All entries by this author

Canadian Navy already has a good name

Dec 6th, 2010 | By | Category: Canadian Republic

History, T.S. Eliot from St. Louis wrote long ago, has “many cunning passages” – even in places like Canada. Some radical populists who lived in Western Canada two or three generations ago would be aghast if they knew that some alleged radical populists in Western Canada today are trying to promote the ancient eastern cause […]



Do Ford in Toronto and Fantino in Vaughan mean a new blue tide will sweep Ontario in next federal election?

Dec 1st, 2010 | By | Category: In Brief

The Canadian Press has nicely captured the combined impacts of at least one (or two?) of this past Monday’s three federal by-elections, and today’s inauguration of the new conservative municipal regime in Canada’s current largest big city.  And there is at least some method to our rocket-science madness in summarizing the CP report from the […]



If Harper really is preparing his exit, what will his legacy to Canada be?

Nov 26th, 2010 | By | Category: Ottawa Scene

The news that “NL premier Danny Williams announces resignation” will bring different thoughts to different minds on the Canadian mainland. In Ontario, eg, the point that his “resignation comes before a provincial election scheduled for October” will prompt some to wonder yet again whether Dalton McGuinty, also facing a provincial election scheduled for October, and […]



The doomed Dalton McGuinty .. part deux?

Nov 23rd, 2010 | By | Category: Canadian Provinces

Two and a half weeks ago our resident Ontario historian had yet another stab at the question that still looms over Queen’s Park – ancestral homeland of the provincial government of Canada’s most populous province. (Which is currently in the midst of some economic difficulty – as it has been since, mmmm, would you believe […]



Harper’s stacked Senate defeats elected Commons bill .. it ought to be a constitutional crisis, but ..

Nov 18th, 2010 | By | Category: Key Current Issues

Not quite eight weeks ago, an article posted here raised the question: “Would the emerging new raw-patronage Conservative majority in the still unreformed and unelected Senate of Canada actually defeat even a private member’s bill duly passed by a clear majority of MPs in the elected Canadian House of Commons?” (See “More ironies of Canadian […]



Introducing Zzzzzzzzzzzzz .. this week in the global village ..

Nov 12th, 2010 | By | Category: In Brief

Ever since we acquired our new site design more than a year ago now, in the summer of 2009, we have been looking for pages to fill out the bar just beneath the masthead. We started with just “Home,” “About,” and “Links.” Then thanks to a welcome good-news message from Vancouver, late this past spring, […]



Hey MSNBC, you’ve made your point – Put Keith Olbermann Back On The Air NOW!

Nov 7th, 2010 | By | Category: USA Today

On one view of life in the cooler northern wilderness, we ought not let our minds linger too long in the southern heat of US politics. But of course what happens down there has vast influence on us up here. When we Canadians travel in the wider global village everyone thinks we are Americans anyway. […]



US midterms, selling your birthright for a mess of potash, and a streetcar named Rob Ford …

Oct 31st, 2010 | By | Category: In Brief

The big North American political news this coming week is of course the US mid-term elections on Tuesday, November 2 – which may or may not put Barack Obama and his beleaguered Democrats in some kind of dog house (and almost certainly will: the only real question is just how dirty it  will be?). Meanwhile, […]



Has Iggy been going to Mackenzie King night school : ethical mining if necessary, but not necessarily, etc, etc?

Oct 29th, 2010 | By | Category: In Brief

Concerns about how “Canada’s mining, oil and gas firms behave ethically abroad” have been a staple of  certain kinds of cocktail party and after-work-drinks conversation for several years now. And testimony from at least some in the field suggest some reasons for concern. Thus we have just had “Liberal John McKay’s private member’s bill to […]



Has a right-wing tide really swept Toronto?

Oct 26th, 2010 | By | Category: In Brief

It is of course strictly a Toronto prejudice that the results of a Toronto municipal election mean anything to anyone in any other part of the true north, strong and free, la belle province qui n’est pas comme les autres (is that the right French – probably not?) : to say nothing of any other […]