[UPDATED OCTOBER 30]. A sentence in one of Martin Regg Cohn’s recent Toronto Star columns (Saturday, October 27, 2012) has revived some of my enthusiasm for what strikes some among us as a benign potential Ontario political development, that has lately seemed to have slid too far beyond the pale of realization in the real […]
As further evidence that “in some profoundly mysterious way … certain kinds of people more or less die together,” two interesting men born in Toronto in the early 1920s were sadly taken from us this past Friday, October 19, 2012. In the more widely covered case, yesterday visitors were “paying their respects … to Lincoln […]
[UPDATED OCTOBER 21]. Ontario politics has entered one of its rare phases of deep fascination – at least for the small band of regional deep thinkers who are actually interested in Ontario politics. (Unfortunately the band does not appear to include the lovely Alison Pill, even though she was born and raised in Ontario’s capital […]
TORONTO. OCTOBER 15, 2012. 11:00 PM ET. Like everyone else (except Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, apparently), I was altogether surprised by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s announcement early this evening (“just before 6:30 pm ET”), that he was proroguing the Legislative Assembly at Queens’s Park, and stepping down as leader of the provincial Liberal Party. As […]
Judging by the poll on the Globe and Mail site today, not very many Canadians outside Quebec are concerned that “France has re-instated its non-interference, non-indifference policy toward Quebec nationalism.” There may nonetheless be a few who are wondering what this report elsewhere on the Globe and Mail site means: “Premier Pauline Marois got what […]
[UPDATED OCTOBER 14, 15]. People have been asking me, “do you still think President Barack Obama is the biggest thing that’s happened in American history in your lifetime (as I wrote back on September 9), now that the results of the first presidential debate are in?” I have just read my September 9 meanderings over […]
A Huffington Post Travel Blog article this past Friday – by Mitch Moxley, a “Freelance writer in Beijing” – seems to be stirring a lot of dust in Vancouver. It’s called “Welcome To Vancouver: ‘No Fun City’.” And it certainly isn’t flattering. Moxley allows that, physically and geographically, “Vancouver is a beautiful city. Gorgeous.” But, […]
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 […]
For all our vast technical progress over the past few centuries, we mere human beings still don’t seem to know much more about the vast mysteries of death than our ancestors several thousand years ago. And perhaps it is true enough — in some profoundly mysterious way — that certain kinds of people more or […]
There is certainly a case for minority government as a democratic tonic these days, especially in “Westminster” (ie British-style) parliamentary systems like Canada’s – and Ontario’s. And no one makes it better than Peter Russell. At the same time, the no doubt very small band of we the too-concerned people of Ontario, who have been […]
