RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK,TORONTO. SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2024. It still seems hard to know just where Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet is going with the “Bloc’s demand to increase old age security (supported by the CPC and the NDP so far).” According to our local (Liberal) MP here it “is too expensive and poorly targeted.” […]

RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK,TORONTO. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2024. You can read about Ben Rhodes as one of three “young hotshots” appointed “as assistant deputies” at the Obama administration’s National Security Council (NSC), on page 218 of Barack Obama’s A Promised Land (2020). There are as well more than a dozen additional references to Mr. Rhodes’s […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS. GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2024. The theoretical big news in Canadian politics right now is (to cite the CBC) :”The NDP is ending its governance agreement with the Liberals … Deal that ensured Liberal minority government’s survival was the first such agreement at the federal level.” CBC News (in the person of […]

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, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO . SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2024. Bill Maher’s latest misunderstanding of the Canadian real world (see eg “Canadians react as Bill Maher takes a swipe at Canada” on blogTO) reminded me that Mr Maher once admired Rob Ford’s ability to be both a frequent recreational drug user and Mayor of Toronto. […]

RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO . TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 2024. Individual polls vary on exact numbers. But by almost the middle of March 2024 all polls have been saying for some time that it is very hard to see how the Justin Trudeau Liberals could “win” a fourth Canadian federal election in a row, in […]

RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO. TUESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2024. The day before yesterday polling guru Philippe J. Fournier @338Canada urged that in the world of Canadian federal politics : “For those counting, this is the 6th consecutive month the Conservatives have been leading the Liberals by double-digits … That’s a stretch longer than Sheer’s lead […]

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 […]

NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO . SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2023. The October 18 Angus Reid polling report, “Majority — including two-in-five past Liberal voters — say Trudeau should step down,” underlines what now seems an unavoidable winter of discontent for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. From one deep-background angle, on the 338Canada list […]

COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. APRIL 14, 2023. Wiser heads than ours have remarked that Canadian federal politics today reflects the consequences of “proportional representation” elections without actually having proportional representation. Stephen Harper’s new Conservative Party of Canada had one majority and two minority governments between 2006 and 2015. And now Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party of […]