Federal Politics – Page 142

Do we really want all the latest election toys?

July 8, 2015 by Peter Lowry

Targeted marketing is not just for your drug store. It is also in play for the upcoming federal election. Not that it is going to be as open and simple as sending you to the wrong place to vote. Canada’s political parties have massive databases of information about you. They know if you voted in the last election and can easily guess how you voted. In fact, they know far more about you than you realize.

We might find it annoying that Amazon, Kobo and Chapters know what types of books interest us but at least they are helpful. Having paid numerous times for the wife’s purchases at the drug store, we have to erase lots of notifications about cosmetic sales at Shoppers. It is not a serious problem to spend four or five minutes each day erasing what we used to call spam. It is definitely a problem for Canadians to be under the microscope about how we vote.

When your writer had access to the party database, we could periodically go into the local campaign headquarters and correct our information. Since what we write sometimes is not always acceptable to some Liberals, we have not been as welcome at the local headquarters and they must be puzzled by the information gleaned about us in their robocall surveys. Since we always lie to pollsters, Internet surveys and automated phone calls, we rarely give the same answer twice as to our voting intent.

And it is not information we should be giving them anyway. We have a secret ballot in this country and all parties need to respect that right. While parties will say they are only asking because they want to identify their voters and help them vote, we can assure them that we have never missed an opportunity to vote since before we were old enough. (Having been in the military at a young age, we actually voted in our first federal election before civilians at that age were allowed to vote.)

While nobody went below the surface of the robocall scandals, it must have been analysis of the same database that generated the draconian measures in the Conservative’s “Fair Elections” farce to try to bar certain demographics from voting. These demographics would be those least likely to vote Conservative. The young, the students and the homeless have been especially targeted as unfriendly to Conservative candidates. If they could have figured out how to keep Canadian women from voting, they might have solved their problems.

The Conservatives know that people in other parties will be watching them for voter suppression tactics in this election. It will depend on just how desperate they become.

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

The Candidate: To communicate and motivate.

July 7, 2015 by Peter Lowry

Part 6 of our series for Canada’s federal candidates.

Do you want a guarantee of how to lose an election? It is so terribly easy. It is to fail to communicate frequently and enthusiastically with supporters. We are talking here about your party members in your riding, the people you already know are going to vote for you and those all-important financial supporters. Luckily, most of these people can give you an e-mail address and only a small number will require the use of postage stamps. And in this pre-writ period, your team should be adding names to the e-mail list (in an urban riding) at a rate of over 1000 per month.

It is amazing that some candidates who recognize the importance of FaceBook and Twitter-related communications fail to see the need for more substantive back-up. At this point in the campaign, you want to send something more substantive to your supporters at least every ten days. You will want to step that up to every three or four days once the writ comes down.

The key to these lengthier communications is to communicate the message but not to bore. If it is a situation where you need 300 words to explain something do it. And when you can keep it to less than 200 words, go for it. And use lots of sub-titles and headings to break things up. You never want people to put it aside to read later.

And what do you tell them—just about everything. Information about party policies as they relate to the riding is always good stuff. Riding events with the candidate are very important. Promotion of canvassing work shops for your workers and tips for canvassers are always good. Encouraging suggestions for high-traffic sign locations is helpful. Lining up office work teams can be useful. Blitzes with the candidate can be fun. There is really no end to possibilities.

And try to remember with these local party people that they are not just the preserve of the central party offices for donations. You should squeeze a few nickels there while you are communicating anyway. Charity and political donations should start at home.

A very serious error that has been noted in an around some of the urban ridings we visit is the lack of action at the doors. You will never get better weather in Canada for canvassing than July and August. Get to work.

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

Knowing how Ches Crosbie feels.

July 6, 2015 by Peter Lowry

The one thing people in Newfoundland can count on is politicians who rattle the cage. From the late Premier Joey Smallwood and others since, we have always expected controversy and salty comments from Island politicians. Ches Crosbie, a St. John’s lawyer, has been in the news lately for being refused the Conservative nomination in Avalon riding by Prime Minister Harper. What makes matters worse was that Ches was the only volunteer who wanted the nomination there.

But you have to remember that Ches is the son of John Crosbie, the irascible former Finance Minister in the short-lived Joe Clark cabinet in 1979 and then he held various portfolios in the Brian Mulroney cabinet through the 1980s. And anyone who enjoys exploring Newfoundland history will know that Ches is named after his grandfather Chesley Crosbie who defied Joey Smallwood in his move to join Canada and instead promoted free trade with the United States.

It is obvious that Ches comes by his conservatism, his love of Newfoundland and being outspoken quite naturally. Mind you, after seeing a video of the performance he did that annoyed Stephen Harper, he is best advised to stay out of politics, give up a hopeless stage career and stick to law.

