This may be a real photo of Barack Obama indulging in the unhealthy habit of smoking, in his Alinsky-style community organizing days. Or it could be something that someone has doctored with Photoshop, etc. In our age of high technology who really knows anything for certain anymore?

MACKINAW CITY, MI. FRIDAY MARCH 19, 2010. This may or may not prove to be a historic week in the history of democracy in America. According to the Washington Post: “Pushing toward a Sunday vote that could transform the nation’s health-insurance system, House leaders announced a $940 billion compromise Thursday that would extend coverage to the vast majority of Americans, cut billions of dollars from Medicare, and impose new taxes on the wealthy and the well-insured. “

To commemorate the event that may or may not happen, our congenital observer of the American scene, L. Frank Bunting, has sent in an extended essay: “Alinsky, Brooks, Clinton, and Obama: more right-wing ‘outright fiction’ on the American left.” if you have the stamina for a long, hard look at the deep background to one side of the Obama administration’s current struggles, CLICK HERE for the full package. (Or see the USA Today category to the right of this page.)

Bunting’s piece draws on two recent columns by the reasonable conservative David Brooks, in the New York Times. In the first one, from back on March 4, Brooks contends that the now long-dead Chicago community organizer Saul Alinsky (who also helped inspire the political careers of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama) was “the leading tactician of the New Left,” back in the 1960s and early 1970s. And Bunting objects strenuously to this proposition.

In the second column, from March 11, Brooks argues: “In a sensible country, people would see Obama as a president trying to define a modern brand of moderate progressivism. In a sensible country, Obama would be able to clearly define this project without fear of offending the people he needs to get legislation passed. But we don’t live in that country.” Bunting agrees with all this, even as he fervently wishes that both the USA and the world at large (including Canada) will soon enough become more sensible in our time.

Saul Alinsky, Circa 1946. Photo: Myron Davis./Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.

From a more personal angle, L. Frank Bunting’s extended essay on  “Alinsky, Brooks, Clinton, and Obama” delves into a longstanding fascination he has had with the still not all that well-known career of Saul Alinsky, who died of a sudden heart attack in Carmel, California at the still comparatively youthful age of 63, 38 years ago this coming June 12.

In an interview this morning, on the 8 AM Arnold Transit ferry  to Mackinac Island (where he is waiting out this potentially historic weekend), Bunting explained that there were some sides of Alinsky’s career he didn’t have the time or space to touch on, as he would have liked.  As one example, he noted that Alinsky sometimes liked to joke about going to hell when he died. But on the other hand there was his close friendship and long correspondence with the quite conservative French Catholic political philosopher, Jacques Maritain, who famously said: “I do not know if Saul Alinsky knows God. But I assure you that God knows Saul Alinsky.”

Right-wing clichés have always played an important role in Canadian values, as these 2007 media-generalist themes from an earlier generation suggest. Right on Preston Manning and Canadian Club! (And thanks to Stacy May, at shameless: for girls who get it.)

The theory that consultants of any description will always at least try to give their clients what they want is nicely stiffened by a new “Harris-Decima survey for the [unabashedly right-wing] Manning Centre” (named after Preston and his father, etc, etc). This work of applied social science “conducted through phone interviews with 1,000 adult Canadians between Feb. 1-10” 2010, apparently suggests that “Conservatives now ‘own the centre,’ while the left ‘is a very lonely place to be’ in Canada.”

The crucial more or less hard numbers here appear to be that “five elections ago … 41% of self-described centrists voted Liberal. In 2008, 47% of centrists voted Conservative.” But just what (if anything) this means in the real world of Canadian politics today still seems obscure.

Even in the October 14, 2008 Canadian federal election, the Conservatives won less than 38% of the cross-Canada popular vote.  And for the second time in a row this was not even enough for a bare majority of seats in the unreformed first-past-the-post electoral system of the Canadian House of Commons in Ottawa.

