Federal Politics – Babel-on-the-Bay

What didn’t happen Monday?

September 22, 2021September 21, 2021 by Peter Lowry

We all know that liberal Justin Trudeau blew his chance at a majority in the election. Luckily some of the house cleaning he was unwilling to do was done for him. Whether the liberals are going to take this opportunity to choose a new leader was certainly not answered.

But you can say the same for conservative Erin O’Toole. He was still campaigning when given an opportunity early Tuesday morning to speak to Canadians. Somebody should have told him he had lost. O’Toole spent most of his campaign time trying to shake off conservative and reform-party history. It was likely the confusion this caused for many conservatives that added to the loss.

There was minimal time provided for this election and O’Toole spent entirely too much time on the attack. If he had used the time to give his policies the thought they needed, he would have appeared much smarter. It is too bad he did not take advantage of the opportunity to resign as conservative leader.

But what was really fun in this campaign was listening to all the pollsters telling Canadians that the NDP were going to make a breakthrough. If you think anyone, over the age of 12, can make a breakthrough on a children’s Internet program such as Tik Tok, have at it. There are still lots of votes to count but they are unlikely many for the NDP.

Babel-on-the-Bay.com might have been the only source on the Internet telling people that the NDP were unlikely to exceed 18 per cent of the vote. The polls that kept showing the NDP in the 20 per cent range were not making adjustments for the parked votes that only claimed to be NDP to get rid of the pollster.

The truth is that Jagmeet Singh is never going to take the new democratic party out of the also-ran category. The party’s hey-day was in the 1960s and 70s. Even the NDP’s wunderkind, Avi Lewis, came third behind the Liberal winner and the conservative in the West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky country riding. I did not stay up to hear Jagmeet’s speech. Did he promise to resign?

Canadians should make a pact that we will never again tolerate an election campaign wherein all the leaders devote more time to slagging their opponents than to telling us why we should vote for them. If we don’t, we will get more results like we just had.

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That’s it for Global’s West Block.

September 21, 2021September 20, 2021 by Peter Lowry

It always impressed me the excellent job Tom Clark did with the West Block show on Global Television. Tom always had a leg up with me because I respected his fairness as a reporter and his innovations with the program. I paid even closer attention to the show when Tom retired and Vassy Kapelos took over, though maybe not for the same reasons.

But the Mercedes Stephenson version has led me to stop wasting my time with Global Television. I think the program’s producer and director should find jobs in another industry. After watching the program, the day before a critical election, that was not only biased and deliberately misleading, I am outraged. All I can do, I guess, is to file a complaint with the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and Elections Canada.

The air waves belong to all of us. There are commitments made by all radio and television stations that are licensed to operate in Canada. I am reasonably sure that no licensed broadcaster is allowed to run such a biased and obviously unfair program the day before the election.

What I am complaining about is that half the non-commercial airtime for the show was a political panel commenting on the election. The panel was composed of two people who have either said or would admit to voting conservative. The third person, whom I would expect to not say how he voted, has that right. As he is the mayor of Calgary, Naheed Nenshi deserves the right to anonymity at the polls.

I will also admit that Mayor Nenshi contributed positively to the panel as the Alberta voting situation in this election was unique. He frankly admitted that there was no great shift of voters in Alberta away from the conservative party.

The least politically knowledgeable person on the panel was the former member of parliament Celina Caesar-Chavannes. She has not only publicly stated she would vote conservative in this election, but you can read her book to find out how little she knows about politics and how much she hates liberal leader Justin Trudeau.

The third member of the panel was James Moore who served in the cabinet of conservative prime minister Stephen Harper. He had some credibility to bring to the topic.

What the audience got was about 12 minutes of unpaid political advertising for the conservative party, on the public airwaves.

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An Election Nobody Wanted?

September 20, 2021September 19, 2021 by Peter Lowry

It was back at the beginning of this election that I laughed at the complaints and said how much I enjoyed elections. As the rest of our voters go to the polls today, I have to admit that I did not enjoy this election as much as I usually do. I missed the sense of involvement in the campaign. Nobody asked for help. My daily blogs lacked some inside insight.

This lack of direct involvement ate at me. It felt like we were still in pandemic lockdown. This was despite the easing of restrictions in Ontario. I usually get more comments on what I write, but this time nobody seemed to want to argue.

I can hardly even disagree with the pollsters. Their polls all seem to agree with me about this election. I have a feeling I will be up very late eastern time before I get a clear picture of the next parliament.

