Online media project 2007-08

The fruits of our labour from our online media course are finally here! We spent the fall semester learning about all the ways online media are different from traditional newspapers and broadcast news, how they work and how to use them to your advantage when presenting a piece of work. It was a really interesting course, and we got to practice it by splitting into groups to create several online projects. My group did a series of stories on adoption law in Ontario, which was under fire last fall when the provincial superior court struck down an act that would have given people much more access to past adoption records. It was a really interesting project on the level of the politics and legalities involved, but it was also interesting to see the stories of actual adoptees and adoptive parents. So check out our site and all the other projects from our class!

http://www.fims.uwo.ca/newmedia2008/

Final issue of The Reporter

The much-anticipated Features Edition of The Reporter is here! All of us have been working on our major feature stories for print class for months now, and the last issue of The Reporter is made up of all those stories. Some of them have also been published elsewhere, or may be published sometime soon, but for now you can see my story on the Biotron here.

The Biotron's superhuman capabilities meet human obstacles

Only one more week left of journalism school. It's ridiculous that it's been a whole year already. Time to move on to bigger and better things?? Well, time to move on, at least... to what, who knows.

Social Justice Month at Western

My story for the Reporter this week:

http://www.fims.uwo.ca/olr/Mar1908/SocialJustice.html

Beware the idles of March

Spending the break at home doesn't mean there isn't a lot to see and do in London and area for kids and families.

THE LONDON FREE PRESS, page B1
Sat. March 8, 2008
By MEGHAN MOLONEY, SPECIAL TO SUN MEDIA

Raise your hand if you've slipped on an icy driveway in the last week.

Keep it raised if your boots have soaked through after stepping in a pile of slush or you've been stuck waiting for a bus that never came.

Now, how many of you are heading south during March break to escape the winter blues?

Congratulations. Your colleagues, classmates and relatives probably hate you right now.

But for anyone sticking around to spend March break at home, don't despair -- there are lots of great ways to relax, get some exercise and learn something new with your family right here in the London area.


Finding ways to keep your kids happy and active doesn't have to break the bank, either. You can skip the pricey day camps and go for inexpensive activities.

An added bonus is that many events don't require you to register ahead of time, so you can be spontaneous with your plans.

One of the major attractions next week is sure to be the Children's Museum. With daily activities such as arts and crafts, scavenger hunts and karaoke, as well as special weekend guests, kids can do something different each day of the week.

"We have some favourites who've come back for another year of fun," said Dawn Miskelly, manager of visitor services and sales.

"Some of them are activities that are here a lot, but with more oomph over March break."

If you'd rather risk the snow and slush to get some fresh air, the London area offers skiing, snowboarding and tubing, as well as public skating in the city.

Been there, done that? There's always the time-honoured March break tradition of the sugar bush. Among the several maple sugar bushes running tours and activities in the area is the Kinsmen Fanshawe Sugar Bush.

Bill Reath, who's worked there for 15 years, recommends wearing warm clothes and a pair of boots you don't mind getting muddy.

"The old fellow who was there when I started there said, 'You can't make syrup until there's mud on the ground.' "

So instead of hiding at home next week, grab a thermos of hot chocolate and some warm, fuzzy socks and hit the town.

MARCH BREAK SURVIVAL GUIDE:

See the Free Press City & Region page for all the activity listings I compiled.

Better late than never--for this story, at least... for John Tory, not so much.

Five of my classmates and I attended the Ontario PC convention on Feb. 23 in London. We got in with media passes arranged by our political reporting instructor by day / city newspaper editor by night.

The thrill of covering the convention for class was two-fold: not only did we get out of writing the following week's assignment on the yawn-a-thon federal budget, but we also got to witness the infamous speech by John "Please Don't Fire Me" Tory. Can you stand the excitement?

Anyway, with the number of articles printed about this in the week after the convention, this story will seem a bit outdated at this point but I'm only getting around to posting it now. Chalk it up to the 18 other assignments I'm already working on for the next few weeks, multiply that by job applications, and subtract the energy I lost by randomly getting sick a few days ago.
********
In the upstairs hallway of the London Convention Centre, just before John Tory’s speech at last Saturday’s Ontario Progressive Conservative conference, NDP MPP Peter Kormos called Tory an articulate and effective speaker.

Tory’s half-hour speech was certainly articulate. But it wasn’t too effective.

In the week leading up to the PC convention, the media had pegged the most interesting item on the conference agenda: the vote that would take place immediately after party leader Tory’s speech, deciding whether there would be a leadership review or not. Most critics had predicted that Tory would need at least two-thirds of the party’s vote in order to gather enough support to stay on as leader.

Others, like Kormos, said it didn’t matter how many votes Tory got on Saturday—his leadership had been in jeopardy since October 10.

The day of the last provincial election was “a humbling experience” for Tory and for the Conservative party, he said in his speech. After a humiliating defeat in which the party gained few new seats in the legislature, and in which Tory himself lost the riding of Don Valley West to Liberal Education Minister Kathleen Wynne, major factions of the party were calling for a leadership review.

Kormos, who attended the convention as a “monitor” (read: spy) for the NDP, said Tory would be in a very difficult and unenviable position.

“He’s going to be constantly swimming upstream,” he said.

Calling the speech “critical” to his future position, Kormos said it was clear that Tory’s goal would be to “avoid more slippage” in support levels, as opposed to trying to gain new ground. He said he couldn’t predict what Tory’s strategy would be, adding that his surprising adherence to the issue of funding faith-based schools -— arguably the policy that cost Tory the 2007 election -- made him somewhat unpredictable.

“Hopefully he had better advice on this speech than on the election platform,” said Kormos.

Tory’s speech was an intelligent and humble affair, beginning with an apology for having let the party down and a promise to do better next time. He argued that it would be a waste of time for the party to spend the next year in a “divisive, expensive leadership” race when they should be focusing instead on issues like health care, education and community safety.

“Let me be clear: if I believed the party’s chances in the next election would be better with another leader, I would step aside immediately,” Tory said. “But our own history, and that of other parties, has shown that switching leaders after a defeat is not the path to victory.”

He cited the one case in which the Conservatives kept Mike Harris as their leader after a defeat, resulting in two successive majority governments. He also mentioned Prime Minister Stephen Harper, describing his current federal administration as “a Conservative government of purpose and principle”—-to which the conference delegates responded with deafening applause.

Unfortunately for Tory, Kormos pointed out that the reference to Harper got a stronger reaction from the audience than anything else in the speech.

“The audience did not respond,” Kormos said afterward to reporters. “A whole lot of this audience was sitting on its hands, even at points when any Conservative should have been enthusiastic.”

Although Kormos thought the speech was “well-delivered” and “obviously well-crafted,” reaching out to more liberal issues like societal violence and also to “hardcore former Harrisites,” he said it came four months too late.

“I’m convinced that even most of the Liberals—-when I saw how little they had on their agenda after being elected, I began to reach the conclusion that they didn’t expect to win,” said Kormos. “Mr. Tory was the premier-in-waiting until he forced and drove his faith-based school agenda. He handed the election to the Liberals who ran with virtually no platform.”

Dave Thornton, a Liberal staffer and monitor who attended the conference, would not comment on what his party would make of Tory’s speech.

“I’m here as a volunteer and an observer,” he said. He referred questions to labour minister Brad Duguid. Calls to Duguid’s office manager this week were not returned.

The results of the vote following Tory’s speech were 66.9 per cent against a leadership review. Tory took several hours to think about his decision before stating that he would stay on as party leader late Saturday night.

Among other issues being discussed following the results is the question of where Tory will run in the 2011 election. Speculation about which PC candidate might be likely to step down and offer his or her riding to Tory has been fruitless so far. Kormos said he hadn’t heard of any contenders.

Selfish Ontarians want to keep all their neurosurgical patients to themselves

This is a piece I wrote for my political reporting class. Funnily enough, I originally thought about writing this story after reading an article in the Globe about the expert panel report on neurosurgery... and then the day after I submitted this story to my instructor, the Globe published another piece along the same lines.

******
It’s been less than two months since the Ontario ministry of health and long-term care has implemented the first phase of an expert panel’s recommendations on how to improve access to neurosurgery. Already, the number of patients being transferred to the United States for surgery has decreased from at least 15 per month to three, a decrease of more than 80 per cent.

