Calgary Sun columnist Ian Robinson angered readers and non-readers alike with his astute analysis of how a woman's footwear represents her politics.

Local columnists didn’t have much to worry about before the internet. Maybe a few dirty looks while waiting for a morning coffee, or in the grocery store after,  but by the next day all would be forgotten. A new column would hit the ink and everyone would get over it.

Not so for Ian Robinson. His Oct. 25 Calgary Sun column—a creepy paean to conservative women, especially their designer shoes—is making the rounds on the web and it just keeps going. Non-Sun readers, and people living outside of Calgary, are signing up to comment at the bottom of the article to vent their spleen.

A collection of responses from the web paints a pretty solid picture:

From the Sun’s comment section, 81 comments:

Do you keep your porn mags in the gun rack of your 4×4 Ian? – Arby

People like you are the reason I finally stopped calling myself a Conservative. Perhaps you could write something similar on how negroes like myself just love running for office or interviewing for a job and, if we don’t get it, oh well, there’s always a pick-up b-ball game around! You nitwit. – Kinsella

Twitter users weigh in:

ashleighgardner “If she wins, great. If she loses … well, there’s always more shoe shopping.” @calgarysun #gag #vomit

robertmcbean Come for the racism, stay for the sexism #calgarysun #yyc #cdnpoli #media

And of course, a Facebook group protesting the column, with 33 members. One thing that differentiates the Facebook group from the Twitter users and comment posters, is that they aren’t asking for Robinson’s job, or an apology.

I don’t agree with Robinson, or the choice to print it, but I also don’t think an empty apology changes anything. He, his editor, and every set of eyes that column passed on the way from editing to pagination, knew this would happen. And chances are the fallout, a.k.a. free publicity, was exactly what they wanted. Nothing pumps-up newsstand circulation numbers like outrage — look at John and Kate.

[Photo by stuartpilbrow licensed under Creative Commons 2.0]

"Celebrities have power, and with it comes responsibility": EcoSanity founder Glenn MacIntosh. Photo courtesy EcoSanity.

[Editor’s note: EcoChamber is back after a short break while Emily Hunter was on assignment in the Alberta Tar Sands to see the devastation first hand. Her observations will appear at This.org and in the print edition soon.]

The show must not go on. That is what activists are saying about the Toronto International Film Festival. Not for a lack of money or the worldwide attention it provides—but for its connections to environmental crimes like the tar sands.

The celebrity-filled Toronto festival closed on Saturday. But some environmentalists want it shut down for good, claiming the event is unsustainable. Protesters from EcoSanity and the Rainforest Action Network staged a “die-in” at the opening gala, pretending to die after sipping (fake) dirty oil from Champagne glasses a stone’s throw away from celebrities like George Clooney signing autographs on the red carpet.

“Celebrities have power, and with power comes responsibility,” says EcoSanity founder Glenn MacIntosh. “They need to know what they are promoting when they attend festivals like TIFF, because currently they are being irresponsible.”

MacIntosh says TIFF—and celebrities through association—help to further dirty oil’s cause. TIFF’s second-largest sponsor is the Royal Bank of Canada, Canada’s largest financier of tar sands development. Critics say TIFF’s acceptance of RBC’s sponsorship is an endorsement of its policy on furthering climate change for black gold.

George Clooney’s people say there is no association between him and his new film launched at TIFF, The Men Who Stare at Goats, and the tar sands.

MacIntosh retorts: “Appearing to have no knowledge of the second-largest sponsor of an event’s dealings with the largest industrial project on the planet is simply offensive. If celebrities like George Clooney are not aware, they need to become aware and fast—they have a moral responsibility to do so.”

EcoSanity activists claim the Royal Bank of Canada has spent $8.9 billion over the last four years on companies that operate in or develop the Canadian oil sands. The oil sands are soon to become Canadians’ single largest source of greenhouse gases. It will prevent us from meeting our future climate commitments at Copenhagen and has numerous environmental and social costs to Canada. Furthering the tar sands signals a fossil fuel business-as-usual mandate instead of a switch to a renewable and sustainable path in the 21st century.

There have been numerous protests across Canada this summer against the RBC getting in bed, with what many call, the greatest eco-crime on earth. Such protests include RAN activist, Eriel Deranger, scaling a pole last July at the RBC’s headquarters to drop a banner that would embarrass the bank.

Deranger says: “The RBC is the ATM to the tar sands. This needs to be stopped, we need to hold our banks accountable.”

But never before had this message been taken to the Toronto film fest until the “die-in” protest at the George Clooney gala. While some onlookers called the stunt “out of place” at the festival, MacIntosh says the protest served a purpose. For him, a former assistant director in the Toronto film industry, he believes festivals like TIFF are the root problem to many wrongs in our society and need to be stopped.

“TIFF represents an imbalance of power, the inequality in the world, our reverence and investment in all the wrong things financially and morally.” He also says that TIFF has no environmental policy, promotes a culture of excess and uses thousands of SUV’s, limos and private jets to truck in the film industry top dogs from around the world. “This is not an environmentally sound festival.”

In an age of climate change where we are supposed to be reducing our polluting ways and moving towards a path of sustainability—do festivals like TIFF really have a place with us any longer? All in name of watching a few more movies and gawking at a few more people—is it really worth the oil it uses?

[Editor’s note: This Magazine columns editor Eva Salinas will be reviewing films and rounding up news about the Toronto International Film Festival over the next week. Visit us online next week for more of her dispatches.]

And so it begins. This year’s edition of the Toronto International Film Festival kicked-off last night, a little later in the year than usual. By doing so, it opened on the eve of September 11th, a day which many are marking for events not long past. But just a few blocks from Hollywood North, not far from where, already, celeb-gawkers gape, security personnel stand tall and Starbucks baristas break a sweat, Toronto’s Latin American community is commemorating a Sept. 11th many have forgotten — the 1973 military coup in Chile.

I have Chile on the brain, having just returned from the country and regretting that I will miss its public remembrance of lives lost, of rights violated and of expression stifled during Augusto Pinochet’s early reign.

In Toronto, it’s also the start to the Allende Arts Festival, a celebration of everything TIFF won’t be: mostly free, for the people.

During Chile’s coup, the elected Marxist President, Salvador Allende, was ousted and killed. But today, with the country’s first female leader Michelle Bachelet in her last months of presidency, Allende’s spirit is alive; art has been returned to the public.

The streets of Valparaiso, the country’s port city, are splashed with colour: detailed landscapes; romantic poetry; striking designs painted on every house or storefront. Art you can’t buy. Art for everyone.

TIFF may be its exact antithesis (or vice versa). Instead of the nameless painter, it has a famous face. Instead of stray dogs, pampered pets drink filtered water from dishes laid out for them on Yorkville Avenue. Instead of subtlety, extravagance.

I can’t decide whether I find TIFF unappealing simply because it is mostly an elitist event. I’m too young to know it any other way, to remember the “people’s festival.”  I assume, like me, most Torontonians have yet to attend a screening. Once, maybe three, four years ago, I waited in line for two hours, after which I gave up. (And, for context, I am a film lover: a Hot Docs volunteer, an attendee of festivals around the world, from Sudbury to West Africa, etc.)

Quirky Reg Hartt, the cinephile who runs the Cineforum screening series out of his home in Toronto, told community paper The Annex Gleaner last year that the film festival was bad for the city, as people will “save up” their film enthusiasm and spend it on the fest, thus killing business the rest of the year for smaller festival and cinemas.

I’m not convinced. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if the upcoming Toronto Palestine Film Festival and Spike and Mike’s Sick and Twisted Film Festival have a bit of trouble drumming up interest in its wake. But as a promoter of the latter told me: “Of course it’s all about TIFF! But we’re the bargain basement alternative to that!” I agree: different vibe, different audience, albeit one less celeb-obsessed and much poorer.

The festival may be for those with the time, commitment and ultimately, the cash (or star power, which supercedes all), but it’s hard not to feel the excitement in the city, even if we don’t make it to Edward Rogers’ backyard party with Bill Clinton and Matt Damon, Steve Nash’s rooftop soiree or bump into Oprah on Ossington (yeah, right).

And TIFF is, after all, a celebration of film (complete with excesses, controversy, promiscuity, and grotesque celeb worship – last year, I drew the line at Paris Hilton’s party.) And it is at home, making sure Canadian content is in front of eyeballs that wouldn’t see it at, say, Venice, Cannes or Sundance. (Alliance Films picked up Rob Stefaniuk’s Suck earlier this week). And, lastly but of note, the festival has made an attempt this year to make it more accessible to the public, with free screenings at Dundas Square.

So, for those indulging in the festival fit for kings, bon appeTIFF!