Rick Salutin is a journalist, novelist, playwright and critic who's made a writer's living in and around Toronto for some 40 years. He recently wrote a column about Peter Mansbridge, anchor of CBC's flagship news program The National. It wasn't a flattering column.

Huffington Post's big western Canadian debut this week. After all, for anyone interested in the emergence of real, substantial alternatives -- in both reporting and editorializing -- to the stagnant status quo of the western establishment press, it's hard to deny that the web's where it's at. The political backdrop accompanying this western release could not bode more auspicious either, considering the substantial partisan evolution both British Columbia and Alberta are undergoing at the moment.

Innoversity is a not-for-profit organization that has spent the past 13 years struggling with some success "to create opportunities for cultural minority, Aboriginal and disabled Canadians to actively engage with, and be reflected within, key social sectors and institutions." That's institution-speak for fighting racism and all the other isms that still stain our society, particularly our media.

In a recent article, Rex Murphy characterized affirmative action as "an inequity in itself," "hollow" and "false." I, on the other hand, think that the CBC commentator's call for a more open debate on affirmative action is important. Affirmative action is to our society what the CBC is to television and radio broadcasting in Canada.

Is Stephen Harper quietly working to "re-brand" Canada? Is his government emphasizing the military, the monarchy and select episodes of Canadian history in order to create a competing brand of right-wing Canadian nationalism and divert attention from the great symbols of Liberal patriotism, like medicare and Lester Pearson? The pundit class thinks so.

Over the past 40 years it has become something of an institution in Toronto -- beloved by some, despised by others, but always competitive, periodically incestuous, often irritatingly cheerful, occasionally naughty, and ever determined to be itself and to hell with what critics think.

In light of the British phone hacking scandal, such media purity may seem like a good thing

THE CANADIAN PRESS -- TORONTO - Sun Media's decision to pull out of the Ontario Press Council has raised questions about who's policing Canada's news ...

(The Canadian Press) TORONTO - Postmedia Network Canada has announced that Christie Blatchford has left the Globe and Mail to become a national column...