[UPDATED FEBRUARY 22]. (1) Here are some quick notes on the first (and some would say last?) throne speech of Kathleen Wynne’s new Liberal minority government in Ontario yesterday. They also serve as an update to “Ontario ‘three-party system in transition’ is back .. but can Premier Kathleen do it, at last?,” which appeared on [...]

QUEEN’S PARK, TORONTO. FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 3:30 PM. Some three and a half months ago, I was wondering: “Is Liberal Conservative détente next big thing in Ontariario .. and will it work?” My inspiration was a Toronto Star column by Martin Regg Cohn, which urged : “As labour tensions dominate the agenda, Liberals and New [...]

TORONTO. APRIL 24, 2:00 PM. So … as if the Alberta election weren’t enough of a surprise, the final act of the Liberal-NDP dance of the dialectic on Ontario Budget 2012 managed to bring us something a bit different too. For the details I just quote directly from Karen Howlett’s concise summary in the self-confessed [...]

Larry Zolf’s 117-page opus Dance of the Dialectic — on “How Pierre Elliot Trudeau went from Philosopher-King to the Incorruptible Robespierre to Philosopher-Queen Marie Antoinette to Canada’s Generalissimo and then to Mackenzie King and Even Better” — was published 39 long years ago now. In the strange spring of 2012, however, its title has taken [...]

Before non-Tory partisans get too excited about such headlines as “Ontario voters trending to McGuinty, poll suggests” (Globe and Mail) or “Liberals inch ahead of Tories in two new polls” (Toronto Star), they might want to at least consider “Tories leading the pack: Poll” (surprise, surprise — in the Toronto Sun). The poll in the [...]