(Image: James Byrum)

Top Chef Canada made headlines (and alienated horse lovers everywhere) earlier this year when it featured horsemeat during a classic French cuisine challenge. The scandal prompted an in-depth investigation of the industry by the ever-intrepid Toronto Star, which explained how a 2007 slaughtering ban in the United States led to a boom in Canada’s industry. Now, according to a story in the Chicago Tribune, horsemeat may be making a return to the U.S. market in the coming months.

From the Tribune:

Horses could soon be butchered in the U.S. for human consumption after Congress quietly lifted a five-year-old ban on funding horse meat inspections, and activists say slaughterhouses could be up and running in as little as a month.

Slaughter opponents pushed a measure cutting off funding for horsemeat inspections through Congress in 2006 after other efforts to pass outright bans on horse slaughter failed in previous years. Congress lifted the ban in a spending bill President Barack Obama signed into law Nov. 18 to keep the government afloat until mid-December.

Still, as the paper points out, that consumption of horsemeat is practically non-existent in the United States, with prior slaughterhouses shipping their meat to countries in Europe and Asia (Toronto’s La Palette pulled the dish from its menu in the wake of the Star investigation). Horsemeat consumption is often opposed due to uncertain sourcing and inhumane practices, but proponents like Montana senator Max Baucus have argued that the flip side is an increased neglect and abandonment of horses across the United States. How this will shake out for Canada’s slaughterhouses is still unknown.

• Horses could soon be slaughtered for meat in U.S. [Chicago Tribune]

(Image: Charles LeBlanc)

We’ve learned a lot about Conrad Black this week—be it his ability to make friends in the big house or that his verbose style of elocution even extends to anal cavity searches. Today, in an interview with Matt Galloway on the CBC’s Metro Morning, we also learned that Black is a self-professed victim of the American criminal justice system (of course, we’re used to hearing Lord Black insult the court—but this was a little bit different). “Once you’re targeted in the United States,” Black told Galloway, “you don’t really have much chance. And that’s not how a justice system should operate.” We sympathize, Conrad—we all know the American system is broken. But he loses us once he seems to suggest that when people talk about overcrowded prisons and unfairly treated prisoners they’re also talking about wealthy former media barons.

• Conrad Black speaks with Matt Galloway [Metro Morning]

SlutWalk has spread to cities around the world (Image: ChicagoGeek)

The story of SlutWalk is one that we find pleasantly surprising. In case anybody missed it, the narrative went like this: cop says something stupid and misogynistic; women are understandably offended; cop apologizes; offended women march on police headquarters to underscore the fact that the things the cop said were stupid and misogynist. But the best part might be what happened next—the march spread to cities across the United States and has now reached New Delhi, where it sounds like it’s sorely needed.

The Toronto Star has the story:

A 19-year-old college student, [Umang] Sabarwal says it’s time for this city of 16 million to confront the problem of women’s safety. Inspired by organizers in Toronto, she’s working alongside a group of other young women here to stage a SlutWalk in New Delhi next month.

“Things are getting worse in Delhi for women and we haven’t been doing anything about it,” Sabarwal says. “You get on a metro (subway) car here and men stare like animals at you, like you’re meat. It’s weird and yet most women are just silent about it.”

One quarter of all the rapes in India last year were reported in New Delhi, and there were roughly four times as many rapes there as there were in more populous Mumbai—which Sarabal half-heartedly attempts to explain away by way of the city’s high temperatures and stifling humidity. Yikes. We’re pretty sure that’s the first time we’ve heard the rape-by-heat-wave theory.

Best of luck to the ladies in the New Delhi Slutwalk—we suspect they’ll need it—and kudos to the ladies here in Toronto who got the ball rolling.