What he did not realize when he did that silly send up of the prime minister in a very bad version of King Lear is that Shakespeare might have forgiven him but Stephen Harper has no sense of humour.

And we can assure Ches that we know whereof we write. This blog believes firmly in telling it as it is and that can also cause trouble. And there are many Liberal Party members who can be just as narrow-minded and unforgiving as Conservatives. Several years ago we had a call from the Barrie riding president at the time and he said that though he did not have the time to read blogs, he had been told of some of the things discussed in Babel-on-the-Bay. He did not approve. While we had never heard of anyone being cashiered from the Liberal Party, we chose to resign from that executive.

With the riding now split in two for the coming election, we could have become more involved in our riding and less able to continue our daily commentaries. Luckily, neither Barrie candidate needs such a noose around their neck. Being a has-been has its advantages. While we have access to some aspects of the campaigns nothing has impressed us yet but the very positive attitudes. Despite the gerrymandered redistribution, the Tories just might have fouled the nest here in Barrie.

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

First lessons in the environment.

July 5, 2015 by Peter Lowry

It hardly matters at what age young men have their first camping experience. The most common first lesson is to never pee into the campfire. Not only is that a part of your body that should never get singed but urine on an open fire smells terrible. This lesson occurred to us when reading the Toronto Star’s Thomas Walkom’s take on Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s announcement on a Liberal environmental policy. He should not have panned young Trudeau’s first steps in such uncharted waters.

In fact, that speech by the Liberal leader was pretty damn good for baby steps! Give the guy a break Tom. Two years ago Justin could not even spell ‘environment.’ Back then Babel-on-the-Bay was dissing Trudeau for his juggling of approved and unapproved pipelines. All he knew was that his friends in British Columbia would lynch him if he supported Enbridge’s twin pipelines to Kitimat while they left Keystone XL for President Obama to squash.

And the good news is that Trudeau now knows that no matter where you ship that tar sands bitumen, you are still responsible for the global warming caused by the excessive amount of pollution converting it to synthetic oil.

But Tom Walkom wants definitive answers to how Trudeau is going to deal with climate change. Nobody wants to take the world back two centuries in technology to solve the problem. We have a lot to learn and some serious steps to take in even trying to curtail global warming and nobody is going to solve those concerns overnight. The world will be gathering later this year to address this and the small steps from there will have to become bigger steps in years to come.

What Trudeau is saying in that first speech on the subject of the environment is that where we understand the steps needed, we can do something concrete. It is a no-brainer to keep oil tankers away from B.C.’s environmentally sensitive north coast. And the Kitimat area already has enough environmental problems to worry about.

Yet, Tom Walkom is not satisfied that Trudeau wants to show leadership on the issues instead of just trying to do everything at the federal level. The Liberal leader wants the premiers involved in the Paris climate change meeting as well as holding a full-blown federal-provincial meeting on the subject next year.

Frankly, it looks like Tom Walkom is so busy supporting the Pollyanna stance of the New Democrats that he has no time to listen to reason. There is no question but even the NDP B.S. is better than the ‘do nothing-deny everything’ approach of the Conservatives.

We seem to have a convert to environmentalism in Justin Trudeau. Let’s encourage him.

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

A final act of vengeance by Conservatives.

July 3, 2015 by Peter Lowry

The last bill of the Conservative government passed the Senate and received Royal Assent last week. It was Bill C-377, MP Russ Hiebert’s controversial private member’s Union Transparency bill that will now become law in 2016.

This is without question the most vindictive bill passed by the Harper government. It was ridiculed and blocked from Senate passage two years ago in an effort led by by former Conservative Senator Hugh Segal. It is nothing but a blatant attack on unions to hopefully cause disquiet among their membership. Mind you if Hiebert had just been smart enough to include business in the bill, we might have said “Okay. If it is supposed to keep the union membership better informed, why cannot business also keep their shareholders and creditors better informed?”

As you can imagine, this bill will be removed from the books on the election of either a Liberal or New Democrat government. The National Revenue Agency will obviously have a go slow policy on establishing regulations, on-line forms and instructions until the agency sees the lay of the land after the October 19 election.

But the bill was about all you could expect from a Conservative Party flunky such as Hiebert. In eleven years of being paid to represent his British Columbia riding, this is his biggest accomplishment. It was the first private member’s bill presented to parliament in 2011 and the final bill passed when that parliament rose at the end of June, 2015.

Hiebert even sent out a gleeful news release to all and sundry (including Babel-on-the-Bay) saying how pleased he was that his bill was passed. We are glad that Mr. Hiebert is glad but we sure are not impressed.

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

Consider a kinder Canada.

