Meghan Markle and Harry Wales have now shown the world that the British monarchy does have some kind of modern future. (Though, somewhat intriguingly, what was once the website of “The British Monarchy” nowadays just calls itself “The home of the Royal Family.”) Meanwhile, back in the most northerly North American UN member state, Canada […]

Has the prime minister of Canada reached rock bottom in his current troubles when no less than the UK-based Guardian complains : “Justin Trudeau is waging a phony war against inequality”? And, after some two months too long in the wilderness, does Prime Minister Trudeau (II) now have nowhere to go but up?  (Or is […]

I would like to offer a brief dissenting opinion to today’s Ontario Court of Justice decision reported in “Former top Ontario Liberal aide sentenced to 4 months in jail for role in gas plants scandal … David Livingston was chief of staff for former premier Dalton McGuinty.” I am not offering my opinion as a […]

Democracy in the Dominions : A Comparative Study in Institutions was a 614-page university textbook by the Canadian Professor of Political Science Alexander Brady —  first published in 1947, with a second edition in 1952 and a third in 1958. By this point the dominions in question had been reduced to four : Canada, Australia, […]

GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. FRI 9 MAR 18. 5:45 PM ET. [UPDATED 7:55 PM ; SAT 10 MAR, 5:20 PM ET ; SUN 11 MAR, 2/3 AM ET/EDT]. It fits with all the strange things which have happened so far in the quite bizarre surprise Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership race of 2018 that, less than 24 hours […]

GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. SUN 4 MARCH 2018. 12:00 PM ET.  Just after noon yesterday the Canadian Press reported : “Ontario’s Progressive Conservative party is giving members even more time to sign up to cast their vote for a new leader.” The report went on : “The party has already extended the voter registration deadline once, pushing […]

TORONTO. 27 FEBRUARY 2018, 5 AM ET. We won’t even start to be able to start placing (again ) former Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown in the largely unknown deep political history of Canada’s most populous province until we know the actual result of the provincial election, now just three months or so away, […]

TORONTO, ON. SUN 18 FEB 2018. 3 AM ET. [UPDATED 11:00 AM, 8:00 PM, MON 19 FEB, 1 PM, WED 21 FEB, 12:45 PM, 5 PM]. I am now back one week from the brief winter holiday in the sun alluded to in “I remember the crisis in Ontario politics while escaping ‘Mon pays ce […]

FEBRUARY 1, 2018, 2 AM ET. Like others who hang out at the counterweights.ca office in the old streetcar suburbs of the provincial capital city, tomorrow I am off on a brief respite from the snows of perfidious Ontario in the exotic Caribbean. (We are back the week of February 12.) Like still others again, […]

GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. MONDAY, JANUARY 29, 2018. 5 PM ET. [UPDATED JAN 30]. It may still be, as some wise observers have suggested, that the Ontario Progressive Conservatives – now disentangled from the wobbly leadership of Patrick Brown – will go on to handily win a majority government in the June 7 provincial election. (As some […]