“Leadership is about showing up,” said Jean Charest at a Conservative leadership debate that Leslyn Lewis and Pierre Poilievre were fined $50,000 each for skipping. Charest was questioned about whether he’ll remain with the party if he loses, which is considered more likely when polling has shown Poilievre gaining younger fans who’d otherwise be on the left.
The new panic in High Park
Jeffrey Doucet went viral for getting a $110 ticket for allegedly rolling at a stop sign in High Park, which led to attention to the fact that the Toronto police officer who issued it earned $281,031 last year. And then came word of a cyclist struck by a cruiser driven by an officer zealously issuing tickets, which was followed by the cops at least confirming a collision.
Paul Godfrey isn’t done demanding the government help rescue newspapers. His appearance on BNN Bloomberg followed the announcement that he’ll be stepping down as chair of Postmedia, but retain an advisory role. Godfrey says he’s been sounding the alarm about financial pressures dating back to 2010.
A publisher grilled over email
Private correspondence with John Irving from soon after he became a Canadian citizen was exposed as evidence by U.S. antitrust prosecutors looking to block Simon & Schuster’s merger with Penguin Random House. S&S CEO Jonathan Karp also said that Irving doesn’t need a “glam budget” on the brink of issuing this very large novel:
Joe Flaherty isn’t ready to talk about what went wrong with Martin Scorsese. At the end of a wide-ranging interview on a podcast dedicated to SCTV, the 81-year-old Flaherty says he’s “too bitter” to get into details he hopes to write as an “exposé.” Scorsese shot the cast reunion segments for An Afternoon with SCTV in Toronto on May 13, 2018.
Finally, stranger Cancon things
Nope might do more to revive 1980s Canadian pop than any homegrown movie ever did, as director Jordan Peele used Lawrence Gowan’s “(You’re a) Strange Animal“ as the retro theme for a TV sitcom starring a chimpanzee. Another conceit involves Corey Hart’s “Sunglasses at Night” screwed with to sound horrifying: