I’m not sure what I expected from the Ottawa crowd this week when François Legault announced he would step down as premier of Quebec, as the first and only leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), and as the most socially corrosive premier of any province in modern Canadian history. I would have expected to find federal politicians’ reactions, shall we say, excessively polite. But I did not expect the seemingly co-ordinated encomiums that gushed forth from senior Liberals. Read More

Another tremendous moment in Canadian justice: Douglas Worth, 73 years old, once dubbed “the Pictou Sadist” after his hometown in Nova Scotia, is out on parole and living in Dartmouth, N.S. He has been out since July and, as National Post reported this week, recently had that parole extended — despite the parole board finding him to be an “above-average risk” to reoffend. Read More

On Sunday, aspiring federal NDP leader Avi Lewis promised that “under my leadership, the next time the NDP holds the balance of power in parliament, we’ll have one demand: proportional representation.” Which is a bit weird, right? Lewis seems to be conceding that the balance of power (which is basically something a party lucks into, rather than plans for) is the best the NDP can hope for. And that, if he had it, he would for some reason proactively limit himself to a single demand; and that he would insist on that demand being proportional representation (PR) as opposed to something that might help people (more dental coverage, day care, school lunches, what have you). Read More