More recently, according to another “Harris-Decima survey conducted for The Canadian Press,” which “surveyed 2,936 people by telephone between Feb. 25 and March 7” 2010, only 33% of Canadians would vote Conservative if a federal election were held today. And according to an EKOS poll for the CBC, based on “a random sample of 2,467 Canadians aged 18 and over” between “March 3 – March 9, 2010,” the Conservatives would attract less than 32% of Canadians, from coast to coast to coast.

Moreover, in the March 3–9 EKOS poll the federal Liberal and New Democratic parties combined attracted just under 46% of the cross-Canada popular vote (setting aside the Greens and the Bloc Québécois, both of which are more plausibly viewed as “left” than “right”). In the February 25–March 7 Harris-Decima poll the Liberals and New Democrats combined had 45% — also what the same two parties combined won even in the 2008 federal election.

Sonia Brownell, George Orwell’s second wife, helped edit the posthumous collection of his essays, journalism, and letters which first appeared in 1968. The two people here are not the real George and Sonia, but just actors playing their parts in a play about Orwell’s last years in the late 1940s, that was performed in New Zealand last year. The real Sonia was attractive, but maybe not quite as attractive as the young lady playing her here.

So, what kind of world is it where a party called Conservative gets from less than 38% to less than 32% of the vote, while parties called Liberal and New Democrat get 45%–46% (and other more or less left-wing parties get an additional 17%, or more), but hired consultants for a right-wing institute believe it is credible to report that “ the left ‘is a very lonely place to be’ in Canada”? Shurely (as Frank magazine used to say) this is a world that could only be seriously inhabited by Alice in Wonderland, or the Wizard of Oz?

Or, there is lately a lot of bullying — intellectual and otherwise — going on in what the academic community nowadays likes to call the “political discourse” of the true north. Those who actually believe in what the Canadian Constitution Act 1982 calls our “free and democratic society” will resist. (And for better or worse it is at least easier to ignore the bullying here, because the country does not cast such a giant shadow beyond its own borders.)

If you really want to know what’s going on politically, you just have to keep paying your closest attention to what is (to borrow the title of the fourth volume of the 1968 edition of Saint George Orwell’s collected essays, journalism, and letters) In Front of Your Nose.

Signing of a Memorandum of Co-operation between the Ontario government and the Webequie First Nation, May 14, 2004. The memorandum committed “both parties to enhance communication and understanding that may foster job creation and economic growth in the area.”

The vital last words on the McGuinty government’s new “Open Ontario” throne speech won’t be heard until the provincial budget a few weeks hence.

Some think Premier Dalton just “wants to change the channel … to forget eHealth and the HST.” Others believe that while “his path converged with Harper’s during tough times, [the] Ontario Premier’s path to recovery looks different.” Still others think Premier McGuinty has at last revealed himself as “At heart … a ‘Reddish’ Tory” (just like Bland Bill Davis, 1971–1985, and the first great Liberal premier of Canada’s most populous province, Oliver “Smile-when-you-oxymoronically-call-him-the-Christian-politician” Mowat, 1872–1896).

In the age of the return of the ancient resource economy first invented by The Fur Trade in Canada, however, one very new McGuintyesque Open Ontario theme is already grabbing a lot of attention — with various good reasons.

The Ring of Fire is an area of approximately 5,120 square kilometres around McFauld's Lake. TORONTO STAR GRAPHIC.

See, eg, this poignant passage in the March 8, 2010 throne speech: “In 2008, northern Ontario became home to our first diamond mine … Your government will build on that success — particularly in the region known as the Ring of Fire [hello Johnny Cash — and June Carter —  1963]  … It is said to contain one of the largest chromite deposits in the world — a key ingredient in stainless steel … There is no substitute for chromite … It’s the most promising mining opportunity in Canada in a century.”

In some intriguing respects, this particular “Open Ontario” theme just revives the “New Ontario” (aka “Nouvel-Ontario”) northern frontier that was in fact the big breaking news in the province a century ago. (“Remember Ross,” advised an early 20th century Grit newspaper: “He is Building up New Ontario.”) But in the early 21st century, the central Canadian resource economy is finally pushing into the exotic most northerly reaches of the modern Ontario territory. And there are without doubt some new and unusual challenges ahead.

