Category: Federal Politics

After more than five decades of working with computers, you would think the writer would know a bit about computers. The truth is that we have never programmed a line of code. Our expertise was always in being able to listen to experts and then interpret what they said for the public. Yet we have been surprised at what the experts have been saying about Internet voting.

If you distribute the voting records for more than 25 million Canadian voters at random across several thousand servers, there is no point for anyone to attempt to hack them. Hacking one record at a time would be pointless. And when you leave a machine address code behind, you might soon be arrested for what is called personation. And if anyone finds they have already been recorded as having voted, it is easy to negate the old vote and let the legal voter make the decision.

Where previously systems have been at risk is when the votes are added and transferred to a central computer. Again, the random nature of the voting records make it virtually impossible to add or subtract votes from anywhere else as the votes are counted by random computers.

This is not to say that hacking is impossible. It is just not worthwhile. It is sort of like the banking records that allow depositors to move money between accounts and to pay bills. Why would anyone want to hack into those records? And it becomes even more foolish if you can be sent to prison for doing it.

The reason for the growing interest in Internet voting is that it can solve many problems for the voter. The voter will have little excuse for not voting as you can vote from anywhere. If you do not have a computer or smart phone, you can go to any library or other electoral district computer and cast you vote. If you are out of the country, you can vote from any computer or go to a Canadian embassy or consulate. With a widely-distributed system, there is little danger of voters jamming the hubs on the Internet because of concentrating on one set of computers. Voting can be allowed for multiple days or just one. And polls can close at the same time across the country. It will take longer to verify the results than to count them.

We did the survey for Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef at MyDemocracy.ca the other day. We found out that they think our views align with Guardians. Of what possible use that will be to solve the problems with Prime Minister Trudeau’s promise to change how we vote is beyond us.

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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry

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

It is interesting reading knee-jerk conservatism these days. The local Sun Media newspaper here in Barrie gets a glance when an occasional free copy comes our way. We particularly like checking on the editorial page where you can read Libertarian, Green or Conservative political views but apparently never Liberal. Last week it was the turn of local Conservative MP John Brassard. His attempt deserves some comment.

John is a fireman by trade and looks good in a suit and tie. Watching him on city council prior to him moving to Ottawa was an exercise in boredom—other than when he could talk about fire department business. Now that he has staff and writing assistance, he can start to broaden his perspective.

He starts out with the statement on the environment that we all have to do something about greenhouse gases as long as it does not cost us money, or jobs. He is especially opposed to carbon taxes. He figures that with the reality of the American election we will have to have less regulation, slash business taxes and cancel all commitments to protecting the environment. This guy is a regular boy scout!

In an electoral district full of commuters and farmers, he rails against taxes on fuels. He notes that Canada only contributes 1.5 per cent of our planet’s greenhouse gas emissions. He considers a carbon tax to be misguided and thinks there should be a better way. He does not tell us what it is.

Not satisfied with dissing the federal Liberals, John takes a few swipes at the Ontario bunch who make fun of his pal Patrick Brown, the Ontario Conservative leader. He thinks that the Wynne government is driving good manufacturing jobs out of Ontario. This is surprising when you consider the number of companies that fled during the nine years of Conservative government in Ottawa. Brassard refers to Ontario as a ‘have not’ province and might not be aware that Ontario has actually been showing some recovery in the past year.

He concluded his diatribe by asking if the reader has confidence in Kathleen Wynne and Justin Trudeau dealing with Donald Trump to look after the needs of their families. It seems he does not. That will make it interesting when we get to see who’s button he is wearing at next May’s federal Conservative leadership convention.

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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry

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

What is a writer such as Paul Wells doing at the Toronto Star? Does he provide insight you wonder? Is his writing progressive? Does he know the Ottawa scene as he tries to explain it? We have given him more than enough time to get comfortable. He has been found wanting.

The final straw was the column last week under the title Rising nationalism a test for Liberals. We did our best to understand his argument and after a third reading we were still puzzled. He starts out by saying that the Trudeau government is a government in crisis. He goes on to say that the electoral upsets in other countries such as the U.S. and Great Britain are caused by middle class dissatisfaction with the rising numbers of trade deals. He complains that Justin Trudeau is too busy wooing billionaire elites to notice.

It is not that we disagree with the problems inherent in most of these free trade deals. They tend to be too secretive in the negotiations, too complex, too long and, when published, too deep for the average person to read or understand. It makes these deals too easy a target for demagogues and other political opportunists.

And it has become obvious to Canadians that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) needs serious review. The example of the ongoing soft-wood lumber disputes demonstrates a major problem. If President-elect Donald Trump really thinks he can negotiate a better deal for the Americans, he is in for a surprise. Free trade has to start with fair trade. He might be foolish enough to keep on abusing his Mexican neighbours but his citizens will not understand abuse of their Canadian neighbours.

It is probably just as well that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal will die as Trump moves into the White House

But how Wells annoyed this writer was in his mindless acceptance of Conservative criticisms of Justin Trudeau. When the Conservative’s temporary leader Rona Ambrose says that Trudeau “likes hanging out with billionaires,” it must be because that is where the money is. When Wells repeats it in the largest circulation newspaper in Canada, it is playing to a number of prejudices.

Finally, we need to understand that the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) might not be so comprehensive after the United Kingdom voted on exiting the European Union recently. There is much still to understand about this agreement and no sector of society should be taken for granted. Canada already has minimal tariffs with EU countries and there needs to be some better explanation for Canadians as to whether this agreement is worth the bother.

And Paul Wells needs to do better research on the subjects he is covering.

