RANDALL WHITE, NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK, TORONTO . SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 2024. When I first heard about the new Léger poll “Official bilingualism in Canada a ‘myth‘” on TV last night, I was suitably outraged. I was 24 years old when the concept was “enshrined into law in 1969, making English and French Canada’s official languages.” […]
RANDALL WHITE, ONTARIO TONITE, TORONTO . TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 2024. The somewhat bizarre recent Ontario cabinet shuffle, “shortly after the Ontario Legislature ended for an extended summer break,” might be viewed as proof that Premier Doug Ford really is in some ways quite a lot like Donald Trump in the USA . Whatever else, the […]
COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON, CANADA. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 2024. In our last Indian election report about a month ago we wrote : “As things still look to us, Modi almost certainly will win his third term as prime minister on June 4. His BJP might not be as strong in the Lok Sabha as it […]
COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON, CANADA. TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2024. This is the day India’s election results are due — the grand conclusion of the world’s largest democracy’s majestic but still somewhat troubling 2024 quest to give Nardendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP government a third consecutive term in office. As we write the BJP has still […]
SPECIAL FROM L. FRANK BUNTING, GRAND BEND, ON. MAY 31, 2024. Just before it became clear what the jury would decide in the first (and least substantively serious) criminal trial of Donald Trump, I tried to slow down and think about it all. I have been surprised, like others, by the extent to which the […]
RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO . FRIDAY, MAY 24, 2024. This past Monday was “Canada’s oldest public holiday.” According to Wikipedia it is “observed on the last Monday preceding May 25 to honour Queen Victoria, who is known as the ‘Mother of Confederation’. The holiday has existed in Canada since at least 1845, originally on […]
NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO . WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 2024. Am I the only human being to notice that PM Rishi Sunak has just called a UK general election for the time-honoured 4th of July US federal holiday — celebrating the Declaration of Independence from the UK on July 4, 1776? The […]
COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON, CANADA. WEDNESDAY, MAY 15, 2024. India’s vast election from April 19 to June 1 (with final results on Tuesday, June 4 — exactly three weeks from yesterday) continues to raise almost as many questions about the democratic global village in 2024 as the US election on Tuesday, November 5. The day […]
ONTARIO NOTEBOOK. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO . MONDAY, MAY 6, 2024. Two Ontario by-elections this past Thursday, May 2, 2024 (“special elections” in US parlance) changed absolutely nothing in Ontario provincial politics. Yet various observers seem to suggest that these political housekeeping events in Canada’s most populous province may still harbour deeper meanings in […]
SPECIAL FROM CITIZEN X, BUCKHORN, ON. SUNDAY, APRIL 28, 2024. It’s raining up here in the exurban northern wilderness. — April showers that bring May flowers. If only for a few hours I am trying to escape the troubling choppy waters of US politics on TV, in the new age of Trump on trial. For […]
