Federal Politics – Page 102

Are these the summer doldrums?

July 4, 2017 by Peter Lowry

Why do the talking heads of television shut down for the summer? While we know that it is just our hardcore readers who drop by during these months, we are not going to let them down. There is lots to discuss.

That takeover by Jason Kenney in Alberta has yet to be resolved. The attempt to join the Conservatives and Wildrose parties is causing new splinter groups to emerge. Maybe the idea of uniting the right needed some one other than Jason Kenney to lead it. Judging by his attacks on the Alberta Party, he seems to be more concerned about a united centre.

Frankly, we are intrigued with the on-going drama in British Columbia. It looks as though it is the left there that needs to unite to get the majority needed to keep Clark’s corrupt, right-wing Liberals where they belong. And with the battle over Kinder Morgan’s planned increase in pumping diluted bitumen over the Rockies—the issue will boomerang back to Ottawa.

And it should embarrass and splatter all over our hypocritical Prime Minister. Being the poster boy for the environment and approving pipelines for bitumen are not compatible positions. Bitumen from the oil sands pollutes in the extraction process, is a serious threat of environmental disaster when fed through pipelines, spews carbon into the environment being converted to synthetic oil, leaving tons of bitumen slag to further pollute and then is used in carbon producing internal combustion engines. Bitumen is no-win stuff.

But that cannot be the “Jonny one-note” excuse for Canada’s New Democratic Party. The lackadaisical contest to replace Thomas Mulcair as national leader does not speak well for the party, the contestants or our country.

We are about to go into negotiations to change the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and that is as vital to our economy as it is to the Americans and the Mexicans. There is no excuse for sleeping though any one of those sessions. We have to show up front that we are not going to be bullied. All three countries have to bargain in good faith.

And there is lots more to discuss. We will be coming back to the subjects mentioned and many others. We will wait for September to come up with a morning line for the NDP leadership contest.

For the rest of the summer, you can be assured that politics is never a boring subject.

-30-

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

A land big enough for a rubber ducky.

July 3, 2017 by Peter Lowry

That churlish little man, Conservative leader Patrick Brown, stood in the Ontario legislature a while ago to make fun of a rubber ducky he had never even met. That rubber ducky has now arrived and that silly man can quack all he likes, that rubber ducky adds something to an otherwise dull harbour.

And that rubber ducky also adds something to an overly commercialized celebration of Canada’s first 150 years as a nation. There is just this big, 18-metre high yellow plastic ducky without any commercial message. I would like to give it a big hug, if I could only climb up there.

I have always loved those rubber ducky races with thousands of little duckies thrown into Ontario’s rivers and streams to see whose rubber ducky can get to the lake first. It makes for a great fundraiser, provided you have a boom across the river mouth to collect your rubber duckies at the finish.

And how ignorant can that twerp Brown be that he cannot see the fun in a huge rubber ducky? Not that the Ontario Liberals had anything to do with it anyway. He is trying to link a grant to another group that was celebrating our 150 years back to the government. At least the people deciding who got the grants had a sense of humour. Mr. Brown doesn’t.

In all the years that I have seen Patrick Brown in action in Barrie and in Ottawa, I have never seen that dismal twerp have any fun. Mind you I have heard how he can be miserable when things do not go his way. Why does that not surprise me?

On Canada Day, the wife was watching events in Ottawa on the CBC and one of their reporters finally found a curmudgeon. Everyone was cheerfully braving teeming rain and long waits in line to get into the parliament grounds and they had to search hard to find someone to complain. They did of course and the lady who did the bitching did a fine job. Here they were, surrounded by men, armed to the teeth with high-powered weapons, and she actually complained that they did not police the queues. Somebody must have cut in on her.

Judging from the events in Ottawa for Canada Day, it looks like Prime Minister Trudeau is finally suffering from overexposure. Anyone in that crowd of 20,000-plus who did not get a selfie with the Prime Minister is asked to let the PM’s office know and they will send you an old-fashioned photograph—signed of course.

-30-

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

The tremors of Trump.

July 1, 2017 by Peter Lowry

Each year at this time, we do a little introspection. While Canada Day 2017 is as joyous as ever, we feel it is the impact of the American President that causes those ground tremors we are feeling. The man seems to stomp a lot.

At first, we were under the impression that he might just ignore Canada. Oh well, so much for that hope! We sent our Prime Minister down to the White House with a welcoming casserole but President Trump was not that interested. It did not seem to matter that Justin thought he had made another friend.

