready so fast, gossip and plastic surgeons often cite something else: the popular procedure known as a tummy tuck.

People magazine has an entire online archive devoted to “Body After Baby: Celebrity moms show off shockingly svelt figures after giving birth,’’ but the magazine declined to comment Wednesday on the example set by Kate. Meanwhile, the summer’s other celebrity mom, Kim Kardashian, has yet to be seen in public. Us Weekly reported that she won’t leave the house untill she’s ready to “debut her post-baby body.’’

Nobody can say whether Kate consciously chose to send a message that this is what new mothers really look like, or whether she didn’t realize—or didn’t care —how obvious her tummy would be. Either way, she un-self-consciously handed the baby off to her husband rather than using the newborn to camouflage her figure from

the cameras and crowds when she emerged from the hospital Tuesday. And her formdraping dress was a contrast to the caftanlike outfit that hid Princess Diana’s figure when she appeared publicly for the first time after giving birth to Will in 1982.

Nancy Manister, who worked for 20 years as a maternity nurse and now teaches at Fairfield University in Connecticut, even noticed a moment during the photo op when Kate“claspedherhandstogetherunderneath the belly, and I thought, ‘She’s not trying to hide it.’’’ As for anxious new moms wondering when that bump will go away, Manister says, “it takes six weeks to lose 25 pounds, and a full year’’ to get your old body back.

Jennifer Moneta, who works in public relations in Dallas, gave birth nine weeks ago and was especially pleased that Kate made the post-partum silhouette “look very natural, as if that is what all moms

www.OttawaStar.com • PAGE 13 can and should expect after having a baby.’’ Moneta said that when she left the hospital, “I still looked five months pregnant, even though I only gained 20 pounds during pregnancy. My father even lovingly kidded me about it, saying ‘I didn’t realize the baby was still in there.’’’

Alison Jimenez, a fashion blogger in Astoria, N.Y., said she was “outraged’’ by comments from some Kate-watchers asking things like “Is she pregnant again?’’

“This woman has just given birth, what was she supposed to do? Struggle into a pair of Spanx?’’ Jimenez said.

But some new moms do swear by girdles or their modern equivalent. Josephine Giraci, of Lloyd Neck, N.Y., says the best piece of advice she got before her first child was born 11 years ago was to pack a girdle in her maternity bag.

She wore it for three months after giving birth: “I slept in it and everything.’’

One shapewear company, Hourglass Angel, wasted no time Wednesday emailing pitches showing a picture of Kate with the mommy tummy alongside ads for corsets and girdles as a way for women to “regain their body’’ and “feel even more beautiful.’’

Dr. Robert Atlas, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, explained that the “bulge that women have after they deliver’’ is mostly loose skin and fat. He said breast-feeding can help new mothers lose the weight “due to extra metabolic processing,’’ but he doesn’t recommend girdles as a way to lose baby weight— though women who have cesarean sections do wear a binder-like accessory around their midsections to support abdominal muscles.

As he spoke, he was with a patient, Melissa Baker, of Ellicott City, Md., who gave birth just a week ago. Asked what she thought of Kate, Baker said, simply, “I liked that she didn’t look perfect.’’

NSA spying prompt some citizens to rethink habits Continued from page 1

“We all think that nobody’s interested in us, we’re all simple folk,’’ said Doan Moran of Alexandria, La. “But you start looking at the numbers and the phone records ... it makes you really hesitate.’’

Last month former government contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents revealing that the National Security Agency, as part of its anti-terrorism efforts, had collected the phone records of millions of Americans. A second NSA program called PRISM forces major Internet firms to turn over the detailed contents of communications such as emails, video chats, pictures and more.

Moran’s husband, an ex-Army man, already was guarded about using social media. Now she is looking through her Facebook “friends’’ to consider whom to delete, because she can’t know what someone in her network might do in the future. Moran said she’s uneasy because she feels unclear about what the NSA is keeping and how deep the agency’s interests might go.

