What the Canadian Press had earlier called “a small knot of demonstrators,” who “plan to show up, calling for an end to what they see as an undemocratic vestige of the colonial past,” actually did appear among the protesters at the otherwise radiant official “installation” of Canada’s new Governor General Michaelle Jean, on the sunny […]
The counterweights editors have their own reasons to appreciate the rising power in the name of Sophie Gregoire. According to the always interesting user statistics, our very slight references to her elsewhere on this site have won more attention than many other more weighty probes. Ms. Gregorie’s potential has of course been noted in other […]
A new Leger marketing survey of Canadian federal party standings has shown the first signs of real movement in the complex mind of the cross-Canada democratic electorate since the start of the summer that is just ending. Using an Ipsos-Reid poll from less than a month ago as the benchmark, the Liberals are up four […]
UPDATED Monday, September 12, 2005. 11:00 PM. Chinese president Hu Jintao arrived in Ottawa last Thursday, on a trip that also includes visits to Toronto and Vancouver, various parts of Mexico, and the United Nations in New York. The Washington Post noted how the “United States relies on Canada for some 17 percent of its oil and energy and is […]
The lovely Sophie Gregoire, aka Mme Justin Trudeau, has now joined the CTV entertainment program ETalk Daily. She will serve as Quebec correspondent for the show, which is about to begin its fourth season. And she will work alongside host Ben Mulroney.No word so far on whether Sophie Gregoire will also be keeping her job […]
In the September 2005 issue of The Walrus James Laxer says that “this was the summer when global realities … intruded on Canadian introspection.” And here’s hoping he is at least partly right. Yet with the return of the fractious federal Parliament in Ottawa now just over a month away (and the traditional Labour Day […]
[UPDATED Thursday, August 25]. You can be excused if you woke up earlier this week and thought some intelligent designer had turned the clock back 40 years. Last Sunday night veteran Vietnam War protester Joan Baez gave a free concert for “about 500 … gathered …. a couple of miles away” from George W. Bush’s ranch in […]
It is a usually ignored commonplace that Australia, even though it is just north of Antarctica far away, has a lot in common with especially English-speaking Canada.Both places involve comparatively small numbers of people in very large aspiring national geographies. Both are former self-governing dominions of the defunct British empire (unless you think Washington really […]
VANCOUVER, Wednesday, August 3, 2005 [UPDATED TO MONDAY, AUGUST 8]. Canada’s so-called “Prince of Pot” Marc Emery, who just might be extradited to the US on drug and money-laundering charges, has now been granted bail (at $50,000) by a BC Supreme Court judge.Emery and his BC Marijuana Party colleagues, Michelle Rainey-Fenkarek and Gregory Williams, have […]
OTTAWA. Thursday, August 4, 2005. So it would seem that the wily federal Liberals in Canada have done the trick again. In one sense it is impossible to object to Prime Minister Paul Martin’s pick as the new governor general – “48-year-old Montreal journalist Michel Jean – the first black woman ever to anchor a network TV news […]