And maybe not. That ignorant man in the White House soon brought up the old chestnut about softwood lumber and threw in milk for good measure. Mr. Trump has never learned how to be a good neighbour. All he accomplished was to drive up the price of new homes on the American west coast and embarrass Wisconsin dairy farmers. The happy lumber kings of Oregon and Washington are making a killing. It was President Trump’s way of saying he wants to renegotiate the North-American trade deal between The U.S., Mexico and Canada.

The only problem is that Mr. Trump’s version of negotiating is to bully, cheat, lie and steal. There is no honour in a Trump style deal. That is how he made his billions whereby he could buy his way to the American presidency.

But deals between sovereign nations are based on good faith. That is an essential component of trade agreements. The objective to be negotiated has to be fair to all parties. And fairness is not just a word on paper, it has to be the perception of all parties.

No doubt both Canadian and Mexican negotiators will also bring their lists of trade irritants to the treaty meetings. Mr. Trump will soon learn that he cannot bully his way to creating advantage from a deal entered in good faith.

While most Canadians appear to consider President Trump to be something of a horse’s ass, we can expect him to be around for a while. He will continue to be stomping on things he should not. He is our neighbour and we might as well get used to him.

-30-

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

‘Chuckles’ Scheer is no attack dog.

June 30, 2017 by Peter Lowry

It was two Regina MPs who helped Vassy Kapelos to wrap up her West Block show on Global TV for the summer. As she had Prime Minister Justin Trudeau the week before, she brought on the new Leader of the Opposition Andrew Scheer this week. She also took another shot at asking Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale questions he might answer.

These two men are very different in some ways and very much the same in others. ‘Chuckles’ Scheer is a social conservative and a Catholic and he votes against abortions and against the right to physician-assisted death. He was a lacklustre Speaker of the House of Commons under Prime Minister Harper and was the final choice of a convoluted preferential vote for Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. He will be a lacklustre party leader until he is likely to be ousted after the next election.

Vassy Kapelos had Chuckles on first and threw him a few lobs as to why he disagrees with what Trudeau and his Liberals are doing. The opposition leader stuck gamely to his talking points and tried very hard to look serious. It was over quickly but it was still boring.

Ralph Goodale is a long-time Liberal survivor from western Canada. He has never found an interviewer that he could not talk over. Vassy had done some serious study obviously of the new security act and wanted her audience to learn what was different between this new act (if any) and the previous Conservative act.

Ralph was ready for her. “It is all in the oversight,” we learned. By the time Goodale was through, we knew more about the Liberal Party’s oversight, than we wanted. It all seemed to come down to having the right, elitist, Liberal overseers for our myriad security agencies. Even Canada’s ancient communications security agency people are being turned into attack dogs instead of just listeners—but even there, Ralph Goodale assures us there will lots of elite oversight.

-30-

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

The anger factor.

June 22, 2017 by Peter Lowry

A reader on the west coast asked the other day if we are seeing anger in Liberal ranks directed at Prime Minister Trudeau’s disrespect for the party? What was strange about the question was that most of that anger is building on the west coast. The flash point will be the funding and tooling up of the of the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion over the Rockies.

Anger is the emotion you look for in politics. We saw it in the United States over the last election. We knew that Americans of all political leanings were angry at the stalemates and infighting of their congress. In Canada, we were angry at the arrogance of the Harper government. In England, it was the feeling of helplessness as a member of the European Union: enter Brexit.

And now that same English anger is re-directed at Prime Minister May. The French took out their angst on their right wing. Anger in itself is not political; reaction becomes political.

No doubt many psychologists have published learned papers on this anger. There is really mothing new about it in politics. Anger is a blunt instrument used by politicians at their peril. The key is to lead, to direct the mob against a person, party, race, religion, tribe or nation. Blowback is when the mob knows they have been used.

But you can never tell a mob that they are being used. Just think of the last time you tried to convert a Donald Trump supporter? That person has all their hopes and fears wrapped up in the promises of a professional con-man. Deprogramming the true believer is no easy task.

And what is really frustrating is the rejection of logic. You can use the simplest of easy to understand logic and your argument will be rejected. The true Trump supporter does not care. They want their pound of flesh at any price. They do not care what the cost is to them.

Given time, people such as Donald Trump destroy themselves. He is already showing his distaste for the job he thought he wanted. It is not offering him the satisfaction he expected. He is still hitting out at supposed enemies. He needs to spend more time playing golf.

