What the Cons might do with a majority

Dean Del Maestro, parliamentary secretary to Heritage Minister James Moore, let this slip in committee last month:

Do you think, and I'm just asking an opinion, this is not a government policy, obviously, but do you think it's time that the Canadian government looks at it and says, maybe it's time we get out of the broadcasting business and get into investing more money into content?

Source. Admittedly, he says it's not government policy, which is to say it hasn't appeared in public policy statements. But what if they had a majority? Just another reason why the Cons must be stopped at all costs. For what it's worth, there's a petition here; it can't hurt to sign it, at least...

The Nygård documentary

A few months ago, you may recall this post about Peter Nygård's attempts to block the airing of a CBC documentary about him. And in the last few days, my site meter has gone apeshit with hits, mostly from people searching for info on that doc. So I figured that having mentioned it, I should actually watch it (it's on the CBC website). It's pretty hard hitting, that's for sure. The harassment (both general and sexual) claimed by some former employees is shocking. I can certainly see why he didn't want it to air...

Nygard sues to block media

This guy has long been known for his litigious ways; here he's using his formidable legal arsenal to try to stop investigative journalists:

Winnipeg fashion baron Peter Nygard has turned to the courts in Winnipeg, New York and San Jose in a bid to shut down a CBC investigation of him.

To help him prove his case in Winnipeg, Nygard also wants the courts in California to force Google to reveal the identity of someone who posted an item on an anonymous blog.

Nygard is trying to block the CBC from airing a "negative and critical" story on him that he claims is based on information supplied by two former managers.

The crux of Nygard's challenge was filed last March in Court of Queen's Bench, but it now extends to courts in New York and California as the women's fashion designer and his lawyers try to tighten the noose around the CBC to stop a story from being aired on The Fifth Estate.

The case went largely unnoticed until Monday when the New York Times ran a piece on its website that Nygard had lodged a copyright-infringement complaint against the CBC, stemming from the attendance of reporter David Common and a cameraman at his Manhattan store on its opening Nov. 6. He claims they were trespassing.

In the Dec. 18 complaint, Nygard said he wants the CBC -- who he says did not have permission to be at the event -- to be ordered to return to him the video they recorded and to be prohibited from airing it ever again.

In Manitoba, Nygard's legal challenge is more complex.

He wants the courts to rule that the CBC's The Fifth Estate should be forbidden from airing a story he claims is based on confidential information supplied by two former employees in Winnipeg; ex-director of human resources Patrick Prowse and ex-recruitment and retention manager Dana Neal.

In his statement of claim, Nygard says Prowse and Neal were bound by confidentiality agreements and had no legal right to share information about their work at Nygard with local CBC researcher Timothy Sawa. Nygard also names Fifth Estate executive producer David Studer in the claim.

From the Winnipeg Free Press. One has to wonder how investigative journalists will be able to do their job, if Nygard gets his way. Evidently at least one court shares these concerns.

Edited to add: It finally aired.

A rather important question goes unasked

This morning the substitute host on Information Radio interviewed a futurist by the name of Richard Worzel on how we can expect the world to look in 2020. The interview was not uninteresting, with Worzel making predictions about such things as how we can expect the economy to do (for what it's worth, he seems to think it will remain poor to very poor for a few years, take off midway through the decade, and then be booming with a possible commodities bubble and/or inflation), demographics (expect a lot more grey hair than today) and technological advances (more and better robots being the most striking). But he was utterly silent on the issue of climate change, or indeed environmental issues in general, and how these issues might be mitigated (or not). There was also no mention of peak oil. Furthermore, the interviewer failed to raise these issues with him either. I'm sure that if he'd asked, Worzel would have said something, so why did he not ask? I find it hard to believe that he simply forgot; perhaps he (or CBC management) thought it would be bad form to raise such a depressing issue during the holidays?