The Ontario Provincial Police are mourning the loss of one of their own after the calm in the rural community of Leadbury was shattered by a shootout that killed Constable Vu Pham, a 15-year veteran of the force and father of three.
"I am deeply saddened by the loss of this young brave officer who was committed to protecting the citizens of Ontario," OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino said Monday afternoon after learning Pham succumbed to his injuries at the London Health Sciences Centre, where he was being treated.
The province itself is reeling from the second death of a policeman in the line of duty in a week.
"It impacts society overall when those who are entrusted with the duty to protect and safeguard are killed in the line of duty," Fantino said. "It diminishes our society gravely."
"But on the other hand, it also highlights the significance of these very fine men and women who put themselves at grave risk and (in) harm's way - very often for strangers - to simply do their duty and their jobs, and Constable Pham is just one of these heroes."
Fantino noted that Tuesday he and other police officers were gathering to honour a Peel police officer killed while on duty last week.
Constable Artem "James" Ochakovsky died from injuries sustained in a vehicle collision March 1. He is to be buried today.
"There's trauma and the sense of loss is felt in every police detachment throughout this province," he said. "This is a tragedy. We're just trying to hold it together and do what we have to do to see this difficult time through."
Pham, 37, was shot after he pulled over a vehicle and confronted an armed suspect at 10:18 a.m. Monday on North Line, a rural road in Leadbury, Ontario, about 90 kilometres north of London. The officer was "immediately incapacitated," Fantino told reporters at a media conference earlier in the day.
He would not reveal the nature of the call that Pham was responding to, nor the reason he pulled the suspect's vehicle over.
"There was nothing fancy about it. He was just doing his job," said Fantino, who flew to London to be at Pham's bedside.
Reports suggested Pham was shot in the head or neck, and that there was an exchange of up to 25 shots. He was airlifted by helicopter to London Health Sciences Centre, but doctors were unable to save the officer's life. No other officers were injured.
Fantino said the suspect in the shooting is a 70-year-old man who was later shot by police. The suspect remains in a London hospital but the extent of his injuries are unknown.
Earlier Monday one of the shooting victims was treated at a Seaforth hospital.
"We had one patient brought in who was stabilized and transferred to London," said Mary Cardinal, site administrator at Seaforth hospital.
Cardinal could not say whether it was the police officer or the suspect, but said the nature of the injury was a "gunshot wound" without specifying how many times the person was shot.
Pham was born in Saigon, Vietnam, and joined the OPP in 1995. During his career he served in Cochrane and in Parry Sound and was attached to the Huron County detachment when he died. He is survived by his wife, Heather, and three children, Tyler, 12, Jordan, 10, and Joshua, 7.
In the legislature Monday, Premier Dalton McGuinty offered his condolences to Pham's family and to the police.
"I think it's an opportunity for all of us just to reflect on how much we count on these men and women every single day to go out there and put it on the line," he said. "They spend so much time away from their families devoted to our families. And so we're very grateful for everything they do and the sacrifices they make."
There have now been 104 OPP officers killed in the line of duty; Pham becomes the 24th member of the force to die after being shot, according to statistics provided by Fantino.
Special Investigations Unit spokeswoman Monica Hudon said her agency has sent nine investigators to the scene. The SIU is an arm's-length agency that investigates incidents involving police who end in death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault.
The Huron County detachment will also conduct a parallel investigation into the incident. Police set up a massive perimeter, blocking off several kilometres of farmland, while OPP and SIU officers milled outside at the crime scene on North Line.
Neighbour Francis Hunt, who lives further down the road, recalled hearing the mid-morning gunfire.
"I was just coming out of the barn. I heard six or eight shots," Hunt said. "I thought it was hunters, maybe coyote hunting."
But then he saw a quick succession of police cars and ambulances tearing down the road, and discovered something far darker had happened.
"Everybody's in shock. For this community..." he trailed off, shaking his head.
His sentiments were echoed by Elgin and Ruth Schade, who say they were stunned to learn of the shooting in their usually quiet, pastoral community.
"People are shaken up," said Schade, who was following the story on television, despite living minutes away from the heavily barricaded crime scene.
Houses in the tiny community north of London are scattered, with wide swaths of open farmland separating friends and neighbours.
Bonnie Glanville lives just metres from where the shooting took place. She told the Seaforth Huron Expositor that she looked out her window Monday morning and saw a light-coloured pickup truck being pulled over by an OPP cruiser. She said she thought she was witnessing someone getting a speeding ticket.
"I realized something wasn't quite right when he quickly jumped out of the truck," Glanville said, before describing hearing the sound of shots and watching the officer get shot.
Residents were struggling to pinpoint which of their neighbours may have been involved in the altercation, as police were withholding the name of the suspect.
"It's disappointing, and the thing is nobody is immune to disasters like this," said Neil Dolmage, a farmer who also heard the gunshots and lives about one kilometre from the site of the incident. "The officer who's died, I feel badly for him - just (being at) the wrong damn place - and feel bad for the family of whoever did the shooting."
Dolmage said he could still see police lights flashing late Monday evening.
The head of Canada's prison system says that there will be "major construction initiatives" in the coming years to cope with federal legislation to imprison more offenders longer, which is an assertion backed by new spending estimates that are showing a 43% increase in penitentiary capital costs next year.
Don Head, commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada, set the stage for prison expansion in a recent email, obtained by Canwest News Service.
In a brief note to staff sent on Dec. 23, Head announced changes to the senior ranks of the prison system "to best prepare itself to implement many of the changes associated with several of the pieces of legislation that will result in a growth of our inmate population."
The government has previously said it is only contemplating expanding existing facilities or building more prisons to handle an anticipated influx of federal offenders.
"Any conversation before has been general musing," said Liberal public safety critic Mark Holland. "What this says to me is that they know what they are doing, they know what they are building -- they are just refusing to let it go public."
Critics have questioned the need for a prison-building boom in times of fiscal restraint and declining crime rates, particularly when they say there is no evidence that longer sentences work in cutting crime.
"This is basically pouring money down a rat hole," said Craig Jones, executive director of the John Howard Society.
He predicted the prison service is on the verge of becoming "the largest building contractor in Canada."
Government spending estimates, released last week, show the prison system's tab for capital expenditures for the coming fiscal year will increase 43%, to $329.4 million in 2010-2011, from $230.8 million in 2009-2010.
Head's email does not specify whether the federal construction initiatives mean building more prisons or expanding existing ones.
But Christine Cversko, a spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, said there are no plans to build new prisons, and that the money will be spent on "updating and improving" existing facilities.
"Our government is making decisions based on what we need to do in order to make our communities safe," she said in an email. "Releasing criminals onto our streets early has a much higher cost than keeping criminals behind bars."
The government, in a written response last fall to a question posed by Holland, reported that the system "will be able to accommodate anticipated prison population within the existing infrastructure" in the short term, with the possible addition of portable facilities.
The government acknowledged, however, that the Correctional Service would "have to look to construct additional permanent accommodations" in the long term, including new units or institutions.
A 2007 report on prison reform, written by a government-appointed panel, called for the creation of new regional correctional facilities.
The Conservative government has refused to divulge a total tab for its initiatives to imprison more offenders, citing cabinet confidences.
Kevin Page, the independent parliamentary budget officer who keeps an eye on federal spending, is calculating the cost at the urging of the opposition Liberals. A report is expected this spring.
The government has proposed or passed several pieces of legislation that would impose mandatory minimum jail terms for a variety of crimes. One bill, which became law last month, would end a judicial practice of giving offenders a "two-for-one" credit on their sentences to compensate for time spent in pre-trial custody.
The government also has committed to introducing legislation to end "statutory release" after prisoners serve two-thirds of their sentences, in favour of earned parole tied to following a corrections plan.
Justin Piche, a doctoral candidate at Carleton University in Ottawa, has conducted research showing the provinces are also on a building spree, with plans to inject more than $2.8 billion into expanding or renovating existing facilities, or building new ones.
A weekend admission by former Alaskan governor and U.S. vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin over her family's use of the Canadian healthcare system while growing up in Alaska has critics of the outspoken hockey mom crying foul online.
"My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse," Palin said during a speech in Calgary on Saturday. "Believe it or not -- this was in the '60s -- we used to hustle on over the border for healthcare that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn't that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border getting healthcare from Canada."
It was little surprise that Sarah Palin's first visit to Canada would be in Calgary. And there was little shock that she was able to curry favour with the local Albertan crowd by speaking at length and with much authority about the Alaska government's process of securing TransCanada for the Alaska Pipeline Project.
But given Palin's previous warnings about the ills of expanding government role in U.S. healthcare, American media and the general blogosphere were buzzing over the claim.
On the Daily Kos website, one post -- entitled Sarah "The Death Panel Queen" Palin Went to Canada for Healthcare -- called the former Alaskan governor "opportunistic" and "hypocritical."
