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 […]

RANDALL WHITE. FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO. SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 2023. I did not know Hugh Segal personally. I never met him face to face. The closest I came was when my real-world acquaintances among Ontario bureaucrats urged that some document under discussion betrayed the Hugh Segal touch. I have, on the other hand, read and even […]

This is the last or concluding draft chapter of Randall White’s political-history work in progress, Children of the Global Village : Democracy in Canada Since 1497. A final version will be published in hard copy by eastendbooks in the autumn of 2024. * * * * There is no doubt more than one story of […]

OTTAWA VIEWED FROM A (COMPARATIVELY SHORT) DISTANCE WEST. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, FRIDAY, APRIL 28, 2023. A few recent items in the news raise a few fresh questions about just what is going on in the Trudeau-Liberal-reformed Senate of Canada in the second quarter of 2023? See, eg, “P.E.I. Senate replacements taking too long, […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. JUNE 20, 2021. We (well most of us anyway) like Justin Trudeau’s current Liberal government of Canada more than some we know. It is not even close to half-perfect, but to us it’s still head and shoulders above any available alternative. One thing we do not at all admire from the […]

(1) Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s chief of staff, Dean French, is going ahead with “a defamation lawsuit over posts made on social media by Randy Hillier, the maverick MPP ejected from the governing Progressive Conservative caucus.” And “Maverick MPP Randy Hillier says lawsuit by top Doug Ford aide is meant to silence him.” All this […]

On the third-last Monday of 2018, here are four short notes on the world as it looks up close in We the North of the North American Great Lakes : 1. Is Trump getting ready to jump (what would Machiavelli think?) This past Saturday morning Maggie at “Hear Me Roar” – who specializes in “The […]

As an altogether confirmed Canadian republican (not at all the same as an American Republican of course, especially today), I ordinarily do my best to ignore the British monarchy. But two contemporary media events have slightly increased my interest in the subject. The first is Harry Windsor’s forthcoming marriage to the mixed-race (and unquestionably hot) […]

I.  LIVING NEXT DOOR TO INCREASINGLY JUST PLAIN CRAZY ELEPHANT [UPDATED JAN 23]. Is anyone surprised that there is a US federal government “shutdown” on the anniversary of Donald Trump’s first year in office? If you actually are interested, try : “On Trump’s First Anniversary, a Government Shutdown” by John Cassidy in The New Yorker […]

This coming Saturday morning the entire staff here (except for Dominic Berry, who has a big date with his current squeeze at a local sporting event) will be boarding an airplane at YYZ, bound for our regular seminar with technical support staff currently residing in the land of the Golden State Warriors. (They are now, […]