["The New York Times," theme music playing.]
["Tell me you're a liar, you see it's the HRD"]
["The New York Times," theme music playing.]
Last day, I will ever campaign for myself, for President of the United States, or anything else.
One last push, but it looks like bye-bye George Bush.
Here's the ball to Magic. Magic and low.
Fear one, Magic nothing. Worried players chase Johnson off the court for good.
And later.
["Hoo! Hoo!" sound effect.]
Fertility watch. Are human reproductive systems polluted?
["The New York Times," theme music playing.]
CTV News, with Lloyd Robertson.
Good evening. American voters appear poised to give George Bush the political hook.
The U.S. election campaign has entered its final hours, and the polls show Democratic
challenger Bill Clinton with a strong lead over President Bush and independent candidate Ross
Perot. A Clinton victory would end 12 years of Republican rule in the White House.
Today, Bush and Clinton barnstormed the country and made their final appeals.
CTV's Jim O'Connell reports.
George Bush is almost out of time, and he knows it. In a final dash across half a dozen
states, the president intensified his attack on Bill Clinton in a last-ditch attempt to
inflict some damage.
And the big question the American people ask tomorrow is, who do we trust? Who do we trust
with our kids? Who do we trust with our country?
Still trailing in the polls, Bush is hoping for a miraculous comeback. But Bill Clinton
isn't letting up for a second, pushing hard to the finish with a round-the-clock marathon
covering eight states, despite a nagging case of laryngitis.
And if I work all day long, maybe that will increase the likelihood that people that are
supporting our ticket will vote tomorrow.
Clinton is taking nothing for granted, but there's no mistaking the euphoria within his
camp. His chief strategist couldn't get the smile off his face.
In a political campaign, I'm not the best poker player in the world, and I think you
can look at my face and see I think I got a pretty good hand today.
Thanks a lot.
Okay.
And for those who have called Ross Perot's ideas crazy, there was this vintage response
from the Texas billionaire.
See, I've got a theme song for our campaign. And here it comes. Just listen to it.
We're crazy.
Stuck in third place, Perot has been turning up the heat on Bill Clinton.
Do you believe that it's appropriate to have senior government officials who have used
jobs?
He even called Clinton the chicken man from Arkansas.
You know, the chickens keep on clucking and the people keep on clucking after 12 years
of Governor Clinton's leadership.
I'm for a team.
But in Clinton's home state, residents are hoping to have the last laugh, sprucing up
for the biggest party in their history.
In Little Rock, they're even forecasting Clinton's presidential agenda.
I think it should start with the economy.
The economy.
But then it should go on to the taxes in the middle class.
Clinton is expected here in Little Rock sometime tomorrow morning where he'll try to get some
rest and recover his voice and prepare for the speech he's been waiting a lifetime to
deliver.
What he hopes will be a victory speech, Lloyd.
Jim, the excitement must be near fever pitch there tonight.
It certainly is. Many here liken it to winning the World Series of Politics.
In a way, you could say that.
Tomorrow night, this is where Clinton is going to give his address.
It's going to be swarming with tens of thousands of ecstatic Arkansas people.
There's even going to be some of the biggest names in Hollywood dropping by for the party.
Now that there's nothing left but the voting, Jim, what's your main memory of the campaign?
The biggest memory I have is how negative, how dirty this campaign was.
But you can't forget also the dramatic comeback that Clinton made.
He had been counted out so many times through this campaign.
Allegations about marital infidelity, allegations about the draft, about smoking marijuana and
forgetting to inhale.
Somehow he came back from it all and he pulled it off.
I think that he's going to be remembered for this dramatic comeback.
Thank you, Jim.
We'll see you tomorrow night.
You're welcome, Lloyd.
Good night.
Analysts warn that it could be a flash in the pan, but Canada's sluggish economy has
finally started to percolate.
Statistics Canada released its composite leading indicator today, a broad gauge of
activity that measures such things as retail sales, stocks and trade.
And it has jumped ahead.
It grew by 0.4 percent in August, its biggest gain in three months.
And the country's major banks have cut their prime lending rate.
It's down a quarter point to 7.50 percent.
