Tuesday July 01, 2008
ACROSS CANADA 
Outrage brews as Ottawa set to honour Morgentaler
The divisive debate about abortion rights in Canada is poised to erupt once again as Henry Morgentaler, the country's best-known abortion-rights crusader, is expected to be named to the Order of Canada.
Anger over a bridge to 'heaven'
His handle in real estate is ''Mudge Maguire,'' and there was a time when the concept of a bridge across Mudge Island didn't strike him as an awful idea.
What's the score, eh?
We might not be able to say much about our own or American history, or pick out a Canadian author, but we can at least spot a Yankee painter from a kilometre away.
Charity ride turns tragic as two cyclists run down
It was a daring dream by an exceptional man. Daniel Hurtubise had spent two years organizing a bicycling trip across Canada with his two teen children that would raise money and increase awareness of Type 1 diabetes, the condition he lived with from age 15.
A Canada Day resolution: Don't let the politicians do your thinking for you
You know what the most depressing thing is about the carbon tax implemented today by the B.C. government? It's not the 2.34 cents a litre it adds to the price of gas at the pump. It's the sad, pathetic and often hypocritical political attacks the tax has been under at the expense of any clear-eyed, intelligent discussion about feasible alternatives.
A beacon of fairness
Physician and global health-care activist James Orbinski has somewhere planted inside him a microchip labelled ''Canadian.'' This is not some cloying platitude dressed up in silks and ribbons for the July 1 national day.
Officers absolved in pepper-spray case
An internal RCMP investigation has cleared officers involved in an ugly melee that sent a dozen natives, including women, several children and a six-month-old baby, to hospital after police unleashed a fusillade of pepper spray against celebrants riding in a soccer victory parade.
Water expert raises alarm about coal-bed mining in salmon rivers
When John Stockner talks about water, people listen.Dr. Stockner, now retired from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, is one of Canada's most eminent scientists in the field of limnology, the study of lakes and other fresh water.
We are the lucky country
In the hamlet of Honeywood, Ont., just across the valley from our place, history was made on Sunday. The Stanley Cup came to town.
'Experimental Eskimos' seek redress from Ottawa
It was the death of her nine-year-old son that finally forced Jeanne Mike to confront her years as an ''experimental Eskimo.''Her grief wouldn't subside after her son drowned nine years ago, and eventually she sought counselling.
Cleary thrills Newfoundlanders by bringing Stanley Cup home
Dan Cleary, greeted yesterday like a king returning to his homeland, fulfilled the hopes of a province that has waited nearly 60 years to have one of its own hoist hockey's greatest prize.
Company's collapse leaves pigeons' fate up in the air
In barns and coops scattered across Canada and the United States, hundreds of thousands of breeder pigeons continue their single-minded task - laying eggs.But their fate is tied into that of hundreds of unhappy investors, some of whom saw their life savings drain away into a failed Ontario-based pigeon-breeding operation, currently being investigated by the SPCA.
Four charged in B.C. teen's death at derelict house
One thing is certain: Justin Vasey was a lonely 14-year-old looking for friends.Yesterday, police tried to explain how he ended up dead under a tree in the backyard of an abandoned Surrey house that was reportedly a popular party hangout for teens.
Canadian Open stocks up on local talent
The RBC Canadian Open will have plenty of homegrown talent.Tournament organizers added another 10 Canadians to the field yesterday, bringing the total to 13.Six regulars on the Nationwide Tour are among the 10 who will join PGA Tour stars Mike Weir, Stephen Ames and Jon Mills at the national championship, to be played at Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ont., beginning July 24.
New Brunswick town abuzz as millions of bees set loose
Anyone with a bee allergy in St. Leonard, N.B., was encouraged to stay in and keep the windows shut yesterday after a truck carrying an estimated 20 million honey bees flipped onto a median of the Trans-Canada Highway.
Court clears path for cancer survivors to sue
An international maker of a hormone replacement drug has lost its bid to block a B.C. lawsuit, clearing the way for a possible class-action suit on behalf of breast cancer survivors.
Five charged in alleged attack after soccer game
Five teenage boys are facing aggravated-assault charges in connection with an alleged attack on the father of a soccer player after a game last month, Edmonton police said yesterday.
Free legal advice, fishing expeditions
Today, the scope for human-rights complaints in Ontario widens, as amendments to the Ontario Human Rights Code come into effect. Though the removal of a bottleneck is usually a good thing, in this case there is a danger of proliferating political correctness.
Boy bled to death, autopsy concludes
A 16-year-old babysitter has been charged with murder after the death of a nine-year-old boy on the Little Grand Rapids First Nation northeast of Winnipeg.Tristian Dunsford was found dead late Friday night in a crawlspace below a home in the southern section of the community.
FIVE THINGS: CANADA DAY
1 RUN/BIKEPretend you're an Olympian and join runners across Canada as they raise funds for Olympic athletes at the HBC Run For Canada, which includes a 10K Run, a 3K walk or a 1K kids run (hbcrunforcanada.ca). Or if you prefer the spectator side of sports, grab a spot on a Yaletown patio, order up a tall, cold one and watch cyclists race past at the Yaletown Grand Prix (pictured at right, yaletowngrandprix.com).
Alberta court dismisses appeal by Proprietary executives
Alberta's Court of Appeal has dismissed an attempt by former executives of Proprietary Industries Inc. to halt disciplinary proceedings against them in one of the province's most controversial and longest-running market regulation cases.