In Toronto, attorney Bushong let a free trial of Google’s business applications expire after learning about PRISM, under which the NSA seized data from Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and AOL. Bushong is moving to San Diego in August to launch a tax planning firm and said he wants to be able to promise confidentiality and respond sufficiently should clients question his firm’s data security. He switched to a Canadian Internet service provider for email and is considering installing his own document servers.

“I’d like to be able to say that I’ve

taken all reasonable steps to ensure that they’re not giving up any freedoms unnecessarily,’’ he said.

Across the Internet, computer users are talking about changes small and large—from strengthening passwords and considering encryption to ditching cellphones and using cash over credit cards. The conversations play out daily on Reddit, Twitter and other networks, and have spread to offline life with so-called “Cryptoparty’’ gatherings in cities including Dallas, Atlanta and Oakland, Calif.

Information technology professional Josh Scott hosts a monthly Cryptoparty in Dallas to show people how to operate online more privately.

“You have to decide how extreme you want to be,’’ Scott said.

Christopher Shoup, a college student from Victorville, Calif., has been encouraging friends to converse on Cryptocat, a private messaging program that promises users they can chat “without revealing messages to a third party.’’ Shoup isn’t worried that his own behaviour could draw scrutiny, but said the mere idea that the government could retrieve his personal communications “bothers me as an American.’’

“I don’t think I should have to worry,’’ he said. Cryptocat said it nearly doubled its number of users in two days after Snowden revealed himself as the source of leaks about the NSA’s programs. Two search engine companies billed as alternatives to Google, Bing and Yahoo are also reporting significant surges in use.

DuckDuckGo and Ixquick both promise they don’t collect data from us-

ers or filter results based on previous history. DuckDuckGo went from 1.8 million searches per day to more than 3 million per day the week after the NSA revelations came to light. Ixquick and sister site Startpage have gone from 2.8 million searches per day to more than 4 million.

Gabriel Weinberg, chief executive of DuckDuckGo, said the NSA programs reminded people to consider privacy but that government snooping may the least of an everyday computer user’s concerns.

DuckDuckGo’s website warns of the pitfalls of Internet search engines, including third-party advertisements built around a user’s searches or the potential for a hacker or rogue employee to gain access to personal information.

Potential harm is “becoming more tangible over time,’’ said Weinberg, who is posting fewer family photos, dropping a popular cloud service that stores files and checking his settings on devices at home to ensure they are as private as possible.

At Ixquick, more than 45,000 people have asked to be beta testers for a new email service featuring accounts that not even the company can get into without user codes, spokeswoman Katherine Albrecht said.

The company will levy a small charge for the accounts, betting that people are willing to pay for privacy. As computer users grow more savvy, they better understand that Internet companies build their businesses around data collection, Albrecht said.

“These companies are not search engines,’’ she said. “They are brilliant mar-

ket research companies. ... And you are the product.’’

Representatives for Google, Yahoo and PalTalk, companies named in a classified PowerPoint presentation leaked by Snowden, declined comment. Microsoft, Apple and AOL officials did not return messages. Previously, the companies issued statements emphasizing that they aren’t voluntarily handing over user data to the government. They also rejected newspaper reports indicating that PRISM had opened a door for the agency to tap directly into companies’ data centres whenever the government pleases.

“Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period,’’ Google CEO Larry Page said in a blog post.

It’s not clear whether big Internet companies have seen changes in how their products are used. An analysis released this month by comScore Inc. said Google sites accounted for two-thirds of Internet searches in June - about 427 million queries per day.

In Tokyo, American expat Peng Zhong responded to the spying news by swapping everything from his default search engine and web browser to his computer’s operating system. Zhong, an interface designer, then built a website to help others switch, too. Called prism-break.org, the site got more than 200,000 hits in less than a week after Zhong announced it on social networks.

Since then, Zhong said he’s seen numerous people talking online about their own experiences in changing their computing habits.

“It’s a start,’’ he said.