"It's good enough for her, but not for the rest of the American people who don't have easy access to Canada and a system that isn't based on wage discrimination?" the post made on the left-leaning political blog stated.
And Gawker.com also pointed out Palin's comment, writing that her family put her brother on a train "and sent him to Canada for the socialism."
Palin has previously claimed Canada should dismantle its public healthcare system and called the push by U.S. President Barack Obama to nationalize the American system "irresponsible," suggesting the move would allow "death panels" to choose whether Americans would live or die.
The Yukon reference was the only time healthcare was mentioned in Palin's speech or in her subsequent interview with Conservative Senator Pamela Wallin, who is still best known as a veteran TV journalist.
Wallin instead pressed Palin on why she wanted to be a political leader if she was warning members of the Tea Party Patriots -- a disparate group of anti-tax, libertarian activists -- not to take someone on as their leader because "a politician will disappoint."
Palin also spoke about how, as governor, she significantly hiked state taxes for oil companies, or, in her words, "readjusted the value" of extracting a resource that belong to Alaskans.
Several conservative Alberta politicians were in attendance at the Calgary event, including former premier Ralph Klein, federal cabinet minister Stockwell Day, Calgary MPs Rob Anders and Lee Richardson, and Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith -- who has drawn many comparisons to the former U.S. vice-presidential hopeful.
With a sense of humour and a populist vision, Sarah Palin on Saturday evening brought her message of lower taxes, free markets and energy development to the heart of Canada's oil and gas industry. It was a receptive crowd in Calgary that listened to the 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate in her first public appearance outside the United States since she stepped down as governor of Alaska.
She drew on some Canadian connections in her family history, and recalled how when she was young, those who were ill went to Whitehorse for medical treatment. She lauded the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, noting the Canadian men's hockey gold medal win over the Americans, and the connection of her own family to the game.
But what she really struck on before an audience of more than 1,000 was a message of energy development, competition, smaller government and doubts that climate science is a settled thing.
"We've got to become more energy independent," she said.
Her concern, she said, is waiting for unfriendly regimes to develop their resources. Relying on those puts the United States in a less safe and less prosperous position, she said.
She also brought up the East Anglia climate change e-mail scandal, saying it made "settled science feel a little unsettled." And cap-and-trade proposals to reduce emissions would lead to job losses and a heavier tax burden, she said.
Lauding Canada's approach to the environment, she said that Canada has sought to balance environmental progress with economic concerns.
As she has been before, she was critical of some of the coverage she received when running with John McCain, and said her patience wore thin with the "mainstream media." She noted a reporter told her she had a Canadian accent. "So?" Palin said she responded.
"That interview didn't go very well," Palin told Saturday's crowd. "Not many of them did."
Her low-tax, small-government assertions went down well with a Calgary audience that appeared sympathetic to her vision. The massive debt the United States has incurred is "immoral," she said, as the bill will be left for today's children to eventually pick up.
In the audience were both Calgary business leaders and politicians.
One of those was Conservative MP Lee Richardson. "I thought it was impressive," he said.
Another in the audience was Gary Holden, president and CEO of ENMAX, an energy company. He said Palin is someone of high principal whose conservative views went down well there.
But he also noted the part of her speech in which she spoke of the Alaska pipeline. That pipeline, Holden said, can be viewed as competition to Alberta.
"That's an important thing for the United States to recognize, is that we see ourselves as within on our border being a supplier of oil and gas to the United States," he said. "We aren't necessarily going to benefit if the Alaska pipeline goes ahead."
Premier Brad Wall firmed up the Government of Saskatchewan's plan to rein in spending in the upcoming provincial budget, saying at his party's annual convention Saturday that it is a necessity to continue economic growth in Saskatchewan.
The government, coming off a year when its potash projections in the 2009-10 budget have ended up being off by more than $2 billion, has previously said it is aiming for zero growth in spending in the March 24 budget.
But speaking to delegates at the Saskatchewan Party annual convention at the Delta Regina, Wall made the spending freeze a firm commitment.
"Everywhere else in Canada the spring budget talk is about structural deficits, about debt increases to cover annual operating expenses, it's been about 5, 6% expenditures in growth in budget after budget".
"In the province of Saskatchewan on the 24th of March the talk will be about Saskatchewan doing something different. The talk will be about the government holding to its goal of a zero per cent increase in expenditures," said Wall, who drew strong applause when he spoke of the need to reduce the size of government.
The government proposes to hold spending to the same level as last year's budget, which means in fact it would still have room for a small spending increase. In-year spending cuts in response to the potash situation means that the current estimated $10.11 billion expenditure level is $133 million below the 2009-2010 budget level.
Wall has previously said that the government's overall spending freeze would include a 3% increase to the health budget. He told reporters Saturday the government was "on-track" for both targets.
The premier also said it was likely the government would again have to dip into its reserves to balance the budget. That fund is currently projected at $705 million, with the government's long-term goal to keep it at about $500 million, said Wall.
Government expenditures went up by about $2 billion in the first two Saskatchewan Party budgets. Wall's keynote speech was a vigorous defence of his government's record, citing job and population growth at a time of worldwide economic crisis.
He also aggressively pointed out that NDP Leader Dwain Lingenfelter is a figure from the past.
Delegates had only five policy resolutions and the most contentious -- a call to eliminate the province's school boards -- unsurprisingly went down to defeat. A resolution to enshrine property rights in Saskatchewan human rights legislation passed easily, however, with Justice Minister Don Morgan saying the government would look at the ramifications of such a move.
Nearly one-third of Quebec residents say that the province should have its own Olympic team separate from Canada's, according to a survey conducted in the days following the Vancouver Games. Now that's just bizarre...
But that's good news for Canadian unity, says Jack Jedwab of the Montreal-based Association for Canadian Studies, which commissioned the poll probing Canadians' feelings in the wake of the host country's record-setting success at the 2010 Winter Olympics - highlighted by dazzling individual performances from several Quebec athletes.
Jedwab says the poll results suggest that only Quebec's unwaveringly "committed sovereigntists" - and almost no one else in the province - feel strongly that Quebec athletes should be competing under the blue-and-white Fleur-de-lis rather than the maple leaf.
"I think that's a good outcome," he says, adding that, beyond the hardcore backers of Quebec independence, "There doesn't seem to be a lot of support for the idea" of a Team Quebec competing at the Olympics.
The national survey of 1,500 Canadians was conducted last week by the firm Leger Marketing, following Team Canada's climactic gold-medal victory in Sunday's Olympic hockey final and the Games' closing ceremonies.
The results, which included responses from about 400 Quebec residents, are considered accurate to within 3.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. While 29% of Quebec residents expressed support for a separate Olympic team, the idea was rejected by 65% of the Quebec's population.
Predictably, the Team Quebec concept received negligible support in other parts of the country, ranging from 6% of respondents in Atlantic Canada to about 1% in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
In general, the survey found that Canada's huge haul of medals - more than half of them gold - overwhelmingly stoked respondents' pride in Canada.
Meanwhile, 86% of the Canada's overall population - including 79% of those polled in Quebec - said the sight of Canadian athletes on the Olympic medal podium left them feeling "a stronger sense of pride in Canada."
Among the most memorable achievements was Canada's first home-soil gold medal, won by moguls competitor Alexandre Bilodeau of Rosemere, Quebec.
Perhaps the Games' most inspiring performance was the bronze medal won by figure skater Joannie Rochette of Ile Dupas, Quebec, who suffered the sudden loss of her mother days before the event. And Charles Hamelin of Ste-Julie, Quebec, was Canada's top podium finisher with two gold medals in short-track speed-skating.
Jedwab says such triumphs by Quebec athletes don't generally help the cause of Quebec separatists, who early in the Games criticized the lack of French-language content in the opening ceremonies.
But Jedwab says those critics from Quebec "became very quiet during the last few weeks" of Vancouver 2010 as a series of medal-winning athletes from the province were literally or figuratively wrapped in the Canadian flag, and watched by millions as they stepped to the podium amid the strains of O Canada!
Those athletes "became poster people for Canada," says Jedwab. "It's an ideal vision of the best of the country, and it's very unifying."
Ronald Smith, the only Canadian on death row in the United States, is one step closer to Montana's execution chamber after an appeal court ruling that upheld his death sentence for the brutal murders of two American Indian men in 1982.
But Smith's 25-year fight to avoid a lethal injection for his crime, which has revived the Canadian debate over capital punishment, could ultimately gain a boost from parts of the ruling made Friday, which highlighted his rehabilitation in prison, the "pitiful" failings of his initial defence lawyer and the power of Montana's governor to grant clemency in the case.
