There is certainly a case for minority government as a democratic tonic these days, especially in “Westminster” (ie British-style) parliamentary systems like Canada’s — and Ontario’s. And no one makes it better than Peter Russell. At the same time, the no doubt very small band of we the too-concerned people of Ontario, who have been [...]
I was getting all steamed up. I was ready to add my own obscure voice to the wider protest over the Canadian Mint’s insistence that Dave Gunning, the “Canadian Folk/Celtic singer-songwriter born in Pictou County, Nova Scotia,” must pay a copyright fee for the use of images of pennies on the cover of his next [...]
Not too long ago the estimable Graham Murray, publisher of the Ontario government and politics newsletter Inside Queen’s Park, circulated an excellent paper on the “46 Ontario by-elections from 1977-2010.” It concluded that these contests “did more to maintain the status quo than to transform it … [m]ost of the seats contested (32 / 69%) [...]
As Machiavelli taught long ago, lying has always been part of the modern political arts and crafts. But even he stressed the limits to the phenomenon. (“Occasionally words must serve to veil the facts. But let this happen in such a way that no one becomes aware of it …”, etc, etc.) As the unsettling [...]
Like other individuals and institutions in anglophone Canada lately, the Toronto Globe and Mail has a bit too often seemed to be trying to return to the now vanished golden age of the greatest empire since Rome, on which the sun never dared to set. This particular retro-colonial version of the Peter Pan syndrome, on [...]
Last week we heard that, out in the ancient agrarian democratic heartland of northern Southwestern Ontario, the architect Peter Ferguson has “filed an application in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in a bid to get his local Grey County council to stop praying and turning council into what he calls a ‘Christian zone.’” Or [...]
TORONTO. SATURDAY, JULY 14, 2012. This may not be the greatest city in Canada, whatever that may mean. But it sure is hot here today. I have nonetheless been asked to devote at least part of this sunny afternoon to informing all who may be interested that the relevant staff have now completed their latest [...]
This past Saturday, June 30, 2012, marked “25 years since Canada ditched its one-dollar bill in favour of a gold-coloured coin.” Every time I go to the United States, I still remember the alternative convenience of having several lightweight $1 bills in your pocket. I nonetheless agree that “while the move was somewhat controversial at [...]
This morning’s announcement of the US Supreme Court decision, more or less upholding the constitutionality of so-called “Obamacare,” was a historic moment in the global village that begs some kind of comment. Even or perhaps especially up in the wild northern attic, where we already have a health care system that actually makes sense. There [...]
In the strange spring of 2012 there is more and more evidence that the old Canadian confederation of 1867 is entering some kind of do-or-die moment in what many still see as its improbable history. My own sense is that this moment will last for quite a while (years, certainly, even a decade or more?). [...]