• New Delhi is latest city to organize SlutWalk [Toronto Star]

Pickering A nuclear generating station (Image: ilkerender)

With the news that Japan may be on the brink of a serious nuclear crisis, Ontarians living near the Pickering power plant seem to be increasingly worried about the adverse health effects that come with living near a nuclear reactor. Those fears got an extra boost when it was discovered that the plant leaked tens of thousands of litres of demineralized water into Lake Ontario. Experts say that the risk posed to locals is “negligible,” but that hasn’t stopped people from planing for the worst. The Toronto Sun reported yesterday an increased demand for potassium iodide pills at pharmacies in the plant’s surrounding areas. While potassium iodide can help prevent thyroid cancer caused by radioactive iodine, it’s probably not as effective as people think.

Due to increased requests, drugstores in the Pickering area are apparently dispensing the same amount of potassium iodide daily as they would normally dispense in a year (although with four people a day asking for the pills, there doesn’t exactly seem to be a line down the block for the stuff).

Pickering isn’t the only place experiencing increased demand for the pills: all over the United States, Americans are stockpiling in case dangerous levels of radiation from Japan’s nuclear crisis reaches the West Coast of the United States (even though U.S. health officials maintain it won’t).

According to the Associated Press, potassium iodide does indeed shield the thyroid from radioactive iodine, which is particularly important for children and pregnant women in the event of nuclear exposure (a growing thyroid is more likely to absorb radioactive iodine). However, potassium iodide does not protect any other part of the body, nor does it protect against any other type of radiation; it also isn’t considered useful for anyone over the age of 40. And so, it would seem that potassium iodide’s benefits, like their demand in Pickering, seem to be blown out of proportion.

• Demand for iodide pills rising near nuke plants [Toronto Sun]
• Japan crisis spikes demand for radiation pills [Associated Press]
• Group questions nuclear safety after Pickering leak [CTV]

Is Sheen planning on expanding the tour to include Canada and the rest of the United States? His new publicist, Larry Solters—longtime publicist Stan Rosenfield quit/was fired in February—tells us that there are no plans at the moment to bring My Violent Torpedo of Truth to Canada. Sad for local Sheenophiles, but it’s questionable if the man could even be let into the Great White North, considering his legal history. #Tigerbloodtest, anyone?

• Charlie Sheen is going on tour [People]

(Image: Crab Apple Design)

His master's void: profit gaps responsible for possible closures (Image: bm.iphone)

This manages to be even less surprising than the Blockbuster bankruptcy filing in the United States: according to The Daily Brew, HMV may be looking at closing some—or even all—of its Canadian stores. As sales of CDs and DVDs stumble, HMV’s search for other options hasn’t paid off:

The closures will likely be announced before an April test of its borrowing rules, which are expected to be tight. And, while the HMV Group will apparently seek to end its leases in shopping malls across Canada, an imminent exit altogether isn’t seen as likely.

HMV introduced a “store of the future” format three years ago, which was designed to make locations more browsing-friendly with an enhanced selection of books, electronics and video games. Computer hubs were also set up in some locations to encourage social networking, online research and on-the-spot downloading.

The problem for stores like HMV—and other music retailers—is that the music industry may be even more doomed than we already thought. The good people at Business Insider look at the last 30 years of data from the recording industry, and when the data is crunched, some troubling facts (and hilarious graphs) come out.

• When adjusted for inflation, the music industry is making less money than any time since the CD was introduced.

• When adjusted for inflation and population, revenues are lower than any time since 1973.

• People are spending about one-third as much on recorded music today as they did 10 years ago.

And there’s good reason to think all of these trends are going to get worse, not better. Basically, the music industry relies (or, perhaps, relied) on full-length album sales, and while iTunes has opened up some new money, it’s largely helped revive the single. The download hub hasn’t helped (and may have harmed) album sales.

HMV won’t be the first retailer to fold (remember Sam’s? Music World? A&A?), and with numbers like that, it probably won’t be the last.

• HMV considers closing Canadian stores this spring due to shrinking sales [Daily Brew]
• The REAL Death Of The Music Industry [Business Insider]

One of the biggest questions raised by this week’s usage-based billing fracas is whether Canadians are getting ripped off by their Internet service providers (ISPs). The problem is that comparing Internet service between countries raises all sorts of apples-to-oranges objections—regulations are different, infrastructure is different, markets are different. We’ve put together a chart with three factors (cost, speed, location) that should give an idea of what a dollar can get you in different countries around the world. The fairest comparison is between Canadian and American ISPs, but we’ve included several European countries to give a wider view, and a couple of Asian countries just to make ourselves cry. Oh, and Australia.