In fact, the Seattle Ninth Circuit judges, who upheld Smith's sentence in a 2-1 ruling, nevertheless appeared to send a message directly to Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, who has the authority to commute the 52-year-old Canadian's death penalty despite the failed appeal.
"By all accounts, Smith has reformed his life," majority judges Sidney Thomas and Margaret McKeown stated in their decision.
"He has developed strong relationships with various members of his family and has taken advantage of the educational opportunities offered by the prison that houses him. He has expressed deep regret for his deplorable actions."
However, the judges noted that "the consideration of these issues are beyond our jurisdiction in this case. Clemency claims are committed to the wisdom of the executive branch."
Mark Warren, a Canadian human-rights specialist who has testified on Smith's behalf, said on Sunday that the "extraordinary" phrasing of the judges' ruling is a silver lining in the rejected appeal.
"In 20 years of reviewing death-penalty decisions, I've never seen more surprising language than the final paragraph in the Smith opinion," he said. "The court signalled as clearly as it could that Ron Smith should be granted clemency by the governor of Montana."
Smith, who is from Red Deer, Alberta, initially asked to be executed after confessing to the murders of Harvey Mad Man and Thomas Running Rabbit during a drugs-and-alcohol-fuelled hitchhiking trip to the United States with two Canadian friends.
Smith later claimed that depression, fear and bad legal advice had prompted his prison death wish, and he began trying to avoid execution with help from Canadian government officials.
The clemency issue shot into the Canadian political spotlight in October 2007 when it was revealed that the Conservative government was abruptly ending years of efforts by Canada's diplomats to convince Montana's top politician to commute Smith's death sentence.
Canadian government officials at the time said they were "not going to seek clemency in cases in democratic countries, like the United States, where there has been a fair trial."
But the new hands-off policy, defended at the time by Prime Minister Stephen Harper as consistent with his government's tough-on-crime policies, was ruled "unlawful" last year by the Federal Court of Canada, which ordered federal officials to restart their lobbying effort to prevent Smith's execution.
The Government of Canada later agreed to re-launch the clemency bid, but Smith's lawyers indicated last year that a renewed push to convince Schweitzer to commute the death sentence would likely only begin in earnest after the Ninth Circuit appeal was decided.
Now, because of the court's split decision and the life-and-death issues involved in the Smith case, his legal team is expected to seek an "en banc" review of Friday's ruling by a wider panel of Ninth Circuit judges.
A further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is also an option, but history suggests Smith stands little chance of winning there.
For now, only Schweitzer's intervention could halt the momentum toward Smith's execution.
The publisher of a Texas newspaper that ran a column equating Canada's patriotic Olympic fervour with Nazi-era Germany has apologized.
Gary Wortel of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram said Friday that although he believes in "great flexibility" in terms of what opinion writers can say, sports columnist Gil LeBreton went too far by equating Canadians' flag-waving festivities with Germany having "swastikas everywhere" during the 1936 Olympics.
In a letter posted online, Wortel called LeBreton's comparison of the 2010 Vancouver Games to the Berlin Games "insensitive."
"As publisher of the Star-Telegram, I apologize to readers and all Canadians who were offended by sports columnist Gil LeBreton's insensitive comparison of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games to those that occurred in Berlin in 1936," he wrote.
"We reacted quickly to the column with an online apology from LeBreton late Monday and an in-paper version the next day."
"Some have accepted the apology; others have not. I want to personally say that I'm sorry the column appeared in my newspaper, and I know LeBreton sincerely regrets his comments."
"I, like many Americans, have strong ties to Canada," he wrote.
"I was born in Canada and my Dutch parents were liberated by Canadian soldiers after WWII. Canada should be very proud of what its athletes accomplished in Vancouver and for the gracious, enthusiastic way it hosted the 2010 Winter Games."
The article, as it appeared online, is below:
By Gil LeBreton
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- After a spirited torch relay ignited pride in every corner of the country, the Olympic Games began and quickly galvanized the nation.
Flags were everywhere. The country's national symbol hung from windows and was worn on nearly everyone's clothing.
Fervent crowds cheered every victory by the host nation.
But enough about the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
At the opening of these Olympic Winter Games more than two weeks ago, Vancouver organizers expressed the hope that they could show the world a truly "Canadian Games."
That they succeeded in that, there is little doubt.
For 17 days we were barraged with Canadian flags, rode buses and trains with people in sweatshirts and jerseys adorned with Canadian maple leafs, and were serenaded at venues by Canadian spectators, lustily cheering for Canadian athletes.
The first Olympics I ever attended were also in Canada, the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal. For a kid not long out of college, it was a profound experience, seeing Lasse Viren, Alberto Juantorena, Nadia Comaneci -- the athletes of the world -- on the sporting world's grandest stage.
One of the speakers at that Olympics used a phrase that lingers with me still: the family of man.
There is no earthly event that reinforces that notion as well as an Olympic Games. For all of the latter-day Games' inherent commercialism, that ideal persists. I truly believe that.
It persists, despite the overwhelming chauvinism of the past two weeks.
They showed us Canadian Games, all right. And in most cases, nothing but Canadian Games.
I'm not talking about TV coverage. I have no idea what Bob Costas and NBC were televising back in the States.
But from the opening ceremony to Sunday's closing, from the tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili to Sunday's gold-medal hockey game, on the streets of Vancouver and at the Olympic venues, only a token nod was given to the rest of the world's athletes.
I was as surprised as I was disappointed.
Had the classic Canadian inferiority complex finally decided to bite back? Or was this a dark consequence of the Own the Podium program?
At the Games' outset, Canada's obsession with finally winning its first gold medal as a host nation was understandable -- quaint, almost.
But that story swiftly swept the luge tragedy off the front pages. There were no follow-up stories about investigations, memorials or retributions to the family.
Kumaritashvili himself was blamed for the fatal accident. The luge competition went on. Some Canadian lugers even callously complained about the shortening of the track.
And so the tone for these Games was set.
It was Canada's party, and no dead luger, no critical British tabloid and no visiting Americans were going to spoil it.
That attitude is regrettable, because a good, if not especially memorable, Olympics followed.
U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn won her cherished gold medal in the women's downhill, validating all the product endorsements and cover shoots she will have between now and 2014.
Evan Lysacek struck a blow for U.S. men's figure skating, giving legendary coach Frank Carroll an Olympic champion for the first time.
Texas-based Olympians fared well, winning five medals, which is as many as Finland, Japan and Italy.
Speedskater Chad Hedrick of Spring earned silver and bronze medals, Denton's Jordan Malone won a relay bronze in short track, and the Dallas Stars' Brenden Morrow (gold) and Jere Lehtinen (bronze) are going home with hockey medals.
But a lot happened that didn't make the front pages of the Vancouver newspapers or find its way into the Canadian TV network's opening montage.
Norway's Marit Bjoergen won three gold medals, a silver and a bronze in cross-country skiing to become the ninth athlete to win five medals at a single Winter Olympics.
Skier Maria Riesch finished in the top 10 in all five Alpine events. Her native country, Germany, won at least one medal on every day of this Winter Olympics.
American short track speedskater Apolo Ohno won three medals, giving him eight and making him the most decorated U.S. Winter Olympian of all time. But that's nothing -- Norway's Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, at age 36, won two biathlon medals and now has 11.
Canada's rush to the victory stand over the Games' final week resulted in a Winter Olympics record for a single nation, 14 total. The U.S. hockey team can take solace that its silver-medal finish Sunday was the Americans' 37th medal, also a record for one nation.
But for the most part, the most underappreciated soul at these Olympics was an American or a European on the medals stand.
Yes, every host nation cheers lustily for its native Olympians. But never in my experience to the extent that we saw here, where the rest of the world's athletes were little more than drink coasters at the party.
South Korean Kim Yu-Na's dazzling gold-medal performance in women's figure skating, for example, was overwhelmed here by the attention given to Quebec's Joannie Rochette, whose mother tragically died.
Chief organizer of the Games, John Furlong, mentioned Kumaritashvili briefly in his Closing Ceremony remarks. But the hosts' insensitivity had long ago been duly noted.
At a news conference Saturday, for example, someone asked Ken Melamed, mayor of Whistler, where the luge run was located, if the village planned some sort of memorial to the luger from Georgia.
Why, yes, the mayor said, "We have to find a way to acknowledge Nodar . . . and the Canadian athletes that have done well."
See? They don't get it.
The Vancouver Games' ticketing policy didn't help the partisan scene at the venues. To order Olympic tickets through the Vancouver 2010 Web site, a buyer had to have a Canadian address.
China sold 6.8 million tickets to its 2008 Summer Olympics. Vancouver only made 1.6 million available. The Canadians wanted to "Own the Podium," but organizers made sure that they owned the grandstands at each venue as well.
I'm still mystified that Canada fans were able to grab what seemed to be 98 per cent of the tickets at the hockey venue. Olympic crowds have always been more inclusive.
