The late great Canadian literary critic, Northrop Frye – who came to Toronto  via Sherbrooke, Quebec and then mostly Moncton, New Brunswick, “to compete in a national typing contest in 1929” (!!!!) – once called Ontario “surely one of the most inarticulate communities in human culture.” And there is something about the still very youthful […]

GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. FRIDAY, MAY 2, 2014. 3:00 PM ET. So (as the premier often begins her remarks on any subject) … a lot has happened in Ontario politics today – and sooner, it seems fair to say, than the smart money thought. This morning NDP leader Andrea Horwath announced that her party would not be […]

So much is going on north of the Great Lakes these days that it’s hard to focus on any one thing.  So here are quick notes on five things animating the late-afternoon water-cooler debates among we counterweights editors on Wednesday, April 23, 2014 : (1) On Monday Susanna Kelley, empress of the excellent ontarionewswatch.com, posted […]

One of Canada’s leading go-to guys on political opinion polls, Éric Grenier, posted some intriguing Ontario politics notes last Saturday – under the headline “Tim Hudak And Ontario PCs’ Polling May Be On The Rise (Maybe).” Grenier pointed out that : “A survey conducted by EKOS Research for iPolitics between March 27 and April 3 […]

Tomorrow the counterweights  editors and editorial staff in Toronto will be leaving more or less en masse to consult and otherwise constructively interact with the technical support staff in Palo Alto, California (and their new rural branch office in the exurbs of Gilroy, south of San Jose). We will be doing what we can to […]

At least some people are talking about how interesting the Quebec provincial election campaign has suddenly become. See, eg : “Marois says rest of Canada would be welcome to visit independent Quebec” ; “Independent Quebec would keep Canadian dollar, Marois says” ; “Marois tells Canada not to be afraid of Quebec election outcome” ; “Naked […]

I want to hang in for a moment longer with my colleague Frank Bunting’s allusion to Hugh Segal’s wisdom on Quebec last week. The Quebec provincial election campaign of 2014 has only just begun. But already I feel I have to keep trying hard to remember what Senator Segal said early in 2012 : “If, […]

The half-dred reprise of Quebec in Question that certain ‘journalists, bloggers, and political junkies’ have been spreading gloom about for a while now has finally arrived. See, eg : “Coup d’envoi mercredi de la campagne électorale” and “Let the games begin: Pauline Marois expected to call Quebec election for April 7.” (And, now most definitively […]

Back on January 21, I was reporting that “A new poll suggests the Progressive Conservatives are off to a strong lead in two Ontario byelections being held next month … The poll, conducted Jan. 15, took a random sample of voters in both Thornhill and Niagara Falls … In Thornhill, 44 per cent of voters […]

Late last spring Kathleen Wynne got into some trouble in some parts of her most populous province for such headlines as “Ontario’s Wynne wants to see Senate reformed” and/or “Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne wants to reform Senate, not abolish it.” At least on some accounts of the mind of Ontario, this does seem like what […]