COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2024. Yesterday’s announcement of the state funeral for former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney (1984–1993) from present Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (2015–20??) is suitably couched in high-minded language : “Brian Mulroney devoted his career to serving Canadians. He was an extraordinary statesman and distinguished politician, respected both here at […]

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 […]

RANDALL WHITE, TORONTO, SEPTEMBER 20, 2020 : John Napier Turner (June 7, 1929 — September 18, 2020) sat in the Canadian House of Commons for the Montreal electoral district of St. Lawrence-St.George, 1962—1968, for Ottawa-Carleton, 1968—1976, and finally for Vancouver-Quadra, 1984—1993. He served as Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs in Lester Pearson’s Liberal cabinet, […]

The middle of the summer of 1977 was not quite nine months after René Lévesque’s unsettling PQ victory in the November 1976 Quebec provincial election. And it was at this point that the Anglo-American economist and philosopher Kenneth Boulding told the 44th annual Couchiching Conference in Ontario : Canada is an “absurd country straight out […]