In his closing news conference Sunday, IOC president Jacques Rogge acknowledged that there were "teething pains" as the Vancouver Games began.
"There was an extraordinary embrace by the city of Vancouver," he said. "Something I've never seen before."
There was embracing, all right, but then Canadians have always had the reputation for drinking a lot of beer. The loose marijuana laws only added to the nightly revelry in the downtown streets -- which, frankly, seemed to have little to do with the Olympics.
Canada wanted to hold a party, and the Canadians did. The gold medals only seemed to fuel them.
Team Canada hockey jerseys became the uniform of the streets. Maple leafs were either hanging or on clothing everywhere.
One thing I never saw: a simple flag or shirt with the five Olympic rings. Not anywhere. After 15 Olympics, that was a first.
I didn't attend the '36 Olympics, but I've seen the pictures. Swastikas everywhere.
No political reference is meant, just an Olympic one. What on earth were the Canadians thinking?
An Olympic host is supposed to welcome the world. This one was too busy being (their word) "patriotic."
"Now you know us, eh?" chief organizer Furlong said.
We thought we did two weeks ago. Now, I'm wondering if Canadians can even recognize themselves.
One day after Avatar was disappointed at the Oscars, a Vancouver restaurant owner plans to file a lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court today claiming copyright infringement against director James Cameron and other makers of the highest-grossing film of all time.
Emil Malak, 57, says the similarities between his Terra Incognita and James Cameron's Avatar are too striking to simply be a coincidence.
Malak's lawyer Suzan El-Khatib said the claim to be filed today will name, among others, Avatar writer and director James Cameron, his company Lightstorm Entertainment Inc., and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.
El-Khatib said there are both general and specific similarities in the two stories including the premise of humans going to mine precious minerals on a planet inhabited by indigenous people.
In both stories, she said, a tree is a focal point and contains the collective memories of the indigenous people. In Terra Incognita, it is a Life Tree. Cameron calls it the "Hometree."
Even the characters are similar, she said, with both incorporating spotted faces, long braided hair, flat noses and yellow eyes.
"They are quite alike," El-Khatib said yesterday.
She said the suit will make a claim against the defendants for "damages for copyright infringement for substantially reproducing, adapting and publicly presenting, or in the alternative authorizing such acts, the plaintiffs work as a literary work and a cinematographic work entitled Avatar."
Malak, who owns the Bellaggio Cafe at Hornby Street and Robson Street in Vancouver, began thinking about his sci-fi tale in 1996 at the suggestion of his then seven- and eight-year-old sons who wanted him to write something more exciting than the opera and historical fiction he'd been working on.
It was a turning point in Malak's life. In 1996 he had lost his Granville Island Hotel in a $5 million bankruptcy.
"I took a three-year sabbatical. I lived on about $2-300 a month. I stayed with my brother in Richmond and did nothing but write," said Malak.
He began putting pen to paper for what he calls his "children's story" in 1997 and in the end he figures he spent $100,000 on his script.
He hired a graphic artist to draw his character designs and a screen writer to co-write the script. He took a screen writing course and first copyrighted his work with the Writers Guild of Canada in 1998. He copyrighted it with the guild nine more times between 1998 and 2003, every time he advanced the story and characters.
In a February 27, 1998 note filed with his documents at the Writers Guild of Canada, he wrote that he was copywriting his work because he was "afraid of the big boys."
"I had just lost Granville Island (and) lost $5 million so you become very intuitive. You don't trust anybody," said Malak. "I was so scared someone was going to steal it."
Malak, who was born in Egypt, educated in England and moved to Canada in 1993, believes it was October 2002 when he sent his script and graphic designs to about twenty movie studios including Cameron and his company Lightstorm Entertainment Inc.
He got no response and the script was never returned to him. Malak was stunned to learn of the similarities between his story and Avatar when the movie was released late last year.
Malak told The Province newspaper he believes that James Cameron had an idea similar to his - to write about indigenous people on another planet - but there's no way to account for stories that are up to 60% similar in his opinion.
"Is it possible that two ends can come up with so much similarities? Life tree, same mining material just called different names, the tails?" said Malak. "The basic building blocks of both stories are very similar."
In the end, Malak believes Avatar was shaped in part by his story and he is filing the B.C. Supreme Court writ today because he wants it to be known. He insists it's not about the money.
"I eat three times a day. I have a great life," he said. "The big boys have to recognize you can't just take things and make it a part of yours and walk all over the small guys."
"In my own heart I'm very happy and very comfortable that my vision has become a blockbuster."
A massive asteroid was to blame for the demise of the dinosaur, and not a volcanic eruption, scientists have finally agreed. The team of 41 international scientists came to their conclusion after analysing the past 20 years of research.
The mass extinction wiped out more than half of all species on the planet, including the dinosaurs and some large marine reptiles, the scientists decided.
They concluded the impact, that happened around 65 million years ago, cleared the way for mammals to become Earth's dominant species. The 15-kilometre wide asteroid is believed to have hit the planet with a force one billion times more powerful than the atomic bomb at Hiroshima.
It resulted in the crater known as the Chicxulub crater buried underneath the Yucatan Peninsula.
The asteroid, about the size of the Isle of Wight, would have blasted material at high speed into the atmosphere. That set off a chain of events that caused a global winter, wiping out much of life on Earth in a matter of days, the review says.
Scientists had previously argued about whether the so-called Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) extinction was caused by the asteroid or by volcanic activity in India over 1.5 million years. For the new study, scientists analysed 20 years of work by palaeontologists, geochemists, climate modellers, geophysicists and sedimentologists.
They concluded that geological records show the event that triggered the extinction destroyed marine and land ecosystems rapidly, meaning an asteroid impact was the only plausible explanation.
Dr Joanna Morgan, co-author of the review from Imperial College London, said: "We now have great confidence that an asteroid was the cause of the KT extinction."
"This shrouded the planet in darkness and caused a global winter, killing off many species that couldn't adapt to this hellish environment."
Co-author Dr. Gareth Collins, also from Imperial College, added: "The explosion of hot rock and gas would have looked like a huge ball of fire on the horizon, grilling any living creature in the immediate vicinity that couldn't find shelter."
"Ironically, while this hellish day signalled the end of the 160-million-year reign of the dinosaurs, it turned out to be a great day for mammals who had lived in the shadow of the dinosaurs prior to this event."
"The KT extinction was a pivotal moment in Earth's history, which ultimately paved the way for humans to become the dominant species on Earth."
Federal Transport Minister John Baird says he wants to hear from the federal privacy commissioner regarding new American security rules that require Canadian airlines flying over the United States to give U.S. authorities the names of passengers as part of anti-terrorism efforts.
"We're going to consult the privacy commissioner," the minister said Thursday. "There has to be consent for the information to be shared."
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's new Secure Flight policy, which takes effect in December, stipulates that passengers who raise the suspicions of U.S. authorities can be prevented from boarding flights that traverse American airspace, even if the flights are not on U.S. carriers and do not originate or land in the U.S.
Baird said the U.S. officials aren't looking for detailed information on passengers. "When they say they want personal information, they are not looking for health information or income tax information. What they are looking for, as I understand it, is your name and your birth date."
Nevertheless, Baird said he expected the Americans to be reasonable and expressed understanding for the American concerns. The Secure Flight policy is a broadening of existing policy that already allows the U.S. to keep aircraft out of American airspace if authorities believe a person on a U.S. government terrorism watch-list is aboard.
For example, at least twice last year, Air France Flight 438 between Paris and Mexico City was prevented from entering U.S. airspace because one of its passengers was on such a list.
Secure Flight applies to flights to, from or over the United States, from Canada to another country. Flights between two Canadian cities that travel over U.S. airspace are excluded, but about 80% of Canadian flights to the Caribbean and other southern points and to Europe fly over the U.S.
Will the introduction of this new security protocol make travelling even more complicated for Canadians? Each year, about 108 million travellers pass through Canadian airports. Of that total, 40 million are trans-border and international passengers. Another 21 million are going to or coming from the United States.
Hernando Calvo Ospina, a Colombian-born journalist working for Le Monde Diplomatique newspaper in Paris who is a vocal opponent of U.S. policy toward Cuba, was on Air France Flight 438 on April 18, 2009, when the captain announced an unscheduled stop on the French island of Martinique.
The captain explained the U.S. government had determined someone who was "undesirable for national security" was on the flight.
Calvo Ospina recalled that passengers around him were saying, "No one looks Muslim."
Then, the co-pilot called him aside to say he was the security threat.
After an overnight refuelling stop in Martinique, Flight 438 continued to Mexico City, where police questioned Calvo Ospina and told him his name was on five U.S. no-fly lists. They also asked him if he is Catholic and whether he knows how to use firearms. He replied no to both questions.
