Amid reports that Democratic and Republican leaders have reached a budget deal, Jeffrey Simpson’s analysis of American politics, in today’s Globe and Mail, offers some valuable perspective. The reasons for the problem are well known:The U.S. spen…
Continue readingAuthor: Owen Gray
Northern Reflections: The Vultures Are Circling
John Boehner is in the same spot he was in a week ago, when he walked out of budget negotiations with President Obama. He doesn’t have the votes. The difference this time is that he doesn’t have the votes for his own plan, not the president’s.In today’…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: When Ignorance Drives The Bus
When Margaret Atwood wrote this week that Rob and Doug Ford’s campaign to cut public services was “swiftly approaching the ‘let them eat cake stage,” Doug fired back, “Well good luck to Margaret Atwood. I don’t even know her. If she walked by …
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Another Mountain To Climb
The news that Jack Layton is again battling cancer is very distressing. On a personal level, it must be a tremendous set back for the man and his wife, who have each previously battled the disease. On a political level, it is also a setback for a…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: The Dangerous Mr. Frye
Jim Bronskill reported in ipolics yesterday that the now defunct RCMP Intelligence Service kept a substantial file on the late Northrop Frye. He came to their attention because of “his involvement in the anti-Vietnam War movement, an academic forum on …
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: The Children’s Hour
Ezra Klein cuts to the chase in today’s Washington Post. The White House wanted $400 billion in revenues, and John Boehner knew he couldn’t get the deal through the House:But you can’t get a deal unless you can get the votes. And what’s been clear …
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: How Little Wisdom
Paul Krugman has a right to be pessimistic. The powerful elites on both sides of the Atlantic suffer from group think. And, instead of proving the truth of the old adage, “great minds think alike,” they offer a vivid illustration of the flip side of th…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: The Refrain Is The Same
Jeffrey Simpson notes that income inequality in Canada is getting worse. According to a Conference Board of Canada report,The richest group of Canadians, those in the top fifth of income earners, saw their share of national income rise from 1993 to 20…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Raging Amnesia
George Orwell had a pretty good bead on the future. The only difference between 1984 and 2011 is that things go down the memory hole quicker. Certainly, writes Peter Beinart in The Daily Beast, the Republican Party suffers from a shocking case of amnes…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: All That Money Can Buy
As the doinoees continue to fall in the Murdoch Saga — the latest are Rebekah Brooks and Britian’s top police officer, Paul Stephenson — we are reminded yet again that our institutions, both public and private, have been corrupted by money.The idea t…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Fearing Nothing But Fear
In a short piece for the Canadian International Council, Roland Paris asks the essential question about Prime Minister Harper: What Is Stephen Harper Afraid Of? It’s been clear for some time that Harper, for all his bravado, trusts no one. That has bee…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Smelling The Crazy
For Conservatives, Paul Krugman is more than an apostate; he is the Anti-Christ. But his column in today’s New York Times is required reading. He writes that it’s strange how many people, who have been in denial, are now “waking up and smelling the cra…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Who Is The Real Stephen Harper?
To his critics on the left, Stephen Harper is a right wing ideologue. To his critics on the right, he is a Liberal in disguise. Scott Stinson, in The National Post, claims that Harper has succeeded by selling out his conservative principles:The Tory go…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Come, Let Us Reason Together
I have always thought that Churchill was right when he said that, “the United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative” I was a graduate student in the United States during the Watergate Crisis; and, …
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Lester Pearson Would Be Furious
Yesterday, John Baird announced that Canada would boycott the UN Conference on Disarmament. Canada’s objection, said Baird, was that North Korea would chair the conference:”It’s just absurd to have them in the chair,” Baird told a conference call. “Th…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: The Danger Of Getting Too Close To Royalty
After the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge left Canada to bask in the glow of Hollywood, the Prime Minister chose to do some basking of his own. Speaking in Calgary over the weekend, Stephen Harper, according to The Globe and Mailconsigned the Liberals an…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Student Debt and Myopic Public Policy
Gary Mason began his column in Thursday’s Globe and Mail by reminiscing about the good old days:Once upon a time, getting money to attend university in Canada was easy. There were non-repayable grants available from the government, and there were lot…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: The Smart People Flunked History
I have referred several times in this space to Barbara Tuchman’s book, The March of Folly. In particular, I have returned to Tuchman’s definition of “wooden-headedness:”Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a rem…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: The Saga Of A Prodigal Son
Bob Hepburn argues, in today’s Toronto Star, that Conrad Black should be stripped of his Order of Canada: Strangely though, the advisory council that oversees the Order of Canada once again failed to strip former newspaper owner Conrad Black, who…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Good Old Fashioned Class Warfare
While many members of the chattering class have heralded Stephen Harper’s election as the beginning of a bright and beautiful future, Linda McQuaig has always seen it for what it is: a concerted and vengeful attempt to turn back the clock.In today’s To…
Continue reading