Category: Federal Politics

The Death of Conservatism.

by Peter Lowry

It dies with a whimper, not a scream. It collapses from within. It was unwieldy at the best of times. It never was the big tent in which few believed. It dies in Alberta as it does across the country.  Ottawa area MP Pierre Poilievre has crafted a eulogy.

When Poilievre embraced the “convoy to Ottawa” in the winter, it was the death knell. He picked the wrong side. When Jason Kenney found he could not control the far right, his days were numbered. The rift in the supposedly united conservatives in Alberta was down the middle. Even in Ontario, the pegs of the big tent have been pulled on populist Doug Ford and the wind is rising.

The annual federal conservative leadership contest is mired in Pierre Poilievre’s poison of the blame game. The divide between Jean Charest and Poilievre is too wide for one party. Leslyn Lewis and the also-rans stand apart as background to the game being played. Rancour rules and Patrick Brown’s legions of the sub-continent’s diaspora wonder in what farce they have signed conservative party memberships.

Ontario has started to vote and we find the progressive conservatives of our history and gentler times have passed on. Instead, we have the selfishness and uncaring of a rapacious cabal, calling themselves ‘conservative,’ seeking our votes. An ignorant Doug Ford said repeatedly on the province’s leaders’ debate the other day that he thinks the purpose of education is to get “good jobs.” This man who has been controlling billions earmarked for education in this province is obviously ignorant of the purpose of our education system.

It is really too bad that Mr. Ford only attended school long enough to want to be a sticker salesman. Many more of us want to be part of a better society. While knowledge is always very useful, we want education that encourages our children to use the power of their minds to learn, to analyze, to plan, to socialize and to care.

At least, in Ontario today, we have recourse. We have two choices. We can vote the Ford’s uncaring cabal out of office or we can suffer the consequences.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Brits Begone.

by Peter Lowry

Charles and his lovely wife Camilla are in Canada and the news media are dishing out their usual orgy of coverage. Not that the coverage will be anything like the more in-depth stuff being prepared for the Pope’s visit during the dog days of summer.

You have to admit that the Roman Pope has far better heralds (public relations professionals) than the Brit royals. And the Vatican must be far richer than Buckingham Palace—and in obviously better repair. (Though I really suspect that the Vatican would be better off with a woman’s touch.) The other serious failure of the Vatican is that they tend to appoint their popes when they are past their prime. No pope has ruled for 70 years like Charlie’s mum.

Maybe the real difference is in the tithing. The Roman Pope has an outreach around the world. He has adherents who kick in cash flow. The Royal’s must make a few quid off their ponies and estates but other than that, they are on the dole. The Brits earn it back from tourism.

I hardly think we Canadians have to apologize for kicking out most of the colonial traces. Continuing the fiction of the royalty in this country is something of an embarrassment. It reflects the inability of our governments of all colors and stripes to grasp the nettle of our constitution and fix it.

As it is, we are having to rid ourselves of royalty in the same way we are dealing with the Roman Catholic Church. More and more of us have learned to ignore it. It worked in Quebec. From a time when the church’s ongoing ignorance interfered with women’s reproductive rights and human rights, Quebec has led the way in assuring abortion rights and medical assistance in dying.

In the meantime, you can curtsy and bow to the royals all you like. If they ask me, I’d probably tell them to get a life.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Poilievre’s Peeve.

by Peter Lowry

Ottawa area MP Pierre Poilievre has something to complain about. After his carefully choreographed campaign for the conservative leadership has led the field, he is starting to see his basic error. He is puzzling about it. His campaign must have been based on the premise that he could win the leadership on the first ballot.   His cockiness carried him off. He burnt his boats. He alternately alienated or ignored his opponents. He seems to have finally realized that he might have to have some second votes.

It was a classic mistake. I doubt very much that he has bothered to listen to his campaign team. He was fooled by those early rallies with his “convoy” friends. He thought their sign-ups would be all he needed.

But even if Poilievre actually signed up a thousand here and a thousand there, he must have realized by now that Patrick Brown is bringing in the new sign-ups by the tens of thousands. And even Brown could not swamp the federal membership as he did in Ontario. What Brown is doing is working as the stalking horse for Jean Charest. He is providing the balance for Charest to win on the third or fourth count of the ballots.

The reality is that Poilievre probably has, at most, 50 per cent of the 250,000 of the already qualified members of the conservative party of Canada. He does not have the same share of the new voters being signed up by June 3. The experts are forecasting that the final tally will be about 400,000 signed up members of the party.