Our comparisons, after the jump.

2009 data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD):

So according to 2009 data, Canadians can feel as smug about their Internet service as they do about their health care when they compare themselves to the Americans. Aside from that, the situation doesn’t look that pretty. It’s probably too much to hope that Canada could one day have Internet service as fast and cheap as South Korea (a country substantially less wealthy than Canada), but perhaps we could some day measure up to the United Kingdom or Sweden.

Aside from raw speed and dollars, there’s the other issue of bandwidth caps (the firestorm that the Canadian government is currently trying to put out). As the National Post points out, on this issue Canada is almost uniquely bad—the large majority of OECD countries have no cap, and of the others only Australia has the 100 per cent bit-capped model we have, and they pay more for it. Australia is trying a pretty radical solution to this sad state of affairs, which we expect Canada to dismiss and then adopt in half-measures about 20 years from now.

• OECD Broadband Portal [OECD]
• Usage-based Internet billing: a global comparison [National Post]

Following Madoff’s 2008 arrest and the government seizure of his assets, the U.S. Marshall Service has auctioned off many of Madoff’s valuables, with profits benefiting the victims of his billion-dollar fraud. However, in the case of Sunday’s auction here in Canada, members of the U.S. Marshall Service cautioned potential buyers to be wary of the items’ authenticity. When questioned, security staff on site refused to identify their employer, and media were refused entry to the centre. Clearly, whoever organized the event possessed Madoff’s appreciation for transparency, or lack thereof.

The Star spoke with Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee overseeing liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, who warned, “The party who may be selling this may have bought—and this has happened in the United States—may have bought items at one of those auctions and now in turn is auctioning it off again.”

Thankfully, the Oakville auction proved less successful than previous Madoff auctions. In the past, bidders paid up to $500,000 for Ruth Madoff’s diamond engagement ring, but here, the first item at auction (a two-and-a-half-by-four-foot Persian rug) started at $2,500 yet sold for a mere $300. Other items, such as a 16-carat peridot bracelet, also sold at comically low prices. It seems buyers were as skeptical of the auction’s legitimacy as we are. But hey, if these are, in fact, Madoff’s belongings, some people got a pretty good deal.

• Madoff connection creates buzz at Oakville auction [Toronto Star]
• Auction-goers disappointed by ‘Madoff Collection’ [National Post]

Coronation Street

As both the Globe and the Star point out, our love of Coronation Street is a strictly Canadian phenomenon in North America. The afternoon soap never caught on in the United States, but its popularity endures here. Over the past 50 seasons, the characters on the show have endured a few things, too. A look at the numbers puts the show’s incredible longevity in perspective.

According to various tallies, the show has witnessed 86 weddings, 37 births and 118 deaths. The Canadian viewership is also impressive. The CBC estimates that some 6.55 million Canadians have watched at least one episode of Coronation Street this year, and the show pulls in around 775,000 viewers for its early-evening broadcast alone. (To compare, Being Erica gets around 450,000 viewers.) To commemorate our obsession, the CBC will air Corrie Crazy: Canada Loves Coronation Street, a one-hour special hosted by Debbie Travis, this Thursday at 8 p.m. Elsie, Ena and Annie fans, rejoice!

• Canadians love their Corrie [Toronto Star]
• Coronation Street at 50: 86 weddings, 37 births, 118 deaths and 775,000 Canadian fans [Globe and Mail]

When Air Canada flight 88 from Shanghai arrived an hour late at Pearson airport last January 13, a group of officers from the Toronto Police fraud squad were waiting to meet it. They were there to apprehend Weizhen Tang, a 51-year-old native of China who had lived in Toronto since the early 1990s. Tang was accused of perpetrating one of the largest investment frauds in Canadian history: a Ponzi scheme involving up to 200 victims in Toronto, the United States and China. Two weeks earlier, he had agreed to surrender to authorities at Pearson, but he never arrived, prompting police to issue a warrant for his arrest. They feared he’d stay in China to evade prosecution.

