It's Ballast, the Canadian magazine of Canadian interests.

I have been paying closer attention to Canadian politics lately, on the theory that when everything goes to shit at least there will be somewhere with decent health care (and, eventually, really nice weather) I can escape to. Still, I have been wondering about Stephen Harper, who has been Prime Minister of our upstairs neighbor for almost five years (albeit of a minority government). What kind of man is he, and where is he steering my Plan B? This review of a new book about his premiership does not make for encouraging reading. Maybe I'll just stay here and wait for the zombies to eat me. It seems [...]

Gay-disliking, anti-union, immigrant-suspicious libel suit defendant and former DUI arrestee Rob Ford is now the mayor-elect of Toronto! Goodbye, wasteful government employees and bike lanes—oh yes, he really hates urban bicyclists. He's going to change the face of the city and do it… by spending… less money, in that magical way, and he beat out the crazily fun but hostile former drug addict gay dad George Smitherman to win the day. This will actually be a great experiment! Maybe he can privatize garbage collection and cut the city's debt by $1.58 billion over four years and also spend $4 billion on new subway lines and hire more [...]