Category: Federal Politics

The Candidate: The importance of social media.

by Peter Lowry

Part 4 of our series for Canada’s federal candidates.

This is a serious subject. Handle it with laughter and you will get the laughs from your opponents. If you think social media is free, you have no idea what you are doing. If you think the candidate creates his own twits, you should not be a candidate. All we can tell you is that social media works if you use it well. It will bite you in the rear if you do not use it properly.

Start with the simplest of social media. It seems to have been developed for children and it is the rage of seniors. It is Twitter. The beauty of it is that it allows up to 140 characters. The ugliness of it is that it only allows 140 characters. It is a world of emoticons and bad spelling. And keeping track of hashtags is a full-time job.

Ideally, the task of keeping abreast and creating Twits for Twitter is best assigned to a team of one 14-year old and one 64-year old. The day’s objective on Twitter has to be set by the campaign manager and actioned by the team. Second guessing your team is a waste of time. You either trust the team or you do not. Do not vacillate.

The twits your team creates have to be closely co-ordinated with the team that does your Facebook page. This is a major support piece for the campaign. Every supporter of every type needs to be a follower. It has to provide communication with the uncommitted voters as well as supporters. It is a key part of both outreach and organizational efforts. Just remember it is also read by your opponents.

Facebook needs the ongoing support of three or four computer savvy supporters who can commit time to the campaign objectives. They have to understand the strategy of the campaign and stick to it. These people do not go off on their own. Ideally you want them doing their work where the campaign manager can see them.

A growing problem is that this world of social media is continuing to expand. A program such as You Tube is not a daily thing but keeping a skilled videographer on call can be useful. Never do the videos off-the-cuff. If it is worth doing, plan it. And if anything ever keeps the candidate from saying something stupid, it is an opponent’s supporter holding up a cell phone.

The best advice we have for you is make good use of social media. And do not believe for one minute that it is going to win the election for you.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

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

But who will pay for his hairdresser?

by Peter Lowry

Seeing the Prime Minister striding arrogantly down the Hall of Honour with King Abdullah II of Jordan the other day gave us second thoughts on Stephen Harper’s future plans. He has run out of time to flee. With just days more than five months until the statutory call for a federal election, there is no time to choose his successor. And, if he quits, who will pay for his hairdresser?

This is an important question. It is also why he will fight so hard to stay in power. As long as he can maintain a steel grip on the reins of the Conservative Party of Canada, he will have a place to send the bills for his hairdresser.

Even if he is Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition next year, the Conservative Party will have to pick up the tabs for his hairdresser.

But what will happen when he goes on his foreign trips? That is when his hairdresser does her best work. She is expected to do his hair, his make-up, brush the lint off his suit and make sure his fly is done up. Is the Conservative Party going to want to pay for the airline tickets and her per diems? There will be rude questions about that.

The Conservatives could never appoint him to the Senate. In fact the very possibility of the Conservatives getting back in power in his lifetime is starting to look unlikely. Sure it only took about 13 years between Mulroney and him but that was because Mulroney was no hard-ass demagogue. Mulroney actually liked people even if they thought less of him. The inconsistent reforms and ugly ideology of the current Conservative government are souring Canadians on the future of the Conservative Party. We have already found out at Senator Duffy’s trial that the Senate does not pay (directly) for make-up and hairdressers.

And if we were really smart we would be rid of the appointed Senate before the Conservatives could ever weasel their way back into power. Stephen Harper might be forced to line up lucrative board of directors appointments. Will the private sector want to pay for his hairdresser?

It looks as though the Prime Minister has assessed the problem and has decided to stay on. He figures that he might as well become prime minister for life. It is the only way he can find for Canadians to pay for his hairdresser.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

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

Building a better Bill Blair?

by Peter Lowry

It seems that Bill Blair hopes to be forgiven almost everything. The former Toronto police chief is now a politician. And federal Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has officially welcomed Blair to the Liberal fold. Trudeau was actually reported by the media as saying: “I’m not going to Monday-morning-quarterback decisions made five years ago by the chief of police.”

It makes you wonder how time has relieved Chief Bill Blair of responsibility for his failure in leadership, control and responsibility on that infamous G-20 weekend?

And just how does the racist carding by his police qualify him for Canada’s parliament? As chief of police, he failed the black community in Toronto. Is that some new measure of being a liberal?

When we heard Sunday morning that Blair wants the federal nomination as Liberal candidate in Scarborough Southwest, we choked on our oatmeal. There was a very special role the old York Scarborough Liberals from the 1960s played in the Liberal Party of Canada. It was not only the largest riding in Canada at that time but we lead the party in developing policies, in democratizing the party, building bridges with other provinces and winning elections. As the late Pierre Trudeau could have told his oldest son, those Scarborough Liberals do not take any crap from anybody.

