A Window on Westmount Ville Marie

TO WALK WITH LIONSThe old man and the lion: Richard Harris plays George Adamson.

Friday, March 10, 2000 Lionizing George Adamson Stephen Cole
A sequel of sorts to the '60s drive-in family classic Born Free ("as free as the wind blows ..."), To Walk with Lions should put now-middle-aged enthusiasts of the original film off mirrors for at least a week. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Gary Howsom, Guy Collins, John Buchannan

Review

John Buchanan

Turning to local talent and the arts, David mentioned that as last week's evening had been devoted to South Africa, tonight we would visit East Africa with a trailer for To Walk with Lions, a new film about George Adamson of which John Buchanan is the Executive Producer. This Canada/UK/Kenya co-production has a star-studded cast led by the great Richard Harris and some wonderful feline thespians. John was peppered with questions about the production, distribution and the trials of dealing with two and four-legged stars.

On January 10, 1998, a small gossip item written by Imogen Edwards-Jones appeared in the Metro section of The Times.

John Ciaccia was with us Friday, August 28, 1998 An early attempt at a recovery on Wall Street faltered Friday, as investors remained worried about troubles in Russian and Asian economies. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 114 points, or 1.4%, to 8052. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 47 points, or 2.8%, to about 1640. The composite ended the day more than 18% below its all-time high, just short of the 20% threshold that would suggest a bear market for Nasdaq.

to Ciaccia SITES John says no more L Ian writes 'John steps down' Wed-Night 863

Wednesday Night #860

MLL

co Following David's announcement that he had been advised by Videotron that the web site must be sharply reduced in size within the week or would be cut off, several individuals indicated that they might be in a position to offer concrete help. These offers were gratefully acknowledged and will be followed up.
Editor's Note: in the face of the urgency to comply with the Videotron ultimatum, this and other reports have been delayed. A partial solution has been found with the announcement that the Westmount City Web Site (long "a-borning") is now up; this means that there is no longer any need to carry Westmount City events or writings on this site - a link will take interested viewers to the new City site.
David also announced that two new pages with Panels of Experts have been created, one in the form of a "Dear Abby" page for computer technology and the second devoted to stock market and investment advice.

In honour of several guests of Italian origin, the evening started with a video clip regarding more daring and/or suggestive Italian advertising techniques. This was followed by a weather report containing references to a cold snap "coming down from British Canada" and prevailing conditions in "Spanish New Orleans". It was revealed as a re-creation of what-might-have-been a 1787 broadcast and quickly segued into a brief up-date on "Bonnie" the hurricane's trajectory up the East coast.

Introducing the topic of the Supreme court ruling, was a video "This is Your Life" for John Ciaccia, overlaid with sounds of a report by John Chancellor and Walter Cronkite of the events surrounding Shay's Rebellion. Plus ça change....

The Supreme court ruling ,a "calming judgement", clarified the questions on three levels, namely the constitutional, the international and the level of denominative principles. On the latter issue, it was clear sovereignty-association is no longer an option and that constitutionally, negotiations on secession ( a word which the judgement has now added to the vocabulary of the dialogue)would be required with the government of Canada AND with the other provincial governments.

This must be made clear in any referendum question leading to secession. Negotiation would then be not only on secession, but would cover topics brought to the table by all eleven governments, including the final provincial and national boundaries following secession. Premier Bouchard may have made a fundamental blunder in accepting this judgement insofar as it would be infinitely more difficult for Québec to negotiate with ROC than with Ottawa alone.

This discussion would have been incomplete without mentioning Julius Grey's proposal whereby the fifty-plus-one rule would be applied to all eligible voters and those who did not cast a ballot would be deemed to be against separation.

On the topic of a clear question:

Eric H.

Alternatively it was suggested that the PQ could call a general election with the premise that a vote for the PQ is a vote for separation. But how valid would that result be as an expression of the will of the population given that in a general election, the distribution of seats in the National Assembly does not represent the population equally? For this reason, it is unlikely that the government of Québec would attempt this tactic.

Implication for Québec:

The Supreme Court laid to rest the myth that the international community would automatically support secession. Apart from historic reasons for this, the world community cannot understand why Québec wants to secede.

Having clearly supported the Supreme court ruling, it would be difficult if not impossible for M. Bouchard to reverse himself at this time. For this reason it is not likely that the ruling will be a factor in the upcoming Québec election which in all probability, will be held this Fall. And how will the Québec Liberals do? The present margin is +/- 50% and holding, down from the initial 57% burst of enthusiasm for Charest.

				 \ \  The
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Joyce

The immediate reaction to the rapid and continuous fall of the Canadian dollar ( a new record in more than 100 years) suggests possible manipulation on the part of currency speculators. Closer observation reveals this to be improbable.

