Pt 1: N.S. Diocese Lawsuit - Linda Deschamp is in her 50s now. But she is still haunted by what she says happened to her, 30 years ago. When she was 12, Linda Deschamp was sent to live with a priest in Shelburne, Nova Scotia. She says that for the next nine years -- until she was 21 -- he regularly sexually assaulted her and insisted she tell people she was his niece. The priest -- Raoul Deveau -- died in 1982.

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Pt 2: Homicide - We started this segment with a grim snapshot of murder in Canada last year. The final number of murders committed in 2009 won't be released until July. But we do know a few things now.

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Pt 3: eBooks - We started this segment with a clip of Stephen Covey, the author of the blockbuster self-help book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He was talking about habit number one ... Be Proactive.

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It's Wednesday, January 6th ... Ukrainian Christmas.

Currently, the Harper government plans to celebrate with a traditional feast of borscht and proroguies.

This is the Current.

N.S. Diocese Lawsuit

Linda Deschamp is in her 50s now. But she is still haunted by what she says happened to her, 30 years ago. When she was 12, Linda Deschamp was sent to live with a priest in Shelburne, Nova Scotia. She says that for the next nine years -- until she was 21 -- he regularly sexually assaulted her and insisted she tell people she was his niece. The priest -- Raoul Deveau -- died in 1982.

Linda Deschamp has now filed a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Late yesterday, Anna Maria spoke with Linda Deschamp in Halifax, along with her lawyer, John McKiggan.

Anthony Mancini -- the Archbishop in charge of the diocese named in the lawsuit because of that administrative role turned down our request for an interview.

Listen to Part One:

 

Homicide - Canada

We started this segment with a grim snapshot of murder in Canada last year. The final number of murders committed in 2009 won't be released until July. But we do know a few things now.

In Toronto, the number of murders dropped from 70 in 2008 to 62 last year. In Montreal, the number was up to 31, from 29 in 2008. And despite a vicious gang war, the number of murders in Vancouver stayed the same. Sara Beattie has been charting the numbers. She is the Homicide and Police Administration Survey Manager for Statistics Canada.

In October, she put out a report called Homicide in Canada, 2008. It looked at the number of murders in Canada going back decades. Sara Beattie was in Ottawa.

Homicide - U.S.

To put things into perspective, there were a little more than 14,000 murders in the United States in 2008... eclipsing the 611 homicides in Canada. Even if you take the population difference into account, that's still more than twice as many murders in the United States as in Canada. And when you look at individual cities, the numbers are even more stark. Winnipeg had 3.55 homicides per 100,000 people in 2007. That was the highest rate among major cities in Canada. Last year, New Orleans had the highest rate in the United States with 63.6 murders per 100,000 people.

Randolph Roth has spent a lot of time looking at why the United States has become such a murderous nation. He is a professor of history at Ohio State University. He's also the author of a new book called American Homicide. He was in Columbus, Ohio.

Listen to Part Two:

 

eBooks - Authors

We started this segment with a clip of Stephen Covey, the author of the blockbuster self-help book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He was talking about habit number one ... Be Proactive.

Earlier this month, Stephen Covey got very proactive. He moved the rights to the e-book versions of two of his best-selling books from his print publisher to a digital publisher. The digital publisher will sell the e-books on Amazon.com, the company which also happens to make the wildly successful e-book reader, Kindle. The rise of e-book readers is turning e-books into a lucrative market. This year, Amazon sold more e-books than traditional printed books on Christmas Day. And the idea that authors might take their e-book publishing rights elsewhere - - spurning traditional print publishers has some in the industry worried.

But Hal Niedzviecki sees an opportunity. He is a writer and the co-founder of Broken Pencil Magazine. His latest book is called The Peep Diaries: How We're Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbours. He was in Toronto.

Noah Richler is a journalist and the author of This Is My Country, What's Yours? A Literary Atlas of Canada. He wrote an article about the book industry's digital future in the November issue of The Walrus Magazine. He was in Digby, Nova Scotia.

e-books Publisher

For a publisher's perspective, we were joined by David Kent. He is the President and C-E-O of Harper Collins Canada. He has been in the publishing business for 40 years and he was in Toronto.

Last Word - Willie Mitchell

We wanted to give the last word today to Willie Mitchell. He was hardly a household name. But he was revered among soul music fans. He was a producer and the head of the Hi Record label. He forged the hard, gritty soul of artists such as Otis Clay, O.V. Wright and Ann Peebles ... as well as the seductive, slinky grooves of his biggest star, Al Green. Willie Mitchell died yesterday in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 81. So we ended the program with one of the high-water marks of the Memphis soul sound. We played I Can't Get Next To You by Al Green, produced by Willie Mitchell.

Music

Artist: Al Green
Cd:Al Green: Greatest Hits, Vol 1
Cut: 7, I Can't Get Next to You
Label: Motown
Spine: MOMD 5283

Listen to Part Three: