This coming Friday, April 12 will mark the 175th anniversary of a significant event in the history of Toronto (and even Ontario and Canada writ large), that hardly anyone remembers now. On the morning of April 12, 1838, close to the present-day intersection of King and Toronto streets downtown, Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews were [...]

In a number of respects the Liberal Party of Canada biennial convention in Ottawa this weekend has been a surprising success. It was, eg, attended by some 3,200 delegates — considerably more than expected. As Jane Taber has also reported: “The party had wanted to show it can reinvent itself by becoming more open. It [...]

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 [...]

[UPDATED MAY 19, 20]. There is at least a strong perception that Senate reform will be one of the key issues on the early agenda of the new Harper majority government in Ottawa. (See, eg: “New momentum for Senate reform” and “Then it will be on to Senate reform.”) In speculating about today’s much-touted federal [...]

As the week of March 7–11 that maybe was or was not in Canadian federal politics closes, two new polls on party standings have thrown some almost abrupt cold water on the more or less enthused speculation about such themes as “can opposition get Harper on abuse of power instead of budget?” — that I [...]

Flipping through the rather slender electronic file on the federal NDP motion for “a national referendum on abolishing the Senate” — slated for debate in the Canadian House of Commons today, after some procedural wrangling yesterday — forces you to dwell on just how beleaguered the cause of progress in Ottawa has become lately. The [...]

Once upon a time, the near-great economic historian Harold Innis began his 1947 “Minerva’s Owl” Presidential Address to the Royal Society of Canada with: “I have taken the title from that striking sentence of Hegel ‘Minerva’s owl begins its flight only in the gathering dusk…’” As much more recently explained by Lauren O’Nizzle, “a 20-something [...]

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 [...]

Not quite eight weeks ago, an article posted here raised the question: “Would the emerging new raw-patronage Conservative majority in the still unreformed and unelected Senate of Canada actually defeat even a private member’s bill duly passed by a clear majority of MPs in the elected Canadian House of Commons?” (See “More ironies of Canadian [...]

TORONTO. TUESDAY 6 JULY 2010. 4:00 PM ET. If you have any feeling at all for the way Old Ontariario used to be, even just back in the dark ages of the 1950s, say, you may have found it difficult to resist some nostalgia over Queen Elizabeth II’s farewell perambulation around Queen’s Park in this [...]