In his annual report for 2009, inspector-general Glenn A. Fine of the U.S. Justice Department disclosed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Terrorist Screening Database contains 1.1 million "terrorist identities."
Fine also said that "in certain circumstances," a person's name could be included on the Terrorist Screening Database even if the FBI doesn't consider that person a terrorism suspect. The contents of the list are not made public for reasons of national security. After analyzing "68,669 known or suspected terrorist identities" from the database, Fine found 35% were named because of terrorism cases that were closed, or for reasons "unrelated to terrorism." Fine did not specify what those reasons were.
Under Secure Flight, Canadian airlines flying over the United States -- without ever landing there -- will be required to provide the U.S. Transportation Security Administration with personal information on all passengers.
Airlines now check passenger names against the TSA terrorist watch list. With Secure Flight, the airlines will no longer have access to that list. Instead, the TSA, a branch of Homeland Security, will run the name, gender and date of birth of all passengers through its own database, plus other U.S. databases, on flights in and out of the United States.
Homeland Security has access to U.S. police records and there is evidence they can consult Canadian police records too. A U.S. border guard who questioned Teresa Healy, a Canadian Labour Congress researcher, at a border crossing in 2008 called up her fingerprint card on his computer.
The prints were taken by Toronto police when Healy was arrested, but not charged, at a 1991 demonstration.
"They told me, 'Don't worry about it. We're just keeping them in case you ever do anything else,'" Healy recalls.
On the basis of those profiles, Homeland Security will decide whether a Canadian airline should issue or deny a boarding pass. Canadian airlines can also issue a qualified boarding pass with an SSSS code, which stands for Secondary Security Screening Selectee. This will require additional interrogation before the passenger is issued a boarding pass.
The basic TSA watch-list, supplied from the larger FBI list, contains 16,000 names from around the world. Among those, 2,500 would be denied boarding and arrested, and 13,500 people would be flagged for secondary security screening. It is not known how many Canadians are on that list.
Here's how it might play out for a would-be Canadian traveller whose name is flagged under the Secure Flight system.
For example, a passenger with a ticket from Montreal to Varadero, Cuba, would get her first hint of a problem if she could not print out a boarding pass on her home computer or at an airport kiosk.
Secure Flight Final Rule, the U.S. government regulation defining the program, states that the "aircraft operator may not issue a boarding pass to the passenger, and the passenger must come to the airport for resolution."
And then there's interrogation. Someone designated a "selectee" or a "potential match" on the watch-list will be subjected to enhanced screening by Canadian law enforcement officers.
"A potential match is someone who has been determined not to be an exact match but has the potential to match some of the data elements," explained TSA spokesperson Andrea McCauley.
The TSA does not disclose its criteria for putting someone on its no-fly or selectee lists, deeming such information "sensitive," and McCauley would not say how many terrorists TSA screening has stopped.
Bruce Schneier, a computer cryptography expert and author of the blog Schneier on Security, dismisses the no-fly list as "counterterrorism silliness."
In an email exchange, he said the screening process has captured "zero terrorists."
Schneier was a consultant for Secure Flight when it was first proposed in 2004. He found it an improvement on the no-fly list, but "riddled with security holes" and easy to work around using false ID.
"Secure Flight is a passive system," Schneier explained in his blog. "It waits for the bad guys to buy an airplane ticket and try to board. If the bad guys don't fly, it's a waste of money."
According to the U.S. government, Secure Flight cost $300 million to develop.
"If I had some millions of dollars to spend on terrorism security, and I had a watchlist of potential terrorists, I would spend that money investigating those people," Schneier continued. "I would clear the innocent people, and I would go after the guilty."
The plan to build Saskatchewan's tallest building in the Saskatoon police station's parking lot is officially dead, with the Government of Saskatchewan saying that it is looking at another location for the assisted living component of the project.
Provincial government officials said Thursday they have zeroed in on a new site for Lighthouse Supported Living, an assisted living residence that was slated to move from the former Capri Hotel building on 20th Street East and 2nd Avenue South to the proposed condominium tower.
The Lighthouse organization has $11.5 million in provincial funding for a new facility, which was to be built by Calgary-based developer Stoneset Equities within a 95-metre tall, or 28-floor, terraced building alongside market-rate condos and retail space.
The $80-million high-rise was touted in 2008 as the first major project in a changing downtown skyline that would bring together the unlikely combination of shelter beds, assisted living units, market rental suites and condos.
But last summer, the Government of Saskatchewan said that the updated cost of the project, at $25 million, was out of its price range and officially confirmed Thursday the concept is off the table. The developer was willing to build only the 120-unit Lighthouse portion of the project, but the price was too expensive to proceed beyond the scope of the initial proposal, said Tim Gross, executive director of housing and development with Saskatchewan Housing Corp.
"I don't think a project would involve that initial plan that we had with Stoneset Equities," Gross said. "As the project progressed, they couldn't make the private market component of the project work and at the end of the day, for $11.5 million that we had we didn't have enough funding to proceed."
Tony Argento, CEO of Stoneset Equities, said the extra costs were based on a "wish list" of additions to the project from the Lighthouse group and Sask. Housing. The company was willing to scale back the number of assisted living units to cut down costs, he said.
"The only thing that stalled the project was their disinterest," Argento said.
The company spent $300,000 on architectural drawings and engineering work, he said.
"My only fear right now is that we spent a lot of money and if it's a no go, we'd like to recover that," Argento said. "You can't string someone along and then say we just changed our minds and say it's someone else's fault."
"We ended up with the bill," he said. "We'll take some responsibility, but not 100%."
The Government of Saskatchewan has found another downtown location to build the Lighthouse project within the $11.5-million budget, although Gross wouldn't specify where.
Lighthouse Supported Living has long been in need of more space for its clients, who are mentally or physically challenged, and often turns away people seeking a bed. They are also functioning currently as a women's shelter and undergoing some renovations.
Gross said the focus now is on a new building solely for assisted living clients, not a mixed-use development.
"I think now we're more focused on the use of the Lighthouse for the intended client group," he said.
Don't like your wife or husband? Well, if you continue to reconcile, or at least try to, you'll save money because getting a divorce is going to cost Saskatchewan couples more money as of April 1, 2010.
Disgruntled landlords and renters will also have to shell out more cash to file an application to the Office of Residential Tenancies, while fees are going up for out-of-province campers as well.
The Government of Saskatchewan released of what fees and charges are changing for 2010 yesterday. The changes will add more than $1 million to the general revenue fund in the 2010-11 fiscal year and about $150,000 to a revolving fund that goes to Saskatchewan's parks, campgrounds and recreational facilities. One brand new fee is a $2,500 non-refundable application fee that will be charged to immigrants applying for permanent residence in Saskatchewan in the "entrepreneur" category.
Rob Norris, the Minister Responsible for Immigration, said the entrepreneur category is a specialized section within Saskatchewan's broader immigrant nominee program, and it focuses on business people.
"(The fee) is meant to demonstrate that those applying into the entrepreneurship stream are serious about staying in Saskatchewan, creating jobs in Saskatchewan and investing in Saskatchewan," Norris said.
There are no fees for immigrants applying in other sections, which include family members, skilled workers, health professional and student categories. Meanwhile, non-Saskatchewan residents who want a camping permit will pay $4 more per night for non-electrical sites and $6 per night for electrical sites.
Saskatchewan NDP MLA Kevin Yates questioned the fee increases, saying it's counter-productive for the government to charge immigrant entrepreneurs, and charge extra to out-of-province campers, while trying to entice more people to Saskatchewan.
"It seems to be a cash grab in a number of different ways," said Yates.
Within the Ministry of Justice, the filing fee for divorce matters is going up. The fee for filing a petition doubles to $200, and increases from $35 to $100 for a reply to a petition.
A ministry official said the money generated goes toward dispute resolution services to people in the court system, such as sessions on parenting after separation and divorce, which are provided for free.
Making an application to the Office of Residential Tenancy goes up to $50, from $25 and $30. Most applications come from landlords. Fees will still be waived for clients on social assistance, and no fees are charged for claims by tenants related to security deposits.
Some fees are going down or being eliminated.
The subscription fee of $200 for the weekly drilling activity report is being eliminated, as is the single request fee of $4. Information will instead be posted on the Ministry of Energy and Resources website. The Ministry of Agriculture is getting rid of the five-year game farm licence fee of $150. Also gone are the fees associated with providing services for prospective irrigation sites.
Apple Inc said the first iPad devices will be in U.S. stores on April 3, 2010 and hit nine international markets from Japan to the United Kingdom later in April.
The 9.7" touch-screen tablet, which is designed to surf the Internets, play video and games, and read digital books, is the most anticipated product launch from Apple since the iPhone in 2007.
Chief Executive Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad in late January, but the company did not announce any international markets until Friday, when it said the tablet will go on sale in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.
