The “About” section at the top of the page explains that this 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 for at least a full decade (until the summer of 2014, that is) – and possibly […]
What a week! As we write the proroguing Harper government is scheduled to present an allegedly six-point throne speech at 5 PM ET. And it finally seems that there is serious hope for an at least temporary deal to end the almost unbelievable dysfunctional deadlock in Washington. Meanwhile, others at street level are working to […]
If you are the kind of Canadian who avidly follows American politics from the safe distance of your TV set, you will know that another Armageddon is about to be unleashed in the Excited States. (Well, probably. Nothing will be dead certain until Tuesday.) For the mind-numbing details consult, eg, “As government shutdown nears, lawmakers […]
We are reluctant to give too much credit for anything to the Harper government in Ottawa (to say nothing of federal finance minister Jim Flaherty). But today’s surprising announcement that the “federal, Ontario and British Columbia governments … have agreed to establish a co-operative securities regulator” qualifies as an unavoidable exception to the rule. As […]
In theory the Nova Scotia provincial election this coming Tuesday, October 8 will be a test of the province’s first New Democrat government under Darrell Dexter. Dexter’s governing New Democrats were elected on June 9, 2009. By all traditional measures this was a massive breakthrough – the first ever NDP provincial government in Atlantic Canada, […]
Yesterday a Toronto Star editorial opined : “Welcome to the world, eight-pound, six-ounce royal baby boy. While untold others were born on the same day to equally excited parents, no one else is third in line to the throne …” (Ultimately, the future George VII of some place, it has subsequently become clear.) At the […]
From even just a short distance beyond the actual borders of the USA, the big trouble with the Zimmerman acquittal announced last night is how can an armed (white/hispanic) man possibly shoot an unarmed (black) teenager to death in self defence? In a country where black men are still incarcerated at almost seven times the […]
An alas now vanished great friend of the counterweights editors, from a vanished era in the life of the city, used to say that he seldom agreed with the newspaper columnist Alex Barris. But he almost always read his columns because he found them stimulating. We sometimes have similar feelings about the present-day Toronto Star […]
QUEEN’S PARK, TORONTO. TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 2013. 4:45 PM. [UPDATED JUNE 12]. So (as Premier Wynne might say) the 2013 Ontario Budget bill has now passed third reading, 64—36. This may have surprised you, if you were paying serious attention to such Toronto Sun headlines as : “PCs call for former Liberal staffers to turn […]
[UPDATED MAY 25]. As this strange week in Canada’s most populous metropolis (also most domestically hated and now “internationally” laughed-at) draws to a close, Mayor Rob Ford has at last broken his silence about the “Allegedly Seen Smoking Crack” video of which he is said to be the Toronto star. Following our earlier report in […]
