A Bit More Detail

• The Conversation suggests that blaming the 1976 Montréal Olympics for the reluctance of Canada to host an Olympics should stop.


• Is it possible that a Conservative majority government could be plausibly achieved by a breakthrough in Québec? Phiippe J. Fournier at MacLean's considers.


• A Conservative majority government, again, is perfectly imaginable. MacLean's reports.


• Don Pittis at CBC notes how worker shortages in Canada are leading to rising wages, in at least some areas.


• What will happen, in Canada and elsewhere, when Queen Elizabeth II dies? MacLean's speculates.

At first glance, the space above Asteria Souvlaki Place at 292A Danforth Ave. drew little attention to itself. Until February 11, 1990, its occupants were happy to keep it that way. Not advertising to the world that this was the local office of the African National Congress (ANC) was intended to protect staff from potential harm. When word arrived that day from South Africa that Nelson Mandela was free after over 27 years of imprisonment, 292A Danforth went public by offering itself as a place for Torontonians to celebrate the news.

Politicians and union leaders spoke to over 1,000 people gathered on the street that evening. Mayor Art Eggleton, who had proclaimed February 11 as Nelson Mandela Day, told the crowd that “the people of Toronto have joined with freedom-loving people the world over.” Chants of “Long live Mandela” rose from Danforth Avenue.

Mandela’s release was viewed as a positive sign in the battle against South Africa’s apartheid policy, a fight for which Toronto was a hotbed of activity during the 1980s. Boycotts and divestitures of holdings in companies with ties to South Africa became the norm for educational institutions. Protests targeted businesses that continued to operate in the increasingly demonized country. The Toronto Board of Education organized annual anti-apartheid conferences for high-school students.

One high-profile effort during this period was the Toronto Arts Against Apartheid Festival. Poet Ayanna Black raised the idea during a United Way of Greater Toronto Black development committee meeting earlier in the year. “We wanted to galvanize the community and emphasize this was something to concern everyone, not just blacks,” she told the Star. A foundation for the Toronto Arts Against Apartheid Festival, headed by Toronto Board of Education consultant Lloyd McKell, began working on who should appear. They secured singer Harry Belafonte as honorary chairman and scheduled an appearance by 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu. Though criticism of its perceived involvement in a political activity forced the United Way to change its role from festival sponsor to supporter, the charitable organization continued to play a key organizing role.

Cathi Delaney chooses a shady spot on the terrace to sip a refreshing cup of iced coffee. It's October, but with temperatures well above 30°C (86°F), the nearly 60-year-old British woman is perfectly comfortable wearing just a floral dress. This, after all, is what brought her to Cyprus: the sun, the sea, the sweet life.

But in recent months, back in her country of origin, a majority of voters opted for Brexit, that will force the UK to leave the European Union — adding a major element of anxiety to her otherwise trouble-free existence. "Brexit raises a lot of uncertainties," she says, noting the various legal and bureaucratic issues. "Will I get my state pension in six years? Will my husband benefit from the General Hospital Scheme that gives affordable access to health care?"

Delaney is one of an estimated 80,000 subjects of Her Majesty the Queen currently residing in Cyprus, an EU member for the past 12 years. Together they represent about 10% of the small republic's population. Around half of these ex-pats are retired. The rest work in finance, tourism or in the military. Cyprus has two British bases.

A former insurance agent, she retired early with her husband, at 45, to move here to this house they had built in the village of Tala, where half of the population is foreign. That was 14 years ago. "We'd fallen in love with this quiet, cool place in the hills, 10 minutes from the Coral Bay beach," she says.

The couple has lived on their savings. But like many Brits, they now fear they might need private insurance to cover their health care costs. Delaney, who serves as a town councilor (as allowed under EU rules), also worries about the impact Brexit may have on local commerce.

When Prince William, his wife Kate and their children land in Victoria on Saturday aboard a Royal Canadian Air Force helicopter, the future king and queen will survey the city that has more connections to the monarchy than any other place in Canada.