-30-

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

Trudeau: Poster Boy or Action Figure?

June 18, 2017 by Peter Lowry

Goodness! Is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau being criticized for not living up to his promises? Is he just a poster boy? Why is he not living up to his billing? He will have two years as prime minister in his pocket this October and some people are starting to have doubts.

What is the problem? Is he marching to a different drummer than what he promised Canadians? The transparency in parliament and the collegial atmosphere he promised there seem to be forgotten. His purported feminist support—because it is 2015—seems more like using neophytes as cannon fodder. He seems to have no urge to solve his cabinet problems.

What ties this liberal in knots is the why of his continued abuse of the Liberal Party. Today’s Liberals are not his father’s party. All the party is allowed to be is a mailing list for pleas for money. It is a propaganda mechanism and a source of suckers for fund-raising. The party that was has been gutted. The party executive are just yes-men and women. There is no policy discussion. The Leader is in control.

Justin Trudeau seems to live in some elite world of a monied aristocracy that only communicates with other elites. The only problem is that they seem to be running out of elites and nothing is happening on some serious appointments. He can hardly promise impartiality and then throw a Liberal hack on the table for an impartial position. Nobody tries hard to keep their word.

It is not like a promise that the 2015 election would be the last under first-past-the-post voting. That was a foolish promise that was proved impractical by parliamentarians giving up their summer last year to study it.

And, sorry Justin, you are not allowed to change the rules in parliament to suit your own wishes. Parliament belongs to the people. It has to be open and be fair to all parties.

Justin also needs to understand that he cannot suck and blow at the same time. If you are going to be the poster boy for the environment, you cannot send three times the amount of diluted bitumen over the Rockies on the Kinder Morgan pipeline. It makes you look like a hypocrite.

-30-

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

Chasing ghosts with Chantal Hébert.

June 14, 2017 by Peter Lowry

In the pile of books set aside for summer reading was Chantal Hébert and Jean Lapierre’s analysis of The Morning After. It is supposedly their take on the 1995 Quebec Referendum. By starting with their book, this might become a long hot summer.

The book had come to the pile as a gift. It had been there for a while. The author(s) had waited almost 20 years to produce the book, so a few years on my must-read-sometime pile would hardly matter.

After reading half and skimming the rest, finishing it is questionable. It is only mildly interesting. It is like reading a review of a Shakespearean play in which you were a spear carrier. You have your own view of the actors and their gaffs.

And, not to speak ill of the dead, I cannot figure out what Jean Lapierre contributed to this book other than his name and access to some other story tellers. If he was the one who got the titular ‘No’ leader, Daniel Johnson, to agree to an interview, he was wasting his time. The only question I ever wanted to hear answered by Johnson was what the hell he was doing in politics? His chapter was a waste of everybody’s time.

And we already knew that then Premier Jacques Parizeau was a mean-spirited, pig-headed, ‘Colonel Blimp’ caricature. He said it all on that final night, slamming ‘money and the ethnic vote.’ We should all be thankful it was his political swan song.

Lucien Bouchard was by far the most convoluted character on the referendum stage. And to think he had been our ambassador to France before joining the Mulroney cabinet. His falling out with Mulroney over the Meech Lake Accord never did make sense. Nobody’s loyalties should teeter on that sharp an edge. And his staged sophistry on separation came across as hollow.

But as much as I have always admired Chantal Hébert’s ease in explaining the Quebec scene, this is not her best effort. Maybe what we really need is writers who can explain Canada to Quebecers. They need to understand the intense love for this entire country that people have whether their family came last year or in the last century. It is not wise to test such love.

And as for Chantal’s book The Morning After. There is a pill for that.

-30-

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

How would Harper have handled Trump?

June 11, 2017 by Peter Lowry

When listening to Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland give her very important speech on the new world order, there was one disturbing thought. It was a silly question as to how would our previous prime minister have handled the situation? The one thing for sure was that Stephen Harper would never have allowed his foreign affairs minister to make such an important speech. It could have only been Harper himself in the spotlight.

And the more you think of it, you realize that the speech lost something by being delivered in the House of Commons. Harper would have taken it far from the Hill. He might have even taken the speech to New York or Philadelphia. That would have guaranteed world-wide attention.

Mind you it has been most of a century since anyone gave a truly momentous speech in our House of Commons. And that speaker was a Brit by the name of Winston Churchill.

