[UPDATED MARCH 22,  30]. A piece in the Vancouver Sun (and other Postmedia News outlets) that began March 21 under the headline “Report finds Tories in contempt of Parliament” ended the same day under the quite different “As Harper government faces dissolution, Layton holds most of the cards.” And it was almost entirely re-written to […]

[UPDATED MARCH 21, 22, 25]. At the edge of what promises to be one of the most dramatic weeks in recent Canadian political history (in both official languages), I am surprised that two excellent Globe and Mail pundits are still raising doubts about the need for the Canadian federal election almost everyone else seems to […]

[UPDATED MARCH 21, 1 PM ET, MARCH 22, 9 AM ET, MARCH 23, 25, 30]. Well, well, well  … it now seems all but official. According to CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife : “We’re into an election period without a doubt and it’ll probably be for May 2nd.” According to another source (Maclean’s, copying […]

As best as I can make out, I did not agree with quite a few of Larry Zolf’s opinions about Canadian public life. (The two examples that come most immediately to mind are his residual sympathies for the British monarchy in Canada and Barbara Amiel’s husband, Conrad Black.) He was, however, the kind of journalist […]

As Stephen Harper and his party acolytes traipse across the country delivering pre-election goodies to worthy causes and places (see, eg: “PM announces support for Jean-Lesage International Airport,” “Ottawa provides $10 million for health network and hospital planning in Vaughan,” and “PM renews anti-gang funds … Will get $37.5M over five years”), he is also […]

As the week of March 7—11 that maybe was or was not in Canadian federal politics closes, two new polls on party standings have thrown some almost abrupt cold water on the more or less enthused speculation about such themes as “can opposition get Harper on abuse of power instead of budget?” – that I […]

[UPDATED MARCH 9, 8 PM ET]. Yesterday the two oldest Toronto newspapers threw a little red meat to those who long for the demise of the “Harper government” in Ottawa (with some milder parallel reporting in the rest of the country). In the Globe and Mail Lawrence Martin’s column, “On the road to the Harper […]

[UPDATE:  For the ALLEGED ROB FORD CRACK SMOKING SCANDAL, late May 2013, see “Streetcar Named Rob Ford lives on .. remember when his worship said he ‘no longer uses marijuana’ in 2010 ????.” ] At long last, the several hands who have been working since late December on what has now become our first quarterly […]

[UPDATED MARCH 7, 9, 11, 16, 25, 30, APRIL 5, 8, 11, 13, 22, MAY 1, 3]. Le Devoir, in the most politically sophisticated region of  Canada’s wonderland, may have already pronounced the simplest truth (or dare) on the Canadian federal election of 2011: “Flaherty ferme la porte au compromis sur le budget … Le […]

Flipping through the rather slender electronic file on the federal NDP motion for “a national referendum on abolishing the Senate” – slated for debate in the Canadian House of Commons today, after some procedural wrangling yesterday – forces you to dwell on just how beleaguered the cause of progress in Ottawa has become lately. The […]