The prime is an important benchmark for a wide range of consumer and business interest rates.
And General Motors has shaken up its management team in an effort to reverse its staggering
losses.
John Smale, a Canadian born executive, becomes chairman of the board.
And John Smith, who once ran GM Canada, was named chief executive officer.
Canadian Airlines has found itself suffering for suitors again.
Its merger talks with Air Canada are on the rocks, at least for the moment.
And now, Canadian has started romancing American Airlines again.
That possible marriage is the one favored by Canadian employees who hope Ottawa will
help finance the arrangement.
Mark Sixram reports.
That can be done in about 10 minutes.
Even when the merger with Air Canada was announced, the employees of Canadian Airlines
continued to hope they'd get another chance to bid on the troubled carrier.
Now that chance has come.
Merger talks with Air Canada have floundered.
Last week, a plan to combine the two companies was rejected by both airlines.
And no new talks are scheduled.
We had hoped that things would go a lot faster, but they haven't.
And the employees of Canadian have approached the federal government for $50 million in loan
guarantees to revitalize their rescue plan.
They're optimistic they will get the money if only because a merger between
Air Canada and Canadian does not immediately solve the financial crisis facing the two airlines.
Their combined debt exceeds $7 billion.
The prospect of an even bigger bailout down the road, say the employees,
makes their plan more attractive.
So we're looking at about $50 million, which is a lot less now than if the merger with
Air Canada and Canadian takes place.
We'd be looking at a bailout in the neighborhood of a billion to $2 billion
that the analysts have predicted.
Meanwhile, the president of Canadian has flown to Dallas to resume negotiations with
American Airlines, which wants to buy with the help of Canadian employees, a 25% stake in
Canadian. It's still a long shot, but as part of the process, of course, we have to explore every
opportunity or any interest that is out there that may be a viable proposal.
Just a few weeks ago, it appeared that Canadian Airlines had run out of options,
that a merger with Air Canada was inevitable.
But unexpected turbulence at the bargaining table and the sudden prospect of financial
help from the federal government has breathed new life into the employees rescue plan.
Mark Sixthrom, CTV News, Edmonton.
Overseas, an uncertain peace has returned to Angola after four days of heavy fighting.
Clashes between government troops and rebel soldiers have reportedly left as many as a
thousand people dead in the capital of Luanda.
Sporadic fighting continued around the city before government soldiers took back control
to enforce a United Nations ceasefire. Violence has been growing worse since the government
party won a general election in September. That election was supposed to put an end to
a 16-year civil war that began after Angola won its independence from Portugal in 1975.
The violence has killed more than 350,000 people, consumed half the country's export earnings,
and left nearly a million people dependent on food aid.
Still to come in tonight's news, the valor, the horror, and the Senate.
Digging in to defend a TV film about war.
Gao is sound. Gao is motion. Gao is color. Gao is light. Gao is black.
The television of choice in Japan with a better picture, a better sound, and a sleeker design.
Gao is now in Canada from Panasonic.
A controversial Canadian war documentary was praised by some and panned by others before a Senate committee today.
The program called the Valor and the Horror recounts Canada's efforts in the Second World War.
It was broadcast as a three-part series on the CDC last January and was immediately attacked
by many veterans for what they say was its unfair portrayal of Canadian soldiers,
flyers, and wartime leaders. Ken Earnhofer reports.
The first wave of bombers attacked Hamburg just before midnight on July 24th.
The Valor and the Horror was no romanticized view of Canada's participation in the Second World War.
The bombers dropped 9,000 tons of explosives over three days.
It was war at its ugliest, but to many veterans what was horrible about the documentary
was the way they say they were portrayed.
Now the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee is resuming its review of the film.
Liberal senators are boycotting the hearings calling it censorship.
The remaining Tory senators say they're just giving veterans a forum.
The veterans have free speech too.
Free speech, so do I. I'm a Canadian besides being a senator.
But the filmmaker Brian McHennaf, the Senate review is an attempt to chill an unpopular but valid view.
The official story of the Canadian Army and the Canadian Air Force at war
is not the only story. There's more to it than that.