Business

PAGE 14 • www.OttawaStar.com

Ottawa Star • August 1, 2013

Businesses targeted by global hacking ring that stole credit, debit card numbers

By The Associated Press

T

he following is the list of businesses targeted from 2005 to 2012 by an international hacking ring that stole more than 160 million credit and debit card numbers, according to an indictment in Newark, N.J. The government did not provide figures in each case of the number of card numbers stolen, or of the estimated losses. It also said not all of the breaches of corporate computer networks resulted in financial losses.

7-Eleven Inc., based in Dallas. Starting in 2007, malware placed on its network, resulting in the theft of an undetermined number of credit and debit card numbers.

Carrefour S.A., French multinational retailer. Starting in 2007, computer networks breached, about 2 million credit card numbers were covertly removed.

Commidea Ltd., European provider of electronic payment processing for retailers. In 2008, malware used in other attacks found on its networks; about 30 million card numbers covertly removed.

Dexia Bank Belgium. In 2008 and 2009, malware placed on its network, with theft of card numbers resulting in about $1.7 million in losses.

Discover Financial Services Inc., issuer of Discover Card and owner of Diners Club charge card network. In 2011, malware placed on network of Diners Singapore, exposing more than 500,000 Diners credit cards and causing losses of about $312,000.

Dow Jones Inc., publisher of news, business and financial information. In or before 2009, malware placed on network, about 10,000 sets of log-in credentials stolen.

Euronet, based in Leawood, Kan., global provider of electronic payment processing. In 2010 and 2011, malware placed on its network, resulting in theft of about 2 million card numbers.

Global Payment Systems, based in Atlanta, one of world’s largest electronic transaction processing companies. In 2011-12, malware placed on its payment processing system; more than 950,000 card numbers stolen, losses of nearly $93 million.

Hannaford Brothers Co., supermarket chain operating in northeastern U.S. In 2007, malware placed on network of related company, resulting in theft of about 4.2 million card numbers.

Heartland Payment Systems Inc., based in Princeton, N.J., one of world’s largest credit and debit card payment processing companies. Starting in 2007, malware placed on its payment processing system, resulting in theft of more than 130 million card numbers, losses of about $200 million.

Ingenicard US Inc., based in Miami, provider of international electronic cash cards. In 2012, malware placed on its network resulted in theft of cards used to withdraw more than $9 million within 24 hours.

J.C. Penney Co., based in Plano, Texas. Starting in 2007, malware placed on its network.

JetBlue Airways, based in Long Island City, N.Y. Starting in 2008, malware placed on portions of computer network that stored employee data.

Leading Abu Dhabi bank, identified only as “Bank A.’’ In 2010-11, malware placed on computer networks, facilitating theft of card numbers.

Nasdaq, the largest U.S. electronic stock exchange, which offers its customers online access to their accounts. Starting in 2007, malicious software, or malware, was placed on its computer network, resulting in the theft of log-in credentials.

Prosecutors said its trading platform was not affected.

Visa Inc., manager of the Visa brand, providing payment processing services through a centralized network. In 2011, malware placed on network, about 800,000 card numbers stolen.

Wet Seal Inc., retailer based in Foothill Ranch, Calif. In 2008, malware placed on network.

US working class whites are gloomy about future amid rising income gaps, racial shifts

By Hope Yen, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON—Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.

Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.

As non-whites approach a numerical majority in the U.S., one question is how public programs to lift the disadvantaged should be best focused – on the affirmative action that historically has tried to eliminate the racial barriers seen as the major impediment to economic equality, or simply on improving socioeconomic status for all, regardless of race.

While racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to live in poverty, race disparities in the poverty rate have narrowed substantially since the 1970s, census data show. Economic insecurity among whites also is more pervasive than is shown in the government’s poverty

data, engulfing more than 76 per cent of white adults by the time they turn 60, according to a new economic gauge being published next year by the Oxford University Press.

Marriage rates are in decline across all races, and the number of white motherheaded households living in poverty has risen to the level of black ones.

