The political zoo keeper’s dilemma.
One of the difficult dilemmas facing you when organizing a major political convention, is keeping the news media in their cages, fed, watered and occupied. As mother used to tell…
Peter Lowry
In the City of Brotherly Love.
Philadelphia lends a panache to the Democratic National Convention this year that hard-scrabble Cleveland did not provide for the Republicans. The Republicans were hectored and urged to anger at their…
Going ‘All In’ on bitumen.
There were two stories in the Toronto Star the other day from Canada’s western oil patch. The major story was the one by business writer David Olive on Suncor’s gutsiest…
Brown tries outrage over Hydro.
It depends where you sit in the Ontario Legislature. The government benches mainly consider Ontario Hydro a golden goose. The opposition benches always consider it the government’s Achilles heel. And…
What has Trump left to say?
The party is over in Cleveland. The Republican Party is no longer the Grand Old Party. It is the party of Donald Trump. We endured his over-long rant on Thursday…
There’s no business like no business.
Watching the events in Cleveland this week at the Republican National Convention you realize there are two stories unfolding. The first is in the convention hall itself where the strangest…
The madness of modern media.
Where do you get your real news? Canadians can still turn to the impoverished Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Canadian Press Services and its Broadcast News are sadly reduced versions of a…
The Trudeau honeymoon carries on.
It has been noted—with some surprise by certain observers—that the honeymoon with Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government continues. Why would anyone expect it to have ended? The major opposition parties are…
The lost art of politics.
The other day, the question came up: What is wrong with politics? You have to figure there are several good books in that question so you are hardly going to…
It’s time for the Trumpet and his Strumpet.
Donald Trump continues to amaze Americans and the rest of the world. Yes, the Americans have failed to keep the Trump jokes to themselves. The entire world is watching. Particularly…
A Canadian contingent for Trump.
Canadians need their own wall. It would hardly be fair for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to have a wall on the south without equal opportunity for the north. This…
Conservative contest continues contrarily.
It was another step backward towards the abyss. Ontario’s Tony Clement must have found a hat somewhere to throw into the ring of the Conservative leadership contest. It was a…
In the rush to reform.
It was amusing reading the editorial in the Toronto Star the other day that urged the Liberal government to “Go slow on election reform.” The ghost of Torstar founder Joseph…
When Referenda are Right.
It has to be more than 25 years since we last chatted with one of our favourite Conservatives. His name is Patrick Boyer and he is a gentleman of the…
Sending cannon fodder to Latvia.
In 1941 Canada came to the aid of the British Empire and sent troops to Hong Kong. The Royal Rifles of Canada and the Winnipeg Grenadiers were supposed to be…
Vote Reform Primer: Liking losers.
The following is part of our on-going primer on vote reform that is based on our Democracy Papers of 2007. This is the sixth of the vote reform series. In…
The Trump – Thatcher triangle.
Trump finally did it. He lost it all over a mosquito. It was enough to make you wonder if the mosquito was real or imagined. And it was an example…
HOT highway lanes are hilarious.
Was that not a joke recently that Ontario is going to have a lottery to test paying for highway space on public highways? Was April Fools Day held over? That…
Jason Kenney ambles westward.
It is certainly not wedding bells that are breaking up the old Stephen Harper gang. Can you imagine Jason Kenney—Harper’s minister of everything—answering to the call of the West? It…
Vote Reform Primer: Causing coalitions.
The following is part of our on-going primer on vote reform that is based on our Democracy Papers of 2007. This is the fifth of the vote reform series. Democratic…