In Brief

Looking back at 1Q 2022 (while Pierre Poilievre advises standing “on the side of the common people” right now .. and we are watching India and China)

Dec 16th, 2022 | By | Category: In Brief

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. DECEMBER 16, 2022. The main course here is just a list of what this morning’s cw editors meeting picked as the top four counterweights articles from the first quarter of 2022. As a preliminary soup course, however (so to speak), here are some very quik introductory notes on : (1) the […]



Farewell 2022 : Doug Ford, Jagmeet Singh, “ethnocultural diversity”, big muskie, lonely Vancouver, Vaughan theatre, no oath to King in Quebec Assembly

Dec 12th, 2022 | By | Category: In Brief

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. DECEMBER 12, 2022. After this eclectic piece, the rest of this year’s contributions will just be notes on counterweights’ news and views of 2022. Meanwhile, here are four concluding preliminary notes on : (1) Doug Ford’s increasingly inept assaults on the traditional culture of Canada’s most populous province ; (2) Jagmeet […]



Looking at the old British dominion of Ireland and its new relevance for Canada after the death of Queen Elizabeth II

Nov 29th, 2022 | By | Category: In Brief

ONTARIO TONITE. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, TUESDAY 29 NOVEMBER 2022. John Kerrigan, the Cambridge University literary scholar (and convener of the Cambridge Group for Irish Studies), has just published a more than 7000-word discussion of one movie (Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast”) and 15 recent books about Ireland today, in the October 20, 2022 issue of […]



Going to northeastern California for the 2022 US midterm elections … ready for a bit of a grim night

Nov 4th, 2022 | By | Category: In Brief

RANDALL WHITE, TORONTO. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2022. Early this Sunday morning we’re off to the airport, travelling to Vancouver and then from there to Sacramento, California (and then from the airport there to the north end of Sacramento County by car), in time for the US midterm elections on Tuesday, November 8. Catching Bill Maher […]



Kudos to Bloc Québécois from hardy believers in “free and democratic” Canadian republic outside Quebec

Oct 27th, 2022 | By | Category: In Brief

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. OCTOBER 27, 2022. “History has many cunning passages” (T.S. Eliot). And in one of them, in the Canadian House of Commons, yesterday’s very clear defeat of a Bloc Québécois motion to sever ties with the “British monarchy” could somewhat ironically prove the effective first step on a long inevitable journey to […]



October 2022 Quebec election like June 2022 provincial election in Ontario (in some ways at least)

Oct 6th, 2022 | By | Category: In Brief

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. OCTOBER 6, 2022. We at least ought to be living in an era that is growing increasingly more aware of its own history. (In any case, we seem to be increasingly faced by key current issues with deep roots in a past we understand imperfectly at best.) Here in the Ganatsekwyagon […]



Has J.J. McCullough said something sensible at last : “In Canada, interest in the monarchy remains mostly an elite thing”?

Sep 28th, 2022 | By | Category: In Brief

ONTARIO TONITE. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, WEDNESDAY 28 SEPTEMBER 2022. Andrew Cohen is “a journalist, professor of journalism at Carleton University and the author of Two Days in June: John F. Kennedy and the 48 Hours That Made History” (and The Unfinished Canadian: The People We Are). Back in the middle of June last […]



The long journey to ending the British monarchy in Canada actually began just after the Second World War

Sep 18th, 2022 | By | Category: In Brief

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. SEPTEMBER 18, 2022. The extravaganza following the death of Queen Elizabeth II has been especially concentrated in the old imperial metropolis across the seas. And there as well the Queen’s state funeral tomorrow will begin at 11 AM BST (or 6 AM EDT here in North America). Whatever else, all this […]



Sovereignty Smith in Wild Rose Country & Trudeau Liberals/Singh NDP (& what the people think after much-loved Queen)

Sep 8th, 2022 | By | Category: In Brief

ONTARIO TONITE. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, THURS SEP 8, 2022. [UPDATED SEP 10]. As the new fall cultural season begins, I seem to be contemplating two confusing but nonetheless intriguing stories in the news of the day/week/month etc : (1) Lieut. Gov. Salma Lakhani & Danielle “Sovereignty” Smith in Wild Rose Country (and then […]



As summer winds down there’s a Quebec election in the air (and Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey on YouTube!)

Aug 23rd, 2022 | By | Category: In Brief

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. AUGUST 23, 2022. According to the Angus Reid Institute, 56% of Canadians across the country agree that “I can’t keep up with the cost of living,” and 39% disagree. At the provincial level, Quebec has the smallest proportion agreeing with the statement (41%), and Saskatchewan the largest (71%). Quebec election Oct […]