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NDP copyright critic Charlie Angus has delivered a private member’s bill that would tax MP3 players and prolong users’ rights to make copies of digital content. If passed, the bill would add a small tax to devices that reproduce media, including MP3 players and computers. Currently, Canadians pay this tax on “blank media,” such as CDs and DVDs, with the money from the tax put in a fund for artists and record labels, meant as compensation for copying.
Posts Tagged ‘Canadian’
Telling Tales
The convenient truth behind Canada’s MP3 player tax bill
Cinemania
From Kingston to New York: a big month for The Trotsky
Jay Baruchel in The Trotsky
It’s been a big month for The Trotsky, the indie film written and directed by Montreal’s Jacob Tierney. The movie stars Jay Baruchel (who is also the lead in She’s Out of My League, though we prefer to remember him from those Popular Mechanics for Kids episodes with Elisha Cuthbert) and premiered at last year’s TIFF. It’s one of three Canadian films to make it to the Tribeca Film Festival this year, along with Cairo Time and the documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage. It follows a Montreal high school student who believes he is the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky and is obsessed with recreating the leader’s life, complete with exile and assassination. Typical teenage stuff, really, minus any Jonas Brothers. Coming off its massive People’s Choice win at the Kingston Canadian Film Festival (which enjoyed an increase of 20 per cent in attendance this year) last week, Tierney and co. will surely feel right at home amid the glamour of New York.
• The Trotsky wins Kingston film fest People’s Choice Award [Kingston Whig Standard]
• The Trotsky makes U.S. debut at Tribeca [CBC]
• 1997 Popular Mechanics for Kids: World Trade Center [YouTube]
Gossipmonger
Jeanne Beker wears Hudson’s Bay coat to Paris fashion week
Last week, we wondered whether the Hudson’s Bay Company would be able to maintain its buzzy status post–Olympic Games. Well, this should help. Fashion magazine has snapped a photo of a svelte-looking Jeanne Beker in Paris wearing a brightly striped HBC blanket coat, which she was also rumoured to be sporting in Vancouver. This weekend, Beker wore the coat while on her way to the Viktor and Rolf show. Designed by Smythe for The Bay, the coat has also been spotted on Rachel Bilson. Beker tweeted, “My Hudson Bay blanket coat is getting raves! All kinds of photogs are taking my pic…” followed by, “Great to see blatant Canadian fashion turning heads at the Tuileries.” Publicity doesn’t get much better than an internationally respected style icon wrapped in your company’s logo.
• Paris street style: I dream of Jeanne [Fashion]
• Canadian style so hot, HBC Web site crashes [Toronto Life]
• The Hudson’s Bay Company fights to keep Olympic energy [Toronto Life]
Trend Alert
Canadian style so hot, HBC Web site crashes
Smythe's blanket coat for The Bay (Photo by Carlo Mendoza)
With Alexander McQueen Olympic scarves and maple leaf mitts at a premium, Canada is officially, like, so hot right now. So it was no surprise when we took a look at the catwalks recently and saw a bit of home.
The boys at Dolce and Gabbana took a page out of DSquared2’s look book for their D&G line. The fall-winter 2010 show in Milan lacked the polished Italian glam we expected; instead, snow bunny models looking ready for après ski at Cypress Mountain strutted in patterned leg warmers and tights, reindeer- and snowflake-patterned knits and fur mukluks.
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Bottoms Up
Harper and Obama bet on hockey game, winner takes beer
The beer of proud prime ministers (Photo by Adam Sonnett)
Sunday provided a trifecta of high stakes for Stephen Harper: Canada’s hockey matchup against the U.S.; the chance for Canada to surpass the gold-count record; and a case of beer.
Harper, perhaps as part of his continually mediocre efforts to appear hip (along with his rendition of “With a Little Help From My Friends”), wagered a case of beer against Barack Obama on the outcome of the men’s Olympic hockey final. Now that he’s won the bet, Obama owes Harper a case of Molson Canadian.