Our trade surplus continues to remain impressive, although with the diminished level of the Canadian dollar(at least one Wednesday Night expert feels that it could go to 62 cents), it might have been expected to be even higher. On the other hand, now imported components are adding to cost of exports. Neither the Prime Minister nor Paul Martin has effectively played up our real advantage - that 85% of our trade is with the U.S. and the Asian and Russian markets represent only a small percentage of our exports. The effect of political instability in Canada is estimated to have had a steady three cent effect on the value placed on the Canadian Dollar. This remains unchanged. Under these conditions, one would normally expect our dollar to be relatively unaffected by the world trade crisis. Some of the reasons that it is are as follows:

J. C.

• The size of our national debt: Although Canada has paid off 22.5 billion dollars of its debt in the last two years, it still has the highest per capita debt among the G-7 countries after Italy.
• The high rates of taxes and of government spending in Canada. It is likely that the next Federal budget will include tax cuts, but nothing will be done before then. Why not do it tomorrow?
• Low productivity in comparison with the United States: The high level of exports has not been earned, but has resulted from the sliding Canadian Dollar. Although Canada leads the G-7 in the private rate of growth of two percent as compared with one and a half percent for the United States, this will be unsustainable under present circumstances once the Canadian dollar regains its strength as will undoubtedly ultimately happen. Means must be found to increase Canadian productivity.

John M.

• The commodities market has been a significant factor in sapping the strength of the Canadian dollar. This relates to the growing crisis in Russia. China and Russia are making every effort to stem their financial crises by dumping commodities, thereby weakening the Canadian dollar.
  
  

• Canadian interest rates have been too low for too long. But the Central Bank has sent a signal that it will not raise interest rates before November. This promise led to pressure on the dollar. Any attempt at supporting the dollar by the Central Bank is likely to fail.
  
  

  Carl Beigie

  The world is in a deflationary mode and the Canadian dollar will remain at about sixty-five cents U.S. despite any efforts to change this. Note that Carl Beigie suggested in 1993 that the Canadian dollar should be at 65 cents. However, 12,5B$ comes due on September 15, which will necessitate a rise in Canadian interest rates before that date.(In fact, on Thursday morning the Central Bank did raise interest rates by 1% with little effect - too little, too late?)
  
  
• There is no single problem in our economy, but there is a lack of political economic vision, and none of our leadership appear to really understand the problem. No one appears willing - or able - to tackle policy questions of regional requirements, strengths and weaknesses within the federal and national framework. Meantime, Americans are recognizing Canadian bargains and are buying up industrial real estate and companies. Americans may gradually come to think that they can run the Canadian economy better than Canadians given that our middle managers have little or no practical experience. Should we worry?
  
  
• The United States is potentially the biggest problem in the world economy.A real fear exists that although it defies all logic, pressure may be brought to bear on Congress to return to a more protectionist policy in the United States as a response to the increasing American trade deficit. After Japan and China, the U.S. considers Canada the third most important problem. It is now a uni-polar world and the United States is being eaten away by the weakening authority of the Presidency in the wake of Clinton's problems. (There is a very real possibility in some minds that he may be forced to resign.)

Roslyn

The recent large stock market correction appears to be unrelated to the value of the dollar except perhaps to some extent, psychologically. Profits have been levelling off and investors can no longer look forward to double digit returns on their investment. There is - or should be- a real concern about the lack of experience, patience and discipline among many young money managers. Mutual fund numbers are awful. Young fund managers without experience may shift; there may be huge redemptions. Since being bought up by banks, the brokerage industry no longer does its homework. The "greed factor" has been transformed into the "fear factor", creating great investment opportunities within the next six months. Possible reasons that fear has not turned into panic include:

• A large percent of money invested in the stock market is in the form of RRSP's as opposed to money required for current income. In the minds of the RRSP holders, this is therefore not "real money".
• Investors are looking more at the performance of portfolio managers than at the performance of the stock market.

They may well have been pondering some of the more interesting quotes from the evening:

• "The only thing I learned on Bay Street is the difference between greed and fear"
  
  
• "Bill Clinton and his adventures are the greatest threat to the world economy"
  
  
• "A lot of people who really should be moving furniture for a living are in the money business"
  
  
• Q)"Which country is in a position to take advantage of the weakened position and authority of the U.S.? A) Switzerland"
  
  
• "You can always tell an American, but you can't tell him much"
  
  
• "If this isn't a crisis, it's as close as you can get without having one"
  
  
• "I believe that there are too many people who get all excited about the drop in the Canadian dollar"
  
  
• "Bouchard may be pressing the right buttons by saying that the low dollar shows Canada won't work. This may stimulate action on interest rates"
  
  
• "There's a big difference between sex and perjury"
  
  
• "If China devalues, so does all of Asia; China is the more important economy than Russia, but as Russia dumps commodities China is in trouble"
  
  
• "Not the Canadian solution. It wouldn't be. But it might be an intelligent solution"

Herbert Bercovitz