Olivia Chow has left no doubt that there is no real fire in Steve Paikin’s speculation about “How Stephen Harper Can Help Rob Ford.” As she has tweeted : “It seems the rumor mill is in full force this morning. Let me be crystal clear, the reports of an LG offer are completely false.” Yet […]
We went without electricity for about 28 hours at our house – in the east end of the old city of Toronto, down by the lake. According to the latest estimate, “69,800 customers were still without power Wednesday evening [December 25], four days after a massive ice storm struck the city, knocking down tree branches […]
It may be a harbinger of things to come in Canada that the last few weeks of 2013 are showing fresh signs of creative motion in la belle province. Personally I hope this proves correct. I grew up in the Greater Toronto Area (and its somewhat still wider region) in the 1950s and 1960s. And […]
Back in the middle of April, just after Justin Trudeau had been elected new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, former prime minister Jean Chretien boldly prophesied : “Today marks the beginning of the end of this Conservative government.” Now that we’ve reached December, it almost looks like 2013 just may the year when […]
Remembrance Day 2013 – the day before yesterday – is still somewhat on my mind. And I am remembering that the fall of France in June 1940 had a brief dramatic impact across the sea in Canada. As the historian Arthur Lower explained in his old textbook Colony to Nation : “When the fall of […]
The English actor Patrick Stewart on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show last night made the telling point that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is some new kind of comedian. (At least that’s what I took him to say.) In a similar spirit I’d give a prize to Stephen Lautens’s tweet : “It’s easy – just tell Rob […]
Who really knows just what the current chapter of the Senate expense scandal in Ottawa means right now? I would not in any way pretend that I do. At the same time, it is clear enough that the protests of Brazeau, Duffy, and Wallin in the Red Chamber over the past week of October 21—25 […]
Opinion pollsters can take at least some pride in yesterday’s October 8 Nova Scotia election. Their polls had been suggesting a Liberal majority government for the past three weeks. And that’s what happened. (An Abacus Data survey with a last day of polling on October 6 even predicted the province-wide popular vote at 46% Liberal, […]
Those of us who vainly dream that the progressive mainstream in Canada is gearing up to reassert itself in the real world of politics have had a few bits of bad news lately. The brilliant Monty Python and Fawlty Towers graduate, John Cleese, keen to sell tickets to his “Last Chance to See Me Before […]
The Ontario legislature has returned to work this week. And already it seems clear enough that the biggest issue in Ontario politics this fall is whether there will be a fresh election before the December holiday season. See, eg, such recent headlines as : “Ontario’s Premier Wynne shaking up her campaign team in lead-up to […]