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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry

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

Babel-on-the-Bay intended to run a very sincere support today of Justin Trudeau’s eulogy for the late Cuban Leader Fidel Castro. It was ready for posting. And then we learned that the damn fool had announced approval of twinning the American-owned Kinder-Morgan TransMountain pipeline. All the kind words are off the table.

Justin Trudeau’s timing is terrible. It is as though he is in a snit because he does not seem to be getting the support he wants to end first-past-the-post voting. He is like a child striking out. He just blew every effort his government has made to protect our environment. The Kinder-Morgan twinned pipeline will add tons of carbon to the world environment every year. There is no carbon tax high enough to alleviate the damage.

It is absolute hypocrisy to think that you can send the output of the tar sands to other countries and not be responsible for the extremes of pollution destroying our planet. Exploiting the tar sands, itself, is damaging the environment in Alberta and Saskatchewan. And that is only the beginning. Converting that tar sands gunk to synthetic crude oil produces huge piles of carbon known as bitumen slag. It can be burned for more pollution. And that is before this now ersatz crude oil is refined into further polluting products.

Many of the opponents to the Kinder-Morgan pipeline are concerned about the environment from over the Rockies, across B.C. and on to tankers headed through the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Remember that these pipelines will now be high-pressure, heated pipes to move more of the tar sands output. It is never the question of if there is a spill but when.

We suppose it will be the same for the approved Enbridge Line Three that will carry the tar sands output south into the American pipeline network and to the Texas Gulf coast where it can also be loaded on ocean-going tankers.

What we would like to see at the next sitting of the House of Commons is B,C. MPs rising in their seats and asking to be seated with Green leader Elizabeth May. At least she knows how to fight this stupidity and greed.

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And a footnote:

There was one paragraph in the planned item for today. It is worth passing on:

“And anyone who has read German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s condolences to the Cuban people will appreciate its diplomatic mastery. She has probably never met the man nor visited his country but said everything necessary and nothing untoward.”

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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry

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

You would swear that woman was a graduate of Trump University rather than a medical specialist. We are talking about Kellie Leitch M.P. here. She is the Conservative member for the next door electoral district of Simcoe-Grey. It is a rural riding of farms and small towns, including Utopia. (We bet you did not know that Utopia is a village in Essa Township.)

But Kellie has not always been a small-town person. She studied business at Dalhousie University in Halifax, medicine at the University of Toronto and at Queen’s University in Kingston, and taught for a while at the Shulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Western Ontario. With this background, you would expect her to be more sophisticated than she acts.

But this is the person who, along with the former MP Chris Alexander, announced the Conservative’s embarrassing “tip line” where we could report on the “barbaric cultural practices” of our neighbours. It might have contributed to Alexander losing his seat in last year’s election but Leitch only suffered a drop of less than two per cent of her vote.

Emboldened by her strong support from Simcoe-Grey, Leitch has thrown her hat into the contest to replace Stephen Harper as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Like in the situation with Donald Trump, you might wonder what qualifies Kellie Leitch for this job even after five years in Ottawa.

So far, Leitch seems to be the candidate making waves. The only other excitement recently was Parry Sound-Muskoka MP Tony Clement quitting the race. It was the first time that some people knew there was a contest in the offing.

But Leitch must have listened well to her hero Donald Trump. Her problem is that she seems reluctant to take on her own Conservative Party shibboleths so she has to dig at issues that skate around the standard Tory line. Her “Canadian values” patter panders to the racist side of the party while her newer demands to dump the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation are in tune with the economic Conservatives’ demands to use tax money only for “economically necessary” expenses. You can see where she is headed with this approach and it would be a shame to say where as it would just provide her with the route.

You can hardly compare the Leitch leadership campaign to Trump’s run for the Republican presidency. He warmed up by viciously attacking the weaknesses of his Republican opponents. By the time of the Cleveland party convention he had the Republican Party in total disarray. Leitch can hardly match that trick.

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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry

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

After a lifetime of communicating with government, we blew it. We really wanted to help the Trudeau government solve its problems with the leader’s promise that 2015 would be the last federal election using first-past-the-post voting. And dammit all we tried.

When we knew that the MP for Peterborough would be holding that portfolio, we offered our help. We communicated with Minister Monsef at her office in Ottawa and offered assistance. We were ignored. From a time when Mayors, MPs, MPPs, Senators and Cabinet Ministers were often welcome guests in our Toronto home, we were now ignored.

But maybe it was an error. We followed up with the chair of the special commons committee on electoral reform, asking how we might be of assistance. He at least responded. He sent us down the rabbit hole of asking the committee for an invitation. Nobody on the committee seemed to know this guy who claimed some expertise. He must not be important. Forget him.

It was not as though many of the points we would have made were not made by others. We were looking at the questions from a different perspective. We are hardly opposed to change. We were just concerned about the kind of political parties, the type of candidates attracted and the quality of government that Canadians could expect from proposed changes.

Having looked at government in different parts of the world, studying voting methodology and actively participating in all aspects of Canadian elections for many years, there was something to impart. We have observed the cheating, the manipulation and the corruption of electoral processes as well as the challenges facing newer electronic voting systems. For example, it has always proved amusing that officials would keep the individual voting process off line while the real danger of hacking the system was in the eventual electronic accumulation of the total vote.

It was interesting to study the reports on the special committee’s hearings. And it was also easy to concur with experts throughout the committee’s hearings who admitted that no system of voting is perfect. People can always find something to complain about.

But you cannot look at the voting systems in isolation. Proportional voting looks very simple until you get deeper into the parties’ involvement, the selection of candidates, the powers of the political leaders and the possibilities of recall. You have to be able to follow through and you have to know where you want to go.

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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry

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