Even Quebec remains a question mark. The key was the Bloc Québécois. There are five or six critically needed seats in Quebec that Trudeau had to win from the Bloc to come within a possibility of a majority.

But there have been days in this campaign when the pandemic news was more encouraging than the election news for the liberals.

The truth is that Trudeau has let us progressives down in Ontario. There are ridings in Ontario he and his handmaidens have written off that they should not have. I have always had the impression that he does not understand this province. He fakes it by concentrating on the selfies and staying away from serious discussions. I have often thought of suggesting to him that he shadow Mayor Tory in Toronto for a week and learn how to be a real politician.

One of his problems is that he has an excellent deputy prime minister but no political leader in Ontario to back him. Finance minister Chrystia Freeland is just not a political heavy weight. This election might have been more fun if O’Toole had not convinced Doug Ford to get lost during the campaign. Ford, in the field, might have meant the loss of even more conservative seats.

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An Imperfect Solution.

September 17, 2021September 16, 2021 by Peter Lowry

It might as well be admitted. I voted early. I voted liberal. There is really no choice in my Barrie riding. In a field of four candidates, there is no star. There is no strength. There is no inspiration. It is what we can expect if we ever switch to proportional voting—we will only get to vote for a party and our representatives will be nobodies, picked by the parties.

The conservative incumbent remains unchanged since the last time I saw him in in-action on Barrie city council. He was a bore then. Today, he just votes as he is told. He has nothing really positive to say for himself or his party.

Compared to the conservative candidate, the liberal is a bright star. I know she is articulate and has a brain. That helps. The fact that she was the only choice for a liberal candidate and selected by faceless party officials in Ottawa makes me wonder. She is running a very weak campaign. I almost feel sorry for her silly little signs that you have to get up close to if you want to see what they say. Luckily, it’s not as though signs mean very much in Barrie elections.

Yes, there is a new democratic candidate. There have been a few signs for her but I had to search the Internet to learn anything about her. She has been at a few candidate functions and has proved that she can quote from the NDP songbook. She is active in the arts in Barrie and this is her first attempt at politics. She is not what I had in mind in seeking out the person to vote for who best represents me.

The fourth candidate on the ballot is from Maxime Bernier’s people’s party. It will be interesting to see how many voters give this party their vote. Oddly enough, I would like to see a couple hundred votes for him. Votes for this extremist party are votes that have mostly left the conservative candidate.

In 2015 the final tally in Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte showed the then conservative candidate winning by 86 votes. Who knows who might win if the people’s party guy takes enough votes from the conservative?

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A Fool’s Frustration.

September 16, 2021September 15, 2021 by Peter Lowry

Conservative leader Erin O’Toole does not seem happy in his job. In this last week of our federal election, he is lashing out at others rather than recognizing the weaknesses of his own campaign. What he does not understand is that there is no perfect policy program to please Canadians. What we look for out of a political campaign is leadership. And that is what he has failed to deliver.

Looking back on this campaign, you have to admit that nobody has proved perfect. We can rail against Justin Trudeau all we like but there is nothing new, other than some of the descriptive adjectives the conservatives use. O’Toole should be more concerned about the ‘mote’ in his own eye.

As much as he complains about Mr. Trudeau’s elitist ways, he might consider his own vanity. And where does he get off changing his dreamed-up ‘middle-of-the road’ conservative policies that his party never agreed to, in the first place? And why does he think Maxime Bernier’s peoples’ party has been able to carve out such a high percentage of his conservative votes?

How many of Bernier’s voters are ones O’Toole pandered to in the conservative leadership? He was eager to accept the extremist votes then.

I have loved O’Toole’s flip-flops on gun control in this election. I have never seen a dying fish flop so much. Did he think it was leadership to announce one argument on his private stage at the beginning of the campaign, and then pull solutions from the air as the world turns? The last idea we heard, O’Toole wanted to take the definition of assault rifles out of the hands of politicians. Please, pray tell, who is better situated to tell Canadians what kind of weapon they might need to shoot a little target practice?

And you, Mr. O’Toole, are lucky my mother is not still alive. She would be out campaigning against you. My mother always told us she was too young for the suffragettes and too old for women’s liberation. She was left with six kids when middle-aged, no husband and a daycare problem. She would certainly have told O’Toole where to stuff his tax credit daycare solution!

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The Perfidy of Quebec.

