Especially in countries like Canada, it is important for political leaders to surprise the people from time to time, to keep our interest up. And federal Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has done just that, in his appointment of retiring Manitoba New Democrat Premier Gary Doer as Canada’s new ambassador to the United States. In […]

The answer is of course Stephen Harper – back in January 1996, when he had less experience with Canada’s wicked capital city. (And thanks to such twitterers here as ktorrie – who also notes “Stephen Harper is unequalled in Canadian history as the only Prime Minister to make 27 Senate appointments in a single year.”) […]

If you share any degree of progressive political sympathies, almost anywhere, it is hard not to be saddened by the death of US Senator Edward M. Kennedy late last night. He has been called “a Rabelaisian figure.” And he no doubt had his share of human foibles, not the least of which was the 1969 […]

We still have [Dr.] Frank Bunting hard at work on a deep think-piece about the real prospects of yet another Canadian federal election this fall. But he has just told us that everything has been suddenly blurred by two conflicting opinion polls that came out at the start of this week. An Ipsos Reid survey, […]

[UPDATED AUGUST 24,  25, 27]. We first heard the (almost certainly false?) prophecy that the Bank of Montreal is in some kind of quite serious difficulty from twitterings on the net. One source is something called Washington’s Blog, which posted a short piece headlined “Is the Bank of Montreal (Canada’s 4th Largest Bank) About to […]

In today’s Globe and Mail Michael Byers of the University of British Columbia reviews Branding Canada: Projecting Canada’s Soft Power Through Public Diplomacy, by Evan H. Potter, a former civil servant with Foreign Affairs in Ottawa, who now teaches at Carleton University. The review is headlined “Who do they think we are?” And it starts […]

The Vancouver Sun thinks “A Halloween election would be … frightening.” Prime Minister Harper himself has said “I can assure you that I do not intend to trigger an election.” (Whatever that means?) Another Canadian federal election may nonetheless be upon us before the end of 2009. We have commissioned a deeper report from our […]

We were saddened to hear that Ted “Teeder” Kennedy, who played centre for the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey club in the 1940s and 1950s – and helped them win five Stanley Cups – passed away in Port Colborne, Ontario on August 14, 2009, at the age of 83. We are pleased, however, that we managed […]

Present-day fans of the Toronto representatives in the National Hockey League will find it inconceivable. But Ted “Teeder” Kennedy, “perhaps the quintessential Maple Leaf” (or just “quintessential Leaf“), played centre for only 14 seasons in the 1940s and 1950s, and was actually “PART OF FIVE STANLEY CUP VICTORIES.” Alas, the hockey-star Ted Kennedy of the […]

[UPDATED AUGUST 14]. As you nurse your gin and tonic on the dock, you may be getting inebriated enough to wonder about Canadian federal politics. Another “nationwide survey conducted by the Strategic Counsel for the Globe and Mail and CTV News [taken between July 29 and August 3, but released on August 11] found 34 […]