Canadian Crossing

Take This Waltz now available on Xfinity On Demand

Take This Waltz isn't going to play nationwide, short of a miracle. A movie with well-known actors, including an Academy Award nominated female lead (Michelle Williams), from a writer/director who is Oscar-nominated herself — should see a wider audience.

If you get Xfinity (Comcast) On Demand, you can watch Sarah Polley's second film as a director (she also wrote the screenplay). The film is available through June 28. $9.99 is not a bad price given the usual cost of a film (approx. $11), no gas, no commute, no advertisements, no previews. Though, if you are unsure of the film, $9.99 to your cable company might sound too much versus a rental or Red Box.

Still, after watching the trailer, I remembered how good this movie is.

The film did get some American exposure at the Tribeca Film Festival in April and the Seattle International Film Festival earlier this month. The film has limited release starting June 29 throughout the United States.

While this film deserves better, video on demand may be the only option for a number of Americans for a very fine Canadian film.

Halifax farmers market is a tourist destination

Our sister blog, BalanceofFood.com, focused on the gorgeous new (relatively) farmers market in Halifax. While I enjoyed the old farmers market in Halifax in 2009, I thought the new farmers market would be an exciting venture.

Apparently, the new farmers market in Halifax is a tourist stop, especially for cruise passengers. Even if your food is included on the cruise, people are still stocking up on local fresh food from Nova Scotia farmers and food producers.

Enjoy the look at the Halifax Seaport Farmers Market and we'll let you know about the Montréal trip in the days ahead.

photo credit: James Ingram/Lydon Lynch Architects

CFL should turn to NBCSN for U.S. TV coverage, including the 100th Grey Cup

We are a month away from the start of the CFL season (June 29) and so we are almost a month away from knowing which, if any, outlets will carry the CFL in the United States in 2012.

Sure, the NFL Network has come through in the last couple of years, with added regular season games last year. The potential NFL strike had everything to do with that, so its 2012 offer won't be as generous. The problem remains the same: 0 post-season games in the two years the NFL Network has covered the CFL.

Waiting to see if a different suitor picks you could produce a worse scenario: no CFL coverage for U.S. cable viewers in the United States. However, one cable outlet is desperately seeking more sports coverage: NBCSN.

The channel we count on for postseason and some regular season hockey — NBCSN — would be perfect outlet for the CFL. Outside of hockey, NBCSN pickings are rather slim. A package of Friday night and Saturday games would slide in really well to the channel's viewers. And NBCSN would love to have live football programming on Sunday afternoons in November, including the 100th Grey Cup at Rogers Centre in Toronto on November 25.

NBCSN has worked with TSN in the past, running three late-season Vancouver games. NBCSN could get Doug Flutie or Darren Flutie or Jeff Garcia to run studio coverage if NBCSN wants to set up a studio show. NBCSN, then as Versus, even carried the 2008 Grey Cup.

NBCSN wants more live sports. CFL wants a steady U.S. outlet. NBCSN is used to working with Canadian-related sports. A marriage made on the 55-yard line.

So why won't it happen?

Cost: The NFL Network already has studio shows that ran the bumpers in and out of game action. The channel often ran games in the middle of the night, where ratings aren't as important. NBCSN doesn't have a studio setup. While the channel would benefit from live action, the ratings might not be as strong at first.

Schedule: Carrying 1-2 games a week plus the playoffs is a lot of live programming, even for NBCSN. The CFL is a huge commitment for a U.S. outlet, though having the league on the NFL Network has been a testing ground for the CFL in the United States.

Loyalty to the NFL Network: The CFL might be more willing to stick with a (somewhat) loyal partner rather than try someone new.

These are not good reasons, but you never know what mindset lurks in U.S. cable programmers minds.

The 100th Grey Cup is a big deal, and having it in Canada's largest city, should be tantalizing for NBCSN. Unless, someone somewhere finds some minor fault and the whole thing never happens.

Canadian budget cuts eliminate four U.S. based Canadian consulates

We saw that Chicago has a Canadian Consulate as the consulate was the site for a protest during the NATO weekend in the Windy City. Canadian consulates are scattered throughout the United States and other countries. Thanks to Canadian federal budget cuts, consulates in Philadelphia, Phoenix, Raleigh, and Anchorage as well as a small satellite office in Princeton, New Jersey will be closing in the next few months.

Those Canadians who live in and around those cities will have to seek consulate services in other cities.

While you might wonder how many Canadians live in the Raleigh or Phoenix areas, well, enough that those cities had a Canadian consulate.

Michael Ignatieff on sovereignty and what government must do

About a year ago, Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff were the two main competitors for the prime minister job in Canada. In 2012, both Harper and Ignatieff were in Chicago this past week, though at different times. Harper came for the NATO summit on Sunday and Monday while Ignatieff was in town as a guest lecturer Thursday at Northwestern University.

Ignatieff is back to his standard profession as a university professor, teaching at the University of Toronto. During the English language debate in 2011, Ignatieff was the smartest person in the room. And he didn't do anything to lose that title during the lecture.

"Sovereign is the one entity that should too big to fail."

Ignatieff noted that governments can fail, but sovereigns can't.

Ignatieff noted that sovereign responsibility is to protect individuals from systemic risk — "equality of opportunity, not of outcome." Individuals who fail on their own do not fall into that category.

Ignatieff listed numerous failed responsibilities of the sovereign in the last decade. 9/11, Katrina, BP oil spill 2010, Fukushima nuclear reactors after the tsunami, and the Euro Zone crisis. Ignatieff left out the Iraq War, which he was in favor of while living in the United States.

We are living in a world that is getting smaller and smaller, where sovereignty is harder to hold on to. Despite the U.S. woes, the United States controls more of its destiny that say Spain, he noted.

Ignatieff noted that one issue with regulators is that banks pay graduates way more than the regulators get paid, so there is a financial disincentive to be a regulator, instead of attracting the best and the brightest.

"Bankers must have personal liability," Ignatieff said. "They must have skin in the game."

He added that if you have a product in the financial market and you can't explain it, then you shouldn't allow it.

Open markets are a good thing, Ignatieff noted, pointing out that bad trades were made under the table.

If governments focus on the core of sovereign responsibility, that won't stop political debate, but will allow the political sides to focus on the same issues.

As for Canadian-related content:

-- Ignatieff noted that Canada had to bail out the automakers.

-- While campaigning for prime minister, he enjoyed the fact that he could meet a billionaire and that person could only give $1,000. Unlike the United States with the Citizens United ruling.

-- The largest growth in the labor market is the Aboriginal population. "We won't grow if Aboriginal kids don't finish high school."

-- He mentioned Ontario's serious deficit. They looked into programs designed to promote business — $5-6 billion worth — but couldn't find a single example where it worked. Ignatieff said the best value would be to spend the money on education.

-- Food-related topics are covered in this BalanceofFood.com blog post. The highlight was this:

I asked Ignatieff in the Q&A session about the impact on sovereignty on high-fructose corn syrup making its way to Canada and Mexico, and whether Canada was sacrificing its sovereignty, even if it didn't want that substance to cross its borders.

Ignatieff brought up the overall good that comes out of free trade. He did note that the Harper government is contemplating giving up protections on eggs, cheese, poultry, and the dairy industry to forge free-trade deals with Asia.

Canadian-owned I’ll Have Another has real Triple Crown shot

Winning the Preakness by a nose may not show that I'll Have Another has a great shot at winning the Belmont Stakes in June. All the horse has to do is win that race, even by a nose, to become the first Triple Crown winner since 1978.

I'll Have Another is owned by a Canadian (J. Paul Reddam) and ridden by a jockey (Mario Gutierrez) who spent key moments in Vancouver.

If you were alive in the 1970s and/or the 1940s, Triple Crown horse winners weren't a big deal. The 1970s saw 3 winners and the 1940s saw 4 winners. In fact, 6 winners came along between 1935 and 1948. But if you turn 33 or younger in 2012, you have never seen a Triple Crown horse winner in your lifetime.

When Secretariat won the first two races in 1973, the horse won by such distances that winning the Belmont seemed a forgone conclusion.

I'll Have Another's win on Saturday showed that the horse could time a win just right. The Preakness is the shortest of the three races and the Belmont is the longest, a key point in why some horses win the first two races but not at Belmont. The way I'll Have Another ran on Saturday would have proved even better on the longer Belmont track.

This is a wonderful horse story and a Canadian story. The sad reality is that if I'll Have Another doesn't win the Belmont, the story will fade faster than Bodemeister did on Saturday.

If I'll Have Another wins on June 9, the horse will be exalted into the record books and the history books.

If you had to look up who won the last Triple Crown in horse racing (Affirmed) or Triple Crown in baseball (Carl Yastrzemski-1967), you know that those are two long streaks. We'll find out June 9 whether one of those streaks will finally be broken.

photo credit: Matt Slocum/AP Photo

G8/NATO preview: Stephen Harper comes to Camp David & Chicago

Stephen Harper's 4-day Chicago "vacation" got cut to 2 days. This happens to regular people, not usually to leaders of world countries. Prime Minister Harper will be in Camp David today and Saturday for the G8 summit (that was supposed to be in Chicago). He then travels on to Chicago Sunday and Monday for the NATO summit.