September 15, 2021September 14, 2021 by Peter Lowry

This argument is not going away quietly into the night. Premier Legault of Quebec said the other day that the question of Quebec’s Bill 21 and 96 did not belong in a federal election debate. Justin Trudeau said the question to Bloc leader Blanchet about Bills 21 and 96 was “offensive” and “inappropriate.” And conservative leader Erin O’Toole, in one of his stronger remarks, claimed the question to be “a little unfair.” The problem remains that Canadians across the country have little problem in recognizing bigotry when they see it.

And people who think they should be chosen prime minister should stop pandering to Quebec. A Quebec court has already noted that Bill 21 violates the basic rights of religious minorities. The only way the Quebec Assembly can get away with this bigotry is with using the “not withstanding” clause in the Canadian constitution.

What those fools in the Quebec assembly need to understand is that Canada’s real strength is in its diversity of languages, customs, fashions, religions, ideas and ambitions. And nobody can ever be allowed to carve out a chunk of this country and declare it a “no-go zone” for people of a different language or religion or tribe or different environmental concerns.

More people in Quebec need to come to understand the falsehoods and the perfidy of the Quebec assembly. They need to see through the ambitions of these bigots. You might disagree with the Hassidic Jew but you have to recognize his right to his religion and customs. The observant Sikh has a right to the five Ks of the Tenth Guru—the uncut hair, the comb, iron bracelet, underwear and the symbolic knives. You do not even need a religion to enjoy the freedoms, foods and customs of others. Our country is open to all.

The facts are that as much as we might disagree with someone who wears their religion or customs ‘on their sleeve,’ they have the right to do so. You might think that those laws that discriminate against these people are not directed against you. Just wait until next year—they might be. It is by protecting others, that we protect ourselves.

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The Unbiased Media?

September 14, 2021September 13, 2021 by Peter Lowry

Erin O’Toole is the only politician, in this election, I have heard promise to cut the funding of the CBC. Yet the CBC seems to be the only television network trying to take an unbiased approach to the September 20 election. I gave up on CTV years ago when the network seemed to be working for then prime minister Stephen Harper.

But the surprise was the other day when I watched the West Block on Global Television. The show had three people on a political panel who are all voting conservative. What ever happened to balanced reporting?

The only person on the panel who might get a pass from me was Mayor Naheed Nenshi from Calgary. He does try to bring some honest comment to the fore. It is just that Calgary these days is a tough town if your political ambitions are anything but conservative.

When the panel was introduced, I assumed that Brad Wall, who served for 11 years as Saskatchewan premier, was the conservative spokesperson. I have never been impressed with Wall but they liked him in Saskatchewan and that has to count for something. His analysis of the current political situation was straight from the conservative song book.

The supposed liberal on the program was probably intended to be the former member of parliament Celina Caesar-Chavannes. The fact that she has publicly declared her hatred for prime minister Justin Trudeau must have been ignored by those selecting the panel. They could not have read her book about her naive experiences in Ottawa as a member of parliament. She made it very clear on the program that she was voting conservative.

What was also apparent about the panel was there was nobody on it with any real depth of knowledge of voting patterns across Canada and the more serious issues in the election.

To be fair, I did not watch the last three or four West Block programs and may have missed some programs that were entirely in favour of the new democrats or the liberals. Maybe this last program was to restore some balance. I will check next week and see if some balance has been restored.

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A Bigot’s Endorsement.

September 13, 2021September 17, 2021 by Peter Lowry

Dammit Justin, can’t you get anything right? You were supposed to trash the Bloc’s Blanchet in the French-language debate. In the English-language debate your targets were conservative Erin O’Toole and NDP Jagmeet Singh. To give Blanchet and Quebec premier Legault reason to attack you for what you did not say in English is ridiculous.

And to give Legault an opportunity to endorse O’Toole could be both good and bad. The federal liberal deal with Quebec on daycare was supposed to lay the groundwork for a stronger liberal showing in Quebec in this election.

And let’s not blame the wrangle about Quebec bigotry the other night on the English-debate moderator. She called it as many across Canada perceive the Quebec City bullies. Bill 21 and the newer Bill 96 are part of a growing menace to the unity of Canada. They use bigotry, secularism and distrust to try to widen the gulf between Quebec and the rest of Canada. And it all is in aid of ongoing attempts for Quebec elitists to belittle and separate from Ottawa.

If Bill 21, the secularism bill, was not bigoted, why did the Quebec assembly need to invoke the not-withstanding clause in our constitution? Sorry folks but bigotry begins when we want everyone to be “just like us.” And what do you think Bill 96 is but another unneeded barrier to put down the use of the English language in Quebec?