From past experience with these affairs, we know that there will be 300,000 to 325,000 ballots to enter into the computers. Scott Aitchison and Roman Baber will be first and second off the count and nobody will gain enough second votes to go over the top. Assuming that the third person dropped is Leslyn Lewis, it leaves the field to Brown, Charest and Poilievre.

And here is where the Brown-Charest alliance comes into play. Charest’s efforts were concentrated in Quebec and east. Brown’s sign-ups are heavier in in Ontario and B.C. Poilievre might dominate in the Prairies but the treatment of all ridings as equal drops the leadership in Charest’s lap.

If it is any consolation to Pierre Poilievre, he might have won if all votes were equal. It will only be when the conservatives realize that not all ridings are equal, they will stop having an automatic leadership contest after every federal election.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Fighting for Fairness.

by Peter Lowry

Thank you, thank you, to the federal Competition Bureau. It has acted where the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has not. The CRTC let Canadians down. It, quite frankly, lacks the balls to do its job. It had the chance to denounce the acquisition of Shaw Communications Inc. by Rogers Communications. It did not.

The current CRTC acts as though it works for the big three communications triumvirate of Canada; Bell, Telus and Rogers. The commission has failed to show anything but favouritism for those three companies. It is appointed to serve Canadians. It has obviously forgotten why it is there.

But the federal Competition Bureau has acted. The bureau has locked itself into a court fight in that Rogers will fight to the last shareholder’s nickel to make the company the dominant supplier of broadcasting, telephone and Internet sales in Canada.

What the court will hear is the problems Rogers has faced in finding a buyer for Freedom Mobile—an off-shoot of Shaw Communications that has previously been doing some innovative and cost saving promotions for the Canadian market. After all, who would want to buy an independent cell phone service, with narrower margins, that could be crushed at any time by the big three companies that rule the Canadian market?

What would give any regulator pause in approving this deal is that both Rogers and Shaw have lost their entrepreneurial management in the persons of the late Ted Rogers and JR Shaw. It was a serious time for both the families involved. The Rogers shares are now controlled and directed by Edward Rogers. The Shaw family decided to divest themselves of Shaw Communications while continuing to keep control of Corus Entertainment.

While all I can tell you about the nepotism of both families is that political smarts and entrepreneurial skills do not necessarily pass along with DNA. We saw how badly managed the Rogers empire is when there was a recent bit of a management skirmish at Rogers. At least the Shaw family seem to keep that kind of thing in-house.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Voices From the Past.

by Peter Lowry

It was an acrimonious and irrelevant session for this year’s federal conservative leadership contest in Ottawa the other night. The event was part of the annual ‘Canada Strong and Free Networking Conference’ sponsored by the right-wing former Manning Institute. What was achieved was questionable.

The only contestant for the leadership remaining mostly unravaged by opponents was Brampton mayor Patrick Brown. He wasn’t there. He was on his usual quest for ethic group sign-ups for the conservative party. They have come up with a name for Brown’s leadership campaigning. They call it ‘diaspora manipulating politics.’ Only Pierre Poilievre took a swipe at Brown. Poilievre is an equal-opportunity swiper who complains about everybody else.

But in true blue conservative fashion, the remaining contestants spent their time defaming each other. They seemed locked in the past. They haggled about abortion. If it was not for the recent leak of a proposed reversal of the Roe versus Wade abortion ruling in the United States Supreme court, most would have ignored the question.

Of course, answering questions never is Poilievre’s strong suit. He is happier on the attack. He was particularly outraged by Jean Charest accusing him of supporting the truckers’ convoy to Ottawa. (Which he did.) He retorted “that truckers have more integrity in their pinky finger” than Charest’s entire “scandal-plagued (liberal) cabinet.”

Charest declared that his experience as premier of Quebec made him the best qualified of the candidates to keep the country unified. Judging from the crowd reaction to the entire proceedings, unity did not appear to be on the agenda.

The only person who was having a good time was social conservative Leslyn Lewis. The best hit of the hour and a half event was when Lewis accused Poilievre of supporting the truckers for a photo-op.

But, typical of Canada’s conservatives they remained mired mainly in the past. Nobody on the stage seemed to have any idea of what Canada might be.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The ‘Don’t Care’ Politicos.

by Peter Lowry

It’s election time in Ontario. And nobody cares about the environment. Oh sure, what’s his name, the green party guy is expected to complain a lot but even his seat in the legislature isn’t guaranteed. Did you hear that one of Doug Ford’s goodies, promised last week, was a nickel off the provincial gas tax? Wow, the price is reaching $2 a litre and Ford wants us to vote for him for five cents.

The only environmental agreement between the opposition parties is that they will all put an end to Ford’s highway 413. They seem to agree that the highway is a threat to the environment and hardly needed. To lose all that good farm land and wetlands makes little sense—for a highway that is going no where.

And don’t bet on the federal government to save our world. The Trudeau government is still pouring billions into twinning that damn pipeline across the Rockies to carry Alberta tar sands bitumen to the Burrard Inlet for overseas shipment. And all this time, they have been pushing their environmental plans for 2030 and, I guess, keeping that pipeline secret from Mr. Trudeau’s environment minister Steven Guilbault.

Minister Guilbault is supposed to be some sort of climate activist. That seems like a lonely position these days as the federal conservatives keep coming on strong with no climate solutions in that party’s future. There are two greenies in Canada’s parliament. They do not seem to be doing any persuading.

Even Quebec is having an election this year and the ruling Coalition Avenir Québec is mainly ignoring the environment. The opposition in that province is scattered over a number of parties with slim hopes. The last time I checked, it looked like the Parti Québécois had the best environmental plan. And that party is certainly not going anywhere.

With everyone worrying if the conflict in Ukraine is going to lead to a world war, climate change has taken a back seat. Yet, every day we are hearing about climate change and extremes of weather. Mother Nature might not wait until we humans get involved in saving our planet.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Muddy Middle.

by Peter Lowry

The conservative party’s current leadership contest is muddying the question of where the party sits in the political spectrum. The party has tried right of centre with Andrew Scheer, somewhere in the muddy middle with Erin O’Toole and just where it is headed with the current batch of candidates is a good question. Maybe it should be an important question for candidates to address in the upcoming leadership debates.

Frankly, I have never been satisfied with the picture of Canada’s major political parties posing as ‘big tent’ parties. It is really more of a copout than a workable political solution. I joined the liberal party back when it was running under the banner of Medicare. It came as a shock to me to find that there were opponents to Medicare still in the party.

And then when Paul Martin Junior practically destroyed Medicare running out of control as Jean Chrétien’s right-finance minister, I was left wondering what was a passionate progressive’s position. Like many caring progressives, I could find no alternative.

Confusion was complete in my mind when Tom Mulcair backed the new democrats into the crowded middle ground in 2015. It led to his downfall as leader two years later and his departure from politics. Mind you, in comparison to Jagmeet Singh, Mulcair at least knew where he wanted to go.

With both Patrick Brown and Jean Charest heading for the muddy middle in this year’s conservative leadership, you can understand why Pierre Poilievre is making good use of a populist approach. He is spouting right-of-centre dogma of limited government and lower taxes. Whether he would actually do that would be a matter of conjecture. He can ridicule Brown and Charest as light liberals, all he likes, but there is a strong faction within the conservative party that despised the truckers’ convoy and did not approve of Poilievre embracing the participants.

Despite the mistake he might be making, if I was on Pierre Poilievre’s team, I would argue strongly to stay with the present tack. It is beginning to look like his only chance is to win on the first ballot. He is burning his boats for second choice votes.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Simplicity of Poilievre.

by Peter Lowry

It is important to remember that Donald Trump caught Americans off guard with what Hillary Clinton described as his basket of deplorables. There are similar types of deplorables in Canada you know. And trust a weasel like conservative MP Pierre Poilievre to try to politicize them. He will have some trouble signing them up to the conservative party, yet he can be betting on the large numbers who turn out for his campaign. He is the first Canadian politician to make conservative politics interesting to the hoi polloi since John George Diefenbaker.

I remember, many years ago, arguing with my late friend Keith Davey about sending MP Judy LaMarsh and the “Truth Squad” to Diefenbaker’s rallies back in the 1960s. ‘Dief’ would welcome them and ask them to sit up front where everyone could see them. I felt that the point that Diefenbaker could wander from the truth was being covered very well by the news media. It was probably only two rallies that they attended but Keith thought Judy’s truth squad brought the problem of Dief’s creative approach to truth into sharper focus.

