Until today it almost seemed that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford had managed to put most of his troubles behind him. Like it or not, there is a real Ford nation. The mayor of Canada’s current biggest city speaks in a voice that more than a few of we-the-people who usually feel left out of public […]
Who really knows just what the current chapter of the Senate expense scandal in Ottawa means right now? I would not in any way pretend that I do. At the same time, it is clear enough that the protests of Brazeau, Duffy, and Wallin in the Red Chamber over the past week of October 21—25 […]
The news that “the Harper government’s most recent attempt at Senate reform has been declared unconstitutional” by the Quebec Court of Appeal ought to remind us that our Canadian history goes so much deeper than PM Harper’s beloved British monarchy. (Which is a good thing. According to a recent poll, “younger citizens – those aged […]
The “About” section at the top of the page explains that this site “was launched in the summer of 2004, in response to a dockside debate in the northern woods. The current counterweights editors are committed to carrying on for at least a full decade (until the summer of 2014, that is) – and possibly […]
What a week! As we write the proroguing Harper government is scheduled to present an allegedly six-point throne speech at 5 PM ET. And it finally seems that there is serious hope for an at least temporary deal to end the almost unbelievable dysfunctional deadlock in Washington. Meanwhile, others at street level are working to […]
I first heard of Diane Francis’s new book, Merger of the Century: Why Canada and America Should Become One Country, from a critical friend who is receiving the National Post as a promotional freebie. I don’t usually follow this paper. I wondered why I hadn’t heard about Merger of the Century somewhere else. But when […]
Those of us who vainly dream that the progressive mainstream in Canada is gearing up to reassert itself in the real world of politics have had a few bits of bad news lately. The brilliant Monty Python and Fawlty Towers graduate, John Cleese, keen to sell tickets to his “Last Chance to See Me Before […]
I can’t be the only person seriously irritated by Margaret Wente’s Toronto Globe and Mail column this past weekend – on “Barack Obama, the 98-pound weakling.” And the same thing goes for recent similar comments by Rex Murphy on CBC TV, and other like-minded true northern pundits. In Ms Wente’s case you could say it’s […]
In theory the Nova Scotia provincial election this coming Tuesday, October 8 will be a test of the province’s first New Democrat government under Darrell Dexter. Dexter’s governing New Democrats were elected on June 9, 2009. By all traditional measures this was a massive breakthrough – the first ever NDP provincial government in Atlantic Canada, […]
The Ontario legislature has returned to work this week. And already it seems clear enough that the biggest issue in Ontario politics this fall is whether there will be a fresh election before the December holiday season. See, eg, such recent headlines as : “Ontario’s Premier Wynne shaking up her campaign team in lead-up to […]
