TORONTO. DECEMBER 17, 2009. It is hardly surprising when the Toronto Star’s Chantal Hébert explains how “Harper Tories are own worst enemies” – even though: “Only a few weeks ago” they seemed “headed for a triumphant year end.” But when anyone at the National Post asks “How does Harper do it?” – and then gives […]
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, […]
TORONTO. SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2009. Yesterday marked the 172nd anniversary of William Lyon Mackenzie’s ill-fated (and no doubt somewhat comic-operetta) march down Yonge Street in a much earlier incarnation of this city – the height, as it were, of the Upper Canadian Rebellion of 1837. On a perhaps vaguely related but much more recent wave […]
It seems that the great Tiger Woods is just getting in deeper and deeper. See, e.g., today’s Vancouver Sun: “Tiger Woods voicemail to alleged TV girlfriend released, third woman named as Tiger apologizes.” Or the Yahoo Canada site: “Golfer who introduced Elin to Tiger tees off on Woods.” To save his reputation someone is going […]
[UPDATED DECEMBER 2, 2009]. How many sovereign people of Canada today are even aware that there was a 60th anniversary summit of the Commonwealth of Nations this past weekend in Trinidad and Tobago? A poll commissioned by something called the Royal Commonwealth Society this past summer asked a representative sample of Canadians: “Which one of […]
So Stephane Dion’s wife, Janine Krieber, posted a “scathing message attacking Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff” on facebook this past Saturday. Shopping for groceries the same day, a little further west, I bumped into a similar scathing message face to face, urging that Iggy should resign, to make way for Ralph Goodale as head of the […]
The broad Canadian public finally caught up with diplomat Richard Colvin’s story about how “Canada Handed Over Afghans for Torture” this past Wednesday, November 18, when he testified before a Canadian House of Commons committee in Ottawa. But the crux of his testimony has been available since the middle of October, when his affidavit for […]
Canada’s Conservative minority government has just introduced a new guide for prospective new Canadian citizens. The person responsible for this quite ideologically charged political document is Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. And our always controversial Citizen X thinks its essential subtext is that some Canadians really are more equal than others. How else, Citizen […]
The prize-winning economist Paul Krugman recently wrote: “Every once in a while I feel despair over the fate of the planet.” Earlier this year he also wrote about his “Financial Policy Despair.” One of the arguably good things about Canada has been that nothing quite important enough to despair over ever quite happens here. But […]
TORONTO. NOVEMBER 11, 2009. It was inevitable that the quiet journey of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall through four Canadian provinces during the first few weeks of November this year would finally bump into some noisy protest when it reached la belle province du Quebec. (See “Flying eggs, riot police, pro-Quebec […]
