RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2025. It is true enough that the Canadian people are not as divided as the American people at this point in time. And like many other Canadians I’m grateful for that. A recent article by David Beers and Jen St. Denis at The Tyee in BC, however, […]

RANDALL WHITE, “CANADA’S CAPITAL REGION FROM FOUR HOURS AND FORTY MINUTES WEST”. SATURDAY, MAY 3, 2025. I should make two (or maybe three) things clear up front. First, I am a (somewhat cranky?) 80- year-old man who was born in Canada. I have lived here all my life, with brief exceptions for travel abroad. I […]

RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO . SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2024. Bill Maher’s latest misunderstanding of the Canadian real world (see eg “Canadians react as Bill Maher takes a swipe at Canada” on blogTO) reminded me that Mr Maher once admired Rob Ford’s ability to be both a frequent recreational drug user and Mayor of Toronto. […]

Thirty years later many might say that the people of Canada made the right decision when they rejected the Charlottetown Accord in the autumn of 1992. The constitutional future the deal envisioned had been conceived in too much haste with too little popular debate. The major provisions for Quebec’s unique status, Senate reform, and aboriginal […]

RANDALL WHITE, TORONTO, SEPTEMBER 20, 2020 : John Napier Turner (June 7, 1929 — September 18, 2020) sat in the Canadian House of Commons for the Montreal electoral district of St. Lawrence-St.George, 1962—1968, for Ottawa-Carleton, 1968—1976, and finally for Vancouver-Quadra, 1984—1993. He served as Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs in Lester Pearson’s Liberal cabinet, […]

As a kind of coda, footnote, or l’envoi to various recent postings on this site (including the October 4 tribute to the late great Charles Roach), we’d just like to offer a quick thumbs up to a provocative passage in Chantal Hébert’s October 5 column in the Toronto Star, “Here’s how the Liberals can make […]

I seldom agree with what Margaret Wente writes in her Globe and Mail column. She is speaking from and for a different universe than the one I inhabit. But there are exceptions to every rule. And I think Ms. Wente is at least half right today, in “Justin Trudeau for leader! Okay, maybe not.” She […]

Geoffrey Stevens is a former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail who, now comfortably into his senior-citizen-hood (born 1942), teaches political science at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Guelph. He also writes for StraightGoods.ca – “Canada’s leading independent online newsmagazine.” Stevens’s latest StraightGoods column is entitled “Elections are lost, […]