Sgolne Royal – the glamorous Socialist candidate in the upcoming French presidential election (round one on April 22) – first made the Canadian news recently when she “sparked a diplomatic row by backing demands for the French-speaking province [of Quebec] to split from Canada.” Now the deepest significance of this event has been clarified by […]

Is it all just wishful thinking? Or is “the left” in various parts of North America starting to show more spunk and savvy than it has for, oh say the past generation? The George W. Bush who gave the January 23, 2007 State of the Union address was, as The Washington Post reported, “politically wounded […]

Now that three full weeks of 2007 have elapsed, how is the new year shaping up? In some ways it all depends on where you are. In Iraq General Casey has said that “extra US troops ordered to Baghdad could begin leaving by late summer.” Closer to home, there are conflicting reports about Fidel Castro’s […]

The Academy Awards used to be all that counted. But these days the Golden Globes, whose 64th edition hit the US TV airwaves on Monday, January 15, “generally ranks as the third most-watched awards show each year, behind the Oscars and the Grammys.” This year there has been an undercurrent of criticism about the Globes, […]

Whatever may or may not be the leading edge in Ottawa these days (to say nothing of Washington, DC), the first few weeks of 2007 have been notable elsewhere for fresh bubblings about Canadian multiculturalism in the news. Two new studies from the Montreal-based Institute for Research on Public Policy have helped turn the heat […]

At the opening of the new and (more or less) Democrat-controlled US Congress on January 4, such progressive luminaries as Daniel Ellsberg, Cindy Sheehan, and Gore Vidal took to the streets to urge that “the House of Representatives immediately initiate Articles of Impeachment” against President George W. Bush, for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” If Bill Clinton deserved […]

THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 2007. The Globe and Mail‘s news of the birth of Pierre- Emmanuel Trudeau, “two weeks ago in a Montreal hospital,” has a perhaps appropriate certain formality to it. Now we the Canadian people know, in any case, that the son of Alexandre Trudeau and Zoe Bedos was born on December 22, 2006. […]