July 1, 2015 by Peter Lowry

Canada Day this year marks the start of the serious political barbecue season leading up to the October federal election. There are promises to be made, hopes to be raised and disillusionments to come. It is so easy to promise nirvana and so damn hard to deliver. Bitter reality could set in with the first bleak snows of winter.

But consider this: what if the promise was just for a kinder Canada? Where would we start? Would we look after the very young and very old in our country first? Would we do something about the way we so cruelly mistreat our native population? Could we consider a living wage as a minimum wage? Can we really care about our environment?

Maybe we need to prove to the world once again that we are a kinder country. For too long now, Canada has been turning its back on goodness, grace and generosity. Can we open our hearts to the displaced? Can we find food in our land of plenty for those in the world who are hungry? Can we reject the cruelty of mindless bombing? Can we once again be one of the world’s respected peacekeepers?

Can Canada refuse the ideologues and incrementalists among us and take the giant steps that a brave and daring population want us to take? Big needs beg big solutions. A national drug plan is a daring step that would improve our economy. A guaranteed annual income would show the world it can be done. In an increasingly urban country can we build the subways and infrastructure that can make our cities more liveable?

Medicare is a great Canadian success story but it can be much better. Old Age Security needs to have more security. And we need to be sure that the support for our youth is really supporting our youth.

And if we said “yes” to a kinder Canada, can we start with those who want to be elected? Can we get their pledge to never be satisfied with a day in Ottawa that they do not help Canadians and others in need? Can they guarantee their daily efforts will be to end strife, terrorism, conflict and confrontation around the world through peaceful methods? Can they go to Ottawa to make a better Canada and a better world?

Canadians want hope this Canada Day. They deserve no less.

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

Is Mulcair peaking too soon?

June 30, 2015 by Peter Lowry

Gosh, reading and listening to some political pundits, you would think that the coming federal election is already decided. It is all over but the shouting. It is one of those times when you wish you could take all those bets from the suckers. Frankly, this political apparatchik would not bet on New Democrat Leader Thomas Mulcair for prime minister.

It is certainly interesting to try to imagine Thomas Mulcair as prime minister but reality keeps getting in the way. Recently we wrote about the New Democrat leader that Canada needs a prime minister, not a prosecutor. And it is easy to imagine him as a crown attorney. His style and focus in the House of Commons since becoming Leader of the Opposition has been precisely that. He goes after the Conservative government with a prosecutorial style that many crowns must envy. He is relentless, pains-taking, eloquent and thrusts deeply in revealing the error of the Tory ways.

But a prime minister has to be a leader. A person who wants to be prime minister can ill afford to get into a mud-wrestling contest with Conservative Party hatchet men. To allow himself to be accused of mismanaging funds provided by the taxpayers for the operation of MP’s constituency offices had to be handled firmly and immediately. It is an accusation that cannot be allowed to fester over an election.

He put his party policies out for all to see early. He was trying for political advantage but it was hardly an advantage when he stumbled in explaining his own plans. You have to do the simple arithmetic. You have to have the impact of new taxation at the tip of the tongue. You have to know where you are taking your party. It is hardly the role of the news media to try to explain your program.

And what is all this talk about being middle-class? The escape clause must be when he calls it his “middle class values.” That must be a person who is above being middle class but wants to be just plain “Tom.”

There must be a middle-class ghost somewhere in this on-going campaign. Everyone talks about the middle class but none of them are sure they have ever met anyone from Canada’s middle class.

Thomas Mulcair might think he has won. He might as well stay home.

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

They also vote who don’t.

June 28, 2015 by Peter Lowry

Reading another editorial the other day by a writer who did not understand the subject tends to lower one’s opinion of editorial writers. We might be better off if we just stop reading those fillers. Imagine if you will an editor shouting out to a writer who he thinks has nothing to do: “Harry, give me 800 words on why the numbers of people voting in elections is falling off.”

Harry, who normally writes obituaries, is challenged. He can look up the subject on the Internet and Google will turn up 500,000 citations in a couple seconds. He is fascinated by the people who blame the first-past-the-post voting system. The stories tell him that people feel cheated by the present system and he builds his story on that premise.

And another editorial writer takes the easy way out and fails to challenge, check and critique. It is all hokum. People who do not vote in elections always have plausible excuses. And they are not all uncaring or stupid. A brain surgeon in the midst of a delicate 12-hour operation can hardly take some time off to go vote. There are many distractions in today’s society and voting is not high on some peoples’ to-do list.

And, at the same time, you wish that radio personalities and editorial writers would stop telling people it does not matter how they vote but they should vote. Frankly there is no need for stupid people to vote for stupid politicians. We will get enough of those elected in any event.

