Nothing turns la belle province uglier than a critical columnist. Quebec premier Philippe Couillard lashed out about academic-turned-journalist-turned-academic Andrew Potter’s piece for Maclean’s, which identified a recent highway shutdown in Montreal as a symptom of the city's social malaise. Potter himself expressed regret on Facebook, while his employer, McGill University, issued a tweet to distance the school from the column. (Naturally, in two languages.)

“We are not being invaded” unlikely to be tweeted by @TPSOperations again. The Toronto Police Service apologized for being “flippant” in how it issued a public safety alert about Monday night's military exercises. (The rubber rifles were being fired at Coronation Park, east of Ontario Place.) One tenacious veteran took the opportunity to assure the public that the army means no harm.

Rob Ford death anniversary will not be commemorated with a naming ceremony. The city has been accused of dragging its feet on naming a stadium in Centennial Park for RoFo. Of course, the person most upset about the delay is Doug Ford. Mayor John Tory has assured Ford Nation that the process of naming something is coming along:

Bell and Rogers want bars to pay for big-screen fodder. The idea of higher fees for businesses that exploit sports channels sounds rational enough, but the price hikes raise questions about what happens when telecom giants own the players, the programming and the pipelines. Meanwhile, it turns out Rogers CEO Guy Laurence was paid $13,452,873 to go away, bringing his three-year compensation to $42.6 million.


Today's edition of 12­:­36 is brought to you by Furniture Bank, because spring is actually here, and you probably have gently used furniture, housewares and clothing that’s better off given to families in need. Save 15 per cent on pickup—and get a charity tax receipt, too—with promo code Spring Clean 2017 after clicking here.


The New Yorker is two steps closer to becoming a Justin Trudeau fanzine. Adam Gopnik, previously resolute about never moving back to Canada, was among those invited to see Come From Away on Broadway alongside the prime minister. Now, the staff writer has turned in the apparent results of an entire week spent writing a blog post, in which he reminds readers that he remembers Expo 67, then careens into a standard display of Trump Derangement Syndrome. (The same spectacle generated a less self-indulgent "Talk of the Town" item, with one of the magazine’s signature sketches.)

Barenaked Ladies enter the doo-wop domain. BNL is about to release the results of a collaboration with the Persuasions, an a cappella group that keyboardist Kevin Hearn befriended at Lou Reed’s memorial service. The Persuasions have always been more subversive than others of their genre. They were brought to prominence by Frank Zappa in 1969, and were more recently sampled by Jamie xx. In the process, BNL finally found some vocalists who can sing this better than Steven Page:

Betty Kennedy dead at 91. The journalist-turned-senator interviewed over 25,000 guests between 1959 and 1986 on CFRB—which now apparently thinks most of its listeners are too young to have heard of her. Kennedy had a national profile as a result of CBC's Front Page Challenge, where she charmed Malcolm X shortly before he died in 1965.

Word of the moment

FEELINGS

Finance minister Bill Morneau said we should focus on these, as he broke in those shiny new shoes for his second federal budget today.




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