Archive for June 2009

Canada Day 2009 : Percy Robinson and the reluctant Canadian republic

Jun 28th, 2009 | By | Category: Canadian Republic

TORONTO. SUNDAY, JUNE 28, 2009. The Canada Day that looms ahead this year is looking a bit gloomy in Canada’s most populous metropolis. As just one of many cases in point, an Ontario cabinet minister from faraway Windsor has called Torontonians “babies” for complaining about a garbage strike right when the weather gets hot. Premier […]



What does change in Nova Scotia mean?

Jun 20th, 2009 | By | Category: Canadian Provinces

SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 2009. On a day when politically obsessed people around the world are haunted by the latest tense reports about Fierce clashes on streets of Tehran, it may seem a bit quaint to pay brief homage to yesterday’s installation of Darrell Dexter’s first New Democratic government in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. […]



Michael Ignatieff’s true Grit adventures

Jun 17th, 2009 | By | Category: Ottawa Scene

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 2009. “No summer election as Harper, Ignatieff reach deal” is the headline for a Canadian Press story run in the Halifax Chronicle Herald today. Yahoo Canada is carrying a later revised version, re-titled “MPs brace for fall election as summer vote averted.” Other variations include “Harper and Ignatieff reach deal” (Globe and […]



There’s Pontiac .. then there’s Pontiac .. both worth a few historical tears

Jun 5th, 2009 | By | Category: Heritage Now

Mostly, the historian Jill Lepore wrote in a New Yorker article a few months ago, “we’re bankrupt of history.” And in the wake of General Motors’ April 27, 2009 decision to discontinue the manufacture of Pontiac automobiles (and the still more recent GM filing for US bankruptcy protection on June 1), the historian Gordon Mitchell […]



Murder on the Bruce Peninsula revisited .. again .. and again .. and again

Jun 4th, 2009 | By | Category: Crime Stories

UPDATED NOVEMBER 4, 2009, JANUARY 9, 2011, and JANUARY 13, 2011. In Ontario today, as in so many other places no doubt, the rule of law often seems to move at what can only strike we ordinary citizens and taxpayers as an astoundingly glacial pace. It was more than 16 months ago now that  the 57-year-old Dr. […]