Posts with the John Baird tag

Barris Beat

Canadian grooves

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Saturday morning mecca for LPs, Sam the Record Man, in Toronto.

Sam Sniderman changed my Saturdays forever. Back in the 1960s, instead of sleeping in, savouring my coffee, wasting my morning, I high-tailed it downtown to Yonge and Dundas streets, to the store under the spinning-record sign to spend my money on vinyl. Yes, every Saturday morning I raced to take advantage of Sam’s door-crasher specials.

“The best music and the best prices,” Sam Sniderman used to say in his advertisements. But more than that, he also said, “Buy Canadian music because it’s the best.”

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Barris Beat

Changing the landscape

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
The federal government’s view of the proposed “Haliburton-Uxbridge” constituency, does not include Uxbridge in the southwest corner of the map.

Ottawa, I have learned, has the power to do many things. The federal government can influence the nation’s economy, with Bank of Canada interest rates, stimulus funding and, of course, taxation. It can choose to send the country’s armed forces to war. Ultimately, it has the power to draft, debate and generate the laws that change the lives of all Canadians. But this week, when I opened up one of the Toronto daily newspapers, a special federal government insert dropped out. And I discovered the feds have even greater power than I thought.

“Canada’s electoral map is changing,” the cover of the insert said. “Read about the proposed new electoral map for Ontario.”

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