The Wonderwords Salon

My views on transparent government operations are clear, from the tiniest rural township to the pros that manage Parliament - lots of it, all the time. My chief gripe with our Harperista regime and its ministerial inmates is less to do with policy (except when Messrs. Toews and Clement are on point), and more centred on their […]

Even as our Canadian political culture continues its regression from something that once passed for adult discourse to ‘Kiddie Korner’, there is humour and enlightenment everywhere, no matter how predictable the braying from the inmates. So it was this week as the Harperistas, now alive to the fact that the erstwhile (now ersatz) Communist China that battled imperialist […]

I have often thought that there are more similarities than differences between Prime Minister Harper and Ontario Premier McGinty. I suppose they each might laugh at the idea – or throw something sharp at the suggester. When one cuts through the dispiriting attack ad campaigns and reflexive, knee jerk viscerality that each of these chaps […]

I am not a particular fan of Charles Adler, the self-proclaimed “Boss” of Canadian talk radio. I suspect that I am not alone. The avowedly conservative champion of something he describes as ‘Canadian values’, a curious welter of truth, justice, and liberty, Adler moves a touch too quickly for my tastes from dogmatic and determined […]

Those of us over the age of 50 recall a time when our elected representatives went through the motions of participatory democracy. It was never transparent, but dammit, it was Canadian. You know the drill. Her Majesty’s Government proposed legislation in the form of specific bills, and the Loyal Opposition did what oppositions do best. […]

It is heartening that the young scholars at the epicenter of this spring’s protests in Quebec have taken their disquiet to its highest and best expressive form. Tired of disrupting academic classes for the majority of students anxious to get value for the lowest tuition rates in the country, and dissatisfied with the limitations of […]

Last week an Oshawa jury found a young man named Jacques Amakon guilty of manslaughter in the March 30, 2010 killing of fellow Dwyer Catholic High School student Michael “Biggie” MacDonald. Viewed dispassionately with all of the advantages of hindsight, the tragic event was entirely predictable – its preventability in the age of all-consuming social […]

In 2010 Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety, told Canadians that among other things, “The government is not in the forgiveness business”. Steely, jut jawed resolve, the sound bite that reassures the Harperista constituency that those millions of hard working citizens who fret about the safety of their families and property need worry no longer […]

My spirits were uplifted yesterday when I learned that Senator Vivienne Poy (Ontario, Liberal, 1998 appointment) was not asleep at the wheel, or otherwise face down in the egg nog during the Christmas holidays. She has sent an open letter to the Heritage Minister, demanding an immediate review of the $1.5m grant directed by the […]