Quebec's sovereigntists pretend to want independence.

Until recently, federal politicians pretended to believe them.

But with the Parti Quebecois poised to return to power after the September 4 election, the old pretenses are breaking down -- victims of the global financial crisis and the Euro crisis in particular.

In...

Speaking in New Mexico on Thursday, Mitt Romney announced an energy plan that promised energy independence -- not for the United States only -- but also for Canada and Mexico.

"I'm going to establish an energy partnership with Canada and Mexico," he said. "We need to work...

Many Canadian commenters are drawing comparisons between Republican heartthrob Paul Ryan and Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Some parallels do exist. Both are men of strong convictions; both gained prominence at relatively young ages.

More important than the similarities, however, are the differences: differences that have made one man a head...

After years of lagging the rest of the advanced world, investment in Canadian plant and equipment has at last caught up.

That's the good news in a recent report by the C.D. Howe Institute. Here's the bad news. One important province has fallen even further...

Mitt Romney is touring the UK, Israel, and Poland this week ­-- but not Canada. Why not?

Wait, wait, hear me out: This is not the usual "they forgot Canada again!" lament.

The political purpose of Romney's foreign tour was to accuse President Barack Obama of straining relationships with key...

I've spent some or all of more than 20 summers in the village of Wellington, Ont.

Through almost all that time, I would often stop at the town's single restaurant, the Wellington Grill. The Welly Grill was not the most salubrious restaurant I've ever seen. Last summer, when it finally...

The American healthcare debate is not a debate for Americans only. In two ways at least, the debate implicates the well-being of everybody in the developed world.

The first implication: medical innovation.

The profit-seeking American healthcare system is always looking for new products to sell: new drugs, new surgical procedures,...

OTTAWA -- Hot weather in Central Canada and early departures for the cottage pushed Canada into a significant news deficit in the second half of June, Statistics Canada reported Friday.

All told, Canada exported only on major news story in the second half of June: the UN...

It's just a toll booth on a bridge -- but it symbolizes the challenges to Canadians of living next-door to an increasingly dysfunctional American political system.

The Ambassador Bridge over the Detroit River is the busiest Canada-U.S. border crossing. It's been improved and modernized over the years, but shippers fear...

If Canadians know any history at all, they know the story of the war of 1812. (Or at least the part about the British burning the White House.) Americans usually focus their remembrance on bigger, bloodier conflicts. Yet in this bicentennial year, one American historian is urging his countrymen to...

Thomas Mulcair has taken a deserved media beating over his "Dutch disease" remarks. He's been criticized for bad economics and divisive politics. He's been compelled to travel out West and meet the angry premiers. Not a good month for a new party leader.

But as bad as it's been for...

Barack Obama is foreign.

Oh yeah? Mitt Romney is a bully.

Think the U.S. presidential election will be about the economy? Think again.

On the economy, both presidential candidates are marked with indelible vulnerabilities.

President Obama first. He inherited the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. He has presided...

Israeli governments often have collapsed before their term ended. Benjamin Netanyahu's government is doing something almost unheard of in Israel: voluntarily scheduling an election much earlier than necessary. Elections were not due until 2013. It seems very likely they will be held on September 4 of this year instead.

Why...

The rioting students of Quebec got scant sympathy even before they started smashing windows and detonating smoke bombs.

Polls suggest that Quebecers generally support Jean Charest government's plan to raise tuitions in small increments over the next five (and now possibly seven) years. Even when all the increases are phased...

They came to mourn Christopher Hitchens yesterday in the Great Hall of New York's Cooper Union, where Abraham Lincoln gave the speech that launched his campaign for president in 1860.

The hall was filled by family, friends and readers; intimates of 40 years' standing and those who knew him only...

You could learn a lot about Canada's national psyche from the country's enduring fascination with the battle of Vimy Ridge, fought 95 years ago this past week.

Canadians fought dozens of major battles during the First World War. Yes, Vimy was the most tactically spectacular: one of the best-planned, best-executed...

Under Stephen Harper, Canada can fairly claim to be the best-governed country in the advanced democratic world. Thursday's federal budget locks up Canada's lead.

Right now, the major economies share a common economic problem: With the world slowly and fitfully emerging from the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, they...

Four years ago, black Americans mobilized to elect one of their own president of the United States. When asked, the overwhelming majority of black Americans still say they support Barack Obama. But the old enthusiasm has dwindled.

The economic crisis of 2008 hit black America hard, and the recovery since...

Over the past 100 years, the world has seen the creation of some 100 new states -- perhaps more states in a shorter period than ever before in the history of the world. Most of those new states have not proved very successful. But there is one among the states...

An important milestone contained in Friday's U.S. jobs report:

This month, for the first time, President Barack Obama can say more Americans are working than were working on the day he took office (using the more reliable figures for seasonably adjusted numbers).

With state and local government payrolls...