Parts of the city named in 1844 after Prince William’s great, great, great, great-grandmother Queen Victoria still resemble a slice of England, complete with Tudor-style mansions and double-decker buses painted with the Union Jack.

In Victoria’s inner harbour, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will see two of the city’s most prominent landmarks — the Fairmont Empress Hotel, named after Queen Victoria’s additional title Empress of India, and the provincial parliament buildings, both of which were built by British architect Francis Rattenbury.

Monique Goffinet Miller, a Victoria-based spokeswoman for the Monarchist League of Canada, said the city is abuzz as many residents and tourists of all ages prepare to stake out a place on the lawn of the legislature building for a ceremony on Saturday to welcome the Royal Family.

“The lights of the B.C. legislature building are there because they were lit for the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria and they’ve been burning ever since,” she said of the site’s significance. “It was meant to look like Her Majesty’s crown.”

• Bloomberg notes that Brexit could give Scotland a chance to take some of London's finance industry, looks at the Canadian-born governor of the Bank of England, looks at a quiet crisis in the Russian economy re: investment, and notes the awkwardness of the British diaspora in the European Union.


• Bloomberg View notes the United Kingdom's upcoming challenges with India.


• The CBC notes that Iceland has gotten a Canadian-born first lady and looks at the new Panama Canal expansion.


• Daily Xtra quotes the Canadian prime minister as arguing Canada must make amends for past wrongs to LGBT people.


• MacLean's looks at the indecisive results of the latest Spanish election.


• The National Post notes that Scotland is already preparing for a second vote.


• Open Democracy looks at the strange new dynamics in Northern Ireland, where Unionists are applying for Irish passports.


• Universe Today examines experiments in agriculture using simulated Martian soil, and looks at a star set to rotate around the Milky Way Galaxy's central black hole at 2.5% of the speed of light.

• The BBC reports from Asmara, Eritrea's capital, on the eve of war.


• Bloomberg notes the economic problems of Hong Kong and Singapore, looks at the final day of campaigning in the Brexit referendum, and notes the interim president of Brazil's desire to oust Rousseff.


• Bloomberg View takes issue with the rejection of nuclear energy in the name of the environment and reports on how Russians are being hurt by their association with Putin.


• The CBC reports on the ongoing trial of Led Zeppelin over the authorship of "Stairway to Heaven".


• The Globe and Mail notes the homophobia of a rural Manitoba MP.


• The Independent notes a poll suggesting most Brexit supporters believe the referendum will be fixed.


• MacLean's notes the demand of a northern Ontario First Nation for mercury to be cleaned up.


• At Medium's Mel, Jay Rachel Edidin writes about the fears for their husband post-Orlando.


• The National Post notes that the Commonwealth is not going to replace the EU for the UK.


• Open Democracy argues for a right to online anonymity.


• The Toronto Star notes the visit of Prince Edward and his wife to the Union-Pearson Express.


• U.S. News and World Report suggests/a> Clarence Thomas may not speak much because he's afraid of his native Gullah surfacing.


• Wired looks at online mockery of Trump's campaign finance issues.

• The Atlantic's James Parker explains the unique power of the lyrics of David Bowie.


• Asia Times notes how the Korean Wave is an issue among some Vietnamese, who remember South Korean military atrocities during the Vietnam War.


• The Toronto Star looks at the legacy of Toronto's Hammy the Hamster.


• Northeasternontario.com explores the legacy of northern Ontario's Highway Book Shop.


• The Inter Press Service features an opinion piece on the need to decolonize education, starting from the Rhodes Must Fall movement in South Africa.


• Open Democracy describes, from the Russian and the Ukrainian perspectives, just how badly Russia-Ukraine cultural relations have fallen since 2014.


• Vulture features an insightful interview with RuPaul on, among other things, drag and contemporary gay culture.

