Doing this notebook style, here are three separate but relevant peaks into Canada this week:
---
How big was the announcement of the Team Canada men's hockey team?
"The midday announcement was carried on 13 Canadian TV networks and cable channels."
Rather impressive. Team Canada has the extra pressure of trying to win on home ice (Vancouver 2010), but the speculation has been heating up over who would and won't make the squad.
Here is a list of those who made it and some who barely missed the cut.
Sweden won the 2006 Olympic gold medal in men's hockey. Canada won the women's gold in dominant fashion.
Canada last won men's gold in hockey in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2002, snapping a 50-year drought, beating the United States. Could there be a rematch in Vancouver? Given that the squads will be playing on NHL ice (not international ice with a wider ice surface), Canada and the U.S. would have a decisive advantage.
---
Yesterday was a day of joy in hockey, but a horrible tragedy in Afghanistan. Four Canadian servicemen and a Canadian reporter were killed in Afghanistan. The attack was the worst for Canadian casualties in 30 months.
Michelle Lang of the Calgary Herald was the first Canadian journalist to be killed in Afghanistan. Lang had been in Afghanistan less than three weeks. (Here is her blog from Afghanistan.)
Canada had already planned to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by 2011.
The country's role has been more of peacekeepers in the country, but has suffered a high number of casualties and injuries, given the country's allotment of troops and their intended role. This news piles on to the anguish of why Canada has stayed so long in Afghanistan.
---
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is proroguing Parliament once again. This prorogation of Parliament is under far less extreme circumstances, but the move has come under considerable fire.
The prime minister wanted to shut down Parliament during the upcoming Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. Shutting down Parliament allows MPs to remain, but any bills in the middle of the process have to start over.
The Conservatives score political points in proroguing Parliament to kill an inquiry into how the government treated Afghan detainees, and will allow the party to take control of the Senate.
The last time Harper prorogued Parliament was even more controversial because it was seen as staving off a chance for a coalition government to form that would have kicked the Conservatives out of power.
Harper currently runs a minority government.
A look back to the previous prorogation of Parliament: