How Canadians vote.
There must be a better way to spend a hot summer than arguing about how we vote for our federal government in Canada. Reading the transcripts or watching recorded hearings…
Peter Lowry
Bye Toronto Star, it’s been good to know you.
The writer has no inside knowledge about what is happening there but it was when reading the Toronto Star a few mornings ago that we got the feeling that there…
Who owns this party anyway?
It has always seemed a Canute-like task of denying the tides to defend the Liberal Party. There just seem to be too many of the elements aligned against us. A…
Making sense on vote reform.
It was a delight the other day to sit and read a presentation to the special house of commons committee on electoral reform that made sense. The committee has been…
The GOP’s ‘Charge of the Light Brigade.’
One of our favourite bloggers is a gentleman trained as both journalist and lawyer who writes under the pseudonym ‘The Mound of Sound.’ While claiming to be a disaffected liberal,…
Death wish of the Wynne Liberals.
Some observers consider it just arrogance but the problems of Kathleen Wynne’s Ontario government could be based on a subconscious desire to end the sham. And they could end it…
Remembering Mel Hurtig.
It might be the dog days of summer but we have some catching up to do. We were out of town recently and while you might think we write a…
If it’s democracy, it must be a ghost.
It always seems strange to hear people talking about our democracy in Canada. You get the impression that our democracy is some sort of spectre. We talk about it but…
Are we the happiest taxpayers?
According to the Ontario government your choices of booze, beer and wine are now at your finger tips. “We deliver” we are told. It all seems to be designed to…
Brokering Political Power.
During one of the presentations to the special parliamentary committee on vote reform, there was an interesting remark on brokering power under different forms of voting. The speaker, an academic…
A ‘better way’ than what?
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is changing how we select candidates for Canada’s supreme court. The Toronto Star gave the official announcement sufficient column space to explain the idea and then…
Jason Kenney’s double duty summer.
Do super heroes ever rest? Not super heroes such as Calgary’s Honourable Jason Kenney MP. He is doing double duty this summer with the challenges to save Ottawa for democracy…
You are just encouraging ‘What’s his name?’
Psychiatrists tell us that one of the motivations for jihadists is the notoriety. They seem to consider the death and destruction as a measure of their success. Maybe that is…
Gratuitous advice on snapshots in time.
You know that you get what you pay for but this advice is free anyway. You should try not to get your knickers in a knot every time a poll…
Vote reform is not everyone’s cup of tea.
The Canadian government’s special parliamentary committee on electoral reform has now had a number of hearings. You can see some of them on computer at the cpac.ca website. While these…
Betrayal by news media.
This is the “unkindest cut of all.” Luckily for William Shakespeare, he did not have to contend with the unkind vagaries of modern news media. Slipshod reporting and careless editing…
Mandatory voting is not in the cards.
It would be hard to think of anything sillier than for our Canadian politicians to make voting mandatory. They might just get more than they deserve. Anyone promoting the idea…
The Road to November.
Last year Canadians were appalled at the beginning of August when they realized they were faced with a two and a half-month federal election campaign. Americans are faced with more…
Black Lives Matter organizers should get stuffed.
People who have worked with pop-up organizations over the years have learned to be wary. There are just too many that work the “poor-me” street and trade on Canadians’ instinctive…
The Morning Line is Hillary by 2 -1.
It was during the Clinton White House years that many of us realized that the brains in the Clinton family are on the distaff side. And nothing pisses off ignorant…