“We feel there’s an early success there,” said ministry spokesperson Andrew Morrison.

The expert panel report, which was released publicly on February 15, made 21 recommendations for ways to improve patient care. The first phase of action required the Ontario government to provide extra funding to the University Health Network, based in Toronto, so that 100 additional neurosurgery cases could be dealt with over the current and next fiscal years.

“From the ministry standpoint, we are not doctors and we’re not medical experts, but we are excellent at funding--we hold the purse strings,” Morrison said. “So what the expert panel told us was that if you’re able to fund additional neurosurgery cases, that should help with [reducing the number of] out-of-country transfers.”

Morrison said it will take time to determine how effectively the funding improves overall service to patients, but the short-term results look promising.

The funding will help obtain access to more beds, operating rooms and extra nursing and hospital staff.

However, in some cases it’s not just a question of funding but of qualified, available neurosurgeons. Morrison said there are shortages of doctors across Ontario and the ministry is working with training colleges and universities to expand medical education.

“That’s something that we look at (on) an ongoing basis, not necessarily related to neurosurgery but as an overall approach to healthcare in Ontario, and not just medical students but nursing students and all the other disciplines and allied healthcare professionals that are part of the Ontario healthcare system,” he said.

He pointed out that neurosurgery is a highly-skilled area of medicine, and that it may be difficult to find good candidates to fill those roles.

James Rutka, one of the authors of the expert panel report, said there’s no question that part of the problem is a need for more doctors.

“We not only need these trained individuals but we need more of them, because neurosurgery is a very exacting profession and discipline, and the population is growing but the number of neurosurgeons has not grown at the same rate,” said Rutka, a surgeon and researcher at the Hospital for Sick Children and the chair of the University of Toronto’s division of neurosurgery.

Rutka said part of the solution is to convince medical students that neurosurgery is a worthwhile specialty. Hospitals have to be able to promise students that after medical school and up to 10 additional years of rigorous training, there will be jobs waiting for them, he said.

The expert panel’s recommendations for phase two include “rolling out” the changes already put in place at UHN to all 13 hospitals in Ontario that provide access to neurosurgery. In order to increase access at all of these centres, Morrison said the government will be working with external healthcare providers. This means Ontario citizens will get the benefit of publicly-funded healthcare while also using the services of private healthcare teams.

So where is the line between public and private healthcare?

Morrison emphasized that “the government is committed to offering universal, publicly-funded healthcare to Ontarians,” and that any services funded by the government are public services. He also referred to the Commitment to the Future of Medicare Act, passed in 2004, which closed the loopholes to extra billing user fees and privately-funded healthcare that were discovered in the past.

Essentially, contracting out to external businesses to take care of shortages in neurosurgery was part of the problem, not the solution, said Morrison. “That’s kind of what we were doing—we were sending emergency cases out of the country. So we were paying an external provider to do the work.”

Instead, the ministry is focusing on keeping neurosurgical procedures inside the province—even if it has to put up additional funding and bring in outside specialists to do the work.

Ontario isn’t the only jurisdiction in Canada to be making changes in the direction of two-tier health care. The Globe and Mail reported in a recent article that Quebec health minister Philippe Couillard has agreed to allow doctors to have “duo” practices in both the public and private systems. The change came as a response to a provincial healthcare report called “Getting our money’s worth” which proposed many changes, including allowing private insurance companies to cover public health services.

Couillard cautioned Quebecers about the changes, saying they “must have no impact on the public health care system and no impact on access to care by the general public.” But critics, including University of Toronto law professor Colleen Flood, have said Quebec has taken a firm step toward a two-tier system.

Rutka said incorporating the private sector into neurosurgery wouldn’t work, though it might for other areas of medicine.

“You couldn’t set up a private clinic with a building that would have everything that a neurosurgeon needs to do neurosurgery without investing millions and millions of dollars, and for a relatively small number of patients who would benefit in a private clinic setting from that kind of service,” he said.

“It just would not make any good business sense.”

Rutka said that for other specialties that are less cost-intensive than neurosurgery, it may not be a bad idea to look into privatization. But he also believes in improving the system we already have.

“I’m a firm believer and very proud of the Canadian healthcare system,” he said.

“On balance, it’s a wonderful system that we have in place here. It can be better, and we slipped behind on losing patients to the United States with these transfers because our system became full. But it’s a correctable problem.”

The expert panel will be meeting again within a week.

This week's issue of The Reporter: more on Glen Pearson, our favorite firefighting, money-raising politician!

Well hello, loyal readers. If you read my story about Glen Pearson about a month ago, my contribution to this week's edition of 'The Reporter' is a follow-up story on an issue that came up in my original interview with him. I was still waiting on some information from CIDA, which didn't arrive by the time we printed our issue, so if I find out any new updates I'll post them here.

Lots of other interesting stories this week--take a look!
http://www.fims.uwo.ca/olr

Money promised to Darfur refugees still in limbo
MP Glen Pearson says Sudan was told aid had been approved

By Meghan Moloney

When London MP Glen Pearson was in Sudan with other aid workers in January, he discovered that the government of Canada had told a group of refugees in Darfur they may be getting $3 million in aid by March.

Yet Canadians haven't been given any information about the deal.

Canadian International Development Agency officials had contacted Sudanese leaders as early as a year ago to discuss the funds, but the government has made no public announcement about any money going to Sudan.

Pearson had been lobbying the government for money to help these refugees since the first time he made a speech in the House of Commons last February.

He "just about broke down" when he found out about the aid money, he said.

"I felt a huge sense of relief," he said. But he was also disappointed. He would have been happier if the government had indicated that it was following up on his call for action.

"I had a terrible first year in Parliament," he said. "I felt I wasn't making a difference."

An active human rights and development worker in Sudan for more than a decade, Pearson was elected MP for London North Centre in November 2006. Before beginning his duties in Parliament, he and his wife, fellow activist Jane Roy, made their annual trip to Sudan with their NGO, Canadian Aid for Southern Sudan, and a group of London-based volunteers in January 2007.

During that trip, they met a traveler coming from the northern region of Darfur who told them there were 100,000 new refugees trying to escape the violence in the area.

Pearson and his team investigated the situation, along with the International Organization for Migration.

"It was desperate," said Pearson. "In fact it was awful. There was no water, no food, no clothing."

The refugees were people who had migrated from southern Sudan to Darfur around 20 years ago to escape the violence of the civil war, said Pearson. But because of the current conflict in Darfur, they are once again trying to find a home.

Before returning to Canada, Pearson met with regional leaders working with the IOM and asked them to draw up a budget to help the new refugees. They asked for $6 million. Pearson presented the budget in the House of Commons in February 2007.

"I was listened to very respectfully," he said,. But there was no response from the government.

"I wore that (weight) all year-I felt sick about it," said Pearson.

But when he returned to Sudan three weeks ago, he found a different story. According to IOM officials, the Canadian government had contacted the organization to say that it was aware of the problem but asked the IOM to cut the budget to $3 million.

After Pearson returned to Canada for the new Parliamentary session, the IOM officials told Roy, who was still in Sudan, that they had been contacted by CIDA and had been told the new budget had been approved. The grant was conditional on sufficient funds being left over at the end of the current fiscal year, but Pearson said he's confident there will be enough and that the money will be transferred by March.

There has been no official confirmation from CIDA or other government departments about the money for Sudan. Pearson is not aware which officials had been communicating with the IOM. When contacted, a CIDA representative said the department was preparing to announce its plans for Sudan as well as other areas in need of aid, but she couldn't put a timeline on it

Pearson doesn't think the money is tied to the success of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's budget, scheduled for early March. Although he appreciates that the government is acting on his request, he's still unsure why the Conservatives waited so long to mention the transfer of money to Darfur and why officials in Sudan were notified before Canadians, he said.

"If I wanted to be partisan, I could (ask) why didn't they tell anyone until now," Pearson said. But he could understand why the government wouldn't raise false hopes before confirming any aid. "If I want to be realistic, I would say why would they tell anyone they were going to give the money before it was guaranteed."

However, Pearson said it would have been helpful if the Conservatives had made it clear that they were following up on his request.

"We need to work on communication," he said. "We're talking about money to keep people alive."

