
LOEWEN: Hey Mr. Harper! ‘What is going on up in Canada?’
"CANADA UNDER STEPHEN HARPER HAS SLIPPED A LONG WAY FROM THE VISION OF HOPE THAT IT ONCE WAS" “What the F*ck Is Going on up in Canada?” The headline from the Esquire story caught my eye, as it might any Canadian. It’s not often that we come across an interest in Canada from our Big...

LOEWEN: A scotch and a cigar with a would-be prime minister
A bottle of Laphroaig and a Hoyo de Monterrey double corona. If you happen to be a sucker for fine Scotch and big, complex cigars, the aforementioned will evoke images of comfy, quilted cordovan leather easy chairs, and time well spent in conversation with the closest of friends. And the good fortune to know that,...

LOEWEN: My father’s death and life lived ‘under the sun’
“Your father died ten minutes ago.” The nurse’s terse conveyance over my smartphone left me dumb. The anticipated but dreaded call arrived mid-afternoon last Wednesday. I’d been on the road plying my workaday trade; and the whole way back from Fernie that day, I had been periodically interrupted by thoughts of my dying dad. How...

LOEWEN: The pratfalls of lengthy election campaigns
On August 2nd, when PM Stephen Harper initiated the start of the Canadian federal election campaign, many of us looking at the eleven weeks looming ahead figured the guy was nuts. Eleven weeks? How could a disengaged electorate, stymied by the government’s intransigence in engaging Canadians with accountability and transparency, be expected to get engaged...

LOEWEN: The unbetrayed trust of a former haberdasher
My obsession with observing closely the personalities and machinations at the heart of the monied classes and political power, came through a provincial employers’ grant in the early Eighties. Winnipeg's toniest men’s boutique, then as now, was Hanford-Drewitt, a long-established club of sorts for the city’s best-heeled men. And “everybody who was anybody” shopped there:...

LOEWEN: The foul mouth of Canadian politics
It would seem that PR-massaged optics has supplanted good old-fashioned and honest content these days. Especially on the Canadian federal election campaign trail.

LOEWEN: ‘I miss you so much when you go’
In recent weeks the drib-drab-drip of Time’s passing has been most acutely observed within the confines of my father’s room at the local hospice. Death’s anteroom — thoughtfully outfitted with big-screen display, luxurious leather recliner, the convenience of a mini fridge, and a cot for my mother -- will be Dad’s last home for some...

LOEWEN: Unseen hands and the big squeeze to come
For those of us who follow politics closely, it’s easy to get excited at the prospect of a federal election on the horizon. But even the most die-hard politico pales at the sight of a prime minister announcing the official start of an election campaign that will run for nearly eighty days before voters get...

LOEWEN: What I found at the Summerland Ladies’ Auxiliary
You never know what awaits you when you enter the Summerland Ladies’ Auxiliary Thrift Shop. At the stroke of one p.m. on any given Tuesday, when the shop opens its doors, the Valley’s savviest shoppers have gathered into a teeming mass for at least the last half hour. Local seniors may be the most unappeasable...

LOEWEN: Jesus on the hustings: Conservative Party of Canada electioneering
“It's interesting when Conservatives go off their talking points and start speaking their mind...and disturbing.” Thus spake MP Pat Martin (representing Winnipeg Centre for the NDP since 1993) yesterday afternoon on my Facebook wall. He was referring to recent effusings from Conservative Party of Canada MP Wai Young (Vancouver South) to attendees at Harvest City...

LOEWEN: B.C wildfires and history through the smoke
When I awoke yesterday morning my city was gone. Ordinarily I hit the back-deck first thing after feeding the puss and putting the coffee on. The first smoke of the day (for all you unfortunate non-smokers out there) is surely one of the most agreeable, and the back-deck morning smoke is surely one of the...

LOEWEN: From ‘Two Solitudes’ to a new Canada
Happy Canada Day from the searing shores of the Okanagan! Perhaps yesterday’s brain-fryin’ at Kickinee Provincial Park under the relentless sun has me thinking goofy today, but I have decided Canada is a state-of-mind, a feeling as much spiritual as it is geo-political. I’ve never been a huge lover of outlandishly-proportioned displays of national “pride.”...

LOEWEN: From Stormfront to your front: When hate gets a free ride
“Things are slowly getting better, politically, in Canada,” said “WhitePridePatriot.” “(H)ats off the (sic) Steven Harper and the Conservatives for Finlay (sic) scarping (sic) this "law"! Hats off to Ezra Levant and Mark Styne for challenging this and making this more widely known. Most importantly, hats off to unsung heroes Paul Fromm, Mark Lamiere, Doug...

LOEWEN: Father’s Day and the ‘brief crack of light’
Several years ago, I began a “Portrait Gallery of Badasses” on my own Facebook page. Doing so gave me an opportunity to offer a little more in the way of content to my “friends” beyond my typical political postings which threatened to make me a “person of interest” to the powers-that-be way before we had...

LOEWEN: ‘It’s good to know that people are still dying these days’
Death. It’s not the hottest topic on the cocktail party circuit, or the returned-to-refrain at one’s coffee-shop meet-ups. It’s not. We’re transfixed by Death, of course. But it’s something to observe, for the most part. It spills into one’s purview through the endless screens that mediate our lived lives. And if the bloodbaths reported on...