Mind you, the picture of the Quebec premier endorsing O’Toole shows us just how stupid he thinks the conservative leader might be. We should not forget that O’Toole is the tool of premier Jason Kenney in Alberta and the close friend of premier Doug Ford in Ontario. These gentlemen have tried to stay out of the limelight lately but it goes against their nature. Like the scorpion riding across the river on the back of the gullible dog, their sting is just their nature. Both have lost their fight to withhold vaccine passports from their provinces.

But if anyone has a clearer idea of how this federal election will end, I, for one, would like to hear about it.

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Vote Local, Think Local.

September 12, 2021September 11, 2021 by Peter Lowry

The wife and I voted on Friday. We usually vote at advance polls. It is a habit from years of working on campaigns. I usually know if my vote will be useful or not. Even when I know it will not matter, I still go to vote. Even a losing candidate needs some encouragement. You never know about next time.

And you always need to be reminded of the way the Canadian system works. It is all these local decisions that make the decision for our country. All elections in Canada really are local.

That is why I have been disappointed with the campaign in my riding. It has been a farce. There never is much of a lawn sign campaign in Barrie. And with a third of the votes coming from Springwater and Oro-Medonte Townships, political signs are rare on rural lawns.

What annoys me is that some faceless person in Ottawa made the candidate decision for the local liberals. When I asked where the candidate came from, I heard that she was the only applicant. That is a serious condemnation of our local riding association. They were not doing their job. The only solace is that this is what Justin Trudeau wanted from our local riding—nothing but money.

What Justin Trudeau left us with is a modest campaign by a liberal candidate with tiny “excuse-me” signs here and there, one radio ad I heard and a you-vote card. The incumbent conservative must be laughing. He was a useless member of the city council and is equally useless in Ottawa. He votes as he is told and does nothing for his constituents.

To send this conservative back to Ottawa will be a disgrace but there is little hope. I do not even know the name of any of the other candidates. I hardly expect as much as 60 per cent of the eligible voters in this riding to go to the polls. There is no excitement, no challenge, no enthusiasm for any candidate.

Oh well, I should have complained ten years ago when I saw that my riding was being gerrymandered to benefit Patrick Brown and the conservatives.

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Is it a Dead Heat?

September 11, 2021September 11, 2021 by Peter Lowry

It looks like there will be a lot of arguments in the days ahead about how Canada elects its politicians. When you are electing 338 individual members of parliament across a country as large as large as ours, a tie for first place has to be an extremely rare event. Luckily, we are not running a bookmaker operation. Nor are we accepting any bets on the coming election.

But, at this time, I cannot tell you who is going to win. Nor can I foretell what might happen if there are just a few seats difference between the top two parties. It might even involve other parties making the decision of whom they might support. This is why I have always been so interested in politics: there are so many factors at play.

This is one of those times when the political parties are really challenged to get out their vote! There are too many electoral districts with close races.

Despite the slight edge in manning polls and getting out the vote that goes to the conservatives, Maxime Bernier might have carved out too large a niche of conservative voters for his peoples’ party.

And despite all the pollsters who have claimed that the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh is “poised” to increase the NDP vote, it will be a surprise if he does not bottom out at about 18 per cent of the popular vote. At that vote, there could be a few serious losses for the party. Those losses could help the liberals.

On September 20, I intend to stay up until we have the picture on Quebec. The liberals really have to trash the Bloc Québécois to make sure of at least a minority government again. They have already given up on too many electoral districts in Ontario.

The further west you go, the worse the news for Justin Trudeau.

These are now the odds that you should be able to get from your favourite bookie: (There was some confusion about the payoffs in the first version, so I have made these easier to understand. No vigorish or taxes are included. )

Liberal Majority Government – 7 to 3 (a $3 bet pays $10)

Liberal Minority Government – Even Money (a $1 bet pays $2)

Conservative Majority — 5 to 1 (a $1 bet pays $6)

Conservative Minority — Even Money (a $1 bet pays $2)

NDP Majority — 30 to 1 (a $1 bet pays $31)

NDP Minority — 20 to 1 (a $1 bet pays $21)

Green Minority — 50 to 1 (a $1 bet pays $51)

Bloc Québécois Minority — 100 to 1 (a $1 bet pays $101)

People’s Party — Don’t waste your money.

Best you save your money and vote for the candidate in your riding whom you trust to represent you.

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