UPDATE. MONDAY, APRIL 10, 11:30 PM EST. Debates on foreign policy in the parliamentary  democratic tradition, the British historian A.J.P. Taylor said long ago, conventionally pit “the stupid party” on the right against “the silly party” on the left. And there were more than a few moments when this evening’s debate on Afghanistan in the Canadian […]

UPDATE: Monday, March 6, 2006, 2 AM EST. Some people are already searching “jon stewart oscar disappointment.” Just for the record, we didn’t think he was. Politically there was no rough assault on the Bush administration. But it’s not democratically sporting to hit someone too hard when they’re already down. And there was a quiet […]

No doubt the strange vibrations coming out of Ottawa over the past two weeks could not have gone on too much longer. They were almost starting to eat away at what section 91 of the Constitution Act 1867 prescribes as “the Peace, Order, and good Government of Canada.” The trouble started on February 6, when the […]

At least many Canadians have to find it a bit odd that their new Conservative minority federal government is laying plans to ease up restrictions on long guns, just when the big news that won’t go away stateside is all about how Vice President Dick Cheney has accidentally shot one of his good friends with […]

The counterweights editors count themselves among those who do not vigorously oppose former Liberal cabinet minister David Emerson’s decision to cross the floor and join Stephen Harper’s new Conservative cabinet. But by the end of the new Harper government’s first week in office it seems clear enough that many others do. The diverse critics include […]

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2006. What a difference half-a-day makes. By noon yesterday Canada’s new Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper seemed to have made a surprisingly strong start. His new cabinet was controversial in some respects but also quite clever. Then, by the early evening his so-called new “parliamentary strategy” became clear. And it started to […]

TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2006. TORONTO. 12:30 AM (EST). The people of Canada, as John Ibbitson observed in his Globe and Mail column yesterday, are a shrewd and cagey lot. And they are just now completing a cleverly thought-out set of judgments on the questions their assorted wayward politicians have put before them, in the 2006 […]

To help kick off the new year, the BC Prince of Pot Marc Emery has just been voted one of Frank magazine’s Top 100 Canadian Wankers to Watch in 2006. And this seems a good opportunity to update the counterweights editors’ last report on their own surveillance of the Emery political career, early this past […]

However you look at it, 2005 is ending with a variety of news confirming how Canadian Liberal leader Paul Martin was right enough when he urged that the Boxing day shootings in Toronto show the “challenge” of the near future. It is at least one kind of progress that this now applies to Canada as […]

Quick notes on … TORONTO SHOOTINGS AND CANADIAN VOTERS … CANADIAN ELECTION CAMPAIGN AT THE HALFWAY POINT … TROUBLE ON THE BORDERS IN NAFTA … CANADIAN ELECTION DEBATES … KARLA HOMOLKA MOVIE … BC AND THE CANADIAN ELECTION … IRAQ ELECTION … MARK CRISPIN MILLER ON DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA TODAY … TORONTO SHOOTINGS AND CANADIAN VOTERS. After a […]