Scarborough Southwest might not be the wealthiest part of the old borough. It is always a tough battle in elections with the New Democrats. If you know what you are doing, the riding is winnable for a Liberal.

But these are not people who always think cops are tops. There is respect for the job they do but they like firefighters more. There is more of a kinship. Blair can pander to the ethnic factors in the riding if he thinks it will help but he is unlikely to win.

In 1988, when the Liberal Party was trying to transition, social conservative Tom Wappel used the organizational muscle of Campaign Life’s anti-abortion forces to swamp the riding’s weakened Liberal membership. He won the riding and fought off all comers for the next 20 years. When he quit in 2008, the riding went to the New Democrats.

This electoral district does not deserve to be a stepping stone for an arrogant, egotistical, stuffed shirt like Bill Blair. It needs solid representation by someone who knows and cares about the people. And Justin Trudeau should butt out!

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

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

Bearing bad news for NDP’s Tom Mulcair.

by Peter Lowry

George Lakoff is an American who thinks. The UCLA Berkeley professor was in Toronto last week. We missed a chance to meet him. He is reported to have told his audience there is no such thing as the political centre. That must have been bad news for the New Democrats who came to see him. Their federal Leader Tom Mulcair has been busy trying to find the political centre and in the process he has lost touch with the left. Lakoff could have told him that the centre is just a hypothetical point on a bell curve, drawn by statisticians.

In the same way, maybe Babel-on-the-Bay is just a hypothetical place. It stands on a lonely island where we are constantly besieged by the insufferable Whigs of Canada’s right-wing liberalism. Alone, we have to take on the harsh reality show known as Stephen Harper’s Conservatism while observing the wanderings in the wilderness of Tommy Douglas’ child-like socialists.

What do you have to do around here to get the system working for Canadians? Do we have to copy Preston Manning and start our own political party? Manning did that and his Reform Party turned around and ate the Conservative Party’s lunch. In response to that the Liberals and New Democrats should have merged into the Canadian Social Democratic Party. It was just neither party had the leadership, the will nor the smarts and Canadians have suffered ever since.

Maybe Lakoff would have known how to solve that. He might have sent the muddled moderates off to fornicate and produce offspring that could appreciate the necessity for more and more intrusive government and more taxes. Just not in our lifetime.

He thinks the basic difference between Democrats (progressives) and Republicans (Neanderthals) is that the Democrats went to college and the Republicans went to church. They are both mislead and confused.

Lakoff gives the right-wing full marks for marketing their product. He says they frame their proposition better because more of them must have gone to business schools. Moderates might understand philosophy but they seem to know squat about selling. Lakoff laughs at them for thinking reason will win.

What, regretfully, Lakoff cannot explain is the growing intransigence of the right and left of the United States of America. There is hatred in Washington that you can smell from the Beltway. Let us fervently hope this political vehemence does not spread into Canada.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

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

With Patrick Brown you get bupkis.

by Peter Lowry

It seems we are supposed to do some sort of mea culpa in regards to Barrie’s MP Patrick Brown. Yes Babel-on-the-Bay originates in Barrie but we thought we had that covered by calling the place Babel. It just would not remain hidden.

In writing the other day about the relative voting strength of the two remaining Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership candidates, we used only the raw figures. How those votes are going to be counted by the provincial Tories is the only reason Christine Elliott MPP for Oshawa is still in the race. Barrie’s Brown might be ahead by more than 5000 basic votes but if they are not distributed properly, he can still lose.

There are 107 provincial electoral districts in Ontario. If there are less than 100 votes in any districts, all those votes are counted. If there are more than 100 votes, they are converted to a percentage and it is the percentage that is counted. It means that the maximum votes that will be counted are something less than 10,700.

If the party officials counting the ballots have a collective brain, they will do the right thing and lie. Losing seven or eight thousand Brown votes would be about right. It would be the honourable thing to do. It could save the Ontario Tories from oblivion.

And by the way, ‘bupkis’ is a very simple Yiddish word that derives from an expression that something is worth less than goat turds. (Growing up in downtown Toronto can do wonders for your vocabulary.)

And while we are talking about Bupkis and Brown, we should explain some other confusion in that recent blog. We have a number of readers who check us on spelling and other errors. And we really do appreciate their notes. Not that we err very often but we had a number of serious distractions last week.

The concern of these readers was that in the same article about Brown, they thought we had misspelled the American term ‘ward heeler.’ We wrote it as ‘ward healer’ because that is what we meant. The original concept back in the heyday of Tammany Hall in New York City was that these people were assigned to wards to heal the problems. It was a big part of the almost two centuries of success for Tammany Hall–even if they could not spell.

