Who is supposed to be running the Government of Canada — the federal government elected by the Canadian people or 10 provincial premiers ??

Posted: March 14th, 2024 | No Comments »
Michael Seward, Up and Running. 2024. Acrylic. 24” x 36”.

RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO . THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2024. Last night I heard an eminent CTV host urge that many (mostly Conservative) provincial premiers want the Liberal federal government to change its carbon tax policy.

Doesn’t this mean (the implication seemed to be) that the federal government should do just that?

This reminded me of a current concern of the unusually independent freelance “member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery” in Ottawa, Dale Smith.

On Mr. Smith’s view, the “legacy media” (and especially CBC TV) have been trying to hold the federal government responsible for glitches or worse in federal-provincial programs. In fact these troubles are the fault of “delinquent premiers who can’t live up to their promises.”

In the federal-provincial child care program, Mr. Smith explains on his website today, eg : “fewer than half of the promised spaces have been created, and they [the CBC in this case but legacy media at large as well] want to make this a federal problem.”

Mr. Smith goes on : “It’s not, however — the federal government did their part, and delivered the promised funding, and what is left is for the provinces to live up to the agreements that they signed, and put their own money into the system. Several provinces are not doing that ….”

Keeping with the Smith surname, I also enjoyed Catherine McKenna’s Xpost last night on the Premier of Alberta — “What Danielle Smith really means: If only the federal government had a Minister of the Environment and Climate Change who didn’t care about the environment or climate change then Alberta’s relationship with Ottawa could be greatly improved.”

Michael Seward, Glory. 2024. Acrylic. 24” x 36”.

This was in response to a Global Edmonton post, which reported that Premier “Smith said she told the prime minister she believes Alberta’s relationship with Ottawa could be ‘greatly improved’ if he removed Steven Guilbeault from his position as minister of environment and climate change.”

At this point, even with my long-ago background as a provincial public servant, I start to protest wildly in my head, to whoever may not be listening at the moment. Now provincial premiers are deciding who sits in the federal cabinet ????

More generally, who is supposed to be running the Government of Canada? The federal government in Ottawa (usually elected by a greater share of we the people entitled to vote than provincial and municipal governments)? Or the almost always complaining provincial premiers?

Part of the current problem is no doubt the current almost abysmal standing of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party of Canada in opinion polls.

This has no direct impact on the constitutional and practical authority of today’s Liberal government, last elected in the real world (as opposed to small-sample opinion polls) on September 20, 2021. (And now sustained in the Canadian House of Commons by the New Democrats and the March 22, 2022 Supply and Confidence Agreement.)

Current opinion polls, however, do appear to reduce the prestige of the federal government in the eyes of many media professionals, in Ottawa and across the country.

So the legacy media take complaints about an unpopular prime minister by provincial premiers (some of whom are unpopular themselves!) more seriously than they should — and even start to think provincial arguments are usually right.

Michael Seward, Birdsong ( in the spirit of Miró ). 2024. 24” x 36”.

(Doug Ford, eg, has said that, unlike Justin Trudeau, the Premier of Ontario doesn’t have a printing press in his basement that can make new money! Except it’s the independent Bank of Canada, not Justin Trudeau, who actually has this kind of equipment in Ottawa!)

Meanwhile, just to start with, all of the Constitution Act, 1982 and at least sections 91 and 92 of the Constitution Act, 1867 (on the distribution of federal and provincial powers) should be required last-year reading in all Canadian high schools (public and private, and even in Quebec and Alberta … and all three far northern territories — except can that really happen when education is a largely provincial responsibility, under the Constitution Act, 1867?).

Polling from last half 2023 and first quarter 2024 may not be reliable guide to Canadian election in fourth quarter 2025

Posted: March 12th, 2024 | No Comments »
Michael Seward, Generations. 2024. Acrylic. 42” x 54”.

RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO . TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 2024. Individual polls vary on exact numbers. But by almost the middle of March 2024 all polls have been saying for some time that it is very hard to see how the Justin Trudeau Liberals could “win” a fourth Canadian federal election in a row, in any at all near future.

Some recent polls have placed the New Democrats within shouting distance of the Liberals as well. (See eg obscure footnote at end of this piece,)

This has inevitably led to speculation that Jagmeet Singh’s New Democrats, thinking they could at least replace the Liberals as official opposition in a fresh election, might abrogate the current Liberal-NDP Supply and Confidence Agreement, and vote to bring the Trudeau Liberal minority government down.

NDP ad on Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre, March 11, 2024 .

On these assumptions there no doubt could be a federal election in Canada in 2024 — along with elections in more than 60 other countries globally — in the fateful year we are living through in many parts of the world.

If there is a federal election before the end of this year, the smart money has to say what polling guru Éric Grenier said yesterday to prospective newsletter subscribers : “As we enter the spring, the polls aren’t getting any better for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, leaving the Conservatives with multiple paths to a majority government when the next election is held.”

On this same logic a Conservative Prime Minister Pierre Poilievre — younger and not remotely as rich but otherwise almost as twisted as Donald Trump? — is more or less inevitable before the end of this year. It still seems to me, however, that all this rests on a certain assumption about the ultimate objectives of Jagmeet Singh and his federal New Democrats.

The 2024 election scenario, that is, assumes the highest and/or most important objective of the federal New Democrats is just to replace the Liberals as official opposition. (There is absolutely nothing in current polling to suggest that the New Democrats could actually win even a minority government in a fresh election — ie replace the Liberals as a federal governing party.)

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Brian Mulroney from Baie-Comeau : The last of the Progressive Conservatives?

Posted: March 6th, 2024 | No Comments »
Canadian distinct-society federalist Brian Mulroney (l) in conversation with Quebec sovereigntist René Lévesque … about le beau risque?

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2024. Yesterday’s announcement of the state funeral for former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney (1984–1993) from present Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (2015–20??) is suitably couched in high-minded language :

Brian Mulroney devoted his career to serving Canadians. He was an extraordinary statesman and distinguished politician, respected both here at home and around the world … To honour the legacy he leaves behind, a state funeral is being held in Montreal on March 23rd …”

Most of the almost ubiquitous other commentary we’ve seen has had a similar tone. And in this context we at least found online journalist Holly Doan’s posting of some much more unguarded Mulroney remarks on March 4 refreshing (or at least a more realistic change of pace).

Michael Seward, The Human Animal: antiportrait. 2024. Acrylic. 30”sq.

The remarks were taken from Peter C. Newman’s controversial 2005 book on the “Secret Mulroney Tapes” (which Mr. Mulroney himself felt was a betrayal) : “Prime Minister Brian Mulroney: Ottawa is a ‘sick’ city that runs on ‘goddamned incest’: ‘They’re all married to one another. They’re shacked up with one another. Their wives are on the payroll of the CBC. It’s just awful.’”

There is no doubt some deeper truth in all this — which is of course why it’s interesting. (It’s also telling tales out of school, which is also why it’s interesting.) At the same time, it finally reminded us that we have a good enough and even somewhat more high-minded tribute to Brian Mulroney of our own, in the relevant pages of senior editor Randall White’s almost altogether completed work in progress, Children of the Global Village : Democracy in Canada Since 1497.

With respect and (as with so many others among us) some real admiration, here then are the first two sections on Canada’s 18th prime minister from Part IV, Chapter 2 of Dr. White’s draft Canadian political history book as it appears on this site. They start with a subtitle …

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Reconciliation and Land Act in BC on Canada’s Pacific Coast (and BC election this coming October 19)

Posted: March 1st, 2024 | No Comments »
Michael Seward, Weird Event in the Night Sky over Great Bear Lake, NWT. 2024. Acrylic. 42” x 54”.

NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO . FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2024. I recently found two articles from The Tyee on the current state of government and politics in Canada’s Pacific Province unusually intriguing.

The opinion polling still seems to be suggesting that David Eby’s high-flying New Democrats will probably win a second majority government in the BC provincial election to be held on or before October 19, 2024. (Although see also this recent Polling Canada note!)

Former BC New Democrat Premier John Horgan (l) with current BC New Democrat Premier David Eby and family.

I nonetheless finished reading my two Tyee articles with at least some slight sense that there was one issue over which the Eby government has lately been having some trouble. And this could spread at least a minor cloud over the election this fall.

The first article appeared on February 21, 2024, and is headlined “Throne Speech Looks Ahead to October Election … NDP promises action on affordability, health care and reconciliation.”

The second article, from February 22, bears the headline ”NDP Hits Brakes on Land Act Reconciliation Plan … Opposition forces government to relaunch consultations; Cullen blames misinformation.”

The second article elaborates on problems with the third of the three main issues on which the BC New Democrat government, in office sine 2017, is apparently seeking to be re-elected on this coming October 19 (according to its recent Throne Speech). A few quotations from the article suggest the thickening plot.

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It may be the Pacific Ocean in California that bothers MAGA Republicans most

Posted: February 20th, 2024 | No Comments »
Michael Seward, Man with Mask, 2024.

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2024. According to a Leger survey of US adults for the Los Angeles Times released last week, “48% of Republicans polled believe California is ‘not really American.’” As broadly summarized by Leger Executive Vice President Christian Bourque, “if you are a more conservative American, you basically do not like California.”

As further explained by a clip on the KTLA TV website : “Two-thirds of Republicans also said the state’s impact on the country has been a net negative, reflecting large-scale criticism of California and liberal policies … by conservative politicians and media.”

“Meet Cindy, a Sociology major, graduating from UC Berkeley class of 2022!”

(It might be worth noting as well that California with some 39 million people is still the most populous State of the Union at the moment, followed by Texas at not quite 31 million, Florida about 23 million, and New York State not quite 20 million.)

On the other hand, even if you are just a more progressive Canadian chances are that in February 2024 you will like California — and especially Northern California, and especially again the almost exotic San Francisco Bay Area, anchored by the legendary City of San Francisco (where so many left their hearts long ago in the 1960s and 1970s).

Circumnavigating the northern region of the seriously beautiful Bay Area geography

Just to begin our brief meditation here, the overarching theme of our visit with our growing tech support staff in the Golden State this year was summarized by our resident tour guide : Grim reports about the 21st century demise of the 1960s flower-child metropolis are just fake news.

Or as The Economist explained in a virtually coterminous February 12, 2024 article : “How San Francisco staged a surprising comeback … Forget the controversy. America’s tech capital is building the future.”

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Northern California in February 2024

Posted: February 5th, 2024 | No Comments »
City of Albany, Caklifornia in foreground, with Albany Hill closer to east shore of San Francisco Bay, and City of San Francisco off in the distance on west shore of the Bay.

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2024. Tomorrow most of us among the editorial staff here will be off on our regular visit with technical support staff, now in Albany, California — “on the east shore of San Francisco Bay in northwestern Alameda County … population … 20,271 at the 2020 census.”

Albany, California has a somewhat intriguing history. The area’s “ first known residents,” were the “Costanoans (coast dwellers) or Ohlone” who “lived at the base of Albany Hill along Cerrito Creek … until the early 19th Century, when the Spanish land barons arrived.”

Michael Seward, Family Grouping. 2024. Acrylic. 32” x 40”.

In 1820 “the King of Spain granted a large portion of the East Bay to Don Luis Maria Peralta, who then divided the land among his three sons. Jose Domingo received the northern portion, which included the area of Berkeley and Albany, and used the land for cattle farming.”

