Free trade with Colombia. Who's next?

Last week, Canada and Colombia reached a deal on a free trade agreement. It may be introduced for ratification by Canada's Parliament as early as today.

Regular readers will know that I am a supporter of free trade in principle; provided that the aim is to raise living standards, not lower them and that national sovereignty in the whole is respected. However, another non-negotiable item is respect for human and labour rights. One certainly can't expect an all-encompassing regime such as exists in the European Union, but there should be a minimum level of respect for what's provided for in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in a number of the protocols of the International Labour Organization.

Note the list of countries with which Canada presently have free trade agreements: Chile, Costa Rica, Israel, Peru, the EFTA states (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland), Mexico and the United States. Of these, Costa Rica has a serious child prostitution problem the government won't deal with, Israel has a less than honourable record when it comes to the Palestinians, Peru is still locked in a civil war, and Mexico seems to have a convenient way of making Canadian tourists disappear -- and of course, you don't want to mess with a Federale. At the present time, we're in negotiations with Singapore which has one party regularly winning 80% of the seats thanks to gerrymandering and therefore cannot be considered a democracy in any sense of the term; and the country's press is free to criticize other countries' governments but not its own.

What is going on here?

I do believe countries which have proved they have improved their record should be entitled to escalating improvements in trade access, starting with debt relief, then Most Favoured Nation (the lowest level of tariff), then free trade. However, it is in our best interests to seek better access to markets on which we can rely on, countries which have proven they have good overall labour and human rights standards -- the EU, Australia, Japan. Wittingly supporting a still ongoing civil war and illicit drug trade is not my idea of lifting people up. The Colombian agreement does attempt to address human and labour rights but it does not go far enough. And let's not mention the environment.

The minority Parliament here should draw the line. We should not accept this as a fait accompli -- and ratification should be deferred until Colombia can prove they're moving forward and not going back into old habits.

Who's next on the free trade list? Zimbabwe? Sudan? Burma? You get my point.

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Damn the atoms, we'll split them anyway!

So the government of Ontario has decided that the future lies with nuclear power and that it will built two reactors alongside the existing plants in Darlington. Don't be surprised if the proposals that come from AECL, Westinghouse and Areva demand that four and not two reactors are built -- since Darlington has four already.

Given the history of Darlington -- a series of reactors that wound up costing six times the original projection -- I'm not sure that the site is entirely the best choice. Given the options for siting I would have picked Kincardine. Plants there along with improvements to the transmission lines from there would have been way less expensive. But the fact is regardless of where the reactors are nuclear power in itself is a real bogeyman both in terms of operating costs as well as what to do with all the waste material.

Right now, the Canadian government is considering burying all the waste somewhere in Saskatchewan -- not unlike the proposed Yucca Mountain project outside of Las Vegas. Two words: Terrorists, earthquakes.

Nuclear should be the second to last option, so-called "clean coal" being the very last. Conservation measures as well as renewable energy should have been at the top of the list. I'm very disappointed today.

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Leader of the band

To all the fathers out there including my own, Happy Father's Day.

Now, a musical interlude from the late Dan Fogelberg.



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One, two, three, what are we fighting for by the way?

It's been a little more than 24 hours since a brazen break-out at the prison in Kandahar and 1100 detainees escaped, after the Taliban launched a successful rocket attack. The Canadian Army and the US Marines are now in a joint operation trying to round up those who escaped from Sarposa, diverting the men in women in uniform from their job of protecting the southern part of Afghanistan from the Taliban. It's no accident that among those who broke out are 400 of the Taliban.

I certainly do wish those on the side of right all the luck that can be mustered in this emergency; but the fact is that Kabul and Kandahar among other cities in the region are far from secured as it is and the last thing Canada and the US needed was this migraine. More important, the border areas are still unsecured as well. We've been at it for seven years, and this is all we have to show for it? Little wonder why people back on the homefront are getting exasperated.

Another interesting point that should be mentioned: While I obviously am rooting for Barack Obama in this fall's elections in the States, he has said that he's looking to Canada to further increase its commitment in Afghanistan, by 1000 to 1500 troops; the price he's demanding for sending another 5000 Marines who would have otherwise been deployed to Iraq. I submit Afghanistan would have been much further along on the road to recovery if the Iraq expedition had never been fought in the first place but I also think Canadians have no appetite to top up our deployment when we've already said we're out of there in 2011.