As the passengers of flight 88 watched from their seats, the officers entered the aircraft and made their way through the cabin. This time, Tang was on board. They handcuffed him, escorted him into a police cruiser, and drove to 51 Division. As the car pulled up, Tang stared forlornly out the window at the media horde gathered to document his capture. Wrapped from the neck down in a dark coat and scarf, his eyes peering from behind wire-rimmed glasses, he looked small and vulnerable. Inside the station, he was stripped and searched.

High-profile fraud arrests are rare in Canada, but it’s not because we have a shortage of fraudsters. This country has a reputation for being soft on corporate crime, a problem often attributed to the dysfunctional and divided patchwork of regulatory bodies that oversee Bay Street and the traders and investment gurus who earn their fortunes there. In fact, Canada is the only G20 nation without a centralized national securities regulator, but Jim Flaherty’s on the case. Last May, Canada’s finance minister unveiled legislation to replace the 13 independent provincial and territorial agencies now charged with policing the country’s financial markets with a single organization akin to the American SEC. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of the new so-called Securities Act early next year.

Tang’s improbable rise and public fall is a particularly egregious illustration of our flawed system. More than four years before his arrest, the Ontario Securities Commission was concerned about Tang’s activities but did little to stop him. In those years, his investors lost as much as $30 million.

In 2008, at the height of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, word circulated within Toronto’s Chinese community about Weizhen Tang’s extraordinary investment returns. As portfolios of even the best money managers plummeted, Tang seemed to defy gravity, soaring above the carnage like a wire-fu acrobat in a martial arts film. During a year in which New York’s benchmark S&P 500 Index dropped almost 40 per cent, Tang’s Oversea Chinese Fund reported results that were an astonishing 80 points better.

The Chinese media referred to Tang as the “Chinese Warren Buffett”—a sobriquet he encouraged through references to the legendary investor in his 2006 autobiography, How the Buffett Way Took Me to Wealth. The book is both a self-reverential hagiography and an instruction manual for aspiring investors, and it established Tang as a financial guru—a five-foot-two Mandarin-speaking amalgam of Suze Orman and Tony Robbins. Tang wrote articles for on-line news sites and investor message boards, addressed university students and businessmen during a speaking tour in China in the fall of 2006, and organized seminars and charity events in Toronto attended by VIPs and such politicians as Olivia Chow and Michael Chan. These included an annual Chinese Lunar New Year’s gala, and the North American Chinese Wealth Summit—a lavish $230-a-plate investment seminar and dinner at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in January 2009, which attracted dignitaries from the Chinese consulate and speakers from major Canadian banks and universities, including the CIBC senior vice-president John C. Pattison.

To Tang’s followers, many of whom were immigrants from mainland China with little understanding of financial markets, his message spoke to the difficulties of succeeding in the West. In an article on Tang’s Web site entitled “How Can Chinese Become Rich?” Tang wrote, “[The Chinese] work too hard, and they work too much—yet, at least in terms of wealth, they have very, very little to show for it… Us Chinese must learn to depend on each other, in particular, the common resources of other Chinese who have something to offer.”

The cast of Lake Shore (Image: lake-shore.ca)

When the “sizzle reel” for Lake Shore, Toronto’s despicable answer to Jersey Shore, went viral this week, American media jumped on the clip, revelling in the opportunity to say Canada is no better than the States. Reactions ranged from bemused to pitying, but the overarching theme was playing on such tired Canadian stereotypes as a love of hockey. Here, our collection of reactions from our neighbours to the south.

• Liz Kelley of the Washington Post calls Canadians “so smug with their nationalized health care, bilingual province and Anne of Green Gables.” She goes on to say that Canada is “every bit as capable of converting douchey 20-somethings into profit-making trash TV as we Yanks” and decries the use of F-bombs and racist language in the sizzle reel.

