Ottawa Scene

Mr. Bush goes to Ottawa

Dec 2nd, 2004 | By | Category: Ottawa Scene

Belinda Stronach, the new and still cute Canadian Conservative MP from Magna International (who has also had lunch with Bill Clinton, or some such thing) may have made the most sensible point about George W. Bush’s low-key official visit to Canada, November 30/December 1, 2004. It was not so much a first act of the second […]



Paul Martin’s messy minority democracy

Oct 10th, 2004 | By | Category: Ottawa Scene

George Orwell used to say that democracy requires a certain tolerance for dirt. (He also once called Canada a country that “could be fun for a bit, especially if you like fishing.”) Paul Martin, responding to the October 7, 2004 hi-jinks over his first throne speech as a minority prime minister, has invented a variation on […]



John Ibbitson’s next Canada

Aug 19th, 2004 | By | Category: Ottawa Scene

Serious fans of Canadian politics first bumped into John Ibbitson in the late 1990s. He arrived as the best-informed reporter on Mike Harris’s “common sense revolution” in the provincial politics of Ontario (currently home to some 38% of all the people of Canada). Since then Ibbitson’s indisputable talents have raised him to the higher calling […]