Some would characterize the Nobel Peace Prize winner Lester “Mike” Pearson’s comparatively short prime ministerial career (1963–68) as the time when Canada’s long-incubating federal welfare state achieved its ultimate modern fruition. Others would allude to one of “the most influential commissions in Canadian history, the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963–69),” which “brought about [...]

Meghan Markle and Harry Wales have now shown the world that the British monarchy does have some kind of modern future. (Though, somewhat intriguingly, what was once the website of “The British Monarchy” nowadays just calls itself “The home of the Royal Family.”) Meanwhile, back in the most northerly North American UN member state, Canada [...]

As an altogether confirmed Canadian republican (not at all the same as an American Republican of course, especially today), I ordinarily do my best to ignore the British monarchy. But two contemporary media events have slightly increased my interest in the subject. The first is Harry Windsor’s forthcoming marriage to the mixed-race (and unquestionably hot) [...]

GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. DECEMBER 4, 2017. [UPDATED DECEMBER 11]. Who can doubt that we are now living in challenging times — especially in those realms of fake and other news where “Canada’s top party school” also qualifies as one of the “10 Wildest Party Schools in North America”? (Even as “Sex assault allegations place NS university’s [...]

WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 2017. Toronto, Ontario.  This coming Monday we will celebrate locally what is known here in Ontario (and other Canadian provinces) as Victoria Day.  (In Quebec the same holiday is now more sensibly called  Journée nationale des patriotes.) The holiday is nowadays defined as “the last Monday preceding May 25.” And this entrenches [...]

TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA ETC, Mid-to-late February 2017. RE : Steinmeier in Germany, Rosenbaum on Trump, Carlos Fraenkel on a mosque in Quebec City, and a footnote on changing the name of the Langevin Block in Ottawa to the Pontiac (or Louis Riel) Block. I first started pondering this quartet of obscure but deep political thoughts [...]

The recent Radio Canada report “Noted nationalist and author Mel Hurtig dead at 84” has coincided with several bursts of fresh interest in old Justin Trudeau articles on this site. See, eg : * “The quiet evolution of ‘La femme de Justin Trudeau’ carries on” ( 5 Mar 2012) ; * “The unbearable lightness of [...]

TORONTO, CANADA. JUNE 30, 2016. Our local and regional stock markets are back,  and it is starting to seem that the Brexit crisis in the United Kingdom is not going to precipitate a global depression after all. It does nonetheless remain something of a bigger-than-expected political (and no doubt economic) disturbance in the UK itself. [...]

Late in the evening of this coming Wednesday, May 11, the entire office staff here will be boarding an airplane for our semi-regular European conference. We’ll be returning on Thursday, May 26, late in the afternoon. This time we’re in the north of what a UK series on TV Ontario many years ago called The [...]

In the 1930s the local historian (and private school Latin teacher) Percy Robinson — author of the still invaluable Toronto during the French Regime, 1615–1793 — called Toronto, Ontario, Canada (all North American indigenous words) “the citadel of British sentiment in America.” On a somewhat earlier and more extreme, possibly even exaggerated variation on the [...]