With the distractions of today, we should consider ourselves lucky to get a turnout over 60 per cent of eligible voters. These voters also had other things to do. They came to vote because they have an objective. They came to elect someone. We hardly want people coming out to vote who are going to stand behind that tiny screen and go “eeny, meeny, miny, moe” down the list of candidates on the ballot.

You best leave sleeping dogs and reluctant voters lie. The fact that we do get as high a vote as we do in Canadian elections is to the credit of the political parties. Identifying and getting out your vote has become an advanced science in this country. And it is often the party with the most, best organized workers that carries the day.

The only thing that is not the case is the stupid suggestion that people do not vote because of the first-past-the-post voting system. The problem all the so-called ‘experts’ have with this premise is that they have never come up with a system that is better. The only way you can really make sure that the winner is the majority choice is with run-off elections.

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

The media feel the excitement.

June 25, 2015 by Peter Lowry

Just about four months to the federal election and the news media can barely contain their excitement. Not since John Diefenbaker came out of the West like an avenging angel has an election been so fraught with possibilities. They have so many scenarios to write about. Change is in the air. Change is in all the Liberal and New Democrat speaking notes. The Conservatives just look worried.

And well they should. With two serious and challenging opposition parties poised to unseat them, the Conservatives should be questioning their strategy. They know that if the balance is maintained between the opposition parties, their majority could be safe. They can ill-afford any imbalance.

And, as for the media excitement, it is all a lot of B.S.

If you want to believe the media-instigated opinion polls, you can enjoy the delusions. They are not only wrong but they would be more accurate if done with Ouija boards. The only thing that can be determined by polling today is that the ill-considered Harper government is fading fast from the Canadian conscience.

The hand writing on the wall at their final feast in Ottawa says that the Conservatives have been found both wanting and wanton. They have taken Canadians for their last ride on the Tory tugboat. The smarter rats are deserting the ship. The lesser ones are clinging to the ship’s rail as it goes down. They have left Stephen Harper alone at the helm of a doomed ship.

And yet the media see this election as some type of weird dance—a sort of stand-up ménage-a-trois. They want to breathlessly announce which leader has assumed the Alpha male position for the week.

Yet the media all recognize that Stephen Harper is heading for a fall. His stony visage is better suited to a carving on a mountain than that of a living, breathing, warm person.

And what of that fusty little man who is so bravely leading the late Jack Layton’s Orange Wave back to oblivion? Canadians want a prime minister, not a prosecutor.

And that leaves the door open for young Justin Trudeau. And even if you do not think he is ready, he is still the best we have got.

But do you think the news media will be gracious about it when Justin is prime minister?

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

One of Justin Trudeau’s better moves.

June 24, 2015 by Peter Lowry

It makes sense to make nice with the United States. It is surprising for many Canadians when that becomes necessary. Not since Prime Minister John Diefenbaker pissed off President John Kennedy have relations with the Americans been more in the dumpster. Not only has Prime Minister Stephen Harper been a nag about the Keystone XL pipeline but his open admiration for President Obama’s Republican opponents in Congress has hardly gone unnoticed.

The phony bonhomie played out between Harper and Obama at G-8/G-7 meetings has been shallow and forced for some time. Sure there have been other tiffs between the two countries’ leaders (Lester Pearson versus Lyndon Johnson and Pierre Trudeau versus Dick Nixon are good examples) but these tended to be quickly patched over and cordial relations continued. Fights with a neighbour are rarely productive.

Justin Trudeau noted all of this with more restraint than you would have expected. While he called Harper’s a belligerent brand of partisan politics, he used it as an example of the need for real change. He told his audience that Harper has been hectoring the Americans throughout the past decade. He explained that “Canada’s special relationship with the United States is not automatic. Like any strong relationship,” he said, “you have to put a lot of work into it.”

But Trudeau also suggested that better relations with Mexico can be a back door to relations with the U.S.A. He noted what he referred to as Harper’s “churlish” approach to Mexico. Trudeau promised to lift the visa restrictions on Mexican visitors to Canada and to work more cooperatively with Mexico. He sees Mexico as a better trade opportunity than Mr. Harper obviously has. It also makes good sense to build relations with the other smaller member of the North American Free Trade Agreement. There are times when Canada could use an ally in dealing with the United States about some aspects of the three countries’ free trade deal.

It was also good to notice that the Liberal leader had no comment on any merits of the Keystone XL pipeline. The Obama administration is well aware that the true purpose of that pipeline is to access ocean shipping capabilities on the Texas Gulf coast to send Alberta bitumen to countries around the world that do not care about the environmental damage of converting tar sands material into synthetic oil. Maybe it’s been explained to the Justin Trudeau that no matter where in the world it’s processed, it causes global warming and Canada shares the blame.

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