Getting around on the new northern frontier.

Already, we have such headlines as “Dalton McGuinty bets big on mining, critics fear eco-disaster.” But when you look at the official Ontario road map that more or less matches the chromite-rich “Ring” probably the most striking feature of this far northeastern region is that there are still no roads there at all! (Or at least not of the sort that the Ministry of Transportation chooses to view as official, etc.) The bush plane — an innovation of the early 20th century — remains the essential mode of regional transit, supplemented by the ancient canoe in this vast boreal-forest geography of rivers and lakes.

Read the rest of this page »

New MPP Bob Chiarelli (centre) is flanked by Ontario Premier Dalton Mcguinty (right) and Glengarry, Prescott, and Russell MPP Jean-Marc Lalonde. Photograph by: David Gonczol , The Ottawa Citizen.

Much ink is currently being spilled — and even wasted, some would say — on the March 4, 2010 Canadian federal budget. But if you live in Canada’s most populous province, and count yourself among the small but wiry band seriously interested in its regional government and politics, you may have found the two March 4 provincial by-elections at least equally interesting.

Perhaps especially in Ontario provincial politics, by-elections are not quite as significant as some commentators desperate for something to comment on sometimes pretend. The excellent Graham Murray, editor and publisher of the authoritative Inside Queen’s Park newsletter, has calculated that the seats involved in more than two-thirds of the 46 Ontario provincial by-elections held from 1977 to February 4, 2010 did not change hands.

In their broadest brush strokes the two Eastern Ontario by-elections held this March 4 have just added two more cases in point to Mr. Murray’s larger trend. This past February 9 I averred there was no chance at all that the longstanding Ontario Tory seat now known as Leeds-Grenville would go to the Liberals, to say nothing of the New Democrats (or the Green Party). And while the very well seasoned Ontario Tory Bob Runciman has gone on to the still unreformed Senate of Canada, his carefully meditated successor Steve Clark has in fact tidily held Leeds-Grenville for what is still formally known as the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.

Similarly, Wilfrid Laurier political science professor David Docherty had earlier urged that the rather different seat of Ottawa West-Nepean did have some serious “potential to be a barometer of how the [Dalton McGuinty Liberal] government’s doing.” And, joining this fraternity, on February 9 I suggested myself that if Ontario Tory Beth Graham finally “manages to take the seat for the Hudak Conservatives more than a few observers will be saying ah yes indeed: the McGuinty Liberals really are in more longer-term trouble than I have thought so far. And they may be right.” In the end, however, on March 4 the seat was held for the Liberals by former Ottawa mayor Bob Chiarelli.

At the same time, those who really like to examine the entrails of by-election birds in depth do have a few narrower numbers with which to chide the McGuinty government — or at least say that Premier Dalton ought not to be getting too complacent about his administration’s current place in the regional political firmament. In the 2007 Ontario general election, eg, Bob Runciman had managed to win a mere 56.24% of the Leeds-Grenville vote for the Ontario Tories. In the March 4, 2010 by-election precipitated by Mr. Runciman’s departure for the Senate in Ottawa, his Conservative successor Steve Clark managed to come up with a striking 66.6% of the vote.

Ontario Tory Beth Graham, on the campaign trail in Ottawa West-Nepean. She didn’t win, but she did better than the Conservatives did last time.

Similarly, in the 2007 Ontario general election Premier Dalton’s former municipal affairs and housing minister Jim Watson (who has resigned to run for mayor of Ottawa) won Ottawa West-Nepean with 50.64% of the vote. All (former Ottawa mayor)  Bob Chiarelli could manage in the March 4, 2010 by-election was 43.5%. Meanwhile, 2010 Conservative Beth Graham won an impressive enough 39.0%, up from only 31.80% for the Tory candidate in 2007. Already, it could be said, the mainstream media is probably making more of this than it ought to. (See, eg: “McGuinty Liberals win narrow victory in Ottawa by-election” and  “Chiarelli wins, but not in a walk … Ex-mayor beats Tory by about five points.”) The McGuinty government, it would seem, is not really in any very deep trouble — yet, at any rate. Still, it is no doubt worth remembering: In times like these, no democratic politician anywhere can be altogether secure. If you want to stay in office, you will have to work harder to keep the people’s trust. That is what Premier Dalton seems to say he likes. And that is, no doubt again, the way it ought to be.

