Archive for July 2011

Let’s still not call it “Simcoe Day” .. Ontario remains a bigger place in a better Canada now (even with Stephen Harper)

Jul 30th, 2011 | By | Category: In Brief

Last year the civic holiday held on the first Monday of August – in various Canadian provinces and territories – fell on Monday, August 2. On the same day the Toronto Star published an article arguing that: “Today is Simcoe Day in Toronto, a holiday named in honour of the first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, […]



Down to the wire on debt-ceiling blues .. US economic royalists are back, but hardly anyone is calling their bluff

Jul 28th, 2011 | By | Category: In Brief

To start with, it may seem ironic that the Vancouver Sun (no doubt like other Postmedia News outlets in Canada) has chosen one of “Britain’s leading business and economics commentators” (Jeremy Warner at the right-wing Daily Telegraph) to explain why “America cannot lead the world if it abandons principles.” On closer inspection it is quite […]



Very best wishes to Jack Layton .. too valuable a contribution to do without

Jul 25th, 2011 | By | Category: In Brief

TORONTO. MONDAY, JULY 25, 2011. 3:40 PM ET. The photo that appeared on the Toronto Star website less than an hour ago says a great deal, if not quite everything. As federal New Democrat leader Jack Layton has explained to his fellow New Democrats (in a statement subsequently made public in Toronto this afternoon): “In […]



RIP .. Elwy Yost and Amy Winehouse .. two very different lives and deaths

Jul 23rd, 2011 | By | Category: In Brief

Beyond their shared humanity, Elwy Yost, the Canadian former host of the TV Ontario show Saturday Night at the Movies, and Amy Winehouse, the English “singer-songwriter, known for her powerful contralto vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres,” had almost nothing in common – except that they both died during the third full week […]



Catching up with UK hacking scandal .. Rebekah Brooks (nee Wade/Mrs. Ross Kemp) and Wendi Deng Murdoch!

Jul 21st, 2011 | By | Category: In Brief

TORONTO, CANADA. JULY 21, 2011. My first reaction when the latest and apparently most serious phase of the UK “phone hacking scandal” hit the local press a few weeks ago was: when will the new international management at the Globe and Mail discover that Canada is no longer the first self-governing dominion of the British […]



Bored to death in Ontario government and politics .. or do strange surprises lie ahead, after all this heat?

Jul 18th, 2011 | By | Category: In Brief

“Tell me why this coming Ontario election isn’t going to bore me to death,” a friend  who pays only a respectable citizen’s dutiful attention to politics asked a few weeks ago. And I’ve been trying to come up with a suitable response ever since. Right now, with the headline “Northern Ontario battles 92 wildfires as […]



What a difference a decade makes .. why are Sun newspapers dragging up PM Harper on bilingualism 6 May 2001?

Jul 15th, 2011 | By | Category: In Brief

You might wonder why today’s Toronto Sun includes “an edited version of a column that originally appeared in the Calgary Sun in 2001” –  by a Stephen Harper who was then merely the  president of the National Citizens’ Coalition. (For the record, it should be noted that the same  “edited version of a column” etc […]



Case of the vanishing gravy train … Has the Tory Toronto revival hit a bump in the road already?

Jul 13th, 2011 | By | Category: In Brief

I have vast respect for Bob Hepburn at the Toronto Star. But I was sceptical about his argument two weeks ago in “Ford honeymoon ends with Pride snub.” Yet by the time former TTC chief general manager Michael Warren reported on “Ford Nation’s grim future” – in the same newspaper just one week ago – […]



The debt-ceiling blues .. what does latest crazy Washington game of chicken mean way up north?

Jul 11th, 2011 | By | Category: In Brief

[UPDATED JULY 12, 2011]. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) is apparently abandoning “effort for $4 trillion in deficit reductions … in the face of stiff GOP opposition to any plan that would increase taxes as part of the deal.” But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R – Kentucky) has nonetheless declared that “Nobody is […]



Three cheers for creeping republicanism in Canada .. one day it will turn us into a real country!

Jul 8th, 2011 | By | Category: Canadian Republic

FRIDAY, JULY 8, 2011, 11 AM PT. As reported by the Los Angeles Times: “Prince William and his wife, Catherine … will arrive at Los Angeles International Airport in the late afternoon, where they will be greeted by California Gov. Jerry Brown and his wife, Anne Gust Brown; Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; and the […]