RANDALL WHITE, NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK, TORONTO. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2026. While tidying up the office (to escape all the snow still outside), I came across two quotations from eminent Americans, successively posted on my office magazine rack. The first is from Harvard historian and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore. It’s in an article dated December […]

GREG BARNS SC. HOBART, MELBOURNE, BRISBANE, PERTH, AUSTRALIA. MONDAY, MAY 5, 2025. Newly minted Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Liberals have something in common with the winner of Australia’s national election on Saturday, Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Both brought their governments back from the brink of defeat partly because […]

RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2025. The more or less final results of the 2025 Canadian federal election were still not fully known with certainty, even as we approached dinner on the day after election day. It has nonetheless been clear since late on election day (Monday, April 28) that Liberal leader […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS. GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. , MONDAY, APRIL 21, 2025. UPDATED. SATURDAY 26 APRIL/SUNDAY 27 APRIL 2025. SCROLL BELOW FOR UPDATE TEXT. The 2025 Canadian federal election, which may or may not be “the most important election of our lives, ” will take place exactly one week from today. It says a lot about how short, […]

GREG BARNS SC. HOBART, MELBOURNE, BRISBANE, PERTH, AUSTRALIA. MONDAY, JANUARY 13, 2025. Not for the first time the political landscapes in Australia and Canada are worthy of comparison. This year both nations are holding elections and the opposition parties, the Conservatives in Canada and the Liberals in Australia, are led by right wing populists. The […]

RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK,TORONTO. SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2024. It still seems hard to know just where Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet is going with the “Bloc’s demand to increase old age security (supported by the CPC and the NDP so far).” According to our local (Liberal) MP here it “is too expensive and poorly targeted.” […]

RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK,TORONTO. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2024. You can read about Ben Rhodes as one of three “young hotshots” appointed “as assistant deputies” at the Obama administration’s National Security Council (NSC), on page 218 of Barack Obama’s A Promised Land (2020). There are as well more than a dozen additional references to Mr. Rhodes’s […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS. GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2024. The theoretical big news in Canadian politics right now is (to cite the CBC) :”The NDP is ending its governance agreement with the Liberals … Deal that ensured Liberal minority government’s survival was the first such agreement at the federal level.” CBC News (in the person of […]

RANDALL WHITE, ONTARIO TONITE, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2024. The impressively independent Ottawa journalist Dale Smith has argued for “resisting the sense of fatalism that [Conservative leader Pierre] Poilievre has already won the next election when it’s a year away and there is plenty of time for progressive voters to fight.” In at least […]

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. […]