On various scores 2011 seems to at least most of us here to have been one of those years that actually can be seriously described as a hinge of fate (well … more or less). And so over the past few weeks everyone in the office or otherwise attached to this somewhat crazed but still […]
TORONTO, CANADA. The number one spot in the Globe and Mail list of its most popular stories on the last weekend before Christmas 2011 was held by a Gerald Caplan comment piece, headlined “Be very afraid: Stephen Harper is inventing a new Canada.” And I am wondering, well yes, of course, but is it true? […]
So … we have just learned that “Charles, the Prince of Wales, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall will be touring Canada as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations marking her 60 years on the British throne,” this coming May 2012. For many Canadians (and we confess we are among them), this is just yet […]
No one expects Nathan Cullen to win. As a recent Barbara Yaffe column in the Vancouver Sun notes, he has been labelled “a long shot and an underdog in the [federal] NDP leadership race.” And: “With nine candidates – nearly 10 per cent of the caucus” – vying “to replace Jack Layton, the Skeena-Bulkley Valley […]
BBC News Europe is reporting that: “The Labour Party’s Michael D Higgins has been officially confirmed as the ninth Irish president after one of the most remarkable comebacks in the state’s history … The poet and campaigner received 701,101 first-preference votes – almost 40% of the total … His victory over one-time favourite Sean Gallagher […]
[UPDATED OCTOBER 29]. TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2011. 3PM ET. Two different events far away today (allowing that this is a slippery word in the contemporary global village) have somewhat ironically juxtaposed implications for the long-term Canadian future. Even if the Canadian mainstream media is paying remarkably little attention! “Today” viewed as Friday, […]
If we’re going to start cheering out loud on this site, I’m giving a full three cheers for Resolution 114 at the upcoming Liberal Biennial Convention, to be held in Ottawa, January 13—15, 2012. It’s called “Canadian Identity in the 21st Century,” and has been proposed by the Young Liberals of Canada. After eight “Whereas” […]
Sometimes two headlines in the same newspaper on the same day can seem to explain each other. I had that feeling about two headlines in yesterday’s Toronto Star: “Lack of innovation holding Canada back: report” and “Tories order diplomats to hang portraits of the Queen by week’s end.” The first article explained how: “Canada has […]
I agree that over the mid to long term future, Stephen Harper’s “abject colonial” restoration of the “‘royal’ designation to Canada’s air force and navy” last week is almost certainly going to work to the advantage of those of us who see a Canadian republic as our ultimate rational democratic destiny in the true north, […]
Now that the new Harper Conservative majority government (still elected by less than 40% of the Canadian people) has restored the pre-1968 “abject colonial” names of “Royal Canadian Navy” and “Royal Canadian Air Farce,” related new rumours are heating up in Ottawa (aka “the last lumber village before the North Pole”). Sooner than anyone may […]