Apple shares went up 3.1% in early trading on the Nasdaq to $217.20, which is an all-time high for the stock.
Apple is seeking to tap an unproven market for tablet computers. The iPad, while admired for its sleek design, will have to compete for consumer attention with a myriad of more established device categories, including smart-phones, netbooks and dedicated e-readers like Amazon's Kindle.
The U.S. launch date for the iPad model with short-range Wi-Fi wireless links, starting at a price tag of $499, is slightly later than the previously expected late March launch. Customers looking for versions of the iPad with third-generation (3G) high-speed cellular data links will have to wait until late April, said Apple.
AT&T Inc, the exclusive U.S. carrier for the iPhone, will provide wireless connections for the iPad. But AT&T's top executive said earlier this week that he expects consumers to mostly use Wi-Fi to connect the iPad.
Beginning March 12, 2010, U.S. consumers will be able to go to Apple's website to pre-order both the Wi-Fi-only model and the version with 3G and Wi-Fi, or reserve a device to pick up at a store on April 3.
Research firm iSuppli estimated the total materials costs for each device is $219.35, with a $10 manufacturing cost.
Third party companies are already touting accessories for the high-profile gadget, including sleeves to carry the iPad, which looks like a large iPhone, or "iPhone or iPod Touch on steroids."
Apple said that an iBooks application for iPad would be available as a free download on April 3, 2010.
Canadians will be using newly-designed money printed on polymer instead of cotton-based paper bills by next year as part of a plan to modernize the currency and crack down on counterfeiting, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced Thursday in the federal budget.
The Bank of Canada is anticipating that it will start printing the new bills within the next 18 months.
"These new notes will have security features and they will be easy to authenticate," said Julie Girard, a spokesperson for the Bank of Canada. "People will know if it's genuine and (the new bank notes) will be hard to counterfeit. All of this will help us stay ahead of counterfeiters."
Loonies and toonies are also slated to undergo changes in their composition to reduce costs at the Royal Canadian Mint, but "will bear the same look and feel" as the existing ones, said Royal Canadian Mint spokesperson Christine Aquino.
Canadian nickels, dimes, quarters and half-dollars already switched to the patented multi-ply plated steel technology in 2000. It is less expensive than producing coins that are primarily made out of nickel or copper.
Girard said the government will be printing fewer notes since bills made of polymer can last up to two to three times longer than the cotton-based paper bills. The material is considered to be more durable and resistant to tears or damage.
The polymer-based bank notes have already been adopted in other countries, such as Australia. While the Finance Department indicated that there is only one manufacturer of the polymer material, based in Australia, Girard said that the notes would still be printed in Canada.
The bills are expected to have a revamped design, including a small window on the bill that prevents it from being photocopied. The budget also said that the changes would reduce the impact on the environment because the bank notes would last longer and can be recycled.
The Government of Canada has mapped a new course of frugality with a federal budget that promises to find $17.6 billion in savings over the next five years through measures such as freezing departmental budgets, slowing the growth of military spending and capping foreign aid.
As expected, the budget follows through on the second year of the government's stimulus plan, which is a move that will inject $19 billion into the economy.
In his speech to the House of Commons, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Thursday the government remains focused on creating jobs through the budget, entitled "Leading the Way on Jobs and Growth."
"Our government is focused on jobs and growth, for one simple reason. Canadians are focused on jobs and growth," said Flaherty.
Beyond the stimulus plan, the budget contains a smattering of new initiatives, such as $60 million to help youth deal with the tough job market, $62 million for elite and amateur athletes, and $8 million to create a new oversight body for the RCMP.
However, the biggest revelation is the government's restraint plan, which pledges to all but balance the budget by 2015, when the deficit is expected to fall to $1.8 billion. In his speech, Flaherty said big new government programs would "jeopardize our recovery and our long-term growth."
"We take the same approach that Canadian families take in managing their household budgets. We are spending what is necessary to meet an emergency," the finance minister said. "We are also looking beyond the emergency, to ensure that we can keep paying off the mortgage and saving for our children's education."
None of the opposition parties said they would support the Conservative budget, but Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said enough of his party's MPs would abstain or be absent from the budget vote to allow it to pass, thus avoiding an election.
"Canadians don't want an election," Ignatieff told reporters. "What they want from me is an alternative, an alternative to cuts, freezes and gimmicks. And we've been working hard on that alternative."
The Conservative government plans to save $6.8 billion by containing the government's administration costs. To begin, they will freeze the salaries of MPs and senators through 2012 to 2013.
Leading up to the budget, public-sector unions were worried that the government might try to balance the budget on the backs of public servants.
The wages of public servants will be allowed to increase next year by 1.5%, as mandated under collective-bargaining agreements. But departments must fund the increase, which amounts to roughly $300 million, from their operating budgets. After this year, salaries and operating budgets will be frozen for two years.
Despite such measures, the budget is vague on how exactly it will come up with the savings. The government will launch a sweeping review of administration and overhead costs, but details won't be revealed until next year's budget.
The government plans to save $4.5 billion over five years by capping foreign aid at this year's level, in the process breaking a promise to increase aid by 8% per year. Foreign aid will rise by $364 million to $5 billion.
The Conservative government will also slow the rate of previously planned growth in the national defence budget -- a move that will save a further $2.5 billion.
All told, the restraint measures will limit the growth of direct program spending to 1.3% once the stimulus plan expires. Previously, the Conservative government had predicted such expenditures would grow at more than twice that clip.
At a news conference, Flaherty said it was "tough budget" -- one that offers probably the smallest hike in new spending in a decade.
"We have to make some tough decisions," he said. "The economic recovery is fragile . . . We needed to make the decisions now so that we would have a credible plan we would follow now."
He added that the restraint measures were necessary to ensure the government doesn't wind up with a "structural deficit."
Flaherty said he is committed to getting the nation's books back in the black -- whatever it takes.
"I don't like running deficits. We had to run this deficit temporarily. This government will return to balanced budgets."
But some economists question whether the government can enforce such discipline. Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, said the main unknown is how the economy will respond once the stimulus funds are withdrawn.
"The other big question mark is whether they can then, in the years ahead, maintain that type of spending discipline," said Porter.
Flaherty has vowed not to raise taxes or touch major transfers to provinces or individuals, which includes money for health care, education and elderly benefits.
Instead, the Conservative government will rely on a combination of economic growth and their restraint program to balance the books.
Flaherty brushed aside suggestions he might be relying too heavily on rosy forecasts for how economic growth will produce tax revenue that helps reduce the deficit.
He said his predictions for economic growth are based on the advice of private sector experts who he consulted.
Growth projections by those private-sector economists have improved marginally since last fall. Forecasters now expect the economy to grow by 2.6% this year and 3.2% in 2011.
Economists have also grown more optimistic about the unemployment rate, which they expect to peak at 8.5% this year, before dropping to 7.9% the following year.
The government's overall deficit outlook has also brightened.
Until now, the Conservative government had expected to rack up $164.4 billion in deficits over the next five years, beginning with a $55.9-billion shortfall this year and tapering to $5.2 billion in 2014-15. The government now expects to run a five-year deficit of $158.4 billion, starting with a deficit of $53.8 billion this year.
Flaherty noted that Canada's debt is relatively small, compared with other developed countries.
The ratio of the country's debt to its gross domestic product will hit 35.4% next year. By contrast, the U.S. ratio is expected to reach 67% in 2010, while Britain is expected to hit 75%.
"Unlike other countries, we are in a position to ensure our deficit will be temporary. We can meet our current needs without jeopardizing our long-term growth," the finance minister said.
Do you like getting your haircut by a man? Well, for me, personally, I don't really like it, and would prefer a female.
Well, in Gaza, they really seem to hate that. In fact, they hate it so much that they are willing to ban male salon workers.
Reports of the ban surfaced Thursday, as observers marked the move as the latest in a series of laws restricting personal freedoms in the coastal enclave. Over the past four months, women have been prohibited from riding motorcycles, and men have been banned from removing their shirts at the beach.
The latest ban targeting women's hair salons was signed by de facto Minister of the Interior Fathi Hammad, set to be enforced by the Gaza government's police.
A separate statement from the local police in Gaza said those violating the ban would be "tracked and punished."
The decisions mark a departure from the stated policy of the Hamas-run government, which has said it would not work to impose Islamic rule on the people of Gaza.
Internal bombings targeting CD and DVD shops, coffee houses and salons, which have occurred sporadically in Gaza since 2008, were condemned by government officials.
"Next thing you know, they will ban doctors from treating women, and will only let women treat women," 44-year-old hairdresser Barakat Al-Ghoul told The Associated Press in an initial announcement on the ban, adding, "Tomorrow, they will ban everything."
Former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin is pitching a reality series on Alaska to television networks.