OTTAWA. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3, 2010. [UPDATED MARCH 4]. The Canadian federal parliament is back in the business of democracy, after its controversial prorogation late last year. There will be a throne speech from the Harper minority government, read by Governor General Jean in the Senate Chamber, at 2 PM today, and then a federal budget tomorrow.

[UPDATE  I: As it happened, the throne speech did not begin until closer to 3 PM. If you're up to reading the full document, which is at least somewhat carefully crafted, CLICK HERE. For Jennifer Ditchburn's Canadian Press report see "Harper takes aim at deficit with throne speech, opposition says there's no new ideas."]

The deeper question at least ought to turn around Canada’s 40th Parliament at large. Three recent opinion polls present rather different results — the sum of which again ought to be that no party has an interest in election hi-jinks for any near future. Can Parliament  do something, anything, to show the Canadian people that democracy really does work?

You don’t have to be very healthily cynical at all to say the most plausible answer is probably not. But all who value even the modest degree of a real free and democratic society we are so lucky to enjoy in Canada today have a vested interest in keeping hope alive.

That also means seconding the particular if also probably vain hopes of such irrepressible upbeat commentators as Andrew Cohen, president of The Historica-Dominion Institute: “The danger of [the just ended Olympics in] Vancouver is that our success [in our own eyes at any rate: and we did win a record-breaking 14 gold medals after all] will reinforce our culture of complacency …  Let us commit to renewing the federation with a national securities commission, Senate reform, a revival of parliamentary committees, empowering private members and a campaign to encourage Canadians to vote …  so the new patriotism means something other than wearing a red sweater or buying a coffee at Tim Hortons.”

Still more must be done as well, of course, to stop Stephen Harper’s two most recent parliamentary prorogations from becoming serious precedents for the future. Both the Liberals and the New Democrats are apparently interested in trying to make prorogation more of a power of parliament itself, rather than of the prime minister and governor general. We still wonder how practical this is. And we think there is probably more long-term mileage in democratizing the office of governor general, to help offset the all too vast array of executive power that has now accumulated in the hands of even minority prime ministers. (If you haven’t already seen our latest on this subject  — “March 6 referendum in Iceland: here’s one model for democratizing the governor general in Canada “ — CLICK HERE to check it out.)

Meanwhile, our very best wishes to all the MPs and unelected (and unreformed) Canadian Senators, who gather in Ottawa today. How wonderful it would be if they actually could set aside their own partisan careers for a brief moment over the next few months, and somehow manage to do something that would make Canadians half as proud as Mlle Rochette and the Winter Olympics in Vancouver 2010. And who knows? Stranger things have in fact happened at least once or twice in Canada’s diverse, exotic, and improbable history. It is not entirely impossible that they will happen again — and again, and again, and again.

[UPDATE  II, March 4: As widely predicted, there is nothing surprising about the new Canadian federal budget. For the key documents from the  finance department by the Rideau Canal see  "Budget 2010: Leading the Way on Jobs and Growth."  For brief commentary from Canada's self-proclaimed national newspaper see "Ottawa unveils smallest spending increase in a decade ... Restraint seen as necessary if Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is to meet his objective of paying for economic stimulus bills without raising taxes."]

Sid the Kid, from Cole Harbour, NS, is happy after he scores Team Canada’s golden goal, February 28, 2010. Harry How/Getty Images.

At least something brief should be said about the Vancouver Winter Olympics 2010, now that they’re over. But just what is not altogether easy to figure out. The good news, however, is that, by and large, the news is good. (From our own Canadian point of view at any rate.)

My favourite penultimate headline comes from the Vancouver Sun: “Sidney Crosby saves Canada from nervous breakdown … Star centre scores in overtime for 3-2 win, gold medal in men’s Olympic hockey.”

For (almost) sheer objectivity, try the New York Times: “Canada did not win as many medals as it had hoped at these Olympics … but it won more golds (14) than any country in history.” Or the Los Angeles Times: “The United States will top the medal count for the first time since 1932, and it will finish with 37 medals, breaking the single-country record of 36 set by Germany in 2002 … Canada also has made history, leading the gold-medal count for the first time.”

You can’t get enough of her: Bronze medal-winning figure skater Joannie Rochette, from la belle province, poses in the NBC Today Show Studio at Grouse Mountain on February 26, 2010 in North Vancouver. Photograph by: Getty, Getty.

(New York is more exact on the Canadian record than Los Angeles here. For the final exact medal counts see the Vancouver Sun. And if you want to know how Canadians far from Vancouver felt about the Canadian record, see the response to the Toronto Globe and Mail’s online question: “By setting a new record for gold medals won at the Olympics, did Canada make good on its goal of owning the podium?” As of 12:35 this morning more than 90% of respondents were saying YES!)

Nothing is perfect in human life of course — which is just one reason why Canadians say “sorry” so often. For some critical balance I think myself that the Montreal guru L. Ian Macdonald was right when he said it should have been “on the podium” not “own the podium.” There really was not enough about the French fact in Canada, in both the opening and closing ceremonies. And there were just too many Mounties at the end (even for a “Maple Leaf Forever” revival).

All this having been said, Vancouver deserves vast credit for hosting the 2010 winter Olympics in a way that has engaged so many Canadians from coast to coast to coast, and made them proud. These Olympics could mark a positive turning point in the endless progress of the elusive Canadian identity. If they do, Western Canada will deserve vast credit for this as well.

You can’t get enough of this either: “Canada's Sidney Crosby rejoices after scoring the winner in overtime as Canada beat the United States 3-2 in the gold medal hockey game at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.” Photograph by: Yuri Kadobnov, AFP/Getty Images.

(Though in its progressive Pacific coast and not its Stephen Harper incarnation, some will want to hasten to add. And I should add too that I am saying these things as someone who has lived in Toronto most of my life.)

Finally, hosting global village events like this can sometimes show you just who your real friends are on the international scene. Having watched various TV coverages of Vancouver 2010 and scoured the web sites of newspapers around the world, I think there can be little doubt that Canada’s truest and most understanding friend nowadays is indeed the United States of America next door (believe it or not, etc). Here’s hoping as well that this coming fall enough of our fellow North American best friends forever will remember that they did so well in these Olympics too, under their history-making Democrat president, Barack Obama, from Hawaii and Illinois.

Canada's (and Quebec’s) Joannie Rochette cries after finishing her routine in the women's short programme figure skating event at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics February 23, 2010. Rochette's mother died just days before the start of the women's Olympic figure skating competition. REUTERS/Andy Clark, National Post.

BUCKHORN, ONTARIO. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2010. Now that “Canada owns the rink with mauling of Russia,” the anglophone hardhats up here on the fluted edge of the Canadian Shield are relaxing a bit. At Pete’s Lunch by the locks this morning, it was also pointed out that we now have seven gold medals — just as many as the USA (or Germany for that matter): and at the top of the heap in this department at least.

On an allegedly deeper level, my neo-socialist cousin from Mariposa e-mailed me this morning about some remarks by the New Democrat professor at UBC Michael Byers: “I think that Canadians are changing, our society evolves. Perhaps we’re becoming more self-confident than we used to be … But it’s not a sudden development. It didn’t happen over night. These are trends that take place over the course of generations, and the Olympic Games provide an opportunity for these trends to manifest themselves in a more salient way.”

“Salient” … now there’s a word that can make people up here raise their eyebrows. And of course our American cousins are still gloating: “So much for Own the Podium: US is a juggernaut at Vancouver Olympics.” (But as usual nowadays, they’re still more friendly than our former UK imperial masters across the sea.)

