Amusement

Thursday July 17, 2014

Thursday July 17, 2014By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday July 17, 2014

Mike Duffy is my father, Peruvian woman claims in a lawsuit

Beleaguered Senator Mike Duffy faced fresh controversy Tuesday after Maclean’s magazine published an interview with a Peruvian woman who claims to be his daughter.

The magazine reported that the woman, Karen Duffy, was born to Duffy after an affair with a convicted Peruvian drug smuggler who served time at a Kingston, Ont., prison.

The Maclean’s story says the alleged affair lasted for a few months in the early 1980s while her mother was on parole at an Ottawa halfway house.

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The 32-year-old woman told the magazine that she and her mother tried to reach out to the journalist-turned-senator over the past few decades, with no response. Karen ultimately decided to file a lawsuit in Peruvian court, determined to receive acknowledgement that Duffy is her biological father.

Karen, who has a family of her own, said she is not seeking money in the lawsuit and only wants “to have a relationship.”

“I want to meet him. I want him to know me, and share the things that are important to me,” the magazine quoted her as saying.

Her claims have not been tested in court.

Duffy, staying far away from the limelight he once occupied, had little to say.

“The Maclean’s story contains untrue allegations, made by a convicted narcotics smuggler, and which go back more than 30 years. I will respond to any legal process from Peru in an appropriate manner. I will have no further comment,” he said in a statement to CBC News.

Duffy was suspended without pay from the Senate for two years in late 2013. He is also currently facing an RCMP investigation relating to questionable travel and housing claims the senator made while in office, as well as a $90,000 cheque given to him by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff Nigel Wright. Duffy has not been charged with any crime. The RCMP ended its investigation into Wright this past April, clearing him of any criminal wrongdoing. (Source: CBC News)

SOCIAL MEDIA

Reposted at Yahoo News Canada.

Friday August 17, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Friday August 17, 2012

Everyone Loves Horrific Scenes

A former employee of an aquatic animal park has given a damning account of the horrific conditions animals were forced to endure. 

Phil Demers resigned from Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario in May after 12 years as a senior trainer. He said a major reason for his departure was because the poor water conditions at the park had a catastrophic effect on the health of the seals, sea lions, walruses and dolphins.

‘The water had gotten so bad it was green, it was harming the animals, it smelled bad and it made the people who worked in this environment ill as well,’ he told the Toronto Star.

‘The chemicals we were using to try to maintain the water were really harming the animals.’ In revelations that have outraged animal right’s activists he said the he saw the dolphin’s skin was flaking off, and that they could not open their eyes.

Recalling the condition of Seal Lions Baker and Sander, he said that they could not even train them to open their eyes as ‘the damage was so extensive that when we finally saw it, it was just grotesque.’

He told how the trainers would pull the animals out of the water to dry conditions to try and alleviate the damage but said as a consequence not having access to fresh water also proved to be harmful for the animals.

‘Baker was writhing in pain, constantly shaking erratically, clutching his eyes shut,’ he said. 

He explained that Sandy did not move for weeks on end and to try and gain a monetary respite from the agony, Baker would constantly put his head into a bucket of fresh water. (Source: Daily Mail) 

 

Friday February 3, 2012

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday February 3, 2012

Ontario Place Closed

By the standards of government communications, as we know them today, it was downright poetic.

“Ontario Place is Ontario,” the advertisement in the Nov. 10, 1970, edition of The Globe and Mail proclaimed. “It will show us and the world where we’ve been, where we are and where we are going.”

If we’re going to be honest, even in its heyday the lakeside complex never did quite live up to those lofty dreams. It was a great place to see a concert, at least back in the era of the quaint little Forum and its revolving stage. It offered a unique movie-going experience, until commercial chains put in Imax theatres of their own. It had bumper boats and a waterslide and a “punching bag forest,” which all held a certain magic for kids. None of this really made it the beacon to the world – Toronto’s answer to Expo 67 – that its creators envisioned.

But there was something noble about those ambitions. And there is something depressing about how they ultimately panned out: the provincial government of the day announcing Wednesday that it’s indefinitely shutting most of Ontario Place’s current operations, because it’s tired of losing $20-million a year.

This is what it’s come down to for a province $16-billion in the hole, scratching and clawing for any dollar it can save. Rob Ford, the hawkish mayor of Toronto, likes to talk about keeping things we “need to have,” while letting go of ones that are just “nice to have.” Dalton McGuinty’s provincial Liberals don’t speak quite as bluntly, but with the odd exception – an ongoing investment in the Pan Am Games – they increasingly find themselves forced to embrace a similar philosophy. (Source: Globe & Mail)