[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 […]
TORONTO. Friday, July 15. 4:00 PM. It is very hot in this part of the world these days. News about politics and the big picture comes as so many short summer breezes. For avid fans of the almost prime-time soap opera in Canadian federal politics, the July 9 death of Chuck Cadman, independent MP from Surrey North in […]
OTTAWA. Tuesday, June 28, 2005. 11:30 PM. So third and final reading on the Bill C-38 gay marriage legislation has now passed in the Parliament of Canada, by a 158-133 vote. As CTV News has put it: “After the same-sex vote was put to bed, the House immediately adjourned for the summer, thus ending one of […]
OTTAWA. Wednesday, June 15, 2005. 2:00 AM. Paul Martin’s Liberal minority government has now survived “16 confidence votes” in a marathon late-night parliamentary session Tuesday. You might almost think the MPs were trying to show how they sometimes do have to work very late. But they were also just rushing to finish up for the summer holidays. There […]
The members of the 38th Parliament of Canada have returned to Ottawa “for what is scheduled to be the final four weeks of the spring session.” And the “Conservatives say they will attempt to block the government’s two budget bills from being passed before the House of Commons summer recess.” Conservative leader Stephen Harper has indicated […]
Now that Canadians do not have to rush into another federal election right away, the national commentariat has time for assorted post-mortems on the recent events in Ottawa. As Terry Weber of the Globe and Mail has reported, the ultimate razor-thin survival of Paul Martin’s Liberal minority government on Thursday, May 19, by a final parliamentary […]
SATURDAY, MAY 14, 2005. 5 AM. According to CTV News, all four Canadian parties “have now agreed to sit down and meet to discuss a fair strategy for dealing with some of the MPs who are sick and unable to attend the vote,’ NDP Leader Jack Layton said Friday evening.” Jack Layton’s comments have apparently been […]
