In the land of the friendly giant next door, the year began with the at least somewhat hopeful inauguration of Barack Obama’s second term. (And then ended, sadly for us at any rate, with a progressive American president in more trouble than we’d like to see.) Meanwhile, much closer to our particular home and native […]
We went without electricity for about 28 hours at our house – in the east end of the old city of Toronto, down by the lake. According to the latest estimate, “69,800 customers were still without power Wednesday evening [December 25], four days after a massive ice storm struck the city, knocking down tree branches […]
Here in the new wild-and-crazy City of Toronto “left-wing kooks” is a term most memorably applied by the dean of Canadian hockey commentators, Don Cherry, at the inauguration of Mayor Rob Ford, some three years ago now. (As in : “Rob’s honest, he’s truthful…I say he’s going to be the greatest mayor this city has […]
It may be a harbinger of things to come in Canada that the last few weeks of 2013 are showing fresh signs of creative motion in la belle province. Personally I hope this proves correct. I grew up in the Greater Toronto Area (and its somewhat still wider region) in the 1950s and 1960s. And […]
You may have already noticed that we have been commemorating an unusual number of 50th anniversaries during the year that is now winding down to its inexorable conclusion, some three weeks hence. A few weeks ago a newspaper in Ocala, Florida (locally said to be “well known as a ‘horse capital of the world’”) noted […]
There must be something to the recurrent suggestions this year that Stephen Harper will (well, may, at least) resign as Prime Minister of Canada and Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, on his own initiative at some point in the not too distant future. This past March we reported on the TV Ontario political […]
If it is true, as Citizen X will apparently be vaguely alluding to in these pages soon, that 1963 was “The Year Everything Happened,” then it may also be true that 2013 – an even half century later – has been The Year Everything Crazy Happened. Assuming this is at least half-true, I herewith hastily […]
Back in the middle of April, just after Justin Trudeau had been elected new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, former prime minister Jean Chretien boldly prophesied : “Today marks the beginning of the end of this Conservative government.” Now that we’ve reached December, it almost looks like 2013 just may the year when […]