Snowfest this year draws 20 sculptors to market

THE LONDON FREE PRESS
Thursday, Feb. 7, 2008
By Meghan Moloney, Special to Sun Media

The courtyard at Covent Garden Market will be transformed into a glittering wonderland this weekend for Snowfest 2008.

"I'm looking forward to it," said Ted Hayes, the event organizer and a sculptor with Frozen Impact in St. Thomas.

"It started dwindling last year with only four or five teams, but this year there will be over 20 sculptures," said Hayes, 51, who has co-ordinated Snowfest for 12 years.

This year's theme is "a magical crystal garden."

The admission-free event kicks off tomorrow as Hayes and his brother, Tyler, 41, begin creating the garden on a platform in front of the market. 

The first competition will be Saturday, with 11 professional artists registered to make carvings based on the theme.

Sunday, carvers can create any piece they want for that day's contest.

Peter Lam, a London artist who has won first prize in the People's Choice competition several times, said he's excited about the event.

"This year I'm going to be carving a couple of rats," said Lam, who annually creates an animal corresponding to the current Chinese year.

"I'm looking forward to it."

The competitions are judged by the public.

While unpredictable weather has been an issue in the past, Environment Canada is predicting snow and a high of 1 Saturday and -5 Sunday.

And, Hayes said, the event no longer uses snow, partly because of weather worries but also because of the cost of transporting the snow.

This year, artists will each get two 136-kilogram blocks of ice with which to work.

Hayes said it's important to offer Londoners free events in the winter.

"This is the only thing -- you have to pay to go to everything else," he said. "You can bring your skates and have some lunch. There are going to be some beautiful things here."

IF YOU GO

- What: Snowfest 2008, an international ice carving competition.
- When: Friday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Where: Covent Garden Market.
- Admission: Free.

Report Reveals Daily Violence

My very first front-page byline!

*****
THE LONDON FREE PRESS
Thursday, Feb. 7, 2008

A study of sexual harassment, aggression and bullying at schools shows 'cause for concern.'
By MEGHAN MOLONEY, SPECIAL TO THE FREE PRESS

Sexual harassment, verbal aggression and bullying occur daily in Ontario high schools, but get less attention than more "dramatic" issues such as weapons, says the author of a report that surveyed more than 1,800 Southwestern Ontario students.

David Wolfe, principal investigator for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, released the report yesterday. It examines violence, sexual harassment and bullying at 23 schools.

"The cause for concern is that this is everyday violence and it doesn't get the same attention as more dramatic violence like kids carrying guns," Wolfe said. "But we do have to worry about it. We don't want kids to think it's OK to bully and harass others."

Wolfe, an honorary psychology professor at UWO, headed the research, conducted between 2003 and 2007. The study surveyed 1,819 students in Grades 9 and 11 in rural and city schools. Wolfe declined to say precisely where the surveys were conducted.

The study found:


- 29 per cent of Grade 9 girls and 33 per cent of Grade 9 boys reported feeling unsafe at school;

- 16 per cent of girls and 32 per cent of boys reported being physically harmed;

- 10 per cent of girls and 25 per cent of boys admitted they had harmed others;

- 12 per cent of boys and 14 per cent of girls reported being harassed online.

"Part of the reason we wanted to present this was because the only data that's been out there lately is from Toronto schools, which paints a pretty bad picture, and we wanted to indicate the picture can be similarly bad in other parts of the province," Wolfe said.

The important aspect of the research is change over time, Wolfe said. Results indicated Grade 9 students who experience violence are more than twice as likely to be harassed in Grade 11.

"We're looking at the pattern across time and that's a bit alarming," Wolfe said. "When you can predict by a factor of two or three times that someone will have a problem, that's significant."

The research showed students as young as Grade 9 are reporting suicidal thoughts.

"They're not happy and this is not innocuous," Wolfe said.

Grade 9 is a tough year for students, many of them being harassed by older students, he said. Some boys deal with the problem by harassing others.

Girls are more likely to spread rumours and use verbal insults as aggression, but Wolfe said name-calling can have similar consequences to physical violence.

"It's not just about a fear of safety, but a fear of emotional humiliation."

Researchers asked about students sexually pressuring or being sexually pressured by other students:

- Four per cent of Grade 11 males admitted they've tried to force someone to have sex with them;

- 10 per cent of males and 27 per cent of females were pressured into sexual acts they did not want to do;

- 15 per cent of girls said they had oral sex to avoid having intercourse;

- Girls were more likely to experience unwanted sexual comments, looks and touching, whereas boys were more likely to experience homo-phobic insults.

The study comes as Mike and Brenda Neuts mark the 10th anniversary of their son's being found hanging unconscious on a washroom stall door hook in Chatham-Kent. Ten-year-old Myles died six days later. His family continues to make anti-bullying presentations to school children and other groups. (A story is on Page C4).

Wolfe said schools have begun to add more education on healthy relationships and discrimination. He said parents and communities need to deal with harassment as well as students and schools.

"This is everyone's issue."

"The purpose of releasing this study is not just to scare people. The positive message here is we're starting to teach people that kids shouldn't have to put up with this, no more than (adults) should."

First edition of the 2008 Reporter!

www.fims.uwo.ca/olr

My story is in the "what's new" section, "A second chance for suspended students."

Two stories in tomorrow's London city paper--one is apparently going front page!! Will post tomorrow.

The Reporter: Coming Soon to a laptop near you!

Our first issue of The Reporter will be published this Wednesday night! It was a short week for us, we'll normally have two weeks to work on each issue, but it's shaping up pretty well so far.
I'll be posting the link to the finished issue once it's online. I'm also working a few shifts at the city newspaper again this semester, so there will be more of those articles posted here from time to time.

Reporters frustrated by lack of access to Prime Minister

La Press Canadienne reporter Lina Dib says PM Stephen Harper hasn’t come in the front door to QP for months.

The Hill Times, January 28th, 2008
By Meghan Moloney

If you ask around, La Presse Canadienne Hill reporter Lina Dib says people will likely describe her as a "persistent and annoying reporter." But that doesn’t bother her. What does bother her is the lack of access to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Cabinet ministers. She’s got a lot to say about that. Ms. Dib came to Ottawa in 1997 after eight years with Radio-Canada, during which she worked in Winnipeg, Montreal, and finally as the national correspondent in Toronto. She spent nine years as a Parliament Hill correspondent for TVA. In May 2006, she left TVA to work at Nouvelle Télé-Radio, which has since been "re-branded" as La Presse Canadienne, the French arm of Canadian Press. She met The Hill Times for an interview at her office last week.


Why did you switch from TVA to NTR?

"Because of my family life. Because I have a kid who was going to start school, and so that meant homework and I wanted to be home at a reasonable hour, which you don’t do when you work in TV. You’re often stuck in the evening. And I didn’t want to do any more election campaigns because I didn’t want to be leaving anymore, I didn’t want to be doing any more trips. So I negotiated a different kind of work schedule. I get my summers off, all of that too to enjoy my six-year-old."


How did being a parent change you as a reporter?

"I don’t know as a reporter, but as a person who’s working, you don’t care about work as much, definitely, and you’re more involved in your private life, and you have different sets of values. You don’t think that work is just the ultimate goal–happiness being the ultimate goal. Happiness is easier to find with people who love you, be that they’re small or big, and not from your job."


Do you mostly write copy stories or are you ever on the radio?

"Yeah, I’m on the radio. Actually I work for the radio French service, the Canadian Press, so yes, I write copy–mostly short copy, and I do news reports. We used to be called NTR, then we were rebranded as La Presse Canadienne, radio or print service. I’m not even sure they say print anymore, because it’s mostly an internet service."


How did you find the transition?

"I used to work in radio before. I came to TV from radio, but that was–when I was working in radio, we were still slicing tape. I worked for Radio-Canada for eight years. I worked in Winnipeg, Montreal, and Toronto. So the main difference is the technology of it now. But other than that, I’m still doing the exact same job–I’m still asking the same questions to the same people. It’s lighter because you don’t have to wear the makeup anymore. You don’t have to care about your hair anymore. But other than that, it’s pretty much the same job."


What’s your biggest scoop so far covering federal politics?

"I’m not much of a scoop person, more of a stunt person. Things kind of happen–I remember one Liberal convention here in Ottawa where I ended up being, totally by coincidence, in a room where I could hear a speech that Jean Chrétien was giving, you know, not for reporters’ ears. So that made a bit of noise."


