Canada
Adrift on the Canadian frontier: The Voyageur, by Paul Carlucci, reviewed
Based on the 19th-century ‘voyageur’ Alexis de Martin, Carlucci’s young protagonist is befriended by kindly strangers. But what are their true motives?
Longing for oblivion: The Warm Hands of Ghosts, by Katherine Arden, reviewed
Arden’s novel spares us no details of trench warfare on the Western Front and the severely traumatised men dreaming of escape into amnesia
Something the Tories can learn from Canada’s conservatives
When contemplating the scale of the Tories’ expected drubbing in the coming general election, some commentators reach for the example…
Canada’s parents are taking to the streets
In the biggest demonstration since the Freedom Convoy, large numbers of Canadian families and supporters took to the streets across…
Antisocial history
Canada’s determination to believe the worst about its past
Canada’s lovely, liberal solution
My favourite Martin Amis novel was his 1991 book Time’s Arrow. It is a pyrotechnically brilliant work in which all…
Foreign corners that are forever England
Here’s a thing. A disturbing book about disturbing cities. And it’s full of loaded questions. Like Hezbollah, the publisher uses…
Travels in time and space
It’s a bold writer who confronts a major historical moment such as a pandemic before it’s over, but Emily St.…
The Weather Station: How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars
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
Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, announced, in the House of Commons, sanctions against Russia after its ‘renewed invasion’ of…
Trudeau’s tyranny
Early in the corona era the historian David Starkey gave some thoughts on Covid. ‘We’ve got a Chinese virus,’ he…
Keep on trucking
Canada’s Covid protestors have a point
Portrait of the week
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’…
The problem with trying to resuscitate dying languages
Samantha Ellis 9 March 2024 9:00 am
Ross Perlin is determined to support the ‘last speakers’ of endangered tongues, such as Seke. But if these speakers really are the last, they are not, in any real sense, speaking