Category: Uncategorized

Bad Days for Barrie.

by Peter Lowry

Reading one of those on-line newspapers for my city and area, I found a quiz asking readers what they consider the most serious issue our community faces. I wasn’t surprised that healthcare was out ahead of other concerns. Our local hospital took a serious beating during the pandemic and is not looking like it will recover very soon. The problem is really one of leadership.

And the problem starts in our community and exists across the country. In our community, we lost a reasonably good mayor this year. He tried to switch to provincial politics and got his nose bloodied by what, I considered, a weak opponent. I would have helped him but we seem to have had our differences over his three terms as mayor. The wife and I gave him our votes and he came close, but not enough.

Instead of a reasonably good mayor as replacement, I think we got a nebbish. This is a person who spent eight years as a councillor on Barrie council to little effect, four years as a member of parliament to less effect. This is a person of little imagination and fewer leadership skills. In parliament, he supported Maxime Bernier, the libertarian who left the conservatives and created the peoples’ party of Canada. As an MP, Mr. Nuttall spoke out against Barrie having safe injection sites. We can hardly expect much leadership from him as mayor.

But it all fits in with the lack of leadership in Ontario. The two most important responsibilities of our provincial government are education and healthcare. The province continues to resist paying healthcare workers and educators a decent wage in face of rampant inflation. They are too busy interfering in municipal matters, building highways to nowhere and trying to politicize policing and justice.

This all fits in with the lack of leadership at the federal level. Our federal lack of leadership reminds me of a cartoony radio commercial about an announcer who likes it in the recording booth and will not come out. It takes a two-party coalition to get anything done in Ottawa, yet our prime minister wants to stay on as leader of a party that he has tried to destroy. Mind you, you will find no leadership in Ottawa.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Only in Ontario.

by Peter Lowry

Looking ahead in Ontario for 2023 is not a pretty prospect. We are faced with three more years of the ineptness of premier Doug Ford and his conservatives. He does nothing for the people, while feathering the nests of his developer friends. He gives no hand up to the citizens suffering the ravages of inflation. He is attempting to politicize our policing and judicial systems. He ravages the democracy of which we are so proud. He makes promises and fails to keep them. He lacks the perception to perceive his errors, the intelligence to understand his errors and the honesty to admit to his errors.

In the throes of the election, he promised to protect the Greenbelt. Now he wants to swap an area, including the town of Erin, for pieces of the Greenbelt, probably bought up by developer friends. He wants to give ‘super’ powers to cities that allow them to use minority voting to pass by-laws desired by the province. Democracy be damned.

Ontario has enjoyed many years of a fair and impartial judicial system. Mr. Ford’s attorney general is trying to change that. It was publicly claimed that his solicitor general told her counterpart in Ottawa to “Fuck Off” when he called her to ask for some help. If there are neither financial nor political benefits, Ford’s conservatives are not interested.

And they have milked our healthcare system of funds to the extent that it can no longer serve the needs of the citizens. The conservatives are letting people die needlessly in Ontario. It holds nurses to a one per cent raise and then gives some a cash bonus not to quit their jobs. They quit anyway. The Tories cut taxes for their friends and then demand that the federal government help make up the shortfall.

They demand that the cities build more homes and then take away the fees that the cities use to pay for getting services to these homes. Ford tells us that he is going to have 50,000 homes built in the Greenbelt. He fails to tell us where the services for those homes will come from. He tells us his government will extend the life of nuclear generation facilities in the province, well beyond the facilities’ potential life.

And in the brutal cold of winter, Doug Ford and his cronies will leave the indigent to die cold and hungry on the streets. They will tell you it is their own fault.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

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Trained for the Job.

by Peter Lowry

It was difficult watching our new king the other day. With lots of references to his late mommy, he spoke some carefully crafted words to the Commonwealth. His tone was muted, his current consort out of sight. And like it or lump it, he is our king. He has had years of training for the job.

It seems to be the difference between having royals and having politicians. Our politicians lack the life-long training. Personally, I consider it degrading. Many years ago, they would cut the testicles off some young males to make them better body servants to the rich. Same idea, I guess. Aldous Huxley wrote something similar in Brave New World. It is all in the breeding.

After all, how could you compare a fat and fatuous politician such as Ontario premier Doug Ford passing down his legacy to nephew Michael Ford. The voters thought them of the same ilk. And do we blame Pierre Trudeau for not passing more of his DNA to his oldest son Justin? Or maybe the actor in Justin, would enjoy the role of king.

Or could you imagine Alberta premier Danielle Smith in the role of the queen? Could you? Would you?

One of the interesting questions that should be posed to royals is whether they are actually encouraged to kick over the traces at some point? Take the results of our king’s earlier taking of a young wife for the purpose of breeding future monarchs. The two young gentlemen of that union are quite different. Bill is a cheerful chap, with a pretty wife and lovely children. He lacks the nerve, verve and imagination of his younger brother Harry. They both seemed to be traumatized by the early death of their mother. Their mother was not raised a royal. She felt snubbed. She preferred to cavort in Paris with a man who appreciated her. She died there.

Our king had already gone back to the woman with whom he had been besotted before his marriage, during his marriage and after. She is now our queen consort.

But what is our king today? He is a convenience for Canada. He is a figurehead in absentia. His head will appear on our coins. We have little say in all of this. Royalty has its privileges.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

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Hope for Alberta in 2023.

by Peter Lowry

Alberta will always have a special place for me. It is standing on the high prairie watching the beauty and contortions of the Northern Lights. It is making love in the greyness of a summer night. It is in the thrill of a horse carrying you across open lands. It is jumping off the government pier into the aptly named Cold Lake. It is dinner at one of the best restaurants in Canada in Edmonton. It is the fun of the Stampede in Calgary.

And it is one silly woman trying to spoil things. She is an expert on publicity and she uses her knowledge to the fullest. She is not as smart politically. She is a libertarian and a hardliner. Premier Danielle Smith is on a short rein. She has to make the most of the time before the upcoming provincial election. That means there will be more foolishness to come.

I’m putting my hopes on the return of Rachel Notley. The provincial NDP leader gave Alberta some of the best leadership in the last 35 years. And the lady is loaded with common sense. That is a rare commodity in Alberta politics.

But five months is time enough for things to change. And it is plenty of time for attitudes to change. There is a volatility to Alberta politics that can make for fast changes in attitude—probably less in rural ridings than urban.

Public opinion polls at this stage don’t matter much but the concerns of Albertans are not going to go away too quickly. Inflation hurts us all. There is a concern that it is continuing despite the lowering of gasoline prices at the pumps. That lower pump price spells less money from the bitumen that can be shipped out of the province.

The issues for the united conservative government over the next five months are the issues that are at top of mind for Albertans of all political persuasions. These are the basics of healthcare and education. These are the provincial issues that need attention and that the UCP has let drift away from them. These are not issues that can be easily blamed on the federal government. The financial aspects are the same for all provinces. It is an issue that can be best solved through making friends. That is not something at which the UCP excels.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Political Story of 2022.

by Peter Lowry

It was not the events of February 2022 in Ottawa that were the story. It was the examination of those events at the end of the year by Ontario Justice Paul Rouleau. The curtain went up and revealed much about the failed workings of our political systems in Canada and the serious problems with our policing.

But whether the justice deals with all he saw and heard is a good question. His instructions are to deal with whether the federal government made proper use of the emergency measures act.

It would seem to be a matter of flipping a coin. If the coin says the use of the act was reasonable, the rest of the report is just legal verbiage and we can file it and forget it. If the coin says the act was not needed because of the precedent set by the actions of police during the G20 in Toronto in 2010, it would give conservative leader Pierre Poilievre something on which to campaign.

It would be safe to say that the justice must have made note of the failings of the public safety organizations from the Canadian Security Investigation Service (CSIS), Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and municipal police services in general. They failed to serve and protect.

The actions of the RCMP and the OPP were political, specious and unworthy of those organizations. The lack of coordination between all the services was a disgrace. Instead of quick and decisive action, the ultimate cost of action increased every day.

And there should be a special chapter on CSIS. This vague and unsung organization appeared to Canadians as a meaningless bunch of paper pushers with no legitimate place among modern intelligence services.

But the most serious problem of all was the way we are running this country. We have inadequate politicians preaching their litanies of dogma instead of following the needs and concerns of their voters.

When Canada needed action, they dithered and argued. They belittled each other. They were not worthy of our approval.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:[email protected]

The Kiss Principal Works.

by Peter Lowry

This might come as a surprise to prime minister Trudeau. The Keep It Simple Stupid (Kiss) principal works. I can tell you of those times when the liberal party used the Kiss principal to win elections. That might be hard for an elitist like the prime minister to understand but not all Canadians are elitists. Some of us are quite basic in our outlook.

