Who of the ages Hillary Clinton most attracts can forget the intoxicating John Denver refrain: “Country roads, take me home / To the place I belong / West Virginia, mountain momma / Take me home, country roads”? On the evening of Tuesday, May 13, 2008, in any case, the vote soon enough came in. And […]
It is more than a little foolish to say – as the federal Conservative website does – that “Stephane Dion … lets the unelected, unaccountable Liberal insiders in the Senate boss him around on issues ranging from crime bills to Senate reform.” And Hugh Segal, a Conservative appointed by former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin, is […]
The budget Ontario Liberal finance minister Dwight Duncan finally tabled in the provincial legislature just after 4 PM ET on Tuesday, March 25, 2008 is, local financial experts seem to agree, by and large a cautious if also prudent document. While dabbling in many constructive directions, it does not do anything too exciting, because at […]
The real “Central Canada” in the year 2008 is arguably best defined as the two provinces of Ontario and Manitoba. Quebec nowadays, even in Montreal, is a world unto itself (and the Quebecois have recently been certified as a nation by no less an authority than the Canadian House of Commons). The real Western Canada […]
OTTAWA. FEBRUARY 14, 2008. Local party activists, worried about whether or not to rent campaign offices, are having a tough time. Here yesterday, in the depths of what the late 19th century called “the last lumber village before the North Pole,” it seemed a near certainty that there will be a federal election soon. Today […]
UPDATED JANUARY 12. The Harper Conservative minority government in Canada, some argue, believes that the provinces should do the lion’s share of the heavy lifting in the 21st century federation. A properly lean federal government just looks after defence, equalization payments, and arranging luncheons at the Parliament Pub in Ottawa. If this were true, you might […]
The current quixotic and apparently only half-serious quest for Senate reform in Canada shows both the best and worst sides of the Stephen Harper Conservative minority government in Ottawa. There is a high-minded sense in which this relic of the 19th century desperately ought to be brought up to date, in the interests of a […]
The one seriously distressing result of Canada’s most populous province’s first fixed-date election on October 10, 2007 was that less than 53% of the eligible electorate finally cast ballots – a gloomy new low in Ontario politics since the start of the Canadian confederation in 1867. Beyond this, the McGuinty Liberals, as widely predicted, did win a […]
[UPDATED AUGUST 23]. The first fixed-date election in the history of Canada’s most populous province, on October 10, 2007, is now just over two months away. But by the traditional midsummer civic holiday it was still a bit too early for any great excitement among the people of Ontario. The big holiday event in the […]
Who recently told the mass media: “I was going out with someone and they said I should read Machiavelli and I was like, ‘Nah’, and then I was, ‘Ok, I’ll read it’, and now it is always with me”? If you guessed Lindsay Lohan, go to the head of the class. Niccolo Machiavelli, who died […]
