They don’t take up much space in the 41st Parliament of Canada, which has just begun a very short housekeeping session, before fleeing for the traditional summer break. The future of the once high and mighty federal Liberals after their massacre this past May 2 nonetheless continues to attract attention. Among key current written texts […]

It was not that long ago that even seasoned observers of Ontario politics who did not like Dalton McGuinty were agreeing he was probably close enough for jazz to a “three peat.” He was the likely winner of three straight provincial elections – the Premier Dad who was looking more and more like the very […]

[UPDATED]. The Globe and Mail’s online poll on “Is the Conservative Party committed to reforming the Senate?” (38% Yes and 62% No, as of today) could be read as suggesting that only those who voted for Mr. Harper’s party on May 2 still believe in its public commitments on this front. Yet according to John […]

The 41st Parliament of Canada has not even held its first meeting quite yet. But already Jack Layton’s new Quebec-majority NDP official opposition is showing just how different it is from anything the federal New Democrats have ever known before. Former Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis, son of former federal leader David Lewis (silent partner […]

You sound more elegant when you speak French, Pierre Trudeau told his children. Those of us who don’t really speak French will never quite know what this means. But we can catch a glimmer of it when we read in Le Devoir that “Le Torontois Bob Rae est devenu le chef intérimaire du Parti libéral […]

Considering that we admire and support the Middle Eastern rebels fighting to oust corrupt, undemocratic governments, it’s odd that we don’t give greater recognition to the Canadian popular uprisings which tried to achieve the same thing. In the 1830s the governments of Upper and Lower Canada – what are now Ontario and Quebec, respectively –  […]

On this May 24 holiday weekend there can be no doubt that the early 21st century has launched some kind of new Canada. Or, more aptly perhaps, in the wake of the May 2, 2011 Canadian federal election the “next Canada” that John Ibbitson was saying “will not be denied forever,” in the wake of […]

[UPDATED MAY 19, 20]. There is at least a strong perception that Senate reform will be one of the key issues on the early agenda of the new Harper majority government in Ottawa. (See, eg: “New momentum for Senate reform” and “Then it will be on to Senate reform.”) In speculating about today’s much-touted federal […]

Late in January 2009 I posted an article headlined “Whatever happened to Merella Fernandez?” on this excellent website. It started out with “‘Who cares about local media personalities in Toronto, Canada?’ is a good question.” And it finally answered this question with: “The local Toronto media personality Merella Fernandez is so cute and multiculturally interesting, […]

Several years ago I was at a conference on Canadian disaster management, where provincial representatives agreed that flooding was a recurrent problem shared by everyone – and quite arguably the first priority for any joint cross-Canada disaster mitigation policy. It never makes business sense to offer insurance against something almost bound to happen. And in […]