For sheer nastiness — only vaguely redeemed by the truth that hurts — it seems the Russian journos have now jumped into the lead (to make up for their country’s mere three gold medals so far, no doubt): “The abject cruelty shown by Canadian soldiers in international conflicts is scantily referred to, as indeed is the utter incapacity of this county to host a major international event, due to its inferiority complex, born of a trauma being the skinny and weakling bro to a beefy United States and a colonial outpost to the United Kingdom, whose Queen smiles happily from Canadian postage stamps.”

So … we’ve still got a lot of work to do, of course, of course. Yet apparently even Forbes magazine down south has been saying that: “As the world assembles in Vancouver for the Winter Olympics, the 21st century is shaping up great for Canada,” which “has avoided many of the problems that currently bedevil the US.”

Well … maybe … Old Earl down the road to Scotsman’s Point, who always votes Liberal, was also moaning over lunch about at least a few apparent troubling political side-effects — of the sort that currently bedevil the US too. Just moments ago, he e-mailed what he claims are four more or less relevant items from the net today (or yesterday): “Conservatives re-open gap over Liberals” ; “Conservatives enjoy three-point Olympic bounce” ; “Ignatieff ’stupefied’ at suggestion he wouldn’t root for Canada” ; and (less directly to the point, perhaps, but still interesting?) “Own the podium — or let down majority of Canadians.”

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir perform at Vancouver, Monday, February 22, 2010. They finally became both the first Canadians — and the first North Americans — to win the Olympic ice dance gold medal. John Mahoney / Canwest News Service.

I’m still not quite sure what to make of it myself. I’m hoping the ultimate truth will descend from the late winter sky at some point, when I’m out in the bush cutting firewood, for the old Quebec heater we still have, in the original part of the house. Meanwhile, I agree with Earl about the potential political side-effects. But I’m not entirely unhappy … at all.

Subject to further divine revelation, I think it reminds me most of what Bud Grant, the old American coach of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the CFL (and then more famously of the NFL Minnesota Vikings) used to say, long, long ago: “Canadians should be more like Texans.” That does seem to me at least part of what’s happening, in some degree at any rate. And I don’t think it’s an entirely bad thing, at last. Setting aside the obvious objections, it could even be the beginning of something that’s almost entirely good. (In both official languages, at last as well.)

Iceland’s current head of government Johanna Sigurdardottir, who is “the one and only openly lesbian Prime Minister in the World.” This is not, however, why the President of Iceland has refused to sign her government’s UK-Netherlands payback bill into law, triggering a national referendum on March 6, 2010.

In the midst of all the deep excitement about the Vancouver Olympics 2010, who cares about the fate of some obscure arrangements for dealing with an obscure branch of the global financial crisis of fall 2008, in the upcoming March 6, 2010 referendum in the very small if also rather ancient northern nation of Iceland?

For better or worse, our resident Ontario historian Randall White has cared enough to send in a 900-word introduction to the Iceland referendum — and how it might even shed some light on our current struggles with democracy in Canada.

CLICK HERE for the full article or see “March 6 referendum in Iceland: here’s one model for democratizing the governor general in Canada,” under the Canadian Republic category to the right of this page.

(But be forewarned: As Dr. White explains, neither the referendum in Iceland nor its potential relationship to democratizing the office of governor general in Canada has anything at all to do with the otherwise somewhat intriguing political fact that Johanna Sigurdardottir is both “Iceland’s first female Prime Minister, and the world’s first openly gay leader.” (Cabinet ministers in Ontario, municipal councillors in San Francisco, and mayors of Winnipeg of course don’t count here: you have to be the leader of a country, even if it is one with a very small population!)

The rumour that Prime Minister Harper will be appointing “BC bombshell Pamela Anderson” as Canada’s next Governor General is almost certainly not true. But here she is practising anyway, at a fashion show in New York City, February 17, 2010.

