Yesterday, in a piece headed “Harper’s talent for turning,” John Geddes at Macleans.ca opined: “Anyone can look good when they’re right. More formidable is the ability to look strong when events have proven you wrong.” This seems to me nicely written, but untrue. Or, at the very least, looking strong, like beauty, must be in […]
This coming Sunday, January 23 will mark the fifth anniversary of the 2006 Canadian federal election that first brought the Harper Conservative minority government to office. And Mr. Harper himself apparently thinks there is a “50-50 chance of election this year” (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, as they used to say on Monty Python). If there […]
Just for starters, if there is not going to be a Canadian federal election this year at least one of the three opposition parties will have to vote with the Harper Conservative minority government on the budget “expected to be brought down in March.” Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff “says he wants to see the budget […]
End-of-the-year assessments are already creeping into the news – and no doubt with good enough reason. (It is, after all, already December 22.) As I contemplate my own thoughts on one of the key subjects pursued in this space, I find myself wanting to say that, in my darker moments, I sometimes think 2010 may […]
[UPDATED OCTOBER 14]. According to the customary North American prejudice, South America, while sometimes entertaining (like Ricky Ricardo on the old “I Love Lucy” TV show, eg), is for most purposes not quite up to handling the real world. At the time of writing here (October 13, 2010, 7 PM ET / 4 PM PT), […]
In this past Monday’s New Brunswick election, Shawn Graham’s incumbent Liberal government won a mere 13 of 55 seats in the provincial legislature, with 34% of the popular vote. David Alward’s Progressive Conservative opposition won a very comfortable new majority government, with 42 seats and 49% of the popular vote. (Neither the New Democrats, with […]
Dark clouds hang over Labor Day 2010 in the USA – with what at least seem right now to be growing prospects of strong anti-labor Republican inroads in this year’s mid-term elections. Something about today’s exotic variations on the long tradition of North American labour struggles appears in the news that “Detroit AFL-CIO President Saundra […]
It may just be the summer heat that does not seem to be going away this year – or my all too advancing age. But the news that “Riley Keough, the 21-year-old granddaughter of Elvis Presley” has “replaced Olivia Thirlby as Jack in ‘Jack and Diane,’ a lesbian-themed werewolf romance … due to be released […]
Two days ago NDP guru Brian Topp opined that there was only a 40% chance of a Canadian federal election this fall. Do the somewhat intriguing results of the latest EKOS poll, released today, suggest anything that might change this opinion? The immediate shortest answer is probably no. Today’s EKOS results are not all that […]
[UPDATED AUGUST 6]. Does it make any difference to the rest of Canada (to say nothing of the still wider global village) just who will be elected mayor of Canada’s current biggest city this coming October 25, 2010? The obvious answer is no, of course not. “Let’s All Hate Toronto,” and all that. But then […]
