VANCOUVER. Monday, May 2, 2005. Nothing brings fevered speculation about Canadian federal politics back down to earth quite as nicely as the Vancouver Sun‘s recent poll of Chuck Cadman’s Surrey North riding. Mr. Cadman is one of the two as yet uncommitted federal MPs whose vote in parliament could determine whether Canadians have a fresh election in the […]
TORONTO. Sunday, April 24, 2005. It would be nice to think the simplest truth is just that Canadian politics has suddenly entered one of its intermittent actually interesting phases. And the democratic electorate is responding by actually getting interested. Yet readings from deep downtown in Canada’s largest big city over the April 23-24 weekend also suggest that all […]
Even if you remain sceptical about just how much good a fresh Canadian federal election can do, it’s hard not to be duly impressed by the latest numbers on the impact of the most recent Gomery testimony. A dramatic new EKOS poll commissioned by the Toronto Star has even raised some dim prospect that Stephen Harper’s Conservatives might win a […]
As still further evidence that extending the vote to women was a sound idea, the ladies’ home website handbag.com has compiled a tidy collection of “Bush Bloopers” – engaging examples of the mangled wit and folk wisdom of President George W. Bush.I have taken the liberty of selecting the fourteen bloopers I like best myself, on […]
Someone or something in Ottawa (or somewhere?) almost seems determined that Canada is going to have a fresh federal general election very soon – less than a year after the last one. Speculation about how the opposition will unite to defeat Paul Martin’s Liberal minority government over its neo-Machiavellian linking of the Kyoto Accord with […]
With one eye on the upcoming March 23 meeting of George W. Bush, Vicente Fox, and Paul Martin in Texas, a tri-national task force has just recommended an assortment of aggressive steps toward a bold new kind of North America. If the press reports are to be believed, there is little real appetite for such […]
Canadian history may ultimately judge that the sharpest point former prime minister Jean Chretien made in his aggressive February 8, 2005 testimony at the Gomery inquiry into the so-called Quebec sponsorship scandal was “I have the impression that there was less money stolen than this commission will cost.” Whatever the history books finally do say, the […]
According to recent press reports, the Martin minority government’s imminent foreign policy review document will be mapping out a plan for greater North American integration. And U.S., Canadian, and Mexican officials are talking about a possible trilateral summit as early as late March, at which a so-called “NAFTA-plus” agenda would be moved ahead. With all […]
“You shall love your crooked neighbour/With your crooked heart.” That is what the dead poet W.H. Auden wrote in “As I walked out one Evening.” And whatever exact private moments inspired these two especially memorable lines, they also seem to be describing something about how democracy works in Canada today. That at least is what […]
From inside the assorted urban, suburban, and exurban walls of Canada’s current largest metropolis it is hard to know just what to make of Newfoundland premier Danny Williams’s holiday season “flag war over equalization payments.” To review the background quickly, under Part III, Section 36 of the Constitution Act 1982, tax dollars from more fortunate […]
