About

watrud

Counterweights is a political blogazine with a Canadian focus. Through no fault of our own, our editorial offices are in Toronto, Ontario.

Technical support is currently in Albany, California (just north of Berkeley) — and sometimes in Jerry Brown’s beautiful downtown Oakland … and beyond in the Bay Area.

We take an interest in our wider North American and global environments. And we identify with our local Toronto and Ontario regional contexts at the other end of the scale. We see culture, economics, and history (and even murder and sports!) as crucial background.

The name is taken from Pierre Trudeau’s Foreword to his 1968 book, Federalism and the French Canadians: “There is thus the danger that mass media … constitute a vehicle for error … The theory of checks and balances … has always had my full support. It translates into practical terms the concept of equilibrium that is inseparable from freedom in the realm of ideas … My political action, or my theory – insomuch as I can be said to have one – can be expressed very simply: create counterweights.”

The site was launched in the summer of 2004, in response to a dockside debate in the northern woods. The current counterweights editors are committed to carrying on (somewhat less frequently than in more youthful years?) until the altogether completion of the Randall White book project currently being provisionally published in the site section  Long Journey to a Canadian Republic.

Mirabile dictu, the text of Dr. White’s work in progress is currently complete. All that remains under construction is the bibliographical notes for the second half of the text! The official line at eastendbooks, we are told, is that an old-school print copy of the book will be available by the end of 2024 (or possibly by early 2025?). We will certainly still be here at counterweights.ca for the US federal election of 2024 — and conceivably even the Canadian federal election of 2025..

EARLY AUTUMN 2017 / LATE SPRING 2018/ MID WINTER 2020/MID AUTUMN 2022/MID SUMMER 2024.