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Something that no longer exists in Canada’s post-accountable financial sector and has become as rare as hen’s teeth in the Federal government. If it finally comes time for a public adding up of two plus two, don’t be surprised if all those Lexus and Mercedes-Benz owning accountants and accountability boosters get panicky and seek protection…

Gravel-voiced androgynous Vancouver musician distinguished by his ability to discover and cover the musical equivalent of absolute neutral. Adams illustrates what Canadian culture will be like if it becomes wholly defined by the marketplace: Joe Cocker without drugs, alcohol or demons, management by middle-aged guys who think lunch with Tina Turner is a religious experience,…

Most Canadian cities have streets and business firms named Adanac. Bet you won’t find a Setats Detinu Drive in the U.S. or a Rue de Ecnarf in France. Is a country that resorts to spelling its name backwards in order to provide sufficient appellations for thoroughfares and corporations suffering from terminal poverty of imagination or…

A group of generally well-heeled, expensively educated but physically inept males who work in or close to the mass media, sometimes having been placed there by wealthy parents or mentors. They are often characterized by facial fat and the belief that they are victims of a conspiracy of black and Asian women, homosexuals, communists and…

Disgraced Canadian Armed Forces regiment that lurched so far out of control during a brief assignment in Somalia in 1991 that the government was forced to disband it. Mulroney’s Conservative government didn’t have the courage to cashier its members, and they’ve been dispersed to infect the rest of the armed forces with the same sort…

Recent vintage passenger jets purchased by Air Canada from a Euro consortium, supposedly to the giveaway of other Canadian aerospace assets to Boeing. Their planes tend to rattle while in flight because their parts are fabricated in six different countries and therefore don’t quite fit together, and have been known to run out of fuel…

In the early 1980s, Canada had four functioning Canadian-owned airlines, one publicly owned, and a raft of independent charter and regional carriers. Then the industry was deregulated, supposedly to foster competition, cheapen fares, and open up the marketplace. Result? We’re down to a single major air carrier, and it is a virtual subsidiary of a…

The response to this crisis is a long standing Canadian version of dithering-while-Rome-burns, except that it is our forests dissolving from airborne sulfuric acid, and our lakes dying because the water is too acidic to support biological systems more complex than the ones involved in making pulp and paper products. Acid rain is a currently…

Not exactly Stephen Harper’s favourite type of person unless they tell him what he wants to hear, which is very little from anyone, especially questions from the mass media or tongue-clattering from his caucus.The man running the country isn’t listening…

PARTY BUILDING: a political euphemism for selling out core values and sacrificing the public good along with any other institution in the country for short-term practical gains and/or more seats in parliament. Ed Broadbent did this in 1988, turning Canada over to Brian Mulroney’s corporate trade fiends in the hope of gaining a few more…