[UPDATED OCTOBER 22]. Charles and Camilla will arrive in Canada just two weeks this coming Monday. Even if you don’t think the British monarchy has any long future in 21st century Canada (and I share this opinion myself with what recent opinion polls report as a growing majority of Canadians), the visit of the Prince […]
One of the more intriguing sidebars to current Canadian federal politics is the relationship between Conservative minority Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Governor General Michaelle Jean, who was (rather brilliantly, some say) appointed by Liberal minority Prime Minister Paul Martin, not too long before he was turfed from office, by a gang of conservatives, socialists, […]
Inevitably, the opposition parties at Queen’s Park are salivating over the auditor general’s special report on “Ontario’s Electronic Health Records Initiative,” released yesterday. And the report has already prompted the resignation of health minister David Caplan, and a slight cabinet shuffle. Yet initial reactions from opposition politicians do little to suggest that they seriously understand […]
[UPDATED OCTOBER 6, 9]. Does history repeat itself? Well, probably not. Or at least not exactly. But it is still sometimes interesting in any case. Yesterday Stephen Harper’s Conservative minority government officially called four Canadian federal by-elections for November 9 – for two ridings in Quebec (Hochelaga and Montmagny—L’Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup), and one each in British Columbia […]
BRITANNIA VILLAGE, ONTARIO. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2009. According to some imperfect plan apparently devised some months ago now, this was supposed to be the week when the Ignatieff Liberals led the majority opposition parties of the 40th Parliament of Canada in bringing down the Harper Conservative government. Instead: “The House of Commons voted 144-117 on […]
Today is the 60th anniversary of the official founding of the modern Chinese state, when Mao Zedong (1893—1976) made the now historic declaration: “China has stood up!” Memories of Mao in the 20th century don’t have a lot to do with what is going on in China in the early 21st century. But just who […]
[UPDATED OCTOBER 1, 3, 20]. Yesterday Canada’s so-called Prince of Pot, Marc Emery, surrendered to authorities at the BC Supreme Court. He is now in a Canadian jail awaiting extradition to the United States, on a 2005 charge of selling marijuana seeds to US customers through the mail. The “US Attorney’s Office is pressing for […]
TORONTO. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2009. [UPDATED SEPTEMBER 28]. Both Lawrence Martin of the Globe and Mail and Ralph Surette of the Halifax Chronicle Herald have shown some special sympathy for Jack Layton and his New Democrats lately – in the midst of their new marriage of convenience with the definitely non-progressive Harper Conservatives. But who […]
PITTSBURGH, PA. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2009. [UPDATED SEPTEMBER 25 and SEPTEMBER 26].What is the G20 that is meeting today and tomorrow in this reviving old US rust-belt city on the site of the mid 18th century French Fort Duquesne, at the junction of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers? Well … to start with it […]
President Obama is busy this week with an international agenda (Middle East, UN General Assembly, and G20 in Pittsburgh). But the linchpin in the current US domestic debate – health care reform – goes on and on and on. At least the online readers of the Globe and Mail in Canada still rate the president’s […]
