Only in Canada would the self-confessed national newspaper take the annual national holiday as an occasion for debating whether the national history should be banished as a subject in the tax-supported public schools. It is, on the other hand, part of what many Canadians like about Canada that such things do happen – and did […]
When something called the Anaheim Ducks beats the Ottawa Senators for the Stanley Cup in five games, you know that NHL hockey has definitively lost its luster as the great Canadian distinction. It may be that Canada will have to start relying instead on its more recent status as the home and native land of […]
The Globe and Mail has reported that the 90th anniversary commemoration of the Canadian assault on Vimy Ridge in the First World War, under “the warm sun of northern France” on April 9, 2007, “was a thoroughly Canadian moment.” And the Queen, who lives in England, said: “Those who seek the foundations of Canada’s distinction […]
Patches of snow on the ground in early April almost hint at a certain reluctance to get on with the new season of change in “Canada’s most populous province” (and don’t you forget it). Yet by the end of the first quarter of 2007 probably all but the most obtuse central Canadians have at last […]
What the press is now calling “Canada’s longest running aboriginal standoff,” in Caledonia, Ontario, began on February 28, 2006. It is one year old today. And by all the latest accounts it will be two years old this time next year, and three years old the year after that. According to spokesperson Janie Jamieson: “Six […]
In the continuing strange universe of Canadian federal politics a Leger poll of 1,500 voters from January 30 to February 4 has now shown 38% Conservatives and 31% Liberals. A “Leger poll two weeks earlier had put the Conservatives at 35% and the Liberals at 32%.” If this kind of trend settles in, Stephane Dion’s […]
The death of the unusually influential American social scientist Seymour Martin Lipset, on December 31, 2006, prompted a wave of admiring obituaries in January 2007. Canadians could also join in on this party, because as CNN’s Bill Schneider explained, “Lipset’s ideas were so compelling” that he could even “make Canada interesting to Americans.” As others […]
The Academy Awards used to be all that counted. But these days the Golden Globes, whose 64th edition hit the US TV airwaves on Monday, January 15, “generally ranks as the third most-watched awards show each year, behind the Oscars and the Grammys.” This year there has been an undercurrent of criticism about the Globes, […]
Stephen Harper has conceivably earned some form of distinction in the eclectic annals of Canadian political history, with his introduction of Bill C-43 at the close of the fall sitting of the 39th Parliament of Canada – somewhat cutely called “An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the […]
The interesting website Vive le Canada has just published a remarkable piece of political writing called “Walk in the Old Paths – An Open Appeal to the Conservative Party From a Muslim High Tory.” It is probably the most sophisticated and up-to-date defence imaginable for the future of the present British constitutional monarchy in such […]