Nationwide, the count of America’s poor remains stuck at a record number: 46.2 million, or 15 per cent of the population, due in part to lingering high unemployment following the recession. While poverty rates for blacks and Hispanics are nearly three times higher, by absolute numbers the predominant face of the poor is white.

More than 19 million whites fall below the poverty line of $23,021 for a family of four, accounting for more than 41 per cent of the nation’s destitute, nearly double the number of poor blacks.

Sometimes termed “the invisible poor” by demographers, lower-income whites generally are dispersed in suburbs as well as small rural towns, where more than 60 per cent of the poor are white.

Is It Time For A Second Opinion?

Concentrated in Appalachia in the East, they are numerous in the industrial Midwest and spread across America’s heartland, from Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma up through the Great Plains.

By race, non-whites still have a higher risk of being economically insecure, at 90 per cent. But compared with the official poverty rate, some of the biggest jumps under the newer measure are among whites, with more than 76 per cent enduring periods of joblessness, life on welfare or near-poverty.

Among the findings: -For the first time since 1975, the number of white single-mother households living in poverty with children surpassed or equaled black ones in the past decade, spurred by job losses and faster rates of out-of-wedlock births among whites. White single-mother families in poverty stood at nearly 1.5 million in 2011, comparable to the number for blacks. Hispanic single-mother families in poverty trailed at 1.2 million.

-Since 2000, the poverty rate among working-class whites has grown faster than among working-class nonwhites, rising 3 percentage points to 11 per cent as the recession

took a bigger toll among lower-wage workers.

Still, poverty among working-class nonwhites remains higher, at 23 per cent.

-The share of children living in highpoverty neighbourhoods – those with poverty rates of 30 per cent or more – has increased to 1 in 10, putting them at higher risk of teenage pregnancy or dropping out of school.

Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 17 per cent of the child population in such neighbourhoods, compared with 13 per cent in 2000, even though the overall proportion of white children in the U.S. has been declining.

The share of black children in highpoverty neighbourhoods dropped from 43 per cent to 37 per cent, while the share of Latino children went from 38 per cent to 39 per cent.

-Race disparities in health and education have narrowed generally since the 1960s. While residential segregation remains high, a typical black person now lives in a nonmajority black neighbourhood for the first time. Previous studies have shown that wealth is a greater predictor of standardized test scores than race; the test-score gap between rich and low-income students is now nearly double the gap between blacks and whites.

When the markets turn as volatile as they have been in recent years, even the most patient investors may come to question the wisdom of the investment plan that they’ve been following.

I would be pleased to provide you with a personal consultation and second opinion on your portfolio. Call me at 613 239-2881.

Patrick Brooks, Investment Advisor 50 O’Connor Street, Suite 800 Ottawa, ON K1P 6L2 patrick.brooks@cibc.ca

CIBC Wood Gundy is a division of CIBC World Markets Inc., a subsidiary of CIBC and a Member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund and Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada. If you are currently a CIBC Wood Gundy client, please contact your Investment Advisor.

Business

Ottawa Star • August 1, 2013

www.OttawaStar.com • PAGE 15

Business news in brief The Canadian Press

Bell says Verizon must compete head-to-head

Photo: Jared C. Benedict

In food retailing, Walmart is still calling the shots

By Sylvain Charlebois

G

UELPH, ON, Troy Media—Make no mistake: the deal makes sense for everyone, including Canadian consumers. Loblaw $12.4 billion purchase of Shoppers Drug Mart gives the leading Canadian grocer an edge over its biggest menace, Walmart.

Not only will Loblaw now be able to sell many products with higher margins like pharmaceutical products, a plethora of branding synergy opportunities will emerge as a result of this acquisition through private labels, loyalty programs, and much more. In terms of real estate, the addition of several downtown stores across small town Canada will give Loblaw a key edge in managing socio- demographic shifts as suburbia continues to expand the borders of our cities across the nation.

