Modern Canada begins with contact between North American Indigenous peoples and seaborne Europeans in the 16th century. (There was earlier contact of this sort, more than a half century before the 1066 Norman Conquest in England — as described by Plate 16 in the 1987 first volume of the Historical Atlas of Canada, on “Norse […]
This past Sunday evening I and my regular TV watching partner, along with millions of other viewers in North America, took in the fifth season premiere of “‘Downton Abbey’ … the PBS hit about dressing for dinner” (Melinda Henneberger). At the end of the episode my TV partner and I exchanged some casual repartee on […]
The recent murders of two New York City policeman by an emotionally challenged young man, who claimed to be making a political protest, are without any shred of doubt altogether appalling and unacceptable. Such acts are nothing more or less than high crimes, with no redeeming or any other kind of political content in a […]
For Canadian federal politics 2015 is bound to be a crucial year. And two recent comment pieces by Andrew Coyne and Chantal Hébert make for rather ominous reading, as the start of the year comes into clear view. Both Mr Coyne and Ms Hébert are worrying about just what may or may not happen if […]
Wherever they landed in northern North America in 1497, on behalf of the English monarch, Henry VII, John Cabot and the small crew of the Matthew met no other human beings. In 1501 a Spanish expedition visited Labrador, and “claimed to have acquired from the natives with whom they came into contact a fragment of […]
Whatever else, Stephen Harper has become the kind of opponent you worry about. He has now been prime minister of Canada since early in 2006. He is up for re-election this coming 2015. He has  obvious major flaws. He lacks constructive wisdom about the country. But you fear he may have other, lower talents that […]
This is Part I, Chapter 1 of Randall White’s work in progress, tentatively entitled Children of the Global Village : Democracy in Canada Since 1497. For more on the project see The Long Journey to a Canadian Republic, which also includes drafts of all remaining chapters in this initial prepublication format. The entire book in draft […]
Robert G. Kaiser clearly wrote his current piece in the November 6, 2014 issue of the New York Review of Books – on “Our Conservative, Criminal Politicians” – before the November 4 US midterm elections. But I read it just after. And it helped me do something with my private thoughts about the future of […]
[UPDATED NOV 5]. Those of us who believe that history and the future will judge Barack Obama a much more seminal and successful US president than the present is doing can only look at the midterm elections this Tuesday, November 4, 2014 and weep. The prospects for sitting administrations in such contests are almost never […]
People who don’t live in or even vaguely like Toronto, and are fed up with both Rob and Doug Ford and  the 2014 Toronto mayoral race, may take comfort from the fact that the race has effectively ended even before election day tomorrow, Monday, October 27. Or as John Wright, senior vice president of the […]