The chances of me seeing the prime minister in Chicago is highly slim, though Michael Igantieff, who tried to get Harper's job in 2011, was here last night (more on that later). So many downtown companies are encouraging their workers to telecommute. Still, we will try to cover Canada's perspective with G8 and NATO. Unlike most of the other world leaders, Harper isn't in any danger of jet lag.

Canada got into the spotlight the day before the wave of protests will begin. A group protesting against Canadian oil smeared a corn syrup type substance on themselves to symbolize the "dirtiness" of oil, and protested outside the Canadian Consulate in Chicago.

Harper and Canada hosted the G20 summit in Toronto in 2010, and we know how miserable that turned out to be. Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's chief of staff, is Chicago's mayor. And the fact that the Obama people were afraid to have the G8 in Obama's hometown during the election season speaks volumes.

As for the NATO summit itself, Canada has already pulled its troops out of Afghanistan, and the plan is for the trainers to leave by the end of 2014. The head of NATO wants Canada to stay beyond that date, and Harper is considering the possibility. 2015 is an election year for Harper; depending on how that goes, Harper may be more or less likely to agree to that request.

G8 will focus mostly on the economy, especially what has been happening in Greece with a slice of Italy and what will happen to the euro zone, given France's change in power.

To give a broader perspective on what these summits can bring, you can check out our G20 coverage about Toronto in the links below.

-- G20 preview: Toronto in the worldwide spotlight

-- G20 summit Day 1: Building conversations?

-- G20 summit Day 2: Canada PM Stephen Harper pushes for misguided deficit and debt cutting

-- G20 summit Day 3: Missed opportunities to help economically hurting; non-protesters swept up by authorities

-- G20 wrapup: Daily Show take, police storming peaceful protesters

-- 2010 highlight: G20 and the corner of Queen Street West and Spadina Avenue

Prince Charles, Camilla to spend Victoria Day in Canada

Prince Charles and his wife Camilla will be in three Canadian provinces in a 4-day trip, around Victoria Day weekend. The royal couple are in Canada as part of the Diamond Julibee celebration, marking 60 years on the throne for his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.

The festivities begin in Saint John, New Brunswick, where they will visit a Canadian base. In Toronto, the couple will view Victoria Day fireworks. Prince Charles will present Diamond Jubilee medals. The visit will wrap up in Regina, Saskatchewan, where Charles and Camilla will meet up with Prime Minister Stephen Harper (just back from G8 and NATO) and Governor General David Johnston.

The low-key highlights prove a stark contrast to the more exciting itinerary for Will and Kate during their trip to Canada last summer.

For Charles, this is his 16th trip to the Great White North. He brought Camilla for her Canadian debut in 2009.

Previous coverage:
Prince William and Kate arrive in Canada tomorrow
Royal couple protesters in Quebec stem from long-standing English-French battle

U.S. embassy issues Montreal travel warning due to student protests

The U.S. government has issued a warning to Montréal tourists about the student protests that have now gone on for more than 2 months. American tourists are advised about possible "unforeseen violence," "vandalism," and "arrests."

This story in itself is worthy of CanadianCrossing.com, but there is an added wrinkle. I am headed soon to Montréal on vacation.

I booked the trip before the protests started, and once the Canadiens didn't make the playoffs, I thought protests would be a non-issue.

Interestingly, the warning came out before the smoke bombs last week in the Metro.

One doesn't usually book a vacation in the hopes of seeing protests, unless one is protesting. This doesn't fall into a tourist must-see when traveling. Plenty of visitors are coming to Chicago this week for NATO and what would have been G8.

The good news is that these protests aren't directed at tourists, and we haven't seen stories of tourists being affected by the protests so far.

My advice, which I will literally take to heart, is this:

-- Know a second way to get where you are going. If you are going by train, know how to get around by bus.
-- Be patient and flexible. If you are staying for awhile, adjust your itinerary whenever possible if protests might interfere.
-- If you aren't going to be where the protests are (near the universities and downtown), take advantage of those opportunities.
-- Ask your concierge or hosts if they know more about where the protests might be.
-- Look like a local person. Wear a hat from a local sports team (Habs? Expos?). Okay, you might seem like a tourist wearing a local hat. So be ready to know something about the team or sport you are wearing.