Entertainment Weekly first reported that the former Alaska governor and Survivor producer Mark Burnett have been meeting with network executives at ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX while Palin was in Los Angeles this week for her spot on The Tonight Show.
Burnett told The Associated Press that he approached Palin with the idea for the show. It would be shot in the style of Discovery's Planet Earth show, focusing on the natural beauty of Alaska.
Palin and her family would be on camera in the show, but Burnett said it wouldn't focus on her family life. Instead, Palin would visit commercial fishing boats, coal and gold mines, and other industries unique to her state.
"It's being in and experiencing the great charm and beauty of Alaska with Sarah Palin," Burnett said.
Alaska's former governor is such a ratings magnet that the series should draw interest from broadcast and cable networks, he added.
On The Tonight Show this week, Palin joked with host Jay Leno that the difference between Alaska and Los Angeles is that "here when people have a frozen look on their face, I find out it's Botox."
On Thursday, publisher Harper Collins announced that it has commissioned Palin to write a book about her patriotic and spiritual values.
Palin, 46, who is believed to be eyeing a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, is already a bestselling author for her 2009 memoir, Going Rogue: An American Life, which describes her entry into U.S. national politics during John McCain's failed presidential bid.
The book spent six seeks as a bestseller and sold more than 2.2 million copies.
NBC's new show, The Marriage Ref, debuts tonight at 9 p.m. CST.
Seinfeld was a show about nothing, and one that came out of a simple conversation between Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David.
Twenty years later, a conversation between Seinfeld and his wife Jessica has created The Marriage Ref.
"It's the same kind of thing," Mr. Seinfeld said in January, recalling his conversation with Larry David "It was an off-handed remark that didn't go away."
So now, innocuous domestic disputes, like whether a husband should be allowed to keep his stuffed dog, get celebrity opinion.
With Seinfeld's buddy, fellow comedian and host Tom Papa weighing the information and rendering a verdict.
"We figure if you're in a relationship," Papa said, in explaining the celebrity participation, "You're as much an expert as anybody else."
It's an expertise born out of experience.
"Basically, if you're married, you know fights never end," Papa said, "One of you just kind of shuts up, but the fight comes back eventually."
That is, until The Marriage Ref has his say.
"It's a very pro marriage show," Papa said, "This isn't whether you should leave or not, who's cheating. At the heart of it all, it's married couples that really love each other."
And hopefully, still do after The Marriage Ref intervenes.
Ah yes, when it comes to Facebook, it's fun to update your status, isn't it? Yeah, I know Huy Dang likes to update with everything that is on his mind, including some pretty funny crap that doesn't make any sense, such as "Huy Dang is currently headed to school in style on a 2008 New Flyer D40LFR."
Well, when you're in the army, would you reveal your plans to your enemies? Well, what's what happened on Facebook, and it's kind of funny.
The Israeli military called off a raid in Palestinian territory after a soldier posted details, including the time and place, on social networking website Facebook, Israel's Army Radio reported on Wednesday.
The soldier, who has since been relieved of combat duty, described in a status update how his unit planned a "clean-up" arrest raid in a West Bank area, the radio station said. Facebook friends then reported him to military authorities.
The Israeli military spokesman's office had no immediate comment.
Israel says raids in the West Bank are aimed at detaining militants suspected of planning attacks on Israelis. Palestinian officials say the incursions undermine efforts by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority to enforce law and order in the territory.
In 2004, Reverend Nathan Dutnall from Saskatoon's home was broken into. However, the items stolen were odd. Among them were cordless phones, without the base the charges the cordless phones and a PlayStation 2 console. However, the bizarre thing was that after the thieves busted through a window, there was a reasonable effort to place the window back in its place.
Well, recently, in Saskatoon, something odd like that happened again.
Business for the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Saskatoon has been far from usual since their van's door was stolen more than two weeks ago.
"The van to us was worth gold," said Del Lennea, a worker with the MCC.
The MCC is a non-profit organization that provides relief to countries in distress. The van was being used to transfer items for Haiti relief kits to the MCC's building, from which the kits would be sent to Haiti.
Lennea showed up at the MCC office on 45th Street on the morning of February 16 and everything seemed to be in order. That was until he noticed the organization's van was missing the driver-side door. Nothing was stolen from inside the van and it wasn't vandalized.
Lennea called police and filed a report but was told the chances of finding the door are slim to none.
"I wouldn't put looking for a door as a top priority, especially when there is other stuff happening around our city," Lennea said.
The van was written off by SGI, but Lennea bought a door from a wrecker for $100. After the door was put on, a safety inspection had to be done before the van could be allowed back on the road.
After the inspection, Lennea was told that van's anti-lock brake system was not working properly and the van was not cleared to be on the road.
Lennea said he knew the braking system wasn't working, but the van was still running fine.
"I only want safe vehicles on our roads, too, but the whole problem is that if that person hadn't stolen our door, we wouldn't have been in this situation," Lennea said, adding the van is now for sale.
The van was getting a lot of use lately as Lennea has been gathering items such as comforters, towels, toiletries and medical items for the relief kits. The MCC is planning to send 1,000 kits to Haiti.
"The problem is that I have to go all over the city to get stuff that doesn't fit in your common vehicle," Lennea said. "When that door got stolen it really put a damper on our production here."
To fill the void, Lennea has been using his own trailer to transport items.
Lennea could only speculate as to why someone would steal the door from the van, but he is sure he won't find it.
"It's a white door off a GMC cargo van. How many companies around Saskatoon have that?" he asked.
Lennea and the MCC can only rely on money they get from the sale of their old van and donations to find a replacement.
A Vancouver Island teenager who was credited earlier this week with thwarting a violent attack on a school in the United States is now a suspect in the crime. Police officials in Brewster, Washington confirmed Wednesday that they are investigating the 14-year-old girl from Port Alberni, British Columbia in the shooting plot.
The teen was chatting last week with a 17-year-old boy from Brewster on the social-networking website Facebook when the American youth told her his plans to go to school and begin shooting people, police said.
The boy was arrested and is now facing charges of conspiracy to commit assault in the first degree.
Brewster police Chief Ron Oules said that the girl's parents learned of the threats and called officials at the local RCMP detachment, which then passed on the information to Brewster police.
"The parent believed their... daughter was involved in a school shooting plan with a juvenile male from the United States," Oules said in a Wednesday news release.
Police also informed the schools of the threat, Oules said.
RCMP officials said Wednesday that "unless more evidence surfaces," the girl will not face charges under Canadian law.
"As a result of the thorough investigation and with the evidence obtained there was not enough evidence to support a charge against the 14-year-old Port Alberni female," Sgt. Lee Omilusik said in a news release.
The girl could still face charges in the United States.
It's not known whether the two teens knew each other prior to last Friday's conversation.
Brewster is located about 250 kilometres south of Osoyoos, British Columbia, and is home to three schools: an elementary, middle and high school.
Last month, another British Columbia teen was credited with alerting officials to a possible school shooting.
On February 4, an online gamer called police after a youth in San Antonio, Texas, said he would participate in a school shooting. Local police passed on the details of the tip to U.S. authorities and the teen was arrested.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday decided to roll the political dice on healthcare reform, telling Congress it "owes the American people a final vote" on a $950-million bill aimed at providing insurance to 31 million people lacking medical coverage.
After failing last week to win Republican support for the long-stalled legislation, Obama told Democratic leaders in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives they have a responsibility to move ahead without backing from the opposition party. He asked that a final vote be held within the next few weeks, likely before lawmakers break for Easter.
"We can't just give up because the politics are hard," Obama said in a 15-minute White House speech.
"At stake right now is not just our ability to solve this problem, but our ability to solve any problem."
Obama's decision to force a conclusion to Washington's yearlong debate comes after a high-stakes healthcare summit with Republican leaders on February 25 collapsed without any significant compromise from either side.
Republicans demanded Obama scrap plans for a comprehensive healthcare bill -- calling it an unaffordable intrusion by the U.S. government -- and asked that Democrats start over with a more piecemeal approach that addressed the most egregious abuses in the system.
But Obama said Wednesday any effort to "tinker around the edges" of the country's $2.5-trillion-a-year healthcare system was pointless.
He argued such an approach would not address the biggest problems in the U.S. system -- lack of access to affordable care for the uninsured, the practice of denying coverage of Americans with pre-existing health conditions and skyrocketing out-of-pocket costs for companies and families.
"The fact is, health reform only works if you take care of all these problems at once," Obama said.
In deciding it's now or never for healthcare reform, Obama is taking the biggest risk of his presidency outside of his decision to launch a military surge in Afghanistan.
Support for Obama's signature domestic policy initiative has fallen steadily amid delays in Congress and as the American public's priorities shifted to concerns about stubbornly high unemployment.
Both the Senate and the House of Representatives passed separate versions of healthcare legislation before Christmas.
Plans to pass a final bill for Obama's signature, however, got shelved in January when Democrats lost their 60-seat, filibuster-proof "supermajority" in the Senate after the election of Republican Scott Brown to the late Edward Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts.
Now Democrats must use a complicated legislative fast-track process called 'reconciliation' that will force an "up or down" vote in the Senate, allowing passage of the legislation with a simple 50-plus-one majority.
The strategy is for the House of Representatives to pass the existing Senate bill, and then have both chambers adopt amendments to incorporate new proposals from Obama, including four ideas proposed last week by Republicans.
The completed legislation would then be presented to Obama to sign into law.
Obama is facing a potentially substantial hurdle in the House of Representatives, where passage of a revised healthcare bill is threatened by pro-life Democrats who want tighter restrictions on federal funding for abortion.
Other Democrats are nervous about polls showing a majority of Americans want healthcare put aside for a greater focus on the economy.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called Obama's legislation "politically toxic in the extreme" and predicted its passage would turn the midterm congressional elections in November into a national referendum on the issue.
"You ignore the overwhelming desires of the American people at your own peril," McConnell said.
But Obama cast the healthcare issue as a test of leadership.
"I know there's a fascination, bordering on obsession in the media in this town about what passing health insurance reform would mean for the next election and the one after that... that's not why we're here," Obama said. "I don't know how this plays politically, but I know it's right."
The White House health plan seeks to provide almost 31 million Americans with medical coverage by imposing an "individual mandate" requiring them to buy insurance, with federal subsidies provided to people who cannot afford a plan. It would also bar insurance companies from denying coverage to the sick, curb massive premium hikes and eliminate the practice of setting lifetime limits on coverage.
The legislation would also seek to lower the cost of private insurance for the middle class by creating a series of healthcare exchanges that would allow people to shop around for better deals.
Obama has rejected the idea -- favoured by many liberal Democrats -- of creating a government-run health insurance program to compete with private providers.
A Swedish pilot with a fake commercial licence was arrested in his cockpit at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport as he prepared to fly 101 passengers on a Boeing 737 to Turkey, Dutch police said Wednesday.
The 41 year-old Swede, who was at the helm of a jet bound for Ankara, had been flying for 13 years and logged more than 10,000 flight hours using forged documents for airlines in Belgium, Britain and Italy, authorities said.
The pilot, whose name was not disclosed, was said to have expressed relief when confronted and taken off his pilot's stripes.
Wait... so a man who had no licence had flown an aircraft safely for 13 years?! Holy crap... I wonder if his learning is from a videogame like that guy on Snakes on a Plane!
Three days after Canadians belted out "O Canada!" to celebrate Canada's Olympic hockey win, Stephen Harper's Conservative government is asking whether the anthem should be changed.
The phrase "In all thy sons command" has some women calling for a gender-neutral version, Industry Minister Tony Clement says, citing an email from a constituent.
"For 50 years... I've listened to our anthem and felt excluded by the line," Tina Prietz, 60, of Huntsville, Ontario, wrote to Mr. Clement. "Yes, you've guessed it, I'm female."
The Conservative government said in Wednesday's Speech from the Throne that it will ask Parliament to examine the original wording of the anthem. Officials said later a parliamentary committee will study whether the phrase "In all thy sons command" should be changed to "Thou dost in us command," which the Office of the Prime Minister says is the wording from the original version.
Mr. Harper's aide Andrew MacDougall said the government does not have a view on the change.
Prietz said she was proud to see so many Canadians win gold medals and hear the national anthem during the Olympics, but added some of the words stick in her craw.
"I would love to see the anthem slightly changed to 'In all of us command,'" Prietz said.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff doesn't object to a more "gender-sensitive" anthem, but said the government should take serious steps to improve the status of women. The anthem is based on lyrics penned in 1908, and slightly altered in the 1980 National Anthem Act. The original French version survives unaltered.
British "supermodel" Naomi Campbell will not face charges related to assault accusations by her driver, New York police said Wednesday.
The 39-year-old model was accused of striking her driver from behind and causing his head to hit the steering wheel of the car Tuesday afternoon. By the time police arrived at the scene in Midtown Manhattan, Campbell had left on foot, apparently.
New York police said in a statement Wednesday that the driver "filed a harassment complaint, but elected not to pursue criminal charges" and that there would be no arrest.
Campbell's spokesman Jeff Raymond said after the incident that there should not be a rush to make a judgment on the supermodel and that "there is more to the story than meets the eye."
This situation was not Campbell's first brush with the law.
In 2008, Campbell was sentenced by a London court to 200 hours of community service after pleading guilty to assaulting two police officers during an expletive-filled incident after she had discovered an airline had lost one of her bags.
Campbell also spent five days mopping floors and cleaning toilets as part of a community service sentence in New York in 2007 after throwing a mobile phone at her housekeeper during an argument over a pair of jeans. She was also ordered to attend anger management classes.
In a previous incident with a telephone in 1998, Campbell assaulted an assistant, Georgina Galanis. The model agreed in 2000 to plead guilty in a Toronto court to the assault in exchange for expressing remorse, paying Galanis an undisclosed amount of money and attending anger management classes.
The head of Canada's prison system says that there will be "major construction initiatives" in the coming years to cope with federal legislation to imprison more offenders longer, which is an assertion backed by new spending estimates that are showing a 43% increase in penitentiary capital costs next year.
Premier Brad Wall firmed up the Government of Saskatchewan's plan to rein in spending in the upcoming provincial budget, saying at his party's annual convention Saturday that it is a necessity to continue economic growth in Saskatchewan.
Nearly one-third of Quebec residents say that the province should have its own Olympic team separate from Canada's, according to a survey conducted in the days following the Vancouver Games. Now that's just bizarre...
Ronald Smith, the only Canadian on death row in the United States, is one step closer to Montana's execution chamber after an appeal court ruling that upheld his death sentence for the brutal murders of two American Indian men in 1982.
One day after Avatar was disappointed at the Oscars, a Vancouver restaurant owner plans to file a lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court today claiming copyright infringement against director James Cameron and other makers of the highest-grossing film of all time. 
A massive asteroid was to blame for the demise of the dinosaur, and not a volcanic eruption, scientists have finally agreed. The team of 41 international scientists came to their conclusion after analysing the past 20 years of research.
Federal Transport Minister John Baird says he wants to hear from the federal privacy commissioner regarding new American security rules that require Canadian airlines flying over the United States to give U.S. authorities the names of passengers as part of anti-terrorism efforts.
The plan to build Saskatchewan's tallest building in the Saskatoon police station's parking lot is officially dead, with the Government of Saskatchewan saying that it is looking at another location for the assisted living component of the project.
Apple Inc said the first iPad devices will be in U.S. stores on April 3, 2010 and hit nine international markets from Japan to the United Kingdom later in April.
Canadians will be using newly-designed money printed on polymer instead of cotton-based paper bills by next year as part of a plan to modernize the currency and crack down on counterfeiting, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced Thursday in the federal budget.
The Government of Canada has mapped a new course of frugality with a federal budget that promises to find $17.6 billion in savings over the next five years through measures such as freezing departmental budgets, slowing the growth of military spending and capping foreign aid.
Do you like getting your haircut by a man? Well, for me, personally, I don't really like it, and would prefer a female.
Former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin is pitching a reality series on Alaska to television networks.
Ah yes, when it comes to Facebook, it's fun to update your status, isn't it? Yeah, I know Huy Dang likes to update with everything that is on his mind, including some pretty funny crap that doesn't make any sense, such as "Huy Dang is currently headed to school in style on a 2008 New Flyer D40LFR."
In 2004, Reverend Nathan Dutnall from Saskatoon's home was broken into. However, the items stolen were odd. Among them were cordless phones, without the base the charges the cordless phones and a PlayStation 2 console. However, the bizarre thing was that after the thieves busted through a window, there was a reasonable effort to place the window back in its place.
A Vancouver Island teenager who was credited earlier this week with thwarting a violent attack on a school in the United States is now a suspect in the crime. Police officials in Brewster, Washington confirmed Wednesday that they are investigating the 14-year-old girl from Port Alberni, British Columbia in the shooting plot.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday decided to roll the political dice on healthcare reform, telling Congress it "owes the American people a final vote" on a $950-million bill aimed at providing insurance to 31 million people lacking medical coverage.
A Swedish pilot with a fake commercial licence was arrested in his cockpit at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport as he prepared to fly 101 passengers on a Boeing 737 to Turkey, Dutch police said Wednesday.
Three days after Canadians belted out "O Canada!" to celebrate Canada's Olympic hockey win, Stephen Harper's Conservative government is asking whether the anthem should be changed.
British "supermodel" Naomi Campbell will not face charges related to assault accusations by her driver, New York police said Wednesday.
