In what at least ought to be his classic late 1940s essay, “Great Britain, the United States and Canada,” Canada’s one near-great historian Harold Innis wrote: “The United States has been described by John Gunther as ‘the greatest, craziest, most dangerous, least stable, most spectacular, least grown up and most powerful and magnificent nation ever […]
So the sudden rumour Warren Kinsella apparently started yesterday – that “serious people are involved in discussions at a serious level” about a Liberal-NDP merger – has now been officially squelched by both Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and New Democrat leader Jack Layton. We are, it would seem, back to Ignatieff’s “coalition if necessary but […]
It is a little late to do any good. But today’s Toronto Star article on how “André Marin left dysfunction and discontent as military ombud” has made me wonder a bit more about a question I’ve pondered a few times over the past month or so. Just how good a job has Mr. Marin really […]
Late last summer former Ontario attorney general Michael Bryant was driving home in his open convertible, on Bloor Street in Toronto, after celebrating his wedding anniversary with his wife. All of a sudden he found himself in a tragic encounter with Darcy Allan Sheppard, a bicycle rider whose “blood alcohol level was … more than […]
Jane Taber reports that “Conservatives are vigorously defending the appointment of CFL tycoon David Braley to the Senate against Liberal suggestions he basically bought his way into the Red Chamber through thousands of dollars of donations to Stephen Harper.” (Or, as The News from Pictou County, Nova Scotia has explained: “Braley, a businessman from Hamilton, […]
In Drummondville, Québec over the past weekend “Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois … drew a parallel between her party’s goal of making Québec a sovereign country and the Montréal Canadiens’ quest for the Stanley Cup. ‘The whole nation is vibrating in tune with a team of players who were called too small, not talented enough, […]
Le Devoir may have said it best, in Canada’s other official language: “Qui l’eût cru? … Le Canadien achève les Penguins, une première demi-finale depuis 1993.” In any event, it used to be said that hockey and politics are what keeps Canada going. And the sudden surprise of Montreal’s cinderella tail end of yet another […]
If you support some workable version of Senate reform in Canada – as I have for many years myself – you are bound to in some degree support the Harper minority government’s latest stab in the dark at step-by-step advance on a democratically elected “upper house” of parliament in Ottawa. Whatever else, you have to […]
Now that the final stages of the “Toronto 18” terror case are underway, a closely related package from down under has arrived in the mail. It makes clear (yet again) that some striking similarities between the two former senior dominions of the fallen British Empire and Commonwealth remain, even if many early 21st century Australians […]
UPDATED MAY 2. Three weeks ago it seemed clear that Stephen Harper would not be extending the excellent Michaelle Jean’s customary five-year term in office. He would instead appoint a new Governor General of Canada soon enough – at the latest before Mme Jean’s official best-before date expires at the end of September. Today we […]
