Canada
Travels in time and space: Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel, reviewed
It’s a bold writer who confronts a major historical moment such as a pandemic before it’s over, but Emily St.…
Fabulously boring: Weather Station's How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars reviewed
Grade: C– Anyone remember that TV advert for Canada from the 1980s – a succession of colourful images, including a…
Where's the outrage over Trudeau's trip to Britain?
As Justin Trudeau waltzed through the UK, visiting Boris Johnson and the Queen, did anyone spare a thought for Canadians…
Portrait of the week: Storms rage, Covid curbs end and Russia’s ‘renewed invasion’
Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, announced, in the House of Commons, sanctions against Russia after its ‘renewed invasion’ of…
The tyranny of Trudeau
Early in the corona era the historian David Starkey gave some thoughts on Covid. ‘We’ve got a Chinese virus,’ he…
Trudeau vs truckers: a head-on collision
Canada’s Covid protestors have a point
Portrait of the week: Sue Gray speaks, Boris goes to Ukraine and 477-mile bolt of lightning strikes
Home Sue Gray, the second permanent secretary in the Cabinet Office, in a 12-page ‘update’ on her investigation into 16…
Canada should be proud of the truckers’ convoy
The first wave of truckers in the Freedom Convoy arrived in Ottawa on Friday, having travelled across Canada to protest…
No, America couldn’t have been Canada
What if William Howe, the dithering British commander, hadn’t let the American army escape in the Battle of Long Island…
Another stupid, redundant, dismal Canadian election
Canada has just surpassed even its own previous records for absurd and boring elections yielding predictable and dreary results. Almost…
Justin Trudeau’s election gamble is backfiring
In 1966, a year before Pierre Elliott Trudeau first blazed to power, the bard-poet Leonard Cohen published his second and final…
Justin Trudeau isn't the progressive leader he thinks he is
It came as no surprise to me to see activists ‘celebrating’ Canada Day by setting fire to churches and toppling…
The COVID response shows the left is losing its way
Last month, British Columbia announced that those who don’t wear masks indoors can now be fined $230. ‘To me, it’s…
The unbearable niceness of Canadians is driving us to destruction
While Americans spent last week panicking about the state of their democracy, north of the border we were having a…
America’s allies don’t like Trump. So what?
So, the Pew Research Center polled more than a dozen allies and, guess what, the allies — from the UK…
Justin Trudeau’s prorogation memory loss
A prime minister better known for his charisma than his policy achievements proroguing parliament to ride out a political storm.…
The Canadian election is turning into a comedy of cringe
Next week my compatriots will cast their votes in what has arguably been the worst Canadian election ever. By ‘worst’…
Justin Trudeau is not a racist – but he is a fool
The election campaign was off to an unexciting start even by Canada’s standards. A well-known but fluffy incumbent, Liberal Justin…
How Canada failed to smash the cannabis black market
I had forgotten how much I disliked cannabis until I found myself under its influence, in the rain, trying and…
Donald Trump’s one-front trade war
At 12:01 a.m. on Monday, President Donald Trump went a long way toward defusing a potential war – not with…
Michael Palin follows the Erebus – an historic ‘adventure’ with a tragic outcome
In May 1845, HMS Erebus and her sister ship HMS Terror set sail for the Arctic, never to be seen…
I hate fishing — but was hooked by the story of the Yukon’s salmon
‘Help!’ I thought, when I read the Author’s Note. ‘It’s about salmon, and I hate fishing.’ But by the first…
Rockies horror show
Tin Star, the latest Sky Atlantic drama, has a comfortingly familiar premise: Jim Worth (Tim Roth), an ex-detective from London…
In praise of Netflix
All this week I have been trying, with considerable success, to avoid being bludgeoned by TV programmes telling me in…
Annie Proulx is lost in the woods
You can’t see the wood for the trees in Annie Proulx’s epic novel of logging and deforestation in North America, says Philip Hensher
