March 28, 2010: Tough Justice: Is the Harper Agenda a Phony War on Crime? - An Interview with Hilary Mantel

Most Canadians support them, as does every political party but the Bloc .

Only the experts are skeptical. They point out that crime is actually declining .They fear that while thousands more will be behind bars, the rest of us won't be any safer.

Our panelists for the forum were:

Charles Momy, President of the Canadian Police Association; Kim Pate, Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies; Vince Westwick, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police; Dan Gardner, author and columnist with the Ottawa Citizen; Michael Jackson, Author and UBC School of Law Professor; Heidi Illingworth, executive director of the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime.


Listen to Hour One:

Tough Justice: Is the Harper Agenda a Phony War on Crime?
-- Continued

In the second hour of our forum we asked our audience memebers to take part in the conversation.


Listen to Hour Two:

 

Music

Song: Take the 'A' Train
Artist: Oliver Jones
Album: Ellingtonia: A Tribute to Duke Ellington

Mail pack

Two Sundays ago we took our show on the road, or rather the train. We rode the rails from Halifax to Prince Rupert for a three hour special we called, Voices from the Train. We got all sorts of mail about the program.

You can write to us about anything you hear on the program. Our email address is the sundayedition@cbc.ca. You can also write a letter to us at The Sunday Edition, P. O. Box 500, Station 'A', Toronto, Ontario, M5W 1E6.

Music

Song: That Train's a Comin' Down
Artist: Junction City
Album: Little Miss Higgins

Essay

People plan, the very wise old saying goes, and God laughs.
Just ask any parent.

The surprises - some lovely, some not, - delivered by our children - remind us daily that the idea of control is, if not laughable, at least
murky. And therein lie gifts.

Kyla Hanington's essay this morning - from Nanaimo - is called Moon Child.

Music

Song: En Vrai Amour
Artist: Hilliard Ensemble
Album: Music for Tudor Kings

One Woman and a King... An interview with Hilary Mantel

These days, British writer Hilary Mantel is a literary superstar. But long before she stood in the kleiglights of fame, she was a sickly little girl. Which meant she spent a lot of time away from school, isolated and alone. Her fragile health, an odd-ball family, and a tendency to daydream made her early life quite difficult.
In the short run it was a tough way to grow up. But in the long run it may have been a good thing -- pushing her into an observer's role and preparing her to become a writer.

Writing is something she does very well, and something she's been doing with great success. Her latest novel, Wolf Hall, won the Mann Booker prize last year and earlier this month it won the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award in the United States.

Wolf Hall is an historical novel about Tudor England in the 1520's - the riveting story of Thomas Cromwell, the son of a drunken violent blacksmith, who became Chief Minister to Henry VIII.

Ms. Mantel has written other historical novels - about Robespierre and revolutionary France, 18th century Ireland, Africa and contemporary England.
And, she's taken herself as a subject, in a memoir, Giving up the Ghost.

Hilary Mantel joined Michael Enright from the BBC studio in Guildford, Surrey.

Music

Song: 1812
Artist: The Swingle Singers
Album: Pastime With Good Company

Music

Song: En Vrai Amour
Artist: King Henry VIII of England
Album: His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts


Listen to Hour Three: