In this past Monday’s New Brunswick election, Shawn Graham’s incumbent Liberal government won a mere 13 of 55 seats in the provincial legislature, with 34% of the popular vote. David Alward’s Progressive Conservative opposition won a very comfortable new majority government, with 42 seats and 49% of the popular vote. (Neither the New Democrats, with […]
Tuesday, September 28, 2010 is the 10th anniversary of the death of Pierre Trudeau, 15th prime minister of the modern Canadian confederation (and in office for 15 years, five months, and a little more than one week:1968—1979, 1980—1984). Bruce Cheadle in the Globe and Mail and Randy Boswell in all of the Vancouver Sun, Windsor […]
Ever since Canada definitively became An Actual Democracy in the early 20th century (at the very least), its unreformed, “relic-of-the-19th-century” Senate has generally refrained from trying to defeat legislation duly passed by a majority of the democratically elected Canadian House of Commons. A merely appointed Senate in an actual democracy that tried to actually exercise […]
[UPDATED SEPTEMBER 22, 11 PM ET]. There is still probably a small question mark beside the fate of the long gun registry in the Canadian House of Commons on Wednesday, September 22, sometime after 5:30 PM ET. But as the Globe and Mail has reported, assuming no further surprises between now and then, the decision […]
Overimpressed by Malene Arpe’s vain plea in the newspaper, “I wish that just once, everyone would turn on the glam for Toronto,” we had dressed up, slightly – or at least more than we usually do. It was strange enough that when our Rastifarian neighbour walked by, while we were waiting for the streetcar, he […]
[UPDATED SEPTEMBER 16: SEE BELOW.] Much has been written and otherwise communicated about the federal long-gun registry in Canada lately. One of the more sensible commentaries has been Andrew Coyne’s piece in Macleans.ca last Friday, “The long-gun registry’s value is only symbolic.” Mr. Coyne writes (not without a suitably sardonic Canadian sense of political humour, […]
Why is the ninth anniversary of the September 11 disaster in the USA suddenly such a poignant occasion? The 10th anniversary next year would seem a reasonable time for retrospective hand-wringing. But the ninth? Why make a fuss about that? The obvious answer is that 2010 is an election year. Only “mid-terms”: President Obama does […]
Unlike their Canadian counterparts, Australian voters are not enamoured of minority governments at the federal level. Until 17 days ago that is. That’s when the Labor Party Prime Minister and the Liberal Party Opposition Leader both claimed they should form the next government because both ended up with 73 seats in the 150-seat national parliament. […]
Dark clouds hang over Labor Day 2010 in the USA – with what at least seem right now to be growing prospects of strong anti-labor Republican inroads in this year’s mid-term elections. Something about today’s exotic variations on the long tradition of North American labour struggles appears in the news that “Detroit AFL-CIO President Saundra […]
“Well, it’s a long, long time from May to December. But the days grow short when you reach September.” The Canadian House of Commons did not return from its leisurely summer vacation until Monday, September 20 (also the day when “Dancing With the Stars” started its new season in the USA). But even before the […]
