Canada – Ramsay Inc.

Tags: Canada

WHERE WERE YOU…?

On November 22, 1963, when JFK was shot? (Me: at prep school in Port Hope. A student ran into the dining hall yelling: “Kennedy was shot! Kennedy was shot!” We thought it was a fellow student named “Kennedy”)…

On July 2, 1969, when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon? (Me: In Edmonton in a friend’s basement rumpus room.)

On October 16, 1970, when Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act saying “just watch me” during the FLQ Crisis? (Me: at university in the States, where it wasn’t so momentous.)

Read on…

September 11, 2026 September 11, 2026

ONE SMALL THING

A year and a half ago, when the full horror of Donald Trump’s dismantling of America was just a White House work order, the prospect of Canadians not visiting the United States wasn’t even a question. Not go to New York for the weekend? Not spend a week hiking the Appalachian Trail? It never entered our minds that we wouldn’t go to America as an act of political protest.

Indeed, not only is the U.S./Canada border the “longest undefended border in the world,” in America’s entire 250 year history Canadians have never had a reason not to set foot in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Except in 1814 when we burned down The White House. But technically, we weren’t a nation until 1867, so it doesn’t really count.

Then in February of last year, the U.S. imposed tariffs on Canada. Mark Carney urged us to get our “Elbows Up” and lots of Canadians vowed not to travel to the U.S. until Trump changed his mind on tariffs (Trump change his mind? We were Bambis in the forest back then.)

Read on…

August 28, 2026 August 28, 2026

SALVATION SPONSORSHIPS.

If we can slag organizations when they fail us, surely we can thank them when they go out of their way to help us. And this summer, both the Weston Family Foundation and the National Bank of Canada helped Canadian literature and Canadian women in big ways and just in time.

For 20 years, the Giller Prize was the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Riding the bank’s rising commitment, the Giller became one of the best sponsorships in the land. Its purse grew from $25,000 to $100,000, its televised Gala became CanLit’s one big night, and a middle-sized fiction award became Canada’s richest literary award. Indeed, The Giller Effect boosted book sales for all the prize’s nominees.

Then in the Fall of 2023, authors and jurors began withdrawing over Scotiabank’s stake in an Israeli arms manufacturer, Elbit Systems. One author, Madeleine Thien, returned her prize from 2016, though not her $100,000 prize money.

Read on…

August 21, 2026 August 21, 2026

DOUG FORD’S DEFINING MOMENT.

The real story about Doug Ford and the northern Ontario wildfires isn’t the loud press conference he’s holding twice a day in Thunder Bay. It’s the 72 hours before anyone thought to bring him a microphone.

Let’s go back a couple of weeks. Namaygoosisagagun (also known as Collins) First Nation Chief Helen Paavola says she called the Ministry of Natural Resources for evacuation help before the fire destroyed her community on Monday, June 13. Nobody came. Whitesand First Nation ended up trying to protect its own infrastructure because, as the Chiefs of Ontario put it, there was “a lack of communication from government officials” about how to even declare a state of emergency. And residents of at least one evacuated community went back in against orders because they didn’t trust the province was committing enough to protect their homes in the first place.

Read on…

July 24, 2026 July 24, 2026

I DIDN’T PUT DOWN MY PEN AND STEP OUT ONTO THE WINDOW LEDGE. NOR SHOULD YOU.

Three years ago, AI was a tekkies’ fever dream, barely real but high on the magic of what’s coming.

Two years ago, AI could put together a sentence, but you had to double-check every word for hallucinations.

Eighteen months ago, AI could write sentences, even paragraphs. They weren’t clunky, either.

Twelve months ago, AI could write a speech, though it still sounded disembodied.

Read on…

July 10, 2026 July 10, 2026

A PRECEDENT AS LOVELY AS A TREE.

This week, the Quebec town of Terrasse-Vaudreuil became the first government in Canada to recognize trees as living things with rights.

It is part of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Trees, a global movement begun in Paris in 2018 to treat trees like people, with rights including “the right to life, to natural growth, to integrity and to regeneration.”

The town’s gesture of recognition is largely symbolic, but it sets the stage for tests in various courts in Canada around its legal validity. All to say, what used to be thought an absurd proposition by many will soon be treated seriously by the law.

Read on…

June 26, 2026 June 26, 2026

I AM NOT A ROBOT.

