Last Tuesday, June 21, 2011, the new Harper majority government’s Bill C7, the Senate Reform Act, had its first reading – not all that long, as it turned out, before the new 41st Parliament of Canada (following “the longest filibuster in Canadian history over back-to-work legislation”) – ran for the exits and the annual summer […]

According to  Daryl Bruce, a self-confessed “avid royal watcher since the wedding of Prince Andrew to Sarah,” a “source in the Prime Minister’s Office” has “told the Canadian media” that the upcoming local tour of William and Catherine “could go a long way to cementing the monarchy in Canada for a new generation in the […]

According to back-of-the-envelope calculations I have just made, I cast my first democratic ballot in the Ontario provincial election of October 17, 1967. I did not know where my local polling station was, but I did know the NDP candidate’s campaign office. I went there to ask where to go to lose my electoral virginity […]

According to Martin Regg Cohn, in “Ontario’s political air war – the battle of the campaign ads … launched during the final game of the hockey season” last night, the Tim Hudak Conservatives’ mindless “anti-tax commercial” (part of  “a wave of new commercials blasting [Ontario Premier Dalton] McGuinty as ‘The Tax Man’”) won first prize. […]

[UPDATED JUNE 20]. More than two weeks ago, the lovely Althia Raj warned that trouble for the latest Stephen Harper step by step Senate reform adventures was brewing among the new Tory majority in the unreformed Senate of Canada itself (“Conservative senators balking at Senate reform agenda: sources”). Now a fresh wave of similar reports […]

Senate reform has been in the Canadian news again this past week. And – even with the new Harper Conservative majority in the elected “lower house” of Parliament –  the sceptical bottom line is don’t hold your breath. Jeffrey Simpson concluded his latest shot in this dark forest with: “The Senate can’t be unilaterally abolished […]

[UPDATED JUNE 9, 12]. So US progressive documentarian Michael Moore feels former unreformed Senate of Canada page Brigette DePape’s ejection from the fabled Red Chamber with her ”Stop Harper” stop sign facsimile last Friday was “an iconic moment for Canada.” He goes on: “Moore said a functioning democracy should ‘encourage you to be disrespectful, to […]

They don’t take up much space in the 41st Parliament of Canada, which has just begun a very short housekeeping session, before fleeing for the traditional summer break. The future of the once high and mighty federal Liberals after their massacre this past May 2 nonetheless continues to attract attention. Among key current written texts […]

[UPDATED]. The Globe and Mail’s online poll on “Is the Conservative Party committed to reforming the Senate?” (38% Yes and 62% No, as of today) could be read as suggesting that only those who voted for Mr. Harper’s party on May 2 still believe in its public commitments on this front. Yet according to John […]

The 41st Parliament of Canada has not even held its first meeting quite yet. But already Jack Layton’s new Quebec-majority NDP official opposition is showing just how different it is from anything the federal New Democrats have ever known before. Former Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis, son of former federal leader David Lewis (silent partner […]