One day before her potentially awkward speech from the throne, Julie Payette is the subject of another story from CBC News, about how the PMO didn’t look into her past prior to appointing her as a governor general capable of controversy. But the return of parliament will already be filled with enough uncertainties pending a confidence vote.
The backrooms of the nation
After the Ontario Liberals acclaimed David Morris to try to win back Toronto Centre, a riding they lost to the NDP in 2018, other prospective contestants were left to wonder what happened to a provincial party pledge to do more to diversify its ranks. Toronto Centre was also where Marci Ien was just fast-tracked to run by federal Liberals.
“If we weren’t so backlogged on MRIs I’d send you to the MRI to get your brain scanned because I don’t think there’s anything in there.” The latest quotable quotes from Doug Ford concerned street racing yahoos amid Ontario’s resurgent COVID-19 case count, which has influenced a year without the Toronto Christmas Market.
Remote anchor weighed down
The recent Global News layoffs included Montreal fixture Jamie Orchard, who got to say goodbye to viewers after 23 years. While the station retains a reporting staff there, Orchard’s replacement, Tracy Tong, was already hosting four local market newscasts produced from Toronto. The first glitches of adding two more kept things interesting:
CBC Tandem raises new concern at the Canadian Media Guild. The escalation of sponsored content strategy, which has expanded to incorporate podcasts, brought on more than just the union wondering what the CBC is up to. But a Toronto Sun front page against the initiative still left space to note the Emmy triumph of Schitt’s Creek.
Finally, dreaming of no DRM
Cory Doctorow, the Toronto-born writer whose war on copyright laws extend to his own science fiction, found over 5,000 people willing to pay an average of over $40 to support releasing his Attack Surface audiobook without digital rights management. The newest foe for Doctorow is the proprietary approach of Amazon: