Graham Fraser’s So-called Secret Shoppers
Graham Fraser, Canada's commissioner of official languages, has kicked off a bit of a kerfuffle in the nation's capital over a recently announced plan to investigate the state of bilingualism…
Matt
Federalism – It’s not just for Centralizers any more!
As an addendum to yesterday's post, I see that Nycole Turmel has re-stated her commitment to federalism, and plans to end her membership in the sovereignist Quebec Solidaire. But here's…
Nycole Turmel, meet Jean Lapierre
Gosh, the Twitterverse is atweet today with spin and counter-spin on Daniel Leblanc's article in the Globe and Mail about interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel's very recent membership in the…
Canada Day 144
As long-time readers of this blog may know, I spent many years researching the history of Canada Day celebrations, especially the ones funded by the federal government and those hosted…
Rating the Prime Ministers
Just a quick post to link to this Maclean's article by Stephen Azzi and Norman Hillmer in which they discuss the results of a poll rating Canada's Prime Ministers, past…
Bryan Hayday (1952-2011)
I'm going to be away from blogging, probably for a while. My Dad, Bryan Hayday, passed away suddenly on Thursday night, at the age of 59.His obituaries are in the…
Cabinet and Senate: Ongoing bad behaviour is stability, of a sort
I don't have much to observe about today's developments in federal politics, except to say that I am profoundly unsurprised, unlike the madly twittering press corps. Harper's favorite cabinet ministers,…
Quebec NDP: The Kids [Could Be] All Right
Monday was an exciting night for Quebec university NDP clubs, as a number of members of their executives were elected to the House of Commons, amidst a wave that elected…
Don’t blame Guelph. We voted for Kodos!
Bah! Our electoral system has given a party that won 40% of the vote from the 61% of eligible voters who cast ballots a majority of seats in the House…
Election-day shenanigans in Guelph
Like a good citizen, I headed out bright and early this morning to my local polling station to vote this morning. There was no line-up, but a steady flow of…
Election Prediction? Beats Me!
Well, this election has turned into quite the roller-coaster ride, hasn't it? Depending on your pollster of choice, we're either headed for an historic NDP breakthrough or a Conservative majority.…
In Memoriam: John T. (Jack) Saywell, 1929-2011
I was saddened this morning to learn that Jack Saywell, the widely-acknowledged founder of York University's history department and an emininent legal and constitutional historian, passed away last week. Saywell…
NDP in Quebec: Who are these prospective MPs?
With all the excitement/panic/drama surrounding the apparent NDP wave in Quebec, it's fair to wonder who might suddenly become the new crop of MPs from Quebec if polling data translates…
An Orange Revolution in Quebec: The NDP in la belle province
I'm somewhat surprised by the latest CROP and Ekos polls coming out of Quebec, showing the NDP cruising into first place, and the Bloc vote steadily falling. But as I'll…
Election 2011: Thoughts on "Truthiness" and Evidence-Based Policy
Just a quick post today to link to a blogpost I was invited to contribute to canada.com's Decision Canada election website. In it, I reflect on recent Conservative changes to…
James Moore: How far back is going too far back?
In the interests of a bit of non-partisanship, I'm going to call out the Liberals today for a tactic I find distasteful that was used in BC. Liberals in the…
U of Guelph votes will count!
Elections Canada has released a Solomonesque public statement on the University of Guelph voting controversy. Of greatest interest is the fact that the student votes will be counted, and are…
Guelph Conservatives continue to try to exclude youth voters
It's really quite mind-boggling to think what must be going through the thinking processes of Guelph Conservative candidate Marty Burke's campaign team. First, they make a point of keeping members…
Post-debate musings
One of the nice perks of being bilingual is that you can watch Canada's political leaders debate in both languages without having to listen to their interpreters. I watched both…
Voter engagement. (or Week 2 wrap-up)
Last week, just before the beginning of my second- and third-year Canadian history courses, I played the following Rick Mercer clip: Youth voting has plummetted over the past couple of…