RANDALL WHITE. FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2023. Two stories in the news the day before yesterday seemed to summarize the current somewhat crazed state of Canadian politics — at a time when much worse is going on elsewhere in Marshall McLuhan’s global village. Sticking with the CBC News site (strictly for convenience), the […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. DECEMBER 12, 2022. After this eclectic piece, the rest of this year’s contributions will just be notes on counterweights’ news and views of 2022. Meanwhile, here are four concluding preliminary notes on : (1) Doug Ford’s increasingly inept assaults on the traditional culture of Canada’s most populous province ; (2) Jagmeet […]

NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, FRIDAY 21 OCTOBER 2022. Like a few others (as best I can tell) I think I am finally ready to express my ultimate personal disappointment in PM Justin Trudeau. I say this while remembering that just over a year ago I wrote about “Why is so much […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. JUNE 21, 2022. If it were just Don Martin on the CTV News site saying “The fall of Justin Trudeau has begun” that would be one thing. But when Chantal Hébert is also asking in the Toronto Star “Is Justin Trudeau headed for defeat?” something at least half-serious could be afoot. […]

FROM THE COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. NOVEMBER 9, 2021. Liberal-NDP co-operation in Canadian federal politics — albeit mostly informal — has a history that goes back to the beginnings of the modern New Democratic Party in the 1960s. But it looks like rumoured prospects of some 2021 formal agreement, broadly on the model of the […]

CANADIAN ELECTION NOTEBOOK – RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO. AUGUST 28, 2021 [UPDATED AUGUST 31]. … So what’s happening in Campaign Canada 2021 now, with only 22 days left until the actual vote on Monday, September 20? Writing from Edmonton this morning, the wily Nicole Bogart at CTV News reported : “The Conservatives have opened […]

FROM THE COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. 2 MARCH 2021, 1 AM ET. UPDATED 14 MARCH 2021. We have no idea what Prime Minister Trudeau’s Liberal governing establishment thinks about Liberal MP Julie Dzerowicz’s private member’s “BILL C-273 … An Act to establish a national strategy for a guaranteed basic income” – which received first reading […]

FROM RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, WED 18 NOV 2020 : Sophia A. Nelson (who might qualify as one seasoned guide to the new political middle ground many Americans apparently now yearn for) published an interesting piece on the Daily Beast site this past Sunday. Her article is called “The Authoritarian Threat in This Country […]

FROM THE DESKTOPS OF THE COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS. GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2020, 4:00 PM ET : We have to confess that some of us actually fell vaguely asleep trying to watch the much-anticipated Trudeau Liberal throne speech, on TV this past Wednesday afternoon. The close-to-an-hour presentation by Governor General Julie Payette in alternating French […]

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 […]