Rick Salutin

What could be Toronto's contribution to a revolt against austerity zealots? It may stand before us: dedicated funding for public transit.

Politics is about what you do, not what you are, nor even, contra ideologies both left and right, what you think.

Stompin' Tom Connors, who died on Wednesday at 77, had a romance with Canada, not just its people and features -- even its place-names.

Television crime dramas are part of TV's revival, just when it was supposed to die. It's related to the demise of appointment TV, which was expected to be a lethal blow but instead probably saved TV.

Canadian soccer bodies are phasing in a program to eliminate scorekeeping and standings for under-12 leagues. The spontaneous outrage combusted on schedule.

Kathleen Wynne is the most unexpected, intriguing government leader I've seen in Canadian politics. Yet it's hard to say why.

This would normally be a column I'd write at the time of Peter Mansbridge's retirement as CBC-TV's national news anchor, but I don't see any point in waiting since he's pretty much retired on-air.

This isn't the politics of ideas and issues anymore, though it has those. It's the politics of inclusion. Obama's win in the U.S. is the prototype, but only in his second election.

I know we don't characterize democracy as talking, we picture it as voting, but that's what you could call the voting fallacy. It's not how democracy was in ancient Athens where all citizens met.

One benefit of crises like Idle No More, especially when they're peaceful but unavoidable, is that they shake up the status quo and make everyone look again at assumptions.