They should understand the full horror of war.
For instance, air raids over Germany.
The documentary alleges they were designed to kill civilians, not just military targets.
We shall destroy Germany's will to fight.
It's that kind of portrayal that angers veterans like Bill Dubois.
He was a gunner on one of the Lancaster bombers.
He resents any implication that he was involved in wanton killing.
It portrayed us as though we were ignorant.
We didn't know what was going on.
We that we were going out and we didn't know that civilians were being killed.
Civilians get killed in war.
But Reverend Donald Ray, who also served in bomber command, says the series is telling the truth.
I think that we ought to be able to look at, you know, in a reasonably objective and
dispassionate way, what the results of all the horror were on the enemy.
For Joan Pennefeather, the head of the National Film Board, which co-produced the series,
the issue is simple.
In our estimation, these films still do great honor to the many individuals who
fought during the war years. That should not prevent us from asking questions about what
went on during those years and perhaps to learn something for the future.
McKenna says he's sorry if some veterans were offended, but he defends his documentary.
The senator's meantime will continue their review and the CBC, which broadcasts the series,
plans to release its own evaluation of the film soon.
Ken Earnhoffer, CTV News, Ottawa.
The protest by police in Toronto is spreading.
The group representing officers across Ontario voted unanimously today to support the Toronto
Force in its month-long job action.
Toronto police have been wearing ribbons, sporting baseball caps, and keeping the number
of tickets they hand out to a minimum.
They are angry about new government regulations covering the use of force, in particular,
a rule that requires them to fill out a form each time a gun is drawn in public.
A quiet Halifax neighborhood is upset about an unwanted visitor that came calling during
Halloween.
The visitor, racism.
Police are still trying to find out who's responsible for the Ku Klux Klan material
that showed up in the city's south end.
As Jim Munson reports, community leaders say hate literature is a country-wide menace.
Halifax Halloweens have usually been an expression of good fun, a Mardi Gras type atmosphere.
Thousands in the streets celebrating All Hallows Eve.
But beyond the masks and in the shadows, somebody was distributing propaganda from the
white supremacist group, the Ku Klux Klan.
On his desk today, Constable Paul McDonald can't believe what he is reading.
It is very disgusting.
It's a material that's known any good.
It's strictly bigotry brought to the forefront.
Beside the pamphlets, there is a one-year-old issue of the Klansman.
It attacks Canadian Jews and Blacks and complains that whites in Canada have become second-class
citizens.
One Halifax resident says her husband discovered the KKK propaganda on the windshield of a
family car.
He read it, I didn't, and he said it wasn't very pleasant, and I said I didn't want to
have it in the house.
This is one of the neighbourhoods where the KKK hate literature showed up on doorsteps.
Leaders of Halifax's Black community feel it was more than just a Halloween prank,
that there are active KKK cells operating not only in Atlantic Canada, but across the rest
of the country as well.
Racism is a universal problem.
Reverend Darryl Gray believes the KKK is manipulating young people and the unemployed to become
messengers of its racist philosophy.
There's active recruitment in Western New Brunswick right now.
There's a big push in the Quebec area.
At the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, there is obvious concern.
It is important to enlist the support of the total society to be eternally vigilant to
maintain the quality of Canadian life.
The hope from the Human Rights Commission is that these racist acts are temporary aberrations.
The police believe we haven't heard the last from the KKK.
Jim Monson, CTV News, Halifax.
Coming up, magic, last shots.
This time there'll be no rebound.
Also ahead, declining fertility.
The 50% drop in 50 years.
With toxic chemicals and human reproduction.
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Contact Dale Goldhock today at 1-800-387-4499 and watch for him soon on CTV News.
Where are the onions?
Right where they always are.
Remind, found them.
Perhaps at a moment when you least expect it, you'll discover that it is truly amazing
what you can do with a tin of campus.
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What's that?
With static free clarity, the Sanrio commander cordless phone.
If it isn't clear, it isn't the Sanrio.
It took a sports figure, basketball superstar Magic Johnson, to remind us today of the fear
and misunderstanding surrounding AIDS.
Johnson quit the Los Angeles Lakers one year ago after revealing he'd contracted HIV, the
virus that causes AIDS.
He returned to the court for the Summer Olympics and then surprised everyone by announcing
he was returning to the National Basketball Association.
Fans were ecstatic, but some NBA players were not.
And today Johnson decided the game for him was officially over.
NBC's George Lewis reports.
Though Magic Johnson and Carl Malone were together on the Olympic dream team, Malone
now says he has misgivings about playing against Johnson in the NBA.
Malone and others worry about the rough moments on the court, the possibility of becoming
infected through a cut or a scrape.
This in spite of what doctors say.
There is no substantial risk.
There's virtually no risk of transmitting HIV in a sporting event.
In an interview two Saturdays ago with Bryant Gumbel, Johnson talked about his return to
the LA Lakers.
If I felt that it was going to be a major distraction or a problem, I wouldn't have
came back.
But a week later, according to his agent, Johnson decided to retire for good.
He loves the game too much for Urban Johnson.
If somebody is afraid to play against him and it's going to change the outcome of a
game, he didn't want to be part of that.
Health was not a factor in Johnson's retirement, according to his doctor.
The superstar has not yet developed any symptoms of AIDS.
There was a lot of support for Johnson from other players.
I love the guy.
He's still a friend.
It's bigger than, this is bigger than basketball.
I feel very confident playing with him and I'm not really worried about him.
Last year during a TV show aimed at educating young people about AIDS, Johnson comforted
a little girl who was shunned by her playmates because she too is HIV positive.
I just want your friends to play with you.
Now he knows that same hurt.
George Lewis, NBC News, Los Angeles.
There has long been a question about whether the environment affects human reproduction.
Evidence is beginning to suggest that it does.
Sperm counts are down dramatically.
Trace chemicals are being found in human ovaries, and scientists suspect it could have
something to do with the toxins in our air and water.
In our Focus Report tonight, medical reporter Avis Favreau looks at the link between fertility and pollution.
They're the most important human creation, our children, our genetic and social legacy.
But some researchers are wondering if our future ability to reproduce is being threatened,
and whether the culprit is chemical pollution.
Like many male fertility researchers, Quill-Gagnon has been noting a subtle trend.
More and more infertile men.
This is an example of a patient that is not producing sufficient sperm at those alone.
His concerns were validated in part by a recent study published in the British Medical Journal.
Researchers in Denmark charted sperm production over six decades,
using results of 61 studies from around the world.
They found that 50 years ago, men were producing an average 113 million sperm per milliliter of fluid.
By 1990, it had dropped to about 60 million.
The drop, I think, is quite significant.
A 50% drop in 50 years is quite dangerous, I think, with time.
The World Health Organization considers men infertile at 20 million sperm per milliliter.
In a recent unpublished Canadian study, environmental health researcher Dr. Serge Deneau
compared the quality of sperm of men being tested in the late 1960s and early 70s to a group tested in 1984.
In terms of mobility of the sperm, the appearance and viability of the sperm,
we found a significant decrease of 10 to 15%.
The question is why. The possible role of toxic chemicals has spawned a new area of research called reproductive toxicology.
For example, this recent German study searched for pollutants in infertile patients.
The researchers found chlorinated hydrocarbons, like PCBs and DDT, in both semen and cervical fluid.
They're concentrated in the cervical mucus or the fluid that's produced by the uterus through which the sperm has to swim,
and if that area is highly toxic, it may in fact kill off the sperm that are swimming through.
Another Canadian study found trace chemicals in the fluid surrounding human eggs in the ovaries of infertile women.
We're asking if some of the chemicals are actually toxic to the ovaries' content of eggs.
The fact that we're at least beginning this process, I think, is novel and an important consideration.
Animal studies have shown that fertility has remained relatively constant.
A normal number of babies are being born, and so researchers agree there is no cause for immediate alarm.
But they do see a need for concern because animal studies have shown that it's the reproductive system that is first damaged by chemical pollutants.
The animal tests tell us that, yes indeed, human fertility is probably going to decrease because we're exposed to the same chemicals.
Theo Colburn is co-publishing a book on the latest findings of how chemicals in the environment are affecting both animal and human reproduction.
