A University of Saskatchewan research team, led by associate professor Xia Zhang, has now raised the prospect that “marijuana stimulates cell growth in regions of the brain associated with anxiety and depression, pointing the way for new treatments for these diseases.” This can only be good news for anyone struggling to make sense of contemporary politics […]

So up in the true north, and various parts of the deep south, the National Hockey League (which nation is that, remind me?) is back after only a years’ absence. And the land is strong again. By this time next week the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation will be back again too. And John Ibbitson has come […]

Fortunately the impact of Hurricane Rita on the US Gulf Coast has not proved as disastrous as the worst-case scenarios predicted. Meanwhile, this past week has brought further evidence that storms and disasters of other sorts are also abroad in the North American wilderness. Way up north, some Canadians have even been pleased by fresh reports […]

Western Canadian political guru Preston Manning’s “newly formed, not-for-profit national organization to be called the Manning Centre for Building Democracy” seems to underline the current problems of federal Conservative leader Stephen Harper. The Manning Centre will arise on the ashes of “an informal roundtable” of “100 conservative-minded people from across Canada,” over the September 17-18 […]

HAPPY 100TH BIRTHDAYALBERTA  AND SASKATCHEWAN – SEPT 1, 2005 OTTAWA. Tuesday, August 30, 2005. 6 PM. Prime Minister Paul Martin is apparently thinking about calling federal Members of Parliament back early from their summer recess – to deal with the latest whatever-it-is (not exactly “a crisis,” surely?) over the never-ending Canada-US softwood lumber trade dispute. Meanwhile, Jean […]

In the September 2005 issue of The Walrus James Laxer says that “this was the summer when global realities … intruded on Canadian introspection.” And here’s hoping he is at least partly right. Yet with the return of the fractious federal Parliament in Ottawa now just over a month away (and the traditional Labour Day […]

“August,” some poet has said, is “for the people and their favourite islands.” It is also a time when journalists complain about how nothing ever happens in “the dog days of summer.” This year may be an exception. I have been trying to watch only baseball on TV, but the bigger world keeps intruding. As therapy […]

It is a usually ignored commonplace that Australia, even though it is just north of Antarctica far away, has a lot in common with especially English-speaking Canada.Both places involve comparatively small numbers of people in very large aspiring national geographies. Both are former self-governing dominions of the defunct British empire (unless you think Washington really […]

TORONTO. Friday, July 15. 4:00 PM. It is very hot in this part of the world these days. News about politics and the big picture comes as so many short summer breezes. For avid fans of the almost prime-time soap opera in Canadian federal politics, the July 9 death of Chuck Cadman, independent MP from Surrey North in […]

CALGARY. Monday, July 4, 2005. Much free advice is being offered to Conservative leader Stephen Harper on how to improve his performance in Canadian federal politics. But one question lingers. Just what does it mean that he is running for prime minister of Canada, and not president of the United States? The Harper headquarters of Calgary, Alberta, e.g., is […]