• Anthony Benigno of New York Daily News opts for jokes Americans love to make about Canadians, saying GTL (gym, tanning, laundry, the tag line for Jersey Shore) should be changed to HPM: hockey, poutine and maple syrup. It seems clear Benigno has never been to Canada when he writes, “This crew has a lot more cause to get frisky in the hot tub considering their chilly surroundings.” You do know we moved out of the igloos years ago, right, Anthony?

• L.A. Times’ Leslie Gornstein pities us: “Poor, poor Canada. Being Canada, it has no New Jersey. And without a New Jersey, it cannot participate in groundbreaking sociological juggernauts like Jersey Shore.” She concedes the show won’t feature the stereotypical “beer-drinking, hockey-playing, toque-wearing Canadians.” While we’re certain plenty of booze will be involved, Gornstein is right: the cast is the bottle service—not brew—kind.

• Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly revels in Lake Shore’s trashiness because Canada is finally just as terrible as the United States. He begins: “Fellow Americans, if you think our country has problems, I urge you to watch the extended preview for Lake Shore,” then decries the cast’s “caveman-like racial sensitivity” and throws up a bit in his mouth describing the cast. Finally, exercising every bit of hyperbole he can, Franich asks, “Is this the end of western civilization as we know it?” Maybe, Darren, but we can’t help but think the end was spurred on by one too many Real Housewives franchises.

• And the orange Bump-It queen herself, Snooki, tweeted, “OMG, just watched Lake-Shore….. Cricket. Just sayen,” suggesting she thinks Lake Shore can’t hold a candle to Jersey Shore’s craziness. Note to Canadian cast mates: eat more pickles.

• ‘Lake Shore’: Canada’s regrettable answer to ‘Jersey Shore’ [Washington Post]
• ‘Lake Shore,’ Canadian ‘Jersey Shore,’ introduces equally offensive multi-ethnic cast [New York Daily News]
• PREACH IT! Canada’s ‘Lake Shore’ don’t need no stinkin’ Jersey — every other stereotype will do just fine [LA Times]
• Canada’s ‘Jersey Shore’ will either save civilization or destroy it [Entertainment Weekly]

David Rosenberg, economist for Gluskin Sheff, thinks it really is Canada’s moment. “I’ve been in the economic analysis and forecasting business for three decades and don’t recall a time, ever, where on the fiscal, economic or political basis, relative to the United States, the downside risks were as limited and upside potential so compelling in Canada as is the case today,” he says. “No bank failed during the crisis, no bank went cap-in-hand to the government, and no bank even cut its dividend. The federal government is running a structural deficit that is a fraction of that of the U.S.; the Conservative party in power is distinctly pro-business. And, oh, by the way: Canada is rich in natural resources that China wants to buy.”

It’s true that the Canadian government is running a C$56 billion deficit, but from a global perspective, that’s chickenfeed. If that’s the only deficit you’re running, you’re a global tightwad. And by the way, that C$56 billion translates into US$56.1 billion as of this morning, a major point of pride in the land that brought us both Will Arnett and The Tragically Hip.

Thanks, Fortune, for noticing our existence up here without noting how trashy our reality TV stars are. Canada’s financial success isn’t exactly news—it was kind of a big deal leading up to the G20 summit last summer—but maybe this will be the new show-stopping argument Canadians can break out in case of rhetorical emergency: instead of “Oh yeah? Well, health care!” we can now go with “Oh yeah? Well, solvent financial institutions!”

Of course, the shout-out to the Hip should be a hint of something: the author is Canadian. We hope that doesn’t mean this only gets partial credit. We could use the warm fuzzy since we read TechCrunch’s list of reasons why they’ll never open a Canadian franchise.

• Blame Canada no more [Fortune]

This week’s pick: Sons of Perdition

There’s no going home for a child who can say with unflinching certainty that according to his family, “It would have been better for me to die than to leave.” The bewilderment that stems from giving up everything permeates Tyler Measom and Jennilyn Merten’s heartrending documentary about three teens who leave the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and are left twisting in the wind of their newfound freedom.

