The grandfather of one of we (various and intermittent) counterweights editors used to say that it was “A Great Day for Canada” on his own birthday. And it has long seemed to us that there is something quite admirably as well as agonizingly Canadian about this kind of practice. In any case, with July 1, […]
The genius of the traditional “Westminster” or British-style cabinet system is or at least was supposed to be that it is an authentically collegial or team-management approach to the increasingly complicated adventures of government by popularly elected officials. Any modern parliamentary democracy is far too complicated to be navigated by the mind of just one […]
I was complaining not too long ago, to someone fortunately wiser than I am, about how TVOntario has not lived up to the promise of its creation in the early 1970s. To no small extent, I said, it had become (in my own less-than-systematic perception at any rate) just another vehicle for the North American […]
UPDATED JULY 9: At least some Ontario Progressive Conservative members of the Legislative Assembly reacted quickly and nastily to their party’s (and their party leader’s) considerably worse-than-expected results in the June 12 provincial election. So far, the Ontario New Democrat reaction has been quieter and less noticeable. (Partly, some might say, because Andrea Horwath’s NDP […]
Yes Virginia there is life north of the Great Lakes after the June 12, 2014 Ontario election. And here in fact is growing evidence that there actually may or may not be a Great Spirit of Canada : (1) On Tuesday, June 10, 2014 Reuters reported that : “US Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has […]
In one way or another history will no doubt record that the Ontario general election of June 12, 2014 was a highly nuanced phenomenon. To start with, Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals have won a six-seat majority in the Legislative Assembly with a mere 39% of the province-wide popular vote [UPDATE JUNE 14 : a recount in […]
The editors tell me this is the last posting on the (first?) Ontario election of 2014 that counterweights will publish before the actual vote tomorrow. So I have one or two housekeeping matters to attend to, before getting into my main subject of declining voter turnout in Ontario (and elsewhere in the free and democratic […]
This past Sunday we promised that in “our next posting we counterweights editors will be gratuitously and no doubt vainly and pointlessly making our own mini-endorsement of someone or something for the June 12 Ontario election.” We keep our promises (even when they were foolish in the first place). And we are now happy to […]
With a mere four (or three?) days to the ultimate moment of truth, two articles from this weekend’s Globe and Mail may or may not summarize the current state of the campaigning art in Ontario’s current democratic consultation with the regional people. The first is “‘Desperate’ rivals left to stir up trouble, Wynne says” by […]
UPDATED JUNE 5. I just drew the short straw here at the office. I have to stay late and do a quick report on the Ontario election 2014 leader’s debate on TV : Tuesday, June 3, 6:30—8:00 PM ET. There is, as best I can tell, something of an early consensus somewhere that Liberal leader […]
