Canada’s “consensus” on our unlimited abortion licence — any time, for any reason, fully funded by tax dollars — is a strange one. First of all, it’s not really a consensus, as only a minority of Canadians, when polled, support the extreme position we currently have.

Yet the faux-consensus is apparently so essential that any attempt to moderate Canada’s abortion enthusiasm is thought to be unpatriotic, as if adopting, say, French or German abortion policies would be to accede to the most retrograde social policies imaginable. At the same time, the faux-consensus is so fragile that every attempt must be made to prevent any discussion about it. Continue reading →

Who exactly is Alison Redford? When she was elected last year to lead the Alberta Progressive Conservatives, it was puzzling. A province that had produced Preston Manning in the 1980s, Ralph Klein in the 1990s and Stephen Harper in the 2000s had just elected a protégé of Joe Clark, the man of the 1970s, who, though an Albertan, was always out of step with his own province.

In the days when Reform was rising in Alberta, Brian Mulroney would often point to Joe Clark’s senior role in the government as evidence that Albertans ought to be content. Highlighting Clark’s centrality likely only accelerated the obliteration of the federal PCs in Alberta. Continue reading →

- in Boston –

It would be hard to argue with the local view that Boston is North America’s premier sports town. They win a lot of championships. The Bruins’ Stanley Cup victory last spring came after 39 years, to be sure. But while Toronto fans can relate to a long championship drought, Bostonians can’t. Between the Bruins’ 1972 and 2011 Stanley Cup victories, the Celtics appeared in nine NBA championships, winning six; the Patriots won three Super Bowls (and appeared in two more); and the Red Sox won two World Series.
The Bruins begin their Stanley Cup defence here on Thursday against the Washington Capitals. They now play in the TD Garden, the successor to the venerable Boston Garden, which was demolished in 1997. My Boston friends were surprised to learn that TD stood for Toronto Dominion, and responded to my furnishing that information with the remark that the “T” in TD was as close as Toronto was going to get to the Stanley Cup. Tough, but fair. Continue reading →