But Poilievre, as a phony Prairie populist, seems to have better writers than Diefenbaker. I was listening to part of his speech at the Steam Whistle Brewery the other day and I actually think he is dumbing down his language to connect with his dumber audiences. He was saying: “I dunno” in answer to his own rhetorical questions. Yet, he usually speaks in a more clipped style.

And speaking of the Steam Whistle event, did you know that the little worm is going around bad-mouthing the company. He stands up in from of his followers and in social media on the Internet to tell them that this brewery waters its beer. We all know that water is a very important ingredient in beer. Poilievre just says it in a nasty way. I hope the brewery continues to stay silent. He would love to have the attention.

I think Poilievre was one of the few Canadian politicians who actually used the pandemic to further his aggressive agenda. As soon as the Zoom meetings of parliamentary committees were launched, he had the best lighting and background of any member of parliament. That guy doesn’t miss a trick. He is a sleaze. As one of the two career politicians running in this year’s conservative leadership contest, he makes Brampton mayor, Patrick Brown, look like a country yokel.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Bitcoin Boosters Beware.

by Peter Lowry

At times, you just shake your head and quietly ask yourself, ‘What’s the use?’ You try to warn cryptocurrency advocates and they think they know what they are doing. There are more people speaking out against these pseudo currencies now and the bitcoin boosters have been warned by the Bank of Canada.

And the Bank of Canada is not in competition with bitcoin or any of the other cryptocurrencies. They are interested in them only in the sense that they need to understand the phenomenon. While it might be the best known of them is called bitcoin, it is not money. It is, at best, a hypothetical investment. Yet, what the bank found out in their studies was that most Canadian bitcoin owners were not financially literate. And they did not seem to understand the risk involved in taking an ownership position in bitcoin.

In a series of studies between 2018 and 2020, it was determined that about five per cent of Canadians were actively involved with bitcoin. The Bank of Canada researchers tell us that the bitcoin owners were, mainly male, younger and educated, with high household incomes. They understood the technology involved and the block chain, yet saw the ownership as an investment.

It was interesting that the bank decided to release their studies at this time. It is when MP Pierre Poilievre is currently campaigning to win the leadership of Canada’s conservative party and supporting bitcoin ownership. Like many of his claims, Mr. Poilievre tends to wander from the truth. He reminds us more of former U.S. president Donald Trump than any conservative we have ever known. The inflation that is besetting all currencies today is hardly unique to Canada nor to be blamed on our prime minister.

The researchers did not say it but I will: The ownership of bitcoin is, at best, a poorly managed tontine (that is an investment club that gives all the money in the pot to the last person alive) or just a form of gambling where nobody wins.

Some people also accuse it of being a Ponzi scheme without a Mr. Ponzi. What it really is would best be described as a foolish fad that will pass on to more interesting challenges in the years ahead.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Conservative Values.

by Peter Lowry

When writing recently about how conservative leadership candidates were overusing the word ‘freedom’ it occurred to me that they also think they own the term ‘values.’ At their first English debate in Edmonton on May 11, I might count the number of times each candidate uses the two words.

What complicates the discussion of values among conservatives is that it reflects a mix of ideologies. The most persistent use of the word is in regard to social values—the ones that some conservatives want to inflict on others. This is despite the fact that Canadians seem comfortable with the rights of women to control their own bodies. They are also at ease with medical assistance in dying. Having to do endless battle with conservatives and the Roman church on these issues does not endear either to us.

Values seems to be a factor in conservative cancel culture and the promotion of book burning. I find the use of the word values particularly objectionable in conservatives fighting against Medicare and dental care. What is implied in these values is that the rich are better than the rest of us. I have never understood what the poor are supposed to do when sent to the back of the line for medical care. Do these conservatives think there is enough charity to help all? Or are the people at the end of the line supposed to die quietly?

And people think it is so sophisticated to be conservative. Yet they seem to see politics as adversarial. Why? Do they have to scoff at suggestions for helping others in our society? There are of course those who are quick to say they are not as extreme as the libertarians. So? If you espouse limited government and less taxes, I have a very basic question for you: Given a severe budget cut, which service would you like to live in a Canada without, paved roads or no police forces?

It has always amazed me that conservatives can preach balanced budgets and yet, often, run up the largest deficits. It is usually because they want to cut taxes for the wrong people. They are preaching to the ignorant when they claim that they are the ones who can trim the fat at any level of government. Of course, they make cuts—usually to the people who can least afford them.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]