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Hampton walks away

Yesterday, Howard Hampton announced that he is resigning as the leader of the Ontario NDP. While I disagreed with him on much and could never find a way to vote for the party, I think he was absolutely right about the mess that came from electric deregulation; the ramifications which we will have to deal with for decades to come.

In last year's election he was trying to discuss some of the other real issues that are affecting Ontario greatly, especially child poverty and long-term care which are items I am also worried about. The election instead was fought over public education which while important is only one piece of the puzzle to make this province competitive again. They are issues that need to continue to be discussed. In that respect, it's now more regrettable than before that Ontario voters rejected proportional representation -- we should have the right to split the ticket if we so wish so we can have as many views as possible represented.

I respect people of principle, and Hampton was certainly that.

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RIP Tim Russert

A friend of mine and I were on our way to meeting some other friends in Toronto late yesterday afternoon when I heard on the radio that Tim Russert had died at the age of 58, just hours after flying back to Washington from Rome to attend a celebration for his son's graduation and then going right back to work to tape an interview. To say that my friend and I were shocked would be an understatement. On the way back, we heard on my satellite radio -- tuned into Fox News, a rarity for me -- that Russert had an enlarged heart and coronary heart disease. Coming as it did barely a week after the passing of Jim McKay, it was very hard to comprehend and still is early this morning as I write these words.

Like many other bloggers, I had in recent months become very critical of Russert and the kinds of questions he wasn't asking and the fact he tended to have many more conservative guests than those who were liberal or neutral. However, there are two things that made him stand out as a great broadcaster. One, he did ask some very tough questions of his guests and was able to turn around a once very boring show, Meet the Press, which is the world's longest running program on television (on the air since 1947). A show that had lost its spark during the 1980s.

Two, he had incredible integrity. In last year's perjury trial of Scooter Libby, Russert wound up testifying despite a long-standing journalistic code not to reveal one's sources. When he was finally asked on NBC's nightly newscast why he responded to the sub poena both at the grand jury and later the trial -- once he had finished his testimony at the latter -- he bluntly told anchor Brian Williams something his mother and his father ("Big Russ") both had taught him; that if you tell the truth the first time you don't have to tell the same story twice. In other words, Libby was caught in a lie and Russert felt his duty to call him out even if he was an otherwise reliable insider.

That's the kind of ethics journalism badly needs right now, especially in a world where if and when Angelina Jolie Voight had her twins is considered more important than how many died in Iraq on the same day of the alleged "blessed event." And in this historic year, it will be all too painful to know that Russert won't be there to tell the story of how Obama v. McCain winds up.

That even the team at Fox was devastated shows you just how big this loss is. Coming as it did just before Father's Day and the realization that Big Russ will now have to bury his son is the biggest insult.

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Ireland says no

A follow-up to my post from yesterday ...

The final results are in, and it looks like voters in Ireland have, in fact, rejected the Treaty of Lisbon, and also by a fairly wide margin, 53.4% to 46.6%. This in spite of support from the establishment in the country including the two largest parties, the ruling Fianna Fail and the opposition Fine Gail.

This doesn't mean the end of the EU, not by a long shot. Ireland, as most of the continent, is in too deep already in part because it's part of the Eurozone. It does mean, however, that Brussels will have to do something it's been very reluctant to do in the past -- actually listen to the people rather than just the governments of the constituent states. If the EU is a partnership of democratic nations, than democracy should mean more than just an election to a neutered continental assembly every five years.

Common labour, safety and environmental standards, free movement of people and capital and common money make sense on the surface; and for the most part have contributed to Europe's recovery over the last six decades. Digging deep, however, my sense is that Europeans want the EU to get back to basics as a free trade zone and not be the all-encompassing behemoth that it is today, micromanaging nearly every aspect of people's lives except for defence, health, education and welfare -- about the only things the member states have left under their respective jurisdictions.

After all, 27 countries can't be expected to agree on absolutely everything. And I think the line towards even further integration should have ended once the Euro became reality. States still not part of the currency should, of course, have the right to opt in when conditions warrant; but they shouldn't have to give up any more. Not for themselves, not for their people. In fact, they should start taking some things back.

