It is probably quite politically clever that “Conservative MPs will soon be asking their constituents for advice on what to do about the economy … Prime Minister Stephen Harper has sent a letter to the Tory caucus asking each MP to proactively seek out ideas on the next phase of the government’s economic action plan.” […]
Just for starters, if there is not going to be a Canadian federal election this year at least one of the three opposition parties will have to vote with the Harper Conservative minority government on the budget “expected to be brought down in March.” Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff “says he wants to see the budget […]
End-of-the-year assessments are already creeping into the news – and no doubt with good enough reason. (It is, after all, already December 22.) As I contemplate my own thoughts on one of the key subjects pursued in this space, I find myself wanting to say that, in my darker moments, I sometimes think 2010 may […]
[UPDATED MARCH 30, 2011]. Ira Gershwin’s lyrics to the Kurt Weill tune, “The Saga of Jenny,” from the 1941 Broadway musical Lady in the Dark, has some appropriate seasonal allusions in 2010: “Jenny made her mind up when she was three / She herself was going to trim the Christmas tree / Christmas Eve she […]
[UPDATED DECEMBER 17, JANUARY 24, 31, FEBRUARY 16, MARCH 4, 9, 16, 23, 25, 28, 30, MAY 3]. Staggering “home from a seemingly endless succession of Christmas parties” in Ottawa, John Ibbitson reports: “If conventional wisdom, that most dubious of sources, is to be believed, the 40th Parliament is not long for this world. Shortly […]
History, T.S. Eliot from St. Louis wrote long ago, has “many cunning passages” – even in places like Canada. Some radical populists who lived in Western Canada two or three generations ago would be aghast if they knew that some alleged radical populists in Western Canada today are trying to promote the ancient eastern cause […]
UPDATED DECEMBER 4: The big Ottawa mystery this Friday afternoon in early December is whether John Ibbitson was right, when he reported yesterday on the Globe and Mail website (appearing in the print edition this morning), that: “The Harper government and the opposition parties have agreed to quietly sink legislation [aka Bill C-12] that would […]
The Canadian Press has nicely captured the combined impacts of at least one (or two?) of this past Monday’s three federal by-elections, and today’s inauguration of the new conservative municipal regime in Canada’s current largest big city. And there is at least some method to our rocket-science madness in summarizing the CP report from the […]
UPDATE NOVEMBER 30, 2010. 1:15 AM ET. As widely predicted, Robert Sopuck did win the rural Manitoba riding of Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette handily enough for the Conservatives, with “about 58 per cent of the vote.” Elsewhere it now seems clear enough that the Ignatieff Liberals have not fared quite as badly as some had feared (including, […]
The news that “NL premier Danny Williams announces resignation” will bring different thoughts to different minds on the Canadian mainland. In Ontario, eg, the point that his “resignation comes before a provincial election scheduled for October” will prompt some to wonder yet again whether Dalton McGuinty, also facing a provincial election scheduled for October, and […]