Patrick Brown and many MPs like him in the Conservative Party of Canada are tolerated because they win their riding. They betray their constituents because they make absolutely no contribution in Ottawa. They are just ward healers.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

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

Two Tory budgets for the price of one.

by Peter Lowry

It was Ontario’s turn this past week. How often do we get two Tory budgets at a time? On Tuesday, we had a laugh at federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver’s expense. And then, right on the heels, Thursday we had a budget redux from Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa. There was a new beer tax in Charles’ budget so he must be one of those tax-and-spend Liberals we hear about. Frankly, this liberal would not give you two cents for either budget.

Sousa betrayed Ontario Liberals when he agreed with Ed Clark of TD Bank to raise money on Hydro One—and on the backs of hydro users. Mind you Premier Wynne told Clark to do that and who complains when a banker does what he is told? What Wynne, Clark and Sousa failed to do was put beer in convenience stores where it would be more convenient for the purchaser. They also failed to sell off the Liquor Control Board that would have made much more money for the province than Hydro ever could.

But to follow on the federal budget’s long-term proposals, Sousa had his own ten-year plan for infrastructure. If it had been a 20-year plan, it could have been the most expensive ever. The only problem is that the voters are getting weary of the same-old, same-old promises. The Queen’s image on all those bills is fading badly.

In neither budget was there any help to get our young people working. Promises on the never-never plan are just not winners. What Joe Oliver and his friend Stephen Harper do not understand is that you need to have income to get benefits from tax credits and cuts. Now that Joe and Charles have told us what they are doing for the one per cent, maybe they can give some consideration to the rest of us.

And why the hell, would Charles Sousa decide that the only tax he wanted us to impose was on us beer drinkers? How much tax did he levy on himself and the rest of the Scotch drinkers? This is discriminatory and unfair and we still have to put up with those rotten, smelly, over-priced Beer Stores. Oh sure, now we can pick up a six pack along with the weekly groceries but who is going to take the time to go into a huge grocery store just to get a case of beer? It shows how little the Ontario Liberals know about merchandising.

What we have are two levels of government so out of touch with reality that they fail to pay attention to our real needs. They are offering us nothing but ideology in budgets that are supposed to be about the current tax year. Sure a ten-year plan helps the big plans but if it is vague enough, who knows what they are really doing?

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

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

Back to the Future with Joe Oliver

by Peter Lowry

Finance Minister Joe Oliver brought Canadians his first budget yesterday. Instead of it being a budget for the coming fiscal year of our government, he tried to line things up for the next ten years. It was a very Conservative view of our future. And we can only hope that it is Joe Oliver’s final budget and the final Conservative budget.

It was more of a manifesto than a budget. Yet, it lacked a clear direction. It lacked compassion. It was in many cases blatant bribery. The continuing reductions in business taxes makes you wonder when it will cost more to collect them than the Treasury gains.

And if you have an extra $10,000 to put into a tax free savings account, do you need the tax break?

You certainly have to admit that the Conservatives are very kind to rich families. That leaves the rest of us on the outside looking in.

This seems to be a uniquely Conservative style of budget. It’s like the cheque is in the mail—two years from now. It is delayed gratification—only for those who vote properly.

And that is all this budget is designed for. Vote Conservative, vote often.

Only a government that knows it is going down the tubes would be so blatant about it.

What was really wrong with the document Oliver read was that there was nothing to succour our young people looking for work and careers. There were no instant jobs. There were no jobs in the future either. There was nothing to address the needs of Canada’s aboriginal peoples.

If you were looking for creativity, imagination, nation building simple kindness or fairness, you were tuned to the wrong channel. Joe Oliver does not do that stuff.

Frankly, Joe Oliver was a bad choice for finance minister. Harper could have done much better with someone in the role who does not look like the mad scientist in that children’s movie starring Michael J. Fox. The better choice would have been someone in a more Santa Clause style such as Conservative Senator Mike Duffy.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

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

The Hair’s ‘Politics of Division’

by Peter Lowry

Asking a voter why s/he is going to vote for the Conservatives this fall can cause a rising anger. The anger is hardly directed at the voter. This person has been had. They have been duped. The anger can only be directed at the Prime Minister—he of the Hair!

And we watch in this land of inclusion, tolerance, sharing and openness, as the Hair spreads his politics of division.

It was just last week when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Toronto, we saw how easily the Hair moved into the mode of pandering to the Indo-Canadian vote. It was not the vote of Tamil-Canadians, Kashmir-Canadians, Sikh-Canadians or people locked in low castes throughout the sub-continent. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is predominantly Hindu and seems to be doing nothing about the continuing religious intolerance of India.

It is the same relationship with the Hair and Bibi Netanyahu of Israel. You can just see the Hair coming home and telling the wife, Laureen: “Well, we’ve sewn up the Jewish vote.” And the hatred grows in the Muslim world because Canada has taken sides.

And the list goes on through the Ukrainian-Canadians and the Canadians loyal to the monarchy. The Hair panders for votes wherever he can and he cares little for the consequences of his actions. He does not understand that baiting the Russian bear can cause repercussions of cost to Canadians. He wonders why people hate him in Quebec for his lack of compassion, understanding and kissing up to the British royals.

And more and more of the world feels rejected and ignored by Canada. We used to be a country known for its, fairness, its openness, humanitarian aid in times of trouble and peace keeping. Under the Harper government Canada has become a warrior nation bombing the Algerians, shooting the Taliban in Afghanistan and bombing the insurgent thugs of the new Caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

And not satisfied with the hatred of countries, the Hair has created hatreds within Canada. He divides people of higher incomes from the rest of us with tax savings, income sharing and unnecessary benefits for the children of the rich.

But wait. There is time before the election. The Hair might decide he needs your vote. Maybe he can give some new tax savings to either the young or the old. Maybe he can come up with a way to make women like him. There is no way he can possibly make us all like him.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

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

The Candidate: Pre-writ canvassing.

by Peter Lowry

Part 3 of our series for Canada’s federal candidates.

These spring days are golden times for canvassing. No political candidate worth the name can ever waste a single day without seeking out the opportunity to knock on doors. You can be relaxed, chatty and, above all, listening. This is when you learn what people are thinking, what is going to influence their vote when the election is held and what they think their neighbours will do. They might be reluctant to tell you their thoughts but you will often find what they attribute to neighbours are their own thoughts.

What your team is looking for at this time is balanced sampling. The candidate has to be moved about the electoral district and given an opportunity to hear from all demographics. You have census information and Google Earth that will tell you even more about the demographics street by street, block by block and rural route by rural route. You also want to move the candidate around so that s/he gets to know and is comfortable with people in all parts of the riding.

Always send your candidate with a small team. During this period, you want to send at least one experienced canvasser and one or two newbies. Take advantage of the training time and make sure they enjoy the experience. You will need these people to be working much harder once the writ is issued.

And if you are wondering were all your canvassers are in this period, you are engaging them in training, special events, and team building.

This is also the time when you can find out who among your volunteers can run successful coffee parties, which canvassers should be asked to be team leaders and who should head up election day efforts.

And keep that literature at this time basic. No heavy policy effort is needed. You are introducing your candidate. Keep the candidate the emphasis.

Weekly e-mails to all supporters are critical to keeping the momentum going. Build participation in planning and arranging special events. The dog days of summer are when candidates should be on the barbeque circuit.

And a further tip: keep the talks to these small summer groups to discussing your concerns for the people in your riding and what you, as a Member of Parliament, can do to help. We certainly need more pro-active MPs.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

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

‘Diplomat’ Brown and his friend Narendra Modi.

by Peter Lowry

What is wrong with Canada’s foreign relations is more than explained by the friendship of India Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Patrick Brown MP. Yes, that is Patrick Brown, the most useless member of the Conservative back bench and the candidate for the leadership of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party. With probably less than 50 people in his electoral district from India, Patrick Brown must have been left among the final MP draftees for a country on the friendship committee.

Brown got India. The air flights there are gruelling. The food there is, well, foreign. You can imagine that India was nobody’s first choice. Pakistan must have been added because nobody wanted it either. You have to admit though that where others see hardship, Brown must have seen lemonade.

With more than 400,000 newcomers to Ontario from the sub-continent, Brown had no problem swamping the Ontario PCs existing membership. It makes him the frontrunner in the current provincial leadership contest.

But what do you think a wily Indian politician such as Prime Minister Modi would want from a nebbish like Patrick Brown? What Brown can be is a direct connection to Canada’s Prime Minister Harper. Modi needed a reliable source of uranium for India’s nuclear energy and weapons program. He was able to get around the concerns and caution of Canada’s diplomatic corps by using the Brown connection.

With more than 1.2 billion people, India is the most populous democracy in the world. It is a country rife with poverty, political corruption, misogynist attitudes, sectarian violence and religious extremism. And Mr. Modi has been of little help in solving these problems as he drives for continued, strong growth in India’s gross domestic product. His right wing attitudes have been read as condoning ongoing religious intolerance and strife.

India is an extremely complex country with many pressures. It requires the careful analysis of people trained in diplomatic skills, not the heavy-handed wants of a nerdy small-town lawyer from Barrie, Ontario. Nor does it need the Prime Minister of India’s blessing the signing up of some 40,000 immigrants from the sub-continent to help Brown win the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leadership.

Of course Prime Minister Harper has no objection. MPs such as Brown are a dime a dozen. All he was ever used for was his vote. What the Ontario Tories will use him for is a very good question.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

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