One of the almost sensible parts of the rather bizarre 10-and-a-half-page nationalist poem that Prime Minister Stephen Harper recited before the BC legislature last Wednesday [February 10, in case you’ve already forgotten] appeared close to the end: “So let us hold our flag high/ … Let it be a cheerful/red and white reminder/of a quiet and humble patriotism/that, while making/no claims on its neighbours/is ever ready/to stand on guard/for itself.”

Say whatever else you like: a Canada that is at last “ready to stand on guard for itself” is worth cheering about. And Mr. Harper would deserve some genuine multi-partisan credit for saying such things, were it not that so many other parts of his apparent higher (or is it lower?) vision for the true north strong and free so often seems to contradict them.

A mere week after the minority PM’s patriotic poetry reading in beautiful BC, eg, Jane Taber’s “Ottawa Notebook” blog was reporting that “Olympic gold medal snowboarder [and now Liberal candidate in Stockwell Day’s BC riding] Ross Rebagliati is being mocked by Stephen Harper’s Tories in an internal memo for his views opposing the monarchy in Canada.”

Marianne St-Gelais of St. Félicien, Quebec, celebrates her silver-medal finish in the women's 500-metre short-track speed-skating finals at the Vancouver Olympics. Now she probably would make a good next Governor General of Canada — except you likely can’t have two in a row from Quebec!

And then only a day after this the National Post flagship of the (still in bankruptcy protection) Canwest newspaper empire was telling us that, according to certain Ottawa rumours, Mr. Harper will replace Governor General Michaelle Jean a bit early, on Canada Day, July 1, 2010 — so that her successor can be “sworn in by Queen Elizabeth II herself during her nine-day tour of Canada that starts on June 28.”

(And even the Conservative-friendly Post also noted: “If a British monarch anointing his or her colonial stand-in has happened before in Canadian history, the precedent could not be found yesterday by staff at Rideau Hall or the Library of Parliament.”)

At least two aspects of all this seem puzzling — in testimony to what Canadians from coast to coast to coast are increasingly coming to recognize as the many internal contradictions of Stephen Harper’s political science.

Read the rest of this page »

On the third Monday of February nowadays Manitoba celebrates a holiday called Louis Riel Day. Why not have a holiday called Louis Riel Day in all provinces and territories, coast to coast to coast?

GANATSEKWYAGON, ONTARIO. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2010. Today — the third Monday in February — is a statutory holiday in five Canadian provinces. It’s called Family Day in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario; Islanders Day in Prince Edward Island; and Louis Riel Day in Manitoba.

Louis Riel, in case you’ve forgotten, was a Canadian  Métis (ie mixed race) leader, a founder of Manitoba, and a key figure in the old North West Rebellion (for which he was hung by the neck until dead in what is now Regina, Saskatchewan, on November 16, 1885). Riel has been called “one of the most controversial figures in Canadian history.” But we think this particular historical tide has turned. Two years ago we published an article arguing that the still quite new Family Day holiday should be called Louis Riel Day in Ontario too.

Statue of Louis Riel on Manitoba Legislative Building Grounds, Winnipeg.

We’re briefly reviving this article this year. (CLICK HERE for the original.) In 2010 we think the third Monday in February should be a statutory holiday in all Canadian provinces and territories — known as Louis Riel Day everywhere, to honour the historic Métis leader who did so much to pioneer Canadian diversity today (and who suffered too much for his trouble in his own time).

Two other vaguely related matters may be worth some further brief mention.

February 15, 2010 is also flag day in Canada — in commemoration of the official proclamation of the independent Canadian maple leaf flag, on February 15, 1965.

The ghost of Louis Riel would no doubt equally want to congratulate Alexandre Bilodeau of Montreal, who on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2010 won Canada’s first Olympic gold medal on home soil in the men’s freestyle moguls skiing event at Cypress Mountain, in beautiful (rainy) British Columbia.  (And see also: “Une première médaille gagnée à la maison“; “Vancouver aux sommets … On peut jouer au golf le matin, skier l’après-midi et randonner à bicyclette en fin de journée“; “French language an afterthought at Games, Quebec critics charge“; and “Sondage Léger Marketing-Le Devoir – Le PLC en remontée au Québec.”)