Montréal also has to be concerned about visitors to the upcoming Grand Prix weekend of June 8-10, and summer festivals, especially comedy and jazz.

Should you not go to Montréal during this uncertain time? Well, I'm going. I will be smart about where I am going and keep my eyes and ears open. If nothing else, vacations are full of things and moments you can't see at home, and protests fit into that category.

Traveling is full of surprises: good and bad. Be flexible and enjoy what you can. Montréal has a lot to offer — even with a protest or two.

photo credit

2012 Stanley Cup notebook: Bob Cole to call Western Conference final for CBC

Bob Cole is going on the West side for the Stanley Cup conference final.

CBC is carrying the Eastern Conference final, which starts Monday either in New York or New Jersey, and Games 4-7 of the Western Conference final. Since Jim Hughson and Craig Simpson became the #1 team, they have worked the Western Conference final.

Given Cole's age (80) and home (Newfoundland), he doesn't normally travel that far, though he did a Canadiens game in Los Angeles this season. Once Cole is on the West Coast, going from Los Angeles to Phoenix is a relative breeze.

The Canadian networks do their odd split once again for the conference finals. TSN will carry the first three games of the Phoenix-Los Angeles Western Conference final. Chris Cuthbert and Ray Ferraro will handle the call. Game 1 is in Phoenix on Sunday.

Those on the U.S. side of the border will have to rely on NBCSN for those games.

With the Internet speculation about Cole's pbp calls in the Stanley Cup coverage, some wondered whether the CBC would draft Mark Lee or Dean Brown to work with Garry Galley. At some point, the CBC needs to figure out who would be the next #2 pbp guy, regular season or postseason.

The other possible compromise would have been if Hughson and Simpson had called the first three games of the Eastern Conference series and then had gone out west, leaving the East for Cole and Galley. This would have been awkward, but a way to save face for Cole.

Stay tuned to CanadianCrossing.com and the Twitter feed for more details.

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Hard to know what to make of the Ron MacLean 9/11 references before Game 6 of the Washington-New York game. Everything the CBC does these days gets a lot of grief, and MacLean did apologize for his choice of words. On American soil, the tragedy has reached demagogue status, mourning the loss of life without much thought to preventing it or dealing with the after effect of those first responders.

Too many politicians, mostly Republican, wrapped themselves in the flag and flag pins and didn't help those who suffered as a result of helping others on that day. And did little to punish those who had some idea this was coming.

Compared to that, what MacLean did wasn't nearly as offensive. But if you disagree, I get that.

Though MacLean, and his sidekick, Don Cherry can't be accused of not supporting troops, firefighters, and police officers.

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The Saturday night Hockey Night in Canada slot had the potential to be Too Much Hockey in the United States. The brilliant plan for Game 7 was to run both of the Eastern Conference semifinals 30 minutes apart on Saturday night.

Of course, the New Jersey Devils prevented that scenario.

For the U.S. outlets, NBCSN would have carried one game (Rangers-Capitals) and CNBC would have carried the other game (Flyers-Devils). CBC has both series and Canadian fans would have been left scrambling in that scenario.

CBC could have traded one of those games to TSN for a game in the conference final. Last spring, when the CBC traded a game to TSN on Election Night, the CBC just lost that game.

In previous years, the U.S. outlets would have had more trouble. NBC wouldn't jump in and show a game, even in the deathbed that is OTA on Saturday night, and CNBC only started being an outlet this year.

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Another tentative deal that will keep the Coyotes in Phoenix.

We've seen that as many times as Jack Nicholson's character types the same phrase over and over in "The Shining."

The NHL is filled with teams that could use a change of scenery: Dallas, Columbus, New York Islanders, Nashville, Florida, and Phoenix. The only one that makes Gary Bettman more passionate to justify his decision is Phoenix. The fact that the NHL owns the Coyotes and the Canadian teams are supporting the losses of the 'Yotes makes Bettman's position even more exasperating.

As the Phoenix Coyotes have made their way to the Western Conference Final against the Los Angeles Kings, a Disney movie script writer wouldn't believe a scenario where the 'Yotes get to stay in Phoenix only if they win the Stanley Cup.

Quebec has more than earned a right to one of these teams. The 'Yotes deserve to be that team, since the Atlanta legacy will take awhile to wear off in Winnipeg.

Seattle, Kansas City, and Hamilton, Ontario have good arguments, better arguments than the ones in Columbus, Nashville, Florida, and Phoenix. But if Quebec doesn't have a team in the fall of 2012, then the owners need to ask themselves what Bettman is doing for them by remaining in the desert.