Did you end up publishing it?

"Yeah. It was all about the Clarity [Act in 2000], and how he was happy that he had done it and people had said it was going to create a backlash and that didn’t happen, so you know, he was kind of bragging about it. There were some famous quotes saying that the sovereignty movement was like a sick dog. He was very colourful. Other little things like that, for some reason things kind of happen. But I don’t have any stars in my desk about incredible documents people slipped me in brown envelopes, like in the books."


Are you particularly proud of something you’ve reported on?

"I’m particularly proud of the coverage, and have happy memories of the coverage I did on the Middle East trip of Jean Chrétien’s in 2000, mostly because I speak Arabic. I’m Lebanese, so the whole thing, the whole area really interested me. That was quite a trip, because things just kept happening there again. And because of that edge I had, because I could speak to people other reporters couldn’t, because I could actually catch stuff happening that other people wouldn’t get access to. So I was very proud of that, plus I was enjoying myself. On the stop in Lebanon I got to see my family. That was like the ultimate coverage. It was kind of a nightmarish trip for the PMO. It did not go well. He stumbled a lot, it was kind of like one mistake a day. It made a lot of noise in the media here at the end of it. People were complaining about–a Senator wrote a mean letter about me being not a nice reporter."


What’s the biggest issue today in federal politics in Quebec? In Canadian politics?

"Well, the two very timely issues, the thing that everybody’s been talking about is mostly the manufacturing and forestry crisis. It got all of Quebec in a very bad mood last week or two weeks ago. And I think Afghanistan is definitely something on people’s minds, although maybe not so much in the day-to-day obsession of people in Québec. In the past year if you look more closely at Quebec politics, people haven’t been as impassioned with lots of things, because they’re comfortable, their economy is going well–they have their little fights, they had that whole accommodement raisonnable thing that got them totally–their focus was nowhere near Ottawa. At some point, the veiled vote thing got them a bit excited because of that other accommodement raisonnable noise. But maybe now with the economy crisis for these two sectors, if it gets bigger, affects more people. And Canada as a whole, everybody’s talking economy right now. Maybe I’m optimistic, but I have trouble believing that we’re really heading into troubled times. But I’m no expert."


What are some other major news stories you’ve broken?

"The thing is, you keep forgetting them, because when you’re in them they seem to be so huge and then two weeks later, nobody remembers, especially now that the news cycle is just so fast. I don’t know, anything that had to do with Quebec was always big, especially because of the employer I had. So there was the Clarity Bill, when it went to the Supreme Court. Just covering the politics–the whole Martin-Chrétien quarrel, that brought a lot of excitement. Elections of minority governments–all that stuff."


What do you like the most about your job?

"Actually, I like the laughter. I usually enjoy my day. I have a lot of fun with the people I work with. It’s just the general ambiance that I like. I like hanging out with–not with everybody, but with most of the crowd of the press gallery."


What do you find the hardest?

"Getting out of here in time, running out the door at a quarter to 5, because I absolutely, absolutely want to be home before 5:30 p.m. Budgets–I hate budgets. Although I was really good in math at school, when there’s a dollar sign next to the mathematics, for some reason I become dumb. I hate covering budgets. That’s probably my ultimate nightmare. And it comes back once a year!"


How do you find dealing with the Conservative government, the Prime Minister’s Office, and the Prime Minister?

"I don’t find it, because I don’t have any dealings with them. They don’t return calls. They hardly return emails. It’s just annoying and frustrating. I just do the job with the information I gather, and if they’re not in the story, well, I can’t do anything about it. Their point of view can’t get in the story if they’re not there. And they haven’t been there."


Are you able to get interviews with Cabinet ministers? Are they accessible?

"If I hang around at caucus, sometimes I catch some of them off guard. I caught Stockwell Day once in an elevator, where it was the first time he acknowledged that there was torture in Afghanistan, and that was just me and him in the elevator. Probably that’s the stuff I’m most proud of. I’m kind of a persistent, annoying reporter. If you ask around, that’s what they’ll say about me. So there’s just nothing else you can do. They’ve been taking back corridors, back doors. Stephen Harper hasn’t even come in the front door to QP for months now. So, I mean, if they’re hiding, what can you do? I try not to get emotional about it, because it’s just a job. But I don’t think it’s the most democratic way of doing things. It doesn’t change much to my life, except that it makes my job a little more frustrating."


When you were dealing with past governments, did you have these kinds of problems or did you find it more accessible?

"No, they were accessible. They weren’t nicer–it’s not about being nice and being chummy with them. It’s about being there, because when you’re elected and the people of Canada pay your salary, you have to answer questions, you have to say what you’re doing. And the only way you can tell people what you’re doing is–sure, you can put up stuff on the internet, on your website, but the only way you can be questioned back in a more critical way is to answer reporters’ questions. And they’re not answering reporters’ questions. I mean, I don’t think my relationship with the Chrétien PMO was ever good. But it’s not about entertaining a good relationship. I’ve had not a good rapport with the Bloc Québécois at some points also because they didn’t like the coverage I was giving them.

"It’s just about being there. So now we’ve been barred from Cabinet for two years. The whole gallery. The way things worked in the old days is that Tuesdays were Cabinet days, so they were on the third floor and reporters would just stand there and try to catch ministers on their way in or on their way out and ministers could stop or not stop and answer questions. And it was the same for the Prime Minister–he would come out or not come out. It was the same at Question Period. Now at Question Period, you’re just asking questions of the opposition, because the ministers never come out, or almost never come out. The opposition [MPs] get all the ice, so I’m sure they’re glad about that. Sure, there are clips that you could pull out of Question Period of the Prime Minister, or of the few ministers who speak French, but you don’t always want to put out the line. As a reporter, your job is to ask the tough questions and to get answers to those. So we get to grill the opposition, once they’ve done their show at QP, but we don’t get the ministers or the Prime Minister."


What do you think of the whole issue of the list and the Prime Minister’s Office having control over the list of questions and reporters?

"The Canadian Press does not go on that list. I wouldn’t go on a list, even if the Canadian Press decided that from now on they’re going on a list. I’m not sure that I would have questions for a list. No, I find that totally wrong. There were several ways that the gallery explored how to deal with it, the biggest problem being that the gallery cannot unite."


What’s the biggest challenge of reporting on the current government?

"Accessibility. Sometimes the silliest stuff that you need, the less controversial things–you used to pick up the phone, call [a] department, and say, ‘I want to know, you just put out some release, and I want to have more information.’ Now you get a phone call back saying, ‘I got your call–what is your deadline?’ It’s now. And then you get the call back–‘Now I know your deadline, what are your questions?’ Well, no. Give me someone to talk to. And then they’ll call back again–‘Can you email me your questions?’ So now, we’ve kind of lost the reflex of picking up the phone and calling to ask the government, what exactly do you mean by this or by that? Because they don’t answer. And that’s definitely challenging. So some stuff just doesn’t get reported, because you can’t get satisfying answers."


What do you think the impact will be of these trends on governments to come?

"When this whole affair started, I can’t remember who but some reporters went around all the opposition leaders and asked, ‘If you get power, will we have access back to Cabinet?’ And they all promised that they would. Now, that was when the whole fight or quarrel began, so will anybody remember what they had promised–I don’t know. I think it’s definitely a slippery slope, and not just with this government but for journalism as a whole. And I think the most annoying thing is not that they’re doing this, but how easily some of us have accepted this new order of things. Some people find in this order of things... they find something good out of this situation because it serves them. Obviously the PMO has chosen some news outlets to feed information to. Governments in the past have always had their corridors of information–you knew some reporters were being fed more easily by the PMO or by opposition parties or whatever. That’s always been the case."


Do you think the CBC was too severe in its punishment on one of its national reporters, Krista Erickson, who fed questions to a Liberal MP? Or is there a fine line between pushing a story with MPs and going too far? What are your thoughts?

"In the past 11 years, I have never given advice to a politician. You know, sometimes you hear their questions in the House or some story gets out and you think, ‘Why don’t you ask them this?’ And I think it’s totally inappropriate for reporters to go and whisper questions in anybody’s ears, or answers in anybody’s ears, because there’s this divide. I really look at the Hill as an us-and-them thing, and I can’t cross that line. I can’t be one of them. I don’t ever want to be one of them. I’m weird that way, I’m not comfortable in social gatherings with politicians–I don’t go to those, whoever sends out the invitation, I don’t go to those. I’ve been once, because I was president of the gallery, to Stornoway. I thought, okay, I had to show up. I just hate the whole thing.

"I find it hypocritical. I don’t want to be friends with them, I don’t want to have drinks with politicians. I’m just not interested. For me, it’s about a job and I know that a lot of reporters establish other kinds of relationships and get stories–I’m just not comfortable with that. It’s just the way I am. I don’t think [the CBC] was too severe."

NDP MP says Tories using private members’ bills to advance government’s crime agenda

But Tory MP Goodyear disagrees, says Canadians are concerned about crime.

The Hill Times, January 28th, 2008
by Meghan Moloney

Backbench Conservative MPs are using private members’ bills as a tool to further the government’s agenda, especially in this Parliament, says an NDP MP.

"In terms of the present government, there are hundreds of examples of private members’ bills being used for a certain agenda. How many crime bills are on the table right now?" said NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North, Man.), who spoke at the Canadian Study of Parliament Group’s seminar on private members’ business on Jan. 23.

Ms. Wasylycia-Leis said although the government has no "master plan" to push crime bills, the use of exchanges when it comes to private members’ bills occurs often to fast-track certain issues. "I think what happens is like-minded individuals advancing an agenda through private member’s business to accomplish an overall agenda, to make a priority around an issue that is consistent with their own political agenda," she told The Hill Times.

However, she said the bills have an impact when they come together. "I would say that the end result, however it gets there, is an attempt to advance this issue on the political agenda and sort of to create the impression, which may not be founded on fact or in reality, that there’s this exponential growth in crime and in violence in our society that has never happened before, when in fact, everybody doesn’t live in fear and everybody may have concerns but may not want to go to the nth degree that the Conservatives are promoting, which is more criminal offences, more jails, more intervention, and protection measures and less and less on prevention and community enforcement."

Terence Moore, procedural clerk of the Private Members’ Business Office in the House of Commons, discussed the procedure of introducing private members’ business. He explained that MPs’ names are randomly drawn at the beginning of each Parliament to determine the order in which members can take up items for debate. If members are unavailable on their scheduled date in the order of precedence, they can request an exchange with another member. But, he said, if members don’t show up on their exchange date, their names get marked with a dagger and they are no longer allowed to request exchanges, though they may still participate in exchanges with other members. Mr. Moore said there have been 13 exchanges so far in the 39th Parliament, which he described as a lot. "Exchanges can be used to fast-track certain pieces of legislation," he said.

Conservative MP Gary Goodyear (Cambridge, Ont.) disagreed with Ms. Wasylycia-Leis, however, saying Canadians are concerned about crime and with good reason. "There’s a good focus on crime and justice issues because that’s the mandate of the government, the mandate given to us by the people of Canada," said Mr. Goodyear, chair of the Procedure and House Affairs Committee. "Ultimately, with all the efforts that we do to give people options to make different choices, at some point in time, once people make the wrong choice and in particular recent violent offenders, it is time to be tough on that stuff and put victims of crime ahead of criminals. And that’s simple."

Mr. Goodyear said that although crime in general in his region of Waterloo is down by "a few percentage points," violent crime in particular is up by about 20 per cent. He added that crack-cocaine, in particular, is an "epidemic in this country" and that the charge made by Liberal MPs that the Conservatives are making a big deal out of crime is "ridiculous."

"We’re not about to continue the coddle-the-criminal trend that we’ve seen in the last decade. We are going to move towards a balance of locating and identifying folks that are coming up to making choices in their life, that are perhaps susceptible at that time level, and try to deal with the causes of crime and preventing crime," Mr. Goodyear said.

The seminar featured speakers Mark Audcent, law clerk and Parliamentary counsel for the Senate; Bill Fleury, director of the Office of Parliamentary Returns at PCO; Ontario Liberal Senator Mac Harb; Ms. Wasylycia-Leis; Mr. Moore; and former Liberal MP Peter Adams.

Mr. Moore said the public is given 48 hours notice when an exchange has been scheduled, adding that an MP would have until 6 p.m. on a Tuesday to request an exchange for the following Thursday. He said so far in the current Parliament, 295 private members’ public bills have been introduced in the House; 11 are on third readings; there has been one private bill introduced; there are 428 motions on the Order Paper, 11 of which have been dealt with; and there are 77 items on the order of precedence.

Mr. Audcent discussed the tools and methods Senators use to introduce private members’ business. He described the process as "the whistle on a kettle—if something is bubbling, it’s a chance for the system to let some air in and for members to point out things that need to be discussed." He also said he prefers the French translation of the phrase: "le sifflet de la bombe."

"It’s a fantastic system," he said. "We probably have the best statute system, it gives us a very high quality of legislative drafting."

In the seminar’s second session, Sen. Harb said most votes in Parliament follow party lines, which is why private member’s bills are important in the Parliamentary process. "You get the odd rebel, but that rebel gets punished. They basically get treated like a bad child," he said, adding that members who do not wish to vote against the government but who wish to effect change, introduce private members’ initiatives.

"I had to either sit and wait for a sunny day to come, or I had to be proactive," he said. "I believe each Member of Parliament who wants to make a difference can."

Ms. Wasylycia-Leis said private members’ business is part of the reason people get into politics in the first place—to make positive improvements. "You can get lost in the game, but we are here to effect change. Private members’ business is a way within that framework to put your own stamp on Parliamentary politics," she said.

The next CSPG seminar will take place on May 21.

Rookie Liberal MP Pearson's Sudan story

The Hill Times, January 28th, 2008
"When Liberal MP Glen Pearson and his wife Jane Roy took their adopted daughter back to Sudan in 2005 for a visit, they had no idea they'd be taking two more children back to Canada."
By Meghan Moloney

Rookie Liberal MP Glen Pearson is a former firefighter. He's also an internationally-known volunteer. He and his wife Jane Roy have been travelling regularly to Sudan since 1998 to help refugees in Darfur and have adopted three Sudanese orphans. Mr. Pearson (London North Centre, Ont.), 57, retired as a captain from the London Fire Department in 2006 after 29 years as a firefighter. He co-founded the London Food Bank in 1987 and has been its executive director ever since, along with Ms. Roy, the assistant director. They have each served as the head of Ontario's Association of Food Banks. In November 2006, Mr. Pearson was elected to office in a byelection.

But for the past decade, he and Ms. Roy have also been helping people in the war-torn Sudan. Their work to help end government-sanctioned slavery and their involvement in other development projects have kept them coming back to Sudan every January. During the civil war, they returned as many as four times a year. From 1998 to 2000, they worked with southern leaders, including the Sudanese minister of education, and a Switzerland-based NGO, Christian Solidarity International, to purchase people out of slavery through the Slave Redemption Program.

Mr. Pearson and Ms. Roy met with then external affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy in March 1999, announcing they would use funds raised in Canada to free slaves. Canadians and businesses from across the country donated $60,000, allowing them to free 800 slaves when they travelled to Sudan in May 1999 with CBC TV, The London Free Press, and a documentary crew. In 2000, Mr. Pearson said, they branched off and started their own NGO, Canadian Aid for Southern Sudan, which later established the New Sudan YMCA/YWCA in August 2002.

After bringing Mr. Pearson's predecessor, then-Liberal MP Joe Fontana (London North Centre, Ont.) with them to Sudan in April 2001, all three met with U.S. Senators and Congressional workers in Washington, D.C., to design a Canadian-American aid initiative.

Mr. Pearson and Ms. Roy met with then prime minister Paul Martin in 2004. CIDA gave them money to build schools and to start programs for women's literacy and recreation. Since 2005, they have helped build eight schools in the eastern region of Aweil, between the oil fields and Darfur. They have also helped the YWCA set up women's micro-enterprises by purchasing sewing machines and training girls to use them, so they can make some income in the markets and leave time to attend school. It was through their work in Sudan that they first heard the story of Abuk. In 2000, Christian Solidarity International mistakenly sent Mr. Pearson a newsletter written in French. On the front page was a picture of a four-month-old Sudanese girl, sick, and crying. The story described how her mother, who had been enslaved along with her children, had been killed while the family was trying to escape from Darfur.

