The sole English-language debate of the 2021 federal election was mostly an exercise in wondering why the election was happening at all. Justin Trudeau seemed to lose, while Annamie Paul might’ve actually won, but in the end, Yves-François Blanchet managed to infuriate just about everyone by reminding all of Canada about the Bloc.
Polls are pondering the PPC
Maxime Bernier’s exclusion from debates might’ve only bolstered his polling numbers at a time when civil liberties surrounding the pandemic turned into a hotter topic. But the People’s Party of Canada also provides a consistent sideshow for echoing the Three Percenters’ slogan and Bernier not pursuing charges after getting egged in Saskatoon.
“What I’m telling you is that we’re an immigrant family and we had nothing.” The father of Leylah Fernandez, who’s headed to the U.S. Open women’s final, gave an interview to TSN about what it means to represent Canada. Jorge Fernandez was a former professional soccer player who had no tennis experience before coaching her.
TIFF in the time of PCR tests
The stay-at-home portions of the Toronto International Film Festival began with a malfunctioning platform that made some titles inaccessible due to browser issues. And flight delays from New York and L.A. brought on fear of PCR test expiration. But a red carpet scene proceeded for an opening night premiere shielded from public view:
The mystery of whatever Grimace is. A recent CBC News interview with Windsor’s award-winning McDonald’s manager, Brian Bates, had him describing the purple anthropomorphic being as “a taste bud.” Verification attempts came up short beyond a 2012 tweet from McD’s calling their mascot “the embodiment of a milkshake.”
Finally, a new side of a mirror
Records is the title of the follow-up to Vinyl, a 2000 documentary film in which Alan Zweig met music collectors while confronting his similar obsessions. The style was used for two other movies before he took his camera elsewhere. But a second spin on his first subject is set to premiere via the Vancouver International Film Festival: