ONTARIO TONITE. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, FRIDAY 12 AUGUST 2022. Allison Jones’s Canadian Press report on the August 9 throne speech for Canada’s most populous province summarized much of the mainstream media reaction : “Ford throne speech says more can be done on health staffing but offers no new solutions.” (Aka “Throne speech notes […]

NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, 4 AUGUST 2022. It would no doubt be wrong to express too much joy about “‘No’ prevails: Kansas votes to protect abortion rights in state constitution.” This supposedly “red state” support for the progressive option may not finally have real impact on the crucial November 8 midterm […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. JULY 28, 2022. Paul Elie, a senior fellow at Georgetown University with a special interest in religion, has written in The New Yorker about Pope Francis’s current Canadian visit, to confront the role of the Catholic Church in the historic appalling and now quite discredited Indian Residential Schools in Canada : […]

ONTARIO TONITE. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, TUESDAY 19 JULY 2022. For the longest time I have done my best to ignore Pierre Poilievre (“he pronounces it ‘paul-ee-EV’”), current frontrunner in the Conservative Party of Canada leadership race (to be decided this coming Saturday, September 10 — now less than two months away). It was […]

SPECIAL FROM THE DEMOCRATIC DESKTOP OF CITIZEN X, ON THE EDGE OF THE CANADIAN SHIELD IN BUCKHORN, ON. K0L 0C1. 9 JULY 2022. The only immediate conclusion we up here in the Kawartha wilderness can draw is that some prominent Conservatives in Canada really do not like Patrick Brown. He was replaced as Ontario PC […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. JUNE 21, 2022. If it were just Don Martin on the CTV News site saying “The fall of Justin Trudeau has begun” that would be one thing. But when Chantal Hébert is also asking in the Toronto Star “Is Justin Trudeau headed for defeat?” something at least half-serious could be afoot. […]

NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, 14 JUNE 2022. Last week I had lunch on the leafy sunshine back patio of a long-established local bar with an old colleague and friend seriously down on the USA. (And today this is only slightly remarkable in someone born and raised in a neighbouring state of […]

ONTARIO ELECTION WATCH 2022, CW EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. JUNE 3, 2022, 2:15 AM EDT. The results as of this moment in a 124-seat Legislative Assembly with a bare majority of 63 seats are : Conservatives 83 seats with 40.8% of the province-wide popular vote ; New Democrats 31 seats with 23.7% of the vote ; […]

ONTARIO TONITE. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, 2 JUNE 2022. [UPDATED 6 JUNE]. This is the first day of the official celebration of Queen Elizabeth II’s 70th or platinum anniversary of what no less than the Toronto Star has called “her journey as the longest-serving monarch in British and Canadian history.” (One might quibble about […]

ONTARIO ELECTION WATCH 2022, CW EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. MAY 30, 2022, 11:50 PM EDT. [UPDATED MAY 31, 3 PM EDT] : As we finally approach election day on June 2 there is some slight slippage of Ford Conservative support in all of the latest CBC Ontario Votes 2022 Poll Tracker, 338Canada Ontario, and the Toronto […]