The Mexican-American War (1846–1848) and the California gold rush (1848–1855) led to the establishment of California as 31st state of the anglophone USA on September 9, 1850. For a time the area that is now Albany manufactured dynamite. Then in 1906 “the great San Francisco earthquake and fire” led to a “large migration of families from San Francisco to the East Bay.”

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Re Fani Willis — remember Bill Barr on Trump : “Our country can’t be a therapy session for a troubled man like this”

Posted: January 27th, 2024 | No Comments »
Michael Seward, Conception. 2024. Acrylic. 28”sq.

NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO . SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 2024. (UPDATE FEBRUARY 3 : See Below). I recently read “A Reality Check on the Fani Willis Scandal … Is Trump’s Georgia prosecution about to get derailed?” It’s on the POLITICO site, and it’s by “Ankush Khardori, an attorney and former federal prosecutor in the U.S. Justice Department,” and “a POLITICO Magazine contributing writer.”

This inevitably prompted me to re-examine my own enthusiastic discovery of Ms Willis, as commemorated in a counterweights piece late this past August : ”What Fani Willis has done in Georgia means that Donald Trump is finally not going to get away with his un-creative destruction of democracy in America.”

Having now re-read my earlier piece, I think I’m happy enough to report that it does not live up to the hyperbole of its too-long title seriously. It ends on a note of “makes me think I’m going to have to pray a lot harder than usual!” And of course I wouldn’t go along with quite the same hyperbolic title in January 2024 as I did in August 2023.

In January 2024, eg, there is also much on US TV to suggest that this coming November 5 Donald Trump might not just get away with his past un-creative destruction of democracy in America. He could suddenly be in charge of some new plutocratic autocracy still known as the American republic, but built on the gigantic lie that Trump is the strong arm of some traditional American common man (and his female partner).

Ankush Khardori’s Reality Check on the Fani Willis Scandal

”Fani Willis and Nathan Wade, right, allegedly took lavish trips together, his ex-wife alleges. Getty Images” (NY Post).

Ankush Khardori summarizes the so-called Fani Willis scandal as follows :

“The allegations are far from clear-cut, but here are the basic outlines: Earlier this month, a lawyer for Michael Roman, one of Trump’s co-defendants in the case, filed a motion claiming that Willis and lead prosecutor Nathan Wade have been having a romantic relationship. Willis hired Wade, a private sector lawyer who appears to have limited experience working on complex criminal matters, and he has reportedly been paid more than $600,000 for his work on the prosecution.”

Khardori goes on : “The motion asserts that Wade and Willis have been taking vacations using the fees that Wade has been paid and argues that Willis and Wade have been “profiting significantly from this prosecution at the expense of the taxpayers.” The motion also claims that the two may have committed federal crimes, citing a law known as the honest-services fraud statute.”

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Understanding the Conservative double-digit lead in Canadian opinion polls

Posted: January 16th, 2024 | No Comments »
Michael Seward, In the Woods at Night. 2024. Acrylic. 42”. X 54”.

RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO. TUESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2024. The day before yesterday polling guru Philippe J. Fournier @338Canada urged that in the world of Canadian federal politics : “For those counting, this is the 6th consecutive month the Conservatives have been leading the Liberals by double-digits … That’s a stretch longer than Sheer’s lead post-SNC in 2019 or O’Toole’s brief lead in 2021.”

Like many others, I do want to understand all this. And for starters I also think that the double-digit lead between the first and second place parties in opinion polls (to say nothing of the inevitably speculative seat projections for six federal parties) can be more than a little misleading, in trying to understand the political real world.

The 338Canada numbers most relevant to the real world

L to r : Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet, and Green Leader Elizabeth May. Photos Andrew Meade and Sam Garcia.

The Trudeau Liberals and Singh New Democrats, that is to say, are co-operating on a quite flexible but still written agreement, intended to fund and win confidence votes for the Trudeau government, more or less until the next “fixed-date” election in the early fall of 2025.