That doesn't make me a Euroskeptic -- not by any means. Just someone who thinks national sovereignty should still mean something in an open border world. I dread the day when Europe fields a united dream team for the World Cup of Soccer. As we've seen the last week or so with the Euro 2008 tournament, national pride still does count for something even in an open continent; a matter the Commission seems to forget at times.

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SCOTUS: What part of "no" doesn't Dubya understand, Part Trois

For the third time in four years, the US Supreme Court has ruled that the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- the so-called "enemy combatants" -- do have rights. Significantly, the court upheld the right to seek habeas corpus in the civilian federal court system. It should be no surprise that this decision was made albeit by a narrow margin, 5-4. What is surprising in Boumediene v Bush (Case 06-1195) is the level of exasperation shown by the normally dour and conservative court.

Significantly Justice Anthony Kennedy on behalf of the majority wrote that the US government's claim that Guantanamo Bay is not part of the United States is as specious as the claim that Scotland is not part of the United Kingdom for the purposes of the Magna Carta -- or for that matter, Imperial India during the Raj. Furthermore, as Kennedy points out, if Guantanamo is part of Cuba then it follows that the detainees should naturally be able to seek redress in the Cuban courts but they're being denied even that privilege -- denied, by the United States.

In other words, the US Constitution is extended extraterritorial jurisdiction outside the US to wherever the US effectively has controlling jurisdiction. These includes embassies and consulates as well as military bases set up overseas and her ships at sea. The issue was also settled when it came to the question of whether the Constitution applied to territories it acquired at war including the Philippines (a US territory until just after World War II) as well as Guam and Puerto Rico (which remain territories to this day). To the US claim that a 1950 SCOTUS decision regarding war crimes in Germany, that the detainees there could not use habeas corpus, was dispositive of the issue, Kennedy replied in part that because the tribunals were multi-national it was unclear which country had jurisdiction; but there's no issue of who is in charge de facto in Gitmo.

It is of course, the right decision. But as Justice Souter pointed out in his concurrence, there is also an important issue that many of the detainees have been held without charge for over six years. This impinges on the right to a speedy trial. In a normal war, it may make sense to detain someone somewhat longer than normal, in part to ensure the accused's safety. But in an undeclared war such as the so-called war on terrorism, it has been largely the Bush administration that has set the terms of what constitutes the war. There is no doubt that al Qaeda attacked America and that was an act of war in its own right. However, where no nation has made the first strike (terrorists, after all, have no nation) one has to wonder who has the right to decide when the war has ended. Under the Bush rules, it will never end and therefore the accused -- presumed guilty until proven innocent contrary to habeas corpus -- should be held indefinitely.

Is America a dictatorship of one, or does the balance of powers mean anything? Put it another way: Does anyone wonder how it's possible Vatican City can be an absolute dictatorship when it promotes democracy in Europe (outside the walls of the Holy See) and elsewhere? The only permanent residents there are the Swiss Guard and a few others and even they don't get to vote on whoever gets to be the day-to-day Governor of the compound even if it is from a list of Cardinals.

Who polices the police, in other words? Bush says, no one. Uh-uh. It must be the courts, and the courts will not tolerate nor should it tolerate any attempts to have its jurisdiction circumscribed, no matter what Congress or the President has to say about it. That's as it should be. If Bush disagrees with that, tough luck -- but he said he "respects" the decision. Whatever respect means these days. Pretty much the same as what love meant to Prince Charles when he was married to Princess Diana.

Gitmo was a flawed process from day one. If the government believes it has the right people, then show the evidence and put the accused on trial -- whether that's in a civilian court or a court martial is beside the point; but a military commission where the outcome is predetermined is not the way, and certainly not consistent with habeas corpus. If Bush has any decency left in him, he can save some grace and move the prisoners to Fort Leavenworth or another military stockade; with trials to begin in 90 days or less.

As for the dissenters' claims that some detainees released have gone on to commit other atrocities, that is true in one case; but the counterpoint is, what if Gitmo is creating terrorists where none existed before? Moreover Americans insist upon basic consular rights when they are arrested or detained in other countries, in particular the right to be treated as nationals in the country they are visiting or working in would be. Americans owe the same courtesy to their guests, no matter how gross the crime may be.

