RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK,TORONTO. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2024. I first met David Alexandre Montgomery at a late 1960s gathering of young employees in what was then called the Department of Municipal Affairs, in the Ontario public service. He memorably (and with some humour) introduced himself to the group as “an existentialist.” I still do not […]

RANDALL WHITE, ONTARIO TONITE, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2024. The impressively independent Ottawa journalist Dale Smith has argued for “resisting the sense of fatalism that [Conservative leader Pierre] Poilievre has already won the next election when it’s a year away and there is plenty of time for progressive voters to fight.” In at least […]

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 […]

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 […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. MONDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2023. Without a shred of doubt the single biggest event of the new year just ahead for those of us living north of the Great Lakes (and the 49th Parallel and various points east and so on) will be the US federal elections on Tuesday, November 5, 2024. […]

RANDALL WHITE. FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2023. Two stories in the news the day before yesterday seemed to summarize the current somewhat crazed state of Canadian politics — at a time when much worse is going on elsewhere in Marshall McLuhan’s global village. Sticking with the CBC News site (strictly for convenience), the […]

SPECIAL FROM CITIZEN X, BUCKHORN, ON. 8/9 OCTOBER 2023 — CANADIAN THANKSGIVING. [UPDATED OCTOBER 10]. In my last appearance on this sideroad of the vast electronic highway in the 2020s I suggested : “As genuinely crazy as it may be, some sort of second American Civil War may also just be inevitable.” That was back […]

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, 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 […]

MORE NOTES FROM THE DEMOCRATIC DESKTOP OF CITIZEN X, BUCKHORN, ON. THURSDAY, MAY 27, 2021. In some ways the Doug Ford who spoke to the people of Ontario via TV on Thursday, May 20, 2021 was different from the Doug Ford who had addressed the same democratic audience on Friday, April 30. Back last month […]