All entries by this author

Happy birthday Harold Innis, on the day after the night of the Canadian constitutional long knives, 1981

Nov 7th, 2011 | By | Category: Ottawa Scene

The 30th anniversary of the day after the Canadian Night of the Long Knives – when “on November 5th, 1981, a radiant Trudeau announced the deal that had been reached with the nine provinces” and a “fuming Lévesque looked on” – has already been commemorated, at various places on and off the world wide web. […]



How to elect Governor General in Canada .. study poet Michael Higgins’ victory as new Irish President!

Oct 29th, 2011 | By | Category: In Brief

BBC News Europe is reporting that: “The Labour Party’s Michael D Higgins has been officially confirmed as the ninth Irish president after one of the most remarkable comebacks in the state’s history … The poet and campaigner received 701,101 first-preference votes – almost 40% of the total … His victory over one-time favourite Sean Gallagher […]



Two cheers for Nathan Cullen’s “plan to unite the ‘left’ that just might work”?

Oct 20th, 2011 | By | Category: Key Current Issues

Not that anyone is paying much attention (right now). But we’d just like to add our voices of support (or at least special interest) for the federal NDP leadership candidacy of Nathan Cullen – MP for the vast northern BC riding of Skeena-Bulkley Valley. A few weeks ago, Barbara Yaffe noted in the Vancouver Sun […]



McGuinty says no coalition (again) .. counterweights offices closed for autumn retreat, October 8—18, 2011

Oct 7th, 2011 | By | Category: In Brief

The last seven posts on this blog – on the October 6 Ontario election, in which Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals have now won a so-called “major minority” – have all been written by the same individual (and he is very individual). So why, you might well ask, are the rest of the counterweights editors, and other […]



Rob Ford’s revolution in Toronto may fade .. but in Ottawa Stephen Harper will still be going strong!

Sep 19th, 2011 | By | Category: In Brief

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2011. The Canadian House of Commons returns to work today, after its usual long summer vacation (once an essential break for family farmers, for whom summer was the crucial busy season). According to the lovely Jennifer Ditchburn at The Canadian Press, after “tributes to late NDP leader Jack Layton” are paid in […]



Can Brian Topp do it .. just how much of a transformation in Canadian federal politics is underway anyway?

Sep 13th, 2011 | By | Category: Ottawa Scene

“Can Lloyd George Do It?” is the title of a 1929 tract by John Maynard Keynes and Hubert Douglas Henderson on the economic policy of the fading British Liberal Party of the day. (As the Duke University economist E. Roy Weintraub put it a few years ago, in commenting on a New York Times column […]



Ontario’s oil security .. a looming issue (almost) no one is talking about in the October 6 election campaign?

Sep 6th, 2011 | By | Category: In Brief

A casual encounter with the Business News Network (BNN) the other day suddenly brought some of us face to face with what could be a looming issue of some importance for the mid to longer term economic development of what, say whatever else you like, remains Canada’s most populous province, by some considerable distance. But […]



“Merger” isn’t the real issue for Canadian progressives right now .. but three cheers for Pat Martin anyway ..

Aug 31st, 2011 | By | Category: In Brief

According to today’s Globe and Mail: “The push for a merger between the [federal] Liberal Party and the NDP has quickly become a major issue among the growing field of candidates to replace Jack Layton … The top contenders for the NDP leadership – party president Brian Topp and House Leader Thomas Mulcair – are […]



Rest in peace Jack Layton .. “Optimism is better than despair”

Aug 22nd, 2011 | By | Category: In Brief

It was less than a month ago (Monday, July 25, 2011) that Jack Layton announced: “ I have a new, non-prostate cancer that will require further treatment … So, on the advice of my doctors, I am going to focus on treatment and recovery … I will therefore be taking a temporary leave of absence […]



Disciplining the bond vigilantes with the Province of Ontario Savings Office .. a teachable moment from the 1930s

Aug 8th, 2011 | By | Category: In Brief

The Sage of Omaha, Warren Buffet, may have come up with the wittiest pronouncement on Standard and Poor’s downgrade of the US credit rating from AAA to AA+. It “doesn’t make sense,” he has said: “The US, to my knowledge, owes no money in currency other than the US dollar, which it can print at […]