Some experts have gone so far as to claim that this deal will be transformational for Canadian food retailing. It is indeed significant since it is the biggest industry transaction Canada has ever seen, but transformational? Not quite.

The most transformational acquisition Canada has seen in food retailing remains Walmart’s purchase of Woolco back in 1994, full stop. Everything happening in food distribution today continues to be affected by it. Most Canadians didn’t realize it then, but Walmart’s entrance into the Canadian market would change everything: the way we shop, what we buy, and most importantly, how we buy and value food.

Ever since Walmart entered the Canadian market, it never shied away from its ambition of becoming Canada’s top food retailer, as it has in the United States. Many believe it is just a question of time. In fact, Walmart added close to $700 million to its food sales this year alone. Loblaw’s latest response suggests they are not eager to let go of the top position anytime soon, but that they view Walmart as a serious threat.

Walmart’s purchase of Woolco generated a few copycats, including Target’s recent purchase of Zellers. As Target’s first venture outside the U.S., with almost 200 stores set to open up by 2020, Canada is considered fertile ground for future growth.

Desperate to effectively penetrate the Canadian food market, Sobeys, Loblaw’s closest rival in food retailing, agreed to become Target’s most important food distributor for a limited time. The strategy seems to be paying off as Target predicts to top $300 million in food sales in 2013. Given the very stagnant market, these sales are coming from its competition. But in light of last month’s purchase of Safeway’s Canadian grocery stores for $5.8 billion, Sobeys might not prop up Target’s effort for long as it has other plans for future growth in a very condensed, mature marketplace.

Meanwhile, in Quebec, Metro saw in Safeway the deal that got away. Metro, which was part of the same buying group as Safeway, United Grocer, will likely see its purchasing power diminish for several products, reducing its bottom line significantly moving forward. With Loblaw’s purchase of Shoppers, many are speculating now that Metro will hunt down Jean Coutu, a very large Quebec-based pharmacy chain.

Jean Coutu himself stated that his company was not for sale, but that was before the Loblaw-Shoppers’ announcement. Equally affected by the acquisition, both Metro and Jean Coutu may be ready to talk.

Whether or not the Loblaw-Shoppers deal will work is difficult to tell at this point.

Loblaw has a poor track-record of streamlining processes quickly. The Shoppers purchase will likely add more pressure and could create opportunities for the competition. The market is evolving quickly, and while convenience and accessibility are imperatives in food retailing, the absolute key remains to be price. Walmart understood decades ago that logistics are critical to offer competitive prices to consumers.

That will be Loblaw’s main challenge.

Ever since that deal in 1994, food retailers have been looking at the Canadian market very differently. More consolidation is expected. Metro may consider Overwaitea Food as its consolation prize, but that is highly doubtful. Certainly, after the Quebec Government’s hostile reaction to Lowe’s attempt to purchase Rona last year, it is highly doubtful anyone would want to touch Metro.

Both Sobey’s and Loblaws have made their moves. Metro could be next.

But let’s not kid ourselves: Walmart is still calling the shots.

Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is Associate Dean at the College of Management and Economics at the University of Guelph in Ontario. Article courtesy: TroyMedia.com

MONTREAL—Canada’s wireless carriers would have to potentially cut jobs to compete with Verizon if the U.S. telecom giant enters the marketplace under “loopholes’’ that would give it preferred treatment, the head of Bell Canada said Thursday. Bell has joined major telecom companies Rogers and Telus in calling for Ottawa to change its policy on foreign ownership of small Canadian wireless companies.

Many say China has upper hand According to Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, in 22 of the 39 nations polled, the U.S. is seen as the top global economy, while China is viewed as having the upper hand in eight countries, including U.S. allies Canada, Britain, Germany and France. Surprisingly, Americans are about evenly divided over which country has the stronger economy, with 44 per cent saying China and 39 per cent the United States.

