COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, EAST TORONTO OFFICE. THURSDAY 16 SEPTEMBER 2021. [UPDATED SPTEMBER 17]. With just four days to go we”™re detecting a somewhat strange mood. There are hardly any election signs on the old streetcar-suburb street that hosts our global corporate headquarters. Even some noted political commentators on Twitter and elsewhere are saying they just wish […]

SPECIAL FROM THE DEMOCRATIC DESKTOP OF CITIZEN X, BUCKHORN, ON. K0L 0C1. On a grey day in the Kawarthas two or possibly even three big political questions float on the clouds. (While even with the sun not shining the government tourism ad is strangely truthful : “You never forget the feeling of summer in Ontario.”) […]

QUIKNOTES FROM THE DESKTOP(S) OF THE COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS. SAT/SUN/MON, SEP 5/6/7, 2020. Canadian federal politics – at least trying to compete for attention with the serious world-historical circus next door – is now tilted toward the Trudeau Liberals’ “better-life-in-the-new-future” Throne Speech on September 23, 2020. Meanwhile there is a new Conservative leader, who is at […]

GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. WED, OCT 16, 2019. With the actual Canadian federal election now only four or five days away, it is hard to say anything altogether sensible about the ultimate result. Except that it does seem very close (in various respects) and impossible to predict. We’re finding ourselves thrown back on the amusement of no […]

It’s the early days of August – “for the people and their favourite islands.” Beyond the great but too often sad entertainment of current American history next door, no Canadian of any sense is thinking about anything at all serious. And that certainly goes double for the Canadian federal election this coming October 21. Photographs […]

[UPDATED OCT 2, 1PM ET]. CBC Poll Tracker guru Éric Grenier published an intriguing piece yesterday – “Are Stephen Harper’s Conservatives inching toward victory? … Conservatives occupy best position they’ve been in since the campaign began.” Grenier notes that his current averaging of other people’s polls “gives the Tories a significant edge in the seat […]

As usual, I have been assigned the thankless task of suddenly announcing that the entire counterweights Toronto editorial office is shutting down to attend another seminar series with the technical support group, currently headquartered in Kailua, Hawaii, where various fresh innovations have now been successfully launched. We leave for Honolulu tomorrow, August 28. And we […]

[UPDATED AUG 18TH]. The second week in the long official campaign for the Canadian federal election of 2015 is over. And the congenital regional diversity of it all is what sticks in my mind right now. I’m watching from the old East Toronto, close to the most easterly of the Great Lakes. Reading “Liberal leader […]

1. ONE WEEK DOWN, TEN TO GO. [Well … with this August 13 polling update, it’s more like 1½ weeks down, 9½ weeks to go!]. The move to fixed election dates itself lengthens the unofficial campaign. And now in 2015, in yet another of Stephen Harper’s schemes, the official campaign is longer than in any other Canadian […]

The official 2015 “long form” Canadian federal election campaign has only just begun. And already I can understand what Rosemary Barton means when she says : “In this election campaign, the only constant is ‘change’ .” I know it’s finally just because I am so much older and more tired than Ms Barton. But it […]