Not quite eight weeks ago, an article posted here raised the question: “Would the emerging new raw-patronage Conservative majority in the still unreformed and unelected Senate of Canada actually defeat even a private member’s bill duly passed by a clear majority of MPs in the elected Canadian House of Commons?” (See “More ironies of Canadian […]

Ever since Canada definitively became An Actual Democracy in the early 20th century (at the very least), its unreformed, “relic-of-the-19th-century” Senate has generally refrained from trying to defeat legislation duly passed by a majority of the democratically elected Canadian House of Commons. A merely appointed Senate in an actual democracy that tried to actually exercise […]

Jane Taber reports that “Conservatives are vigorously defending the appointment  of CFL tycoon David Braley to the Senate against Liberal suggestions he basically bought his way into the Red Chamber through thousands of dollars of donations to Stephen Harper.” (Or, as The News from Pictou County, Nova Scotia has explained: “Braley, a businessman from Hamilton, […]

If you support some workable version of Senate reform in Canada – as I have for many years  myself – you are bound to in some degree support the Harper minority government’s latest stab in the dark at step-by-step advance on a democratically elected “upper house” of parliament in Ottawa. Whatever else, you have to […]

The Canadian Press reports that the “Harper government is trying, for the fourth time in four years, to impose eight-year term limits on the Senate … Legislation introduced Monday [March 29, 2010] would limit senators to a single, non-renewable term and would apply to all senators appointed since October 2008.” On an earlier theory, this […]

GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. SUNDAY, MARCH 21, 2010. As of just after 12 Noon today, the Washington Post online is reporting “House leaders express confidence they will secure enough votes to pass health bill.”Â  But it still seems no one knows for sure (well, maybe?). Up here north of the Great Lakes, we watch with some amazement. […]

For those who may actually be interested, our resident Ontario historian Randall White has now unburdened himself on the Toronto Centre by-election in Ontario politics last week. He also offers some hard and soft information on the March 4 Ontario provincial by-elections, in Leeds-Grenville and Ottawa West-Nepean. CLICK HERE for the complete article, or see […]

More than 60 years ago Harold Innis, the almost-great Canadian historian (or economist, or economic historian, or communications theorist who inspired Marshall McLuhan, etc, etc), lamented the “futility of political discussion in Canada.” And it is sobering to think that in this respect at least not much has changed since the late 1940s. Take, for […]

The dead of winter always makes you a bit crazy in a northern country. Our resident Ontario historian Randall White’s deep-background investigation of the current great Canadian prorogation debate is apparently still a work in progress – with a new “almost firm” deadline of January 13 or 14 (or even 15?). Meanwhile, we counterweights editors […]

Our resident Ontario historian Randall White had a first swing at the Stephen Harper minority government’s latest prorogation of the Parliament of Canada last week. Since then the issue has been gathering more steam (in at least some old transcontinental railway towns, across our vast treasure-chest of natural and human resources, etc, etc). And Dr. […]