Defined benefits: planning your future TORONTO—More Canadians are entering into defined contribution pension plans as employers leave the responsibility of investing to their employees. While that might seem like a terrifying burden, a calculated strategy can help you deliver better returns .Financial advisers say a balance of courage and discipline is the best route to put the focus on long-term investing rather than short-term worries.

Feds charge hedge fund SAC Capital in NY case NEW YORK—One of Wall Street’s biggest and most successful hedge fund companies was a hotbed of insider trading and its embattled billionaire owner wanted to hear no evil, prosecutors said in an indictment unsealed Thursday that claimed the firm earned hundreds of millions of dollars illegally.The criminal indictment and civil lawsuits brought against SAC Capital Advisors and related companies did not name billionaire Steven A. Cohen as a defendant, referencing him only as the “SAC owner’’ who “enabled and promoted’’ insider trading practices.

Tribunal rejects Visa, MasterCard complaint OTTAWA—The Competition Tribunal has sided with Visa and MasterCard in a landmark ruling against the federal Competition Bureau, suggesting that Ottawa decide whether “premium’’ credit-card users should face surcharges at the cash register. The bureau had complained that the credit-card companies exert too much power in forcing merchants to accept credit cards that carry higher processing fees. Moves Business and General

Verizon continuing to eye Canadian market Verizon Wireless says it’s still eyeing the possibility of entering Canada’s wireless market. “We continue to explore and have discussions, but at this point it’s really just an exploratory exercise,’’ said Verizon’s chief financial officer Francis Shammo during a conference call Thursday.

Rogers CEO says three carriers is the norm Big U.S. carriers like Verizon shouldn’t be allowed to buy new Canadian wire-

less companies at discount prices while the big domestic carriers are barred from the same opportunity, the CEO of Rogers Communications said Wednesday. Rogers welcomes competition but wants a level playing field, chief executive officer Nadir Mohamed told analysts after the Torontobased wireless, cable and media company released its second-quarter financial results.

Ottawa threatened with court action over dam HAPPY VALLEY-GOOSE BAY, N.L. —A native community council has voted to take the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans to court over the damming of a Labrador river as part of the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project. The NunatuKavut (noon-ah-TWO’-ha-voot) Community Council says it approved a motion to file an application in Federal Court for a judicial review.

Vancouver is the most pricey city in Canada TORONTO—A new study says Vancouver is the most expensive city in Canada, but it doesn’t crack the top 10 as one of the costliest cities for expatriate employees to be transferred to because of their jobs.

Mercer’s 2013 Cost of Living Survey says Canadian cites, overall, moved down in the ranking this year due to a slight decrease in the Canadian dollar against the U.S. dollar.

CN expects sustained crude oil volumes Canadian National Railway Co. says it expects the volume of crude oil it transports to continue growing, even in light of a recent disaster in Lac-Megantic, Que., that has thrust rail safety into the spotlight.

The railway company (TSX:CNR) said revenue from transporting crude oil increased by 150 per cent during the second quarter from a year ago, driven mostly by new loading stations on its network.

Recent disasters hit Intact Financial results TORONTO—Canadians could be paying more for home insurance as the toll of severe weather on personal property continues to climb, one of the country’s largest insurance companies said Monday.

Intact Financial Corp. (TSX:IFC) said it expects to book about $257 million in expenses stemming from the flooding in Alberta and Toronto and the deadly LacMegantic train derailment in Quebec.

US home sales dip but remain near 3 1/2-year high WASHINGTON—U.S. sales of previously occupied homes slipped in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.08 million but remain near a 3 1/2-year high. The National Association of Realtors said Monday that sales fell 1.2 per cent last month from an annual rate of 5.14 million in May. The NAR revised down May’s sales, but they were still the highest since November 2009.

CP Rail and CN review safety procedures CALGARY—The disaster in Lac-Megantic, Que., has prompted Canada’s two largest railways to review their own safety procedures. Nearly two weeks ago, an unmanned train belonging to the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic railway carrying 72 cars of oil crashed into the town, setting off explosions that are believed to have killed up to 50 people.

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