WINNIPEG

Here in Manitoba, it takes a little longer for news from Alberta to make its way up the swollen Red River to Winnipeg, where the major story of the day is whether the town's new NHL hockey team is to be named the delightfully retro Jets, or something new.

So it was rather late when we learned the startling news that back in Alberta the Wildrose Alliance is within "striking distance" of the governing Conservatives, and according to a public opinion poll, no less.

For a couple of reasons, same-sex marriage just isn't the wedge issue it used to be.

First of all, in Canada the prevailing attitude -- even among large numbers people who only a few years ago would have been steeped in homophobia -- seems more and more to be, "Aw, who cares?"

This is by no means meant as a suggestion homophobia no longer exists, or that it's not a serious social problem, only that little by little in Canada today more people are becoming more tolerant in this regard, and as a result same-sex marriage is fading into a non-issue. Every day, more Canadians think, what the heck, live and let live.

The great minds who run education in Alberta have reached a compromise they hope will make the bubbling issue of the complete lack of secular public education in the Edmonton dormitory town of Morinville go away, or at least simmer down for a while.

The latest chapter in the Tubby Black saga is enough to make us almost like the old reprobate.

Not enough, mind you, to conclude Lord Black ought to be readmitted to Canada, permitted to hang onto his Order of Canada gong or for that matter remain a member of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada.