Category: Federal Politics

Freedom and Friends.

by Peter Lowry

It reminds us of the yahoos who visited the Nation’s Capital last February looking for freedom. The people in this case found freedom but this Freedom is only allowed if the federal government and its agencies agree. We are talking about the Freedom Mobile sale to Videotron.

You have to admire the nerve of the Rogers’ and Shaw beneficiaries that assumes that the government is going to allow them to merge their fiefdoms. As you can imagine, they are not selling Freedom Mobile to that Péquiste, Pierre Karl Péladeau of Quebecor, unless the feds allow Rogers and Shaw to merge into Canada’s largest and money-grubbing telecom.

And why would any government allow the country’s largest telecom to be run as a one-man company. It was okay when Ted Rogers was alive. He took the risks that built an empire. His son is just enjoying spending his daddy’s money.

And with the recent outage of Rogers’ services, we learned how serious that foolishness could be. Who knew that the crashing of systems at Rogers would knock out cell phones and credit/payment systems across the country?

And you can lay the blame for that catastrophic black-out squarely on the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). The CRTC has become a lap-dog for the telecoms. It has neither the will nor the expertise to do its job. It should have made sure long ago that the Internet and wireless services remain separated from each other. For them to be inter-connected makes for a slip-shod and cheap network that was bound to fail.

I can remember many years ago when a shielded cable fell across a connecting board for the microwave network at Bell’s Elgin office in Toronto and knocked out the CBC’s national programming. It should have been a lesson for all. It certainly firmed up my decision, at the time, that I was not cut out to be a communications technician.

But I was trained for it and I was less than pleased many years later when my late friend Herb Gray (who was president of the privy council at the time) suggested to fellow cabinet minister John Manley that I should be appointed a CRTC commissioner. I got a stupid letter from Manley saying he did not think I was qualified. He should have asked.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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A Problem’s Time Has Come.

by Peter Lowry

It was bound to happen. I assumed we would hear more the other day when I read American Express’ latest plan for its ‘cash back’ card. This was the most generous cash-back deal I had ever seen for a credit card. I wondered how many additional merchants would refuse to accept American Express.

There used to be some ‘Je ne sais quoi’ to using an American Express over the more pedestrian VISA or Master Card. I also remember the time when you needed a large vest pocket wallet to carry all 12 or so credit cards that you played like a piano and kept your credit playing the field.

But the people getting squeezed in these various rewards programs are the merchants who have to accept credit cards to stay in business. And don’t forget that even a debit card, either in card form or held in a smart phone, carries a small charge for the merchant.

It must have been this pandemic that shoved us towards a cash-less society. People must have felt that cash money was a source of COVID. Credit and debit cards are now in control. I am considered old-fashioned because, when I take the wife out to a restaurant, I always make sure I also have enough cash on me in case the restaurant’s credit card system in not working. Mind you, at current prices, I might have to arrange a line of credit to have that much cash on me.

And you know just whom to blame for this contretemps: Telus. Only a telecom giant would have the chutzpah to blow the whistle on the credit card industry. It’s been a long time coming but the battle of the giants is about to begin.

Of course, Bell, Rogers and Videotron have ‘no comment’ at this time but they will be on board promptly if Telus can get the cash flowing.

And I know what their customers will say: “What’s another 1.5 per cent when you are being ripped off by both the bank and the telecom?” I am currently grandfathered on my bank accounts as I have had them since before the banks realized they could charge for their clients’ account activity. And I only pay $10 per month for my cell phone anyway! I will wait and see if my cell supplier needs another 15 cents per month. It might not be a deal breaker.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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GOV: The Conservative Version.

by Peter Lowry

It’s called Get Out the Vote (GOV). All political parties do the best they can at it. We beg people to get involved in it. It is the most critical part of campaigning. And we are doing worse at it today than 64 years ago.

I voted in my first federal election in 1958. The turnout across Canada in that election was 79.4 per cent of eligible voters. In the recent provincial election in Ontario the turnout was just 43 per cent. I would say that our GOV is slipping.

There are, of course, different types of GOV efforts. They can be municipal, provincial and federal and they can also be within organizations such as a political party. The rest of this article is about the current federal conservative leadership, in which voting is already underway.

It would appear that the conservatives have sent out 678,708 ballots to people holding conservative party memberships in time to be eligible to vote. It should be noted that there were only about 250,000 paid-up conservative party of Canada members when the leadership opened up to receive what I call temporary memberships. Based on past experience, they will be lucky to see 450,000 of those ballots come back.