Freeland’s speech was in essence a proposed walk-around to the situation with American President Trump. And it never needed to mention his name. (The only insult the son of a bitch recognizes is being ignored.)

And Freeland’s proposed solutions are long overdue. Canadians have really had enough of being treated as two-legged pets by the Americans.

We might have counted on their protecting us under the North American Air Defence Agreement (NORAD) but who the hell is protecting us from Trump? (Are we hoping he will invade Mexico first?)

But it would sure be nice to have a real Canadian military again. Trump will be long gone before we get our military up to snuff but it will be the effort made that counts. We might even get fighter aircraft to meet Canada’s needs.

Harper would not have liked the spending part of the speech. It would be more his style to only threaten to have a real Canadian military. Yet he would have agreed to going after more bi-lateral trade deals to try to keep Canada on its feet if Trump continues to destroy the American economy with his ignorance.

But would Harper have really stood up to what is going on in the Disturbed States of America? Probably not.

-30-

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

Tasking Tenuous Think Tanks.

June 10, 2017 by Peter Lowry

A friend sent an e-mail recently, attaching a 25-page report from the Broadbent Institute. This study supposedly refutes other think tank reports that say Canadians are overtaxed. He says that I am (inexplicably, he claims) adverse to Ed Broadbent and his institute but I should read the report anyway.

In defence, I should explain that I like to see the qualifications of the researchers and check the bias of the those commissioning the study before accepting its findings. In this writer’s estimation, the left-wing Broadbent Institute and the right-wing Fraser Institute are both frauds. Why would either of them bother to publish a study that did not fit their bias? The academics doing so many of these so-called studies seem to be biases for hire.

And there is just too much of this biased material being issued these days. The Americans have taken to calling it all false news. Soon, we will have difficulty sorting it all out.

The pity is that we used to respect the better news media that could afford to have the proper research done and give us balanced reporting. As the media lose advertising support and have to downsize, it seems to be this research capability that is the first to go. We end up with the dominant media in Quebec being controlled by a millionaire separatist and the rest of Canada being fed a diet rich in right-wing propaganda.

All this being said, there are some truths in the Broadbent Institute report. The basic thought is that you get what you pay for. Canada is not the highest taxed country nor the lowest taxed.

I found it very funny years ago when one of my brothers first made a few million dollars. He was normally quite right-wing in his attitude but he honestly admitted to me that he was embarrassed that Canada’s tax laws allowed him to keep more of the money than he expected. And was it not American billionaire Warren Buffett who complained a few years ago that his secretary paid a higher U.S. tax rate than he did?

Rich people who want to pay more taxes, should be encouraged to pay more.

-30-

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

Planes and Trains and…

June 7, 2017 by Peter Lowry

Flying used to be glamorous. Not any more. It has become a demeaning and uncomfortable experience. Those people in line for security in their smelly stocking feet should bleat like sheep as they are fleeced by money-grubbing airlines. They are shoved into uncomfortable seats only to be abused by airline employees. There is no fun allowed in the air.

But trains are different. There is hope for trains. Trains are for the kinder classes. Trains rarely crash. They have excellent safety records. Nobody seriously tries to hijack a train. Trains have roomy, comfortable seating. You can have a refreshing drink, dine at your leisure, actually see the country-side. Trains can travel very fast and arrive on time.

Except in Canada. Our trains are never on time for passengers because the train people in Canada put freight ahead of passengers. Our travels are interrupted to give us lengthy views of sidings. There are no dedicated rail lines for high-speed passenger service.

If you are old enough to remember the TurboTrain by Canadian National Railways (CNR) that was introduced in 1968, you remember a world-first in high-speed rail. The introduction was of a train capable of winding up its gas turbine engines to a speed of 274 kilometres per hour. The design of the cars allowed the train to lean into curves. The design of the brakes was regrettably for warmer climates. CNR never did solve the problem of the brakes freezing. They also failed to realize that high-speed trains and level crossings are a very bad combination.

As determined as I could be in wanting to use the train, the Turbo never did get me to Montreal or back home at the promised time. Anecdotally, I can still remember the luncheon speech I was scheduled to give in Montreal at a time when Air Canada was not flying. CNR employees promised me the Turbo would be on time. They lied.

But I will not give up hope that eventually we will have high-speed rail service in Canada. And please, for goodness sake, do not let CNR or Ontario Premier Wynne screw it up.

-30-

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