A portrait of the mythology as a young man
Wojciech Gryc, 21, from Thornhill, Ont., one of Canada's 2008 Rhodes scholars, is likely a one-man Canadian mythology in the making.A Polish-born immigrant who arrived in Canada with his family when he was five years old, he now walks in the footsteps of Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan and a pantheon of Canadians who have taken their skills, humanitarianism and commitment to human rights to the outside world.
The Wars takes three Jessie awards
The Wars, the stage adaptation of the Timothy Findley novel about a young Canadian soldier serving during the First World War, led the large-theatre category with three Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards in Vancouver last night. But the play, which had its world premiere in Calgary last year, was shut out of the major awards for acting, directing and outstanding production. The Theatre Calgary-Playhouse Theatre Company (Vancouver) co-production won Jessies for outstanding lighting design (Kevin Lamotte), set design (Allan Stichbury) and sound design or original composition (Scott Killian).
Yeoman's service
No jurisdiction over body, Alberta appeal court rules
The mother of a murdered Mountie who is fighting to keep her son's body in a grave close to his Alberta hometown suffered another legal setback yesterday in her bid to prevent his widow from moving the remains to the national RCMP cemetery in Regina.
Eight-year-old girl killed in Nanaimo house fire
A mother rescued three of her children from their burning home early yesterday but couldn't get to her last child, who died in the fire.RCMP in Nanaimo say Andrea Sam awoke to find her home in flames. She was able to get three of her children out of the home but heat and flames prevented her from reaching her eight-year-old daughter, Marsha, who was asleep in a separate room.
Brother of accused man pleased with guilty plea
A Maple Ridge, B.C., man says he believes his brother was not coerced into making a guilty plea to a charge of sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy in Thailand. Matthew Neil says he thinks his brother Christopher made the plea of his own free will, adding he's glad his brother is taking responsibility for his actions.
Fire in mobile home kills man and two girls
A man and two young girls - thought by police to be his daughters - are dead after a fire devoured their mobile home while it was parked in an Essex County trailer park near Windsor, Ont.
Ridge Meadows Mountie shot at during traffic stop
A Ridge Meadows Mountie was fired upon early yesterday in what was supposed to be a routine traffic stop. The officer was not hurt. The attack happened when he tried to pull over a white Chevy van. It sped away after the shooting, but was stopped after police used a spike belt.
Woman injured as train strikes car near Nanaimo
A woman escaped with minor injuries after her car was struck by a train at a level crossing near Nanaimo yesterday.Police say the 38-year-old woman was in her car waiting at an intersection near the tracks when she decided at the last second to cross and was struck broadside by a Southern Railway train.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
''He [my son] didn't enjoy a father in his life. It's only a word for him: father. It's not a fact in front of him.'' Sudanese-Canadian Abousfian Abdelrazik, accused of terrorist links to al-Qaeda, A10
CORRECTION
Philippe Garigue met his future wife, Amalia, when she was 20. Incorrect information appeared in an obituary in The Globe and Mail on June 24.
TORONTO
Inner-city residents buoyed as Toronto crime drops
The changes are subtle, but Debora McIntosh, a 56-year-old grandmother raising four boys in the inner-city public-housing labyrinth called Alexandra Park Cooperative, perceives a flicker of hope.
They'll set you up with a dinner in the sky
With all the gleaming accoutrements of a five-star restaurant except the floor, Dinner in the Sky, a Belgian high-altitude dining experience in which a table for 22 is suspended above the earth by a crane, will make its Canadian debut tomorrow.
Two die after falling from balconies
Two Ontario women are dead today after separate but remarkably similar incidents involving falls from apartment balconies as police arrived to respond to calls. It was not clear whether either had jumped or fallen by accident.
Officer's sentence for assault upheld on appeal
The Ontario Court of Appeal has upheld a jail sentence for a Toronto police officer who was caught on camera sucker-punching a Somali refugee.A 30-day sentence for Constable Roy Preston was ''if anything, on the lenient side,'' as the officer ''took part in a serious unprovoked assault on a civilian and then, to cover up his involvement, attempted to fabricate evidence that could have led to the conviction of an innocent man,'' the court said in a written judgment yesterday.
BRITISH COLUMBIA
Search cut back for man swept away by creek
Rescue teams have scaled back their search for a North Vancouver man who was swept away in Lynn Creek on Sunday afternoon, as the chances of his survival grow slim.
Police seek public's help in escort's disappearance
A 20-year-old Edmonton escort who vanished over the weekend may have become the victim of foul play, police said yesterday.Chantel Brittnay Robertson, who keeps in contact with her family, hasn't been heard from since being dropped off at a client's home at 2:30 a.m. Saturday. Two residences have been searched, several people have been questioned and one man is in custody, but police are now asking the public for tips.
COLUMNISTS
Muddling through: a curious approach to nationhood
Canada on its 141st birthday remains a solid, improbable, curious country.It is old by the standards of federalism, a tricky form of government to sustain, witness to which are the many carcasses of failed federations. Canada came together around the time of German and Italian unification and, with great respect to the Germans and Italians, has been rather less disruptive of world order than those countries have been.
Would-be spoilers emerge from the left and the right
You've heard of Ralph Nader. Now get ready for Bob Barr.Mr. Nader and Mr. Barr are running for president from opposite ends of the political spectrum. In 2000, Mr. Nader helped make George W. Bush president by taking 2.73 per cent of the popular vote, mostly at the expense of Democratic nominee Al Gore.
