Abortion tourism a concern in Canada, but out of reach for most Americans: advocates

Advocates raise concerns about abortion tourism

Canada should be prepared for a potential rise in medical tourism as abortion becomes banned in some U.S. states, say advocates and providers.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that had provided a constitutional right to abortion. The ruling is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states, including some along the U.S.-Canada border.

The decision has raised concerns among some abortion providers and advocates about how a possible influx of Americans could impact Canada's system.

But the option to come north for an abortion is limited to those who can afford it, said Jill Doctoroff, executive director of the National Abortion Federation Canada.

Nobel laureate Toni Morrison dead at 88

NEW YORK - Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, a pioneer and reigning giant of modern literature whose imaginative power in "Beloved," ''Song of Solomon" and other works transformed American letters by dramatizing the pursuit of freedom within the boundaries of race, has died at age 88.

Publisher Alfred A. Knopf announced that Morrison died Monday night at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. Morrison's family issued a statement through Knopf saying she died after a brief illness.

"Toni Morrison passed away peacefully last night surrounded by family and friends," the family announced. "The consummate writer who treasured the written word, whether her own, her students or others, she read voraciously and was most at home when writing."

Few authors rose in such rapid, spectacular style. She was nearly 40 when her first novel, "The Bluest Eye," was published. By her early 60s, after just six novels, she had become the first black woman to receive the Nobel literature prize, praised in 1993 by the Swedish academy for her "visionary force" and for her delving into "language itself, a language she wants to liberate" from categories of black and white. In 2012, Barack Obama awarded her a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Defunding police ‘illogical step’: Pallister

Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister says he’s open to channelling justice funding to preventive programs, but questions whether defunding police is the best approach — warning there will always be criminals taking advantage of vulnerable people.

“I think the motivation that lies in frustrations of the actions of some police services — not necessarily here in Winnipeg exclusively, but elsewhere — is justifiable and understandable, and I get it,” Pallister said Tuesday, when asked to comment on the 30,000 signatures collected for a Justice 4 Black Lives Winnipeg petition calling for the abolition of the city police.

“But then moving to defunding police is, to me, an illogical step from that one. Don’t let your frustration lose your common sense... There’s a lot of people out there in vulnerable communities who depend on the police to protect them and make sure they’re safe from the action of criminals.”

There has been a widespread call to restructure police funding in the wake of George Floyd’s death May 25 in Minneapolis.

Olympics Overnight: Speedskater Blondin wins silver in the mass start, Bowman narrowly misses podium in halfpipe skiing, Jamaica returns to bobsled track

Here’s what you missed overnight at Day 15 of the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

Actor-director Cooper takes new approach to familiar tale

TORONTO — In his self-directed version of A Star Is Born, Bradley Cooper plays a rock star named Jackson Maine.

Note the name: it marks the character as a member of a cinematic lineage that descends all the way to 1937.

That year, the first A Star Is Born was made, with Frederick March in the role of alcoholic actor Norman Maine. The name stayed in 1954, when James Mason took over the role of an actor who first nurtures the career of Judy Garland’s up-and-coming star Vicki Lester before his drunken shenanigans threaten to derail it. By 1976, Kris Kristofferson played the role of musician John Norman Howard, a rock singer with a musical stake in the ascent of Barbra Streisand’s Esther Hoffman.

Cooper, 43, remembered the Maine name, but also brought his own vision as a first-time feature filmmaker to the new version, which opens Thursday, Oct. 4, opposite Lady Gaga after the originally designated director, Clint Eastwood, dropped out. While actors might not want to see different interpretations of a role, Cooper embraced the opportunity to see all the past iterations.

Court ruling concludes Canadian Wheat Board saga

It remains to be seen whether the recent court ruling in a lawsuit filed after Canadian Wheat Board’s dissolution in 2012 puts the whole debate to rest, as some no doubt hope.

But either way, the dust has settled on the post-CWB world. The sun still rises and a new generation of farmers on the land only knows by name an institution that for generations influenced every aspect of Prairie grain farming.

The first Rural Revival column I wrote for this newspaper more than 30 years ago was about a thousand farmers from Western Canada demonstrating in support of the Wheat Board. It was in the aftermath of the Western Grain Marketing Panel report, one of several efforts that eventually included a plebiscite to help the federal government decide what to do about a vocal minority of farmers who wanted marketing “freedom.”

The polls at the time suggested about two-thirds of farmers were comfortable enough with the single-desk system for food wheat and barley to keep it around. It served as a counterbalance to canola, which they sold on the open market. They essentially had a dual market.