On second thought, camera bad idea

MONTREAL — A fake surveillance camera pointing into a bathroom stall at a Second Cup cafe was taken down yesterday after it came to the attention of chain executives and the Quebec government.

Second Cup franchisee Francois Turgeon recently installed the decoy camera in his downtown cafe hoping to ward off heroin users who reportedly left dirty needles in the men’s restroom.

Broadcasters, cable operators blasted for bottom-line approach to content

GATINEAU, Que. – Actors, directors, writers and producers described Canadian private broadcasters as greedy capitalists who care little about Canadian programming, as week-long hearings on the future of domestic television programming began Monday.

“Our problem in this country is the broadcasters who have been demonstrating a slavish devotion to lowest common denominator U.S. shows and simulcast them at bargain-basement prices,” said Richard Hardacre, president of ACTRA, the Canadian writer’s guild.

J.K. Rowling casts a spell

“I think it must be quite odd to be J.K. Rowling. Half her life seems almost normal while the other half seems completely mad.”

So says James Runcie, the British filmmaker who documented the author as she completed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final instalment in her series.