COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2023. One week from today the Canadian province of Manitoba (“marking the longitude centre of Canada”geographically) will hold what could prove a historic provincial election. On one channel the election will be a test of provincial New Democratic parties in Western Canada — like the Alberta election this […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. SATURDAY, JULY 1, 2023. The dread Canadian wildfires of late spring/early summer 2023 affect Canadian as well as US cities, suburbs, exurbs, rural small towns, rural townships, district townships (in Northern Ontario) and (especially in Canada) the still quite vast North American wilderness beyond. And in some parts of the second […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 2023. This past Thursday night we watched a cp24 debate among what cp24 regards as the “seven top candidates vying to lead Toronto” in the unusual mayoral byelection this coming Monday, June 26 — only nine days hence. The seven leaders are, in alphabetical order by surname : […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. MAY 30, 31, 2023. If the question was will the May 29 election in the fourth-largest, oil-and-gas-rich Canadian province of Alberta be more like the May 14 election in Thailand (vaguely progressive, maybe), or the May 14 and 28 elections in Turkey (quite conservative), the clear answer is the still intriguing […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. MAY 6, 2023. Almost by accident we have stumbled across a (for us) especially sensible way of commemorating the events of today back in the old imperial metropolis across the seas. Recently our colleague Randall White completed the last or concluding draft chapter of his political-history work in progress, Children of […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. APRIL 14, 2023. Wiser heads than ours have remarked that Canadian federal politics today reflects the consequences of “proportional representation” elections without actually having proportional representation. Stephen Harper’s new Conservative Party of Canada had one majority and two minority governments between 2006 and 2015. And now Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party of […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. MARCH 1, 2023. This morning’s editorial meeting tabled a two-page pdf file headlined “London Declaration, United Kingdom, 1949.” The suggestion was that this is a document not much remembered in the 2020s. But it is nonetheless of serious interest in the current post-Elizabeth II debate on practical alternatives to the increasingly […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. JANUARY 20, 2023. We’re still digesting a January 7, 2023 tweet from an admittedly very progressive voice : “Toronto is a desperate city. More police funds won’t fix it … Star https etc.” The recommended link here leads to an equally arresting (and longer) Shawn Micallef piece in the Saturday Toronto […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. DECEMBER 26, 2022. Before rushing into the Top 4 counterweights stories in the third quarter of 2022, we just want to note an intriguing piece posted today on the Nunatsiaq News site, called “Reflection: Mary Simon tour a rewarding reporting experience … Jeff Pelletier looks back on covering Governor General’s Nunavik […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. DECEMBER 20, 2022. According to Philippe J. Fournier’s latest 338Canada polling update on December 18, the federal Conservatives are still somewhat ahead of the Liberals in cross-Canada popular vote — 34% to 32%. Yet the Conservative vote is still heavily concentrated in the two most westerly Prairie provinces. The Liberals would […]