Sam, his cousin Bruce and their friend Joe grew up in Colorado City, otherwise known as The Crick, on the Utah-Arizona border. Controlled by Warren Jeffs, the now-incarcerated head of the FLDS, The Crick is populated by ultra-conservative Mormons who send their boys to work instead of school and marry off their underage daughters to older men with multiple wives. Over the past decade, more than 1,000 boys and men have been sent away from The Crick—ostensibly because of their rebellious natures, though whittling down the number of rivals for the women is another glaring factor.

Most of the exiled find their way to St. George, and while it’s a mere 30 miles away from their hometown, it may as well be on a different planet. The former FLDSers band together, navigating a reality that now includes sex, drugs, drinking and pop culture. An avid drawer, 17-year-old Joe has never heard of comic books and (rather hilariously) confuses Bill Clinton with Hitler. His older sister admits (less hilariously) to not knowing the capital of the United States.

Interviews with former sect members, private investigators and journalists provide another layer to the doc, but the story belongs to The Crick’s lost boys, its sons of perdition. With their piercings, flat-brim caps and incessant hair dyeing, Sam, Joe and Bruce’s apparent ordinariness is what’s most affecting. In truth, they are affection-starved children who tell social workers “I love you” and call a benefactor’s wife “Mother.” They don’t know how to cook or clean. They don’t have ID. They can barely read and write. But there they are, trying to rally, when all they’ve been taught, as one boy says, is how to think about the next life. Not the one they are now facing, alone.

The details: Doc Soup season launch. Wednesday, Oct. 6, 6:30 and 9:15 p.m. $12. Bloor Cinema, 506 Bloor St. W., 416-637-5150, hotdocs.ca.

Rob Ford poses with puppet version of Rob Ford (Image: Shaun Merritt)

Rob Ford has had what anyone would call a pretty bad week. After his performance at the debate on Tuesday night, Wednesday was filled with questions like “Is Rob Ford prejudiced?” That night, things got worse when Toronto Sun reporter Jonathan Jenkins called up and asked him if he’d ever been arrested on a drug charge in the United States. His answer was no. Then emphatically no. Then yes.

At least that’s how the Sun tells it:

…he said he was caught off guard and adamantly denied having been charged when first approached by the Sun.

“No to answer your question,” Ford said.

“I’m dead serious. When I say no, I mean never. No question. Now I’m getting offended. No means no.”

But after Ford was provided with details from a Florida state criminal history record obtained by the Sun, he admitted the incident.

“I completely forgot about it until you mentioned it right now,” he said.

“You think I’m BSing you but I’m not. It completely, totally slipped my mind.”

We’ve never heard of marijuana affecting long-term memory, but that’s beside the point. Turns out that Ford was found with a joint on him while on a Valentine’s Day getaway in 1999 with his then-fiancée Renata. At a press conference this morning in front of his family’s business, Ford explained that he’d forgotten about the marijuana charge because there was a more serious charge: refusing to provide a breath sample while driving. For that, he was fined $500 and ordered to do 50 hours of community service (he opted to coach football to repay his debt to the state of Florida).

Looking uncomfortable, Ford went on to explain to reporters that he’s faced criminal charges three times in his life:

• the incident in 1999
• an assault charge when he was 18 (apparently a hockey fight)
• another assault charge, along with one for threatening death, related to a domestic incident with his wife in 2008.

The reaction from other candidates has been mixed. Sarah Thomson is turning out to be Ford’s harshest critic, telling CFRB 1010 this shows once more the kind of man Rob Ford is. Rocco Rossi says the issue isn’t drug use—Rossi volunteers that he’s smoked pot once or twice, and inhaled—but the fact that Ford lied about the arrest. No word from Joe Pantalone or George Smitherman yet, and we’d be surprised if either of them jumped on this issue. Smitherman in particular has nothing to gain from getting into discussions about past drug use.

• Ford dodges pot bust in Florida [Toronto Sun]
• Ford admits to Florida breathalyzer conviction [Toronto Star]
• Ford admits marijuana, breathalyzer charges [CBC News]
• Ford forgot marijuana charge, remembers breath-test guilty plea [Globe and Mail]
• Rob Ford’s record [Miami-Dade county clerk]