I would say the biggest problem is for Pierre Poilievre’s team who have over 300,000 of these temporary members to corral and make sure they fill in their ballot and it gets in the mail back to the party. They will have few problems in Alberta where Poilievre is strong. I hear they are having ‘fill in your ballot’ parties. They do that because many voters lack access to a photocopier. Voters have to include photographic confirmation of their identity to go with their ballot. The process is not very secret.

Where the surprise comes is in the allocation of votes to electoral districts. If you are in a riding where there are 500 members voting, your vote has twice the value of a vote in a riding with 1000 members voting. Conservatives think ridings are equal, not voters.

To further complicate the voting, conservatives use preferential voting. All voters can number their votes and if their first choice does not win and has the lowest vote, their next choice moves up in the subsequent count. What it means is that if the voting goes, in this case, up to three counts, it will be the people voting for losers who will ultimately pick the winner. And that explains all the leadership contests for the conservative party of Canada.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Singing Singh’s Song.

by Peter Lowry

New democrat leader Jagmeet Singh is certainly not kidding. Justin Trudeau’s liberals will either carry out their end of the deal with Jagmeet’s party for their support or feel the wrath of an enraged Sikh.  And Sikhs have a well-earned reputation as warriors.

The first part of the deal between Jagmeet and Justin was for support for a dental program for children under 12 before the end of this year. There are other programs in the deal but this was the one with a clear date to be put through this year.

All the new democrats had to do was keep the liberals in office. All the liberals have to do is pass this program in the house. It is the ‘good faith’ part of the deal.

And it is more than that. It would not only cause a problem with an annoyed Singh if it did not happen. It would be the end of Justin Trudeau’s troubled reign. Justin might have a hard time imagining an election with no large crowds of liberals urging him on. The reality is that there are too many progressive liberals who are wondering just where Trudeau thinks he is taking us.

This children’s aspect of dental care is only a baby step towards a full, all-encompassing dental program and free prescription coverage for all Canadians as part of Medicare. And if Justin and his cabinet cannot get their minds around that then there needs to be some changes made in the liberal hierarchy.

What is keeping Trudeau in place today is the looming prospect of MP Pierre Poilievre winning the conservative leadership. The extremes of a Poilievre leadership would be an incentive to strengthen Trudeau’s position. Much can be forgiven the Trudeau liberals in the face of that quagmire.

Mind you, there was also the word from our finance minister and deputy prime minister that getting this first stage of the dental plan off the ground this year might be difficult. That is not what we want to hear from Cynthia Freeland. If she had more than an ounce of political smarts, she would be announcing how great the program will be. She has more than enough resources in her finance department to get the program before parliament this fall.  If she cannot, Trudeau better, very quickly, find someone who can.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Poilievre’s Poison.

by Peter Lowry

It’s not just an American disease. Canada can easily be caught in the same polarization. We are just as liable to see divisions driven into our politics, our families, our friendships and our country as the American mess on our doorstep. And don’t laugh at Donald Trump. Pierre Poilievre could be worse.  

And the truth will not set us free. Knowing Poilievre is wrong, sets nothing right. He is not a person to be caught up in the truth. He is a weasel believing only in his own fantasies and his own self-importance. He is planning a better life for nobody but himself. He is in an alliance with the rabble of the extreme right.

These are not knowledgeable Canadians with whom Poilievre has formed his team. They are the rabble who thought they could muscle Ottawa into redirecting our country. They wanted something, they called “freedom.” They wanted to put an end to people in Ottawa they thought of as gatekeepers. They had been buffeted by the changing rules during the pandemic. They wanted the rules set aside before the pandemic was over. They had no patience for common sense. Calm and confidence have been in short supply.

What Poilievre saw was some of that angst in all of us. The problems of the past year have been a strain on everybody. Instead of standing in our own ray of sunshine and opportunity, we have been beset by inflation, troubles in sourcing, supply chain limitations, border backups, airport confusion and then some asshole starts a war.

And what makes Canadians think they were standing in line before others. We are not the honest broker for the rest of the world. We have a few good politicians and too many fools. We have some smart business people who are looking ahead to the future and we have some idiots who are raping the consumer of her loonies. Nobody is proud of working in the oil business after pumping your own gas for over $2 a liter.

The manager of my nearby Metro store used to stand down by the checkout with a friendly smile on his face. Today, he hides in his office or back at the receiving door.