Justin Trudeau told us in a cheery Christmas interview that the idea of a windfall tax on grocery chains and oil companies was a simplistic solution to inflation. He is not about to tax our millionaire grocery store executives who have made unconscionable profits from inflation in 2022.

Obviously, Mr. Trudeau does not take his lovely wife shopping. Somebody probably shops for his family in the same stores as the rest of us.

Well, I take my wife shopping quite often. I have seen first-hand what is happening in the grocery stores. It isn’t pretty. I like exploring the stores for the occasional good deal in the meat department. The wife likes it because I can quickly tell her the real price of those multi-price deals where you can buy two or three at a lower cost. And I know from the past year that we were being screwed. I see that Loblaws made an extra $682 million more in profits than in 2019. Empire made an extra $199 million and Metro made just an extra $40 million. The wife and I shop in all three of those companies’ stores to take advantage of their specials.

And I am not an armchair quarterback as Mr. Medline of Empire insists. I was trained in supermarket management as a young man. I understand the different profit margins between the various departments in the stores. A late friend of mine was once the president of Heinz in Canada and I always paid close attention to Tom Smyth’s good ideas on food management for Canada. The business has changed over the years. I have watched those changes.

I know that today, in-store thefts are up. I see it happening. I know today that the customers are grumpier. It is not the staff’s fault. I only wish the chains would treat them with more compassion. And I only wish Justin Trudeau would grow a pair and stop telling people they are simplistic. Sometimes the simplistic solutions are the best political solutions.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

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The ReTrumpian Republicans.

by Peter Lowry

There are many people living south of North America’s Great Lakes. I have known some of them. And I have family down there. I also have a brother, a sister-in-law and a brother-in-law buried there. Yet it is those strange supporters of Donald Trump who really puzzle me.

I must admit, up front, that I have absolutely no idea what Donald Trump is going to do next. If he was a politician, I might make a fairly good guess. Since he is not a politician, I haven’t a clue.

But besides that, I sure hope he gets indicted for those Jan. 6 shenanigans in 2021. It should never take two years to decide someone has told other people to riot, to break the law, to interrupt a congressional proceeding, to try to kidnap a vice president, to damage property and generally have fun at the public expense.  I do hope there are laws against that in the ‘Home of the Brave.’ And it would seem hardly unlikely that he would not be indicted even though he was president at the time. Could presidential privilege really include incitement to riot? That would certainly be a precedent!

I sure hope to be around in two years to watch the expressions on senior American republicans if Mr. Trump is around for the Republican national convention. I would likely be wrong to think he could win the nomination. I’ve been wrong before on that score. I was amused by the 2016 event in Cleveland and I made no bets and probably saved money.

If Mr. Trump is not in jail at the time, I still do not think the republicans would just hand him the nod for the presidency in 2024. One thing for sure, he won’t be running the convention this time. I hardly think the governor of Florida is going to step aside and give the nomination to Trump by default.

One thing I might bet on is that the republicans with the big bucks would not be so generous as to give Trump much to fund his campaign this time.

Since this is running on Christmas, I will join in on the spirit of the day and wish Mr. Trump a pleasant turkey dinner. No doubt most readers will agree with me that Mr. Trump really is the turkey.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

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Here Comes the Choo-Choo.

by Peter Lowry

Did Ontario premier Doug Ford really ask Santa for full-size trains this year? It is amazing how far that gravy train can chug. When at city hall in Toronto, Doug and Rob Ford were always complaining about the supposed ‘Gravy Train.’ Expensive audits proved that the gravy train never existed in Toronto’s city hall but the province could end up being an entirely different matter.

Doug Ford’s gravy train has come to Queen’s Park. His government has already ordered three more diesel trains at $139 million. Maybe they are to help carry the money. It might be that Ford expects a large portion of the gravy to come from Highway 413. His brother probably made it clear to him that it is those generous developers who are happiest when they are getting land cheap, on which they can build expensive homes.

The proposed Hwy 413 was an idea that had been examined by the previous liberal government and had been rejected as unnecessary. The route parallels Hwy 401 and Toll Hwy 407 and runs from Hwy 400 in the north of Vaughan to Halton Hills.

What smells bad about this gravy train is that developers had bought up the good development land around the proposed interchanges for Hwy 413 before the conservatives publicly announced they would build the highway.

