The federal Liberals under Michael Ignatieff have issued a big chunk of their election platform. It is being called the “Liberal Family Pack” because it contains many “family-friendly” goodies: help for families with college-bound kids, more child care spaces, time off for family caregivers, pumped up CPP payments, and help for people wanting to make

Jack Layton recently kicked off the NDP federal campaign by announcing that they would put a cap on credit card interest – no more than 5% above prime. This “promise” has been trotted out by Layton in at least two previous elections. This proposal has about as much chance of being enacted – NDP or

Everytime we have a federal election in Canada the televised debates become a focial point of the rather short campaign. As I’m sure you know, these debates feature the leaders of the major parties who have representation in the House of Commons. Last time around (2008) Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party was officially

This week I’m on our annual March golf trip to Florida, and for my leisurely reading enjoyment I brought along the book called “Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler”, subtitled “The Age of Social Catastrophe”, by Robert Gellately, Florida State University Professor of History. Of course, like most of us I’ve heard that Joseph Stalin was perhaps

I see that last night Waterloo minor hockey parents rejected a proposal to merge their bantam and midget AAA teams (boys) and form 4 (instead of 8) super teams from KW. The new teams were to have coaches chosen and bankrolled by the Kitchener Rangers, the local Junior A team. I suspect there were quite

I suspect that most Canadians have heard the phrase coureurs de bois and at least some of us have a vague idea who they were and what they did. But I also suspect that very few of us know how truly unique these people were and what an important role they played in Canada’s early

If you have kids (or grandkids) in Canada between the ages of 6 and 17, chances are you spend a lot of time at hockey arenas in the winter. And it’s not just boys anymore. We have three grandaughters and two grandsons playing hockey, and keeping up with their games and tournaments is quite a

I occasionally refer to “fundamentalism” in this blog because it is a feature of attitudes and beliefs that I find particularly curious (from an intellectual point of view) and dangerous (from a political point of view). When I use the term “fundamentalism” I am referring to the general belief that there are clear and indisputable

“The Last Spike” that’s Donald Smith at Craigellachie, B.C., 1885 I was in the local Chapters book store a few days ago looking for something interesting to read and two things about their selection of Canadian books stuck out. First there is the aggravating use of the cute term “Canadiana” to classify books about Canada.

A few years ago it was not unusual to hear that leading conservative politicians in Canada were taking advice from U.S. Republican strategists – as though it was a big brother/little brother type of arrangement between conservatives in Canada and Republicans in the U.S. This was especially the case near the end of Preston Manning’s

The success of U.S. conservatives to carve out a respectable place in the hearts and minds of Americans is one of the most under-reported stories in American politics of the last thirty or forty years. It is nothing less than the gradual domination of the media by increasingly reactionary conservative pundits and spokespersons. While radio

In this video NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw narrates an “explanation” of Canada meant for American viewers during the 2008 Vancouver Winter Olympics. Some of the cliches left out: Canada’s obsession with hockey, universal health care, much less crime and gun violence.

Another sign of the exploding Chinese economy – for 2010 GM sold more cars in China than in the U.S. Total 2010 unit sales for GM by country were as follows: 1.China 2,351,610 up 28.8 over 2009 2.United States 2,215,227 up 6.3% 3.Brazil 657,825 up 10.4 4.United Kingdom 290,250 up 1.0 5.Germany 269,061 (down 29.5%)

The Canadian Royal Family – Sorry, no Canadians allowed. There are a couple interesting articles in the National Post today (Jan 21, 2011) about the rightful place of the British monarchy in Canada’s future. As I have expressed elsewhere a few times, I think the fact that our Canadian head of state is, according to

The recent news that Target is moving into Canada by buying up most of the existing Zellers stores has been greeted by many eager Canadian shoppers as good news all around. If nothing else it will inject new life into what is basically a pretty boring store (Zellers). Long gone are the days when we

I’ve been in Florida for the last week and must admit I haven’t been following the Canadian sports scene at all. It’s a completely different world down here. TV coverage (at least where we’re staying) is good if you like “I’m 16 and pregnant” or long boring hearings on CSpan. Other than that, forget it.

In the worldwide struggle to cut the use of fossil fuels to power our cars and heat our homes, China and India along with a couple other “developing” countries are often seen by the west (including Canada) as a major obstacle to any serious attempt to cut back emissions. That’s because as “developing” nations they

I’ll admit I gave up on the Raptors last night. They were down by about 25 points and looking absolutely awful against the Pistons who colour man Jack Armstrong kept saying had trouble scoring and couldn’t defend. It was a pretty sad showing. I decided to jump around watching two or three movies instead. (There

I played what turned out to be my last round of Ontario golf for 2010 on Nov 21. Fritz and I headed down to Tarandowah and pretty much had the place to ourselves. It was about 5 C and pretty windy, but it didn’t rain, so that was a bonus. It was starting to get