Six years is more than enough to gather evidence; in fact it's so long that it's enough to attach jeopardy and produce a default verdict of not guilty.. After all, OJ Simpson gave the district attorney in Los Angeles 60 days when he was indicted in a preliminary hearing, and the LAPD had no issue with that. Some of the detainees at Gitmo are being held on minor immigration violations, no more -- and it's just plain stupid that they are being held to a different standard than Mexicans or Canadians who cross the border at an unauthorized point.

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Could Ireland KO EU union treaty?

A couple of years ago, it were referendums in France and the Netherlands that derailed a draft constitution for the European Union. Now, another country has the potential of stopping the whole process over again, in regards to a revised text for a union treaty, in this case the Treaty of Lisbon. That country is -- the Republic of Ireland.

It could be a very close vote, with the "No" side having picked up a lot of momentum the last week or so. It is rather interesting though, that a country with about a quarter of the population of the Dutch and that like the Dutch and the French uses the Euro currency could derail the whole process and send the 27 presidents and prime ministers back to the drawing board.

I'm not sure about all the issues, but I do find it interesting that people do want to hold on to whatever sovereignty they may have left; that they are not just a star on someone else's flag. The EU has been overall a remarkable success story, one of the greatest of the last century and continues to be so in this century; but somewhere one of the founding principles of the Union in 1957 of subsidiarity -- that decision making should be wherever possible be done close to the people -- was lost long ago.

A no vote might also be a big morale boost to those in the UK who also oppose further integration, in particular with the Euro. Interesting since the financial district in London for all intents and purposes operates with the Euro and not pounds sterling for 90% of transactions.

While adopting the Euro might make sense for the UK in the long run (especially since the bulk of its trade is now with Europe and not the Commonwealth), I suspect that a referendum on the issue (which has been promised at some undefined point in the future) would be excruciatingly close and would definitely be voted down in Scotland and Northern Ireland where banks print their own bills (really promissory notes tied to the sterling) since such would not be possible in the Eurozone and only one set of coins could be minted representing the whole of the UK and not separate ones for its constituents parts.

The main thing though is that people in only one country this time around, just one, are being asked their opinion; unlike the other 26 where there is merely a ratification vote in the respective national parliaments. What is so wrong with putting a treaty of such scope to the people? Take the Euro, for example. It's proven mostly successful but I don't remember the French or the Italians or the Belgians being asked their opinion about abandoning their currencies. There is still strong sentimental attachment to the Deutschemark in Germany and the Lira in Italy for obvious reasons. And there's something lost in the Gorda lottery in Spain every year when the kids are singing songs about the prizes in Euros and not pesetas.

The Irish were and they said yes; the Danes and Swedes were at different points in time and they said no for the time being. There's something wrong that people in most of the other countries were not asked about giving up one of the ultimately expressions of national sovereignty, money. The same applies about ceding further power to a bunch of commissars in Brussels. Let the people, not just their representatives, decide on this one.

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When is sorry enough?

Later today, PMS will offer a formal apology for the abuse inflicted upon thousands of Aboriginal Canadians who went through the rightfully discredited residential school system. This for Canada is no less significant than the apology offered to the natives in Australia a few months ago for being dispossessed of their lands and similar abuses. One can only hope that this is a truly sincere apology and that it moves us forward and not back.

This should have been done years ago, when the true nature of the abuse became known to the wider Canadian community. The system was terrible for non-native orphans who were forced into a similar and parallel gulag, also run by the country's churches, and in no way should that ever be minimized either. It brought shame to the religious community, in particular the Roman Catholic Church to which I belong.

Coming as the revelations did during the late 1980s to early 1990s, I know that it had a decimating effect not just on the victims who were ignored by church officials who as their US colleagues had been doing (though it was not revealed until a decade later) been moving priests and nuns around to ensure they evaded prosecution; but a similar effect on enrollments at monasteries and divinity schools. There had been a general downward trend since Vatican II, but the revelations drove away many would be applicants who did not want to be tarred with the brush of being called a child molester -- they did not want to be accused of guilt by association.

Who could blame them? I was one of those dissuaded. And I like many other Catholics are furious that the Vatican City has given those who gave blind consent to the worst kind of abuse immunity from prosecution -- not the least of them the former archbishop of Boston, Massachusetts Cardinal Bernard Law who is now in an administrative post at the Holy See; just one reason why the late Pope John Paul II should not even be considered for sainthood, let alone put on the fast track for it.