Similarly, as of M. Fournier’s latest January 14, 2024 update of his 338Canada polling averages, the Liberals and New Democrats together have 45% of the cross-Canada popular vote, compared to the Conservatives 40%. Moreover if you add the Green Party to the LIB-NDP numbers there is a cross-Canada progressive vote of 50%.

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Is the “free and democratic society” riding on the outcome of more than 60 elections around the global village in 2024?

Posted: January 5th, 2024 | No Comments »
Michael Seward, Homage to Tom Thomson. 2024.

NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO . FRIDAY, JANUARY 5, 2024. The US elections on November 5, 2024 are almost certainly the most interesting and fateful events in the new year now at hand.

As yet another sign of the post-American global village before us, however, no less than Time magazine has explained that : “Globally, more voters than ever in history will head to the polls as at least 64 countries (plus the European Union) — representing a combined population of about 49% of the people in the world” — are also “meant to hold national elections” in 2024 — “the results of which, for many, will prove consequential for years to come.”

US (and other) concerns about the prospects of a second Donald Trump administration (an oxymoron in its own right) have analogues elsewhere as well. As Ishaan Tharoor has recently urged in The Washington Post : “The outcomes of pivotal elections in the United States — the world’s oldest democracy — and India — the world’s largest — may underscore a deepening public appetite for norm-bending strongman rule. In their shadow, elections from Mexico to the European Union to Bangladesh may each offer their own showcase of the growing traction of nationalist, authoritarian politics.”

National elections around the world in 2024!

Peter Loewen has similarly urged in the Toronto Star : “With elections in the US and India, 2024 could be the most important year in the history of democracy … India and the United States represent nearly one fifth of the global population. Elections in both countries will be a fundamental test of democratic resilience and character that will have major consequences for global politics.”

Almost at the very end of 2023 Doug Saunders urged some parallel thoughts in the Toronto-based Globe and Mail : “Half the world is holding elections in 2024. Democracy’s future is riding on the outcome … Billions of adults go to the polls next year, including in nations where democracy is in poor health. Will they slip further into illiberalism, or start climbing to freedom?”

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Liz Cheney’s Memoir and Warning makes you wonder more and more : Just what is going to happen to the USA in 2024?

Posted: December 24th, 2023 | No Comments »
Michael Seward, Fellow Travellers 2023. Acrylic. 24” x

SPECIAL FROM L. FRANK BUNTING, GRAND BEND, ON. 23 DECEMBER 2023. My wife read Cassidy Hutchinson’s book. (In 2023 and 2024 Ms. Hutchinson may be the closest we have to John W. Dean in 1973 and 1974?) And for one wild moment a few days ago I thought I might do the same with Liz Cheney’s Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning — “a scathing account of Donald Trump’s assault on democracy and urgent plea for America to avoid a repeat,” which “debuted at No 1 on the New York Times’s bestseller list.”

Book reviewer Robin Abcarian wishing the world a happy new year.

In pursuit of this thought I read Robin Abcarian’s recent review in The Los Angeles Times. Ms Abcarian certainly found the book well worth reading : “You don’t read a book like former Wyoming U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney’s tell-all looking for literary pearls … You read it to find out what was going on behind the scenes in Congress after the 2020 election, as Donald Trump’s Republican sycophants and enablers schemed with him to overturn the results of a legitimate U.S. election.”

Robin Abcarian also aptly notes that “Liz Cheney is one of the few heroic, high-profile Republicans who were willing to do the right thing after the 2020 election, even if it meant sacrificing her job and her political prospects.”

She is no doubt, an altogether serious conservative politician, whose father Dick Cheney worked long and hard to push the George W. Bush administration in directions that are certainly anathema to me. But to see someone like her stand up against Donald Trump’s Republican sycophants and enablers who schemed to overturn the results of a legitimate U.S. election is an inspiring and even reassuring thing to a (more or less) “North American liberal” such as myself.

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