And that was before the gravy train chugged into Ontario’s Greenbelt. This is land with aquifers, wetlands and good farmland and heritage sites around Toronto and the Golden Horseshoe that is protected to supply fresh water and grow food for the province. The conservatives are proposing they swap 7400 hectares in the Greenbelt for 9400 hectares which oddly enough includes the town of Erin, Ontario. This is the largest swap ever proposed for the Greenbelt and the most surprised are the people who live in Erin.

What leaves us wondering is that a major developer has been buying land in the Greenbelt area designated to be swapped out. Nobody has a ouija board that accurate. If they did, it would be worth many millions of dollars. Doug Ford tells us he is going to have 50,000 homes built on that ‘former’ Greenbelt land.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

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The Naughty and The Nice.

by Peter Lowry

It hasn’t been a banner year for the politicos. No wonder politics is falling out of favour. And obstetricians can make more than your member of parliament any day. The ‘nice’ are a damn short list this year.

I’d like to start with the nice group but premier John Horgan of B.C. stepped down last month. His replacement John Eby looks like a good guy, so let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. I think of them as bookends for my country, because I have only heard good things about Andrew Furey, premier in Newfoundland and Labrador. And then things start going down hill.

When I wrote the other day about some ghosts and other members of parliament (including senators), you might have thought I only liked dead politicians. When you have lived as long as I, you really have to read the obituaries to see who is left.

But I seriously wonder sometimes about the overall intelligence level of the federal cabinet—starting with their leader. I am not sure I should name the liberals who could do a better job. I hardly want to get them in trouble.

Justin Trudeau has been reassuring them that he wants to stay for the next election. It seems to be more of a threat than a promise.

What saves Justin Trudeau is that conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is so deep in the ‘naughty’ list that he might never see the light of day.

I almost feel sorry for NDP leader MP Jagmeet Singh. His aspirations to leadership are something of a joke. Jagmeet is a second banana at best. I like the way he keeps Justin’s nose to the grindstone. (And, before I get into trouble for something racist—a second banana is an old vaudeville term for the person who plays the foil for the lead comedian’s jokes,)

But we need a third list for the disappointing such as finance minister and deputy prime minister, MP Chystia Freeland. What little she knows about politics, finance and running a country such as Canada is even less than Justin Trudeau.

High on the naughty list this year are that pair of jokers, François Legault in Quebec and Doug Ford in Ontario. If our provincial voters realized the damage these people can do in their respective provinces, they would never vote for them. And as for that woman, Danielle Smith in Alberta, please tell me she is just a joke.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

[email protected]

Not a Creature Was Stirring.

by Peter Lowry

The House of Commons sits vacant. Workers’ tools are scattered here and there, ready to be picked up as restoration resumes. And yet, it is the ghosts of politicians past who seemingly stir the air.

Dust eddies as I stand at the temporary bar for the liberal party’s Christmas party in the Railway Committee room chatting amicably with then finance minister John Turner about nothing in particular. A later party Christmas event was in the Hall of Honour and I was dancing with a very beautiful young lady and every time we danced by Senator Keith Davey and his wife Dorothy, they would greet us with gales of laughter. I had introduced the young lady to them as my niece. She really was my niece.

Our first stop that December evening was MP Jim Peterson’s office in the West Block where the party was just getting rolling. I don’t think I could list all the people there of whom my niece had only heard. She could only wonder that I wanted Jim Peterson to run against John Turner for the party leadership. I had wondered why even Ontario MPP David Peterson (and soon to be premier) thought it would be great.

I also took my niece by the Centre Block office of my then MP David Smith. We caught him with his shirt off and in suspenders, alone in his office, as he shaved before attending the party. We sat on his secretary’s desk and chatted with him while he finished shaving and put on his shirt and tie.

The tables and chairs from the parliamentary dining room are probably in storage for the years required to refurbish parliament. No doubt the room is full of the worker’s dust. It must also be full of the ghosts of the MPs past who sometimes invited me there to discuss the politics of their ridings over a free lunch. I also assume the carillon is silent these days but I can imagine the ghost of a late friend is waiting there. He loved going to Ottawa to fill in for the regular carillon player.

I am not sure if they are doing anything with the Langevin Block as part of the renovations. I haven’t been there since Pierre Trudeau had his offices there.

But I’m sure the ghost of Pierre Trudeau could find a classier place to haunt.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

[email protected]