[UPDATED DECEMBER 1]. One of the good things about Canada is that it is more serious and high-minded than other places, right? And a good example of this is the Globe and Mail – whose semi-post-modern headquarters at the edge of the lakeshore rail line into downtown Toronto still proudly proclaims “Canada’s National Newspaper”? Right […]
[UPDATED WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11, AUGUST 22, 2012 ; TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2016 : scroll to bottom of page]. Tuesday, November 29, 2011 marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Natalie Wood, aka Natalia Zakharenko, aka Natasha Gurdin, aka Natalie Wood Wagner – “a movie star, from probably the last period when stars were still […]
There’s a lot of talk about the troubled Ontario regional economy lately, that tries to paint government “big spenders” as the crucial problem. (See, eg, Terence Corcoran’s somewhat alarmist National Post article on “Ontario gets closer to EU-style crisis.”) A few recent reports in the Globe and Mail, however, point to some crucial trends in […]
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO, QUEEN’S PARK, TORONTO. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2011. Ontario throne speeches are seldom inspiring – or, some cynics might say, even interesting. The test of a good speech of this sort (others have already long ago explained) is that you can drop its unbound pages on the floor, pick them up in […]
TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA. SUNDAY 20 NOVEMBER 2011. This afternoon will see this city’s 107th annual Santa Claus Parade. From 1905 to 1982 the event was sponsored by the now defunct Eaton’s department store. Then a consortium took over. This year’s sponsors include Coca Cola, Lego, Mattel, McDonalds, Mercedes-Benz, Pfizer, Scotiabank, Shopsy’s, Sony Pictures, Tim Hortons, […]
It is more than 30 years since the ill-fated National Energy Program (NEP) in Canada began – and more than 25 years since it ended. So even the few in the most populous province who have bumped into the recent Vancouver Sun article headlined “Alberta premier tries to build bridges with Ontario on energy policy […]
The estimable Bill Maher was surprised a few weeks ago to hear that the most loyal follower of the United States – the one other country of the world which has enthusiastically joined every foreign policy adventure Washington has concocted over the past 60 years – was not Canada. (He had maybe been paying too […]
The first entry on TV Ontario’s Saturday Night At The Movies this past weekend was Geronimo : An American Legend – “directed by Walter Hill from a screenplay by John Milius” and first “released on December 10, 1993 by Columbia Pictures.” According to its Wikipedia entry this movie “had a mixed reception from critics,” and […]
[UPDATED NOVEMBER 11]. It can’t come as much of a surprise to anyone in Canada over four years old that “a new survey conducted by Leger Marketing for the National Capital Commission and the Association of Canadian Studies” has found “Canada’s [current] biggest city is also the most disliked.” As Andrew Moran at Digital Journal […]
Some will stress that the Occupy protests in Canada have been pale echoes of Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Oakland, etc. When the “Toronto-based freelance author, journalist and activist” Nick Fillmore writes about “Occupy’s impact … Spontaneous movement a catalyst and inspiration,” he urges that continuing “strong citizen-led action could result in a number of […]
