Timothy Findley is dead. He was 71.

His death comes on the night of a memorial to, and almost a year after the death of, another great Canadian writer, Mordecai Richler.

Findley’s break-out novel, The Wars, was number two on University of Toronto Bookstore Review’s list of the Top 100 English-Canadian Books — his Piano Man’s Daughter also made the list. (Richler’s first big novel, Apprenticeship Duddy Kravitz, was fourth and St. Urbain’s Horseman was also listed.)

Findley acted alongside Sir Alec Guinness during the Stratford Festival’s early days. One of Findley’s many plays, Shadow, was to begin its run during the Festival’s 50^th season on August 17.

He will be missed.

Finally, CanWest is trying to do some damage control by having Leonard Asper talk the media and pleading people to stop picking on the company. This come as the union representing thousands of journalists steps up its own campaign against CanWest’s policies. (Watch the CBC's Peter Mansbridge interview Leonard Asper.)

Despite its past actions, CanWest had nothing to do with this: a few journalists were barred by the RCMP from officially covering the upcoming G-8 Summit. Apparently the police believe the journalists (including writers from the Upstream Journal and Vue, and a photographer for the Canadian Labour Congress) are a threat to national security. This couldn’t be because they oppose globalization, could it?