But in some respects, there was a qualitative and quantitative difference when it came to natives. Since non-natives usually had the same culture as those teaching them their souls were not always implicated. For natives, however, having the double whammy of being abused and being told they were getting it because "they didn't have a soul" was the ultimate insult. Further as wards of the state, they did not necessarily have access to the same kinds of supports offered by provincial social services agencies since they were outside the jurisdiction of the provinces.

In this respect, compensation which began to be paid out last year was well justified, although in my opinion it would have been better to allocate the reparations as a top-up to monthly federal entitlements such as the Child Tax Benefit (for the relatively younger victims) or the Guaranteed Income Supplement (for seniors) and paid out for life with a guaranteed lump sum for the unexhausted portion of the annuity upon death to the victim's descendants. The stories of natives who don't know what to do with such a large one time amount of money is equally depressing.

Be that as it may, it does go back however to the point that not all those who were at the teaching and administrative end of the system were guilty of abuse. Many, indeed probably most, did not. I know for a fact at least one of my teachers -- a nun, from 7th grade -- was at one time previous to that assigned to a reserve in Northwestern Ontario. She said as much, and in fact was an early supporter of native sovereignty for Canada's Aboriginals, similar to the arrangement in the US where many federal and state laws don't always apply to reserves unless the tribal councils assent to them. There was nothing in her character that would have suggested she would have contributed to such abuse; in fact the code of conduct for her order had zero tolerance for that.

So, I do worry about those who were and continue to be wrongly accused.

The forthcoming Truth and Reconciliation Commission needs to offer a chance to heal, but it also needs to focus on the truth and ensure those who have been wrongly accused have a chance to vindicate themselves. I am concerned, though, that unlike other TRCs (most famously the one in South Africa) there is also no immunity (limited or blanket) being offered for those who are truthful about their victimization. It's not that abusers should not be held accountable; of course, they should. But, while there is no statute of limitations in Canada there is also a concern that those who did such things will not see a need to even testify; after all, many of the older generation still think they did nothing wrong and that the attempted literal and cultural genocide of Aboriginals to which they contributed was entirely justified. Thus the TRC here may only wind up getting half the story.

My bottom line on this: What happened constituted a complete lack of the imagination and was a gross misuse of power. It deprived not only natives of their dignity, but also non-natives access to information of a quality of life that had existed undisturbed for generations and in some ways superior to others including peace of mind and self-sustenance. Access to health and social care is a right that all Canadians should have; but I often wonder if Aboriginals in tepees and igloos were and are better off than in the artificial environments we shoved upon them. Not that they should not be encouraged to contribute in full to our society; but we're too eager to offer solutions to their social isolation as well as their high rates of crime and substance abuse, rather than offering them the chance to try bottom up solutions.

The healing has to begin somewhere, and I say better late than never -- but again, this apology should have been issued in the 1980s when most of the victims were still alive.

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Welcome to Circus!

The RCMP admitted late today that Julie Couillard, the ex-girfriend of Maxime Bernier, was known to them ... but wouldn't get any more specific than that since the investigation (if there is one) is ongoing.

In other testimony to the House Ethics Committee, former spy Michel Juneau-Katsuya, one of Canada's best known critics of our national security situation, suggested that PMS is applying a double standard; saying that bureaucrats in the permanent service are held to a much higher standard than Cabinet ministers.

Big. Effing. Surprise. To no one's surprise, Harper has kept resisting demands for an independent police investigation, that an internal probe is enough. Why? Is it possible that Harper knows something about this that he doesn't want Canadians to know and thus can determine the terms of reference for the investigation?

When Martin replaced Chrétien as PM, he hired a special prosecutor to investigate Sponsorgate. Filegate, which may be less odious but still constitutes a serious breach of our national security demands no less. No one can or should feel safe if military secrets are leaked not once but twice in the course of just a few months.

As for Harper's assertion he won't participate in a "partisan circus" -- well, his cronies were the ones who created it in the first place, not the opposition. Let him try to defy a sub poena.

Oh, one last thing -- Couillard attended a $1000 per plate dinner in honour of Harper last year. The cheque bounced. She later claimed she was offered a chance to be a candidate for the party. Anyone find that just a bit suspicious?

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Trouble for King Coal -- in coal country

With all the ads from the self proclaimed "clean coal" lobby running ad nauseum on TV, I had to snicker at this article in the NYT today about a county in eastern Pennsylvania where coal seams run all over the place. In order to save money in the increasingly volatile energy marketplace they are actually considering switching from coal to natural gas. While methane is actually more expensive per unit, the cost savings would come from the maintenance in boilers -- it's much less expensive to operate a gas heater than a coal one.

It's somewhat controversial for those who rely on the coal industry, especially as the cost of anthracite has doubled over the last few years. Coal also has a sentimental value in the region for obvious reasons. But the bid being put forward by the gas interest includes energy efficient lighting and upgrades to the county phone system. For a cash-strapped region, $15 million in savings is a lot of money.

Interestingly, Clinton had her largest percentage vote in the Keystone State in and around this region. Long ago, she sold her soul to King Coal -- and she was rewarded with votes. The claims she "appealed" to the working class is bunk; she knew where her bread was buttered and the people in the region expressed their gratitude accordingly. An ideology right out of the era of the machines which we thought ended in the 1930s.

From a Canadian perspective, we're seeing serious talk about the revival of coal mines long mothballed because of their polluting nature -- because of the increasing demands for power and the lack of support for alternatives in part because of NIMBY. Again, the earliest we can expect "clean coal," presuming it can be made to work (a big if) is 2020 which is when the next round of emission targets are supposed to be met; and we have a government quite content to continue to pollute to the heavens and beyond while reducing "intensity" while increasing actual outputs of carcinogens and other disease causing elements.

Not that the people at the permanent public service in Ottawa -- particularly Public Works -- are entirely innocent on this one either. Here in Hamilton, there's a co-generation plant downtown that operates using steam diverted by pipeline from the steel and chemical plants. Literally, free or very low cost heating in the winter and cooling in the summer. Guess which building is not plugged into the network? Yup -- the brand new federal offices; while older office buildings agreed to be connected. They'd rather be powered by the huge coal plant in Nanticoke; which is scheduled for shutdown in a few years but is still running at full speed especially in the current heatwave making smog even worse. Oddly enough, the former federal offices (scheduled to be converted into a hotel or lofts) ran on solar power. There isn't even a windmill on top of the new building.

Hypocrites. Both federally and provincially.

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Fighting C. diff

The last few years have not been easy ones for hospitals across Ontario and Québec, what with superbugs like SARS and more ominously clostridium difficile, a severe colon infection. In one outbreak in a Hamilton area hospital, 62 patients died. The response by public health authorities has been nothing short of appalling -- far too late, far too half-hearted and even insulting to the families of both those who died, as well as to those lucky enough to survive.

It's also been a big issue in the UK, where in 2006 -- the last year for which there are complete numbers -- about 6500 died from c. difficile. Interestingly, the response from the various units of the NHS have varied drastically -- from indifference from public health authorities in Wales to unsanitary conditions (janitorial duties are contracted out there -- hint, hint!), to an all out and all-party war against the disease in Northern Ireland. These include surprise health inspections, £10 million in extra funding to stop the current outbreak (which started in January) and an forthcoming independent inquiry.

To think that Ulster with all its lingering sectarian problems manages to get it and can put aside prejudices to deal with a health crisis, while we in totally secular Canada don't get it is embarrassing. This strain has been around since 2006 and over 250 have died in total in Ontario, over simple and preventable steps that could have been taken. Just because our health care system is strained is no excuse to put patients first and make sure they're not killed by the hospitals they're staying at -- or the unhealthy conditions therefrom.

George Smitherman must stop being in denial over this and call an independent inquiry. It's long overdue.

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Where did it go wrong?

From the team at ElectoralVote.com comes this analysis of where Hillary Clinton got it wrong -- and so did the press. I found the last point, that she found her voice too late, to be true but also disturbing. Remember how a year ago everyone was saying it would be a subway series between Clinton and Rudy Giuliani? Seems like a lifetime ago.

With the conventions some time away, I hope to focus on some hot Canadian topics the next little while.

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"They're all gone"

It was a few days before I was born, but those three words still continue to haunt television to this day ... and they were said by the legendary sportswriter Jim McKay. Munich, 1972 -- the murder of 11 athletes from Israel. In a clever move, ABC News decided to throw the newscast to McKay, who broadcast for 16 hours straight -- on his one day off during the Games. He became the first sports reader to win a News Emmy.

He died yesterday; one of the last true giants. God bless you, sir.

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