Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: " If you phone your friends to tell them about your luxury Alaska cruise, it makes you look old. Outdated..." READ MORE
Review: Tongue & Hot Molasses
What did the 19th century smell like? What was it like to stroll ankle-deep in horse effluent and live by the 25-watt glow of an oily lamp on winter evenings? Many Canadian historians and documentary filmmakers recall the facts and figures of the past without ever providing a true tactile sense of how our ancestors got by, with one exception. We can still gain a taste of what they ate. Collecting Culinaria is a tribute to an extraordinary trove of historic cookbooks collected by Linda Distad, a University of Alberta librarian who died in 2012. Distad had a mania for heritage recipes. Her collection ran to more than 3,000 titles including the first English-language cookbook published in Canada, The Cook Not Mad, circa 1830. Consider the recipe for corn beef: “To one hundred pounds of beef. three ounces salt peter, five pints of salt, a small quantity of molasses will improve it, but good without.” READ MORE
Post Office Lists Service Cuts
Thirteen Liberal ridings are among the first in the nation to lose doorstep mail delivery under a target list released yesterday by Canada Post. Constituencies facing service cuts include Carleton, Ont., won by first-term Liberal MP Bruce Fanjoy in an upset over Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre one year ago: "Make difficult decisions, show political courage and move forward." READ MORE
Cancelled For Questioning
Canadians should question self-censorship by subsidized press, a leading economist and commentator yesterday told the House affairs committee. La Presse, the largest daily in Québec, admitted to canceling a regular column by Professor Sylvain Charlebois after he criticized hidden subsidies for daily newspapers: "This raises broader questions about how comfortable we are collectively with challenging prevailing narratives." READ MORE
Media Too Reliant On Gov’t
Seven years of federal subsidies have permanently compromised media in Canada, current and former editors yesterday testified at the Commons heritage committee. A 2019 bailout originally promised to be temporary has instead marked the end of independent journalism, MPs were told: "Sooner or later, news media will run out of other people’s money." READ MORE
Media Seek Curbs On Critics
One of the largest unions in Canadian newsrooms yesterday sought federal controls on what people say about media on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Government regulation of lawful but hurtful criticism was supported by “95 percent of media workers,” said the president of the Canadian Media Guild: "The toxicity we face online and in person while doing our jobs is becoming overwhelming." READ MORE
Guarantees Fed Dairy Quotas
Cabinet remains adamant that dairy quotas will never be negotiated in United States trade talks, Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc said yesterday. The U.S. has singled out dairy quotas as unfair: "You confirm you will not touch a hair on the head of supply management?" READ MORE
Guest Commentary
All families have skeletons. Ours is illegal betting. My grandfather’s incarceration was an embarrassment for my mother. He served his time at Burch Industrial Farm near Brantford, Ont. Over the years I have spoken to people who knew of these events, but none really told me anything. Parliament wrote an epilogue to my grandfather’s story. Now if someone in Canada wants to bet on a boxing match or hockey game, it’s as simple as downloading an app.