We're not sure. We may be at that turning point.
In the coming months, the studies will be repeated to determine their accuracy.
Then researchers can perhaps begin answering the troubling questions for the sake of our collective future.
Avis Favreau, CTV News, Toronto.
Hollywood has lost the pioneer producer who made Banana Peels famous and who also launched such comedy stars as Laurel and Hardy.
Hal Roach died today of pneumonia at the age of 100.
Roach recalled a few years ago that it was on one of his silent movie sets that Banana Peels from Somebody's Lunch were first used to help comedy actors do pratfalls.
When we return, mega veggies, if you tuck them in at night, they grow up to be really big.
Come on, Ollick.
We're actually in pretty good shape, but I keep thinking there's something else we could be doing.
We've got my pension, your RRSP, our savings. You think that's going to be enough to retire on?
You know, maybe we need advice from someone who does this for a living.
I guess the next question is, who do we talk to?
Tim Horton's has mealtime deals, so come on in for a super deal on our great selection of savory soups and chili, too.
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Enjoy one of our soups with a tea biscuit, coffee, and a donut for just $2.99.
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Soups on Chili's Hot.
We believe the last thing the world needs is another car, so we built one, the Nissan Altima.
Because we knew words like performance and fuel economy could be spoken in the same breath.
That a car could be big enough to be comfortable without being uncomfortably big.
And because we're committed to taking responsibility for every car we build, the new Nissan Altima, built for the human race.
Hi. Now we all know there are two sides to every story, and that's especially true at Home Hardware.
On one side, you've got friendly advice, over 900 dealers.
On the other side, you always get a great price.
Home's been giving Canadians great value for almost 30 years.
So, when you put friendly advice and great price together, it seems to me the folks at home can guarantee a happy ending to any story.
Home Hardware, Home of the Handyman.
In England, a place known for its lush gardens, one man stands head and shoulders above the rest, and so do his vegetables.
He's a gardener who's tapped the secret of the green thumb to grow some of the biggest veggies you're ever likely to see.
CTV's Philip Winslow has the story.
Bernard Lavery is a gardener. More than the average garden variety type, Lavery grows mega vegetables, for size, not for taste.
This is one of my carrots, the long type, the green on the top.
But I hope it's traveled down this pipe, below this mark here, which is my world record of 17 feet.
From sunflowers to squash, they're just plain big, world-class big. Lavery holds 12 world records so far.
Radish, cabbage, parsnips, carrots, courgettes, marrows, oh, it goes on forever.
The secret? Carefully bred and selected seeds, and some lessons learned over the years.
Pumpkins, for example, need to be tucked in on cold fall afternoons to keep growing.
So if you cover your pumpkin up then, you keep the heat in and it probably still keeps growing till midnight.
The biggest secret, Lavery says, is what you might call the carrot and stick treatment and tender loving care.
You give them a tallying off if they don't grow, and if they do grow, you give them a kiss if nobody's watching.
Lavery's vegetables have been banned from competitions now to give lesser mortals and pumpkins a sporting chance.
Ladies and gentlemen.
So he acts as a master of ceremonies and keeps on gardening just for fun.
I can garden from morning till night, and I think it's a pleasure, it's a privilege to do it, you know, and never get fed up with it.
His vegetables, big and small, seem to return the compliment.
If you want to be a star panellope, you've got to go a little bit faster than what you're doing, right?
Have a good night's tip and we'll see you in the morning.
Philip Winslow, CTV News, London.
That's the kind of day it's been, honest, November the 2nd.
Tomorrow in Canada AM, Jeff Pavear interviews Jean-Jacques Arnaud on the making of the film Lovers,
and on CTV News tomorrow night, health food, Chinese style, an antler a day keeps the doctor away.
I'm Lloyd Robertson. For all of us here at CTV News, good night.
MUSIC
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This is CHRO Sports Late Night. Here's Brian Parker. Good evening. Coming up on
the show tonight, the Habs put their seven game unbeaten streak on the line
at the forum against Winnipeg. Just as the NBA season is about to begin, Magic
Johnson repires again.