[UPDATED OCTOBER 22]. Charles and Camilla will arrive in Canada just two weeks this coming Monday. Even if you don’t think the British monarchy has any long future in 21st century Canada (and I share this opinion myself with what recent opinion polls report as a growing majority of Canadians), the visit of the Prince […]
Inevitably, the opposition parties at Queen’s Park are salivating over the auditor general’s special report on “Ontario’s Electronic Health Records Initiative,” released yesterday. And the report has already prompted the resignation of health minister David Caplan, and a slight cabinet shuffle. Yet initial reactions from opposition politicians do little to suggest that they seriously understand […]
OLD CHINATOWN, DUNDAS STREET, TORONTO. OCTOBER 1, 2009. Today is of course not the actual birthday of the late Mao Zedong (1893—1976). It is only the 60th anniversary of the official founding of the modern People’s Republic – when Mao made the now historic declaration: “China has stood up!” The new Chinese role in the […]
Anyone who hoped Dalton McGuinty’s governing Ontario Liberals were in for a setback in the St. Paul’s by-election in midtown Toronto yesterday will be disappointed. The Liberal candidate, Dr. Eric Hoskins won handily with 13,192 votes. His Conservative challenger Sue-Ann Levy managed only 7,851 votes, compared with 4,677 for Julian Heller of the NDP, and […]
In the midst of all the current Canadian electoral hyperbole, I was disappointed to hear that “Ignatieff rules out coalition with NDP, Bloc.” If Canadians are now facing a federal “election that seems increasingly inevitable,” the opinion polls at the moment suggest we are likely enough to elect yet another minority government. And a recent […]
[UPDATED SEPTEMBER 4.] Yesterday Ontario finance minister Dwight Duncan announced at a press conference that he had accepted the resignations of the entire board of directors of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation. A new interim board of senior public servants has been appointed. And it has dismissed the OLG chief executive officer Kelly McDougald […]
The answer is of course Stephen Harper – back in January 1996, when he had less experience with Canada’s wicked capital city. (And thanks to such twitterers here as ktorrie – who also notes “Stephen Harper is unequalled in Canadian history as the only Prime Minister to make 27 Senate appointments in a single year.”) […]
If you share any degree of progressive political sympathies, almost anywhere, it is hard not to be saddened by the death of US Senator Edward M. Kennedy late last night. He has been called “a Rabelaisian figure.” And he no doubt had his share of human foibles, not the least of which was the 1969 […]
I never voted for his party. But Haroon Siddiqui’s report on the recent commemoration of “Bland” Bill Davis’s 80th birthday at the York Club, in today’s Sunday edition of the Toronto Star, reminded me of how much I came to admire him (to my surprise), when I worked as an Ontario civil servant in the […]
Those who worry that the NAFTAÂ Security and Prosperity Partnership is a plot to create an anti-democratic North American Union may or may not be reassured by recent comments from Maureen Meyer, a Mexico expert at the Washington Office on Latin America. Ms. Meyer was responding to questions about the Obama-Calderon-Harper summit at Guadalajara, Mexico […]
