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 […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. SEPTEMBER 18, 2022. The extravaganza following the death of Queen Elizabeth II has been especially concentrated in the old imperial metropolis across the seas. And there as well the Queen’s state funeral tomorrow will begin at 11 AM BST (or 6 AM EDT here in North America). Whatever else, all this […]

ONTARIO TONITE. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, 30 MARCH 2022. Strictly by accident, I was in Richmond, Virginia at the time of the wedding of the mother and father of the William who just recently completed “an eight-day tour of Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas during which he and wife Kate were celebrated but also […]

NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK – RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO. JULY 4, 2021. [UPDATED JULY 6]. Susan B. Glasser’s credentials are impressive : “… currently a staff writer at The New Yorker … Prior to her joining The New Yorker … she founded the award-winning Politico Magazine … previously served as the editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, FROM THE EAST TORONTO OFFICE (NORTH OF THE LAKES AS THE OLD AGRARIAN DEMOCRACY USED TO SAY). JUNE 24, 2021. The weather is more than just agreeable here today. The sun is shining. Early summer is in full bloom. And we are cheered, dismayed, and/or puzzled by eight different stories in the recent […]

FROM THE COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. 2 MARCH 2021, 1 AM ET. UPDATED 14 MARCH 2021. We have no idea what Prime Minister Trudeau’s Liberal governing establishment thinks about Liberal MP Julie Dzerowicz’s private member’s “BILL C-273 … An Act to establish a national strategy for a guaranteed basic income” – which received first reading […]

SPECIAL FROM RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, JANUARY 30, 2021. The main reaction to the unusual resignation of Governor General Julie Payette so far has focused on how she was vetted, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau chose her to fill the office in the summer of 2017. The Democracy Watch advocacy group has already spoken […]

TELEGRAM FROM RANDALL WHITE. GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. It is no doubt only to be expected that strange things will happen during such historical eras as the COVID-19 global pandemic – in public as well as private life. That any rate strikes me as the most sensible context in which to view the summer 2020 controversy over […]

The most striking political thing I’ve heard lately came from a lady on the 39th floor of a downtown Toronto residential tower – over grapes, nuts and Perrier water, looking south out a big window on the naked city in all its current wonder. She follows Canadian federal politics with real interest, but without any […]

From a Canadian point of view, it probably does make some kind of sense that, as the Queen has recently informed us, Harry and Meghan will be going through “a period of transition in which” they “will spend time in Canada and the UK.” As suggested by Philippe Lagassé, described in the New York Times […]