I hardly blame Pierre Poilievre for any of these problems. I just know that, sure as hell, he is not going to make any of them go away.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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M. Poilievre Regrets.

by Peter Lowry

What kept MP Pierre Poilievre away from the conservative leadership’s last debate for this year? Did he have anything to lose? Did he not want to be the target one more time? What was worth the $50,000 fine for missing the event? Was there some point he was making? Will he ever tell us?

And was the debate even worth watching when the reputed front runner refuses to show? It was the Jean Charest show. An old pro, the former Quebec premier got in some final digs at his divisive rival. You have to admit, Poilievre is not you grandmother’s conservative.

It was just a trio of the old boys striving to put on a good show. It was Charest with sidesman Scott Aitchison from Parry Sound—Muskoka and the hapless Roman Baber—and God only knows what he was doing there.

But it was really all about the man who was not there. MP Leslyn Lewis was also not there and hardly forgotten. Not when the other candidates where thinking of her social conservatives and their second choice. Nobody was badmouthing her.

It was Charest who got in the best licks—in case they mattered. Everyone knew who he was talking about when he said that Canadians want a government with a real economic plan for the country.

What Charest had not forgotten was that there some 250,000 members of the conservative party in Canada when this leadership round was started. These were the real conservatives. They were not Patrick Brown’s South Asian diaspora. And they certainly were not Poilievre’s friends.

I hardly think it is fair to call his fellow travellers ‘truckers.’ The real truckers are hard-working types who want to make a living. What the Carleton MP has is a polyglot of the angry, the disenfranchised, the losers, the immature and the partnerships in the extreme right of Canadian politics. Probably about 50 per cent of Poilievre’s short-term sign-ups will remember or care enough to vote.

Even without a dog in the race, we will watch the results on September 10 with considerable interest. Maybe, sometime in the future, the conservative party is going to learn that its leadership rules do not seem to be producing the desired results.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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This Troubles Trudeau.

by Peter Lowry

MP Pierre Poilievre is not Justin Trudeau’s problem. The Carleton MP is the conservative party’s problem. This extremist, poised to take over control of the conservative party, poses a smaller threat to Trudeau than former Quebec premier Jean Charest.

The truth of the matter is that Jean Charest coming down the middle of the road can spell ‘road kill’ for the federal liberals. Poilievre has locked himself on to the far right and that is not where Canada wants to go.

Poilievre has joined the convoy that disrupted trade last winter and tore into the heart of Ottawa. Poilievre promises trouble. Jean Charest promises opportunity.

And, surprisingly, the conservative party solved Charest’s major block in becoming leader. No, the party did nothing to block Poilievre. They removed the problem of Patrick Brown. Patrick had a deal with Charest. Patrick had 100,000 temporary conservatives signed up. Those short-term conservatives where there to vote for Brown first and Charest second. The danger was that their votes could leave Brown in second place—eliminating Charest.

If Charest is in second place coming out of the first round—and Poilievre has not won on the first round—Charest has a chance to win with the second-place votes from Leslyn Lewis. Those social conservatives don’t like Poilievre.

And don’t forget that Jean Charest has two helpers. He has Brampton’s mayor in Ontario and former prime minister Brian Mulroney in Quebec. Brian Mulroney knows where the bodies are buried in Quebec and he knows how to get them to vote. Whether Patrick Brown is running as an effective ‘get out the vote’ program with his South Asia diaspora, remains to be seen.

It would be so much easier to predict if the conservatives had not opted to stick with their convoluted voting system. It is supposed to be one voter gets one vote. To treat electoral districts as equal and voters as less than equal is not the democratic way to do things.

But nobody has ever accused the conservative party of being overly democratic.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Gunning for Gate-keepers.

by Peter Lowry

We seem to be caught in the middle. As of this weekend, we found that both extreme right-wing MP Pierre Poilievre and left-wing guru Linda McQuaig are attacking Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem. Having been, for many years, a strong supporter of Linda McQuaig, I am still trying to buy into her condemnation of the bank’s recent adjustments in the Bank of Canada borrowing rate.

Linda accuses the central bank of playing fast and loose with the economic security of Canadians. It is her contention that the bank is recklessly taking us in the direction of recession.

I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that Linda is exaggerating a bit. There is also a strong suspicion on my part that Tiff Macklem is well aware of the dangers in his actions. He is trying to walk the line between easing the inflationary pressures and precipitating a recession. With the United States already technically in recession, can Canada be far behind? It is when you recall that Macklem told us that some raising of interest rates might be necessary and why it might be necessary. He then told us that it was necessary and when he would raise rates. He did what he said he would do and basically it was the small nudge that some sectors of our economy really needed.

