According to CTV, “late Wednesday night,” July 7, David Johnston, the 69-year-old president of the University of Waterloo, who earlier served Stephen Harper by (rather deftly) writing “the terms of reference for the Oliphant inquiry, which examined former prime minister Brian Mulroney’s business dealings with German-Canadian arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber,” will be announced as the […]

TORONTO. TUESDAY 6 JULY 2010. 4:00 PM ET. If you have any feeling at all for the way Old Ontariario used to be, even just back in the dark ages of the 1950s, say, you may have found it difficult to resist some nostalgia over Queen Elizabeth II’s farewell perambulation around Queen’s Park in this […]

It is a tribute to the respect Queen Elizabeth II still enjoys in Canadian public life that even those Canadians who believe the British monarchy has no long-term future in Canada tend to think the institution will await the end of her reign before it fades into the sunset on which the old empire never […]

[UPDATED JANUARY 31, 2011, JULY 24, 2012]. I have been asked by the editors to jot down a few quick words of au revoir to the Canadian House of Commons, which is  “preparing to rise today for its summer break”: (1) THE LATEST EKOS POLL also unveiled today shows, for cross-Canada popular vote (rounded to […]

I am not sure just what to think about Victoria Day – or May Two-Four or the May-long, etc  – in the year 2010. It does remain officially, I suppose, a celebration of the birthday of the so-called Queen of Canada (at least outside predominantly French-speaking Quebec). And in this respect it still reminds me […]

One hundred years ago today, more or less, was apparently also a historic time in the United Kingdom. On May 6, 1910 (100 years from the date of the British election last week) George V had  become King on the death of his father, Edward VII. Meanwhile an election that took place from 15 January […]

As the almost always interesting Chantal  Hébert is reporting today, Ottawa insiders are currently agog over: “the expulsion of ex-minister of state Helena Guergis from the benches of the government;” the unhappy fate of “Rémy Beauregard … late president of Rights and Democracy” who had some kind of trouble with “the government’s preferred pro-Israel line;” […]

UPDATED MAY 2. Three weeks ago it seemed clear that Stephen Harper would not be extending the excellent Michaelle Jean’s customary five-year term in office. He would instead appoint a new Governor General of Canada soon enough – at the latest before Mme Jean’s official best-before date expires at the end of September. Today we […]

One of the almost sensible parts of the rather bizarre 10-and-a-half-page nationalist poem that Prime Minister Stephen Harper recited before the BC legislature last Wednesday [February 10, in case you’ve already forgotten] appeared close to the end: “So let us hold our flag high/ … Let it be a cheerful/red and white reminder/of a quiet […]

You could say that current plots to “harmonize” the federal Goods and Services Tax (GST) with the Provincial Sales Tax (PST) into one more efficient HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) are only afoot in two of Canada’s 10 provinces – and thus of only slight interest Canada-wide. But the two provinces involved, Ontario and British Columbia, […]