Abuk, her twin sister, and their older brother had been travelling with their mother and grandmother when they were attacked by militia groups, Mr. Pearson told The Hill Times in an interview. "The mother got shot in the middle of a minefield, and she was holding on to Abuk, and the grandmother and the other two children escaped." They were later caught and taken back to Darfur.

Abuk was found by members of her community and taken care of. But when Mr. Pearson first heard about her, none of the people taking care of her knew that her relatives were still alive. "It was assumed by the grandmother and the other two kids that Abuk had been killed with the mother, and it was assumed by the community that had helped Abuk that the grandmother and the other two kids had been killed," he said. "So neither side knew that the other one existed." Mr. Pearson and Ms. Roy had already talked about adopting a Sudanese child. "It's hard–you see these people and your heart goes out to them," he said. "They lost three million people over 20 years and five million of them were displaced."

Mr. Pearson said that seeing local children and their desperate situations had led him and his wife to commit to going back to southern Sudan every year for the rest of their lives to raise money for relief projects, but they still felt they should do more.

"There were just so many children that were in such desperate shape that we thought, at some time we should [adopt a child]," he said. "But our hearts just went out to this particular little girl when we heard about her story. But we had no idea at that particular time that there had been a brother and a sister."

After deciding to adopt Abuk, it took Mr. Pearson and Ms. Roy a year to find her, since the Darfur refugees moved around constantly. When they finally met her, she was very sick. "She was like 12 pounds at a year of age. It was not good," he said. "We took her to the doctor. The doctor said, 'She will not survive,' because she had malaria [and] double pneumonia." They took Abuk to a United Nations hospital in Nairobi, believing she was going to die–but she ended up thriving. Three months later, when Abuk was 15 months old, they took her home to London, Ontario.

"Abuk is wonderful," Mr. Pearson said. Now seven years old, Abuk is no longer quiet and shy and is "more like a typical Canadian kid" who laughs, runs around, and loves to play sports and do gymnastics, he said.

"I think one of the things she loves to do the most is wrestle. She and I wrestle every day, probably 15 times a day."

Mr. Pearson said having Abuk in their family has helped to reaffirm his and Ms. Roy's commitment to Sudan and has kept them focused on important issues. "She's such a wonderful child, and a really peaceful kid, that we've always seen in Abuk the ability for what Sudan could be, if the people could just find peace." He also said that adopting Abuk meant so much to the people in her home village that it opened up communications with aid workers.

"We had been there building schools, but something happens when you adopt someone," he said. "The villagers there realized that Canadians were making a permanent commitment to one of their own people, and it just opened up the doors there for us to be able to get other projects done."

In January 2005, Mr. Pearson and Ms. Roy took Abuk back to her home village in southern Sudan for a visit. A peace agreement had just been signed between the North and the South, and Abuk's family and friends were finally able to leave Darfur, where they had been living as refugees, to return to their home. "Just as we arrived, as we were getting off the plane, a little girl was standing there who looked identical to Abuk," said Mr. Pearson. "And that was when we started to realize that these kids [her siblings] maybe survived." Abuk's grandmother was there with the other children. "As soon as she saw Abuk come off the plane, she just fell to the ground and started crying and crying, because she knew from looking at Abuk that she was an identical twin to the other little girl, so she knew that Abuk had survived. And that was the first that she knew that that had happened. It was a very emotional moment." When asked whether the children's grandmother objected to Abuk's siblings being adopted as well, Mr. Pearson said she asked him and his wife to take them home to give them a better life.

He admits that the decision was very difficult. He and his wife spent a day talking about their options. "We had planned what we wanted to do for our future–now all of a sudden we found out we could maybe have two more kids," he said. But in the end, it came down to their commitment to Abuk. "We realized we were never going to be able to face Abuk and say, 'Look, we knew that you had a brother and sister but we never tried to adopt them.'" It took two and a half years of red tape, medical treatment, and waiting, but Achan and Ater came to Canada at the end of August last year. Like Abuk, Achan, and Ater have had malaria and are still susceptible to recurring bouts of illness. Mr. Pearson, who has had malaria his "whole adult life," said the disease is "just part of life in Darfur." Recently, he has served as an ambassador for the Spread the Net Campaign, an organization founded by MP Belinda Stronach and comedian Rick Mercer in 2006 to raise money to buy bed nets, which prevent the spread of malaria from mosquito bites. Mr. Pearson told CBC in April that malaria "can be beat, and has been beat in our family's case," but that treatment is much easier to obtain in Canada than it is in Africa. Achan, 7, and Ater, 10, have gone through changes similar to what Abuk went through after arriving in Canada, said Mr. Pearson. Much like her twin, Achan was "very quiet and withdrawn," and Ater was "very serious all the time." Ater had to bring up his sister after their family was split up in the attack, Mr. Pearson said. "He's a very mature 10. He's kind of like 20. But now that they're here, and we're taking care of the sister, he's reverting. I think he's becoming a kid, and I love to see that." He said Abuk has done a good job at making her siblings feel at home in London. "They're monsters, all three of them. They jump all over me. It's a wonderful thing to see. It's brought these kids out of themselves." Mr. Pearson has taken the children to Ottawa several times and said MPs of all political parties were great to the kids. He said it's important for people to meet Sudanese kids to understand the issues being discussed. "I think for all of us, all of us as politicians, we need those kind of personal stories so that we keep focused on Africa and keep focused on Sudan."

Since being elected in November 2006, Mr. Pearson has made Darfur a priority in many of his House speeches. His obvious passion for the refugees' situation must have made an impact: when he was in Sudan in early January, he discovered that the Canadian government had told local leaders that they may contribute $3-million in aid by March. "I asked for six million and they're going to give three," he said. "I've been up there in the House of Commons, speaking all the time, saying 'Do something, do something,' and I think to a certain degree, they were listening to what I was saying, and were trying to find a way to give an answer to it. So I appreciate that."

Mr. Pearson said he has been working with retired general and Quebec Liberal Senator Romeo Dallaire, Liberal Party Leader Stéphane Dion (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville, Que.) and Deputy Leader Michael Ignatieff to "develop a broader capacity around Darfur and Sudan." As well as Abuk, Achan, and Ater, Mr. Pearson also has four older children. "I've got seven children and one grandchild," he said, laughing. "And I'm 57. But it's made for a pretty interesting life this last year." While in Sudan this month, Mr. Pearson said he and his wife saw the children's grandmother. They have been supporting her financially since the adoption, but he said she has heart disease and is struggling. "She's just thankful that somebody took these kids off of her hands before her health continues to deteriorate farther," he said. "I think if their mother could see them from wherever she's at, and see what has happened to them, she would just be overcome with joy about her family."

Being patient...

But it's so hard! I can't wait to see this week's issue. It's being mailed to me, since I'm back at school as of Monday. But I have three articles in this week, so I'm pretty psyched to see it.

I may be able to post the articles earlier if I can figure out the university's online subscription... but we'll see!

In the meantime, I've got a ton of assignments and freelancing articles coming up so I'll still be posting everything here. Also, my print specialization class will be producing an online newspaper ("The Online Reporter"--how original! Thankfully, our prof finally decided that the name is redundant, and has changed it to simply "The Reporter". Better?) So I'll be linking to that site from time to time.

Oh the excitement!!

Meghan in syndication?

A bizarre but cool thing happened today: the Halifax Daily News read my story about the Cape Breton MPs (see yesterday's post) and wants to print it. They're going to pay me $75 for it. This will be the first time I've ever been paid for my writing, since my only experiences being published have been as a volunteer or intern.

If landing a spot at The Hill Times was my "first small step for woman," I guess this is the second!

Q&A with Patrice Roy on the Afghan mission

THE HILL TIMES
Monday, January 21, 2008

THE HOT ROOM - pg. 45
"Roy wonders: is Afghanistan mission worth it?
Radio-Canada TV's Patrice Roy, who survived a landmine explosion last August, says he doesn't think anybody knows if the mission in Afghanistan is worth it, even the generals who will be sent there on rotation."
By Meghan Moloney

Radio-Canada TV's Ottawa bureau chief Patrice Roy, 44, who survived a landmine explosion in Afghanistan last August while covering the war, says he's a stronger man because of it, but wonders if the war is worth it today. As bureau chief, Mr. Roy says he wanted to report on the war in Afghanistan first-hand.