A majority of Canadians support the right – along with Australians, New Zealanders and Britons – of residents to have unrestricted travel between the countries without the need for visas, a new poll has found.

According to the poll commissioned by the Britain-based Royal Commonwealth Society, 75 per cent of Canadians believe that residents of the four Commonwealth countries should have an arrangement similar to the European Union, which allows citizens to travel freely to live and work in member countries. The poll, conducted by Nanos Research, is part of the group’s ongoing efforts to promote greater mobility between the countries.

The results showed 82 per cent of New Zealanders, 70 per cent of Australians and 58 per cent of Britons also support the idea. The survey of 1,000 Canadians was conducted in late January.

Tim Hewish, the society’s policy director, said the group plans to lobby politicians in Ottawa in the coming months. “It’s the responsibility of elected governments to respond to these types of responses from their citizens,” he said.

Currently, Canadians require a visa for all travel to New Zealand and Australia. Canadians visiting Britain for work or study, or on trips longer than six months, also require a visa.

Although the subject of half a dozen books, including chapters of Australia’s detailed official history of the war, Fromelles has become the subject of misunderstanding and myth in Australia. It is supposed to have been “forgotten” (though it was long remembered as Fleurbaix – the name of the village from which Australian and British troops attacked – rather than Fromelles, which the Germans defended). It has become seen popularly as “the worst night in Australian military history” – a notorious instance in which callous and incompetent British generals sent Australians to their deaths for no purpose.

Fromelles was mounted as a feint to draw German troops away from the Somme and was the first major engagement on the Western Front involving the recently arrived Australian forces. While modern research has questioned the established view of the battle as a complete military failure, historian Gary Sheffield has argued that it nonetheless “further damaged Australian faith in British generalship, already shaken after Gallipoli”.

[. . .]

The reason for the high profile of Fromelles in Australia’s commemoration is that a mass grave, which had been overlooked in the post-war clean-up, was discovered in 2008 at Pheasant Wood near Fromelles where the Germans had buried 250 Australian and British dead in 1916. The discovery resulted in their remains being interred in the first new Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery opened on the Western Front in decades. Pheasant Wood cemetery soon became a place of pilgrimage for Australians visiting northern France in search of Australia’s Great War.

Awareness of the historical context of the battle has clearly informed some British coverage of the decision by the Australian Department for Veterans Affairs to invite only the families of Australians to the memorial ceremony this year. Coverage in the UK has suggested that “banning” the relatives of the 1,547 British casualties of Fromelles, exclusively focuses on the Australian soldiers lost in light of the smaller, but still significant, British casualties.

In response, an Australian spokesman noted in The Times (paywall) that Britain’s own Somme commemoration of July 1 2016 will only be open to British citizens. It’s clear the war’s centenary is being shaped by modern national and state agendas.

But there is an anachronism at the very heart of this spat because – as the military historian Andrew Robertshaw said: “A surprisingly high proportion of the Australian Imperial Force were not actually born in Australia.”

Australians would find it easier and cheaper to live and work in Britain under proposals in a new report backed by London mayor Boris Johnson.

Mr Johnson said he hoped the scheme would reverse the dramatic drop in Australian migration to Britain – from 40,000 in 1999 to 26,000 in 2011.

[. . .]

He - and the report - propose a "bilateral mobility zone" agreement between Australia and Britain, modelled on the trans-Tasman agreement between Australia and New Zealand.

Any Australian or New Zealander who wanted to travel to, live and work in Britain would get a free visa – although they would not get immediate access to welfare support.

The same would apply for British citizens who wanted to work in Australia.

"Extra Brits would never be seen as alien," the report predicted.

"Nor would Aussies or Kiwis in Britain. The issue may come down to political climates and the resulting political will.

"It would certainly allow a greater flourishing of our common unity.

"The UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand share the same head of state, the same language and the same common-law legal system. Critically, they are all highly economically developed democracies and there is also a distinct common culture and familial bond between them.