Joanna Stern writes about tech for The Wall Street Journal. She decided to spend a year using AI to do almost everything, and the result is a book, *I Am Not a Robot,*

We may vaguely recall a decade or more ago reading about a journalist who decided to live like a hermit for a week and order everything they needed online – food, toilet paper, clothes, banking, books, the works.

Back then, ordering stuff online was for early adopters. Hence, the news value of a story about someone who actually lived online. Now, of course, nearly all of us do our banking online, check in for our flight, order dinner in and, of course, drive from A to B.

Read on…

June 5, 2026 June 5, 2026

LEAVING HOME.

The last time a province tried to leave the country was on October 30, 1995, when a referendum was held in Quebec.

The “Yes” or “Leave” side won 2,308,360 votes, or 49.42% of the vote, and the “No” or “Stay” side won 2,362,648 votes, or 50.58% of the vote. A record 93.52% of eligible voters cast their ballot.

Whew.

I remember in the months leading up to the vote that our view in English Canada shifted from “Quebec will never leave” and “They’re just a small group of rabble-rousers”, to “Once Quebeckers realize what’s at stake, they’ll come around”, to “OMG, they’re going to destroy the country!”

Read on…

May 22, 2026 May 22, 2026

WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING FOR?

Ottawa is opening the taps to secure our future, just not for the part that tells us who we are.

In last month’s fiscal update, Ottawa earmarked $63 billion for defence spending next year, on its way to $1 trillion in 2035. The new Defence Industrial Strategy alone lets Canadian firms chase $180 billion in procurement promising 125,000 high-paying careers.

AI and digital infrastructure are also lavished with attention, just shy of $1 billion. But it’s nothing compared to the $32 billion earmarked for northern development and defence-linked infrastructure.

Read on…

May 8, 2026 May 8, 2026

SHATTERING.

A marathon is the distance between the Four Seasons Hotel in Yorkville and the Ford Assembly Plant in Oakville.

I used to say that when I was the Propagandist-in-Chief for JeansMarines, the women’s marathon training group created by my wife, Jean, to run the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C. JeansMarines ran from 2002 to 2008, and hundreds of women joined each February to cross the finish line nine months later at the Iwo Jima Memorial into the arms of a waiting U.S. Marine. Lots of those women carried on running, and Jean ended up finishing first in her age group in the Boston Marathon seven times before retiring in 2020.

Read on…

May 1, 2026 May 1, 2026

THE FIRE NEXT TIME

Last month I wrote about the Jewish community’s fear and rage around the shooting up of synagogues. I said… “If someone fired shots in the night at St. James Anglican Cathedral or St. Michael’s Catholic Basilica, the hue and cry would be long and loud.”

One reader wrote to me to say he doubted anyone would notice at all. He then encouraged me to look into the shocking rise in arson at Canadian churches since COVID.

Shocking rise in arson? In churches? In Canada? What was he talking about?

Read on…

April 17, 2026 April 17, 2026

“CRIME CONTINUES TO RAVAGE OUR NEIGHBOURHOODS.”

Last year I joined all three of Canada’s major political parties. Not because I can’t make up my mind, but I love getting their fundraising pitches in my inbox and comparing them. My interest is professional.

One kind of writing I love is asking people for money, especially when all they get in return is a tax receipt. It’s also very hard to do well. If I ask you for $50 and give you two Swiss Chalet dinners in return, that’s a lot easier than giving you a tax receipt for your $50 and a warm feeling that you’re supporting the Canadian Cancer Society.

When it comes to political fundraising, reading the parties’ different pitches reveals not only who they are, but who they think you are. The Liberals’ writing style is what I call ‘big tent.’

Tags: Canada

WHERE WERE YOU…?

ONE SMALL THING

SALVATION SPONSORSHIPS.

DOUG FORD’S DEFINING MOMENT.

I DIDN’T PUT DOWN MY PEN AND STEP OUT ONTO THE WINDOW LEDGE. NOR SHOULD YOU.

A PRECEDENT AS LOVELY AS A TREE.

I AM NOT A ROBOT.

LEAVING HOME.

WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING FOR?

SHATTERING.

THE FIRE NEXT TIME

“CRIME CONTINUES TO RAVAGE OUR NEIGHBOURHOODS.”

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