For the many who wish the Catholic Church ill, including numerous Catholics, Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec would be a welcome choice as the next Pope. It was priests like Mr. Ouellet who helped estrange the faithful in once-Catholic Quebec and there is little reason to think he would not make the same contribution to the church universal.

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Demonstrating her political smarts from the get-go, Kathleen Wynne has lost no time in reaching out to Ontario's rebellious teachers. As she well understood, she was not the only victor when Ontario Liberals selected their new leader. The other clear winner was the province's public elementary and secondary teachers. By turning out at the Liberal convention to protest in the tens of thousands, and by being joined by many thousands more of their supporters, the teachers powerfully demonstrated their political muscle.

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A veritable orgy of Liberal leadership races have transfixed Canadians. Well, three, anyway. In Quebec, Dr. Phillippe Couillard will be the easy winner, which curbs the enthusiasm somewhat. But in Ontario and the Dominion at large, the thrill is palpable.

The Ontario Liberal Party is about to choose a woman as leader and, at least for a moment, the province's premier. But far more remarkable than their sex, the two frontrunners, Kathleen Wynne and Sandra Pupatello, offer an unusually stark contrast in policy, personality and prospects.

Is this finally the moment that Canada's First Nations' civil rights revolution has genuinely begun?

In the U.S., despite a series of failed uprisings, black Americans endured slavery and segregation for centuries until the great civil rights movement of the 1960s led to unprecedented progress, though the struggle for justice and equality is far from complete even now. The history of aboriginals in Canada is a similar chronicle of injustice and discrimination, and despite repeated attempts over the decades to fight back -- think Oka or Caledonia or the Lubicon -- inequality and humiliation remain the daily fare for most.