Biography

[on the Mayor Rob Ford scandal in Toronto, 2013] Of all his enablers, the most culpable are the strategists, the ones who fashioned his image as the defender of the little guy - the suburban strivers, against the downtown elites with their degrees and their symphonies - the ones who turned a bundle of inchoate resentments into the Ford Nation. It is the same condescending populism, the same aggressively dumb, harshly divisive message that has become the playbook for the right generally in this country, in all its contempt for learning, its disdain for facts, its disrespect of convention and debasing of standards. They can try to run away from him now, but they made this monster, and they will own him for years to come.

[following the terrorist attack on the Canadian Parliament, October 22, 2014] If the past is any guide, the next days and weeks will echo to the sounds of barn door conspicuously slamming for the greater prevention of flown horses.

Humour is almost always rooted in some sort of anxiety - about our bodies, about our place in society, about whatever - or more broadly the disjunction between what we want in life and what we get. As I've argued before, all jokes are the echo of the One Big Joke, which is that w're all going to die.

If a firm in Smallville finds it can't hire enough workers locally at the going wage, no one forbids it from advertising in the next town over. Similarly, if an oil rig in Alberta needs to bring in Newfoundlanders to fill out its workforce, no one seems to have a problem with that. It's only when it involves crossing national boundaries that it becomes contrary to God's plan.

[on the Republican Party and the 2016 Primaries] Once, it might have been held against a candidate that he had no experience in politics or governing; had no serious policies; was unfamiliar with the basic facts; slurred women and minority groups; issued public threats against those who crossed him; announced his intent to break the law once in office; celebrated and encouraged violence at his rallies; and generally carried on like a disturbed adolescent. But [Donald] Trump all of these into virtues. He is winning, not in spite of these, but because of them.