Canadian? Really? If Harper’s going to pretend to be cool, couldn’t he have chosen something a little more, well, cool? If Obama had won the bet, he would have received a case of Yuengling. Coming from America’s oldest brewery, the choice isn’t exactly underground, but it’s decidedly classier.
The Find
These coats are Canadiana at its finest
It might be March, but winter is hardly over, and these custom-order handmade wool coats from the Northwest Territories make cold snaps slightly more bearable. The jackets are available in Toronto thanks to Sandy Rubin, who 10 years ago was sent on a reporting assignment up north. A self-declared “city girl who hates the cold,” Rubin cursed her editor until she stumbled upon a group of women sewing and stitching gorgeous ladies’ parkas decorated with northern imagery, like polar bears and kayaks. She bought one immediately and was complimented whenever she wore it in Toronto.
Rubin hoped someone would start selling them here, but no one ever did. “I finally decided I was going to have to do it myself,” she says, so she launched Mush!Mush! “I think arctic fashion is going to take off. These coats are genuine arctic wear with an urban tweak.” So far, the coats are available only on her Web site and at a few Rosedale home “parka parties.”
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Culinary Curiosities
Bagged milk hits U.K., continues world domination
A small bag of milk from China (Photo by David Woo)
Just when we thought bagged milk was a one-off story during a slow news day, British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s announced this week that it will begin carrying its milk in bags rather than bottles, in an effort to reduce packaging and costs.
This comes a few weeks after a locally made YouTube video explaining the seemingly odd concept of milk bags became an overnight hit, with coverage on this blog, as well as in The Star and the Post. Salon writer Thomas Rogers argues that bagged milk is the future of dairy and hopes the U.S. will adopt bags, since they use 75 per cent less packaging and are recyclable and cheaper for consumers. But it’s not just Canadians who purchase milk in bag form: India, Poland, Hungary, South Africa, Argentina and China (where even beer is sold in bags) do the same.
• Milk in a bag at Sainsbury’s [Telegraph]
• The future of dairy: milk in a bag [Salon]
• Milk in bags: that’s so Canadian [Toronto Life]
• Milk in Bags, eh? [YouTube]
Caffeine High
Not even higher prices stop Canadians from loving Tim Hortons
Even dogs love Timmies (Photo by Michael Gil)
Unseasonably warm winter weather has been a boon to Tim Hortons this year, driving up the national coffee icon’s fourth-quarter profit by 32 per cent. In addition, new promotions (as if rollin’ up the rim weren’t a stand-alone winner) have offset the effect of price increases in Quebec, Manitoba, the Atlantic provinces and B.C. introduced earlier this year. Prices in Ontario had already been raised by roughly four per cent in August.
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Gossipmonger
Greta Constantine designers search for American interest in menswear line
The second instalment of their blog series for the National Post finds Toronto designers Kirk Pickersgill and Stephen Wong of Greta Constantine in the midst of New York fashion week. First on their agenda is a stop at a Tribeca Starbucks, as part of the process of “assimilating into American culture.” (Perhaps the trek to the Times Square Tim Hortons was too far.) Next, the two discussed The City and the spectacularly petulant cattiness of Olivia Palermo and Erin Kaplan (two of The City’s main “cast members”) while shopping at Marc by Marc Jacobs and the Alexander McQueen store.
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Gossipmonger
HBC not making a penny on Olympic mitten sales
Proceeds from mittens go to Canadian athletes (Photo by Michael Francis McCarthy)
Today’s Olympic Mitten Update comes from Time, which is a little late to the story, considering there are only three days left in the Games. Heck, even Oprah scooped them.
HBC’s CEO, Jeffery Sherman, tells Time that 3.5 million pairs have been sold since they went on sale in October—1.5 million of them were sold this month—and that the company doesn’t make a penny off the sales. Sherman says that the proceeds from the mittens ($12 million so far) go to the Canadian Olympic Committee to fund athletes’ programs. Sherman says he doesn’t regret not getting a piece of the profits and that “we entered this to do the right thing.” Besides, the hype surrounding the accessory has led to increased traffic in the stores and overall sales.
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