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 […]

NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO . THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 2023. We had just arrived home from a short late-July adventure in the northern woods. Suddenly the TV and all other mainstream mass media were reporting that “Trump indicted for efforts to overturn 2020 election and block transfer of power.” Then the next […]

RANDALL WHITE. FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO. SUNDAY JULY 23, 2023. There was a time in these parts when more than a few citizens of the modern Canadian democracy still looked up to the political culture of the United Kingdom. In my mind (in casual gear at any rate) all this is still vaguely reflected in the […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. SATURDAY, JULY 1, 2023. The dread Canadian wildfires of late spring/early summer 2023 affect Canadian as well as US cities, suburbs, exurbs, rural small towns, rural townships, district townships (in Northern Ontario) and (especially in Canada) the still quite vast North American wilderness beyond. And in some parts of the second […]

NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, MONDAY, JUNE 26, 2023, 2:00 AM EDT. UPDATED 10:30 PM EDT. The unusual Toronto mayoralty byelection is the big local political event today. It already seems almost clear enough, however, that left-wing progressive Olivia Chow will be the city’s next mayor. The biggest news will be if […]

NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, SUNDAY, MAY 28, 2023. For most Canadians the big political drama of May 29, 2023 will be the Alberta provincial election — a duel between two feisty middle-age women on the (almost socialist?) left and (more than almost extreme conservative?) right, which may or may not surprise […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. MAY 6, 2023. Almost by accident we have stumbled across a (for us) especially sensible way of commemorating the events of today back in the old imperial metropolis across the seas. Recently our colleague Randall White completed the last or concluding draft chapter of his political-history work in progress, Children of […]

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 near future. * * * * [UPDATED 12 OCTOBER 2024]. There is no doubt more than […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. MARCH 1, 2023. This morning’s editorial meeting tabled a two-page pdf file headlined “London Declaration, United Kingdom, 1949.” The suggestion was that this is a document not much remembered in the 2020s. But it is nonetheless of serious interest in the current post-Elizabeth II debate on practical alternatives to the increasingly […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. OCTOBER 27, 2022. “History has many cunning passages” (T.S. Eliot). And in one of them, in the Canadian House of Commons, yesterday’s very clear defeat of a Bloc Québécois motion to sever ties with the “British monarchy” could somewhat ironically prove the effective first step on a long inevitable journey to […]