This is the last or concluding draft chapter of Randall White’s political-history work in progress, Children of the Global Village : Democracy in Canada Since 1497. A final version will be published in hard copy by eastendbooks in the near future. * * * * There is no doubt more than one story of democracy […]

OTTAWA VIEWED FROM A (COMPARATIVELY SHORT) DISTANCE WEST. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, FRIDAY, APRIL 28, 2023. A few recent items in the news raise a few fresh questions about just what is going on in the Trudeau-Liberal-reformed Senate of Canada in the second quarter of 2023? See, eg, “P.E.I. Senate replacements taking too long, […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. MARCH 1, 2023. This morning’s editorial meeting tabled a two-page pdf file headlined “London Declaration, United Kingdom, 1949.” The suggestion was that this is a document not much remembered in the 2020s. But it is nonetheless of serious interest in the current post-Elizabeth II debate on practical alternatives to the increasingly […]

ONTARIO TONITE. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2023. It appeared almost a month ago now. But I am still remembering Sasha Akhavi’s January 7, 2023 piece in the Toronto Star on his new legal status as a Canadian citizen. As matters stand he is also a subject of King Charles III of […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. DECEMBER 26, 2022. Before rushing into the Top 4 counterweights stories in the third quarter of 2022, we just want to note an intriguing piece posted today on the Nunatsiaq News site, called “Reflection: Mary Simon tour a rewarding reporting experience … Jeff Pelletier looks back on covering Governor General’s Nunavik […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. DECEMBER 20, 2022. According to Philippe J. Fournier’s latest 338Canada polling update on December 18, the federal Conservatives are still somewhat ahead of the Liberals in cross-Canada popular vote — 34% to 32%. Yet the Conservative vote is still heavily concentrated in the two most westerly Prairie provinces. The Liberals would […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. DECEMBER 16, 2022. The main course here is just a list of what this morning’s cw editors meeting picked as the top four counterweights articles from the first quarter of 2022. As a preliminary soup course, however (so to speak), here are some very quik introductory notes on : (1) the […]

ONTARIO TONITE. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, TUESDAY 29 NOVEMBER 2022. John Kerrigan, the Cambridge University literary scholar (and convener of the Cambridge Group for Irish Studies), has just published a more than 7000-word discussion of one movie (Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast”) and 15 recent books about Ireland today, in the October 20, 2022 issue of […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. OCTOBER 27, 2022. “History has many cunning passages” (T.S. Eliot). And in one of them, in the Canadian House of Commons, yesterday’s very clear defeat of a Bloc Québécois motion to sever ties with the “British monarchy” could somewhat ironically prove the effective first step on a long inevitable journey to […]

NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, FRIDAY 21 OCTOBER 2022. Like a few others (as best I can tell) I think I am finally ready to express my ultimate personal disappointment in PM Justin Trudeau. I say this while remembering that just over a year ago I wrote about “Why is so much […]