Novel Crimes

Although there's plenty of intrigue and professional jealousy seething behind the walls of academe, seldom does backstabbing become the real thing. But unrequited love and threats of blackmail lead to the murders of two McGill history professors -- at least in the pages of Richard King's debut novel, That Sleep of Death.

King's protagonist, Sam Wiseman, is a local bookseller with customers among McGill faculty and when he visits the campus one day to collect a cheque for a book order, he finds the first body. Wiseman, who "always wanted to be one of the Hardy boys," enthusiastically takes on the role of amateur sleuth and sidekick to his friend, book-loving Montreal police detective Gaston Lemieux, and the two eventually solve the crimes.

King, who owns Paragraphe bookstore, located just a block from the Roddick Gates, says he was inspired to put fingers to keyboard by bestselling author Maeve Binchey when she made an appearance in Montreal. Binchey cheerfully told her audience that writing a novel was easy. "Write ten pages a week and in 30 weeks it's done." King found it wasn't quite that simple but That Sleep of Death is a creditable start, with two appealing main characters and enough unappealing ones to keep things interesting. King, through the words of Wiseman, even includes a tribute to fellow Montreal bookstore owner, Judy Mappin, BSc'50, calling her "charming" and "the doyenne of Canadian bookselling."

Foundation to be Trudeau Legacy

Stephen Toope's new job is a little intimidating. All he has to do over the next few years is create a national foundation dedicated to getting some of the brightest brains in the country tackling some of Canada's greatest challenges. To add to the pressure, the foundation is named after one of the country's most revered and controversial prime ministers.

Toope, a McGill law professor, recently began a three-year leave to serve as the first president of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. Armed with a $125-million endowment from the Canadian government, the foundation is "dedicated to the promotion of creative thinking in the humanities and social sciences and the engagement of leading and emerging scholars in the public policy debates of our times," says Trudeau Foundation chair Roy Heenan, BA'57, BCL'60.

A highly regarded international law and human rights expert, Toope, BCL'83, LLB'83, is the Faculty of Law's former dean. He led the campaign to build the Nahum Gelber Law Library and oversaw the recent overhaul of the faculty's curriculum. Heenan says Toope's "leadership skills, intellectual curiosity and entrepreneurial drive" make him the right man to get the foundation up and running.

In recent years, the federal government has backed initiatives, such as the Canada Foundation for Innovation, that have pumped new dollars into university research, mainly in scientific disciplines. "We're quite conscious of the fact that funding tends to be highly weighted to the sciences and applied technology," says Toope. "Important questions about the future of society in Canada are not being addressed. There has been no encouragement to look at that."

The foundation will fund the research of up to 100 Trudeau Fellows -- PhD candidates and post-doctoral students -- in four broad areas: human rights and social justice, Canada's place in the world, responsible citizenship and the interaction of humans with their natural environment. "These are the themes of Trudeau's life and career, but they're also some of the central challenges facing Canada today," says Toope.

Some worry that foundation-backed research will be politicized and reflect biases of the Liberal Party, but Toope is quick to disagree.

"This is a private foundation created as a memorial to Mr. Trudeau by the federal government, but it's by no means a government institution. We will pursue independent policies. The themes reflect Mr. Trudeau's own concerns, but they can encompass a wide diversity of opinion." Toope points out that the foundation's board includes former Ontario premiers Bob Rae and Bill Davis and former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed -- men with very different points of view who all jousted with Trudeau in the political arena.

Talented academics in mid-career will be in line for cash awards, enabling them to take sabbaticals to embark on research projects that spark the foundation's interest. Every year or two, a Trudeau conference will be organized to bring the Fellows together in one spot to exchange ideas.

"Our overall goal is the creation of an informal network of outstanding people who are really thinking about the tough issues facing Canada," says Toope.

Layton Lobbies for NDP Leadership

PHOTO: ANDREW DOBROWOLSKYJ

He's been called a "welcome voice" and is credited with breathing life into a lacklustre NDP leadership race. After a meeting with the Montreal Gazette editorial board, Gazette scribes enthusiastically declared that Jack Layton, BA'71, "displayed all the attributes of a complete modern candidate: intelligence, easy speaking style, grasp of detail, energy, media savvy and telegenic appearance. Canada needs more industrious, committed and intelligent politicians like [him]." There are those who say the Toronto city councillor's political style and his issues -- he's strong on the environment, national housing, the effects of globalization, revitalizing cities and communities across the country -- could very well revive the listless New Democratic Party and the voice of the left in Canada.

Nothwithstanding Layton's favourable reviews, the onetime McGill political science student -- who returned to campus in July to be part of a panel discussion on globalization and free trade -- is not yet a shoe-in for NDP top banana, since he'll be up against veteran MP Bill Blaikie and NDP deputy house leader Lorne Nystrom. But Layton could certainly raise the level of national political discourse above the usual, tiresome bickering Canadians have witnessed in what passes for politics these days. He's also fluently bilingual, so can talk the talk in Quebec, too, where NDP support amounts to less than the proverbial hill of beans, though the province is also offering up one of its own, Pierre Ducasse, for the party leadership race that takes place in January.

Layton's environmentalist credentials and his suspicion of globalization could even arouse the interest of the left wing youth vote, which for a long time has been apathy personified when it comes to mainstream federal politics. Given the NDP's brush with extinction in the last two elections, a voice like Jack Layton's may be just what the party needs to distinguish itself from the rest of the pack.