And it is only when you consider Pierre Poilievre’s criticisms of Macklem that you realize that the conservative leadership candidate is using specious arguments to defame the governor. He appears to think that Macklem wants to have his own cryptocurrency. As it was explained to him, as though he was a slow child, the bank will consider an official cryptocurrency, if and when the government requests it.

The problem is that as a far-right dilettante, Poilievre needs to get his own act together and learn something about economics. What many of the rest of us know today is that the Bank of Canada does not just print money or cause inflation. Inflation is caused by the ability to create need, the availability and cost of what we want to purchase and by greed and by war and that asshole in the Kremlin who thinks he is some kind of Tsar. And Mr. Poilievre does not seem to understand why right-wing Reaganomics and Thatcherism never worked.

Mr. Poilievre only proves that what we do not understand, we distrust.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Harper’s Heir.

by Peter Lowry

This might not surprise many. You did know, didn’t you that that MP Pierre Poilievre is Stephen Harper’s choice? Poilievre has amused Harper since he sat at Harper’s cabinet table. He will do far more for the far right than Harper had in mind. Now we all know he is betting on Poilievre in this year’s conservative leadership race.

It all ties back to the last four years of Harper’s prime minister’s office. It was when Harper finally had the chance to show how right-wing he really is. It was when he did the most damage to our country. It was why the advent of “sunny days” in 2015 was a brighter day for Canadians. There was hope. Yet, there was rain on some of those sunny days. And then there was a pandemic to smash those hopes.  Trudeau promised too much. It took us all time to realize that the young Trudeau was but an actor and he wanted the world for a stage.

And if you thought a weak democratic party in the United States suffered under the divisiveness of Donald Trump, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Pierre Poilievre’s strategy against Canada could drive a knife down the middle of this country. Poilievre doesn’t want to rule from Ottawa, he wants to destroy Ottawa.

I think it came a surprise to Donald Trump that he could not rule from the White House as autocratically as he desired. In Canada, Poilievre would not have the same constraints. In Canada, with a majority government, he could disband the RCMP and turn the Canada Pension Plan and the federal tax base over to the provinces.

And did you think that suggestion by Poilievre the other day about the Toronto Island Airport taking jets was a casual ‘maybe?’ If Poilievre was PM, the province and the city would either agree to jets or the airport would be closed to all traffic.

And in the same manner as conservative premier Ford ignores climate change in Ontario, the Canada weather office would toe a new line or look for new jobs.

And you could kiss the Bank of Canada good-bye. The attitude would be that climate change does not exist and neither does inflation. Good luck working for bitcoin.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Poilievre Prefers.

by Peter Lowry

Why doesn’t Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre want a third debate among the remaining conservative leadership hopefuls? With two-thirds of party members preferring a third debate, you would think the obvious front runner might oblige.

But the answer is “No.” Poilievre gave the party leadership committee a scathing answer. He not only said no, he enlarged on his answer by calling the first debate an embarrassment for the party and saying both French and English events got in the way of selling temporary memberships in the party.

You would think that now the selling is done and with maybe 100,000 temporary memberships sold by Patrick Brown open for change, a third debate would not be such a bad idea. With a total of over 600,000 people available to vote, there would be no harm in enticing a few more into your camp.

But it sure is tough to try to shake the over-confidence of Mr. Poilievre.

This is a guy who wants his ‘convoy’ converts to conservatism to know how obnoxious he can be. He is promising them ‘free-dumb’ to block entry points to Canada and to party around the clock in the nation’s capital.

But the supporters that we really feel sorry for are the young people who like the idea of someone controversial in the conservative leadership.

But like the Republican Party in the United States will be a long time ridding that party of the image of Donald Trump, the Canadian conservatives will spend quite a while getting rid of the odour of Pierre Poilievre.

Poilievre has the problem that he shoots from the hip. The other day, for example, he said that he would have jet aircraft flying out of Billy Bishop Airport on the Toronto Islands. That will cost his conservative candidate a hell of a lot of votes from the masses of condos facing the islands in downtown Toronto. The noise level of turbo-prop aircraft landing and taking off from Billy Bishop can be handled. Jet aircraft, that close to downtown, would not produce happy voters. The promise is like his idiotic promise to support cryptocurrencies against the advice of the Bank of Canada. Poilievre is a high-risk possibility for Canadian conservatives.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]