On Aug. 22, when Mr. Roy and his cameraman Charles Dubois were embedded with the B Company of the Van Doos regiment from Valcartier, Que., two of the Canadian soldiers who were accompanying them were killed when their tank hit a landmine. Master Warrant Officer Mario Mercier and Master Corporal Christian Duchesne both died when they tried to reclaim a hill in Zari province, 40 kilometres west of Kandahar.

Mr. Roy captured the events that day in his documentary which later aired on CBC's The National and Le Téléjournal. The powerful documentary was presented as a narrative.

Mr. Roy, wearing a helmet, flak jacket, goggles, and protective gloves, throughout his report talked to soldiers as they repeatedly stopped the tank to check for landmines. There's some banter and humour between the soldiers and Mr. Roy. The documentary is 14 minutes long, but it captures the tediousness of battle too. By noon the tanks were under fire. “This is no training exercise--this is the real thing,” one soldier tells Mr. Roy in the documentary.

By six o’clock, the soldiers were 200 metres from their goal, but didn’t know whether there were IEDs--improvised explosive devices--in the area, so they moved slowly up the hill. Mr. Roy was writing his description of the battle in a notebook just as they reached the top. “Suddenly, with a bang, everything went black,” he said in a voiceover. “Our vehicle had backed over a mine, buried in the thick dust on the hillside.”

The soldiers previously joking in the report were killed, along with the Canadian Forces' Afghan interpreter. Mr. Dubois’ right leg was later amputated below the knee. The camera was destroyed, but the footage remained intact.

Mr. Roy spoke to The Hill Times last week about the experience and how it's changed him.

How does war reporting compare to daily reporting on federal politics?
"It’s more dangerous, obviously. It’s another ball game completely. It’s very, very different in the sense that the goal is not the same. When you are in Afghanistan, at least my goal was to explain to our viewers the complexity of the mission, and to go beyond some cliché about the Taliban on one side and the soldiers on the other. So it was a macro, a big operation, and we wanted to do a documentary plus some news items. So it was quite different from my day-to-day work here in Ottawa, which is to follow the puck and the politics.”

What happened to your documentary project?
"Our goal was to do a one-hour documentary on Afghanistan for Radio-Canada television, and to do a series of items for the most important newscast, Le Téléjournal, and for the radio, et cetera. Because of the accident, I was forced to of course come back with Charles and the project was completely dropped. But I did a 14-minute piece for Le Téléjournal and The National on that famous day. I chose to use only the footage of August 22, real footage of the operation. So I explained the day from A to Z, from the morning to the explosion."

Was that a more emotional experience for you to make that documentary?
"Of course. At first, I had difficulty watching to screen the pictures, because it was like reliving the incident again and again. But I think it was good, at the end, like a way to put—not a final period, but to close something, a chapter."


What feedback did you get from that piece that you made?
"I have to say that since the explosion, I got so much feedback, so many emails, so many beautiful notes from reporters, a lot of reporters that I don’t even know from all over Canada. I got some notes from Europe. I got some notes from people who were caring about us, Charles and I. I was shocked by this wave of sympathy. And after the airing of the piece, it was a little bit the same kind of reaction. People were saying basically, Wow, what an experience, I hope that you will be fine, that Charles will recover okay. So it was very touching for us to see that our work is important for a lot of people. And not only press people, I mean, most emails came from ordinary viewers who got to know me over the years and were touched. I have a blog on Radio-Canada.ca and it was a very useful instrument for that communication between the viewers and me."

Has the experience changed you as a reporter?
"I don’t know, I don’t think so, as a reporter. As a man, certainly, I’m more strong, I’m more aware that we are going to die one day, the mortality of our essence. I’m more sensitive to our human condition, if I may say. It makes you stronger when you live [through] something like that. But as a reporter I think I’m the same. I have the same flaws and the same qualities."

Are you more afraid now to report from war zones? Will you go back to Afghanistan?
"To Afghanistan, I don’t think so. Not in 2008, for sure. Honestly, not because of me, but because of my family—to ask them to live in the waiting and the fear that something could happen to me again, it’s too much to ask. If I was alone, I think I’m crazy enough to go back, but again, it’s so improbable. That was not supposed to happen to us, and it did happen. By the way, for me, one of the most important things of this whole story is to see the courage of other reporters who, after what happened to us, decided to still go out—[Christie] Blatchford from The Globe [and Mail], reporters from CP, from Presse Canadienne, from TVA in Québec, from La Presse—the courage of those persons who saw us, who saw the event, who saw me after, who saw Charles, it’s striking for me. It tells you a lot of the importance of a free press and the importance of our work."

Had there been other moments in your career that prepared you for this experience?
"Nothing prepares you for that. CBC sent me to a training week in first aid and to be able to have some reflex in a war zone. Maybe it did help, I don’t know, but nothing prepares you to see bodies around you and blood and explosions and the fear that other mines would be there—it’s like a nightmare and you have to live it. I think you are stronger in the hour than you think you would be. But I did travel a lot, as I said, I started my career with three months filming a documentary around some tough places—I went to Africa, I went to Haiti, but it’s not the same. I’ve been caught in the middle of riots in Italy for the G8[summit], those types of stressful events, but nothing like a tank exploding."

Do you think journalists who experience trauma in the field should be required to undergo therapy?
"I don’t know. I got a lot of offers from CBC and even from the Forces. I think it’s each person—you have to be confident that if somebody needs help, he or she will ask for it. For me, I talked to a lot of people but I didn’t feel the need to get real therapy. Again, I was very lucky. The guy who suffered was Charles, my cameraman, who got [his leg] amputated. He’s the one who will live the rest of his life with real consequences."

The media has reported that you were in shock after the incident.
"I think it’s an automatisme to say that, I read that too. Of course, I must have been in shock but I was very conscious. Actually, I did an interview the day after—a couple of hours after, in fact, and I was calmer then, right after, than a week after. It’s serious, and I talked a lot about that episode, and I’m not taking it lightly, but for me I didn’t see the need to treat post-traumatic syndrome. I don’t think I suffered from that."

Have you become more or less critical of public officials involved in making decisions about Canada’s commitment in Afghanistan, since seeing it first-hand?
"I’m not more or less critical, I mean, I think I understand a little bit more than others who never went to Afghanistan. I think you have to go there to be able to understand. I read before my departure, I read everything on the mission and a lot of documents. But it’s not the same thing to be there and to feel it on the ground. There’s no other way to do it. But because we blew [up] under a mine doesn’t mean that I’ve become an expert on Afghanistan. I’m a Canadian reporter. I’m following the political scene here. But I thought that it was one of the most important files here in Ottawa, so it was important as a bureau chief to understand the mission."

At the end of your documentary, you said that the operation you witnessed was a success, but you’re not sure the mission as it stands will honour the soldier’s sacrifice.
"It was more like a question. I’m still at the same point, actually. The real question is, we know that it’s a very dangerous mission, we know that the international community had to go there, that’s a fact for a lot of people and that’s a consensus. But right now, witnessing all the incidents and all the difficulties that we face in the south, it’s a question that we can raise—is it worth it? At the end of the mission, will the Afghan people in the south be living differently than now? And nobody has the answer to that question. Time will tell, but at the end of the report, I wanted to underline that it’s not clear if Canada will succeed in a way that people think we should succeed."

So if someone asked you to predict now, based on what you’ve seen from your own coverage, would you say that it’s going to be worth it?
"I don’t know. That’s why I finished my item with a question. It’s the honest answer, I really don’t know. I don’t think anybody knows, to be frank—even generals who will be sent there for the other rotation. It will depend on so many things—on the frontier with Pakistan, on the way the Afghan president is dealing with the pressure. Honestly, I hope those guys [in the army] are not there for nothing, and that’s a personal view. After seeing what they’ve accomplished there, it’s real, real hard work for them. But honestly, I don’t know. The south of the country is so unpredictable, and so it’s a difficult place to predict anything. But we’ll see—it’s too early to tell. But that’s why, on the other hand, I think it’s kind of normal that Canada wants to stay a bit longer. Because quitting now, leaving now, would be in a way a failure of the mission—in a way. That’s the consensus. But as I said to you, I’m not an expert on Afghanistan. I’m a reporter. So it’s not for me to tell if we’re going to succeed or not. It’s a question that people will have to answer."

MPs who live together

So it's my last week as an intern. It's gone by fast but at the same time, it feels like I've been here for awhile. I'll be back at school next week, but The Hill Times will still be publishing a few of my stories in the next couple of weeks, so I'll keep posting them whenever I receive it in the mail!

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THE HILL TIMES
Monday, January 21, 2008

FEATURE - pg. 16
"Roommates Eyking, Cuzner getting the 'seven-year itch'"
By Meghan Moloney

Liberal MP Mark Eyking says he and his roommate Grit MP Rodger Cuzner have the "seven-year itch."

Like a number of MPs, the two Cape Bretoners have shared an Ottawa apartment since January 2001, after they were both first elected to Parliament in November 2000. They're good friends, but it's never easy having a roommate. Everyone has their differences, even two Grit Nova Scotian MPs who like to kid around, believe it or not.

"We always seem to be on different sides of the fence," Mr. Eyking (Sydney-Victoria, N.S.) told The Hill Times last week. Mr. Cuzner's (Cape Breton-Canso, N.S.) "a Protestant, I'm a Catholic, he's a Toronto Maple Leaf, I'm a Montreal Canadien, he was a Chretien supporter, I was a Paul Martin supporter, it just keeps going. He was an Ignatieff supporter and I was a Dion supporter. But the overall thing is we have the Cape Breton flag--that's the main flag in the apartment."

They decided to live together after meeting on the campaign trail and realizing they didn't know anyone else in Ottawa, Mr. Eyking said. They also wanted to save money, although MPs receive a housing allowance.

Mr. Eyking and Mr. Cuzner share a two-bedroom apartment in The Juliana at Bronson Avenue and Albert Street, a building close to Parliament Hill where several other MPs live, including Liberal MP Geoff Regan (Halifax West, N.S.) and Conservative MP Carol Skelton (Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, Sask.). The apartment does double duty as a living space as well as the Cape Breton "embassy," they say, providing visitors from Cape Breton with a place to stay.

"They all know it's a welcome, open house, whether they're coming up for hockey games or courses or just visiting," said Mr. Eyking. "We Cape Bretoners stick together."

Mr. Cuzner agreed, saying it's "the Cape Breton way" to help others whenever possible. But he admits the guests can get noisy, describing one occasion three years ago when he hosted 12 people who were in town for the Gatineau International Midget Hockey Tournament. "Our neighbours still aren't speaking to us about that one."

Mr. Eyking, 47, is his party's critic for small business and tourism. He's married with four children. He and his wife, Pam, ran a vegetable farm as part of Eyking farms in Millville, N.S., and he has been an active member of community and agricultural councils.

Mr. Cuzner, 52, has been a sports columnist, a radio commentator, and an event coordinator for the Cape Breton Department of Recreation, Culture and Facilities and for the City of Fort McMurray, Alta. He and his wife Lynn have three sons.

On the whole, both say they are good tenants and are learning to do domestic tasks in Ottawa. But they don't spend as much time in the apartment as they anticipated. "I remember the first time we moved in, we got all these groceries. We figured we'd be home at 5:30 every night and cook together and all this stuff. Well, that ended after the first week, with votes at night and things like that," said Mr. Eyking.

"When you're away from the apartment for periods of time, it doesn't really make sense to put a whole lot in the cupboards or in the fridge," Mr. Cuzner said. "We did that initially and you'd come back and it would be like a science experiment in your fridge."

Other domestic tasks have caused them more trouble. Mr. Eyking said they nag each other "like in any marriage." Bathroom etiquette is a serious issue. "He leaves his towel on the floor all the time, and he says I don't refill the toilet paper holder," Mr. Eyking said of Mr. Cuzner.

Mr. Cuzner, on the other hand, said that putting the top back on the toothpaste tube has never come naturally to Mr. Eyking. "He's very, very fortunate to have such a tolerant roommate," said Mr. Cuzner. "I'm sure that his wife Pam will have a spot in Heaven for looking after him all these years." When asked what in their relationship has changed over the years, Mr. Cuzner responded: "He's got far less hair to comb in the morning, so that's been significant."

It all comes as good-natured teasing. Mr. Cuzner said Mr. Eyking is hairy, for instance. "It's a little tough when he's brushing his teeth and leaves the door open, and it looks like he left his sweater on. He's a bit of a Chia Pet. So I remind him to take his sweater off," Mr. Cuzner said, taking a friendly jab at his roommate. "We're great friends, and that's only improved over the number of years that we've lived together."

The two have provided each other with much-needed support in the world of public office and partisan politics. Mr. Eyking said he has appreciated Mr. Cuzner as a roommate.

"Ottawa was a big change for me, in lifestyle and things like that, and it would have been very difficult for me without having Rodger as a roommate to get through it," Mr. Eyking said. "When I had problems, whether it's personal problems or problems as an MP, he was always there for me, and he always gave me an ear no matter what time of the day. There's a few things we joke about, but I couldn't have a better roommate."

Being away from their families in Ottawa, it's important to have a roommate to unwind with, Mr. Cuzner pointed out.

"Mark came to Ottawa wanting to help anybody that came to him with a problem," Mr. Cuzner said. "By the end of March, the first year, he was starting to realize that there were some problems that just couldn't be fixed. And I came home one night and he was really beside himself. So we hadn't been on the [Rideau] Canal before, and I said, 'Grab your skates--we're going for a blast.' So we went up and we skated up to the end of the canal and back, about three hours, and [he] just had a chance to clear his head. So that's sometimes how roommates sort of help each other out, I guess."

Even though they don't spend many waking hours at the apartment together, Mr. Cuzner said he enjoys having someone to talk to about his day, to get different perspectives or to complain about various issues. "We're not like-minded on everything, but the main thing is we have a lot of respect for each other and we do enjoy each other's time," he said.

In the building next door to the Juliana lives another pair of MPs who call themselves the "odd couple"--Conservatives Larry Miller (Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, Ont.) and James Bezan (Selkirk-Interlake, Man.). They have lived together on and off since being elected and are now on their second apartment, Mr. Bezan told The Hill Times last week.

He said he has a good relationship with Mr. Miller. "We're the odd couple--he's Oscar and I'm Felix," said Mr. Bezan. "It works pretty good for us. It helps offset the cost of living in Ottawa. If one of us is away, the other one can bring our family to visit. It's good to have it that way."

Mr. Bezan said he does more cleaning than Mr. Miller, but Mr. Miller does more cooking. They both try to exercise frequently. "The building we live in has a good gym downstairs, so we've both been trying to lose some of the damn weight we've put on."


Other Parliamentary roommates include Conservatives Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, Alta.) and James Rajotte (Edmonton-Leduc, Alta.). Mr. Kenney previously lived with Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day (Okanagan-Coquilhalla, B.C.). NDP MP Tony Martin (Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.) used to live with fellow New Democrat Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay, Ont.), and Mr. Martin now rooms with Dennis Bevington (Western Arctic, N.W.T.).

Another pair of Conservative MPs, Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl (Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon, B.C.) and Human Resources Minister Monte Solberg (Medicine Hat, Alta.), are high-profile roommates who have both blogged about living together. Like Mr. Cuzner and Mr. Eyking, they tease each other about the cleanliness of their apartment--or lack thereof.

Mr. Strahl once wrote that he had spoken on the phone with Mr. Solberg, who was washing the cereal bowl Mr. Strahl had left in the kitchen. "He had chiseled out the caked-on Cheerios, and was now soaking the bowl in industrial strength lye to get off the general scunge," he wrote. "Of course, what Monte doesn't talk about is the permanent high water mark in his bathtub ... The ring-around-the cholera in his tub has been there so long that Monte's wife Deb is threatening to ask the workers on Lyon Street to bring in their jackhammers for some general bathroom cleanup. And Monte worries about a calcified cheerio!?!"

But Mr. Cuzner said the relationship between Mr. Strahl and Mr. Solberg is likely as friendly as his own and Mr. Eyking's. "I know both of them, they both love to laugh, they're both capable Members of Parliament, but they both have a sense of humour and they're both pretty grounded guys," he told The Hill Times. But he said he and Mr. Eyking make "a much more attractive couple."